73rd Indian Independence Day, Thought of a citizen

It's independence day. 73 years of freedom. Definitely a long time ago our ancestors fought and got this freedom for us, many sacrificed their lives for the same. But again today what difference we see, I mean ofcourse it will be wrong to compare today to the pre independence era but again it's been 73 years just another year away from platinum Jubilee, so as a nation we should have developed to a different level but still our discussion are on education, health, living, poverty, freedom of speech, religious violence, class violence, cast violence, these are all basic rights not luxurious needs and our society still far from having maturity on these basic rights. We still have privileged class getting the biggest part of the pie and the under privileged class are dependent on govt subsidies, govt free funds. We as a society including political class as well as the common citizens still believe in the free fund instead of creating jobs for them, creating a mindset of hard work, discipline, self-sustaining, self-dependent, we are making the under privileged class jobless and frustrated which are the result of social violence and less farm yield. On this very day I would like to highlights the accounts on which we did fail and if we don’t accept this, we can’t recover from the fall.

Corruption

Corruption is like in the soul of our country, it’s the oxygen, you can’t survive without it. Go to any public office (literally any office), you will see the presence of it, not only presence almost all offices are taken over by it. Not only offices, any nook and corner you go for a public service, you feel the heat of it. Corruption is the only case where I see no difference no class disparity. Being privileged or under privileged you will have to go through the process of corruption starting from getting an aadhar card to getting a ration card to getting a business setup. Corruption is the key. If you want to buy a land and want to register it legally, you need to bribe, if you want to apply for driver’s license, you need to bribe, these are basic services for which as a consumer we pay the fees and on top of that we need to bribe. Think about the sector of job and how corrupted it is. Everybody will agree in silence but nobody will accept in voice. Either by influence or by money, corruption is everywhere. Until unless this mindset of corruption changes, whatever we say, whatever we do, whatever we plan, our country will never march ahead in a true sense even after 1000 years of independence. This is eating the public services inside out systematically one by one and all involved bottom up.

Accountability

Political class and public service sectors are the biggest contributor to this. They are the least accountable for in a world where they are the sole decision maker of everything. They can take any decision to do anything but at the end they are not accountable for its outcome. We don’t have any system in place to make them accountable for. To put certain checks and measures to achieve this, in fact those independent bodies which can enforce things what left as of are being taken over by the govt and are becoming hostile by power hungry people.

We as a citizen also are not accounted for either our good deeds or our bad deeds, there is no harmonious social system to appreciate or give extra privilege who does good for society and similarly justice system is not up to the mark in setting standard or setting benchmarks for those social elements causing bad to society. So with no accountability what so ever from either part of the society how our society will move towards a harmonious direction.

Willingness to do good for society

Our political leaders/parties who do come with huge agendas and manifestos every five years with much promised activities/policies/schemes, we time and again believe in that and vote for that but once the election is over, the willingness to do good for society goes to hibernation till the next election time. In this we as a citizen are as culprit as the political class because we also go into hibernation, we stop asking questions, we stop supporting those who ask questions on our behalf, we give priority to unwanted agendas which sounds good but with no real meaning, we go by false narration spread with ulterior motives, we believe those 5% of what wanted by them and ignore those 95% what needed by country. As a citizen also, willingness to do good for society is no more. We don’t have the interest to maintain the social harmony because of the false and propagated narration we consume everyday across all mediums.

Social welfare schemes

None of our social welfare schemes are designed for social welfare. Most of them are designed to distribute money freely to underprivileged. This is what at least visible in paper but in ground reality these schemes are the biggest contribution to the corruption band wagon. The intent of these kind of schemes are really not social welfare driven, in any way we should not distribute even a single rupee to any one privileged or underprivileged, rather we should spend that money in a way that tomorrow the underprivileged class can get a job on their own and earn on their own, this will be a permanent solution for uplifting them, not by paying them. If the departments will do the real ground level survey, they will definitely get to know that even these kind of schemes are doing more harm than good. When someone get paid without doing anything then why they will be willing to work, so either that class goes towards drinking that money out or getting involved in the social violence, mob lynching, social hatred, religious propaganda. It’s not their fault altogether but it’s the curated flow of the society and they are just part of the flow directed in this time for few people’s self-goal.

It’s not like there are no true welfare schemes, there are like swatch bharat but again their implementation is so poor that I think most of the money goes towards advertising about the scheme instead of helping the cause in a true sense. We talk about garbage but almost all of the big cities fail to have a solution for this, starting from collecting it at the source, the way it collected, the way it processed, the way it disposed, all failing in every aspect. If the amount of money budgeted for these schemes are spent in its true sense, then these issues could have been resolved easily. No garbage bins in society, roads, streets, no equipment for drainage cleaning, no proper drainage system. No plan at all for flood management, drought management, river management, lake management, reservoir management. Govt needs to initiate things in the way it should be, then people mindset will also change. Only blowing trumpet and advertising will not help the cause but again we also can’t blame them can we? Even if we see our dirty roads, pot holes, accidents, floods, droughts, as bad as it can be but we forget everything after one Man ki baat or an incident on the border region and our whole thought process are wiped clean.

Public education

The less said about this is good. Education is the foundation of nation building and we don’t need to say this loud because every family in the country knows now how the public education is. Forget about modern infrastructures, there are no teachers for students in school in a needed ratio, there are no schools for student in a needed ratio. Nobody care about this part at all. Neither the govt nor the citizens. Who can afford the private education they sent their kids to there and who can’t afford that they dont care about their kids’ education at all. Very few who care for that they try to put their hard earned money into that private system for the betterment of their kids. In this scenario who will tell the govt what’s going wrong. But the real wrong starts from here for society wellbeing. This gives the direction how society will move ahead. People who are privileged to have the private education, they don’t see the inclusiveness in society because they see how hard it to get education for themselves, how expensive it is and they understand to have this same privilege for their kids they need to have only one goal earn more and more which makes them go in the direction of material life and they are right not being caring about the society in a bigger sense, they will not care about the betterment of society but their life only. They don’t care about the underprivileged because they never had the opportunity to feel so. Similarly, the underprivileged who could not learn the betterment of life from the poor public education system, feels the hatred for them, feels how they are oppressed or they are not been taken care of or how they are discarded in the society which leads them towards a social mindset which is far from social harmony. These two scenarios are the reason for bringing the social gap and crony mindset of both classes which makes them stay apart and grew apart which is the result of many kind of social imbalance.

Public health

This is the next after public education, if the education can’t be good how can be the health system. When we give more and more priority to private education, how can we expect to be having good public health. Govt not spending much on this, care less about how public hospitals and health centers are being managed and maintained. Everyday news from different public health institutions from across the country says it all. No proper guidelines, expenses in health becoming more and more expensive and going far from the underprivileged even sometimes it’s being unreachable to the middleclass families too. Value of life is not there only value of money. People used to say there is no price on life but now we cant say that is true. Underprivileged children are dying every day because they don’t have the luxury of private healthcare and in public healthcare, god save all!

Policy for betterment of economy

Being said all the above, how some policy changes will bring economic justice to the so despaired society. When the social foundation itself built on the poor values of life, how economic pillars or roofs can sustain the typhoon of social violence, hatred, crony capitalism, mob mindset. Policies can only sustain when every class of society will support it. When the super-rich will try to get hold of more and more money to themselves and underprivileged are waiting for govt funding for their day to day survival and middle class is being dwelling between their high dream and low opportunities, its only god can save the society.

Being all said that there are still few from all class and categories who still work hard on bringing social harmony, national integrity, in spite of all these hatred, social injustice those farmers who go to their land every day and farm and bring foods to our table, those soldiers who fight for us, protect us being away from their family, their self-goal and even don’t think twice to sacrifice their life for us, those social workers, journalist who question the wrong, fight this crony capitalism, political system, against those system who tries to break the social harmony whatever left of it for their self-goal, I see hope in those people, I see a better India rising from their dreams. We can at least support them, salute them, encourage them and join them to make a country which is independent in its true sense.

Jai Hind