ONE MAN WITH COURAGE MAKES A MAJORITY
The country has been consumed by a popular opinion against corruption and the masses have united in solidarity, like never before, under the morally inspiring leadership of a believing Gandhian. He has given an effective and purposeful direction against this National scourge. Following which, the helplessness and consequent frustration of the people against this pervasive malaise in our society and public life, has emboldened Civil Society to stand up as one against the might of the Government and coerced it to substantially and meaningfully act against it. In a representative democracy such as ours, the Parliament is the highest forum of public opinion within the Country. It is indeed a travesty of our democracy that over the years this institution has been subverted by the politicians who constitute it. This is evident from the fact that even with the Constitutional authority reposed with it, the sufferings of the people in this regard has not been mitigated and corruption reached its zenith in the recent past. The vicious cycle of financial and positional corruption always has its epi centre in the office of a Minister, Politician and its supportive bureaucracy. That, this insidiously affected the lower executives, functionaries and officials in our federal system of governance is an unfortunate reality, which is brought about by the disgusting and shameful greed for money--- by the people’s representatives, the much denigrated Politician. The Country’s public working environment, which is mandated to provide service to the citizen and the tax payer has become vitiated, and its morality is unscrupulously assailed and eroded. National Character has become an unfortunate casualty in this immoral matrix of perverse thinking and living.
While public disgust and contempt for the existence of corruption in our social fabric was always there, the Indian psyche was gripped and molded by its inability to fight and stand up against it. Only because, this hydra headed monster had so definitively and substantially permeated into all the pillars of our democracy that, it did not inspire any confidence in the people, of their having even an outside chance to win in the fight against corruption in public life. It had become a fait accompli. The SYSTEM was under attack from decadent thinking, which unabashedly justified the presence of corruption as a necessary offshoot of development and thus institutionalized it. Among other things, politics got criminalized and the presence of money power in elections became a blatant reality. Muscle and money power was shamefully used by politicians to win elections in the Centre as also the States, and thus arrogate constitutional power to themselves. A phenomenal transformation by any yardstick to measure upward social mobility. From a criminal to becoming an honorable people’s representative, in no time. Political leadership of the country had become a mix of some good and others bad and indifferent. The game of Numbers in the Parliament and the Assemblies respectively, to be able to form a government had undermined political morality and given space for corruption to collectively make its presence in these forums of our representative democracy. Horse trading of members became the norm than an exception. With the emergence of regional political parties in the National scenario, which exploited religion, caste and class of the electorate to meet its aspirations and the progressive dilution in the share of National parties in these areas; brought about the political dispensation of Alliances, both in the Lok Sabha and the Legislative Assembly. This gave a free run to politicking and made corruption a willing handmaiden to the compulsions of politics. The political situation became worse and reached its nadir, when the torrent of scams involving Ministers, Politicians, Bureaucrats, Corporate and Tax Evaders often working in silent collusion, during the current regime of United Progressive Alliance II (UPA II) Government spilled out in the public domain and became a huge embarrassment for it.
It was in this ground swell of public cynicism that, a flicker of hope entered into the People’s heart, when the institutions of the Supreme Court, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) exercised their authority and duty to investigate the guilty and bring them to book. The people’s anger against the elected representatives was growing and given a plausible shape, to enact a law which will investigate and prosecute all public servants found guilty of either corruption or else dereliction of duty. The introduction of the Jan Lok Pall Bill in the Parliament and its enactment as law has thus become the instrument for dispensing punishment to the guilty and non performers in public service. Even at this, the Government in an insulting subterfuge upon the people prepared a toothless and meaningless draft of the bill for debate, discussion and approval by the Parliament to become law. This much for the sincerity and commitment of the Government to arrest corruption in public life.
Anna Hazare, the man who is spearheading the movement for bringing probity and rectitude into public life continues to display tremendous intuitive sagacity to pre-empt the Government’s ploy to neutralize the Bill and deflect the public upsurge against corruption. However, the ONE MAN who stands between the Government and their desire to cheat the PEOPLE by ducking behind CONSTITUTIONAL provisions and enact toothless laws is non other than HIM and is the “One Man With Courage ,Who Makes The Majority”.
Brigadier(retd) S D Dangwal,VSM
E-102 Arborea Luxury Homes
Tarla Nagal
Dehra Dun-248001
Uttarakhand
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