Property rights violation in a populist democracy

One of the fundamental roles of the state is to ensure the security of property rights of its citizenry. But we have often seen government sponsored acts of property rights violation. The case of abolishing Privy Purse in India is a classical case, so is the nationalization of commercial banks and acts like land for the tiller, which grabbed land from erstwhile landlords and redistributed them to the actual farmers... In some cases the so called "land lords" were government retirees who invested their whole pension savings on agricultural land... In all these cases the government grabs private property to supposedly serve the public at large. Interestingly, we have only celebrated, and in some cases demanded, such acts… we see them as symbols of egalitarian governance. But more recently, when the ex-CM of West Bengal proposed to use eminent domain act to acquire land from farmers and redistribute it to corporate India (i.e., TATA, whose airline, Air India, was nationalized in 1953 to benefit the Indian populace), there was a furor that resulted in the down fall of the communists’ empire, if you will, in West Bengal. Security of property rights has always been weak in India but as we live in a populist democracy, whenever there is a state-sponsored violation of property rights of the poor there is a lot of noise, whereas any such violation of property rights of the rich (at least seemingly so) is portrayed as a just act, winning votes for the incumbents.

My response to a cheap attempt at slandering Sachin.

One of my friends shared an article that was titled "Ten questions you wish someone would ask Sachin Tendulkar". Given that it was close to the last test the maestro will play, I thought it was related to his plans after retirement or how he was able to achieve all the greatness that he has. But it turned out to be a dull and boring Sachin bashing article from some idiot, who wanted to smear filth over Sachin's career achievements. The Ten questions can be found here - "http://www.hindustantimes.com/books/chunk-ht-ui-bookssectionpage-bookextracts/ten-questions-you-wish-someone-would-ask-sachin-tendulkar/article1-1148968.aspx"

Here is my reaction and response to that idiocy. 

First of all, his article should be called, "Ten questions I wish I asked Sachin"... "I" as in the person who conceived of these dumb questions in the first place... No other true cricket follower will have these stupid questions for Sachin. I dont think Sachin should be wasting his time answering these questions. So, here is my response to all those stupid questions… I guess, any ardent cricket follower will think the same way…
1) Roommate assignment could have been a random occurrence… expecting that an honest person’s corrupt roommate will share with him his dark secrets and evil intents is idiotic. Are you suggesting he is a criminal by association? That is nothing short of profiling used by certain unrealistic law enforcement agencies.
2) If anything, Sachin has been a true victim of poorly judged LBWs. He never once gave the umpire the look after any such bad decision. He respected the verdict and left, sometimes just a few runs short of his hundred.
3) I am sure, Sachin would not have lobbied for waivers. As far as I can remember, it is the government that offered to wave the customs payment on the car that was gifted to him.
4) He is a cricketer, not a politician, at least not yet. And he has done utmost justice to that role. He has done India proud like no other sports person has ever done. That is why he was invited to join the Rajya Sabha. By your account, I think Rekha and Jaya Bachan should also be considered politicians. Are they?
5) He was inducted to the Rajya Sabha based on his cricketing credentials, why then would you expect him to commit more to politics than he does to cricket… Sounds absurd.
6) A good captain need not be an excellent player and an excellent player need not be a good captain… Some like Ganguly are excellent at both, but that doesn’t mean that every great player should be a great captain too… The great thing about Sachin is he happily gave away captaincy to other players like Ganguly and Dhoni, who went on to become great captains. He was often the first choice of the selectors for the captain’s role but he was fully aware of his weakness as a captain and he declined it several times... There have been extremely horrible captains like Azhar who failed to give away captaincy to others. But there are people like Dravid and Sachin who knew that they are not great captains and gave it up happily.
7) The man has amassed 100 international hundreds, and you are complaining about the slow scoring rate for his 100th? You sure do have a very short term memory.
8) He was India’s opener, so why would you expect him to carry on throughout the innings. Tail-enders would hit more winning runs than do openers, so going by your logic an average tail-enders is a greater batsman than an average opener. Wow! Do you even understand cricket?
9) After reading your post, you sure sounded very boring. I had to watch a recording of Sachin single handedly destroying the Australian bowling attack twice in Sharjah in 1998 to bring myself out of the boredom that your post just put me into.
10) Poor you! Did Sachin snub you in any press meeting? Probably the other journalists had interesting things to ask. If you leave your boorish attitude aside and do your homework, you might have better luck next time…