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Around the world in 2000,
via Asia and Madagascar.
Madurai (India)
Bec2004-09-18 18:07:02
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Rating: 3.00 out of 5.00. 1 members have rated this article
Madurai
I arrived early in the morning at the Madurai station after spending 10 hours in three trains for 3.70$US and quickly found a nice room with private bath for 5.80$US at the nearby TM Lodge. Travel in India is easy and very cheap.
The TM Lodge was a small friendly place where I met a number of people who did not mind voicing their disillusionment with politics.
The most common complaint that I heard, here and elsewhere, was about the high degree of corruption that has become the norm at all levels of government from the lowest clerk in the once proud Indian Civil Service to State First Ministers.
While I was there, Jayalalitha, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu from 1991 to 1996 was sentenced to a year in prison for corruption but her sentence was stayed by the Madras High Court and nobody was surprised. In Bihar, Manoranjan Sigh, wanted for his involvement in 176 criminal cases was campaining with impunity for the Baniapur seat in the state Assembly and the police were not doing anything about it because he had powerful political protectors. The Indian Press is full of stories like this every day but nothing changes.
It is difficult for a westerner to understand how everyone knows about it and disapproves but no one seems to be able to do anything about it. In most countries where corruption of high ranking politicians is a problem newspapers would be closed or gagged for printing one tenth of what the Indian Press prints about the country's leaders. Perhaps the press is never censored because it is not perceived as a threat by those it attacks. Corruption has become a way of life that everyone just takes for granted with an incredible dose of cynicism as if the prevalent social ethics did not concern them.
This gentleman, Vinayaga Sundaram Mangalanathan remarked: "In America the President has to be a perfect saint while everyone drinks and runs around while here the people have to be
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See photographs from:
India Gallery
