Winston Churchill was reluctant to surrender the British Empire. He had little respect for Indian political leaders. While arguing against giving India independence he reportedly said: Power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, freebooters and charlatans; all Indian leaders will be of low caliber and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. Giving falls promises will be their game with the poor and stupid masses. They shall be shameless and unpatriotic in their ways while handling problems of people. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles. Justice will be a matter of Joke. A day would come when even air, water..., and even common salt would be taxed in India.

Winston Churchill forgot to mention amongst other defects of Indian politicians, corruption. In those days his comments were condemned by Indian leaders but he is proved absolutely correct after 60 years of independence by the descendants of the same leaders. Most unfortunate part is that our bureaucrats have joined the flock of rogues and criminal leaders. Worst part is that they are considered to be educated ones. What we say about these rulers is better told by a saying, “Tackka ser Bhaja takka ser khaja, Andheri nagari choupat raja.” Today’s costs of essential goods speak for it.

My study of Indian kingdoms has shown that Indian rulers have been like this from earlier times. Indian rulers were largely holding sovereignty and suzerainty and their governments were not bothered about law and order system even though many historians write other way round just to cover the truth out of shame. There are records those show that rulers allowed soldiers to loot people in stead of paying them regular salaries. We never learned anything from British rulers even though they had improved our rotten government system. We kept on cursing them for the monetary squeezing they did. What we got in exchange was much more valuable than that money. Now we are about to loose that British legacy by going back to old typical Indian uncivilized raj.      

Now the question is are we going to change or keep justifying our wrong legacy, again, out of shame!      

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 Ashok Kothare’s Blog

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