I am grateful to India's political leaders, let's see why

It is difficult to be grateful to the kind of political leadership we in India are having, particularly when we spend a significant part of our waking hours to criticising it for nearly all the problems and miseries faced by us. But just because it is difficult it should not deter me from at least making an attempt to find out a few things to be grateful for.

The first thing I am grateful to the political leaders for is ensuring that we Indians have the freedom of speech; we are free to question, criticise and even condemn any one to our heart's content. It may not have a desirable effect on the object of our attention but at the end of the exercise we do feel happy.

Then I am grateful for the freedom to choose our representatives every five years or sometimes even sooner. I know that democracy does not just mean the right to exercise our franchise but the very idea that we can unseat a government that did not deliver empowers us, it is altogether a different matter that the replacement may prove to be worse.

Next comes responsiveness, though many a time delayed and defective, to the public concerns. Left to themselves the political leadership may like to ignore the public but it is not doing that is a cause of a minor celebration.