“On Thursday, August 18, 2011, I cam across a headline in Mumbai Mirror
“If you have never bribed a traffic cop
If you haven’t paid donation for your child’s admission
If you never bought a movie ticket in black
If you paid the entire sum for your apartment by cheque
If you have not carried out illegal changes in your house or office
If you have never bribed a government officer
If you have never paid a bribe in your life”
Mail us your story. Five readers, selected by us, will get to meet Anna Hazare.”
My reply to the above is, “I have never done any of those, infact being a government officer, I have not taken a single paisa bribe, yet I don’t want to meet Anna Hazare.
The same paper had an interesting article by Devdutt Pattanaik, which says “Rules don’t make a Ram.”
The efficacy of any system depends on the individuals who run the
system and not otherwise. Individuals cannot be run by any system per
se. Today, we feel very angry as the collective conscience of the
nation has gone for a toss. Corruption runs deep and is
all-pervasive. It will require a sustained movement and strong will
power on the part of like minded individuals to combat corruption. It
is we, who make the nation and not the other way round. There cannot
be sides taken in this fight against corruption. This movement should
involve those who work in Government sector and others who work from
outside. The virus of corruption affects all of us in some way or
other. Being in the service, I know many colleagues and officers, who
will go by the rule book and execute work without fear or favor.
Working honestly in an environment where the society itself has lost
its moral character involves a lot of sacrifice and willpower. Honest
people in Government service are the ones who face misconduct
proceedings as they are the ones who work and make things move. When
things go wrong, these few are the ones who get framed. No one comes
to support them in their need of hour.
People want to jump the queue,
and that is precisely the problem. Atleast, 3 out of 10 people want
to get ahead and get things done in their favor on priority basis by
showering undue gratification of any kind. No one questions those who
accept illegal gratification for fear of getting out of the race.
Those who can't pay at all suffer in silence. Corruption always flows
from top to bottom. The lineman, the peon, and the likes who are the
foot soldiers of this corruption racket bear the brunt of blame, while
the officers of Joint Secretary and above and Ministers keep their
heads out of muddy waters. Even for standing in a queue for darshan
of the Lord, many prefer to pay to have a quick darshan. Look at the
railway counter, where dumbheads stand in serpentine queues patiently
for tickets while the so called smart ones always jostle and try to
get ahead. Many hesitate to buy tickets for using our public
transport but will unfailingly question the system. Last week, I
happened to be in a crowded bus. The poor conductor could not reach
out to all passengers for issuing tickets. As soon as the final
destination came, the rest half of the crowd rushed out in glee for
having escaped from buying a bus ticket of just Rs.4/-. Amidst such
chaos, a college boy stretched his hand out to the conductor and asked
for a ticket. The rest of the passengers laughed at him for his
honesty and yelled out, "Harishchandra ka aulad hai kya?" The poor
boy stood embarrassed for his act of honesty. Western Railway
installed transparent dustbins for security purposes, as there was
always the fear of terrorists taking undue advantage of these
dustbins. However, to the dismay of the Railway authorities, the
transparent dustbins turned red in color in just a few days as a
result of pan and tobacco stains. Two days ago, I was chatting with
my blogger friend from New Delhi. He was telling me, how people
evaded taking tickets at even Metro Stations by inserting a single
coin and rushing through the gate, two at a time. The techno savvy
generation of the middle class believes that Government servants live
a luxurious life and there is over-employment in the Government
sector. They are right in majority of the cases, but they cannot continue to see things in black and white. I
would advise them to visit the dilapidated Government quarters in
which many Government employees receive in abysmal conditions. Not everything can
be seen in black and white. While there is widespread unemployment,
the vacancies in many sectors continue to be not filled for technical
reasons. The private sector also has its share of blame. While A.
Raja is blamed for the 2G scam, the private parties who bribed the
concerned parties also acted in conspiracy for undue benefits.
Corruption is in the minds and is not specific to any sector. Those
who are in private sector very well know how some officers working in
purchase department or marketing department do take undue advantage of
their position. A walk into some of the nearest Airtel, Vodafone or any pvt.
Telecom Relationship Centre or any private distribution centre leaves
an equally bitter taste in the minds of the common man who feels cheated.
Many argue that they pay bribe because they have to pay and cannot be held guilty. If they do not have the guts to stop paying bribe, they should not speak of stopping corruption or any revolution. The crowds at the Azad Maidan in Mumbai staged a “Jail Bharo” agitation. Youth came in and out of Police Vans, shouting “I went to jail two times, I went to jail five times”. Someone even bragging, “I went to jail more than ten times.” Why the unity displayed by them at the venue is lacking where schools charge exorbitant donations, when babus expect illegal gratification, where public services give unsatisfactory services. A traffic police constable is seen taking bribe in broad daylight, but onlookers do not have the guts to stop him. They fear of getting beaten or abused. Even the one who pays bribe does not mind, as he gets away easily by breaking the law. The collective mindset of all of us including me has become like, “Someone will do it for us.” We will throw litter at open places, spit, urinate, break laws at our convenience but do not like it when it affects us. While we speak of corruption, there is a vast majority of people out here in India including children who do not get to eat even a single meal a day. There are many, who do not have access to primary education and healthcare. Farmers are still committing suicides in various parts of the country and female infanticide is on the rise. I am not mixing up the issues. I am forced to say all this, because the India Against Corruption Movement which lights candles and mashaals proclaim it as “The Second War of Independence” without knowing the significance of what actual independence means. It is a loosely coined word used as a marketing lexicon, with the media lapping it up.
Crowd mentality can be strange and cannot act really as a barometer of any real revolution. Even a simple road accident, where the persons are seriously injured and battling for life attracts a large crowd, who act as spectators and enthusiastic as they have a story to tell someone some day about it. It has become so farcical. Does majority of the crowd know anything about Jan Lok Pal and really believe that the acceptance of the Jan Lok Pal will give us the second independence that India desperately needs. You are either for Hazare or against him, and if you are not for him , then you must be corrupt. This is not debate. This is just mindless. The only consolation amidst such drama is that the much maligned Gandhiji has become an icon for the burger eating and pizza munching generation. Mahatma Gandhi’s great grandson Tushar has said “there is a difference in the way the two leaders have used fasting as an instrument of protest. He feels, while for the Mahatma, fasting was a means to “reform an adversary”, in the case of Hazare, a self-professed Gandhian, it was like targeting an “enemy”. .
If I say, “I am Anna Hazare” – I am an Indian. If I say, “I am not Anna Hazare”- I am a traitor. This subverts the very element of democracy.
Gautam Patel, a practicing lawyer and writer in Mumbai Mirror states that, “the Jan LokPal bill is a bubble-and-squeak legislation, full of yesterday’s leftovers. It speaks of nominees being “persons with impeccable integrity and a record of public service particularly in the field of fighting corruption.” Fighting corruption is not a “field” of endeavour, an occupation or a profession. Who would these persons be, and where might we find them? Would they include hirsute yogis with penchant for cross-dressing.”
“The Jan Lok Pal arrogates to the LokPal enormous powers, investigative, prosecutorial and punitive, against everyone in public life, from the PM and the higher judiciary to the neighborhood beat cop. The CBI reports to the LokPal. The LokPal investigates, prosecutes and imposes penalties directly – including life imprisonment. To give an idea of the kind of power it demands, Section 8 says the LokPal has the authority to sanction phone taps and communication interceptions against everyone. If the present government has lost its moral, ethical and constitutional compass, the draftsmen of the Jan LokPal Bill seem to have forgotten the grammar of liberty.”
In short, if democracies are run on whipping mindless public emotions and resorting to blackmails –“Frame the laws that I want kind of thing”, then someday we will reach the era of “stoning criminals to death in open grounds” Taliban style. The media has failed its duty to report the Anna Agitation in an impartial manner. The manner in which one was hounded for differing with the Anna Agitation during a media debate on Times Now was disgusting, to say the least.
There are many measures to fight corruption that includes sweeping Police reforms, blacklisting corrupt businessmen, Transparency in Government Tenders/ Orders, including Auction/Sale of Public owned assets, election reforms, transparent and reasonable tax structure, reducing the role of the state and genuine autonomy of the public/ government structure.
Social justice, instilling awareness, equipping all people with access to education, housing and healthcare, effective public distribution are many of the other factors to be fought for along with the fight for corruption and this needs a sustained movement and cannot be solved like making 2-minute Maggi noodles. Many use the word, “Revolution” without knowing the gravity of what it actually means. Revolution calls for sacrifice and we must be ready for it. Our fight against corruption and for all round development must span generations to come. It does not make sense for many with empty stomach to see people fasting and grabbing media bytes.
If you go through the excerpts of an interview given by Nandan Nilekani to NDTV, he says that “I think there is no doubt that all of us want to do things to eliminate corruption in our society and I fully sympathise with that motive and the frustration that people feel about corruption. But I think if you really want to do it, it has to be done in a much more holistic and strategic manner. Because there is a part of corruption that is big ticket corruption, there is a part of it that is retail corruption.
“I find this simplistic notion that you pass some magical Bill and some corruption is going to go away, I find that... frankly... certainly not the way you should be thinking about the issue.
“I am not saying that we don't need a Lokpal Bill. That is for the Parliament to decide - what should be the frame of that bill. I'm just saying that for millions of people corruption is at the point of interaction. When they are trying to get their PDS, when their are trying to get their pension, when they are trying to get their bank account open, when they move from a village to a city and nobody is willing to recognise them. That is where corruption is.”
“You know, you have the IT industry, the BPO industry, the FMGC industry, the manufacturing industry, the auto industry, the financial industry which are very competitive open market kind of situations. The challenge happens when there is some huge role of government, whether the government is a regulator or the government is a provider of some resource which is scarce or the government is a buyer or whatever. And that interface is where all these issues are, so we need to make that much more transparent, open and deregulated. I mean we need liberalisation very much because finally we are going to have millions of Indians coming into the workforce. And the jobs for those young Indians are going to be created by entrepreneurs. So we need to create a culture where we encourage ethical entrepreneurship.
“you streamline things, you automate things and you create choice. I think choice is very important. See the difference between you and me and somebody in a village is that if you don't like the service in one shop you can go to another shop. So you have a choice, if you get bad service you can go somewhere else. If you don't like this bank you can go to some other bank. You don't like this ATM you go that ATM. So the choice is what empowers you. If you are a person who is a part of the PDS, your name is assigned to only one shop. You can't go anywhere else. So if that particular shop is shut down or is not able to give you service or whatever, you are out of luck. So you have become hostage to that one entity. The moment you make it portable where I can go to either shop A or shop B to get my things suddenly you've empowered me. That you do through a system, you can't do it another way.
Anyone can go through the detailed discussion on the website of NDTV.
Today, as we are witness to a nationwide protest against corruption, I should feel proud to say that I respect the institutions of our democracy, but not the corruption by individuals behind it and will fight against them relentlessly. At the same time, I am also free to say that in our common battle against corruption many like me need not be Anna Hazare. We do not wave flags, we do not carry candles, we do not go to jails for fun, we do not challenge our democratic setup yet do our duties in our own small way. We are also Indian.
