Its been an exciting week for Indians and the Indian media. I have been reading various posts and news articles on whether there is a need for such a protest and whether this will clean up our country? Yes, we do need this movement and no, this alone will not clean up the system. We always had people fight the system, people who wanted to make change, but the voice wasn’t loud enough and we weren’t brave enough. People weren’t united at this level of magnitude to fight corruption. There has always been anger, frustration and the urge to root out corruption, but lacked direction and a united force to make the government listen. It is evident that corruption has hit the grass-roots level when you bribe to get food, water connection, a piece of land, passport or a license, but the tipping point may have been the recent 2G and mining scams. People might not have worried too much as long as their day-to-day life wasn’t affected, but when you have to live at 10% inflation rate and people in power doing nothing to curtail the price rise but go ahead amassing wealth, you have to get mad. But then, what can you do? Just sigh and move on with life. But then, here comes a man, who challenges the government. A voice which strikes a chord, wakes the common man up, and makes him realize on what he wants. What the common man dreamt, fighting corruption, is becoming reality.
The timing of this protest was just right. People are more aware, the current generation is younger. People are extremely eager to make a change in the system and don’t have the “chalta hai”/”this is how it is” attitude, and feel, “we need to do something /have to do something”. No one knew what had to be done and how. People had reached the tipping point and wanted a channel to vent their frustration. In times, when you pay the same price for onions, gas and alcohol, and the person you voted is amassing wealth, you seriously lose it.
Who needs to change? The system alone? No. We all have to. If we need to tackle corruption, we need to get into the habit of saying “NO”. No to bribing anywhere/anyone. I prefer to pay INR 300 for missing a signal, rather than bribe INR 50 to the policeman. Become an active member in politics, not all of us can become politicians, but we can get into politics by becoming an IAS or other government posts.
Anna Hazare’s bill is no magic potion to see a cleaner country in a year or two. But this is a start to an honest expectation of having a cleaner system 20 years down the line. Anna Haazare’s attempt / Jan Lok Pal Bill is one of the methods to tackle corruption, its we who have to change our day-to-day way of life.
The bill may never get passed, reason being the people who pass it would be behind bars. This movement might/might not end up being the second independence struggle, but definitely has enough ammo to be the second Indian Rebellion. With the second sepoy mutiny happening, how far can independence be?
waseem saifi
January 23, 2012
curreption a need or a habits