Hindustan Times
Who will nail the corrupt? The public
A month back we saw countrywide demonstrations against corruption at high places. Now Anna Hazare is going on a fast to highlight the growing menace. And going by the flood of organizations being floated all across the country to combat corruption, Hazare is likely to get an overwhelming ‘moral’ support. Though not many are likely to skip their meals along with him.
Finally corruption is becoming a public agenda though till some time back the literate and the illiterate, the rich and the poor, had unfortunately started accepting it as a part of the ‘rotten’ system. I remember a minister telling me some years back, “I prefer a progressive but pliable bureaucrat than a rigid honest babu as the latter would either waste time in hunting for flaws in the old orders or sit indefinitely on the files for months. After all my constituency expects me to deliver – and that too fast.”
Over the last few years’ politicians in states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar developed a system where all shared a pie in the cake — those who opposed were dubbed, even proved, corrupt. However, as corrupts’ belly continue to balloon, we do see the famished hands rising slowly in protest.
However, I am still not sure whether corruption would eventually turn into an electoral issue or a nationwide public campaign. But hope is there, especially now when you do witness uproar (more in media right now) over recent scams. Are our politicians actually rattled? The other day someone asked me, “Do you think corruption is strong enough an issue to uproot the government? Public is on a warpath in various countries – against dictatorship, nepotism etc, Can it ever happen in India?”
Perhaps not, because we are still a democratic country and we do get an opportunity to vote against the government or the party we find corrupt or incompetent. Secondly, when all parties seem to be sailing in the same boat, what options are we left with? While addressing a meeting organized by the Election Commission on voters’ participation in elections in Feb in Delhi, former President Kalam recounted questions that students ask him like: How can we elect a good human being? How do I know the person I vote for would actually deliver?
In his typical style Kalam said, “There is no reason to lose hope. I have voted eight times in general elections and none of them have ever been elected.”
Then he said, “I have met 11 million youth in a decade’s time. They want to be proud of their nation. They want to see their elected members as their role models.” Though he thereafter skirted the issue to state funding etc, his message, if I understood correctly, was clear: Public pressure on public representatives to perform or perish. And the hope comes from the fact that public has finally woken up from a deep slumber.
The bugle has been sounded.
(12 votes, average: 4.92 out of 5)
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sunita Reply:
March 30th, 2011 at 1:05 pm
Amitabh
You know children can actually check combat corruption by first checking their parents.
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