Monday, August 22, 2011

Charity begins at home !!

                    I wonder how a 74 year old man has hoodwinked the nation to believe that corruption is something outside of themselves. What is corruption? It's not alien, it's within us. It's not a tumour to be removed after a surgery, it's like the cholesterol that keeps building inside, for which we are only responsible. Rather than being blind followers, why don't we stop and think about it? We are not deaf to not listen to our own hearts. Ask yourself whether passing of some bill is going to make everything all right. It is going to help, no doubt, in sacking the corrupt, the guilty. But will it remove corruption from every aspect of life of a common-man?

                   What we are witnessing on the streets in every corner of the country is the outburst of agitated people. The mob of people has its own brains. You never know what's on their mind when they gather for 'morchas'. It is so contagious, the euphoria, the enthusiasm, that it feels like we are doing such a revolutionary thing. Most of us don't even pause to think what we are following is right or wrong. We see that he is fasting for us, for welfare of our country and we make him Gandhi. Rather than creating chaos on the streets, is it not a better option to actually promise ourselves that the anti-corruption movement should start at home? The clerks, the cops, the politicians, they are one of us. We keep talking about destroying the monster of corruption, when we are the ones feeding it.

                   This should be the awakening call insight out. This is the right time to do full-fledged 'Atma-parikshan'. I am not opposing Anna. I respect him for the courage and dedication he's showing. But roots of corruption can not be merely destroyed by pointing fingers. And just blaming government is not enough, although they have eventually shown that they deserve to have this stigma on the themselves. They're out of  words, weapons and tactics, in-turn making ridiculous statements that they see 'foreign hand' in the movement. Well, that's a topic for a new discussion altogether, so keeping it aside. What I want to convey is, at the end of the day we forget that this is the government that we have chosen. These are the people who won the elections because we have voted for them.

                  The best way to end corruption should be standing on your ground, not paying bribes, no law breaking, paying taxes. Next time on a signal when traffic police catches you, don't show him 'hari patti'. Stop littering trash, destroying public property; peeing, spitting on roadsides. Don't give your vote to corrupt politicians and criminals. Change yourself and see the world change around you. So nobody has to fast to get something approved for us that we really deserve.


8 comments:

  1. Nice write up and I agree to most of the points here but there is always another side of a coin.
    Here it is mentioned about one side when we have to introspect when we think of giving the bribe. The action on the other side is still in question that what should a person do while accepting the bribe? Should he/she just accept the bribe? Does he/she have time to think about morals? Or does he/she want to think about moral while accepting the bribe? In reality, people don't think in this situation about the morals. They just think about their gain at the expense of someone else's loss. At this point does anyone think about the "charity"? The Janlokpal bill is all about making such people think before accepting the bribe about atleast being caught and punished. I agree that Janlokpal bill is not a magic wand which will cure the virus of corruption in a day but it will atleast make a corrupt person aware that someone is watching his actions and he/she should mend his/her ways.

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  2. High thought, well written, albeit not completlly agree with you. Good to see someone having different approcah in all this, though cynical. Nice work, Keep it up.

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  3. hey good work,I completly agree with your say.This step will bring a revolutionary change in our country.Then we would proudly say "Jaha dal dal par sone ki chidiya karti ho basera....wo Bharat desh hai mera...."

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  4. I do feel the same and this nation has the credential to bring a change for some good changes.It is really nice quote promoting our spirit to think high. .........

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  5. Great and thought provoking writing !!!! Bravo !!!
    I strongly disagree with the term ‘hoodwinked’(to cause to believe what is not true/deceive) though. Its not about making people believe that corruption is alien/not but he is trying to make people believe that it definitely is curable..and if you are wondering how he has made people believe/follow this, then i guess the answer would be "by striving hard his whole life for the society's betterment. Without a single blot on his character".
    Let us see why the ‘Lokpal bill’ or any punishment for that matter is required in first place. I agree that if everybody does ‘atma-parikshan’ and decides to adhere to moral values then actually we can say that there’s no need for any judiciary system or any punishments whatsoever !! This ‘atma-parikshan’ can address to any issue that is and that would ever be!!
    But if you think practically, FEAR of punishment is the major cause by which most of the societies remain in harmony. This is the base of many religions and a time tested way of keeping the society disciplined. If we talk in terms of cholesterol, what you are talking about is the PREVENTION and what Anna is talking about the CURE. We can control cholesterol building doesn’t mean we should stop producing medicine against the cholesterol. Even if nobody takes/gives bribe henceforth, what is to be done for the money that’s already being stolen?
    I am not sure how much Lokpal bill would be of use in removing corruption from the day to day life of common man because primarily I believe that the Lokpal bill aims to counter 'guilty-powerful' people. Here we are not talking about corruption in thousands or lac of rupees but we are talking about the corruption in lacs of crores of rupees. These kind of corruptions are related to most of the deals, tokens, contracts that are seldom exposed to common man and are obviously done by the people with unlimited Power. It is a bill that makes the prosecution faster and tries to remove the loopholes from the existing anti corruption processes.It is a bill which says common people can see the details of the proceedings of the cases. It is a bill that says the guilty would be punished no matter who he is or no one would be able to save the guilty,not even PM. It is a bill which says there is still hope. It's a wonderful bill and we must support it.
    About the ‘morchas’, obviously we can’t expect each and every person in the ‘morchas’ to be as thoughtful or as dedicated as the leader. The people follow a leader not because they have complete understanding of the situation or share the same vision, but they follow him because they BELIEVE that whatever the leader is doing is for ultimate good. In democracy, one has to show the backing of the people to bring about any changes that is why the support is to be displayed . ‘Morchas’ is one of the approaches wherein the support is displayed in obvious and clear-cut manner. If it is being done peacefully then well n good!
    Anna by no means is opposing to whatever being suggested regarding ‘atma-parikshan’ neither is he suggesting that ‘Lokpal bill’ would remove the corruption completely from every corner of society, but it definitely gives a ray of hope to the people that there can be some control over the corruption.
    ‘Atma-parikshan’ and ‘Lokpal bill’ , both of these are parallel processes that would be required to remove corruption from the society completely.
    Excellent writing... loved the approach..keep it up !!

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  6. Totally agree with your views. We can not ask others to walk on the path of truth, if we ourselves are trying to take it to the side of corruption. So, improving our country starts with improving ourselves. This is not an issue, whether to follow or not to follow Anna or to Lokpal Bill, the thing is to analyze what his views are, and if you believe those then are you really trying to follow them yourself. So, one thing from this article is very nice to think on is, not to follow anyone blindly, without knowing what you are doing.
    Now, talking about Anna, we should accept that the man has something, that took the whole nation by storm. First part of the thoughts was regarding not to let the corruption happen, but we also need to think about the one which is already spread nationwide. So, we do need to take those poisonous weeds out completely. And Anna is trying to do exactly the same, so, we should help him for the same.
    I would also like to add one thing that, along with introspecting silently, we will also have to raise our voices against corruption, because sometimes it needs a blast to get someone's attention :-)
    Nice thoughts, keep it up !!!!

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  7. Very thoughtful and godd attempt. But I would like to say something on this issue. You are saying that why we are blindly following anna? I agree that there are some flaws in his bill also but we have to start from somewhere to clean this mud from the system. And every common men is so fade up of giving bribe for very samll government job to be done. And this is the only reason for supporting anna blindly. I agree that we should stop giving bribes for the betterment of ourselves but is it not there responsibility also not to take bribe and do the job honestly. you are saying the clerks, cops and politicians are one of us I agree but after reaching there they forgot that they are one of us and behaving like aliens to common man. And we chose our representatives but all of them are corrupt and just try to fill there own pockets by looting common mans money. And lastly this bill might not be sufficient to kill the giant of corruption but it will surely be a revolutin in indian democracy because till date not even a single politician is proved to be corrupt and the money which they have looted is with them only. By this bill the investigation will end in 2 years and if anybody found guilty of corruption then his/her property will be seized and not only his/her the wife, father and mothers properties will also get seized by the government and the money of taxpayers will get utilised for the betterment of our future and this is just the first step towards a clean and prosperous India.I have lots to say but I am putting an end to this.
    Nice work Richa.
    Keep up the good work.

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  8. My thoughts exactly my dear. It's not as if the politicians are the only ones corrupt. Ofcourse, by virtue of their position they have the opportunity for the biggest magnitudes of corruption. I'm wondering if we wouldn't do the same if we had the right 'opportunities' to make our millions.

    I don't doubt Anna Hazare's good intentions..but I think his actions belong to the pre-1947 era. Please - let us not behave like we are in Libya!

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