“Power will go into the hands of rascals, rogues, freebooters; all Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles. A day would come when even air and water would be taxed in India."
The above quote is attributed to the British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill. The source of this quote is not known, but Churchill is supposed to have made the remark “on the eve of Indian Independence” or in the House of Commons. If Churchill had indeed made such derogatory and demeaning remark about Indians, the then nationalist leaders such as Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Azad, and many others would have definitely condemned it and rightly so. After all, the nationalist leaders who fought and won our freedom were selfless men and women of character and integrity who sacrificed everything for the country and were always committed to the welfare of the people at large. So, all Indians would have condemned Churchill’s remark as highly objectionable and yet another instance of British arrogance, colonial mentality and insensitivity.
Now, cut to today’s India. Look at our current breed of politicians and the words of Churchill do not seem objectionable at all. In fact, his words seem so prophetic because whatever Churchill had said is the reality today. Power has indeed gone into the hands of “rascals, rogues, freebooters” (and, if I may add, murderers, rapists, dacoits, mafias, scamsters, etc.) who have plundered India in the last 45 years (assuming that during the first 20 years after Independence, we had men and women of integrity at the helm) more than the British did in their 200-year rule. The series of scams being unearthed every other day shows how India is being plundered, looted and pillaged by our very own desi bandits going by the names of the Raja, Karunanidhi (and his clan), Kalmadi, Koda, Pawar, Gandhi (not the Mahatma), Chavan, Deshmukh, Mayawati, Laloo, Yeddyurappa, Jayalalitha, Sukharam...the list is endless. These dacoits (in the garb of our leaders) have plundered billions and trillions and stashed the ill-gotten moolah in foreign banks.
In the early 1990s, the scams used to be of the order of a few hundred crores or few thousand crore rupees, but today the scams are in tens of thousand crores and even couple of lakh crore rupees. But we Indians have become so morose and moribund that even these mindboggling amounts do not shock us anymore and it’s business as usual for us as we continue with our daily routines. So the white-kurta-and-dhoti clad or the safari suit-wearing dacoits are gleefully continuing with their looting spree.
Almost all Indian leaders we have today (barring some honourable exceptions) are “of low calibre and men of straw” who have “sweet tongues and silly hearts”. What a realistic and perfect description of our political nincompoops! Is it not true that these leaders “fight amongst themselves for power” and, as a result, India has got “lost in political squabbles”. As for taxes, the good news is that they have already taxed water long time back, while the tax on air is perhaps just a matter of time!
I think Churchill deserves to be conferred with a “Bharat Ratna’ posthumously for providing us 65 years ago such an accurate and realistic description of our future leaders!
Our present day leaders make me feel the British rule was probably much better (despite some 'aberrations'). Can’t we throw these leaders into the Indian Ocean (with 500-kg stones tied around their neck!) and bring back the British once again?
