Message: 5 Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2011 08:54:40 +0530 From: "U. G. Barad" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Subject: [Goanet] Fighting Corruption begins by reporting Corruption and not by these hunger fasts. Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
On this thread, an article titled "Does Anna's Civil Society Represent the Nation?" by Madhu Chandra was posted on Goanet. Perhaps the author's main point can be summarized in the last para of the article, namely: "Therefore, I reserve my rights to refrain from this civil society, if Team Anna remains silent spectator on issues of caste, communalism, rights of minorities and the rise of fascism." I think the society handles multiple issues at any one time. Some people take one issue, while others will take up another. This does not mean that if one takes up a particular issue, he should be asked to take other issues simultaneously. If this is the criteria, then NO issue will be tackled. Corruption is an issue on which the people are extremely agitated more because of surfacing scams after scams. This does not mean that it is the ONLY issue that agitates the society. Best regards, U. G. Barad My comments: There is undeclared Apartheid in India. While the scheduled caste privileges were extended to Sikh dalits in 1956 and Buddhist dalits in 1990, they have been denied to Muslim and Christian dalits, which account for nearly two-thirds of the 27 million Christians in India. Christians account for 2.3% of India’s 1.2 billion people. So it is justifiable that even this Undeclared Apartheid should go along with all types of corruption. People sometimes voluntarily bribe to get the work done, to avoid inconvenience. For example, I will pay an official handsomely just to approve what ever my application is. I will readily pay Rs.100/- to a traffic cop to avoid a ticket that will result in visit to the traffic court later on (could be many visits to the court!) How corruption can be avoided ? Below are some examples: (the first one, computerization that I prefer) E-governance is key to ridding corruption. Once everything becomes online, there will be little opportunity for corruption. A perfect example is that of railway tickets. Bribery, or "graft", is a fact of life for more or less everybody in India. Most importantly, people must be self disciplined so that bribery stops. There are no readymade answers but there has to be collective consciousness of what is good and bad. The head of the department must be made responsible if bribery has taken place in his department. Support for Hazare is particularly strong among those who have benefited most from India's recent breakneck economic development but are frustrated by a largely unreformed public sector that delivers poor and haphazard services. Bureaucratic and petty corruption is extreme in India. Others say those who pay the bribes are to blame too. One supreme court lawyer who refused demands for commissions in return for sanctioning payment for work he had done for the government, said giving in to corruption could be down to "deep powerlessness" or simply a "I just want to get on with my day" type of attitude. "As Indians we see corruption as something that permeates our lives, like air pollution, but we need to think much more carefully about it," he said. Raghu Thoniparambil, who runs the website ipaidabribe.com, pointed out that corruption in the private sector was just as prevalent. "All these protests are very inspiring but will people really change? I don't know," he said. Less ambitious and spectacular measures could have more impact than the ombudsman office Hazare and his followers want to create, Thoniparambil argues. Therefore, moral responsibility, a sense of national duty should prevail over the temptation to demand bribe. MD.
