Anna's Oasis- A Mirage!!

 A TV news channel flashes the news proudly about some school children, somewhere in the age-group of  10-14 protesting and participating in the ongoing protests against corruption led by Anna Hazare and his team. The hysterical news seemed more ridiculous when a set of teachers from the same school applauded the protests by those schoolchildren. Another one showed women from a rural area naming their sons after Anna Hazare. There were many other pieces of news that were reported showing various people trying to grab the media attention in the process of which the news media definitely succeeded in grabbing our attention. It seemed everyone was following Rakhi Sawant’s footsteps to seek attention. And news media and reporters were following the ideology of an ongoing TV reality show, ‘Entertainment Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega’.

I then immediately switched the channel to HBO. But my mind kind of prolonged the effect of inertia. It was still grounded to the same news and didn’t seem to move ahead. After all I’m an Indian too and dream of ‘Shining India’.

The current situation with boneless protests seems to share an analogy with the one where a person takes shelter under a plastic bag or a sheet when suddenly caught in an unprecedented thunderstorm.

 The point is that people’s enthusiasm and will to fight corruption is laudable. The unrest in the people is no longer swallowed by them to fill their stomachs. They seem to have realized that discontent within themselves is not going to fill their stomachs or fulfill their ambitions. It is time they are fed with something substantial and helpful. But then again they are fallen into trap  by getting misled that the Lokpal Bill and the road that they have taken will suffice their needs.

How many people participating in the protests actually know what Lokpal Bill constitutes.? How many of these people actually know about their constitution and various  provisions under it?

I was reading an article in The Indian Express, which centralized the ongoing protests around a famous idiom, i.e, prevention is better than cure. And that the Lokpal Bill will only help curing the disease of corruption to some extent and not really preventing it.

I was having a discussion over the ongoing protests with a wise (which is my perception) friend of mine during which I asked him that why the private sector in our country is more progressive than the public sector. Since liberalisation in 1991, our country has tasted a remarkable economic growth. And we ascribe this growth mainly to the private sector. May be the answer lies in the statement that mostly people working in private organisations work more sincerely than their counterparts in public sector. And so another question arose that why such difference is prevalent at all? And the answer was that may be the lack of timely appraisals and fixed appraisals(mostly with a minimum time range of 5 years) in public sectors lead to slipshod attitude towards work which gives rise to ‘chalta hai attitude’ which in turn gives rise to indifferent attitude towards their work which finally leads to unproductivity or inefficiency or corruption or all three of them.

We already have a fantastic constitution. Though one also requires proper functioning of it. And this is where the problem arises. We do not really need a separate statutory body to look into the grievances of all sorts prevalent in our society. We have an existent judiciary system and our constitution has the provisions of amendments. Most of the salient features constituting Lokpal Bill that is making it sell like hot cakes can actually be integrated in our current governing system. Our judiciary system can further me bolstered to check corruption in various sectors of our society. The criminal trials can be fastened. Let’s make better and more rampant the usage of RTI (Right to information act). We can try to better our education system by initiating ITS(Indian teaching services) as proclaimed in a movie named ‘Aarakshan’. There are so many other things that can be worked upon to attain fruitful(sweet and non-decaying) results.

The idealogies behind the bill are right but the methodology is wrong.

We are a democratic nation. But then what if one day we, the common people start marching in protest demanding right to decision-making in the Indian Army. I know the idea sounds ridiculous and is a perfect analogy to the current scenario.

How can we get a solution without identifying the problem. The solution to the problem definitely does not lie in shaving the problem everytime it rises. We have to pull it out with its roots. We know that population is the major hindrance in the development of our country. How many people participating in the protests believe in ‘Hum Do Humara Ek’  ('one child ') policy?

Issues like population control and adult literacy have to be looked upon more seriously. There are so many issues which have to be dealt with separately and effectively in a vast country of ours.

The mindset that youngsters today have towards government jobs has to be changed. Why is it that we relate government sector with dullness and private sector as a more happening thing?

The Anna Hazare campaign is trying to remind the unfairness which we have suffered for decades in the hands of corrupt officials. It is seemingly showing an oasis in a desert like situation. But the fact is that it is a mere mirage and we have fallen for it and have trodden our steps towards an unrewarding journey. At the end of it we’ll end up feeling more thirsty.

“Be practical..!!”, is a famous phrase that we youngsters use in our daily life. Many of us end up making it synonymous with the phrase“chalta hai” (“It’s OK”), which is certainly not being done by me right now. I really mean when I say, “Be practical”.

If one’s wish is to relish one’s eyes with ‘Shining India’ , then let us convert this protest into a more meaningful one with clear and deep rooted objectives which would automatically sweep the weeds off our fecund soil.

Let’s not use the childish toddler machinery in which children just throw a question mindlessly on their less dominating peers saying, “tu meri team mei hai ya uski?”(“are you in my team or in the other’s?”) which forces the innocuous tamer children into undesired polarised groups.

I’ve been getting many sad messages demanding(yet another demand by the people) to forward the same messages on the current protests to help Anna win his battle. Many of these messages are made mawkishly sentimental by concatenating the issue of Kasab’s pending death sentence!! They end with a notorious line saying, “I did my job…”

 Well my job is of a perennial nature which will go on to remain a responsible Indian citizen.

And I would rather end my post with “Jai Hind..!!”

Image source: http://www.petehobden.com/2011/02/people-in-crowd-tourist-trap-painting.html