Inquilab Zindabad! Vande Mataram!
I should really thank the JanLokpal movement and especially Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal for making me realize what I was missing in my life. And I believe, that many of you will agree to what I say. I never thought; I would read about India, its history, politics with such an interest that too not for marks but for the country and I never thought it will be so interesting to discuss about the future of India with my friends, with professors, with my parents. Till today, whenever a scam happened I used to say its ok, politics is bad, all politicians are bad, it is a dirty game of uneducated. But now I realize how wrong my thinking was. For me politics used to start from news channel and End by blaming politicians. But today when I listen to Dr. J.P Narayan, Justice Santosh Hegde, Arvind Kejriwal, Ramchandra Guha , Rajiv Malhotra, I realize what went wrong. How did India end up having such a state of politics? Why we are not the superpower today though we are called to be? Why are we still developing and not yet developed?
If one looks back at India’s history, we had such a great leaders like Dr. Radhakrishnan, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Mahatma Gandhi, and Dr. Ambedkar and so on. When we take their names a current flows through our body which makes us realize what contribution these great leaders had made for our country. But today when I watch a news flashing, Rahul Gandhi a strong contender for the post of Prime Minister I feel ashamed of myself. I feel ashamed when he makes farmer realize that one FDI retail shop can turn the entire village into a golden land. My mind says, how can you call them leaders? What have they done for our nation, for their own nation? What I doubt today is that, whether they even consider this as their own country?
Dr. JP Narayan says, “India can become an economic giant in next 30years if everything is done right” in his talk on 19th century politics and 21st century economics. But he also says that what appears to be advantageous can be disadvantageous sometime. India’s share of world economy was 25% before but Indian economy grew at snail’s pace not comparable with the other countries and now it is just 1%. Relatively India is still in the year 1947 and not in 2011.
Today more than 70% people in the parliament are educated, have degrees and if you say that having a degree is compulsory to enter the parliament remaining 30% can get the degrees overnight. Such is the greatness of our system. When I hear this, I remember the talk of Justice Santosh Hegde where he goes into the past and says, once there was a huge debate, after the Indian constitution was ready, on whether to have certain educational qualification for the people standing for election. Initially it was decided by Dr Ambedkar to have certain qualification but then there was a very serious question raised: In Indian constitution people are supreme, people are given right to express, democracy means by the people for the people of the people but when, in same country more than 80% are illiterate how to have an educational qualification for those who are standing for election. Finally Dr Ambedkar had to withdraw the qualification and it was made open to all. Similar situation aroused when it was decided to have Hindi as our national language, history says only by mere 1 vote Hindi became the national language of India. India today has 18 major languages with majority (more than 40%) speaking Hindi and The second most spoken language telugu is spoken only by mere 8% of the population. India remains still united outside but differentiated within. When I travel in south I am shocked to see the response of people, why do some still have hatred against Hindi. Few people have realized what they have been missing by not knowing Hindi but few still prefer not to learn. Why such a discrimination? India is the largest English speaking population and English will always remain the mode for communication but why not Hindi our own language be taught in schools (at least up-to some level). But during this entire movement people come out of their houses to listen to Anna Hazare speaking in Hindi even though they do not understand a single word. Here the talk is within the heart, there is a share of different language not the language of words but the language of love, integrity and honesty.
Before complaining about the present situation we must look back and see what went wrong. Though, India had a galaxy of educated and great leaders before, slowly and eventually people of India started realizing their own personal goals. Educated people started staying out of politics for their own personal interest, which is acceptable in the democratic society but the change which came because of this is the result of what we are facing today. No one had thought Indira Gandhi would become the prime minister of our country and after her the politics started becoming more of a family business for those who were involved in that. People started carving for self interest, power, luxury, and the rest what happened was natural. This was the first big mistake according to me made by the citizens of our country. Where on one hand Indian brains were used by foreign societies to improve their standards, to flourish in technology, India started struggling because of bad leadership. India could not take the advantage of the industrial revolution and India is still there as it was in 1947.
Moving on to Lokpal Agitation, It is a big question in everyone’s mind why so much protest for lokpal bill? Who is team Anna? Why should we follow them? Why should we listen to them? How one lokpal bill will curb corruption? Being a part of this movement I feel I should explain why I am in this movement.
Simple answer will be I feel I should be a part of this as it is better to do something than just blaming others and doing nothing. It is always better to fail after giving 100% than not to try at all. This movement brought together lacs of youngsters and people from all backgrounds only for one cause and that is fight against corruption. Today I can see Indian coming on the streets and not north Indians or south Indians, people came out for their country not for their state, they came out for each other not for their own caste or religion. India once again showed the power of coexistence and the power of democracy.
The biggest issue in India has always been the tax money. Where does the money we pay as tax goes. We should understand the relation between the tax we pay and the services we get. When news channel say there is more black money inside India than in Swiss bank, they are right. People hide taxes because they feel they do not get proper services. Many people hide taxes and as a result the tax needs to be increased. Everything forms a big loop and nothing is done rather than waiting for some miracle. And the miracle is this movement. At least the educated youth who has now realized the importance of paying taxes should make sure that they are not hiding any black money for their own interest.
Though Indian judiciary is one of the powerful judiciary systems (as most of them say so) but still the implementation of laws is not so strict. The people who are the lawmakers are themselves breaking the law. There needs to be an independent anti-corruption and investigation agencies to punish people breaking the law and rules. There has to transparency in the system with accountability of the money paid by people as tax. Today RTI such a powerful act gives us so much information and it is because of RTI we have come to know about all these scams but what to do next. CBI is under the control of parliament. CVC, a great organization has been used by the people who make it. Why to have only laws and rules if they are not being implemented. Had the present laws carefully and strictly addressed and implemented we would have no need of a lokpal. But we need lokpal to have a check on our own people; we need lokpal, so that people from villages can complain against the corrupt official and feel safe at the same time. Today many sarpanch and jamindars have the power and they have the local police working for them. Where should a poor man go to fight for his rights? Today huge money is spent on campaign finance, who accounts for that. India has such a great law to have check on campaign finance but no one bothers. We are still ready to give votes to them who give us color televisions. J.P Narayan says, “Untill givers and takers are happy, no one can change the situation.” This issue needs to be addressed, by the educated people today.
Take a case of 2G scam, whatever loss happened, has happened. But a big question arises why such educated people are acting like this. When we have an educated PM, an educated finance minister, but still they are failing somewhere. Are they doing it for their own interest or are they being forced. If they are being forced to take such steps then we must find out who is forcing and punish them so that good people can do their work properly. But if they are doing for self interest then is it good to have such leaders handling the activities of our country. I remember when Justice Santosh Hegde said, “When 2G scam was exposed and general public came to know, it was a big question as who will handle the issue. Who should do the enquiry? The discussion went on for 23 days only to decide who should carry out the enquiry. Every day the expenditure on the travel of the members and etc (you may guess) was around 3crore rupees.” Now who will account this 3 crore rupees, are they worth spending when small children in India are dying of starvation? It is a very big question to answer? There was a question raised “When members of the parliament were discussing on the lokpal issue for 17 days, how come no bill was passed? May be they are really studying the bill carefully and discussing?” And the reply comes, “Members of parliament passed more than 17 bills in 3minutes, and the bills were member’s electricity bill, water bill, travelling bill, housing allowance bill and so on.” Our country though has one of the finest prime minister but the people around him have enough power to influence him. But having such a spineless PM will be very harmful for our country. I was discussing this with one of my professors and he made only one comment, “Had Manmohan Singh resigned saying that the people around him are corrupt, he would have been the most respected person and we would have saluted him. Congress does not have any one else except him. Because of his clean nature he still reamins the strongest.”
But apart from this there are many reasons why I support this movement. Due to this movement many of us have realized our mistakes and we are making sure, that we do not repeat the same. Many of us have experienced, that not breaking the rule is the best solution to avoid giving bribe, and next best solution is to pay the fine, if we break any rule. Follow law and change the world. People who used to ask for bribe felt ashamed when not given bribe and made realize what blunder they were doing for the society only to fulfill their own desires. Directly or indirectly this movement has come out to be the most successful and the result can be justified by the experiences one has dealt with after the movement started.
I just hope that lokpal movement is successful and we get a strong lokpal bill which will support the innocent and punish the corrupt. But we have still a long way to go as we cannot stop by only getting the bill. Let’s take it to the implementation level and see to it that it is properly used. I hope we all have learnt a lesson and not repeat the mistakes we have been doing since years. Let us decide whom to vote not on the basis of self interest but on the basis of our country’s progress. I feel proper education for all is the only solution to make this world a better place to live in. Lets be united and make the difference we want to see.
