Indore Mishap: Where Is Political Accountability?
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2026-01-03 12:35:50
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
After Indore's water contamination killed and hospitalised residents, the state acted "swiftly". Engineers were suspended. Municipal officers were removed. Files were opened. Probes were announced. The message was clear: someone would pay. Just not anyone who mattered. This is how accountability works in India. It travels only one way, and that is downwards.
The official line suggests that the tragedy was the result of municipal negligence, a technical failure that could be fixed by shuffling officers and issuing show-cause notices. This is convenient. It reduces a long-running governance failure into an administrative lapse. It also ensures that political leadership remains untouched.
That explanation collapses under scrutiny. This was not an unseen danger. BJP corporator Kamal Vaghela had written to the civic body two years ago, flagging the state of the pipelines and asking for urgent replacement. In recent months, residents of Bhagirathpura repeatedly complained of discoloured, foul-smelling water flowing from their taps. These were not stray grievances. They were warnings. They were brushed aside. Ignorance, therefore, is not an excuse. Indifference is.
Municipal officers do not decide whether decades-old pipelines are replaced. They do not allocate budgets. They do not set priorities. Those decisions are political. When infrastructure is allowed to decay year after year, when complaints are brushed aside, and when maintenance is treated as an inconvenience rather than a necessity, responsibility lies squarely with those in power.
Yet when things go wrong, India's political class perfects the art of distance. Engineers are expendable. Commissioners are transferable. Mayors and ministers remain in place. At most, there is a careless remark, a hollow assurance, and then silence. No resignation. No apology. No ownership. This is not a flaw in the system. It is the system.
Indore's case is especially revealing because it punctures the myth of "model governance." A city that wins cleanliness awards failed to provide drinkable water. The contradiction is not accidental. Rankings reward visibility. Governance requires responsibility. The former is celebrated. The latter is avoided.
The real tragedy is not just the contaminated water. It is the certainty that the outcome would have been different if accountability worked upwards. If ignoring warnings carried consequences. If ministers were forced to answer for failures, not just inaugurate schemes and appear for photo-ops.
Until that changes, suspending municipal officers will remain an act and an exercise in damage control, not reform. And citizens will continue to pay the price for a political culture that never holds itself responsible.
