Corruption and democracy

I have started wondering about the seemingly intangible link between corruption and democracy in India. Is it intangible after all?

I see political parties shielding persons accused of corruption and coming out in their defense all the while claiming to be champions of the people and democracy. I wonder whether it is now an issue of corrupt persons forming political parties instead of the earlier issue of having corrupt politicians in political parties.

Allowing the corrupt to continue to occupy the seats of power would certainly undermine our democratic institutions and pave way for dictatorships. Perhaps this is the reason why most political parties in India are not able to have genuine democracy within them.

It seems the present Central Government is using all means to prevent the true picture from being revealed to the public and it uses police power, lies and deception to cloud the real issues now agitating the minds of the people.

The current scenario also indicates the disenchantment of the people with political parties with the organizers of all popular protests against corruption trying to distance themselves from political parties. This is a ripe situation for political chaos, anarchy and revolution to occur in any country. With religious fundamentalism just an arm's length away, it would do well for all right thinking individuals to force this government to take concrete steps to combat corruption and to punish the guilty. Else, the vacuum created by a non-performing government is almost always fertile ground for forces of balkanization to thrive on.