And another fool joins the bandwagon....
Well....you must be wondering...who is the fool and what does the bandwagon refer to??? I shall explain...
Alright...so basically, sometime back, Anna Hazare had started a fast unto death in order to pressurize the government into passing the legendary, renowned and believed-to-be-solver-of-all-problems-plaguing-India bill called the 'Lokpal Bill'. In a nutshell, the bill is all about tackling corruption and making all government officials, including netas, top politicos and teh judiciary, accountable and responsible for their actions.
In theory, this is brilliant!!! For a country where the saying "Haamara Bharat Mahaan, Sau mein say ninyaanvei beimaan" (Our India is great, 99 out of 100 people are corrupt) finds resonance and is accepted, it is imperative that there be rules and regulations which target all corrupt officials.
Now, my problem...what is wanted, under this bill, is the formation of a Lokpal committee, which will be the overseer of the entire government and to whom EVERYONE in the government and judiciary, including the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice, will be answerable and accountable to.
Anyone with 2 brain cells can see the problem here....this Lokpal committee will hold all power..!!! And a tremendous power at that. Who is to say that these people will not over time become corrupt or use their position for their own good? How can an entire government system be put under ONE single committee??? How different will we be from a pseudo-communist country then? Yeah, the government will be elected, but that won't really do us any good because the entire power will rest with the Lokpal Committe, whose members are not going to be 'elected'
Now, another one of my concerns is that instead of tackling corruption, this bill will inadvertently end up hurting the honest officers and ministers we have in service because they are the ones who do not have enough guile or inclination to pull strings and get themselves out of sticky situations. They are the ones who are not willing to bend over or look the other way when their own colleagues or some high profile people want some strings pulled. Hence, they would have most probably not made a lot of friends and are going to be the ones who will suffer the most since it is quite apparent that wily politicians and netas can 'talk' and 'pull strings' to get themselves out of anything...
Now that my rant as such is done...onto the new fool...
That new fool happens to be Baba Ramdev, who says that he too s going to fast unto death to tackle corruption and bring back all the black money stashed away in Swiss bank accounts.
He is supposed to be a yogi and blah blah blah...but he so clearly has political aspirations here. Not to mention he is fickle. Just a day after saying that he does not think that offices of the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India (CJI) should be bought under the ambit of the bill, he backtracks and says that he never said anything of the sort. Yeah...and he is supposed to be the leader for the masses....what a guy....and one who combines religion and politics.
Another thing I don't quite understand....fasting to pressurize the government??? Really??? All it really does is provide the media with fodder to sensationalize and present to the public for their viewing pleasure.
Anna Hazare's movement worked the first time round because of its novelty...and this time round, its getting old. I wonder if all the people who are following Baba Ramdev even understand the ramifications of what will happen if the Lokpal Bill in its current form was passed..it would be disaster for an already stumbling-and-tumbling political and social system of the country.
Alright...so basically, sometime back, Anna Hazare had started a fast unto death in order to pressurize the government into passing the legendary, renowned and believed-to-be-solver-of-all-problems-plaguing-India bill called the 'Lokpal Bill'. In a nutshell, the bill is all about tackling corruption and making all government officials, including netas, top politicos and teh judiciary, accountable and responsible for their actions.
In theory, this is brilliant!!! For a country where the saying "Haamara Bharat Mahaan, Sau mein say ninyaanvei beimaan" (Our India is great, 99 out of 100 people are corrupt) finds resonance and is accepted, it is imperative that there be rules and regulations which target all corrupt officials.
Now, my problem...what is wanted, under this bill, is the formation of a Lokpal committee, which will be the overseer of the entire government and to whom EVERYONE in the government and judiciary, including the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice, will be answerable and accountable to.
Anyone with 2 brain cells can see the problem here....this Lokpal committee will hold all power..!!! And a tremendous power at that. Who is to say that these people will not over time become corrupt or use their position for their own good? How can an entire government system be put under ONE single committee??? How different will we be from a pseudo-communist country then? Yeah, the government will be elected, but that won't really do us any good because the entire power will rest with the Lokpal Committe, whose members are not going to be 'elected'
Now, another one of my concerns is that instead of tackling corruption, this bill will inadvertently end up hurting the honest officers and ministers we have in service because they are the ones who do not have enough guile or inclination to pull strings and get themselves out of sticky situations. They are the ones who are not willing to bend over or look the other way when their own colleagues or some high profile people want some strings pulled. Hence, they would have most probably not made a lot of friends and are going to be the ones who will suffer the most since it is quite apparent that wily politicians and netas can 'talk' and 'pull strings' to get themselves out of anything...
Now that my rant as such is done...onto the new fool...
That new fool happens to be Baba Ramdev, who says that he too s going to fast unto death to tackle corruption and bring back all the black money stashed away in Swiss bank accounts.
He is supposed to be a yogi and blah blah blah...but he so clearly has political aspirations here. Not to mention he is fickle. Just a day after saying that he does not think that offices of the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India (CJI) should be bought under the ambit of the bill, he backtracks and says that he never said anything of the sort. Yeah...and he is supposed to be the leader for the masses....what a guy....and one who combines religion and politics.
Another thing I don't quite understand....fasting to pressurize the government??? Really??? All it really does is provide the media with fodder to sensationalize and present to the public for their viewing pleasure.
Anna Hazare's movement worked the first time round because of its novelty...and this time round, its getting old. I wonder if all the people who are following Baba Ramdev even understand the ramifications of what will happen if the Lokpal Bill in its current form was passed..it would be disaster for an already stumbling-and-tumbling political and social system of the country.