By JB War
Team Anna is riding on the support of frustrated citizens of this country to force the Govt to accept their Jan Lokpal Bill which I believe will undermine the constitutional trinity – Legislative, Executive and Judicial entity which is then an insult to our Constitution. Giving too much power to anyone is a bad idea and will eventually become some sort of Frankenstein. The UPA govt is no doubt the most corrupted govt we have had for as long I can remember. The 2G scam, CWG etc., it seems to me these elected leaders are so blinded by the amount of corruption in their closets that they have completely lost track of the pulse of the people and made all irrational decisions and actions which further put them in even tighter spots.
Back to the Jan Lok Pal Bill, I do not understand how this bill will curb corruption. Assuming this bill is passed, who will head and run it? Who will assure us that the people running it are not corrupt? If the agencies supporting it will do a good job- as of now the CBI has not done much.
Now to corruption- yes it is the biggest menace and challenge this country is facing. But I do not believe that a simple bill will help curb corruption. Yes this bill might prevent corruption at the top but what about the daily bribes and pay offs that we have to resort to everyday? How many of you are willing to be arrested for mistakenly jumping a red light which will end you up with a court appearance or choose to pay off that traffic cop. Do not lie to yourself, we all know we prefer paying off than facing the inconvenience of going to the police station and appearing in court. According to us this is not corruption, this is being smart but when we are asked to pay some money to get our jobs done then we shout – Corruption. So what is corruption? It all depends on our convenience.
If you look at corruption from a birds point of view you’ll noticed that it is more like a food chain. It all starts from the bottom-we the public, the aam admi, the normal people and as it goes up it gets bigger and ends up with people like our politicians, the corporates etc. The Lok Pal Bill might be able to curb corruption at the top but will never dent our spirit to be corrupt as it is imbibed in our DNA, unless we choose to stop it from the bottom first – which is us.
I feel the issue taken up by Anna is an important one, but his method is totally wrong and the people following him are either misled, ignorant or are just being influenced by the Join the bandwagon attitude which we are famous for as Indians.
Take elections for instance, aren’t we the ones electing these people in parliament? Then why cannot we put our faith in them? Yeah right they are all corrupt you say, but you will all vote him again next election and the Congress will still be leading the next coalition government. Corruption has been sown in our mindset that we do not understand the value of our votes. Our eligibility criteria for our representative is that he/she has to be a person who helps us when we are in need, who tries to fix the water pipes in our locality, clean up the garbage, visit every bereaved house and help with money, food, blanket, chawlas etc. If he does all this and pay a little more during elections, he gets our votes irrespective if he is capable to carry in his shoulders our issues, find solutions to our problems, be a statesman and behave like one in the assembly. So where did corruption starts? We all want our politicians to give us what we want for free and expect him to pay everything from his pocket. I feel to curb corruption at the top, we should first look at who we vote for and stop being corrupt ourselves by expecting the world from our incapable, self absorbed, business minded leaders. Lok Pal cannot do miracles and start producing honest leaders, it is us as citizens of this country. We cannot go on voting a leader who does not know what to do or say in the assembly but come to his constituency will all sirens blaring and an entourage of media personals to give away free goodies because his constituency people expect him to do all this.
We should reprogram our thoughts, ideas and expectation from our elected leaders. A real leader will not need to pay for votes, fixing pipes and collecting garbage is the job of the municipal and what is our Durbar doing? I feel sad to see our elected leaders give away ambulances and mortuary vans to their constituencies. This just shows their incapability to tackle issues concerning us all. A real leader will not need to give an ambulance to every locality if he uses his power and influence as a leader in the assembly/parliament to make our roads safer and our community safer by improving the law and order situation, the rest 108 is there. A mortuary van will not be needed for that pregnant woman who cannot get to hospital in time or for the poor health services that our beloved leader failed to take up in the assembly, or for that youth who waste away his life drinking for he cannot find a job because our state lacks the infrastructure to attract investments, or for that rebel who was misguided due to lack of education. We don’t need most of the freebies if our leader had done his job and that money could have not been wasted and he will not need to recover the same with interest by unfair means, but then we voted the wrong guy for we are too corrupt.
So what is this Jan Lok Pal bill? We will be losing the most for our elected leaders will have to calculate his MLA/MP scheme funds before giving us freebies and this will let our corrupted minds frustrated, rob off our rights to beg and eventually dissatisfied citizens, then riots, anarchy and more deaths as we look at our great country spiralling down towards a Banana Republic.
My humble request to all you Annaholic, please think of the pros and cons, SWOT analyse every decision you make before jumping the band wagon and get all hysterical just because the media wants you to believe it. You want to rid corruption then start at home. To end I quote the late Michael Jackson, “I’m starting with the man in the mirror”.
A concerned corrupted soul who wants a change.