Before I get started, I would like to mention that this donation of mine is a tight SLAP on the face of Sushil Kumar Shinde, Subramanian Swamy and every one who is questioning if Aam Aadmi Party is getting foreign funding. I am an Indian citizen living in Singapore, I am a student and I have just donated Rs 10,001 to the party. This is the source of Aam Aadmi Party’s so called “foreign funding”. Do these politicians, who are raising their concern, want to stop me from donating for the good of my own country? (a few slaps more… and more…)
I heard my parents cribbing about ‘sab neta chor hain’ all the while I was living with them. I picked these lines as I grew up and became complacent with the system. As a student in India, I had to travel a lot. My parents taught me to buy ticket every time, while I saw many people around me travelling without ticket on trains by bribing the TTE. Quite common right? TTE’s even have fixed rate these day. Yes, there’s ‘no bargain policy’ in bribes too! Anyway, this was just one such example… but where in India does Bribery not work? There might be a handful of such places. My parents always taught me – “Beta, (burai se) bach ke raho”. The teaching of ‘Bura mat dekho, Bura mat suno, Bura mat bolo’ has gone a bit too far. Frankly, I am still not sure if it has been hugely misinterpreted or merely used as a cover-up to turn a blind eye to anything and everything wrong around us. I have to admit I am guilty of the same. Someone lying, I stayed away! Someone bribing, I kept away! Someone beating up his wife, I pitied her and turned my face away! Someone spat on the floor, I flinched and leaped aside to avoid stepping on it!
Be it education, medication, transportation, construction or employment in government organizations – you can always expect to upgrade from what you deserve by simply bribing someone. It’s become as legitimate as upgrading to meal in McDonald’s or KFC, hasn’t it? This is the India I saw my parents and grand parents live in, all of their lives. Although, they hardly had an active role to play in the corrupt system, they shouldn’t have taught me to accept the system as it is and move on. Every child is taught the rights he has as a citizen of this country. But we seldom try to get into the implications of those rights. Majority of youth are still so unaware that if asked, “Do you vote?” the most common answer is – “Kisko vote kare? Sab to chor hain”.
In April 2011, when I was in final year of engineering, something revolutionary happened – the Jan Lokpal movement. My attitude towards ‘Politics in India’ changed drastically. I started being bothered about ‘fellow Indians’. I started caring about the events going on in my country. I am sure many people who got together for the Jan Lokpal movement now think we are back in the same state as India was before April 2011. I kept following it and just couldn’t afford to lose track of what’s going on until I see concrete results. Jan Lokpal movement gave me a hope that I shall be able to see a true democracy, i.e. for the people, of the people and by the people. Politics will not be an ancestral property of few Indians. Most importantly my money will be used for my country’s development and not my MP or MLA’s personal growth.
I paid almost 20% of my salary as tax to the government for the two years I worked in Bangalore. It hurt me a lot, because I knew that my money will go away in one or the other scam. I was left with no choice but to pay a part of my income to the government. Well, I thought… why not pay a little more! Pay a little more to the point we achieve Jan Lokpal. Aam Aadmi Party gave me a hope. I don’t want to give a chance to AAP just because it is new. I want to give it a chance because its ideology resonates with mine.
There have been questions around Aam Aadmi Party getting 19 crore Rupees of funds so far. I really do not understand the motive behind it. Have the other political parties any right to raise this question, who have thousands of crores of rupees of funding with 40 – 90% coming from UNKNOWN sources? Shamelessness! They are actually questioning AAP on my funding (which I am doing from Singapore, a foreign country). Are they talking about depriving me of my rights to donate to my own land?
I want to ask those illiterates, Sushilkumar Shinde being one of them, who read the same page in the parliament twice and make us pay 2.5 lakh Rupees of every minute extra… I want to ask, have they started counting their days yet? The nation is not the same any more. We want you to know that we are not going to give you another chance any more.
I was watching the recent episode of Pradhanmantri (Episode 18), which talks about V.P. Singh’s Mandal Commission, which has left India crippled into cast based politics and every one extracting the benefit out of it. Every other party trying to please a section of the society to ensure their vote bank. But no one actually wants to develop the nation, otherwise they will be asked more questions. It is difficult to loot an educated man and that’s why they do not want education to prevail. It is next to impossible to gain praises from the rich, so they want majority to be poor and keep living on bare minimum. Offer those poor people a 500 rupee note and they will vouch for anyone. All that poor and uneducated will understand is that the one who gives 500 rupee is ‘maai-baap’ but they don’t realize how much their ‘maai-baap’ will take away after they come into power.
The people don't know their true power
Written by Ayush Verma >>
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