Everybody is overjoyed to see that a lot of people are joining Anna Hazare to end corruption.
But where people see unity and hope for change, I see hopelessness like never before.
While for most people, the hope for a corruption free country might increase with every new person that joins this mindless revolution.
I see every new person who joins this fasting movement as just one more person who has no clue about the real problem behind corruption, and the hope for a truly corruption free society moving one step closer to going down the drain.
It makes me sad. Sad to see that 21st century Indian society still thinks that a deep rooted problem like corruption can be tackled by fasting.
Is this the best our leading social workers and thinkers can do?
Shouldn’t we logical people try and see if there is a direct connection between the problem of corruption and fasting? Isn’t that how we go about problem solving? To understand the problem thoroughly and then come up with a way to fix it?
And no matter how deep you go into the problem of corruption, you will not find a connection between fasting and corruption, trust me on that.
What is the difference between a child refusing to eat because his mother refuses to act according to his will, and Anna Hazare refusing to eat till people around him refuse to act according to him?
I don’t know what the difference is, but I do know that both scenarios reflect on a lack of understanding of the problem, and hence a lack of understanding of how to go about tackling that problem.
And if our leading activist’s understanding of the social problems is equivalent to that of a child’s, then it is not fair to expect too much from the common man.
Also if a child, who doesn’t understand much about how the society or people function, and a 74 year old man resort to the same way to get things done.
Then it makes me wonder, do people learn anything about life at all?
But looking at all the people and their hope of achieving change through the method that Anna Hazare is employing is not surprising at all. Since no one seems to be doing anything about solving the problem, people are just blindly following anyone who is trying to do at least something. Whether that something has anything to do with the actual problem seems to be of little importance to us.
They would have followed anyone else who would have decided to keep digging a hole in the ground till corruption ends.
Imagine over one billion people digging stupid holes to end corruption, and now think about those same people fasting to achieve the same thing and you will get what I mean.
People are just ready to follow anyone who is ready to lead, without any critical thought going into the fact if there is any connection between the actual problem, and the method being employed to solve it.
Some people at this point would like to lash out saying at least he is doing something, what are you doing?
To that all I have to say is that—while something might be better than doing nothing. Doing nothing is definitely better than wasting your time doing something nonsensical like fasting to end corruption.
Besides the truest revolution is the most silent one. There will be no one on the streets pointing fingers at other people or asking other people to change themselves and stop being corrupt. Because people will be too busy observing their own corruption in their daily lives and changing themselves.
And that’s what I am doing to end corruption, recognizing the corruption in me and changing myself.
It might not seem as extravagant as Anna Hazare fasting on streets with thousands people behind him, but at least it’s honest and true.
Fasting to end corruption, will only remove 10 corrupt politicians, and put different 10 corrupt ones in their place. And a few scandals down the line people will realize that these 10 are no better than the previous 10.
If history has taught us anything, it is that even Mahatma Gandhi couldn’t end corruption by fasting. He just managed to replace the corrupt British faces with our own “desi” Indian versions of them, and to us somehow that seems like an improvement.
According to the dictionary, Corruption is “Lack of integrity or honesty, or Moral perversion.” Now look into your actions on a daily basis, and see how much of integrity, honesty, and morality exists in your own choices. Then we can talk about other people’s choices, leave alone politicians.
Looking at the meaning of the word shows that corruption is something that exists at every level social existence. Friends are corrupt with one another, brothers are corrupt with one another, neighbours are corrupt with one another, and lovers are corrupt with one another.
So how can the problem of corruption be solved by just putting 10 or 20 corrupt people in jail? When there are over billion other people still walking freely on the streets being corrupt their every waking moment?
If we are talking about bringing corrupt people to justice and to be put into prison, then don’t just stop at bringing down a few politicians whose corruption has been caught on tape. 99% if not 100% of the population needs to be put in jail.
Corruption is so rampant in our society that with every corrupt person put in jail, I very much doubt that there would be anyone left out of the prison to lock us in.
We have to understand that politicians are just the leaders of our corrupt society, the rest of us make up that corrupt society.
Leaders are just leading by example. Blame yourself for the corruption, not some people sitting in the parliament.
If we agree that our society is corrupt, then the next step is to accept that we are all part of this society that is corrupt and hence are contributing to the problem.
The corrupt India is not just made up of 20–30 or 100 or even a 1,000 corrupt politicians, it is made up of over billion and a half corrupt people.
Anna Hazare’s Lok pal bill will definitely not free India from corruption. It will at best:
Give corrupt citizens more freedom to point fingers at equally corrupt politicians and in the process allow them to continue being in denial about their own corrupt selves, and,
Will train politicians to be more subtle and cunning about being corrupt, and hence in turn making them more efficient at being corrupt.
And honestly I fail to see the bright side of having politicians who are more skilled at fooling the public.
Look at USA, that’s what has happened there.
I cite America as an example because I feel that it has already reached a point where every developing country, including India, is trying to get to. We are trying to imitate the American way so seriously that looking at America’s current state is like looking into India’s future.
The people of the United States have been fighting and hoping for a corruption free society for as long as we have if not longer and look where trying to fight corruption by going on the streets got our American friends. The American government and world bankers are sucking the life out of their own citizens, and the people of the rest of the world and they still manage to convince a large portion of human population that they are the good guys.
Are the politicians of India any less corrupt than their American counterparts? I would say no they are not, they are as corrupt if not more. Indian politicians are still crude and lack the finesse that comes with the art of being thoroughly corrupt. But we are slowly getting there, because if we keep trying to fight corruption in such naive ways, we will just end up creating leaders and citizens who are more skilled at exploiting fellow humans.
The point being that even if the lok pal bill is passed, it will not make anyone any less corrupt than they were a day or a month ago. So the whole theme of the movement that everybody is so excited about—End Corruption and Corruption Free India will go for a toss.
Corruption rises out of people giving more importance to their own selfish interests over the common interest of everyone else involved, and if we honestly ask ourselves we will see that we all do it.
And the only way to end corruption would be to look at everyone as your own, and to give equal importance to overall welfare as we give to selfish needs, then we will achieve a balance in our actions which will eventually give rise to a corruption free society.
The only true everlasting change can come about through self change. When people stop feeling the need to point fingers at other people and start observing perversion and corruption of their own mind, we will see a corruption free society.
This whole Anna Hazare charade can best be described as a blind man leading a whole country of blind citizens, promising them a world that he himself has never seen and doesn’t know how to find.
Piyush Goswami of Bangalore, India, publishes the blog I have to say.
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Anna Hazare: Face of change or not!
Posted on August 19, 2011 by Piyush Goswami
Anna Hazare
Everybody is overjoyed to see that a lot of people are joining Anna Hazare to end corruption.
But where people see unity and hope for change, I see hopelessness like never before.
While for most people, the hope for a corruption free country might increase with every new person that joins this mindless revolution.
I see every new person who joins this fasting movement as just one more person who has no clue about the real problem behind corruption, and the hope for a truly corruption free society moving one step closer to going down the drain.
It makes me sad. Sad to see that 21st century Indian society still thinks that a deep rooted problem like corruption can be tackled by fasting.
Is this the best our leading social workers and thinkers can do?
Shouldn’t we logical people try and see if there is a direct connection between the problem of corruption and fasting? Isn’t that how we go about problem solving? To understand the problem thoroughly and then come up with a way to fix it?
And no matter how deep you go into the problem of corruption, you will not find a connection between fasting and corruption, trust me on that.
What is the difference between a child refusing to eat because his mother refuses to act according to his will, and Anna Hazare refusing to eat till people around him refuse to act according to him?
I don’t know what the difference is, but I do know that both scenarios reflect on a lack of understanding of the problem, and hence a lack of understanding of how to go about tackling that problem.
And if our leading activist’s understanding of the social problems is equivalent to that of a child’s, then it is not fair to expect too much from the common man.
Also if a child, who doesn’t understand much about how the society or people function, and a 74 year old man resort to the same way to get things done.
Then it makes me wonder, do people learn anything about life at all?
But looking at all the people and their hope of achieving change through the method that Anna Hazare is employing is not surprising at all. Since no one seems to be doing anything about solving the problem, people are just blindly following anyone who is trying to do at least something. Whether that something has anything to do with the actual problem seems to be of little importance to us.
They would have followed anyone else who would have decided to keep digging a hole in the ground till corruption ends.
Imagine over one billion people digging stupid holes to end corruption, and now think about those same people fasting to achieve the same thing and you will get what I mean.
People are just ready to follow anyone who is ready to lead, without any critical thought going into the fact if there is any connection between the actual problem, and the method being employed to solve it.
Some people at this point would like to lash out saying at least he is doing something, what are you doing?
To that all I have to say is that—while something might be better than doing nothing. Doing nothing is definitely better than wasting your time doing something nonsensical like fasting to end corruption.
Besides the truest revolution is the most silent one. There will be no one on the streets pointing fingers at other people or asking other people to change themselves and stop being corrupt. Because people will be too busy observing their own corruption in their daily lives and changing themselves.
And that’s what I am doing to end corruption, recognizing the corruption in me and changing myself.
It might not seem as extravagant as Anna Hazare fasting on streets with thousands people behind him, but at least it’s honest and true.
Fasting to end corruption, will only remove 10 corrupt politicians, and put different 10 corrupt ones in their place. And a few scandals down the line people will realize that these 10 are no better than the previous 10.
If history has taught us anything, it is that even Mahatma Gandhi couldn’t end corruption by fasting. He just managed to replace the corrupt British faces with our own “desi” Indian versions of them, and to us somehow that seems like an improvement.
According to the dictionary, Corruption is “Lack of integrity or honesty, or Moral perversion.” Now look into your actions on a daily basis, and see how much of integrity, honesty, and morality exists in your own choices. Then we can talk about other people’s choices, leave alone politicians.
Looking at the meaning of the word shows that corruption is something that exists at every level social existence. Friends are corrupt with one another, brothers are corrupt with one another, neighbours are corrupt with one another, and lovers are corrupt with one another.
So how can the problem of corruption be solved by just putting 10 or 20 corrupt people in jail? When there are over billion other people still walking freely on the streets being corrupt their every waking moment?
If we are talking about bringing corrupt people to justice and to be put into prison, then don’t just stop at bringing down a few politicians whose corruption has been caught on tape. 99% if not 100% of the population needs to be put in jail.
Corruption is so rampant in our society that with every corrupt person put in jail, I very much doubt that there would be anyone left out of the prison to lock us in.
We have to understand that politicians are just the leaders of our corrupt society, the rest of us make up that corrupt society.
Leaders are just leading by example. Blame yourself for the corruption, not some people sitting in the parliament.
If we agree that our society is corrupt, then the next step is to accept that we are all part of this society that is corrupt and hence are contributing to the problem.
The corrupt India is not just made up of 20–30 or 100 or even a 1,000 corrupt politicians, it is made up of over billion and a half corrupt people.
Anna Hazare’s Lok pal bill will definitely not free India from corruption. It will at best:
And honestly I fail to see the bright side of having politicians who are more skilled at fooling the public.
Look at USA, that’s what has happened there.
I cite America as an example because I feel that it has already reached a point where every developing country, including India, is trying to get to. We are trying to imitate the American way so seriously that looking at America’s current state is like looking into India’s future.
The people of the United States have been fighting and hoping for a corruption free society for as long as we have if not longer and look where trying to fight corruption by going on the streets got our American friends. The American government and world bankers are sucking the life out of their own citizens, and the people of the rest of the world and they still manage to convince a large portion of human population that they are the good guys.
Are the politicians of India any less corrupt than their American counterparts? I would say no they are not, they are as corrupt if not more. Indian politicians are still crude and lack the finesse that comes with the art of being thoroughly corrupt. But we are slowly getting there, because if we keep trying to fight corruption in such naive ways, we will just end up creating leaders and citizens who are more skilled at exploiting fellow humans.
The point being that even if the lok pal bill is passed, it will not make anyone any less corrupt than they were a day or a month ago. So the whole theme of the movement that everybody is so excited about—End Corruption and Corruption Free India will go for a toss.
Corruption rises out of people giving more importance to their own selfish interests over the common interest of everyone else involved, and if we honestly ask ourselves we will see that we all do it.
And the only way to end corruption would be to look at everyone as your own, and to give equal importance to overall welfare as we give to selfish needs, then we will achieve a balance in our actions which will eventually give rise to a corruption free society.
The only true everlasting change can come about through self change. When people stop feeling the need to point fingers at other people and start observing perversion and corruption of their own mind, we will see a corruption free society.
This whole Anna Hazare charade can best be described as a blind man leading a whole country of blind citizens, promising them a world that he himself has never seen and doesn’t know how to find.
Piyush Goswami of Bangalore, India, publishes the blog I have to say.