The Third World: India (Part II)

Corruption

lets look at it from a kind side. Its not that we love to loot our motherland. Its not that we're not patriotic.

We love our land.

 We're Indians.

We're proud Indians.

But this feeling fails to show itself. It remains limited to our hearts and thoughts.

We never have our ‘loving nation’ at the back of our mind when we bribe the officials and get away from the penalties.

I drive 20 minutes to get to my classes everyday.

At every alternate square I can see a bike person convincing a constable holding a ‘Chalan book’ in his hand to get the matter sought out on the spot. No one gives it a thought of what example are we setting for our fellow country men and young generations like ours.

Trying to be kind, let’s look at the reasons that cud lead to such corrupt minds around us. Our country is not ‘just another poor nation’ striving to break the shackles and reach the top

Our nation is still a golden bird. Just that our vision has changed.

One of my books rightly quotes, “Indian is a rich country where poor people live”

That’s the problem. Our country is rich but it is us who are poor. We fail to think BIG. We fail to have a generous heart. We just get tempted more or should I say we just greed for more.

MK Gandhi rightly said: your land has enough for your needs but not for your greeds

Getting tempted for more and more only leads to a corrupt economy. An economy where rich people keep getting richer and poor people keep getting poor

The movies like Guru show us a nice reason for people to be corrupt.

Recalling the thing, a guy comes up from no where, wants to be A BIG MAN. But he cud see all the doors were closed and they were only  open for rich brats the ones who cud afford to have a big heart coupled with a deep pocket and cud throw biscuits at every dog that came into there way  of becoming richer.

Such conditions make one corrupt.

Guru senses the things around and learns to feed the dogs.

Becomes big….bigger with time and then aims for biggest

People compare the story of this film with the life of Shri. Dhirubhai ambani. If ever Dhirubhai didn’t think big and learn the art, he could have a died a petrol pump attendants death.

But he died a death leaving an empire for his sons. Today his son Mukesh ambani is on the verge of becoming the world’s richest guy.

What do we learn?

Was Dhirubhai or should I say Gurukant Desai wrong?

I don’t think so.

The culprit is the system

A system that doesn’t allow u to prosper. It only allows the rich to get richer

We have to get rid of this system before the tiger we’re riding becomes unstoppable. May it become impossible to get down with out getting eaten by the tiger we’re riding.

We are moving towards a corrupt India

Who makes India corrupt?

It’s our leaders. The policians, the guys sitting in the parliament doing nothing, but wasting OUR CRORES.

We are not blind

They say ‘yeh public hai ye sab jaanti hai’

Rightly so.

We do wake up and change the govt. by voting the other guys in. but what happens next?

We again get back to our 5 years long sleep.

Again after 5 years… we try n recollect who got elected last time and did what?

On every single ‘nukkad’ people comment about the politicians, share a laugh and go to sleep

Next day, it’s voting day. A holiday as declared so that the people come ‘in numbers’

But we are ‘poor’ Indians. We enjoy the holiday while a part of us go ahead and cast their vote

All done, a new govt. comes into rule; an opposition is formed too as given in our ‘great’ constitution.

The ‘janta’ having got back to sleep, the very first thing the new minister does is eliminates ALL  the policies and reforms started by the previous minister, be it for the nation, be it for the people, be it for respect or maybe for his own pockets. They all are scraped

New policies which are claimed to be better are installed. We Indians take all the time in the world to bring them into action. BUT before we get used to them, someone has already replaced our very own elected minister. And we realize that okay, 5 years are complete.

And the cycle continues.

We don’t even give a damn to what’s happening in and around our economy and what do we claim?

God-we-are-so-patriotic.

The problem lies not in one area. It lies right from the roots till the very top.

Right from municipal elections or gram panchayat elections till the very big KURSI at the top. In NEW delhi as we like to call it

The problem not only lies in the public sector as I’ve mentioned but also the private sector.

“We are the youth

We are the ‘gen-X’

We’re competitive

We wanna be at the top

No matter how”

This attitude is the very problem

Earlier I quoted an example of a student bribing the school peon and the principal of the very same school bribing the education board officials

It’s the very same reason

The student wants to be at the very top.

And the principal too wants the school to get highest no. of students getting admitted in the next academic year

We are gen-X

We cannot see our fellow colleagues to do well or should I say ‘to do better than us’

That’s the reason that drives us into corruption

We are gen-X

We know we got to reach office at 10 am and it takes 15 mins to reach

Still we only leave for office not before 9:50

What’s the consequence?

We break the signal, a constable catches us. And we sought out the matter ‘on the spot’

Here, it is us in most of the cases who play the role of ‘encourager’ we wanna reach the office at the earliest so it is WE who propose them to accept the bribe.

All this was just the encourager side of the “transaction”

The acceptor side is interesting too.

Not necessary the constable always be the acceptor

Sometimes they play the role of encourager by accusing us of fictitious charges that we are being “chalan”ed

Things are complicated

There are n number of reasons

N+n number of consequences

Very less number of solutions

WELCOME TO INDIA

INCREDIBLE INDIA, AS WE LOVE TO CALL IT

The Third World: India (Part I)

We live in India, a nation known as The Third World. Why are we called The Third World?

Probably because there are things which will have certain consequences in The First World, some opposite consequences in the Second and some 'outstanding' consequences here. Let me put forth an example.

We recently had CWG games at Delhi (New Delhi as they like to call it). In The First World, let us assume that EVERYTHING must be going alright- the planning was rational, the budgets were accurate and the most important thing, execution was perfect. In The Second World, let us assume that people were corrupt and the games did not go well. As a result of which, the guilty people were punished.

But we're talking about The Third World. The story begins now (as far as I know): We got the hosting rights traditionally through voting by several other commonwealth members. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Commonwealth_of_Nations)

I have heard that the story had started with corruption and we were on the "encourager" end, as I call it. I don’t think we have a reputation of an infrastructure as good as the other members; we never did. The game started with our people bribing other members to vote in our favour. Fine, you may call it "patriotism" from one angle, but that is just the beginning. People all over the nation were happy that finally we may see a better reputed nation and we may be able to show to the world that, yes, we have all what it takes to host 'big things'.

The planning started. A budget of 100 crores was expected to be enough. As we all know the man, THE Mr. Suresh Kalmadi, President of IOA, was given the charge. Trying not to elongate this story, towards the end of the preparations, the story was far beyond one could have ever imagined in their wildest of nightmares.

Expected to be a 100 crores, the official expenditure was around 11,500 crores. But around 80,000 crores were estimated to be spent. Yes, you read it right. 80,000 crores. And so the money kept going down the corrupt drain. All fingers pointed towards Kalmadi sir. But he was just a pawn.

Let me give you another small example. We have an international cricket stadium known as Ferozeshah Kotla stadium in New Delhi itself. It was modernized at the cost of mere 85 crores. The state-of-art stadium in Nagpur was built at 84 crores. Building a new stadium cost just 80 crores but renovating the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium cost 961 crores. The figures speak for themselves, don’t they?

(ref: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/CWG-scam-New-stadium-costs-Rs-84-cr-JLN-renovation-Rs-961-cr/articleshow/6254491.cms)

(http://www.mumbai-central.com/nukkad/oct2010/msg00011.html)

ALL said and done, the games were over and the sportsmen gave us some reason to be proud of. But the corruption could not be overlooked.

Getting back to the point, welcome to The Third World, India. The guilty people did what they had to- filled their pockets. The Swiss bank accounts are sparkling better than ever, I guess, and the people are as free as a bird in the never-ending sky.

Corruption.

This was just one among crores and crores of examples. We live in India. Here, corruption starts from the very roots. Right from an expecting mother getting labour pain, till the last rites are performed, we keep on 'living a corrupt life’. An excited dad bribes the ambulance guy so that he overlooks the other emergencies and attends him. After the death of the same child at the 'grandpa age', the ambulance guys still asks for 'kharcha paani', even though the  ambulance is run by a social service organization. Right from a child bribing the school peon to let him cheat, up to the principal of the same school bribing the education board to enlist his school as "100% results", corruption is everywhere.

WELCOME TO OUR VERY OWN "THIRD WORLD".

After two years of the Mumbai attacks, the safest person on earth is Kasab. This is not just a sms, its reality. One of my teachers claim that he is going to live at least a decade or two until he is 'practically hanged'.

That is India for you.