Yesterday I again watched the Oscar winning movie "The Silence of the Lambs", starring Sir Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster in the lead roles. The spine chilling movie was as always, a treat to watch. Ironically, yesterday was also a day when the much maligned Prime Minister of India, Mr Manmohan Singh, popular in the social media as MMS, spoke strongly in the parliament on the depressing economic scenario in the country as well as launched a scathing attack on the opposition, which for long has been baying for his blood.
Now how is my watching a movie and the prime minister's speech, ironic?? It is because of the fact that our prime minister is famous (or should I say notorious) for his silence. He has become a butt of jokes because of his silence on all major issues facing the country, be it scams of gigantic proportions, lethargic foreign policies or economic doldrums. His silence was as silent as the silence of the lambs and that he decided to break prolonged silence on the day I watched "Silence of the Lambs", was the irony.
MMS with his impeccable credentials as a top notch economist and a person with the highest integrity has probably led a government that has been embroiled in scams and controversies of scales, which have been unprecedented in the Indian political history. Again an irony, as MMS himself has never been even suggestively targeted as being dishonest by anybody.
But as a leader of his pack, he has the moral responsibility for the doings and undoings of his team. He should have led by his own example and should have set examples of those who were corrupt. But alas, he has failed by not acting boldly and affirmatively. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, "To sin by silence when they should protest (and act) makes cowards of men", and it is again an irony that history might evaluate MMS on the basis of these very lines, inspite of the many qualities that he has, that makes him very different from the majority of the greedy and corrupt politicians that are eating into the resources of the country like termites.
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| Sir Anthony Hopkins |
Now how is my watching a movie and the prime minister's speech, ironic?? It is because of the fact that our prime minister is famous (or should I say notorious) for his silence. He has become a butt of jokes because of his silence on all major issues facing the country, be it scams of gigantic proportions, lethargic foreign policies or economic doldrums. His silence was as silent as the silence of the lambs and that he decided to break prolonged silence on the day I watched "Silence of the Lambs", was the irony.
MMS with his impeccable credentials as a top notch economist and a person with the highest integrity has probably led a government that has been embroiled in scams and controversies of scales, which have been unprecedented in the Indian political history. Again an irony, as MMS himself has never been even suggestively targeted as being dishonest by anybody.
But as a leader of his pack, he has the moral responsibility for the doings and undoings of his team. He should have led by his own example and should have set examples of those who were corrupt. But alas, he has failed by not acting boldly and affirmatively. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, "To sin by silence when they should protest (and act) makes cowards of men", and it is again an irony that history might evaluate MMS on the basis of these very lines, inspite of the many qualities that he has, that makes him very different from the majority of the greedy and corrupt politicians that are eating into the resources of the country like termites.
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