Demise of Gold Control

Parliament seems to be passing through apathological phase of downing almost everybody. Even the tallest" poppies are not safe. One does not know who stands, who will fall. Almost every morning newspaper headlines come out with yet another sensational report of a head hunt, euphemistically put forward as exposure of scandals. And scandals and corruption are never ending. For even when brought up. they are neither scotched nor put down. The whole thing is pitched on so low a key, however, that the occasion does not warrant much rhetoric. Even the most melodramatic of Delhi commentators has not yet thought of crying out that the gods are athirst. It is more a game of character assassination, a drifting, sprawling, tumbling sort of game in which there are no sides and no holds are barred. A rolling crisis is not an inappropriate description.

How listless, purposeless and devoid of any social concern Delhi has been of late is brought out by a minor incident which passed almost unnoticed. The week witnessed the passing away, unsung and unmourned by those at the helm of the country's affairs, of the remnants of what had once been the Gold Control Order, banning the manufacture and sale of gold ornaments of higher purity than 14 carat, a measure inspired by deep concern for the nation's interest, fumbling and incomplete thought it was, but nevertheless full of immense potentialities.