Fear,hunger And Corruption

Fear Hunger and Corruption are the Principal three anathemas to Democracy. Machiavelli taught the prince that the King should frame such laws, that subjects are compelled to break them. The moment they break the laws, they are reduced to law breakers or criminals and would be too scared to revolt against any misdeeds of the King. This theory may had been an effective tool of reprisal in a Monarchy form of Dictatorial form of Government i.e, in a state and subject relationship. However in democracy the relationship is of state and citizen and not that of state and subject. Ex President of US of A Bill Clinton once in an academic institutes felicitation speech had remarked that “The highest seat of power in a democracy is that of an ordinary citizen” Hence it is the primary duty of a Democratically elected sovereign government to render that power to its common citizens and thereby have a fearless society of its citizens. Mahatma Gandhi defined independence as “ability to resist a wrong”. This ability arises out of fearlessness alone. Fear could be of the state, of the terrorists, of hunger or of any other impending peril. To eradicate fear, the state has to first eradicate hunger and state autocracy. Very often state supposed to render succor to its citizens due to misperceived priorities becomes perilous. The fear of Hunger is a bigger fear then that of Death. Poverty is more treacherous then Death. Death kills one once . Its victims are the dependants/ family and not the dead. Whereas poverty kills every moment and the principal victim is the supposed bread earner. So the principal fear in India is that of Hunger. Though law and order and safety of its citizens is always the primary responsibility of the state , in India the situation is dichotomous. Sizeable number of policemen are involved in providing security to the KING i.e, the law makers the so called VIP’s. Number of police personnel’s and other incidentals available for common citizen are woefully inadequate. Besides this political interference, political patronage to the criminals , hooligans functioning under the banner of political cadre skew the situation further. Corruption is the biggest hurdle in eradicating fear and hunger. Moral poverty always precedes financial poverty. Today India has more billionaires then Japan. In fact it has highest number of billionaires in Asia. The flip side is that we have 77% of our population living on or below subsistence level. The entire governance is VOTE centric and not people centric. The successive Governments have been fooling all the people all the time. Giving them slogans ,dividing them on the lines of cast, dividing them on the lines of linguistic chauvinism ,creating a chasm between the employers and employees has been the rule of the game known as administration. For the express and only purpose of creating of a Vote bank, Reservation is used as a subterfuge.

It is High time that Government (of whichever political hue) discarded expediency , vote centric antics giving them names of development policies and took a long term view. As Swami Vivekanand once said that “Only people of high character can build a Great Nation. No people of small character have ever built a Great Nation.” Hence Nation building has to commence with Character Building. This was the priority enshrined in the directive principals of our Constitution too , the corner stone of our republic. Education and Health should had been the first priorities of the Independent India and not Building ASHOKA HOTEL to function as Indias Drawing Room. If the master of the house is more concerned about the drawing room, the kitchen is sure to be bereft of the necessary cereals. Education that would convert children into responsible citizens required planning with great vision and substantial financial input. We in India are fortunate to have Great tools for Character Building viz., GITA. It has nothing to do with any religion in the conceited percepts of religion. It does not have the mention of the H word any where in its 700 shlokas. It should be included in school syllabus from class V. That’s the formative age of children. GITA would indoctrinate them about responsibilities of an individual. It would teach them the real meaning of DHARMA ( distinct from religion) We would need different breed of teachers to show the results. The common frustrated illiterate gentry caricaturing as teachers would be totally disastrous. We would have to pick them up from places like “R K Mission”, “Chinmay Mission” etc., It’s a program that would need a decade to show results. Yet after the DECADE I would not venture to say that 100% of the students would metamorph into responsible citizens. Even if the number of HITS is barely 10% , we would race so far ahead of the rest of the World, that todays most developed America, would not be visible on the horizon, in our rear view mirror. History records that he nations who have paid better emoluments to its teachers have progressed best. Its necessary in the long run to make teaching as a desired vocation and not the last refuge of a failure.