I guess, you have been hearing a lot of about the Commonwealth Games 2010 to be held at Delhi in news channels. I would not waste my time in describing all that has already been told; rather I would make an attempt to say what is not being told.
First, let me give you some background.
Irrespective of whether you agree or not, political parties in India are compelled to do corruption to sustain their annual budgets. Remember that, unlike in western democracies, people of India do not fund the political particles. Therefore political parties have to rely on corruption. It’s a very simple thing to understand. If you haven’t understood, let me describe a personal experience of mine. From a long time, I wanted to join politics. In this regard, I met with few local area-level politicians. Some of them were super-arrogant and gave no inside details but fortunately I came across one gentleman who gave a clearer picture. Consider that, you want a party ticket for a MP seat… in order for you to get that ticket, you need to give assurance to political party that you would bring funds for the following tasks
· Salaries for at least 100 party workers for your constituency. Even if you pay Rs. 5000 per month to each of the party worker, for the period of 5 years, it becomes 100*5000*5*12 = 3,00,00,000 (3 crore)
· Advertising the party during campaigns, road shows, media advertisements, etc. This depends on how much you want to advertise … costs minimum of 50 lakhs per constituency.
· Maintaining about 10-20 party offices across the constituency. Say, maintenance of each office is about 10,000. For 10 offices for the period of 5 years, it becomes 10* 10,000*5*12 = 60,00,000 (60 lakhs).
Overall, that’s about Rs. 4 crore. As a MP, you are supposed to get 4 crore in funding to maintain the political party in your region. How can a MP get 4 crore in funding? Why would industrialists just like that give money to political parties? It’s here the corruption begins. If the MP cannot accept corruption, he won’t be able to give salary to party members and maintain offices. Also, think about the politicians who lose in elections, how will they be able to sustain the party workers? Even though, in our school education we learn about democracy, but what we don’t learn is that… people need to fund political parties… otherwise, political parties will be forced to do corruption. And once they start doing corruption, they won’t limit to just 4 crore… but rather earn as much as they can.
Now, coming back to Commonwealth games 2010… let’s apply some common sense and understand why Indian politicians thought of bidding for the games some 5-10 years back. These games provide an excellent opportunity for the politicians to do corruption and that’s the main reason why India bid for the games in first place. Remember, none of us went to politicians and asked them to bid for it. They did it on their own.
So, now, I don’t really understand, why are we complaining? Are we complaining that, Indian politicians are corrupt? Of course they are… and let’s accept it… we made them corrupt. Also, remember, we live in democracy… which means we have elected them. So, we cannot blame the politicians… we got to blame ourselves.
Now, if you are able to understand what I mean…. then the most important question would be… how do we solve this mess with Indian system? The solution is very simple… but requires us to come out of the fool’s paradise we live in. It requires two things
1. Give up Gandhi’s ideas of non-violence
2. Every person in India should contribute minimum of 100 rupees to political parties every year
Gandhi’s ideas of non-violence have made of us coward. Let’s accept it. The politicians who are doing corruption know that, we won’t do harm to them, no matter what they do. They are not like British, who respected our non-violent attitude and left India. Indian politicians know pretty well the pros and cons of Gandhi’s ideas. While the common man is always asked to follow Gandhi’s ideas... remember the political parties itself don’t follow them. That’s why you see… all those burning of busses and public property by political parties.
The second thing is to give party funding. 100 rupees per year is not a huge amount… even a beggar would be able to do that. 100 rupees per person leads to 10,000 crore rupees per year as party funds…. this is sufficient for all major political parties to run successfully. Note that, each person has the freedom to contribute to any party he/she likes.
If you give up Gandhi’s idea of non-violence and give 100 rupees per year to political party of your choice… the nation would change within a year or two. Following things are obvious…
1. Since everyone has given party funding, everyone would demand zero-corruption from government. If they still do corruption, since you have given up Gandhi’s ideas of non-violence, you would resort to violence and may actually burn all the MPs in parliament alive.
2. You would treat anyone who does corruption more than Rs. 10 lakhs as terrorist. So, if you find a terrorist walking on the road… what would you do? You would kill him for the safety of nation and its people.
3. Each political party would work towards development and welfare of people, because each political party wants people to contribute funds towards their party.
Now, I understand, giving up Gandhi’s ideas means… you need to hit gym and work on your attitude… something that you won’t want to do. And of course, you are ready to shell out thousands in corruption but not ready to give 100 rupees for party funds. Yes, that’s why we deserve the mess at Commonwealth games.
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