Regime change: The new four-letter word

From peace bonds to political paranoia, the establishment's latest obsession reveals a regime terrified of its own citizens

The more discerning among my readers would have noticed that in India, the flavours of the season change with, well, the season. In July, it was the humble cockroach; in August, it was the foot-in-the-mouth Chief Justice of India (again); in September, it was the redoubtable Tukaram Mundhe. Come the cold edge of October, and the flavour has changed again -- it is now 'regime change'. The chill in the air is not due to the approaching winter alone.

This is the new four-letter word these days. Every WhatsApp 'Unkle and Anty' is talking of nothing else. BJP spokespersons, whose English hitherto extended only to "What goes up your father's? ( tere baap ka kya jaata hai? )", and darbari anchors, whose IQs are lower than their TRPs, can't get enough of it. The phrase is being tossed around on prime-time TV every night like a piece of dung at a dung beetles' convention.

It has replaced the Original Sin in the BJP/RSS playbook, and I have no doubt that the BNSS shall be amended very soon to make it a crime, in the company of sedition and treason. Expect the Supreme Court to approve it speedily, for a regime change there is also being talked about in hushed tones.

In most countries, regime change would mean a change of government, but not in the mother-in-law of democracy, where we don't do things by halves. Here, I see multiple regimes being targeted for replacement -- the government, yes, but also the Election Commission, the Supreme Court, some media conglomerates, the Rasputins in the RSS, the two Gujarati double-engines driving our economy into the billionaire Valhalla, the spurious satraps installed in states by Gyanesh Kumar, and the presiding officers of our two Houses, which now resemble, figuratively speaking, a Gujarat bridge after its collapse.

.On eating out, protests and split personalities. For it has taken a huge cooperative effort to bring this great country to its knees, and the credit for it must be generously spread, like the subsidised butter in the Parliament canteen.

To prevent this, the diabolical duo are moving heaven and earth, ITBP and CRPF, solicitor-general and judge, Arnab Goswami and Padmaja Joshi, IAS renegades and IFS turncoats, Kangana Runout and Smriti Irani, Sanju Verma and Anand Ranganathan, even goons and parole convicts.

But it doesn't appear to be working, for it's not just the cockroaches who have had enough; it's also the dimagi naxals, the urban Naxals, the 'gutter generation', the 'Khalistani' farmers, parasites, termites, maybe even a bhakt or two who have discovered that their God has feet of clay and knees of jelly when it comes to mentioning China. There's a complete menagerie out there which Vantara would be proud to possess. No amount of pest-control measures can get rid of these pesky critters, it appears.

In India, the last resort of wannabe despots and usurpers is no longer politics -- it is the law, which is why it has now been decided to weaponise the 'peace bond'. Initially intended to keep the peace, it is now being employed to keep the power (of the chosen few, of course).

The new international border is in Jantar Mantar and Connaught Place, not Ladakh or Arunachal Pradesh, and so tens of thousands of troops have dug in in our cities. The Chinese and Pakistanis can wait -- we have to save the country from its own citizens first.

.A defence of the indefensible?. Meanwhile, if you want to step out of your house, wave the national flag, shout "Give us back our vote", or take a leak in a public toilet, you first have to sign a peace bond, giving an entirely new meaning to RIP. You either rest in peace or are arrested in pieces.

Which leads me to an interesting thought -- if citizens can be asked to sign bonds for keeping the peace (whatever that may mean), then why not ask the minions of the state to sign similar bonds for doing their duty?

Like Delhi policemen signing a bond not to sexually molest young girls; judges pledging to deliver judgments based on law and not on their future prospects of re-employment; MPs/MLAs pledging to resign if they change parties; Arnab Goswami promising to stop repeating that crap about 'fearless journalism'; political parties guaranteeing that they would implement their pre-election manifestos; and so on.

This would be the real swadeshi amendment to the IPC, not the garbage drafted, probably, in Nagpur. It would not make India a Hindu rashtra , of course, but would definitely do much for better governance. And it is the type of bond one could support, at Jantar Mantar or Central Park -- when they are notified again as protest sites, of course. I'd be willing to sign a bond for that.

Views are personal. More of the writer's works here

Avay Shukla is a retired IAS officer and author of The Last Sky -- Countdown for an Endangered Planet and other works. He blogs at avayshukla.blogspot.com