The Blind Sheep

I was in four minds for the title of this entry...
1. The Jan Lokpal Bill/Anna Hazare and the hype created
2. Bhedchal
3. Andhon mein Kaana Raja
and 4. The Blind Spectators
and somehow I mixed up everything and came up with the above...

Why u ask? Maybe it's just me.. I have a tendency to look for areas of criticisms in everything... Maybe it's just because I try to think on lines different than what the rest of the world is. Even if the possibility or the reasons are completely alien to this world... Maybe.. I am wrong.. Maybe...
But I would still write.. Coz... This is MY BLOG!!!

I dare you to ask any college goer who's supporting the Jan Lokpal Bill, "What Anna Hazare and his movement is actually standing for??".. And a majority would have the answer that it's against corruption and corrupt politicians.. Ask a How or a Why? And there would be silence or maybe a meaningless retort. Facebook is filled up with news and statuses ad what-not related to this. I log into facebook to see what my friends are upto and I see status messages which tell me that I should support Anna Hazare if I am a true Indian. Are you kidding me.. U want me to stand up for something that shouldn't be there in the first place because I am an Indian.. It's like asking a Vegan to eat meat because he's christian... Whrs the sense??

After trying to ignore this for a couple of days I finally thought "Whatever! If so many people are supporting this.. maybe it's an important thing and finally we, the Indians have got the senses to stand against the govt. for a rightful cause. So maybe.. it's time for me to support instead of just thinking that it's nonsense once again." So I went to the site that describes the bill in salient points. The site that's now been on almost every alternate Indian's profile who's been active on facebook for the last week. What I read there got me thinking on how the Indian youth is like the sheep. You give them some nice sounding reasons and tell that what you are doing is going to benefit India and they will join you. Especially if some of their peers are already doing that. Not because they think it's right. But because you tell them it's right and it's the in-thing. Pick any from the following list: Corruption, Terrorism, Pakistan, Cricket, Bureaucracy, Red Tape, Politicians.. and a lot else. I know you have noticed that I added Cricket in the list too. That's there not because it unites us. That's because that too is a platform where we vent our anger and frustration. Pick the world cup matches and try to see how much we Indians have abused other teams/players. There is a thin line between making fun and abusing. And we are slowly finding it hard to notice that line and frequently cross over. This whole concept is actually exploited a lot by politicians these days. Instead of promising the growth they now depend more and more on the blame game to get votes. And we just like the sheep we are, blindly follow that.

Coming back to the topic of Jan Lokpal Bill. How many of us actually know what is it. It is trying to introduce a Lokpal who has full and complete authority over the politicians of today. It sounds like a good thing because the politicians of today are corrupt and need to be curbed. But it's also giving a full and complete authority to the Lokpal. My bro asked the perfect question after reading this... "Qui custodiet ipsos custodes?" : Who's stopping the Lokpal to become corrupt by the power. The Lokpal would be in a position to manipulate any politician and in turn anything and everything in the country. Would there again be someone above Lokpal?? Or do we believe Lokpal won't be corrupted by the power because "WE, The People Of India" have the right to choose the Lokpal thanks to Anna Hazare now. But another question.. who actually chooses the corrupt politicians into power?? Isn't that us. So isn't the solution to the corrupt politicians actually in the way how we elect them. Instead now we choose to elect someone else to supervise the corrupt politicians once we've chosen the corrupt politicians into power. In my field it's called a Bad Fix.. Not fixing the root cause of the problem but instead adding code that just overrides the problem for some time. Some unforeseen byproducts of having a Lokpal that the so educated and aware youth of India have chosen to ignore are the huge expenses that would accompany the Lokpal Elections. Huge salaries and retirement plans that would need to be provided to the Lokpals so that they can not be swayed for monetary reasons. And of course the security and what not. It would be like a govt. over a govt. In terms of the days of monopoly.. It would be a king of kings.
And my last question... Do we actually need this??