In my last post, On the Distress of Farmers, I wrote “that Indians will never be free until the last politician is strangled with the entrails of the last bureaucrat.” I was echoing the European Enlightenment figure Denis Diderot (1713-1784) who wrote:
La nature n’a fait ni serviteur ni maître;
Je ne veux ni donner ni recevoir de lois.
Et ses mains ourdiraient les entrailles du prêtre,
Au défaut d’un cordon pour étrangler les rois.
Which in English is:
Nature created neither servant nor master;
I seek neither to rule nor to serve.
And its hands would weave the entrails of the priest,
For the lack of a cord with which to strangle kings.
[Source: Did Diderot say that.]
Isn’t that a most apposite quote in the context of politicians (the masters) and the people (the servants)?
Life is a Random Draw 
Why so angry Atanu?
I have been watching closely the working of many apartment associations. I see great similarity with Indian democracy.
In the first year, the idealists come. But running association is not easy. Idealists find difficult to handle personal life and public-office (and such a thankless public office). The deterioration follows. May be it is worth a post in itself.
So I seldom blame politicians. They are product of the system. I am at a loss to understand what can be the proper incentive for people to run the country? Or what can be the proper incentive for people to become office-holders in resident-welfare-associations?
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