I heard in some advertisement -- "India, the land for all seasons. India, the land for all reasons." This sums it all - the land for all reasons. A country rich in cultural and spiritual wealth is once again shaken up inside out by just a handful of sickos. I know we Indians are probably more resilient than anyone else but, that strength to bounce back and resume our lives again seems to be acting against us since we have gotten used to just get up and get back into our day to day lives/struggles until we are punched again in the face.
I can very well imagine Lataji's famous 'Ae mere watan ki logon' being played in every nook and corner and people coming together to light candles and pray for those who lost their lives during the Mumbai terrorist attacks. All this is well and good and probably therapeutic in some way, but let's not stop here and let's think beyond the immediate acts of consolation and support and think about what we can do to prevent this from happening again. If what the media is conveying is true, this time it seems like there is a lot of anger and frustration from the general indian public directed towards the failed political system. Well, again this is fine but, why can't we just stop and think for a while as to what led us to be in the state we are in right now.. how much of this is self-made by each of us and what can we do to change that and help steer India in the right direction. Remember what Gandhi said:
Be the change you want to see in the world
I think one of the most contributing factors is the deep rooted corruption in India that pretty much runs through every walk of life. I was reading what one of the terrorist caught had to say and it strikes me that these guys had such an easy time getting to wherever they needed to. When I read this, I could almost feel the mockery in his voice showing us how easy it is to get by our security and rules.. there was a lapse in the security and procedures after they got into the country by killing few coast guards. Its a huge systemic issue that has been cascading for years and years and often one doesn't even realize where the 'System' ends and where the 'Parallel System' begins. I googled about it and was sad to find this which shows India being in the bottom half of the world in terms of political transparency. This is a problem that is not easy to tackle but, its entirely in our hands to combat. It needs a social grass roots level involvement and commitment to take things in our own hands. Just think about this, if each of us can cut down and eventually stop being part of this 'parallel system', we can eventually eradicate this disease from our society. We just need the resolve and determination to be the masters of our own destiny.
So, how about this as a first step: Lets pick a day, and just for that day - Say no to corruption and lets not be involved in any act of corruption starting from the bribes we indulge in just to get a better berth in train, bribing the traffic police who stops to check the license, etc. I want to pick the day to be December 18th, 2008 to do this.
Why December 18th?: Its Mom's Birthday and so in her honor I want to be part of a positive change and also its enough time to spread the word using all our online and offline networks and build up the scale so we can actually make an impact albeit for just one day. Its atleast one step in the right direction before we make leaps ahead.
So, here it is December 18th, 2008 - National Non-Corruption Day.. Lets do it
3 comments:
Found my way here through linkedin Q&A...
Good rant... With a Police : Citizen ratio is 1:2000, it's futile to expect a third world country cops to deliver. Quite a few police stations have no vehicles, they make do with .303 rifle or worse, lathis to combat AK 47 wielding terrorists, their Radio Transmitters (in this day and age of ubiquitous cell phones and WLL) have no replacement battery and hence they keep it mostly switched off - reserving it for use only on important occasions when the PM or President visits their city :-)
A lot has to change. But then the transparency index ranking is bunkum. Come to think of the trillion $$ bailout endorsed by the Congress (Hank Paulson is still twiddling how to spend that and from where to begin the fix!), what do they call the mass swindle of the tax payers? Aren't they giving the misdeeds of a few wall street charlatans a huge cloak of legitimacy? If that's not economic corruption of the first kind, then what is? Shouldn't America be ranking Z in that index...? Hypocrisy, thy name is whoever authored that index :-)
Good points Krish. I do agree there is corruption at some level in the western world too but, am not sure how much it is ingrained in the day to day lives of the common man. Besides, that is not the point of this post.. it doesn't matter what the rank is but I think we all know corruption is one of the root causes of evil in our society and this is just a small attempt to combat that one day at a time.
My point was not to justify corruption in the third world. My intention was the raison detre of that transparency index. Had they expanded the level of transparency to include sloppy credit rating processes that stamped AAA on toxic instruments backed by default grade mortgages, the regulators that slept till mindless leverage swallowed every bank's networth, folks would not have been staring at fast eroding 401K investments and devastating wealth destruction that got triggered not just in America, but also every country that was tricked into buying $$ assets.
You are right. In the west, corruption doesn't affect the citizen in his day's work. It just mars her in one fell swoop and bingo, it's all vapor. But they still have the chutzpah to point fingers at minions :-)
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