Mumbai’s dead have barely been laid to rest and for politicians it’s back to business. Forty eight hours and counting, the country’s oldest political party, Congress, is yet to arrive at a consensus candidate to replace the outgoing chief minister in Maharashtra. For a country grappling for answers about the readiness and capability of our governments, central and states, to fight terror and protect its people, this impasse is extremely reassuring.

And more reassuring it must be to see one of its leaders on national television running down his party colleague as being not fit to be chief minister and the adding, as an afterthought, that he is not interested in being chief minister. I guess this leader in question is just trying to apply pressure on the party high command to act quickly and he has nothing but the good of the state and country in mind. It also must just be a matter of small detail that this very leader left a party that he had been with for decades to join the Congress three years ago, all because he was not made Chief Minister then.

But then the people of the state want him to be chief minister, and I am not saying this, but the venerable leader himself. And the leader’s language… very colourful, I must say. His style reminded me of a certain Raghu bhai in the movie Vaastav. For the uninitiated, Raghu bhai was enacted by Sanjay Dutt, who played the role of a gangster in the movie.

And to know that this very party is ruling the country is again very reassuring. But then our other political parties are also making hay while the sun shines. Each party is busy accusing the others of incompetence and concluding with the statement that it will do anything for the country, to protect the sovereignty of the country, and again as an afterthought, to protect the people of the land. Elections are round the corner is just coincidence.

If the Congress and its leaders can conduct business in such an exemplary manner amid all the people anger, then I must say our country is in safe hands. After all, our ancient texts do teach us that everything is predetermined, or a matter of destiny. Hence, we must believe that all those who have been felled by terror bullets and bombs until now were anyways destined to die, so why waste money on providing security to those who are anyways destined to leave their mortal cage at a destined time and place.

When one thinks of how our country has survived and progressed in the more than 60 years after independence, I am led to believe that God does exist. For if not, then there is no way on Earth that we could have survived as one country all these years. And that after we, as a people, including our politicians who are a reflection of our society, have done every possible thing to self-destruct.

At a time when the government should be focussed on securing our country from such attacks, we are witness to the same government using its resources in trying to quell the revolt in its own house. My question: How will a government and a party that are so divided be able to unite a country and protect it from outsiders? But then I seem to be forgetting that it is always about the power and never about the people. So what if on paper it is people power that is believed to make or break a democracy?