Hopelessness, despair, defeatism, rage and indifference grip our republic. You cannot dismiss my diagnosis as a pseudo-secularist’s congenital bias. I wish you could, but the ground situation does not permit such comfortable conclusions. The only issue that needs to be sorted out is whether India has reached a point of no return. Die-hard optimists say: let us look forward to Congress rule. But every scam, every act of criminality, every attack on the Constitution, every infringement of the rule of law that we see all around us is troublingly familiar because the Congress has been there before. Indeed, it has left precise instructions for others to follow. One of the more tragic aspects of Indian democracy is the hesitation and reluctance of the Congress to exploit the huge and numerous opportunities its principal enemy provides it on an almost monthly basis. How can the pot call the kettle black?