*written 2 years ago as an article for the college magazine
Every few years,
a country’s image changes for the world. Once Egypt was the land of mummies but
now it’s the home of protesting citizens and falling governments. Our own
country, India, was a land of spices, mughal architecture , curries, colorful
lives, and now it is known to be a country where people, irritated and fed up of bureaucratic corruption , followed a
man in his struggle to rid the country of this devil .The man was Anna Hazare
and millions of Indians supported him, blindly perhaps. Recent movies like
‘Rang De Basanti’, ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ had the patriotic blood pumping in our
veins. We needed a change, we wanted to realize that dream and that is most
possibly the reason we joined Hazare in his ‘revolution’. We agreed and bobbled
our heads to everything ‘team anna’ bellowed into the microphone. He said “the
corrupt should be hanged” and we raised our fists in agreement. We termed him
the new Gandhi but little did we realize that Gandhi had been against all kinds
of violence, even against the enemy.
Why does
corruption infuriate the common Indian man so much? Well, as we know, India is
a developing country and like every other developed country we are also facing
a series of troubles to achieve absolute development. Poverty, illiteracy and
corruption are the major ones. To make a country powerful and peaceful, the
government and the citizens need to work together and when this does not
happen, the citizens become agitated. What follows are the revolutions and demonstrations,
strikes and dharnas. The people watched
it over television and were manipulated by the media which is a lot more than
just biased in today’s date. The media portrayed the government as the biggest
evil and prosecutor of all freedom that one deserves. Nobody seemed to question
the naked barbarism that was flowing from Hazare’s speeches. Hanging the MPs or
the MLAs doesn’t quite fit with the image of ‘second Gandhi ‘ I had created in
my mind. Gandhi called off the non-cooperation movement due to the Chauri
Chaura incident. He couldn’t forgive his own followers for such a gruesome act
of violence against the police officials. The blood rush and the excitement had
got their good judgment blind. Somewhat
like our own at the moment when we cheered in unison about hanging the corrupt.
Gandhi had a
policy “hate the crime, not the criminal”. He believed that the guilty must
always be given a chance to repent and corporal punishment is never a solution.
Though it might create terror in the hearts of those who will try to engage in
corrupt practices in the future but will the risk be worth taking? Moreover,
what is the reason that a person lets himself take advantage of another person’s
helplessness? Are they his own difficult circumstances which make him helpless
himself? Are the officials being paid well enough to suit their needs or is it
that their thirst for more money can never be satiated? Also there are cases
where taking bribes is acceptable to both the parties and no one complaints. I
personally believe that prevention is better than ’cure’. Close monitoring is
needed to keep tab on the workers and officials. They must not be given any
chance to take advantage of and the problem will find a solution itself.
We do not live
in the post French Revolution Reign of Terror where men were guillotined for
stealing lambs. Many developed countries have ruled out corporal punishment and
for us to go back to the ways of medieval ages and yet dream of becoming
developed country ourselves seems an obnoxious idea. We live in a democratic
society where punishments are decided accordingly, giving full chance for the
guilty to repent and not with boiling blood and hot heads which cannot judge
righteously in the heat of the
revolution and activity after a long period of stagnation.
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