Since the fight against corruption is fuming this monsoon, I thought of sharing some base line of the corruption. Shri. Kisan Baburao Hazare is fighting against corrupts and corruption for the common man being a common man against national level leaders, but we being a common man, are we not corrupt and most who support corruption at every step of life?
Did you ever ask yourself if you are corrupt or not? I did and I found myself a grass root of this corruption.
1. Driving license : I was too young to have driving license for two wheelers and 4 wheelers. I was just 16 when I got my first driving license made that too without test drive. All I had to do at that time was go to the agent and pay him amount he ask for without asking how much is the legal fees for the driving license. I still don’t know how much is that, but I knew a part of the amount goes to the officer who issue’s the License as bribe on my behalf. Isn’t that corruption?
2. Don’t follow rules while driving: Since I got the driving license, I am the king of road and no one can stop me for doing what so ever. I can make 3-4 ppl. Sit on my 2 wheeler. If I am not in mood to stop at red light I don’t care color of the light it is. Since one ways are sort cuts, and I am told to be brave and flow against water I try driving against traffic. Since am a big music lover I love to blast my music system in the car specially in the city. I am the most busy person on the road and keep my show going on by talking on my mobile while driving, I guess people should understand I might be multimillionaire in future (if alive). So when traffic police catch me for doing all these activities, I can just pay him Rs. 10 to Rs. 50 depending on his greed and my wish and escape without falling into all the rules and regulations, after all our target is to finish the matter ASAP, who cares if the money goes to his pocket or Government, and in case the traffic office is not ready take the other way, I am always ready to call up grandpa and escape without paying anything.
3. Police FIR : We all know that police FIR is free but we still insist our self on paying to police office on duty for something that government is also paying them for. Why we still are not interested to know about it. Once I lost my bike from my office parking and for that I went to nearby police station to lounge a FIR. To complete this process it took almost more than 5 hours and when I got the receipt of FIR complain believe me the police office did not ask me to pay anything instead I insisted him and asked “what can I do for you sir?” in reply he said whatever you can, so I just took out new currency note of Rs. 500 with Mr. Gandhi looking at me and handed it over to the police office on duty. In this whole process I was not at all interested in getting back my old bike, I was more interested in getting the Insurance amount ASAP, so that I can buy a new one. Didn’t I support corruption?
4. Police verification for Passport: Few years back I applied for my passport, thinking I may get a change to go out of country for some work or to travel. After few days of my application I got a call from my area police station asking to coming down for the police verification of my passport application. I went there and did nothing, just showed them the residence proof and again a crispy currency note of Rs. 500 with Mr. Gandhi peeping at me. Am I not supporting corruption?
5. Postmen : We are all great fan of out postal service and our own postmen’s, they work so hard that we get easily impressed by them and pay them a token amount on arrival of some good news, on festivals etc, are we suppose to? Is this not a part of corruption?
6. While traveling in train: the online train ticket booking system was new to me few years back, once I booked e-ticket which was showing me as waiting (not confirmed ticket). I though it works as a regular waiting ticket and I can at least get into the reserved compartment to avoid the rush of the regular compartment. As I have habit of not reading the terms and conditions completely, I got this hard lesson while traveling. As usual the TC came and asked me for the tickets, I showed him the e-ticket I had, he said sir this is waiting ticket and it’s as good as not having a ticket and traveling. I was surprised and I said but I already paid for it? Then TC explained me about e-ticket terms and conditions. He then said if my e-ticket don’t get confirmed before the traveling date my money gets refunded to my account. I was clue less and TC wanted to me to pay for the penalty + actually traveling charges, which was going to be big amount for sure. Instead of going legal way I tried to convince him to find the middle way so that he and me gets benefited. To do this I gave an shameless point of being educated and responsible citizen and this happen because I was not knowing. But point is that I should not have asked TC to find the middle way. I feel my basic thinking for some problem or dealing with any gov. office has gone corrupt.
These are just few incidences that mentioned about but in daily we do corruption thinking it’s a way of getting things done. All I feel, I don’t need Anna Hazare if I want to improve the situation. If I am strong enough for myself things will be lot in control or Mr. Hazare alone can’t change anything till I change my habits.
All I want to say is “We have a habit of exploiting anyone without power. As a flip side, we are suckers for anyone with power, then y blame politicians ?”
