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Wednesday, August 24, 2011

The Confusion over the Lokpal Bill - Fight Against Corruption in India

Well, I am overwhelmed by the hats with "I am Anna Hazare," painted on them, the flags, the show of solidarity, the streets full of shouting boys and girls, the enthusiasm in their midst. For some time I have been dithering between "Anna is doing something great," and "What's so great about it." All around the world such demonstrations are going on: Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Libya to name a few. The reason is the world is going through a big crisis of greed and embezzlement. People are gathering wealth for wealth's sake without rationale. As Al Gore said, "They consider the world as a business under liquidation," where the idea is to grab as much as they can. They fund insurrections, they fund bloodshed with these blood money. The world is in turmoil today because the greed of man has led him into a one-way street with no exit. The world is dying of global warming, the people are being made the subject of exploitation of corporate entities who think nothing of sending perfectly do-able jobs abroad to cut costs. Well, they cut costs at whose expense and whose gain. I don't know.

I can't make my mind about what's going on in India. The din is too much. Everybody is an expert without reading a word of what the Lokpal bill is all about. Don't show your ignorance, man! Read! We are a people who go straight from praise to adoration and to deification because of our ignorance. I read once that when a youth was asked who is the father of the nation, he replied, "Tagore." The reason why he said this is beyond me. By now some people have attributed divinity to Anna. What else is the meaning of "I am Anna Hazare," if not to deify him. To them I say leave the poor starving man alone, save him from this indignity or his blood will colour your hands. Let not his frail stubbornness be seen as a sign of greatness. After all, he is only the poster boy of the movement against corruption and not the initiator and the ideologue. The main ideologues are Mr. Arvind Kejriwal and the father and son duo of the Bhushans. I still haven't studied the full text of the Lokpal Bills (Both Government version and Anna version, which I had searched and found online).  

I beg you people to study these documents before offering your views. Let's be reasonable and let's not jump to conclusions, as many of us have done. I know it has become an emotional issue. Emotions run deep, as I can see from the slogan shouting (some of which have been drafted by Mr. Kejriwal himself). They are shouting in anger. There's a whole lot of confusion going on. Meanwhile I am reading the two documents linked above to see if I can offer meaningful comment on this blog.

I am @johnwriter on Twitter and John.Matthew on Facebook. I blog here.

2 comments:

naimishika g said...

Thanks for this writing... I am not a fan of Anna Hazare..and I am not agreed with all that issues. But one thing is there corruption in India is in a hike. Yesterday I got a mail said that in 1991 itself Mr. Rajiv Gandhi had 13200 crores in Swiss Bank... so what will be the deposits of his party now in Swiss Bank.

John P Matthew said...

Hi Naimishka, I don't know the exact extent of corruption, but the numbers quoted just boggles the mind. Thanks for the comment. John