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Reactocracy

I'm sure everyone's heard of this by now but good sense demands that we establish context. Apparently the DOT's sent out a list of web sites it wants blocked to ISPs and one of the casualties is blogspot.com. Shivam Vij, who is a reasonably erudite blogger/reporter, has some coverage here and here. Whats happened here is that the DOT sought to block a small set of blogs (I hear there were four) and the prodigous geniuses that run our ISPs decided to shave off some work and block off the whole domain. The reason for that is probably nothing more than the fact that they wanted to go home early. Maybe little Cheeku has an appointment with the dentist, or maybe Mr. Safari Suit wants to take the wife out shopping.

That attitude pretty much characterises how all decisions are made in this country. I remember that years ago a bunch of people ended up killing themselves in a high speed road accident somewhere in south Delhi. Next day, the very responsible Delhi government promptly lowered the city-wide speed limit of 60 km/h to 50 km/h. Of course the fact that the earlier speed limit was never really enforced remained unmentioned. What mattered was that the government wanted to be seen reacting to the incident and apparently not letting the likes of me ever switch to the fifth gear made a fitting reaction. I have serious doubts that the people who died were driving at 60. But then who cares.

We do elect our leaders and send them to parliament and local legislatures. But time and again I get the sneaking suspicion that there's just no policy behind the government actions. I can imagine a bunch of beareaucrats sitting in a musty government office browsing through the news channels and coming up with quick fixes of all the country's problems.

• So they've been protesting about that book/movie/art exhibition? Lets ban it.
• So that chap in that ministry doesn't like that web site? Okay, lets just ask all the willing slovenly bum-lickers in our ISPs to cut off access.
• You caught your high on hormones 17-year old boy jerking off to a music video? Right, time to define exactly how high hemlines can go and make all the evil music channels apologise for their mistake. In fact, lets just declare sex illegal. Excellent. I bet that'll also fix AIDS and the population problem forever!
• So poor frustrated people living in filth that we can't be bothered to clean up get drunk and beat up their wives? Lets make all liquor illegal. Lets make sure everyone who buys liquor from a shop has to be served by rude idiots and gets to feel like a complete buffoon.

I don't understand where this pseudo-socialist nanny attitude came from but I am positive I don't enjoy living in a reactocracy. I don't know whether or when our government and the politicians who run them will stop making decisions by reaction alone. Maybe it will happen when we learn to ask for an explanation.