Disclaimer(Alert ) = Serious Post tending towards philosophy.
A great uprising. People say that after freedom fight for the
first time such a fervor has been seen in people of our country. Mood was no
different in campus. Marches, human-chains and fasts. A great scene of social
awakening. To make the stand clear i also am against corruption, well who want.
This is converted into fad. So let’s introspect for a minute what exactly is
corruption? It is what the politicians and people in government do something
like hoarding money, abuse of power and.... all the wrong things. Good
definition. Okay so we are the victims, we are the people suffering from
corruption so the other person is corrupt and not us. But what really does the
"US" consist of. Us is the common man, us is the person who wakes up
every morning to work because he knows he just can’t sit and enjoy the day for
making the ends meet or may be because his boss will be furious if he does not
turn up. ‘Us’ is the person who opens his shop every day and sells good. ‘Us’
is everywhere then who is them. Until a police or a ticket checker does not put
on his uniform he is a part of ‘US’ and as soon as he does he has become them.
This could be fare but going a bit deeper it does not seem totally correct.
Something is wrong... What if we were in the place of that policemen whose
salary is less than a fresh graduate from a college and whose daughter is
pushing him for buying a new dress and his son wants a new bike, he wants them
to have the best of the world but just because he was stuck in a job which he
thought would be good he just can no longer afford to provide them a good
standard of living. Wait may be i am justifying corruption, no i am not i just
want to show the deeper issue in considering a bill passed shall wipe-out all
the corruption in the country. Issue is not about our will to act we surely
will act and stop paying bribes and do whatever it takes on our part. But it is
not an economical issue its more of a social issue and even worst a
psychological issue. I throw a question at you, let say you are stuck on a
platform without a ticket, no train ticket no platform ticket nothing
whatsoever. Your parents, your friends, your girlfriend or say someone
important is waiting for you and this is the last train. The queue is long,
very long. Train is about to leave in 5 minutes. Will you board it or leave
it?? Whatever your answer would be i know the temptation of boarding is
something very hard to resist. Eventually some of you may return but you would
be heartbroken. For those who boarded the train would tap your own shoulder for
pulling off a great adventure of travelling without ticket. One more question,
how many of you will present yourself to the Ticket checker on your own and ask
him to penalize you for what you have done. Even worst you are short on cash
and he tells by law you need to be handed over to police on next station. So
you boarding train was a utterly useless and worse decision than returning. How
are you feeling now? Seems very real situation, one that would have happen to
someone around you. Mostly people would have got off passing down few bucks.
Some people have eventually made it a practice to travel this way, leave alone
travelling people have made corruption a part of life. This people are common
people in and around us, this people are you and me. They are part of this
system. Okay so i have proved the cliché point that we are the part of this
corrupt system. It’s we who have to change to stop it from happening but what
if you knew that the ticket checker needed that extra sum of money from you because
he wanted to pay fees for his children school and he has someone seriously ill
home and he is low on income. Now what? This is turning out to be a tough test.
The issue is not about corruption it’s about the state of affairs. It’s about
so many inter connected things that just concentrating on one and leaving
others to take care of themselves will result in an utter failure of one system
or other. See this is not as simple as it sounds. Now let’s get to one very
subtle point which has been harassing me ever since this corruption struggle
started.
India is economically very diverse country. Few people live in
conditions where getting potable water and one time of food is impossible while
others stay in apartments so large to be called as palaces and have sumptuous
meals cooked in mineral waters. Wait.... i am talking like a communist here but
no i believe in democracy and i trust that’s the way ahead. What my point is
that we pay extra money for getting services and comfort while there are fellow
beings that are living in a pathetic state. Just because we have money to buy
those comforts and it is legal to buy them because it is not called corruption
it is called capitalism. What if putting up AC in your house was illegal because
it takes up too much electricity and there are areas where we do not have
enough power supply. What if maintaining a swimming pool in summer was illegal
because there was not enough water for people to drink in some part of country.
What if during your birthday bash it was illegal to waste food because someone
somewhere was sleeping tonight without having dinner because he could not
afford to have it. Just because you can afford to do it does not mean you
should. I again seem to be taking up a very rubbish topic in a very different
post. But just step back and think. Think about the people below poverty line
in our country. For them we are the corrupt people just consuming all the
resources and making it difficult for them to sustain every single day. What’s
the difference between a politician who wants extra comfort because of his
power and us who want to have special treatment because we have extra money?
Corruption is not then an issue of them it’s an issue about ‘US’. It’s us who
are not just a party to it but a whole and sole part of it.
Think about it??
