In the last few days, after the cricket world cup has ended, there has been a dominant news item all over. Anna Hazare. I am sure I won't be mistaken in presuming that not many of today's youth or maybe youth outside of the western India knew who he was before this phenomenon he has initiated. It's no secret to any Indian that corruption is omnipresent in this country. A way of life almost..a means of earning our livelihood. Second nature to many. One previous blog earlier where I wrote about how one of my friends-a doctor-had to shell out about 5-10% of his salary each month for no reason to the people who sanction the salaries to get his salary. Some people might try and put a strong front against it during their young and immature years-yea, it's another manifestation of the all pervasive corrupt society that small acts of resisting corruption are termed 'immature'- but then as they grow up into daily chores and stoop under the daily responsibilities, that resistance invariably wilts away. This has been my view of people and society in our country till now in their best possible image. So it came as a pleasant surprise that there was someone who was still able to fight against something so big and evoke a response this large so soon.
Well,that response from people was not much of a surprise. Greed and desire are basic human nature. Wanting a better life is not regarded a crime.There is a middle stratum of society whose subjects are in constant battle with their own conscience while falling prey to both the temptation and ill-effects of corruption in everyday life, in order to earn the luxuries of the world. Most of them would not mind playing the game fair. So it comes as no surprise that people joined the hitherto little known Gandhian,as they found an outlet to all that pent up little volcanoes inside them. And, it is also precisely the reason I won't be surprised if I come to know that majority of the populace joining Mr. Hazare has little knowledge of the Lokpal bill.
Anyways, I wanted to respond to something I saw on the TV via this blog. One of the minority voices against Mr.Anna Hazare was aired briefly saying, as I paraphrase, Anna Hazare's method of reform and protesting is wrong and he should be contesting elections and trying to bring in the change from within the parliament. The gentleman's photo showed him to be a balding middle to elderly aged person. You hear these kinds of principled voices in such contexts from time to time,along-with cliches about our country being the best, our constitution being the best etc. I mean, the concepts of democracy, parliament, our constitution and laws are not some celestial occurrings which are to be taken as granted and can never be changed. They were conceived by us humans after all. And quite clearly and frankly, they haven't worked here. Not in putting the criminals to punishments, not in giving equal opportunities to all people(you musta heard of reservations), not in keeping out corruption etc. So, I say why not an overhaul of the whole system.
It's not that I am advocating such extreme measures. Neither is the ongoing Anna Hazare movement. It was just in response to,as I said patriotic sounding silly cliches with blind and dumb belief in the present system which should not be perceived as being cast in stone. The politicians would have you believe it. I hope we stay strong and bring about the required change this time.
Corruption begets corruption. Policemen, lawyers, doctors, autorickshaws, shop owners and almost everyone nowadays has to pay bribes somewhere along the line of gaining their salaries/jobs. So that disgruntlement obviously will pour onto their customers and so forth. The cycle goes on viciously. Same goes for the politicians. Therefore, my dissent has never been and will not be against the politicians for now. I want an overhaul of the system and I hope the new measures proposed by Anna Hazare will go someway in ensuring transparency in our defunct democracy. Why I choose to call it defunct will take lot more space to explain and it's for another time. For now I only pray for the strength and fortitude for the warriors like Anna Hazare and his followers all over India so they can clean up this country of all its faulty policies and peoples.
P.S. Hope no IPL disrupts this movement.
