Corruption ,a word which flows like a blood in the veins of every Indian, more so now all thanks to the efforts of no-so-peaceful yet silent agitation by leaders who represent the masses. Indians by now have seen it all, a multi million crore 2G scam, Adarsh housing scam to name a few.Nobody has been spared , be it the armymen, sportsmen or the common man. And who has suffered the most, we the common man. The aam junta, or rather say the part of Indian Society which accumulates to more than 80% of the population, who pays taxes on time(in form of TDS), still file IT returns(that too on time) and yet pay taxes on every damn purchase thereby paying taxes of their already tax axed income. Still no one has an issue over it.Thats because we like a hassle free cosy life, a life where we want clean toilets, roads and environment every day you get up.Obviously opposition,revolutions and agitation never are a part of this life. And still we crib about population, pollution, corruption ,infrastructure or basically about every thing in life and yet don’t do anything to help about it.The maximum we do is write it as a status message of a social network which get a couple of likes and similar comments are echoed by like-minded friends who forget all this ‘aam-janta’ crap by the dusk.
The recent turn of events like ‘Anna Hazare’s fight against corruption’ and the very recent ‘Ramdev baba’ fast campaign made me think, what corruption was, was I involved in prospering it too..was I a part of it too…was I also upset with this so called menace ?..My quest for the answers led to the very source of corruption, from where it emerged and propagates. I wasn’t surprised to know it was us, we the common people, the aam junta who gives birth to corruption or basically every damn thing in this country we crib about.Its basically the price we are paying for the liberties we have so far and continue to enjoy, certain privileges we are so used to that we have somehow started living with it, and have a symbiotic affair with them.
A child never learns corruption when he is born. Its the society who teaches him about it,teaches how to deal with it or rather say compromise and live with it in a mutual understanding.We Indians always want a alternate way of getting things done, a way which is faster,shorter and yeah a bit expensive too.A middle class guy doesnt mind parting with few thousand bucks if it means getting the job done hand-to-hand in a Govt. office.Since people pay and are ready to pay more, they are asked.We always have a deadly tale of how we want things fast and in a hurry.The tale never gets any empathy or sympathy from the people, but becomes the context of paying bribe.We love jumping singnals, driving without proper documents and mostly without a helmet.When caught, we always sort out a common way which means you avoid the penalty and the traffic man is happy too.Slipping a few hundred bucks to get your waitlisted tickets confirmed even before your turn comes up is very common scenario.We love having our friends at work place and hence make a recommendation(read an approach). we term all these as legal and narrate it to our kins and friends with pride as it meant having enormous guts and valor.
Now lets get back to corruption in the system(read Government).What type is it and why people are making a big fuss about it.Someone wanted a 2G license despite of not having fulfilled the pre-requisites.So he found an alternate way, the shorter, faster way, and paid a few hundred crores to get the license.How different is this from a common man slipping a few thousand rupees to the Passport Officer to get him his passport made out of turn.The only difference is the denomination of the transaction.The attempt ,attitude is very same.The common man is angry that the above said scam cost a fortune to the Govt. exchequer, but does he ever know or tries to know what did his action of bribing the passport officer cost to the people who were in turn to get their passport, they had to wait longer.No, i do not intend to support the scams and instead believe to the core that these acts were heist of public money. But what I intend to state and ask is that the common public, who is equally responsible for this tryst of Indina’s destiny, has the right to protest against these. The people who have enraged the common public by looting the country via scams are not aliens, infact they are from our very own society. The only difference is that they had access to money which they could get away with. Perhaps any middle class guy in that situation would love to stash away with a few crores, have an account in Swiss bank , buy a villa in an uptown metropolitan and dream to finally lead a normal, stable life.
Am not against any agitation, protest, demonstrations but I strongly believe that we should look at ourselves while blaming others. One of my friends had rightly said that when you are pointing a finger at someone, your 3 fingers are pointing at you. Even Mahatma Gandhi had said “Be the change you want to see among others”.So lets change the scenario, be truthful, lets not bribe, participate in politics..yeah it’s a cluttered mess, but its we who have to get in it to clear it out and above all “Be Responsible”.
