I have now been observing and reporting Indian public life for over two decades. The country has passed through trying, indeed traumatic, times—Indira Gandhi's Emergency, Chandra Shekhar's farcical and corrupt government, Rajiv's scandal-filled durbar—during which the citizen has watched 'values' plummet with mounting disgust and despair. However, there was always a residue of hope, some forlorn belief that a country which can produce Amartya Sen will somehow be set on course—progress may be slow but at least we would be moving in the right direction. The light at the end of the tunnel, however dim, was visible. I am sad to report that leave alone the light, the tunnel has vanished. There is among the urban upper and middle classes today an unprecedented sense of despair and despondency leading to a disengagement from public affairs. Each one for himself is the attitude. Resigned to their unhappy fate, the middle-aged or retired are busy ensuring their children get out of India. Things are so bad that even in informed and enlightened company, if you bring up the state of the nation or politics and politicians, conversation stops abruptly with a request to "please change the subject".
Occasionally, I meet ministers and senior politicians and when I share these thoughts with them, they either do not listen, or if they do listen, it goes into one ear and out of the other. The media is the favourite culprit: politicians accuse us of spreading despair and cynicism by our negative reporting and hold us responsible for the black mood in the country. If you tell them that the media can only reflect, not determine, the nation's mood, you are accused of sophisticated guile.
