Friday 7 October 2011

Corruption and Decay

It's strange how after so much, after so many hunger strikes, and after so many peaceful marches and so many newspaper articles highlighting their putative cause, Anna Hazare and gang finally seem to have got down to brass tacks, don't vote for Congress. Not that I do not share their views, of course. The Congress has to go, primarily because Kapil Sibal is hell bent on destroying the education system, and that just simply cannot be excused. There are a few such people in the politics of this country who would like nothing more than to be the cynosure of the media, even for a few minutes, and this party has more than its fair share. It would be purblind, also, to think that most politicians tend to go about their work quietly, they do not. Politicians are a self aggrandizing lot, with little compunction about blowing thier own trumpet whenever they accomplish something worthwhile. However, to PERFORM the action itself, keeping in mind only the sort of headlines it might generate, is not only pejorative, but also callow and untrustworthy.

Would it be possible, that the ouster of the ruling party, and the heralding of the BJP, or the whatnot, rid our country of corruption? Not likely. We have heard time and time again that it is not the politicians who are corrupt, it is the system(yeah right..) We have heard this mainly from good looking TV presenters, and stupid looking politicians. What is important is to distil that statement. Most politicians are corrupt, but the system itself engenders corruption. Corruption is not a local problem(look at China or Russia), but it affects us the hardest. This is because we are a nation of poor people( Note:- NOT poor nation..nation of poor people) and poor people cannot afford to pay the cop that Rs 100 that we can, quite easily. So what the hell are we supposed to do about it(the corruption..not the Rs 100)? The Jan Lokpal Bill is one(highly popularized) answer. We might also try and get back all our stashed wealth abroad. Because, obviously, when we do get it back, we can just give it to the Jan Lokpals..or whatever they're called, and they would distribute the entire thing to us(all $500 billion of it). Yes, $500 per man/woman/child..we would all be rich..rich I tell you..

Except that this won't happen. And it really isn't a large enough amount of money to begin with, and the inflation would probably kill the country. So what else?

We could try going back to basics. Remove MPs and MLAs would be my favourite option. Halve the number of seats, the number of constituencies. Get rid of the bicameral legislature, have just one house of parliament, in EVERY state. The probability of corruption would also be halved. Look, most of the scretaries and whoever not don't do any work anyway, rather than having them as an expense on the taxpayer, just remove their offices. The country doesn't need a whole army of people to manage it, just the right sort of people. And anyway, the Chief Minister's going to be taking all the decisions, he doesn't need a thousand people taking it for him. Once the MPs and MLAs, who are utterly useless, have been removed we could give the remaining ones a significant increase in pay. this strategy has been used to great success by most private firms around the world.

And it could be here too..except for the one question about who's going to tell the MPs, as such its going to have to be the MPs themselves. And they might too, considering they are generous people with no real love for office....
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