We,The People

Mr. X a priest in the temple was getting late for his duties, running out of time he got on to his T.V.S scooter and hurried. On the way he was stopped by the traffic police, to have a look at his license. It was then that he had realized he had forgotten it back home; the police man was about to tear the receipt of Rs.100, stuck in the run of time he offers the police Rs.50 because he felt Rs.100 was too much to lose early in the morning.

Mr. Y a student, who prayed five times a day, had surprise news that the next three days would be a holiday. He rushed to through the train ticketing counters just to realize that all the tickets were booked. Now that he had to travel in the general compartment with an open ticket, he chose to save on the ticket money and traveled ticket less back home. Any way the TTR would never enter the general compartment.
Ms. Z an engineer at a leading firm had great difficulties in getting into the job position she is now in. Not that she had to go through the various stages of the selection process, but that she really had to run behind her father to talk to his friend who was working in the HR department of the firm so that she would get selected over the candidates who had actually applied for the vacancy and probably more qualified than her.

Abc & Co, tax consultants were happy of earning Rs.5L from an individual client. Though not an easy task, they had to really bribe the registrar to change the purchase date of the asset that had earned their client huge tax amount including interest and once that the asset was made a long term one they successfully exempted their client of taxes.

These are not a newspaper clipping, things like these neither appear on the media, these are the things that happen in a common Indian’s daily life. Not just these but there are many more other simple events that happen in the daily life. So when a government elected by these common people prone to these simple forms of corruption comes into existence how can we blame the government alone to be corrupt. They are also a few among these common people. Just that the margin they save or earn at their level of office is much higher than a common man does.

We never count on the small things that we as Mr. X or Y or Ms. Z do rather we put the blame on others. We support the so called ‘Lok-Pal bill’ that would bring a committee to look for corruption among the ministers and The Prime Minister. But then again doesn’t this committee also have people of our country who could well again corrupt their hands when they get the power. Just like they say the most corrupt cell in the country is the anti-corruption department, what guarantee do we have that this committee so formed wouldn’t turn corrupt.

At this juncture where we are celebrating our nth year of independence and proclaim ourselves as proud Indians, let’s try and introspect how clean an Indian we are, and if we are not let’s try and improvise on that first, and then go about cleaning our politicians. Happy Independence Day.

T.R.K