5-Point Formula for Anna Hazare to Kill Corruption
Are you looking for someone who can make a mess of even the most serious issue of national importance? Meet Anna Hazare. He can do it in four days flat. And he has just demonstrated his skills to do that while raising his voice against the monster-like menace called corruption in India.
By Rakesh Raman
After just four days of tumultuous protest supported by hundreds of thousands of people in India’s capital New Delhi, social activist Anna Hazare disappeared from the scene as fast as he had appeared, leaving the whole campaign against corruption in the middle of the road.
The biggest paradox that emerged from his approach: On one side he and his close campaigners have been criticizing the government with all sorts of corruption charges; and on the other they stood before the same government with a begging bowl in their hands asking some amendments in the Jan Lokpal Bill that most know can’t solve any corruption case even in its best form.
[ Also Read: Can Anna Hazare Give Us Corruption-Free India? ]Then why have Hazare and his team focused just on this irrelevant Bill? God knows! But if Hazare is serious to do anything against corruption in India, he should have continued his drive instead of killing it with his own hands.
But why am I persisting with Hazare? Thanks to hype during the past few days, he has become a popular brand in the corruption-afflicted market and it will be difficult to build a new brand immediately.
[ Also Read: Anna Hazare Goes Out; Corruption Stays with Us ]If he is interested, he can still do it without even standing on the crutches of the proposed Lokpal Bill.
How?
Here are these 5 different steps that Hazare can take along with his supporters:
1. Organization: Hazare has to spearhead the campaign against corruption as a community-led crusade. With the help of his close friends, he needs to organize all his resources to build a massive civil society organization – of the people, by the people, for the people. Based on certain eligibility criteria, he should immediately start recruiting volunteers from all parts of the country to run this organization.
2. Shadow Courts: The people in the organization will create and manage shadow courts in different parts of the country. For instance, one court managed by a team of 20 people will serve a population of one million people. The role of each such court will be to proactively collect complaints from citizens and solve their problems by acting as interface between people and the government departments. Depending on the case, they can also approach the traditional courts to get justice for the aggrieved complainants.
3. Outreach: After setting up the shadow courts, the team in each court will publish the local cases in a periodic print publication in local language to be distributed in the respective areas. The same cases will also appear on a comprehensive and professionally created Web property for everyone (in India and abroad) to know about the people behind those corruption cases. The site should use collaborative features for public to participate in all possible ways. The teams thus created can provide their services even to illiterates while mobile shadow courts can go to even remote areas.
4. Funds: As mentioned above, this entire infrastructure will be of the people, by the people, for the people, there will be millions of people in the country who will come forward with their financial contribution to run the country-wide civil society organization. There are many other genuine methods to raise funds for such an effort.
5. Scope: The scope of the work for such an organization should not be limited to new consumer cases. Rather, it should begin its own investigations in all those big corruption cases in which it is believed that huge money has been swindled by Indian politicians and/or bureaucrats. They may include Commonwealth Games scam, telecom scam, fodder scam, IPL cricket scam, and many other scams. Moreover, it should look into the viability of all those big projects like Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), e-governance, etc. that have been consuming millions and billions of public funds without delivering any worthwhile benefit to public.
As this is just an article, I have briefly mentioned some of the most crucial points. However, these points can be further refined to build a workable anti-corruption organizational model.
As this whole project will be led by Anna Hazare, he won’t need any Bill or government support to provide instant relief to Indian public. Are you ready, Mr. Hazare?
By Rakesh Raman, the managing editor of Raman Media Network.
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POLL RESULTS – In an ongoing Raman Media Network (RMN) Poll, when people were asked “What should be the right punishment for a corrupt politician or a government official?” as of today (April 14) 27% said they should be jailed, 20% demanded public execution for them, 17% asked for social boycott, and 13% said corrupt should be kicked out from the country.
You can also Vote in the “What You Say…” section on the homepage of Raman Media Network news site.
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Good to see all your views Rakesh. We at couchcritics.com can only admire your great ideas. I hope you join Anna’s team or Kejriwal’s team to materialize this dream.
Dear Pallav,
Assuming that I’ve understood your requirement correctly, here are the 5 points about corruption:
1. Corruption has many forms – like a school principal asking for capitation fee from poor parents, taking bribe for providing a government service, giving bribe for getting a service, tax evasion, inefficiency among workers, playing computer games during office hours, paying money to get votes, etc. – it’s a long list.
2. By this measure, it’s not only government officers and politicians, but almost all Indians are corrupt.
3. No new laws are required to deal with corruption.
4. Jan Lokpal Bill can’t deal with even a fraction of corruption in India. It’s a farce.
5. You need a long-term community-based program to root out corruption from India. You’ve read some of the points mentioned above for such a program.
Hope this satisfies your curiosity.
Rakesh Raman
hi rakesh,
can u plz give me 5 big points about corruption
n plz give me today only
Thank you Pradeep for your views and queries. I have a strong belief that such a people-driven organization can be created. There may be initial hiccups in this approach as there will be many in the implementation of Jan Lokpal Bill. As I have mentioned (and I have done complete calcualtions), we can easily create a workforce of volunteers and the funds can also be generated. I am saying this after watching the response from the public during that week of Anna Hazare’s protest. There should not be any problem from the legal point of view, as nothing is illegal in this method. On the other hand, anything with government’s involvement (like Jan Lokpal Bill) is bound to collapse. I can give you numerous examples from the past. So Anna Hazare and his team should not procced on a single track. They need to tackle this menace at diiferent fronts. I repeat – my model given above in the article is very much feasible and can help end corruption at all levels.
Regards
Rakesh Raman
Hi Rakesh,
Would like to know few more things… Do U think if there is even a distant possibility of getting people all over the Country to involve in any of the event of this sort ??? Do U think We will have enough people strength and financial support to handle so many cases ??? Do U think that these corrupt politicians, babus & beaurocrats with so much power in their hands will allow any of these things to happen or even spare anyone involved in this ??? Do You think that this is legally possible ??? Nothing big can be done without cleansing the politics and getting rid of politicians. The suggestion is not sustainable. After Anna Hazare who will lead it so effectively. How long should this be going on??? Without getting rid of corruption from its grass roots, i.e,. from Politics to Govenrment Officials to Beaurocrats, anything else will be futile. That’s what He has started to do…getting the change started from the Government itself, whether they wish to or not…Next what You said can be implemented to an extent to support the Jan Lokpal Bill amendments (if they are done). Hope, there is something in what I have said… Comments are welcome…
Manali, as you suggest, I have given the solutions in my article. Please read it carefully.
Thank you, Vidyut. I have put this article link on India Against Corruption’s Facebook page. If they monitor it properly, they would have read it.
Great ideas. I hope you have submitted them to the India Against Corruption organization. They are asking for people’s suggestions, so that we can ensure the bill is the best possible we can have. The movement against corruption will continue from now on. Its not going to stop with the Bill.
people only want to criticise.u could used ur energy and intelligence in educating people about solutions and motivating them to unite,instead of writing that useless article.Anna is an old man and he is doing the best he can with his capabilities.what are u doing.stop criticising and start acting.it is ur responsibility to work too.
i think each one has a responsibility.he has shown us the way and united people.he is doing his best.each of us should get on the roads, go to people and make them aware of solutions.it is each our duty to create awareness and spread the message
give me solutions to punish the corrupt(the kalmadis, the pawars, the sonias, the rajas, the chidambarams, the pranabs).give me solutions for the countries problems which are a national emergency.Anything else is a waste of ur energy and time and ours.