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| Bees on the Highway! |
Why the Fight Against Corruption must start with THEM!
The hue and cry raised against corruption is the only topic right now, which seems to inherit everyone’s mind. A lot has been written and heard about it, some in favor, some opposed, some are bewildered, some sceptical and some are anguished. I am amazed with the extent of this protest and the massive support Anna has got. Of course, there have been numerous fasts for righteous causes that are equally or even more important, but one thing which has made this protest so massive, one thing which has touched the right cord that everyone seems to be so associated with, is corruption. According to few raising voices, corruption was always there. But why didn’t this happen before? And aren’t we the part of corruption too? We have paid bribes in some form or the other, to policewalas, auto-drivers, babus and others whom we have felt will do the work with our convenience. So, this has been a practice since we have seen the world, it has become our culture and thus, we too are the part of this corrupt society by and large. Therefore, we must first eradicate it from ourselves and then join the cause. Then only we can say that we are totally associated with the cause we are fighting for. Right?
Somewhere, my mind refuses to accept that. To me, this protest seems like an agitation which has been building up inside the people for years and they have come out to streets to vent out their anger. This same agitation I feel inside me too. So, what if we had given 100 bucks to a cop, but we know that there are traffic rules, there are police, we fear may be that’s why follow the rules, else we are asked for fines and we pay. Likewise, we have no choice but to pay if petrol price rises or that of cylinders. Auto fare rises or milk and groceries. Even, we have always paid in the form of this tax and that tax, doesn’t matter you are a student or an employee or beggar, everyone has paid for living here. They said we need it for development, for making roads, electricity, infrastructure, education and what not, and we happily paid.
I remember how Ms Sheila Dixit made us to pay for Common Wealth Games by the forced price hike in Delhi. She defended it saying, it was required for the Games development processes. OK ma’m! We agreed. witnessed silently how these games were specifically turned out for VVIPs and VIPs, aam admi was satisfied with the holidays and road shows (free ones), while the games tickets were generously distributed to the near and dear ones of the mightiest, but who were we to question? Then what happened to thousand crores of CWG-scam? While we were paying heavily, what we got? It was none less than a tight slap right on the faces of all those people who have always been mute and involuntary spectators, including me.
Then came the 2G scam, lakhs of crores, nobody actually knows how many zeroes are there but thank to our lucky stars we do know who were the heroes. The Koda scam involving the money of poor tribals while they were fighting with arms for their survival. There were central level scams, state level scams, multi-crore scams, multi hundred crores and even lacs of crores scams, happening right in front of us. Numbers kept increasing exponentially day by day. These are the ones we luckily got to know about, god only knows about the hidden ones. And look at us, we are so naively blaming our 100 or a 500 rs. note as a root cause of corruption! I don’t understand why we close our eyes to these billion dollars scams? Why the blood doesn’t boil against these crooks who just keep sitting on our money every time? Why we have become so adjustable with the scams that we keep ignoring it? Why Rs.10 or Rs.100 is equal to Rs.100 billion or even more? Why should we blame ourselves first and not start counting with them? Why is it wrong to say that first check them? Why we ourselves are ready to move from bottom to top rather than curbing it from top to bottom? We have paid since we are living, practically for everything, for our own expenses and for the government’s, what these scammers have paid us? And where is OUR money? Where is that?
We have police and guards to fine us if we got caught doing wrong, what is for them? They ever got fined? We know the actual money of these scams that was lost, can they give that money back to the Indian economy, or even the half of that? That was ours, the tax-payers money and what we were rewarded in turn was with double digit inflation? Have we ever thought how the poors are managing two times meal in this inflation? But still how innocently we are preaching others to look ourselves first. How we have still managed sticking to the points like the protest and process must be democratic, the laws must not be draconian, and what not. How fair is that! Isn’t Lalu yadav was involved in fodder scam, did he get jailed? Did he pay the money back? No, he became railway minister instead, was that fair? Or a poor person cutting on his meal due to ‘mehngai’ while our ‘netas’ enjoying lavishing lifestyles sounds fair? And all we are caring about is democracy and justice. When we are not ready ourselves to fight against these corrupt people, why the govt. people would seem welcoming the laws against them? All I know is, the common man (disregard of class and caste, and I would never understand why this comes everywhere) who is fed up with such things, burning inside for years and years are right there on the streets, and I am surprised that they are still protesting peacefully. It’s time to bring some change, It’s time for those people to develop fear inside, To realize the people’s power and to have an authority above them so that they never dare to take OUR money again.
P.S. Even if the Janlokpal bill had the clauses like shaving off the head and painting the faces black, or even caning for every 1000 bucks they take extra, I would have still supported that bill. It’s not just MY duty to care for the democracy while the other end is sleeping and eating only on public money and filling up the swiss bank accounts like there is no tomorrow.
