Case for Mr. Kejriwal

I resisted myself from writing this article but some how I couldn’t resist putting my points across.

To Mr. Kejriwal’s credit, he is the champion of Right to Information Act (RTI) and he along with Anna Hazare started a campaign against corruption and in some sense the whole country united behind the cause. When the political parties did not heed much he took the most democratic way possible and launched his own party called the Aam Admi Party (AAP). In the process he is accused of delineating Anna Hazare and other activists whose charisma he is accused of using for his benefits. On his launching the party, I think the choice was simple, either be on the sidelines and keep protesting and hope someday our elected leaders would listen or become the leader and show how its done. Most everybody was with him till then.

Now after Delhi elections where in which his party won majority of the seats but not enough to form a government and he formed a government with the external support from Congress (against whose corruption he rallied against). Here many people believe he betrayed, I take a different view.

If AAP hadn’t agreed to form a party then it would have been a hung government in Delhi and a set of re-elections. Considering the inflation and cost of re-election is it really justified to do the same? Now that he has become the CM I think the first priority would be the good transparent governance with no corruption, that’s where I believe we need to give him some time to see how it will work. Life looks lot different when you are in seat of power vs being an activist, the best example I can quote is of President Obama, if people remember he ran first time in 2008 on the notion of “closing Guantanamo prison within a year”, now its been  5 years and we are still struggling to find out how to go about it.

On the other hand I am not ready to give national reins to his hand, for one he and his cadre haven’t proved a thing about anything and Delhi is like their learning ground, will wait 5 or so years before I take that decision. Also, I am worried about his cronies like Prashant Bhushan and his take on Kashmir.

In closing, my take is lets not pit him and Mr. Modi against each other as that’s what the congress government wants and lets wait and watch to see what wonders he can do in Delhi. On a related note, back in 2011 Mr. Kejriwal along with others once shared the podium with Sri Sri and if Sri Sri has faith in him then I for sure am willing to wait and see.  

Dear Delhi,

What’s happening to you or what has happened to you?, why are the women or children specially girls are not safe in the city?, One thing I always wondered is, if this is the same state of affairs across the country and Delhi being the capital of the country these incidents are coming to light more often?  

Why is it that the public have to enrage and then only the police get into action? and I do appreciate the police for their swift action in getting the arrests done. But the irony is that the Delhi police, on one hand refused to register a complaint of the missing child and once the child is found in semi conscious state, they manage to arrest the culprits in no time. That too the culprits had fled Delhi to a distant state. So, form what I can see the efficiency exists in the Delhi police, all they need is motivation either in form of a carrot or a stick.

One cannot blame the police alone for not preventing the incidents and making Delhi more safer, because the victims involved were a 5 year old and another one is a 10 year old. Both of whom were molested by their neighbors, people whom they and their parents trusted to an extent. Of course one can blame them for not registering a complaint of the missing kid when they were asked to and not showing sensitivity once the child was found.

One thing I would definitely blame is the fast track court, its been almost 4 months since the bus incident and one person has already apparently committed suicide. So, where is the judgment, I am waiting with baited breath. Or the fast track just means it would be a few years instead of the usual few decades. For me the bus incident is a open and shut case and a judgment can be passed in a day, let alone months. 

Of course the mouths of our leaders better be sealed, do they even know that the recent victims are not women or teens but children?. Our esteemed PM said he was deeply moved, then what? is there an action or law or some such sort or should I be satisfied by the fact that he was moved?  

The thing that is bothering me the most is that of the 3 incidents that came to light in the last few months, there are a few in their teens and some in their early 20s or so. It tells me that there is something wrong with the way we as a society are handling the younger generation. Where have we gone wrong? In the case of the 10 year old girl, what happened to the golden rule “do not do something to others that you do not want them to do”?  or what we call the sense of belongingness, the kid was your neighbors daughter for gods sake.

One thing that is common amongst the cases is, all the culprits were under the influence of alcohol, so if the government can do anything other than just saying “ we are moved” is to do something about alcohol availability and sales. Oh, sorry that will be impossible due to the lobbying groups.

On the last note, after the last two incidents, I am in agreement with Sri Sri Ravishankar when he says, for all these atrocities to stop we need to uplift people by educating them on the spiritual path.

India and the reservation policies

Reservation or Affirmative action for the lower caste (specially SC/ST) has been there since the time of independence and what started off as a 10-15 year policy has extended and became bigger and bigger as the years gone by.

It was hard growing up with these policies and was the hardest to endure when we were in 12th grade. Students who were with us (our good friends), whose parents had the same or higher education than ours and who were to an extent more affluent than us and lastly in terms of grades scored equal to us managed to get into much better colleges and branches than us. Why, because they had the reserved quota.

Coming out of the professional colleges, we knew the public sector had its reservations and bureaucracy, hence most of us were interested in the private sector where the field was open to play. But some of my friends wanted to try their hand in the Indian administrative services for they believed once you are in, then the promotions and all are based on your seniority and performance. I have huge respects for those guys.

The latest is the amendment by the congress seems to undermine this and want to inject caste as the basis for promotions also. The reason being there is less representation of the lower caste people in the upper echelons of the government and that needs to be fixed.

This I think is ridiculous, here is why. Last I heard India was still a democracy and the upper most echelons of the government is the elected representatives, we definitely have reservations there. Coming to the secretaries and joint secretaries, who are responsible to advice our some what dumb and some times illiterate elected representatives, shouldn’t they be the smartest of the smartest in the country and not based upon caste or creed or color. Up to what level does an IAS or IPS need to carry the identity of his caste?, from the day he joined the service till he retires?, if that is the case then where does the society free from caste creed and color stand. Reminds me of the quote from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, “All are equal but some are more equal than others”. 

What next, the esteemed Indian cricket team will have reservations and the next time we send a contestant to the world wide beauty pageant we will have reservations there also?  

Anna Hazare and anti graft

Make no mistake, I am all in favor of a stringent anti-graft (Local) bill and I agree with Anna Hazare that we need an independent investigating agency to investigate the charges of corruption. But I am also not really in favor of including the Prime Minister and the Supreme Court justice under the bill for I believe we need some one to look over this so called independent body, we can’t keep increasing the size of the government creating agency upon agency to monitor each other.

That said, I am proud that India has maintained a democracy for the last 64 years and whether we use it or not, once every 5 years or sometimes earlier we have the right to change our representatives. By the principles of democracy these elected representatives should be formulating laws and constitution and that’s the ideal case. But in the case of Anti graft bill, it is to an extent stupid to expect that our elected representatives will come to an agreement and pass a tough law to prosecute themselves. It is like the hindi saying “AA bail mujhe maar” (loosely translated, come on bull I am here please hit me). So, to work for this bill within the democratic frame work is difficult possible if not impossible.

The other option is to move towards referendum, gather enough grass root support and compel the government/elected body to act the right way. But the question is who is supposed to lead this effort and who is supposed to formulate this bill. Isn’t taking this approach undermining the democracy in itself?

I have the highest respect to faith in Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal and Sri Sri Ravishankar. I don’t know anything about Shanti Bhushan or Prashant Bhushan, I don’t like Ramdev (luckily he is not around this time). For a country of billion people, can/will the above mentioned three do justice? or is the agitation showing the negative side of democracy?