By Kuldip Nayar
A Punjabi is known for living beyond his means. He may beg, borrow or steal, but he wants his reputation, however exaggerated, to stay.
When it comes to the government in the two Punjabs, east and west, they are profligate. They spend less on substance and more on sustenance of prestige. That both the societies are losing their culture – and their mother tongue, Punjabi – does not bother them because they sincerely believe that what comes from elsewhere, especially foreign, is worth cherishing. And it is peculiar to both the Punjabs that they are saturated in corruption. There is no tier of government, from top to the bottom, which is without the taint of graft.
Survey after survey shows the two Punjabs have come down in the standard of living which they used to enjoy even a decade ago. The burden of loan has gone up and their income in real terms has come down. The number of poor has increased and so wide is educated unemployment that even a post of peon has very qualified people as applicants. Petty politics takes most of the time of those people in power or in the opposition. And, believe me, they do not stop hitting below the belt.
Yet if the Punjabis were to preserve the fundamental values of a democratic society, each one of them – whether a public functionary or a private citizen – would have to display a degree of vigilance and willingness to sacrifice. Without the awareness of what is right and a desire to act according to what is right, there may be no realization of what is wrong. Over the years, for many Punjabis, the dividing line between right and wrong, moral and immoral has ceased to exist.
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