The latest report on the Air India disaster reads like a dispatch from a failing state. Furious disputes over the cause of the crash have turned what should be a straightforward inquiry into a farce of bureaucratic finger-pointing. The real story, however, is not the technical failure of a single aircraft but the systemic decay of an airline that once symbolised national pride.
We are witnessing the terminal decline of an institution that has become a metaphor for India itself: a bloated, mismanaged entity that has lost its way. The Victorian era would have called it a ‘national humiliation.’ Today, we call it business as usual.
The question is not why the plane crashed but why anyone is surprised.
