For a ‘Jharkhand shining’

Long before Telangana, Jharkhand was cut out from Bihar, with the justified expectation that an area geographically and demographically different would be administered and served better if separated. Now, years on, the state of both the parent state and the new one is the same. Jharkhand, just as Bihar, has limped on ever since. Rampant corruption and backwardness has plagued the state bestowed with resources, as development and growth stands stymied. Tending to one problem alone is neither sufficient nor entirely possible. What is needed is a multi-level solution spanning across different sectors.

Naxalism and literacy

These are two things that need prime and undivided attention, and are highly interlinked. These two problems need to be attended simultaneously. The most pressing concern for the state of Jharkhand is naxalism, which is affecting more than 75% of the districts it has among a host of other vital activities. One of the prime reason for new entrants into naxalism is improper or no education and lack of employment opportunities. Both the problems can be diluted to a good extent through education to the marginalized section of the society, a section whose plight is very conveniently concealed in the average literacy level of the entire state. And of course, educating people without tackling naxalism is evidently failing. Thus, a holistic and dedicated effort is required at this juncture.

Employment and opportunities

To prevent people from returning to anti-social career alternatives, employment opportunities needs to be provided. This can be done by allowing some of the private sector industries who are willing to capitalize and invest in the remote areas to do so. Allocation of resources to the correct people on the basis of efficiency and optimum utilization instead of lobbying would be the first step here. The plants and offices set up would provide remunerative sources of income, thus pouring in money (liquidity thus achieved at the base of the income pyramid would go a long way in feeding back returns to the state). Tourism, a major potential sector for Jharkhand might also be helpful in providing opportunities to the locals.

Financial inclusion

Bringing everybody under the umbrella of banking and fiscal policies quickly by removing implementation bottlenecks will be very fruitful. It would help in micro-credit financing, putting money into the right hands, and in this way pulling them out of the vicious cycle of poverty. It would also ensure proven advantageous measures like micro-saving, micro-insurance, and so on. Using technology to leverage an efficient execution will ensure that money comes directly to the poor and doesn’t pass and gets retained in the hands of middlemen. The bank-at-your-doorstep plan of the Govt. is proving to be quite helpful in this aspect, apart from generating employment in banking.

Distributed growth

Generally, rural people move to the cities either for job opportunities, or when they get better-off, and hope to live the urban life. If proper employment is provided in the rural areas itself, along with all basic amenities like good education and healthcare, the problem of cramming and overpopulated cities would be resolved. Growth in rural areas would also be an obvious by-product. As for primary education, the government’s effort will be bearing fruit in the long run, but for healthcare, some amount of strategy revamping is required. Registered doctors could be made to go to a rural area of their choice for a month every two years. There, they would train the local medical personnel and paramedics. This would ensure that the locals are under more professional care even in the absence of the visiting doctor (the doctor will be needed to be aptly remunerated for this task). Tourism would also be helpful in distributed growth, as most of the untapped, natural and attractive tourist hot-spots are in the rural areas, and focusing on tourism in these areas will not only provide income generating jobs to the locals, but also generate local revenue to be reinvested there.

The road ahead

For this, the government needs to focus less on populist measures and more so on growth-oriented measures. For this to happen in turn, people need to favor the political agenda of development instead of merely voting for the divisive politics and short term or personal gains. And here again, actual and proper education would help, for example people should be aware that non-merit subsidies have a negative impact on the economy and its members, the people. Jharkhand has 40% of the mineral resources in India and is home to the most hard-working tribes apart from peace loving people. Shouldn’t development be obvious in the long run?

A stick of peace

Some men threw him out of a train, he threw their entire empire out of his country. And it was not revenge.

I came upon people who didn’t believe in the Gandhian principles and have the misconception that the emergence of Gandhi was not a positive sign for the country and her independence. This is an effort to justify the fact that in fact we needed more men like him.

Non-violence has been claimed by some to be a factor with a retarding effect on independence. Violence could have gotten us a quick independence. It’s quite logical that it was in no way that violence could be used to overthrow one of the most powerful regimes of the world at that time. An unarmed man, however courageous and determined, cannot win another with a gun.

In every situation, the British were simply looking for an excuse to use force against the protestors, and enforce laws that would further limit their freedom. And a violent action provided just that. Gandhi obviously realized this and thus stuck to the path of non-violence. It’s evident in history that whenever there has been a case of violence, the government dealt with the ‘perpetrators’ with an iron hand. Violence also created an environment of aggression that was much undesired at a time when communal hatred was at its tripping point.

Non-cooperation was considered by many to be a passive protest. Nothing could be farther from truth. In Gandhi’s words, “it would be impossible for a few thousand Englishmen to control millions of Indians if they refuse to cooperate”. The non-cooperation movement was accomplishing just that, till the Chauri-Chaura incident (again an unthoughtful act of violence). Gandhi then had to put the movement on a hold, and the British got the excuse they were so desperately looking for.

The non-cooperation movement had another hidden motive, one to strengthen the state of affairs for the Indian craftsmen and the general economy. Gandhi encouraged self-reliance, and refusal of foreign goods as a part of the movement. This lead to an increased demand of Indian goods, strengthening the country at her grassroots. He had devised then, what it took economists longer to comprehend. The country’s economy is built from bottom-up and not top to bottom. You can find it in his statements “a country will develop only when its poorest citizen does.”

When he was arrested for leading the non-cooperation movement that brought down the British administration to its knees, he was taken to the court, were he advocated for himself (quite obvious for a barrister). The judge was willing to cut his sentence short, when for his defense Gandhi said: “I am here, therefore, to invite and submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime, and what appears to me as the highest duty of a citizen.”

He stood for peace and honesty along with hygiene and sanitation at his ashram, some of things most required for development in the true sense. Exactly these factors, among others are used to determine development today through Human development index (HDI).

                                                                                        

He kept protesting in a non-violent manner again and again, despite repressive measures by the foreigners, and after every blow he got, he would say “I won’t cooperate”. And as it is said “it’s not about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward”.

That’s the reason why India has numerous streets named after him, the reason why his face is watermarked on every currency note, why he is called father of the nation, why his picture is hung in government offices, why just a stick and glasses are enough anywhere to denote the Mahatma.

Rail's ways

I was at a station that holds a record. I saw railways staff of the day-shift go home, and I saw them come back to work the next day. I witnessed a dawn and almost the previous dusk. All the trains of the country through that station passed by, two of them twice. About a thousand passengers came and went. It was like men may come and men may go, but I stay on forever.

Yeah, my train was late. Historically.

Some people have the habit of walking as they wait for something or somebody. Likewise, I walked 5.1075 kms waiting – there’s not one meter of exaggeration here. I took 3 strolls from an end to another, each 1.7025 km. this length is what makes the kharagpur station world’s longest. You can imagine my desperation that took me to such extreme lengths (5.1 km to be exact).

Many long hours later, confusion wreaked havoc. My prudent train was numbered 18615. They announced 18616, same name, different direction (down train) – at a platform far away. It took me moments (many) to gather the truth that it wasn’t the train I was waiting for, it was the one I came in a day ago.

Limits had been crossed. The meaning of the word patience had been put to test. Rekindled hope named ‘hatia-howrah’ was splashed with a tank full of water, over and over again.

I realized, I was setting off for the kharagpur station when this down train left from ranchi. I was still in kharagpur, when this train travelled all its way to from RNC to KGP. Limits had been crossed. Now, the limit tended to infinity.

There’s a Hindi saying ‘dene wala jab bhi deta hai, chappar phaad ked eta hai’. I observed that the inverse is also true. True-er.

Staying awake was a losing battle against the ever invincible drowsiness. I had limited weapons. Walking- I had used (to an excess). Talking to anyone, even someone at the platform meant waking him up, everybody was asleep.

Yes, people at the platform waiting for a train were asleep- no announcements were missed, as none were made whatsoever. And over that, people were hopeful, that the train won’t arrive while they slept. [Later, I found that the railways stood up to their expectations. It arrived much after daybreak, when the sun was blazing and the birds were already tired of tweeting their larynxes out.]

I took out the last weapon. Blaring music was being played inside my earphones, and even through that, I caught a sleep or two. It was then that I saw god. I usually don’t believe in god. But it changed. he was sitting inside a mechanical engineering marvel now obsolete. He was dressed in light blue shirt and black trousers- the driver of the train. I would have leapt at his feet, had I not been intimidated by the size of the contraption that the engine was.

I felt relief once inside the train. Momentary pleasures are the best. AC was on, and the sheets that the catering endowed me were wet. Not damp, but wet. I didn’t allowed shiver to get better of me, and wrapped my thin self like a cocoon with the only dry thing, that brown disgusting blanket. Despite all, I slept. After all, I had slept only for 4 hours in the last forty. Momentary pleasures, as I said, are the best. A demon of a woman had brought a kraken of a baby. You can imagine the events that followed.

The train crept as if hell bent on breaking all records of being incredibly late. It slugged like a tricycle, halting at every insignificant station for an hour or so. I could have eaten at the restraunts and dhabas of all the town/village the train stopped at, within the halting interval. Had these areas not been naxal affected, that is. And financial constraints, of course.

Now it gives great pleasure to my eyes to see lush green hilly areas, reminding the fact that hometown isn’t far off. Yet, the speed of the train scares the sh*t out of me.

As of now, I am waiting with bouquet of flowers and that ruddy blanket to honour those delegates of Guinness and Limca records organizations who would be arriving soon to check the credibility of the fact that this train has set a new record for being late. I am their unfortunate witness.

Over adjusting?

Seven were already inside the auto rickshaw. There are always many of these autos at an auto stand, but somehow not many to hop in. An auto stand is more of a central area of a busy roundabout; it can be any area where the auto-wala feels comfortable to park his ride, sometimes even allowing other vehicles to use the road! Anyhow, being the eighth wonder inside the auto. Back seat loaded (better, overloaded) with four mammoth sized and bull shaped arguing aunties and the elegant front seat occupied by the country’s foremost luminaries, and founders of the Utopian societies.

I’ll tell you this with my two years’ experience in the auto, as I used to go to my coaching (!) classes while I apparently prepared for engineering entrance exams.  There’s no better place to listen to the political rumors than the front auto seats. The views of the people, in almost all cases involving the auto driver are worth listening to. They are just ludicrous! And yes, incessantly complaining of the government, sometimes even unsure what they are complaining about.

But that’s the thing I appreciate about them: they complain, they talk about the corruption, abuse the system and most importantly know more than well-educated young people listening to their i-pods. This is what our society, among various other major elements, greatly lacks. We have stopped discussing the social problems, we have stopped complaining the setup and we have stopped resisting. We have just taken everything for granted, like we pop up a crocin whenever we feel like without even consulting. All the inconveniences and problems we face are a part of our life.

People have started ignoring even front page headings, and the memory is getting short lived. From acts of terror to simpler scandals, we have developed a tendency to ignore it. The twin blast in Hyderabad went past, and so did the myriad of rape cases before the Delhi case. Crime is as easily neglected as common cold.

Political agendas are no more discussed upon. The down-the-sewer education system, or the construction of three dams by china recently. The nuclear project controversy, or the chopper scam. No discussions. I don’t consider the debates (as if they are) on the news channels as discussions; they are heated arguments in an uncontrolled environment, which moves very quickly from ‘what is to be done’ to ‘what the opponent hasn't done’. The only discussions that make it to the minds of people are of Raghu’s slaughter of the auditioners in roadies, and the useless likes.

We have moved ourselves so comfortably into the bubble of comfort, revolving around the concept of not thinking of that what’s happening around. On the issue of the Delhi rape case, a deep analysis was done by a psychological expert. It revealed that most women feel that they won’t be raped because they don’t want to imagine it that way. In a similar manner, you will never imagine your city under bomb threats, unless it is. I can’t imagine a bomb kept at the big bazaar at Ranchi! (Many of us might not know this but one was found at that very shopping mall. Wonder why every big marketing complex in Ranchi has detectors now?)

Just recall how many times in the last ten years have you heard ‘Irom’? No, I haven’t misspelt the name of a metal here (by the way this one is stronger than the metal!) This woman has spent her last ten years on fast, without food or water! And she has a purpose, a very strong one. But people just supported her when she had started her fast. After a few months, the news of the fast was past. People forgot her, but she kept the fast. People outside the seven states kept ignoring the gravity of the situation AFSPA created, and the repercussions it brought along.

Recently, giving up hope on people who had seem to completely forget the person spending ten precious years of her life on fighting for them, Irom Sharmila broke her fast. It was coming. What would have been if nobody would have attended the speeches freedom fighters used to deliver? What would happen if you ignore the person trying hard to help you? The person will eventually stop helping. In this country we have rare few souls trying real hard to help. And the way we encourage these souls, we are going to lose them too.

So why is it that we ignore the daily dose of anti-social and immoral acts around us? Overdose? Yes, the media- print or cacophonic (otherwise called electronic media) has thrown to us reports of infinitely many unwanted events. So much, that even before you ponder and stretch your mind on one, another fresh report comes in. Take a month, like this current month and see how many scams, how many murders and how much corruption captured the screens. In case of scams, it’s like back to back blockbusters I used to listen to when I last saw television (and that was long ago!). 2G scam, 3G scam, Swiss bank scam, Commonwealth games, Tatra trucks, Chopper scam and the list goes on, with money involved chronologically increasing! Many more scams have been overwritten in my memory, again due to overdose!

Of course sitting in front seats of auto won’t help. And sitting in the back seat and arguing definitely won’t. It’s not that if something bad happens regularly, it becomes ‘less’ bad. We were born with a choice of volition but the social environment made us forget this. The government isn't there to take away your choices; it was made to take choices for you. Raise your voices. Heat up debates. Place your demands for a better peaceful society. Or did we forget that we can have a better society?

We have the power in us to change. Lord hanuman was cursed to forget his powers. Of course it’s a story, but it was written to learn from. We all very well know what he achieved when he realized his strength.

In the future not very distant

The headline read “Prime Minister Rahul Gandhi requests Pakistan to relinquish Kashmir and Punjab”. I sighed and kept the fifty rupees newspaper aside. It used to cost five in 2013, a ten times rise in six years. I proceeded towards the university where I studied (?) once. Around fifteen thousand students crossed me as I made my way through the campus to its central area. I sat on the roof of a hostel, trying to imagine myself sitting on the grass where now this hostel stands. Few more inmates were lying around, some smoking weed, others with tablets. I was listening to their conversation. One of them was a tech geek, who didn’t know programming. Another was like an ‘every other student’, emaciated, just like I used to be.

The geek spoke. No, speaking is something to be mentioned. They were rarely talking, mostly chatting. So the geek spoke “hey this IRCTC is a damned site, I logged in like-yesterday and the page is still loading!”

After typing a long chat on his tablet to distant friend, the other person thought it obliging to reply. “Yeah, you are lucky, because when I logged in before the winter vacation, I could access the page after the vacation was over! What do you expect from this government! All govt. sites are like this.  (Btw IRCTC is a private website) Railways is just anyhow continuing.”

“Who owns this railways?”

“Nobody owns railways! It belongs to a group of powerful people. I saw it on YouTube”

And then they started castigating the government, and then the discussion moved to the university. Every system they were a part of was corrupt, and their talk revealed that they were of the purest forms to ever walk the earth.

I received a call just then. It was my mother. She informed me that my aunt had given birth to an engineer (i.e. a boy). He was enrolled in FIITJEE's extensive congenital training programme. He would be shown colorful sketches of thermodynamic concepts and structure of polyethylene-m-tetra-chloro-phosphate. I went to her house, pointed to his head and told her he’ll crack it! But instead she heard he’ll crack IIT as this is what the prestigious coaching institute had been telling her all day.

Next morning, failing to pay for the newspaper, I was surfing the net and came upon a survey that presented another grim picture. It said “china crushes Indian economy by overtaking her in the service sector, the only sector left after agricultural sector committed suicide owing to heavy debts. It is worth noting that industrial sector never existed in India. As a result IT companies have closed their recruitment gates, which used to absorb a large chunk of the teeming number of graduates manufactured each year. Joblessness is back on the streets.”

It was hot in there. And I needed water for bathing. I went to the market and after booking my number for water, I continued reading from my laptop (yes, reading in the market from a laptop) there was this chotu from the nearby tea shop calculating his earnings from an app in his smartphone. I asked him “do you read or write?” He gave the expected answer. “But I can count my money in this touch phone”, he continued, with special emphasis on the word touch. I adjusted my ‘keypad-ed’ cellphone inside my trousers. One of the last such sets. Vintage.

Feeling like a black and white character in a glittering world, I continued reading the newsfeeds. At least I could read. “USA intimidated by the aggressive market domination policy of the Chinese. On the other hand, the US president tried unsuccessfully to avoid suspicions surrounding its involvement in the unrest in central Asia, lured by the last drops of the precious fuel petroleum.” I couldn’t take any more of this negativity. Enervated by the vegetative state of affairs of the country, I was about to close the browser when in noticed a minuscule text at the bottom of the page, reading “paid news”. Now this was too much!

I got into the queue for water, as my turn came up. An elderly man was behind me. He started speaking (the elderly talk, frequently). “You see that nerd there?” The nerd in concern was with ear buds in his head, which was banging like a rock-less punk. “Yeah, I do”. The elder continued “kids like this are going to run the hell-heading country tomorrow. I asked him who was the second last president of US and he replied Bob Marley. They are ridiculous, this generation, ignorant and arrogant.”

I sighed. The youth feel that the elders as a spent force and the elders think of the young as un-enlightened and ignorant fools. Everyone blames others. I realized I am doing the same, blaming these two generations.

Anyways. Delhi and other such underdeveloped cities now have no traces women. Legit. It is only filled with money centered people, and power centered people. Mumbai has crumbled under its own crime lords’ empires. Bangalore looks like as if an apocalyptic effect has swept through, creating the new center of joblessness.

But it’s not all bad. People still believe that some miracle will occur which will alleviate their problems. It’s good to keep faith and do nothing else. Let the problems continue, there’s no need to solve it. Someone like Gandhi will come out splitting his grave, wave his ‘lathi’ and everything will improve. Corruption will melt away and will flow down the sewers, right where it came from.

My negligible salaried job has a good incentive. It helps in getting visas. I have got my visa ready to leave this country in its mess. There’s no scope for any optimism here. I hope that corruption itself goes corrupt, as I proceed towards my apartment with water to bath. The Independence Day program is to be broadcasted a few hours from now, with a special documentary on how freedom fighters fought hard to achieve the precious independence which we now so indulgently enjoy.

ILL-LITERATES

If you enjoy the privilege of a better memory than mine, you might be able to recall that there was one solution that was common to all problems we studied about in the wonderful school years, be it poverty, hygiene, environmental degradation or calamities. This one solution was awareness, or education. And India has achieved great heights in the field of education (hope you know I’m being sarcastic as usual). I thank the mentality of people for this, a problem which again roots back to education.

The Indian society in general has a very strange air about it. Education is considered as the most important asset to be acquired by our society, yet it’s the very thing that it so unfortunately lacks. It however, is laced with qualifications and degrees. Doctors (!) and engineers (!!!), managers and clerks, and nothing else. How frequently have you heard of people starting their own business? Students opting for athletics after high school? (No wonder a country with one-fifth of the world’s population isn't able to win every 5^th medal in the Olympics!) How many have taken up research? Facts tell two out of a 1000 M.Tech students do a PhD.

After being ‘educated’, you get to work under industries and companies. For some or the other person. If not educated, you get to work as farmers, laborers and the likes. You can now imagine why India is one of the world’s few countries which switched directly from being agriculture based economy to being service based, without crossing the manufacturing stage. The repercussions are evident and more will be evident soon. The very few other people who received little or no schooling, but got educated in the true sense, are the people at the top. Industrialists, artists, sportsperson, entrepreneurs, and the like. Even the illiterate politicians are far above the class of literates. The root of the problem lies in understanding the true meaning of education.

Education is taken as another word for academics and quantified as number of degrees one acquired. It’s not about throwing away your life into the books whether or not you like it. It’s taking decisions, making choices about the field you want to take up your career in, and pursuing it with full fervor and labor. USA might not be the best example to state for education quality, (it’s degrading like anything in the past years) but clearly it provides a huge variety of options to choose as your career; real options.

Here in incredible !ndia, we have science, commerce or arts after tenth grade. In science we have only maths or biology (these are apparently the only two subjects that constitute science!). And maths means engineering, while bio means medical science! At the end of engineering, you get to choose from either CAT or GATE, as if they are the only two criteria to be declared human. Actually, it was meant to be business administration or m.tech, but the meaning has changed. Because its qualification that matters, not knowledge.

Take cities and then villages. Compare the voting percentages. See where people help each other more. Observe where neighbors are friends. Look up where crime is abundant. See where people are healthier (setting aside access to health). See where people are happier. And city people are expected to be more educated!

The situation that came up after the Delhi gang rape showed what education gives to literates. On the day the incident occurred, no one- not a single person stopped to help the victims. Next day you find the same shameless people (with a few of those who genuinely felt sorry) protesting. Once the police showed signs of aggression, they all vanished. Reading recently a case of the rape of a three year old girl which received no attention whatsoever, you can see the protest was a sham. And a shame.

And of course the babas in our society. Literates adore people like asaaram, nirmal baba (he asks you to eat samosas if you say that you have a bad stomach), and follow their instructions to the word. Once I went to a recharge shop, and was looking around. I found no pictures or idols of god. Just when I was about to mentally appreciate this fact; I saw a picture on the wall, incense sticks below it and quite evidently a symbol of devotion. It was nirmal babas. This man worshipped that fraudster!

It is not just the shopkeeper. Most of them are like him. Marriages are based on kundalis and manglik crap. They wear rings to avoid non-existent evil forces. Animals are killed in temples in the name of sacrifice. Sacrifice doesn’t mean killing someone else, it means giving up something you don’t like to part with. The word is sacrifice, for English’s sake!

So, we have an awesome education system, sometimes lead by next-to-god-legends like kapil sibal. I am proud to be an Indian. An educated Indian.

The Right to CHANGE

Once my young cousin asked me, “All politicians are corrupt, aren’t they?” When I asked him if he knew exactly how a politician is elected, the reply was as expected from a standard six kid, no. he had the notion of politicians being corrupt even before knowing who the politicians are. To him, it meant a bad someone who dresses in white, is least educated and takes away people’s money. And it is not his fault; he says what he listens around. I am myself no expert in civics, but I know that my vote selects him, just like yours.

Anywhere you go, travelling in train, in a tea shop, outside a shopping mall or in college hostels, you’ll always find heated discussions on politics, which quickly moves on to a discussion on politicians. This is the only example of discussions that are both one-sided and heated. I haven’t ever heard discussions on whether or not a particular debatable bill should be passed or not, but I have certainly heard discussions on which politician did what, who is more corrupt, who got arrested, and got away. And it really gets interesting with new faces on the controversial front every day, and new jaw dropping scams every other.

When the proposals of important bills are put forward, there isn’t much debate and opposition. And just bring forth an issue like Ram Setu or installation of nuclear power plants, which should be allowed without hype, the political and social machinery comes alive. I had expected much more debate and discussions on the FDI bill, but there wasn’t much. Especially in the youth. Students’ discussions are like “who is better, SRK or Sallu?” ever heard “should the cap on number of LPG cylinders be raised?” Last involvement of youth in political matters before the Delhi gang rape case was when reservation bill was passed, and that was long ago.

We shout hard if there’s any violation of any of our fundamental rights. We even run to help someone else with ‘right’ problems. That’s good, but what happens when it comes to our fundamental duties? We know and exercise our rights, but do we remember our duties? Do we complain of someone deviating from his duties, let alone ourselves be responsible? We don’t commit to simple, small  but important duties like voting. And we expect full rights. Do you expect an invitation to your friend’s party after you have thrashed and abused him? As a friend you ‘had’ the right, no more now.

There are serious misinterpretations of our constitution and civil governance amongst our generation. The whole system is rotten, we say. We forget that our constitution was written by the greatest minds and think tanks that could have written it. And it was written predicting every possibly future condition. Provisions in the constitution are such that our democracy is infallible. It is the longest constitution of the world, because it is also the best (a globally and widely accepted fact) and it almost caters to the fundamental rights of each and every individual of our infinitely diverse country.

You might say and I will agree that many of the culprits live an easy jail life, because of the provisions in the constitution. But is the news regarding arrest of innocent people common? No. the provisions were made to guarantee true justice and not just a fast one. Obviously, the courts are sometimes even slower than that, but the case of Ajmal Kasab is an example that true justice was served, following every constitutional rules in a small time. In his case, life sentence was announced within three years of the conviction, including the time devoted solely to extracting important details form him regarding terrorist activities, which accounted for a huge chunk of that time. And regarding harsh corporal punishments, three years isn’t a very long time.

Of course, despite its greatness, out constitution needs amendments, and very helpful provisions were made even for that, but the amendments would only work if politicians table a bill, and pass it by majority. This is where, everyone agrees, the problem stands. Not in framing the constitution, but in execution. Taking a few steps back, and taking a look on the big picture, it’s clearly visible where the actual problem lies. If the MP’s and the MLA are bad considering they are not bringing forth the required bills, or voting in its favor, then who elected them in the first place? How are they there? And why are ‘they’ there and not us?

It’s in our mentality to just sit back and blame the politics for everything happening. And click ‘like’ on the pictures of some honest politician such as Arvind Kejriwal or put a black dot in the profile picture to protest something. As if blaming and black ‘dotting’ will bring any change. Instead, real change is needed. And that doesn’t require a revolution, or a fast, or a digital anarchy. In times like this, where almost no political party is willing to bring a change, stand up, and bring it yourself. Easier said, but seeing a stand, many and many of the people needing just an initiative will stand up with you, and a few against.

As the Mahatma said, be the change you want to see.

(Some even stood against Gandhi, and his stand on truth, the biggest weapon against corruption today which he foresaw. Can you find those protestors today?)