Recently in an indian state the fundamental rights of law abiding citizens of India have been sacrificed to competitive regional politics. Full marks for guessing which state I am talking about. The rule of law has been a casualty and extra-constitutional power centers have been allowed to have their writ enforced illegally in a cosmopolitan city. The state government has failed in discharging its constitutional obligations and should have been dismissed by now.

The national parties of India are equally to blame for supporting and having tie-ups with regional formations with separatist demands. In this particular case the party in power in center and the state has abdicated its constitutional responsibilities of protecting the fundamental right to life and liberty of indian citizens while main opposition party is a silent spectator. Competitive regionalism for sake of vote banks is at play and only a punishment meted out by educated classes by voting as one block at the hustings would cure them of this malaise.

With delimitation of constituencies tilting scales in favor of urban indians who are less caste, region, religion and language conscious than their rural brethren the task of awakening the new set of voters to the perils of destructive politics lies with us bloggers. It doesn't do bloggers any credit if we play into hands of divisive politicians and divide ourselves into hindi speaking north indians or marathi manoos or kannadiga sons of soil. We need to fight back as rational Indians. It is a battle for the minds. The street fights that don't determine the victors in today's world. What are 7000-15000 street fighters against what the voiceless majority thinks is right. The fringe elements have cast the first(second and nth) stone in this battle for minds and we have been silent. We need to push back the fringe elements to where they belong into the dustbin of history, un-heard and forgotten.

India cannot and should not remain a predominantly rural country. 600-900 more million people need to move into the cities to make India an urban nation un-tarnished by violence due to differences of sex, sexual orientation, caste, religion, language, culture or thought. If this is how our cities are to become ghettos run by self proclaimed Godfather(s) backed by violent and malevolent crowds then we might as well resign ourselves to the regressive individualism hating medieval society that pervades so many of our villages and forever be resigned to brain drain of our best and brightest minds to the relatively free societies of the west.