Corruption: A Curse or A Boon?

In the light of truth, facts and understanding of “xyz” concepts we derive the chart of pros and cons in most situations. But what if for once I deceive your morals and ask you to confront the good side of something you’ve always considered bizarre? As insane as it sounds, let us try to offend AND defend corruption and try to understand if it actually makes or mars our country – India!

In a lecture today at class (after all I am just a student) we were confronted with the most thoughtful topic I have come across till date. Can we actually shake hands with corruption? I’ve been reading this beautiful book called “The Secret of The Nagas” – Amish Tripathi and hence, I began to correlate this philosophy to the most basic of all truths, something that justifies the facts. Lord Shiva once said, “Greater the good, greater the evil.” And it all makes sense now! Let us see how twisting the tail can help us turn the tables.

When we drop down to define corruption, we can only do it in domestic boundaries. Why? Well, the Chinese economy believes in “If they can, we can!” resulting in BlueBerry, Gulsar, Shijingshan Amusement Park, Seayahi Coffee etc. whereas if you look into Indian premises patent rights rule the market restrictions. So the underlying fact is, what is corruption for us, is a way of living for the other. So, the reason number one is, not having a proper setup to define what exactly corruption is. Another interesting concept that came up was the difference between crime and corruption. But let’s first stick to defining corruption.

Starvation Brings Salvation…

64 years & a month…

The estimation does sound familiar. Not very long ago democracy set one of its classic examples in the history of mankind. A whole country marched behind a man whose vision was freedom and mindset, all peaceful. The man, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, fought with peace & wisdom, and brought together a nation to fight with him, piece by piece, man by man. Almost 6 decades in future, i.e. on this date, the country is all set to show off yet another such event. Marching in peace to bring about freedom from corruption. Shri Babu Rao Hazare, or, as known to the common man, Shri Anna Hazare welcomes us to a new India.

As the streets flood with believers of The Lokpal Bill and the air fills with the humming of peaceful slogans, something is accomplished which was never thought of (except in 1947), a peaceful non-agreement march. Anna Hazare has brought to life the spirit of Bapuji once again. In his own walks of life he has been an army man, preached violence when he bashed up a police officer for demanding bribe, smoked and has also had liquor, but still he tells us something irreplaceable, “change” is not age bound. He motivates every section of the society to uproot this, rightfully called, “genetic disease” and build a nation which is, on realistic grounds, with, for and by the people of India.

Yellow Journalism: A Tarnished Country’s Vision

Yellow journalism is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers. When was the last time you tuned into a piece of news and got something that made you feel a bit more informed than your informal evening group discussions? Well, the answer seems vague for most of the people… When on actual grounds this was asked to people many interesting opinions wriggled out. One of them answered “Oh well I heard something was going on between Saif and Bebo while he was out for his shoot, he hid his phone right?” – That’s some really important crack sir; I wonder how our nation will survive without such sensations! 98% of normal population remembers Prince, the small boy who was struck underground and army dug all their way down to save the kid… When there were bomb blasts in USA at the same time news channels thought it was “better” to show the story of the Prince, who lived!

A Focus – Unfocused!

As I finally set my feet in understanding political affairs around the globe, a long avoided interest, I find it wise to start from my very own home. One of the longest brewing issues which still sets parts of the whole world on unfathomable flames is the Indo-Pak conflict which revolves around Kashmir.

Before coming up with any conclusion it’s always wiser to know a bit of the matter’s past. To understand this issue we need to scroll back to the 1940s – 1950s. At the time of partition the Britishers divided the whole country in two parts i.e. India and Pakistan leaving some grey areas within India which were muslim dominated, it was said that they are free to decide on which side of the paddle they wanted to be. This Grey part consisted of areas like Hyderabad, Kashmir etc. But to this there was one clause, which said, the areas wanting to join Pakistan should be able to have direct access to it i.e. It should be on Indo-Pak border. Therefore, places like Hyderabad had to give up, and by force had to keep themselves in India.

To this whole scene of division Kashmir was a unique case. The demographical distribution of J&K is a bit segregated. Where Kashmir is muslim dominated, Jammu comes up as a hindu dominated area and Leh, Ladakh is seen as a Buddhist centre. The new arising problem was where should J&K go? This segregation caused a lot of problems when it came to deciding their nationality. Kashmir had high interests of joining Pakistan but rest two sectors wanted to stay back in India. Being ruled by a Hindu King the confusion was that who was to decide where to go? The King or the People?