Sir,

I write this letter out of a sense of extreme sadness reading two news items in the media recently.

One,  about our elected representatives absenting themselves from an important meeting at the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) to stop the implementation of the Natural Gas Pipeline for Mysuru.  Two, announcing a slew of new constructions on top of the already disfigured  Chamundi Hill.

Both the above will lessen the quality of life of the people and the damage to the hill will cause further hurt to the religious sentiments of the citizens.

Chamundi Hill, a religious place, has been turned into a bazar by vested interests.

What options do the citizens have when their own elected representatives ignore the wishes of the very people who elected them? Who do you turn to ?

Institutions which are meant to protect and safeguard citizens are becoming handmaids of the unscrupulous. From past experience, even our judicial system has not saved us from the misuse of executive power.

It is in this context I believe that associations and citizen groups will prove to be our last recourse to put the system back on rails.  Mysore Grahakara Parishat (MGP) is one such body that served as a robust watchdog to challenge any transgressions by the executive.  It provided a platform to voice an opinion.

More often than not, it was heard and taken note of.  In its three-decade existence, scores of people found relief when citizen rights were violated.  Today MGP is just a shadow of its past with the people at its helm having lost interest.

Probably this could also be one of the reasons why our elected representatives show brazenness to ignore the wishes of the people and become a power unto themselves.

It is time that MGP is revived by active citizen participation.  More so by the younger generation who have so much at stake.  Eternal vigilance, as famously said by Thomas Jefferson, is the price of democracy.

– Ashvini Ranjan, Mysuru, 30.1.2022

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