There generally exist general consensus among general people on general topic,one such general topic is corruption amongst politicians. Corruption is defined as use of public office for personal gains, this definition excludes corruption by private persons. What, if, to avoid traffic challan I offer Hawaldar a fifty rupee note or Travelling ticket examiner a hundred bucks. Am I not indulging in corruption. Many give excuse that they bribed because the hawaldar accepted their offer, it can be other way round, the Hawaldar accepted because you voluntarily offered. What stops us from paying full fines, its the corrupt corner of our soul that resides in all of us(though it may not be in you, but I am sure it is in me). Its equally true that many times we are compelled to pay bribe for getting a legitimate thing done, in these instances we are victims of corruption. Thus it can be concluded that there are three corners of corruption:
A corner occupied by an active agent of corruption.
A corner occupied by passive agent of corruption.
A corner on which a victim is forced to stand.
Very rarely a middle class citizen takes the victim's corner, its only when he is standing in this corner he complains about corruption, cries on apathy of elected officials, curses the country.Why were we mute when we occupied the other two corner?
The answer is given by Darwin.
Its an innate tendency of an individual to seek for ways to gain reproductive advantage over another so that the better gene survives. So this tendency is
innate its god gifted and we should respect this ability of ours. Had this tendency been not there
then right now you would have been sitting on some tree full and eating lice ...
Its not possible to find a gene which is not concerned about its own survival if you find one then believe me its definitely not the human gene. I am of the opinion that its not easy to find an honest, impartial, accountable, transparent man, but its easy to build a impartial, transparent, accountable office or institution. Many believe that govt leadership shapes the nation, but why do we forget that its the nation that elects the govt. A mirror and transparent glass is same for the blind, so why to take the pain of making govt transparent if we refuse to look through. Having and eye and lacking vision is worse than being blind. Its very rare to find anyone who is not critical of caste and religion based politics, but all these critics readily indulge in hall and progra
mme( Mtech-Btech) based politics. Voting preferences based on anything other than aptitude of candidate is sympotms of ill developed society( I am callinf it ill and not under developed because we are educated). The voting percentage in the best institute of India is merely fifty percent, one reason for this low turn out is decreasing role of elected officials in our daily life. If you accept this reason then we need to broaden you knowledge base, the fact is the food we eat(GM or Organic), the Air we breathe(polluted or fresh), the water we drink(conatminated or safe), the News we read(biased or unbiased) the books we read(photocopied or original).....are all decided by politics. The need is of more politics and fair politics. The election cant be fair if junta is not rational and awake, nation dont run on emotions but it moves on the wheel of rational. However what if junta dont get the oppurtunity to elects its leader, as the often the case has been at IITK. There can be two reason according to me:
The CEO refused to accept the nominations of candidate(I know at least one CEO who has done so) or the responsibilty of that post has been reduced to so little that its not worthy of taking 7 days pain.
Once the most fought post now goes unopposed, thanks to bade and buddhe Neta, the bade and buddhe neta felt that people are not wise enough to elect cul secy who can appoint a responsible and accountable festi cordi (if you support the bifurcarion of responsibilty read public administration topic- unity of command in organization).They consider their judgement to be better than the wisdom of 5000 junta. After all they have spent more time than all others in the campus. I dont blame the bade and buddhe neta, they only exploited ignorance of the indifferent junta, in past I have also done so(though i was never a neta!!), I dont have any right to question the purity of their's soul when I know that a devil resides in me too. I am only trying to help others in realizing that a devil lies in all of us. In freudian terms this devil is called Id, those who know psychology also knows how to control this devil, this devil can be tamed only by our ego,
(not any more by super ego becoz superego got crystallized when we passed adoloscence), for lay person let me simplify, ego is the reality i.e if i know i will be beaten if i steal then its the ego that is preventing me from stealing. What if I am sure that I wont be caught, will I steal? that depends upon my superego that is moral value and principles.
There are broadly two types of values:
Instrumental values; Values related to mode of conduct that is the path to take for reaching goals, example path of non violence.
Terminal Values; The desired end state, example freedom from foreign rule.
The need of the hour is to build institution which are fair and honest, and gives preference to instrumental values over terminal values. Gandhi said that no
thing achieved through wrong means can be right. I earlier used to held the opposite view.The same things applies in bureaucracy too, now the UPSC is looking for people who are team player and can build institution which can sustain themselves, gone are the days of one man army, its not that K P S Gills are not born any more, the nature of governance has changed, the human rights has become active, now the change has to be through legitimate means only.
As earlier mentioned its the people that makes the institution, govt. Its in our hand to decide the nature of institution that govern us and that can be easily achieved through active and fair participation in politics.
More Politics and Fair Politics
