The Unforgettable Voice

Didn't someone say God fished with a line while the devil with a net? These days, I find it hard to be upbeat, let alone an optimist.

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In the country where I live, a crass, boorish leader daily preaches a gospel of venom and defies both the rule of law and the practice of decency. In the country of my birth, a land of historic tolerance and resolute secularism, the non-Hindus are now second-class denizens, and the quest for growth and grandeur has replaced the search for freedom and fair play. The US and Indian constitutions today are manuals of maxims rather than principles of polity.

Not just these two countries, but several others seem to be sliding from principles that were once thought universally acceptable. European countries with long humanitarian traditions have turned averse to desperate immigrants. Refugees fleeing wars and gangs are finding doors closed in other lands. People of a different faith, language or color are not welcome in most places, whatever their skills and qualities. Aid programmes for groups suffering from famines or epidemics, social strife or natural disasters are shrinking and in a frantic quest for resources. Authoritarianism instead of democracy, jingoism instead of international cooperation, gross inequality instead of fair egalitarianism, crude disinformation instead of wider knowledge are on the rise.