I have been following the annahazare protest and its the buildup for the past two days. And definitely it is not anymore an anna fast! Just look at the crowds that have come out on the streets in different parts of the country, it is clear that the people of this country are frustrated with the no-action policy of the government.
These protests makes me ask a simple question? Is it only corruption that this protest is about? Is it only the fight to gain our democratic rights that the protest is about? It is definitely much larger then that...Looking at the way the government has responded to the various scams that have been committed in the last two decades, people's anger has been growing!! Let it be 2G, CWG, Adarsh or the yet to come out Krishna-Godavari gas scam the government's response is to save the guilty.
People are frustrated with politicians in general. The politicians are looting people in all levels. It starts from captation fees that we have to pay for our kids to get admitted in pre-schools to get a seat. Ya in chennai the captatition fees for prekg varies is 40K-120K. And guess what many politicians, film-stars have started their own schools. If we do not want to pay any such illegal bribes we need to get our kids admitted to government schools. All of us know the quality of education we have in these government schools.
the next level is in college..May it be medicine, engineering, arts, science etc, most of the private colleges are owned directly or indirectly by politicians. My cousin scored 1138/1200 and 199/200 in PCB and still couldn't land a seat in any medical college in tamil nadu. In SRCC, Delhi this year the cut off was 300/300..ya, a phenomenal 100%..Till two years back we had 6IITs, 7IIMs, 17 NITs..now this number has doubled..but a little bit scanning the net, you will realize most of these new colleges do not even have a campus....what can people do? how can a common middle class family bear such fees...this is why people are forced to take bribes..
a traffic policeman in chennai has to stand in hot sun all day 365 days a year..and how much do they get paid..a paltry 25K/Month..how can he get his son/daughter educated? It does not make sense..he is forced to take bribe to pay the bribe and fees....I am not justifying this traffic police, but what other way does he have?
Today If some IAS officer wants to maintain law and order in his/her constituency, he has to directly confront the local politicians....for anyone who is following what is happening in madurai, tamilnadu for the last 5 years he will understand what I am trying to say here..
The way forward is much more then lokpal..the whole political class needs to change...I am not a great fan of rahul gandhi, but still I would like to see him take up leadership roles in the present government..the next step would be to ruthlessly punish the corrupted culprits...scams like 2G, CWG etc needs to be investigated by fast track courts and the guilty should be punished asap...even the scams of the past like bofers scam should be investigated..thou this may lead to some top names go behind bars, but ya this will also bring back faith in the political class...here in the present opposition needs to wake up..they cant continue playing politics with the issue of lokpal..they should have their views made public...
Perhaps in the interest of democracy things should change as soon as possible..
I would like to finish with the argument that it is no more about anna hazare..but it is about the people of india adopting annagiri....jai hind...mera bharat mahan...
Shanky has brought out the common man's woes- both that of the bribe giver as well as small-time bribe taker like the traffic police outside your house, very well (and definitely better than the 'aam admi' centric UPA Govt. I support the view that there must be a system change, and I'd like to add that an imminent countrywide attitude change against such practices will have to precede that. But in order to change any system it is important to become a part of it, and this message must go out loud and clear among the protesters of today. Otherwise the only solution would be a coup d'etat, which would be the final nail on the coffin of our democracy that has already been strangled to asphyxiation by its torchbearers inside the parliament!
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