On India’s eightieth birthday, all our political leaders need to hang their heads in shame. Or to use the inimitable Hindi expression, drown themselves in a handful of water. It should mortify them that it is young people who have come forward on this day that we celebrate Independence Day, to tell them what their priorities should be. These young people have reminded them, and us, that the money and time wasted on building a new parliament house and a new residence for the prime minister could have been better spent in repairing rural schools.

The Cockroach Janta Party has announced that this August 15, they will begin a campaign to repair rural schools. To make their case, they have spent the past week posting pictures of village schools on social media. In these pictures, we see classrooms with crumbling walls and bare floors. We also see school toilets so filthy that it is hard to believe that little children, and especially little girls, will be made to use these sickening hellholes. The pictures surprised me not at all because I have seen schools exactly like these in states across India. But especially in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

In an odd coincidence, I was brooding over these things while gathering my thoughts for this column, when the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh........

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