Re:'Vision Ignites the Nation'
by Aumlan Guha on Jan 26, 2007 11:00 AM
First things first: If Dr. Kalam walks off into the sunset after just one term as prez, each and every one of us will be the poorer. The lofty standards he has brought to the prez' office is going to be exceedingly hard to match.
Secondly, why is it that we need someone or an occasion to remind us of our duties? I mean, there may be a few exceptions, but, most of us, we keep on wondering what we have received. Why? Why can we not ponder how we can give to our motherland? Why is it that if we are not reminded, we live in harmony, but whenever we are reminded that our beliefs (religious or otherwise) or our castes are different, we tend to do a Jekyll-and-Hyde? Why is it that the Narendra Modis or the A. Ramadosses of this world have sp much clout? And why is it that we are reminded of the backlog of pending cases in our courts whenever we look through the backgrounds of our elected representatives? Also a small question. When we have a retirement age for all services, why not a retirement age for politicians? I mean, it seems people retire from what they do, and then join politics. And we go and vote for them. Not bad, but%u2026. I mean I certainly have the highest regard for senior citizens, but to have them as ministers? Please, there are very good reasons, why they retire from service. And after that age, why do we have them as the decision takers / representatives for the country?
It is not difficult to find the answers. Most of us are %u2013 and I admit sheepishly, myself included %u2013 rather selfish and at the same time insecure. People from all walks of life were so involved in our freedom struggle. We have very conveniently forgotten the raison d%u2019être for our emergence as a free nation. Very comfortably we lead cocooned, independent lives, without a thought that if our forefathers had adopted this same attitude we would probably have still been under the British Raj. Consequently, the British Raj has been replaced now by a Criminal Raj, where your credentials as a candidate in the electoral bazaar are rated by the number of cases you have against you.
Also there is no point blaming the system. We are part of the system. We need to change if the system is to change. The very obvious question is how. Let me suggest a couple of things, which should be do-able by anyone actually bothered. Firstly we can exhort news channels and newspapers to run campaigns seeking Dr. Kalam%u2019s re-election. He is very obviously the conscience of the nation, and has struck a chord with all strata of society. I am sure when newspapers can run opinion polls on Ganguly and Dravid and Chappell, and about Abhishek & Aishwarya, surely this would be a more meaningful campaign? The second suggestion I have deals with corruption. The state exchequer loses crores of rupees every year, but obviously none of us is bothered. We still would not mind greasing palms to get things done, purchasing tickets from black marketers or to encourage our children to cheat (by my reckoning the seeds of the attitude towards corruption are sown thus). If we really cared, all this would not happen. If we are genuinely fond of our country, we have to put our collective foot down on this, and ensure that the exchequer loses less, and tax evasions and bribes are minimized.
Jai Hind shouldn%u2019t be something to be uttered only in the last week of January, mid-August or early October. It is to be felt 24*7*365.
