‘Aam Aadmi’ – No spotlights, no camera but oodles of ACTION!

(image courtesy: 'aam aadmi' by R.K.Laxman)
I had decided to post a blog on ‘education and terror’ today but analyzing the reactions to my earlier post; I decided that I may as well channelize my thoughts.

I had comments from various channels and that made me sit back and ‘think’. If we talk about ‘terrorism’ it talks about a certain termite which is licking away the global development in its own ways.

But...

Unfortunately it doesn’t STOP there. There are so many other factors rampant around us that I couldn’t count them on my fingers. Yet, as pointed out by some of my friends, a major one of them is ‘CORRUPTION’. If there were NO LOOPHOLEs; there would be no crack in the wall through which miscreants would enter our state and sabotage it.

I have always heard this quote , “ It is always a rotten apple that spoils a basket of absolutely excellent apples”. True..

“Wednesday’ was an absolutely fantastic flick. It was an ode to the ‘aam aadmi’.
It has been ages since the common man has been exploited, given thousand forgotten promises, kicked around like he was ‘nobody’! He has not been taken SERIOUSLY for a while! In this movie the end proclaims the common man ‘ the best’ in the end.

But it is horrible to even assume that common man has to actually do all that to make himself heard!! He seems to scream at the top of his voice today that ‘enough is enough’.

I want to be secure in my home not scared that the guy who knocks at my door late at night may slit my neck; nor do I want to have a chill run down my spine when I see an abandoned bag in the bus stop. In the movie the common man was recognized and given absolute importance but not as a ‘common man’ rather as a ‘terrorist’.

I do not have solutions nor can I give any, I am a simple human like anybody else and I believe firmly that my solution for a day to day problem may not be the same as anyone else’s. Then again when it comes to the system as a whole I guess I can chip in like anyone else because I am accountable to the system and vice versa as much as Mr.Manmohan Singh.

Corruption is the single reason that the common man rarely gets what he deserves. I have heard the Government announcing a number of plans for the betterment of the people but how many of them actually reach the people? The money gets lost on the way in the hands of million people who aren’t just government servants but also private organizations.

All said and done; Is common man the friend of the other comman man???

I wonder and at times I doubt it.

How many times have people stood and stared at somebody being hit and run by a vehicle and rushed away just because they were getting late for some selfish reason?

How many government servants take bribes just because they aren’t paid well??

How many people do not help others at the time of need just because there was a time when they needed help and they weren’t helped?? Tit for tat..

How many of the people out there who earn five-six digit salaries actually pay taxes??

Sans rare few; I have heard almost everyone around me sculpting ways to EVADE TAX even if their salary is huge or just touching the tax limits.
These are the very people who blame the government, the intelligence bureau and the army.
I guess we believe in ‘the blame game’ a LOT.

I am in no way advocating the cons of the system but wouldn’t it be more responsible if we would be more HONEST??

We dream of a spick span and clean path but we decide to spit there assuming that one spit won’t show on the road. But we forget that we think so alike and when thousand spit; it is a DISASTER.

I won’t use a cliched line like ; ‘we common people can do small things like bla n bla’.

Whatever we do is in no way ‘small’. When attacks happen I have seen people forgetting everything and running around to help others. It feels me with pride at my fellow human.

But on a normal day when something happens why is there such a big misconception that some NGO or the cops alone will save the other man? Why not us?

How many humans have been killed, raped and kidnapped infront of the eyes of many others of the same species??

There seems to be only one question all around us NOW..

What can we do??

Let’s start with the BIG issue. We need a change of system; don’t we?

So let’s all vote! ( I guess by now 49-O issue is resolved). Let us vote for the better man with a better history not on the basis of relegion, caste or bla.. C’mon we were born as such and such because our mom and dad were such and such..We did not even choose our relegion so let’s kick out communalism. We can demand that every part releases the list of minister who will be appointed if the coalition/party emerges victorious. This would help us to evade people like ex-home minister Mr.Patil as we would already know as to who the ministers will be even before we vote.
DONE!

What should one do to stop corruption at the grassroot level?

Be ready for a painfully long ordeal if you have decided to be HONEST but I tell you after you are done, you will be proud.
Do not bribe anyone. When you are asked to pay a fine, PAY IT and DO NOT FORGET to get the receipt. I know the fine is a bigger sum than the bribe but then you are atleast assured that your money ain’t wasted ( ofcourse even taxes aren’t used well but they do have chances to being used rather than a bribe which will go into somone’s personal account)

I read a story on net a while back; a man was suspended from his office for taking bribes and he was thrown out of the city. He settled down on a port on outskirts of the city and started meddling with the ships anchoring there and his bribe season started again.

In the movie ‘Traffic Signal’ I remember the scene where the politician gives off a 500 rupee note to a beggar and laughs quoting that anyway the money will come back to him.

It is a vicious circle. So it is important that one takes care not to TAKE as well as not to GIVE bribes.

Next, remember when a man does his work he is SUPPOSED to do so and is APPOINTED to do it so if he asks a bribe, be ready to COMPLAIN.
Never hand out extra money to any official who is working for something. for e.g – if a passport verification official comes to do his work. DO NOT PAY HIM so that your work gets done FAST.. These are seeds which reap into cacti.

Whenever you are tormented by a product or service, do not hesitate and buckle up and file a case in CONSUMER COURT. And I shall tell you, these courts work pretty fast nowadays.


Whenever you realise than an issue is bothering the public and you will that your hands are tied; do not feel down.
You must have heard about PILS ( public interest litigations). They give every common man a right to file a plea in the superior courts by themselves. Baba Amte and lawyer-environmentalist M.C. Mehta were iconic when it came to such PILs, they have got landmark developmental decisions with the help of PILs.


Whenever you want to know something about any government body which is public; go on and use your ‘Right to information’.

These are certain simple , very simple steps that one could take if needed for everyday corruption.

There are many organizations which help combating corruption. Thanks to the Internet, many are available online.
I have read about a certain online effort called ‘Bhrasht’.
It is a forum where you can report corruption cases, read articles on the topic and discuss related issues. There's also a 'Rogues Gallery' that lists officials from different services including the IAS, IFS, IPS and other public sector enterprises, who are under enquiry of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).
There is another site Corruption eradication, Indiatogether.com and Parivartan.org which works on the same lines.
International efforts include Global Corruption Report, Daily Corruption News, Internet Centre for Corruption Research and transparency.org ( I got all this info from Rediff- courtesy-rediff.com)


Apart from all this we could do things like taking out time to do things like TOI’s initiave ; “Teach for India”. If not that, there are arrangements in India by which straight after completing graduation one can work for two years at the grassroot level’; voluntarily and with just a stipend and later go back to the corporate world. ( I do not know how many people do that)

I remember in 2006 some guys came together with some ideas to curb corruption and they did not know what to do, they wanted to start a media channel but they knew it was costly and needed experience. I guess they went on by shelving that and printing pamphlets and getting it stamped by one person from various communities and then sending them to every household through the newspaper guy. It was a pamphlet which changed Ajmal Amir Kasav’s life. So when it can have such a horrendous effect it could very well help us positively too. I do not know as to how far it went- the mission.

But I personally thing that the pamphlet in newspaper idea rocks.

This is to simply say that we all can start things, it just needs honesty and never say die spirit.I have woken all my life watching R.Laxman’s common man in The Times of India standing silently watching everything around him. But I guess it is time to show that he is silent not because he is dumb but because he is ‘wise’.

I know it is tough but then we always knew that. Didn’t we?