On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Venkat Mangudi <[email protected]> wrote: > . wrote:
> 5 bucks per day? No wonder they don't care. I am fairly certain they can > cover the fine and more with the kickbacks they earn. RTI fine is a joke. Most fines in our country ARE a joke; it's an added incentive, I feel to break the laws. > Wish I could do something about > it, but I am selfish in more ways than one to be able to set aside some > time to take action. I, like many others, am just wringing my hands and > crying "what a shame". It's sad, really. Maybe once I overcome my > commitments I could devote time to the social cause. Ah. Here, in a few sentences, we have an explanation of why social initiatives and voluntary activities don't work on a sustained basis in India. (And very few of us put it so honestly as Venkat has done.) Each of us is fighting our own battles on various fronts, to get ahead in our lives and careers. Every morning, I do not know if I will have electricity, water...whether the creaky infrastructure that keeps my life going will work, or at what points it will break down...and what sudden measures will have to be adopted to patch up and keep going. I think the strength of basic infrastructure could be one reason that so many Indians abroad do find time to volunteer for a lot of social causes. Apart from this, of course, is the general feeling that the corruption is so bad (generally true) from the grassroots up, that fighting the system for change is just not possible. After several years of voluntary work, I have to agree that most of the time, it is heart-breaking, frustrating, and often ends in failure. (Eg. about fifteen years ago, for a whole year, we fought to keep Commercial Street, a shopping area in Bangalore, free of cars, and a pedestrian-only zone, with a shuttle operating every ten minutes. It was some of the shopkeepers themselves who mightily undermined this effort, and got traffic back into the narrow street.) I *am* a person who felt that I had met my commitments; my daughter was grown up and gone, we had settled down for good in one city (Bangalore)...and I threw myself whole-heartedly into civic issues (apart from my usual voluntary work trying to make a difference to "special" people)...almost gave up using my car, adopted "green" practices..... But the point is, after many years, I have not been able to make a change...in fact, I have been associated with spectacular failures like being unable to save a single one of those majestic trees on Seshadri Road ( 50-year-old trees were felled to widen the road so that MORE traffic can flow in, and choke the roads and air further, without the trees to act as a carbon-dioxide filter.) If I go to attend a hearing at Vidhan Soudha against tree-felling or lake privatization, that's the entire morning or afternoon gone, especially if it means taking the bus...Going by bus from X to Y means I must budget two or sometimes two and a half hours for the journey. Which working person can spare this kind of time? So...as a "green" activist, and as a "concerned" citizen of a city that is collapsing under corruption and inefficiency...I cannot blame the Average Citizen for not caring, or rather, caring but not wanting to do much about it. Well, there will, thankfully, be many people who have both the time, enthusiasm, and inclination to try and make changes...but don't judge the people who are not able to, or willing to, get into this. I wonder why I suddenly burst out like this...! Oh well, let it stand. Deepa.
