Breeding the greed :/

The last thing you can call me is innocent , but it comes to politics – specially this lokpal bill ,I am as guilty of innocence as A Raja is of corruption. With this disclaimer I start this post. I don’t have any qualifications of writing about this , except the fact that I write decently , I am more literate than half my BPL population and I have a problem with the fact that none of the younger population (teens mostly) seem to be taking an interest and the whole public uproar about this bill.

this innocent =P

First of all , WHAT is a lokpal??

Simply speaking , lok means ‘protector of people’ .Which also means :

An ombudsman (conventional English plural: ombudsmen) is a person who acts as a trusted intermediary between an organization and some internal or external constituency while representing not only but mostly the broad scope of constituent interests

However , Anna Hazare’s is more of an organization which is used to check the power of the parliament AND judiciary.

“The Jan Lokpal Bill (Citizen's ombudsman Bill) is a draft anti-corruption bill drawn up by prominent civil society activists seeking the appointment of a Jan Lokpal, an independent body that would investigate corruption cases, complete the investigation within a year and envisages trial in the case getting over in the next one year.”

Here’s the catch :”It also seeks power to the Jan Lokpal to prosecute politicians and bureaucrats without government permission”

Don’t form any opinions yet. Lets first see WHAT corruption is !

1. Dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery.

2. The action of making someone or something morally depraved or the state of being so

grr

. A 2005 study conducted by Transparency International in India found that more than 45% of Indians had first-hand experience of paying bribes or influence peddling to get jobs done in public offices successfully.[1]

So you would have got the gist by now , you know I am Semi – so I have my dilemmas. I would be very glad if people reading this try to solve my queries/doubts.

bye!

Lets see this from the common man’s point of view. The Government seemed to be very powerful when it won the elections for the 2^nd consecutive time. Then like a night mare came the embarrassing Commonwealth debacle ( it wouldn’t have been half as bad if the media had closed its trap ) however the blame was put on a Suresh Kalmadi, then came the 2G scams. OMG! The centre has looked inefficient , corrupt and like a lame duck since then! A Raja , Dayanithi Maran , Kanimozhi ........the list is still expanding. The amount of crores hoaxed seriously took everyone by alarm. If only all this money had reached the people =|

Not only the top , even the basement of the Indian foundation is rocking. Minute things like obeying the traffic , discouraging piracy , buying a passport/license without bribing sounds incredulous! The most alarming thing is not the corruption itself but the complacency which it brought along....Blanketing people in false sense of legitimacy the corruption monster is seen as a saint. What can we do – even the saints are fake in our country.

So it was just a matter of time someone screamed ‘CHANGE’ . This part I agree with, heck! Everyone does. When standing from these pair of shoes the lokpal issue seems like a boon from the moon. To top it all a leader who looks like a mixture of Gandhi daddy and Nehru uncle , active facebook campaigning and the media’s eye. Surely a wining mixture , only the direction is wrong – we’ll come to that later.

After watching  Shankar films all my life =P Those like ‘Indian’ , ‘Anniyan’ and ‘Gentleman’ where a single crusader wins us justice , Anna looks very practical. Also this movement has ignited patriotism and brought up very encouraging changes in many ‘normal’ people. Very obvious example : My dad , the hidden hero has woken up. He has got the wake up call and the conviction which  envy , fasting for the past 3 days ( it IS a big thing , because of the size of his tummy! :D) , lighting candles, reading patriotic poems and more importantly the new found resolve to fight corruption from the most CRUCIAL level – from the SELF . His status tells us all :D

“Also fought corruption today against police. went for passport verification for my family. the police official collects the form and gives a smile indicating that he needs money . I smiled back and said thank you and walked out and he comes behind me till the vehicle stand and I just had to smile back because he didnt ask for money but indicates he wants money!”

 We may never get that passport , but who cares?! We are on the right road .

Wait. There is also another story here. India has a parliament in place; its functions are to provide bills/laws to support the life of people. Corruption aside , there are earthquakes , floods, power demand , Inflation , the latest lorry strike ( ONION prices causes tears in your eyes without the need of opening the vegetable itself =P ) , education is still to reach many , basic welfare schemes , health care and HUGE amount of work the government has to do.

Ever since the 2 G scams the ministers conveniently have caused chaos , the parliament is NOT function. Now Anna’s fast has seen to that a lot more crores are being wasted by making the government NOT work. That ain’t commendable surely , right?

YES. We accept that the ministers are trying to hide behind the thin veils of the existing democracy to oppose anna’s movement . Although I don’t support their motive , is it right to blackmail the government or whoever by telling that they are going to fast till death?! I don’t even know why fasting is acceptable! ( maybe bcoz we don’t die that easily! ) Still , suicide or any other form of taking any human life must be considered wrong right??

So isn’t Anna planting seeds in millions of minds to play with death?! Pardon me if I am wrong.

Also the biggest question of all ; If Anna is suggesting that I should not believe in the government I voted (not me exactly) and proving that corruption is capable of destroying the finest minds how do I believe in HIM ? He is still outside power , money etc what if he comes to power and gets eaten up by the monster (touch wood)

'draconian' ? 

There is a provision in lokpal bill which says the we can file a case against him through lokpal. However the point is that lokpal is just ANOTHER institution and the powers it is demanding from the government is too much even for an elected body.

So what I am saying is it IS a good idea to fight corruption ; even lokpal is FINE. However drastic demanding will lead us nowhere ; we are a DEMOCRACY ; accepted 42 years is too long but as the light has come to the problem now only a few more months with proper adjusting is not BAD at all or fine chuck it! Support the movement  but aim for something else than the bill like grassroot problems of corruption , using our divine constitution with some amendments itself. A new institution is too risky/costly.

1 thing is clear – the present state of the government is not supported by the members themselves! Lets strive for a cleaner country starting from ‘I’ and ones not interested can stifle their laughs and live their life – with the knowledge that change is the only thing permanent and surely after all these protests something GOOD will shape up! =)

Jai hind! Nothing beats screaming 'inquilab zindabad!' maybe vandemataram! :D