Forgetting the essentials.....

If racism, casteism, female foeticide, the rich-poor divide etc weren't enough, we are now faced with a whole new concept that is threatening to shake the pillars of democracy all by itself - Identity Politics.

The Raj Thackeray-led MNS' atrocious behaviour in support of it's anti-North Indian stance in the city of Mumbai led to a "rioting" of a different kind in India's commercial capital. And the party officials have dared the police to arrest their supposedly-heroic leader. A quality example of democracy's fallacies, eh?

In a country simmered with problems aplenty already, a select few are proposing a new era of political rivalry where the end result will most likely be a civil war. Instead of igniting hate against each other and trying to upset time-honoured establishments, why not shift focus to the infiltration in Kashmir. A popular TV channel has shown exclusive footage of POK-based militants getting across the borders in the war-torn northern state. So where do we go from here?

It's like what history has very often shown - choose what you want to do. We can either choose to disunite and fade away or stick together and fight the incoming evils. In a democracy everything depends on the people, the rule books say.

But if the people are more bothered about a Saif-Kareena wedding or two freaks embarassing youngsters and pelting them with abuse on a popular music channel, then the future of this rather useless age is out of our control. Useless, because an age has it's heroes and the ones we have to be content with are more interested in aggresively marketing their private ventures, killing innocent people off the road and sporting fake smiles.....