The aspirations and contradictions in our society and polity, as well as the confusion of our governing and political classes on political accountability, were revealed in three separate and unrelated reports carried in this newspaper last week. They seemingly gained no traction. That only indicated how much the country has become inured to the tawdriness that surrounds it in Amrit Kaal. This, despite all the rhetoric that it is moving towards “viksit” status.

This newspaper reported on June 4 that the bed and breakfast in Delhi, where a fire, a day earlier, had led to the death of 21 persons, including foreigners, was authorised to have only six rooms. Instead, the owner, Lavkesh Bajaj, had constructed 26. When the police asked him why he did so, he said that the business was “generating good profits” and “because Delhi mein sab chalta hai”. Unauthorised construction for profit and deaths because of fires are not unique to India.

Can there be a more damning indictment of the administration in this country’s capital city than an owner of an establishment where 21 persons had perished in a fire, many in illegally constructed rooms, asserting that he had not undertaken any extraordinary act? Yet, such has been the nature of governance presided over by all political parties in Delhi at different times that no political leader seriously thought of contesting the validity of Bajaj’s assertion. That is........

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