Who am I?
I am a citizen of India with no proof of identification except my Pan Card. I have no voter’s id card and hence have not voted yet even though I am 23 years old. Hence I am an irresponsible Indian citizen as I have not completed some of the duties of an Indian citizen.
How much does corruption effect me?
Well, to be honest, corruption is something that does not hurt me much at personal level. I mean, as a middle class man, I do not usually interact with government officials. I guess, the only time I have to interact with them is when I need these necessary documents like passport, ration card, driver’s license.
The only other time when I will have to interact with government officials is probably when I buy a vehicle or a house or land for myself. Even in such cases, there are many agents who will do the dirty job of interacting with the government officials and get my work done. Overall, in all such cases, I can easily get my work done by throwing some money on agents. As a middle class man, I can easily afford it and hence there is no real impact at my personal life.
Then why?
Fame: Yes, this is probably one of the reason. I mean, clearly there is a huge publicity of this issue and by taking part in such highly publicized issues, I am bound to get fame. Probably in my facebook profile or through my twitter profile. Who doesn’t like few likes from friends out of which hopefully some will be females. After all, most of the things people do nowadays are for facebook likes and comments.
I do have around 700+ friends in FB and hence a huge number of people as audience. You never know which female starts liking you just due to your status messages. Havnt there been love stories that happened over facebook.
Money: Na. I will not gain any money by supporting this issue and I guess nobody is actually making any money from it other than media.
Networking: Yes, this can be another reason why I am going there. Such events produce a great chance of meeting new people with similar interests and growing your professional network. Also since the people there are also probably for the same causes, it easily allows you to mingle with them.
Corruption: Is this a good enough reason to support Anna Hazare and his campaign?
The amount of corruption cases that have come forward in last 1-2 years is enormous and imagining the things the government could have done for the people, had that money been properly channelized really makes me angry. I mean, yes, this government has been elected by the people for the second time to the power and hence that means, the people had lots of faith in them. That doesn’t mean no voices should be raised against them when so many corruption cases are coming to light and so little is being done by the government to punish the guilty.
There has been never a sincere effort to punish the corrupt in India and none of the government which had come to power ever tried to implement laws which will punish the responsible. The lokpal bill itself has been in the parliament for around 42 years and none of the government has been willing to pass this bill for the obvious reasons.
Again, though we can have huge confidence over the elected members in the parliament, will they actually pass a law that curbs their power and put checks over themselves. Obviously only this type of movement will only force the parliament members to pass a strict lokpal bill.
