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| An image of Heracles of Greek mythology killing the Hydra - Image courtesy, Wikipedia |
The above picture is that of the Greek hero Heracles killing the hydra - A mythological creature with multiple heads and on cutting one head, it grew two more.This creature represents the state of our political system. Remove one corrupt party - two more spring up. And Heracles is like the Lokpal bill - fighting hard till he succeeded.
It started off with a noble motive - to create a bill that will finally make politicians accountable for the "service" they render to our country by shipping away the wealth to Swiss accounts so that we can toil and shed our sweat and blood and tears and make more for them.
It was introduced in 1968 where it was passed from the Lok Sabha and before it could also be passed in the Rajya Sabha, the Lok Sabha was dissolved - talk about bad luck.
Thereafter it was introduced another seven times and not passed at all.
And the total money spent in trying to get it passed 8 times since 1968 - 1737 crores of which 1700 crores was in 2011 alone.
This goes on to prove that we as a country are really pissed about the scams and corruption and it erupted in the recent past by way of support to Anna Hazare and his campaign. But all the energy drained when nothing happened.
And today after all the effort to put in place a strong anti corruption bill failed, they are doing the next best thing - starting their own party. The question I had when the interest in the Lokpal issue flared up was this - the committee that would run the operations of this bill, aren't they too prone to be corrupted by the power they wield?
In that context I think a new political party is a better way. Not only are we getting a party that actually does not have a history of tainted members, we also have the power to change them if they turn out to be worse than the existing thugs.
I see members of the Congress and the BJP talk about corruption in the ruling party - whichever one it is at the moment and all I can do is laugh - they both have so many members wallowing in cases that they would need special organizers to keep track of their court case dates and lawyer appointments
and they talk about corruption as an issue in India.
My friend and I were recently talking and he was telling me about a software company that was designing street lamps that automatically went off during daytime - imagine the savings in electricity. The company that manufactured them apprently had to bribe their way to getting their approval once for deployment in a South Indian state. The CM then passed away in an accident and a new CM came in, they had to bribe the new regime. This CM too moved into another post and the new regime had to be paid yet again if they wanted to launch their products. They decided it was not worth the "investment" and moved their project to a less corrupt state.
This is a story and I have no proof. But i believe it without an iota of doubt - that's the trust and faith I have in our leaders.
And so with anticipation I wait for the new party to be floated by Arvind Kejriwal and team. With hopes for a better India and access to a part of the nations wealth too - why must only the politicians be able to open Swiss accounts. I'm sure a lot of people will agree to that.
Let us hope another Hydra is not being created as it would break the little faith we have, not only in our system, but in the people too.
To those interested in learning more about what the Lokpal bill is without the gassy English - this Wikipedia article is worth a read - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lokpal_Bill
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