Alice in Puristan : the King of Puristan
Alice in Puristan By Justice Markandey Katju One summer day a little girl called Alice was dozing in a meadow when she saw a white rabbit in a blue coat running on two legs, exclaiming ” I am late ” while looking at his pocket watch. The rabbit jumped into a hole, and following it Alice too ran and jumped into the hole. She went down and down, until she fell on a huge pile of horse manure, which saved her from being hurt. Brushing aside the manure, she got up, and looking around saw countless more heaps of horse manure everywhere. Some people who were moving around told her, on her enquiry, that this country was called ‘ Puristan ‘, i.e. the land of the pure, where everyone was supposed to be ‘Sadiq’ and ‘Amin’ i.e. pure and incorruptible. Puristan had an elected monarchy, and the King of Puristan was one who had come to power on the slogan of fighting corruption. Of course, he had to make some slight compromises, as is inevitable in politics, by giving tickets to many dubious ‘electables’ in the elections and courting religious bigots, but otherwise, he was totally incorruptible, as he had repeatedly asserted, and he had launched a powerful crusade against corruption in the country. Alice asked some of the people there why there were so many heaps of horse manure, to which they replied that it was because the people of Puristan were fond of horse-trading, so naturally many horses were required, which resulted in lots of horse manure. An election for the Senate of Puristan had been held the previous day, and the Finance Minister of Puristan was defeated because many of his party’s voters voted for the opposition candidate. When Alice asked whether this was because such voters had been purchased, the people were shocked out of their wits. ” This is Puristan ” they said, ” the land of the pure. No human being can be purchased here. But of course there is no bar on purchasing or trading horses “. “But in this election human beings…
