In democracy there are Good leaders, Corrupt Politicians, few frustrated people, the indifferent and the greedy people.
Good Leaders: want a better country, better system and a good society to live in. But the problem is these people are few and less influential than the rest of the leaders. As most times they lack support of the bureaucratic community. The bureaucrats do not support such leaders for their own narcissistic reasons and secondly for fear of all the corrupt leaders for whom they are a rubber stamp to wealth. Bureaucrats have a choice help the corrupt get rich while becoming rich in the process or get stuck is an endless rut of transfers or less influential, low profile jobs. Most chose the obvious.
Corrupt Politicians: They are everywhere. The good part is most leaders are into politics either for it’s a medium to make money fast and already rich leaders are in for more and the power. They naturally do not care about the country or the people they care about the money. While in the process of making money some good they do for the country, that much credit I do give them. Lets face the truth, countries that have grown rapidly to development are mostly were mostly ruled by another nation examples: Germany and Japan after WW2, South Korea, Hong Kong (though not a country), etc. As I had written in my pervious blog how democracy is a perfect model for corruption.
Few Frustrated People: These are a few educated people who are frustrated at the whole system. Few good meaning industrialists, who face tough times getting approvals. Very, very few Middle class and upper middle class people who are just frustrated at paying tax which eventually end up making politicians rich. And the fact that not much is getting done in terms of progress. Yes there are fewer in the few who do care and fight against corruption with rallies and campaigns. Which at time topple government and lead to resignation of leaders who eventually get re-elected to another position in the next government. These few revolutionaries are future aspirants to the throne of politics (whose faith is eventually that of the good leaders) or victims of corrupt leaders.
The indifferent: Ya! most of us fall in this group. We just want to carry on with our lives. We know the system is dirty, we know things don’t get done easily out here. All we want is to go home and carry on with our life. We want the system to change and we occasionally raise a brow here and there but we do not want the hassle. We pay our bribe and get the our work done; who has the time and patience to follow-up and fight; pay up, be free and go home early for that cup of tea. We know our vote makes a different but we just don’t care. Our lives have enough worries as it is.
The greedy: They vote the corrupt and they have a reason to vote. 500 bugs, bottle of rum some free worthless goodies, a job promise or something where they benefit personally. Sometimes yes they get a parks made with huge statues or names of cities and airports changed, that help the society develop. And overall more reservation for deprived communities depriving the hardworking deserved. But the good part is they don’t fail to vote.
So what can we do? A lot!! like take out solidarity candle light campaigns but not vote; send sms to TV channels saying we do not support corruption but not report occurrences you see in front of your eyes. Watch a shame-less girls dance to vulgar lyrics and “cool” dudes insult contestants telling them why their life is worthless, than watch rambling political discussion. Be patriotic on world cup matches, 26th Jan and 15 August and then tell everyone around you how worthless this country is and how you want to settle abroad. We are the people who would rather pay 50 bugs bribe for a traffic offence than pay the fine money. Sometimes I wonder of those thousands who supported lok-pal bill how many did actually know what it is?
In the end everyone has a lot more to worry about in their lives than a country of more than a billion.
Cheers,
Ninad Dighe.
