Jail Ho!

It's election time once again in India. And the goons are grinning. From ear to ear. This is when all their hard work comes to fruition. The assualts, the rapes, the murders they committed. The longer the chargesheet, the more scared the voters and, hence, the better their chances of winning.

1300 cases are pending against MPs and MLAs in various courts. 40 of them were part of the Lok Sabha until yesterday. This is what the country's law minister, H R Bharadwaj, told the parliament recently. But these folks are standing now, for Lok Sabha elections. The poster boys are of course there: Laloo, Pappu, Amma, Shibu Soren, Shahabuddin, Mukhtar Ansari, Ajay Rai.....and now add Sanju Baba to the list.

The Supreme Court had disbarred convicted criminals from standing for elections. But, some of them are--as we speak--running for office from behind bars. Everyone knows the path to power in India: muscle->money->more muscle->more money.

Amidst all this, the silence of the Indian lambs--the voters--is ear-splitting.

Fatalists as we are, we continue to go out and vote for them. After all, we don't have much choice, do we? It is either Goon A, Goon B, or Goon C. If we vote, we put one of them into power. If we don't, the others will put one of them into power.

A few NGOs and intellectuals are maintaining a criminal watchlist for elections. Others, like Ramdev Baba, are vociferously campaigning for parties to those with criminal antecedents out of the fray. Of course, all this has already fallen on deaf ears.

On the other hand, the police--like in Pune, for instance--are rounding up "local criminal elements" to maintain peace and order, and reduce intimidation during the polls. That is like locking up the bear cubs while the bears are allowed to roam free.

It is the history-sheeter candidates who need to be thrown into jail when elections are announced and let off only after the government is formed (without them, of course). That would be a real 'model code of conduct'.