For decades since 1947, India’s claim to the world’s largest democracy was flawed by failures due to mass poverty, deprivation and illiteracy. Today, though, these failures are not cited simply because of it’s few achievements in certain areas but the fact remains India still is the underachiever of all underachievers.

The media would cite all sorts of growth rates ; ,how many cars sold, how many TVs, how many mobile phones joined the network. Countries that once saw India as a nation of fly ridden emaciated children and dynastic, corrupt politicians, are now hastily putting together Programmes on India, and International journals are carrying India Issue.

Inspite of plethora of data that is being thrown to us by the media and being told repeatedly by them that we are progressing and the world is now paying attention to us, the hard fact is that we have slipped to 126^th ranking from 124^th in 2002 – in the UNDP’s annual human development report which ranks 177 nations on parameters like poverty, education, infant mortality, gender equation and population with no access to water. Are n’t we concerned that why with plenty of resources in terms of wealth, material and human resource available we are so lowly ranked. Doesn’t it concern us that all around we find only mismanagement, indifference, apathy, callousness and lack of concern. We travel in trains and buses like cattle, we move on roads worse than animals. Every monsoon we have people dying of dengue and other epidemics like chickenguniya, in winters poor die because of lack of warm clothing and in summers they die because of exhaustion. The mis governance is visible all around us in every walk of our life; at public places, in educational institutions, in hospitals, on roads, in markets, in sports field.

While India may be having large number of millionaires( ranked eigthth in the world), but, it remains a country where contrast between poverty and prosperity is stark and it is a poor reflection of our entire administrative setup. A huge battery of IAS and IPS officers, the Judges and the political leaders who have been ruling this country and living in palatial houses have to share the blame for making our lives miserable.

Rabrindranath Tagore said that darkness usually intensifies under the lamp, so it is in India. The outstanding progress in some areas merely highlights the snail pace in some essential needs of life – from education and health care to justice and sanitation. The data below would vindicate my view point that although we may be witnessing and some may say resurgence of the country but it is an indication of a total collapse of administrative machinery and the 21^st century instead of renaissance may turn into a century of miseries.

The municipal corporations, the Panchayats, the Courts, Police, Bearaucrats, Politicians and almost all the Govt bodies have failed to deliver.

The State has just got its hands off from every responsibility. For education the state conveniently presumes that we would be sending our children to private schools and private colleges as it has failed to run its educational institutions, for electricity it expects us to buy a generator or an invertor as the State run Electricity Boards can not provide power 24 hours. For health care its now an unwritten code please visit private nursing homes as Govt Hospitals can not be trusted. Even the poor avoid them. For water every citizen is expected to get a bore well dug in the back yard of the house and buy a water purifier as the State can not provide safe drinking water for even half an hour per day.

Investing money into various schemes without having a system at place would only be a waste, rather it would make those who are today holding the Govt administrative machinery at ransom, more powerful. Unless, those power brokers are thrown out by systemic changes, there is just no way the socio-political amelioration can ever take place in the country.

We are hoping that the economic development will bring change, rather, in my view with each passing day we are getting deeper into trouble. The socio-political degradation is likely to cause turmoil in years to come and the corrupt, inefficient, rusted administrative machinery is not going to let anything work. The more one probes and tries to remove the dust one only finds scams, scandals, inefficiency, indifference, callousness, frustration, indiscipline and sab chalta hai attitude.

So where do we go from here? What does the future holds for us. Would electoral reforms and economic reforms solve the problem or there is something more needed.

Undoubtedly deep changes are under way. Some one rightly remarked ; The horizons are broadening and this is the moment of self reformation ; where few fundamental questions need to be answered, by each one of us ; How do we think of ourselves as a community, Who are we. What is our view of justice. What sort of society do we wish to be. What is our concept of power. What do we wish to do in the world and prevent it from doing to us. What should be purpose of Life. These connected matters of identity, of solidarity and of security are the ones we need to think clearly and find answers.

Mr Jagmohan ; author of My Frozen Turbulence and an able administrator very aptly remarks ; Unless our social thoughts are reconstructed, unless our religious beliefs and practices are reformed, unless we discover the purpose of life and understand the relationship between the spiritual and social order, unless there is a genuine and deep rooted renaissance which gives new directions to our polity and lead to the birth of a new moral order, new environmental ethics and new political order, the country’s future would remain dark and our society would become more and more prone to collapse and extinction.