26 August 2011

Opposition to Anna's movement

The opposition to Anna's movement seems to be based on two main points (I welcome more from my readers):

1) How can a common man (just a civil leader) be better than the the elected representatives?
2) This protest is causing loss of man hours and disturbance in the peaceful Indian society.

Isn't it funny? 64 years of democratic government became oblivious to common people's difficulties and aspirations causing a 78 year old man to take up the job of setting up a proper regulatory system. He, without any major financial or political clout, set out to do the needful. Public support has been spontaneous, not the type the political parties garner by distributing cash or bottles of desi sharaab. Public support has come from all walks of life, region and religion. That's the beauty of this movement.

Yet some feel the entire thing is wrong!

What are the alternatives?
Keep on living in a decaying and decomposing society where only the bastard children of corruption and greed become powerful?

When crores of people watch cricket matches for hours or even days on end, is it not a massive wastage of man hours?
What do the common man, the public gain by watching some people playing with a stick and a ball and earning millions of dollars?
Why do this self-proclaimed intelligentsia not shout from their rooftops, as they are doing now, that this is disturbing the Indian society?

May be because, the cricket matches help the corrupt polticians, rich businessmen and movie actors earn millions of dollars. These are the people who have kept these pseudo-intellectual people alive, isn't it? The common man has no time to listen to the rantings of people like Arundhati Roy. They are too busy earning their bread. It is the rich and corrupt people who pretend to keep the glorified literary halo alive. And hence, it is but natural that these so called proponents of right thinking in India have been so critical of a righteous man's effort to bring about a long-overdue change.

25 August 2011

Corruption and India

Corruption has always been the Indian way of Life ... blame it on poverty, or religion, or the big gap between available resources and huge population ... whatever is the cause, Indian culture has never been that of upholding righteousness ... it has always been a very "chalta hai yaar" and "compromise kar lete hain" attitude.

What makes the last 15-20 years different from the period before that is the SCALE of corruption. Be it politicians or bureaucrats, their greed and avarice has now crossed all bounds and sense of logic.
What is simply illogical is the amount of wealth they are hoarding up in swiss banks. What happens to this money when they die? They may not be able to utilise even 10% of what they have hoarded up, and yet they go on amassing huge amounts of wealth.

Earlier corruption was a way to live a better life. It is no more so. Now it has become some kind of obsession, some kind of mania, sickness.
We have elected mentally sick perverts to our parliament or legislature.

Ultimately, of course we the voters are to be blamed. We always have a colored glass on our eyes. The color of religion, caste or regionalism.