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Saturday, February 26, 2011

The Great Indian Circus


Last few months had witnessed several corruption charges against many politicians from various political parties across the country. For a change, there have been some cases against left wing parties as well!

As a most common citizen of India, I am surprised (or not surprised) at the fact that all these scams are breaking out after it had occurred and there’s no proactive action from any Government since ages…!

This brings out the following points which should be food for our thoughts…

1)     The scams happen deliberately without any fear of neither social nor judicial consequences as people behind such scams are veterans in their job and quite seasoned enough to use their positions and clout to cover it up!
2)       This also indicates at the fact that there shall be much more such scams which happened and got buried under the power of influential interventions.
3)     How many ever cases happen, how many ever commissions are engaged to enquire, nothing changes….?! In fact, these commissions & JPCs are additional burden to the exchequer! Now, there’s a jumbo JPC announced for the probe into the 2G scam…? Why these eyes wash? In fact, a survey conducted by the Times of India on whether the JPC will nail the culprits, over 70% responded negative…! This reiterates my point.
4)     Every rupee spent by the middle class (remember the rich and the poor are untouched because rich always had ways to cover up and the poor never had to pay taxes) is actually hard earned and I feel so sorry that all these (Self Inclusive) who religiously pay their taxes are fooled by such actions from these insensitive Governments and the politicos…!
5)   More over, the scams, which had been unearthed are just tip of the ice berg and there may be a scam behind every other Government expenditure!
We boast ourselves as the largest democracy and as a matter of fact we are sitting on top of a boiling volcano thinking that nothing will happen to us! The ‘Jasmine’ revolution had proved that the toughest of the states can be in trouble and it is obvious that there may be a ‘Red Rose’ revolution which may hit our country also, if our Governments, Politicians and the bureaucrats are not sensitive towards the issues of our middle class, which is amongst the largest in the World. No one should under estimate the power it can generate, if woken up..! There were early signals during the post 26/11 attack when people lashed out at the politicians and ministers for their insensitive comics; they had exhibited during the crisis hours. Two Home Ministers (Central and State) and a Chief Minister lost their jobs during that time and number of politicians from various parties were under fire for their irresponsible comments. The irony of our country is that most of them were re-instated at different levels eventually and this shows the Government’s incapability to understand the sensitivity of the people! If they don’t learn from the past and amend their ways, their over confidence on people’s short memory is going to be a fatal error in near future as they will be forced to face dire consequences and it will not be harmful just for these illiterate, cunning and uncouth political species, but for the country as a whole! I had mentioned this in one of my earlier articles published immediately after the 26/11 attack as a reminder to each one of us, who can suggest to those connected with any of us, who are in the ‘business’ of poli‘tricks’!!
However, the abuse of power kept on increasing and it is in such a level that these fools do not realize the danger waiting in the corner?! India is a young country and youth of this nation are becoming more & more impatient, day by day! Of late, I had seen some realization from some of young MPs about this fact and it becomes their duty/ responsibility to be the change agents.
All these divisions conceived, created and successfully manipulated in the names of regions and languages, by those politicians, whose political career had come to an end otherwise, may take us back to centuries behind, when we had multiple kingdoms and counties fighting with each other and made it easy for foreign powers to invade our country many times! We need to visualize the danger ahead and act to resist such deterioration as in the new age, the invasion happens under multiple disguises of geo – political designs..! I request every reader of this article to read through and between the lines written here to understand and imagine the threats ahead…!

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Politics, Corruption, Society and the practices


Couple of days back, I had seen a current affair update, which suggests a reform in political fund raising citing examples of the spread of scams getting unearthed these days. The Times of India, Hyderabad edition carried an ‘Open Letter from the Youth of India’ addressed to Ms. Sonia Gandhi, constructed by Chetan Bhagat, which was also pointing at the expenses of running a political outfit and suggested a transparent system of funding so that these compulsions for impulsive corruption can be eradicated. More over politics should become an interesting profession for educated/ professional youth to enter into, so that it should compensate the efforts of a politician’s services.

I had mentioned a clear thought on the same ground in one of my earlier articles (Our Pseudo Culture & Politics) in this blog and I had categorically mentioned about the disgusting hypocrisy, we as a society exhibit when it comes to politics & morality! Before blaming all ‘Rajas’ and ‘Sukhrams’, each one of us need to look at ourselves for a self-analysis! We don’t mind bribing anybody for getting through our motives and when it comes to an issue, we will hide all that and criticize the corrupt system in length & breadth!! It is actually still more pseudo show, when it comes to morality…! We don’t mind if anybody does anything unethical with a cover and we will have multi-channel discussions on somebody who got caught in the cross fire of the king makers!! Do you think these Ministers are the only culprits behind any scam? Have you ever heard about the former telecom minister, any time before he was made a minister? Prior to his ministerdom, how many from Tamil Nadu knew that which constituency he represented? I mean to say that these insignificant individuals are only pawns in the hands of many ‘Larger than life’ King Makers!! We as a society will make huge noise over somebody appears with his would be wife and discuss it as if he had done a crime and we would conveniently ignore the facts about many big time ‘immoral rogues’ of tinsel town and those politicians who have multiple wives, when our law terms having multiple partners as illegal! We don’t have a problem…! Why there’s a selected interpretation on such aspects as per our convenience? The answer is simple…we just don't think and the media can trigger and drive this mass euphoria about anything, these days!!

To get rid of the embrace of these series of scams & corruption, we as a society need to get out of our hippocratic thought process and pseudo practices. There should be a reform in the political process by limiting the number of political parties and there should be a legal fund raising process and a practical, contemporary and transparent expenditure policy. These are not rocket science to understand, as it had been successfully implemented in many other countries with robust economies. When we make such a huge hue & cry of the looted money parked in foreign banks and tax havens, we should also realize that parts of these funds re – appear during our elections in ‘black’ formats. As rightly suggested by Chetan Bhagat, we need to be pragmatic about the election expenditure and cannot live in 1970’s expense portfolios and close our eyes to say it is completely dark everywhere!

Every one of us should contribute towards this by correcting our own thoughts and practices to avert the big danger awaiting all of us ahead, if this social beast is not tamed. You witness the sea of changes across the world and with geo-political forces working in tandem that can sweep our nation as well sooner than later! I call upon every politician to understand the danger and act sensible to refine & reform as one can’t fool all the people, all the time!