New Delhi, Jan 8: The recent volcanic eruption of protests and voices against the political class of India has highlighted one aspect, if nothing else-this was the cry of the people of India looking for a leader? As Bombay, nay India got brutalised by a 60-hour commando terror attack, the people of India felt orphaned? There was not a towering leader around whom they could rally and take solace.

It brings to mind the 1962 debacle that the army of India faced at the hands of the Chinese. This author was one of the only two Indian journalists (the other being B. G. Verghese) who decided to stay back in Tezpur even as the army vacated the North Bank of Brahmaputra in Assam. Earlier, we had both been atop Se La and seen the pathetic conditions in which the army was pitched against an advancing enemy.

There was shock and dismay all over India. People of Tezpur wept and cried as they locked their homes and shops to leave the city. The jail had been thrown open; the treasury burnt the currency notes and a telegram from me to my editor was the last piece of communication to leave the Tezpur post office as they shut shop.

The flight of people from Tezpur, evacuation of the administration, officials, journalists and others was such that even VIP aircraft from New Delhi had been put into service. It was a time when all of India was numbed. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was on the radio reassuring the nation. Here was a leader, even as his policy towards China lay in tatters, the people rallied around him to seek reassurance. He canalised India''s resolve and in just 20 months that he lived after the October 1962 debacle he had transformed India''s defence forces.

India''s people-- a solid one billion --are looking to rally around a leader, not just to be reassured but to thwart the enemies of this country. Where is such a person? Each day bringing in more disclosures that 26/11 could well have been pre-empted has only highlighted the mess in which India''s governance is today?

The simple and glaring fact that the private security business which is worth about 22,000 crores a year at the moment is slated to grow into a Rs. 50,000.00 crore a year industry in another three to four years speaks volumes for the state of law and order and people''s confidence in the state. Why should there be need for private security if policing of India was efficient and her security agencies worked? It only reflects very poor governance.

The steel frame of India, its bureaucracy, has rusted over the years by the high handedness of the politicians. The ruthless manner in which some of the corrupt politicos have used the pliable bureaucracy has resulted in the people having little faith in the fairness of the administration.

Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh is honest and God''s good man. Are we to believe that he does not know what some of his ministers have been up to? The politics of coalition does not mean that you allow your partners to rob the country!

With several of the Ministers at the Centre running their Ministries as their personal fiefdoms has only led to further deterioration of quality of governance. Many of them seem to believe in the TINA factor - there is no alternative. It can only lead to greater crisis in the confidence of the people in its political class,

The opposition, led by the BJP, seems to be under the impression that it has just got to wait in the wings, before it is offered the broom to clear the mess once voted to power and firmly take over the driver''s seat. Can it? The BJP, which would lead the NDA, also suffers from the same malaise of politics of coalition. There were enough scandals during the NDA rule as well; people can watch with their eyes wide open the great change in the quality and style of living of most of the opposition leaders. Millions were stolen the other day from the BJP office. Was that clean money, duly audited?

The country today desperately needs towering leaders with a vision and commitment to respond to the agony of the one billion people. The tragedy is that the country''s political parties have virtually subverted the Parliamentary democracy to which the founding fathers committed this nation. Each political party, whether national or regional, has become either the exclusive preserve of a family or a group. This is one singular factor that thwarts the emergence of strong leaders.

One wonders as to why the Election Commission can not get into action to restore inner party democracy and accountability among the recognised national parties of India. By strictly enforcing audit of their accounts, the Elections Commission can ensure that these parties show the lists of their members, The criteria for recognising national parties perhaps needs revision to ensure that they have nationwide membership maintaining proper membership records and issuing membership cards to the members in the manner it is done in the U.K. Thereafter the Commission can work out the manner in which the parties show how their party elections are held at each level, including national. This is something that the Election Commission can do, to help in restore faith in Parliamentary Democracy.  

It is not just the absence of towering leaders that is hurting the nation. It is the rampant corruption practically in all walks of life that has virtually made governance of India such a difficult task. There is absolutely no discipline left in our cities. People queue up in daily "durbars" before puny politicians seeking to get odd things done. Isn''t it strange that in the India of today, having paid your taxes, you must still bribe some one if there is refund due to you?

Corruption has eaten into the vitals of the country. During the licence- permit raj it flourished due to an economy plagued by shortages. Officers of the Customs Department, coast guards and the police all made money and allowed smuggling   It has now come to stay and impacted upon all other parts of the society. India has been placed among the most corrupt countries of the world!

Thus when those ten commandos sailed into Bombay (I refuse to call them mere terrorists), they were confident that our corruption-ridden city would hardly deter them. Let us not forget that the sea route from Gulf towards the West coast had been used with impunity by the likes of Dawood Ibrahim to indulge in smuggling. He used the same route to bring in the RDX that caused havoc in Mumbai 1993. The practise has been continuing.

Yes, we can hold Pakistan accountable for training these terrorists and commandos who attack India. But who do we hold responsible for the failure to protect the coast and being able to govern the country and the State of Maharashtra. Pakistan managed to move a whole lot of its Northern Light Infantry troops into Kargil and our system failed to detect them at the time? Years later we now have a Mumbai attack and we do not even know who is to be prosecuted or to hold responsible for this to have happened?

The nation has to deal with this cancer of corruption and indiscipline in all walks of life. In its absence no amount of new preventive systems may work. Salaries of most of the Government staff have been raised to pretty high levels, but there can be no end to their greed. There is absolutely no reason for any of them to indulge in acts of corruption to garner some more money by virtue of the power of their offices.

The time has perhaps come to learn from China and impose deterrent punishment-death for corruption in public service. Not that this has totally erased corruption in China, but is sufficient to deter many from indulging in it. For every now and then China does put the corrupt to death with their organs sold to those who need them,

Post Mumbai 26/11, I have no doubt that in due course of time the coast of India would be secured and that we may have in place a Central organisation to deal with terror cases. But we need to streamline the whole system. It is the police that needs to be sensitised and made corruption free. It is the police that sit amidst society and the people. They alone can nip any evil in the bud itself, only if it is sufficiently alert and corruption free.

It is important that the huge tragedy that took place in Mumbai is not allowed to be repeated. Let the sacrifice of so many innocent people create a resolve that the country is made among the best governed states in the world. Yes, that is the cry of he country at the moment-for a leader who can force that pace and give the nation kind of governance it deserves. (ANI)