Give Good Governance for India Campaign

1-04/11

Corruption is a national sickness- an epidemic where middle class morality, value systems and lip sympathy are the only cheaply available prophylactic- an epidemic which affects all segments of the society, the worst being the poor and gullible- an epidemic for which the diagnosis, prognosis and remedy are all done by the public themselves since they themselves are the vectors (carriers) of the virus - an epidemic which is much loathed and despised but little effort has been put forth to prevent the spread- an epidemic which has penetrated into every nook and corner of the judiciary, police, military, central & state governments, public sector, private sector, and religious institutions. Corruption is an epidemic with which the people of the country have learnt to live with.

The rot is systemic and has reached a point of no return. I am sure that most of you who are reading this blogpost would be doing your best wherever you are working and would be expecting the same from others in the society. The disappointment comes when we do not find it elsewhere. Pride of executing ones job, love for the nation, contentment of wealth, respect for national property, so on and so forth have never been our nation’s virtue. If children had been brought up properly by parents and teachers, by instilling these virtues in their minds, our country would not have been facing these problems. Good Governance starts at home. If parents educate their children with the intention of getting back the money ‘somehow’ that is where the menace of dowry (a form of domestic corruption) comes in. If someone’s palm is greased for getting a good job for his son he is allowed to make the money back at his work place. A father would not mind selling everything under the sky to get a plump job as a Motor Vehicles Inspector for his son.

Just as there is a work culture for a firm, we need to have a common culture for the whole country transcending all races, religions, castes and colour. We have been singing praises of the Japanese and Germans but we were never near their virtues. We are a country of sloggers. We all work hard for our earning and most of us end up doing the same, generation after generation, without making much of a difference in standard of living. Our marginalised farmers and village artisans are typical examples for this. The condition of unorganized labour class in cities is still worse- teachers and nurses in private institutions for instance. These are the people who do not bother about scams and money laundering. Opinion polls taken during the recent elections are proof for this statement. Most of the rural folks in Tamilnadu were not aware of the 2G and 3G scams!! On one side we have the sloggers and on the other side we have the corrupt ones making money in multitudes of millions and stacking them up in benamis (proxy names) and in Swiss banks.

During my days in the school and college I had a very high regard for our armed forces and strongly believed that it was the only segment where corruption did not enter. But then you know better. Today corruption is an epidemic as I have already mentioned. Will it be eradicated? It is here that people like Anna Hazare, Kiran Bedi, Kejriwal and scores of like minded people, you and me hold the answer for this question. The proposed Bill has already let loose a sort of frenzy across the country and the stuttering and uttering of sheer nonsensical statements are all part of the deterrent the Bill has already created during the past few days. So many Bills had been drafted in this country. I had a golden opportunity to be a part of the Policy Team in Sa-Dhan which was entrusted with the work of drafting the Microfinance Bill during 2005-06. Unfortunately the Bill that was presented in the Parliament was diametrically opposite to what we had suggested. That’s a different story. What I am excited now is about the excitement created around the Lokpal Bill drafting committee!!

The writing on the wall is loud and clear- Beware of the Ombudsman. Come what may the Bill has to be passed with enough and more teeth to fully eradicate this menace of corruption from this country. The proposed Lokpal Bill should look at the nexus between corporate and Government functionaries. The Lokpal Bill should include bureaucrats, politicians, people who ‘run’ and ‘use’ NGOs to convert black into white, the private sector, religious institutions and the police. The Bill should also look at a framework to include the judiciary and the military to an extent where it could raise strong objections to exposed corruption in these two crucial areas.

This campaign for Give Good Governance goes beyond the scope of eradicating corruption. We would need Governments at the State and Centre which Govern properly. We do not want Governments which are incapacitated to control and regulate the private sector. We do not want Governments which take over the businesses of the private sector blaming them of profiteering and then run the business themselves. Governments are not meant for running businesses. In a true democracy Governments should encourage enterprise on an equitable basis from its people and should never become one in the fray. Good Governance is where governments provide opportunities for many players to compete in the market and avoid monopolistic tendencies to creep into the economy. This is where the USA has miserably failed. In the name of democracy they have created gargantuan monopolies which virtually run the country. Back home, Governments find lot of profit in running buses and they run them too. They found the same result from selling liquor, mining sand etc. Then came Microfinance- Governments both at the centre and state found a gold mine of vote-banks and business opportunity and they just clinched the business. I would like to remind such ‘enterprising’ Governments that there is one another business, could probably be the oldest profession in the world, which could be a lucrative one if run by the Government- why leave that to the private sector?

These were some of my thoughts on Good Governance. I shall keep writing in this blog on this matter in the coming days.

We need to spread the word about the 3G- India Campaign (Give Good Governance for India Campaign).

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Participate by writing to me your views. Lets see how we can take it forward.

P.Uday Shankar

Coimbatore.

24.04.11.