Corruption, Erection and ... No Eruption

Ok… Facts are boring like marriages. Period! Fiction is juicy, mouth-watering and sexy like instant affairs in a two days college festival . So, in the true spirit of this blog, let’s get some of those facts out of the equation…

Fact 1 : Anna Hazare is a social activist and a disruptive force for last many years.

Fact 2 : Anna Hazare is above scrutiny as far as personal integrity goes, especially in issues of material benefits. The guy is a pauper, for God’s sake!

Fact 3 : The creamy layer in India (5-20% depending on how big an optimist you are) has been increasingly frustrated by gross mis-governance in last few years because finally, the forest fires have reached their manicured backyards (backsides).

Fact 4 : The Jan Lokpal Bill andolan has given a great opportunity for people to vent out their bottled anger against governance which they feel is shoddy, incompetent and corrupt.

Fact 5 : ‘India Against Corruption’ is a just and incredibly sexy cause. (perhaps the biggest line since ‘ye dil maange more’, but that’s just a speculation!)

Fact 6 : The politicos are a confused, scared lot without any clue on how to manage public sentiment at the moment.

Fact 7 : Hmmm… Shit, what was that? … Oh, forget it…

Ok guys… facts aside, now we can truly play! Take a full flight of fancy… Imagination is not limited by space or time, and that it can be made as colorful as we want often as an escape from the miserable, monochrome lives that many of us lead. The great part is each one of us can choose our own muse… Following are some airy-fairy castles I want to live in and believe...

… that Jan Lokpal Bill (JLB) will usher Ram Rajya in this country which is a great thing if you are not a Sita sympathizer and a feminist!

… that fear of punitive action will be a huge deterrent for willful misdoings by public servants but will not effect the motivation to take meaningful, well intended, courageous decisions. It’s really no problem if we only choose to punish and not reward. (Awards galore for businessmen, film stars, sportsmen, artists, scientists but award for good administration, for IAS officers… How dumb is that?)

… that Lokayukta Hegde in Karnataka has sealed the case beyond doubt on the success of the JLB principles (though Hegde sab has actually acted under the severe limitations of the old Lokpal structure). Yeddyji is well and truly buried in a political graveyard, Reddys are going back to their middle-class pre-mining days despicable existence and all the swindled money is coming back to the national exchequer…

… that PMji and higher judiciary being included or not included in the JLB will make a huge difference to the day to day corruption that you and I face everyday. It will somehow save the Rs. 500 bribe that I pay (not my fault, obviously) to the policewalla just to stop him from being a nuisance, which incidentally, might be his assured fundamental right in this country.

… that the LPB will first make tons of corruption money available to be used for the welfare of people (more likely, the welfare of 5-20% ‘us’ people) and then create the systems, structures and motivations for these developments to actually happen.

… that while powerful politicos and babus have raped, plundered and abused their power, the immensely powerful Sriman Jan Lokpal Saheb will have a different DNA strain (perhaps a mutated cross-gene between Jesus Christ and Mother Teresa) which will be easily cloned in the genetic lab of renewed public expectations.

... that the corrupt netas, babus and judiciary work in isolated silos totally cut and secured from the civil society, the business society and the well meaning, poor and forever toiling NGOs. That the poor 'we' suckers have been screwed by 'them' for far too long for no fault of ours and it would be great to give it back for once...

… that once we get our JLB, we can then go back to being emotional, gullible fools who have forever pawned their free thinking minds and will to rhetoric and jingoism of the powers that be. It is so convenient to quickly retreat to our cushy comfortable lives making more money and buying more toys than to take responsibility and carry the burden of free thinking...

… that fishes can fly and wishes are horses, and God is great and all is well.

Anna tum sangharsh karo, hum tumhare saath hain...

Good night and sweet dreams!

P.S. Aaram badi cheez hai munh dhak ke soiye, kis kis ko yaad keejiye kis kis ko royiye?