corruption – The Metrognome

Jatin Sharma writes about how we’ve spoken enough about taking control, and that now’s the time to actually do it.

I live in two countries now. No, I don’t travel a lot. In fact, I don’t travel at all. My passport is still a virgin. But yes, every now and then, I feel that I have been teleported to a country where I don’t belong. I stay in India but every now and then, reality strikes me and lets me know that I am also in Bharat.

A Bharat where people judge others what they wear, a Bharat where girls don’t have any power and the boys are the laadlas, a Bharat where if girls enjoy their liberty, they are being ‘adventurous’ and if boys down a few pegs, they have become adults.

I live in a Bharat where people are biased and the leadership is weak. I live in a Bharat where my leaders can classify a rape as a ‘rarest of rare’ rape. And this last statement can come from a State whose Chief Minister is a woman.

I live in a Bharat where the police don’t shy away from hitting women who are protesting and asking for justice. I live in a Bharat where the Government’s precautionary measure to reduce rapes is to ask people to confine themselves in their homes post-1 am. I live in a Bharat where those in power think that the best way to control crime is to make the victim understand the anatomy of the crime, and not the criminal.

Bharat has committed a lot of mistakes. Grey hair and bodies corrected by surgery are deciding, time and time again, how the country is to run. I am not asking for anything more but for the powers that be to realise that the majority population of my nation is young and raring to go; it is the real India.

But enough has been said by all quarters about how India needs to unleash itself now. It’s time that we start controlling Bharat; for once I feel that we do need retirement houses for these old people who are just a step away from sitting in wheel chairs permanently, but who are presently running Parliament.

But how does that become a reality? By sitting in protest at India Gate? By descending on Jantar Mantar? By sitting in front of your laptop and sharing a few pics and videos? Or by really going out to achieve our kingdom, our country, a country where the shameless are shamed and criminals are punished hard?

We need to repair Bharat so that it becomes our India. And that would be possible when India reclaims Bharat. Today, these leaders are in their high offices only because India sits or goes out on a vacation when elections are announced. They are ruling us, because we only raise our voices when something really gory things happen to us, and not when things go wrong in other spheres. We don’t raise our voices when a criminal fights an election, we don’t say much when a Facebook user is arrested. We don’t raise our voices when we have to give a tenner to get a cop off our backs.

We’ve theorised enough. Let’s go out and do something that makes a difference, and not something that is merely symbolic.

Jatin Sharma is a media professional who doesn’t want to grow up, because he feels that if he grows up, he will be like everybody else.

(Picture courtesy antarmukhi-ashu.blogspot.com)

Hate. Tweet. Rinse. Repeat.

A Mumbaikar writes about the malaise that grips us all – of having a contrary, angry opinion, whatever the situation.

by Jatin Sharma

India is rising but the people in India are lying still. All of us are intoxicated by social networking sites. Any event or incident that becomes news, pressurises each one of us to update our Facebook statuses or tweets. And this pressure has given an impetus to a generation that is like a headless chicken walking on the roads.

Take the case of Arvind Kejriwal. In the entire fracas after he declared his political intentions, what became evident was that we all have started to hate common logic. There is no doubt that Arvind Kejriwal single-handedly took charge to expose different politicians; but there is also ample proof to suggest that people have completely developed a puzzling mindset – that of hating everything that is happening around them.

The moment Kejriwal entered politics by forming a political party, people started talking about how all the dharnas and all the fasts he undertook were under the pretext of gaining political mileage.

But I have a few questions for these ‘thinkers’:

Aren’t the politicians of the country supposed to do the same?

Aren’t the leaders of this country supposed to question and expose the ill-doing of other leaders?

And wouldn’t we like a leader who could make others fear their wrongdoings?

So what did he do wrong by attempting to expose corruption with evidence? Whether he has a political ambition or not is irrelevant. For once, corrupt politicians are feeling the heat. For once, they are being questioned. When was the last time in your memory that you saw this happen in the political sphere?

And another thing: what did we do when he stood as a common man with Anna Hazare? Supported him with a few tweets and a few status updates, and counted how many retweets and likes we got!

I suppose Arvind Kejriwal also understands that to bring about any change, he will need to change his strategy. Without political power, he will just end up as one of those several voices that are muted by the powerful. Whatever his intention may be, or whatever the name of the poster boy is, Kejriwal or something else, for once India should stand up for the greater good.

We can find good leaders only when we can become good followers. We can become good followers only when we act as per a situation and not according to what people want us to think.

Jatin Sharma 26, works in the media and doesn’t want to grow up, because he thinks that growing up means becoming like everyone else.

(Picture courtesy www.indiatvnews.com)