CHANGE - Why are we so afraid of it???

Hello friends.... Glad to be back with you all through this blog...

Before we start off with the blog topic, I am thankful to the followers of my blog who keep sending me their feedback and comments on the blog and topics I choose to write.  Some friends have even suggested that with my style of writing, I should even consider becoming an author (thank God, as of now I haven't decided to become one and the literature world is saved,  at least for now!!!)... 

Now, this topic is about my own views and ideas of how to bring in change to the society, about which all of us have some problem or other and want a change in the society.  For those who think that my ideas are far-fetched and a dream, which cannot be practically implemented, please do treat this as my first work of fiction and read on!!!!! 😀

Definition of "change" is the act, process or result of making difference...  

Definition of "society" is a body of individuals living as members of a community...

In this case, I am calling our country as a society and we all being part of that society.  We all are frustrated with lot of things in the society and keep grumbling about a drastic change required in this society in order for India to become less corrupt, more effective and in general how a democratic country should be...

Now, the big question is who has to bring this change in the society??? When somebody raises this question, we all look confused and always think the Government should start implementing (or in general we want someone to start the change)... Is that the right answer?  The biggest problem we all agree is that the political parties are corrupt and work in their own interest and not in the interest of the nation.  If that's the case, how can we expect the Government to bring in changes to rectify the problems of this society?

In my previous blogs, I have suggested few corrective measures to eradicate black money and to change the caste-based reservation system and all.  In some of the cases, the decision to change has to come from the Government as we need law to implement those changes.  But in some cases, if we, the general public, change our approach to many of the issues we see in our everyday life, the changes we all are longing for can happen.

I am a big believer in the power of people.  India is the world's largest democracy... So, where should the change start?  From us, the common public, thus forcing the Government, judiciary and other branches of the administration to adhere to the change and implement those changes.  Remember, the common public elected the first parliament of this country after Independence.  The real power of people was never proven after that as the politicians conveniently changed everything in their favor.  Politicians effectively worked together to 'change' the system so that they can benefit.  If they can stand united for their own interest, why can't the general public do the same in order to bring change to the society?  If anybody thinks it's impossible, I humbly request you all to go back to history and read about great revolutions in the world which has changed the political map of the world.... 

Let us see some of the major revolutions happened around the world to understand how a common man or a group of men can effectively change the country's future:

1. Indian Independence movement spanned over a period of 90 years from 1857 until August of 1947.  The first spark for this great united effort of this country started in 1857, which was called as Indian Mutiny or Sepoy Mutiny.  A revolt by group of soldiers later turned into one of the biggest independence movement known.  If those soldiers were hesitant to start the mutiny, the Indian Independence movement would have had a very different outlook than what we know of it today. To know more about Sepoy Mutiny, its consequences and further how it turned into independence movement,  you can visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Rebellion_of_1857
2.  The Russian revolution spanned a shorter period of time between 1905 to 1917.  A group of unarmed protestors went to the winter palace in St. Petersburg and were fired upon by the Imperial Guard... This was on 22nd January 1905, which was called as "Bloody Sunday" and laid the foundation stone for the Russian Revolution in 1917...  To know more about Bloody Sunday, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1905) and to know more about Russian Revolution see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution.
3. World War I - Started on 28th July 1914 and ended on 11th November 1918.  The reason for the start of the war???  Quite simple... The simplest answer is that the immediate cause was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the archduke of Austria-Hungary. His death at the hands of Gavrilo Princip – a Serbian nationalist with ties to the secretive military group known as the Black Hand – propelled the major European military powers towards war.
4. World War II - Started on 1st September 1939 and ended on 2nd September 1945... Even though many historians believe the main cause for the second World War was the Treaty of  Versailles, signed after the first world war, the main reason for World War II was one man - Adolf Hitler.

The reason I gave some of the above examples are to remind us that many of the great revolutions and wars this world has seen was because of a very simple (or thought to be) incident or because of small group of people.  So no incident or no single man or group of men is too small to start a big revolution or war.  That's the power of people, which I truly believe in.

If some of you think 'it was all in those days... people's mindset was different', let me remind you about the Jallikattu protest in Tamil Nadu and particularly in Marina Beach, Chennai in January 2017.  Originally, a group of about 10 people staged a protest in Marina Beach in December 2016 requesting to lift the ban on Jallikattu... Later, this became a huge protest in Tamil Nadu and the Government had no choice but to pass an ordinance lifting the ban on Jallikattu... For almost 15 days Chennai came to a standstill and many students boycotted colleges (even the colleges didn't mind that and professors too joined the protest).  Isn't that proof enough that if public stand united, we can bring in the changes we want?  The result of Jallikattu protest was so terrifying for the Government that no public meeting or mass gathering is allowed anymore in Marina Beach!!!

Enough of detour from the blog topic (thank God!!) and let us see what I believe as measures we need to take that will force the change we all want in this society...

Social Responsibility - Every individual of the society should take responsibility for all the wrong things happening.  None of this would have happened or continue to happen if we, the common man, stood against it the first time.  It's always better to nip the problem in the bud rather than letting it grow into a monster and we are forced to be the slave of the monster.  This goes for a lot of things including:

• We follow the laws of the land (whether we agree with it or not) and refuse to pay bribe to correct or hide our mistakes.  This starts from violating traffic laws and paying off the police, building our house against the corporation norms and later bribing the officers, unofficially having multiple electricity connections (by paying bribe) so that our bill is less due to the higher rate for high usage slab and so on...  The authority can force us to pay bribe only when we have done something wrong.
• I walk through my neighborhood every morning as part of my walking routine. The recent problem in Chennai is the receding ground water levels and most of the bore well have run out of water.  In one particular area (Mullai Nagar in Anna Nagar area - just in case if you want to go there personally and check) I have seen that many houses have installed a new bore well in the area which is supposed to be the pavement.  Who authorized us to use Government land, meant for public usage to dig our bore well?  When the corporation comes for inspection, those landlords have no other choice but to pay bribe.  Is this encroachment of public land is right??  If we don't correct our small mistakes, how can we expect a change in the society? 
• In every traffic signal junction, you can see at least a dozen people violating the traffic law by jumping the red signal.  What's such a hurry which creates hazardous situation for the traffic following the green light in the opposite direction?  In most cases, you stop the person and ask him/her, the standard reply will be "I am in a hurry".... So you, an individual, is in a hurry and will put other people's life in jeopardy?  Why not start little early and drive following the traffic rules and road discipline?
• In general to follow discipline and live by it... Once we have discipline and instill that in ourselves and our children, we can change a lot of things happening around us.

Now comes my "dreamy" vision to change the system in India for good.... Below is what I feel as a start to bring in the change many of us feel as required in order for this country to progress and for people to have a better standard of living as a harmonious democratic country.

• Education up to higher secondary (12th standard in current system) should be mandatory and free for all.  Education is a service and Government or private bodies cannot think of this as business.  This is an investment in future and the Government should take full responsibility for this as this will prove to be the best investment for the future of the country. 
• Abolish all caste-based reservation and other benefits based on caste.  Once we implement mandatory and free education, automatically we do not need a reservation based on caste.  Only thing which enables the student to be eligible to get admission in college is the marks they score in school.  No exceptions should be allowed in this.
• The education system (the syllabus) needs a major revamp.  Once the student finishes elementary education (6th standard), based on the performance of the student and their interest in subjects (Mathematics, Economics, Science, etc.), the secondary education should divert them into that division of schooling concentrating on their interest.  There's no point in everyone learning everything about mathematical formulas and science formulas and so on when he/she is not keen on pursuing it.  This system will ensure that the students get appropriate and focused training/education in the field of their interest.  Not every student is going to be academically excellent (I will definitely fall into that category).  For such students, hands-on training for various professions (like current ITI courses) should begin after elementary education.  There's no point in torturing a child who is academically weak through entire 14 years of schooling (this is one of the biggest reasons of school drop outs even before completing 10th standard).  Rather, sharpen their skills for them to excel in their line of interest.
• Education system should also focus on teaching the students the rich culture and heritage of our country as I sincerely believe that we should not forget our roots and our rich heritage and culture.  How many of us agree that our history is perfect as it's written today?  We need to change this and ensure every student understands the real history and heritage of this nation.  Also, in order to cultivate the religious tradition of this country, every student should have a mandatory religious class pertaining to their religion. 
• Make military service mandatory once the person completes his/her education.  Many countries in the world follows this and there's nothing wrong in serving the country's armed forces.  Exemptions can be given to people who are physically incompetent.  Under that exemption, they have to do some sort of social activity to cover that military service. Even a two year mandatory service should be sufficient.  This will inculcate the sense of responsibility, discipline and patriotism in that person.  Upon completion of the mandatory period of service, it is up to the individual whether to continue in military or to pursue his own choice of profession.
• Judiciary system of this country needs a big overhaul.  If India's judiciary system has a motto of "Justice delayed is justice denied", can we honestly say that's what is being followed in our judiciary system?  Even a straight forward criminal case takes a minimum of 10 years.  Is this the way to serve justice?  Even the CJI and Bar Council of India agrees that there's lack of knowledgeable judges to speed-up the process of clearing the pending cases.  Is this what we wanted to achieve in 70 years of independence?  Along with revamping the judiciary system, the Constitution and the Law has to be changed to be in line with the changing times.  There's no point in clinging to old laws which are impractical to implement or enforce.  As per Chief Justice of India (now retired) Dipak Mishra, Supreme Court has 57,987 pending cases, high courts have 43,00,000 cases and other courts have about 2.80 crore pending cases.  As of June 2018, total pending cases in Indian courts have crossed 3.30 crores!!!!!
• Medical services - This was originally and it was for sometime, a service... But today, it has become a multi-million dollar business.... This has to change and Government should interfere and regulate this.  Any student completing their medical degree (MBBS), should be serving in a Government Hospital for two years before they decide to take their own path of profession.  Also, Government should implement strict regulation on private hospitals in terms of the fee charged and also the qualifications of the doctors and support staff employed.  Right now, many big name hospitals have "packages" for various treatments... Is this hospital or some resort?  All major surgical procedures should have a ceiling of what a private hospital can charge and medicines should be made available at an affordable price.  Government hospitals should be supported with up-to-date technology and facilities as majority of the population depend on Government hospitals as they cannot afford private hospital treatment.
• Media (visual, print and all other modes)... Like education, media was also supposed to be service industry and not a business.  Many tycoons have lost their fortune running media houses in the past.  Media's role was to reach the information and news to the public and to stand-up to the Government when they did something against the common interest of the public.  Can we say that's what today's media is doing?  So, in order to bring back sanity to the media industry sort of censor system have to be implemented so that the media does not spread rumors and create panic among public or support a political party of their choice and blindly oppose everything the elected government does.

The above are some of the basic changes we need to begin in order to set a lot of things straight.  Lo and behold, my dream of changes is not complete yet.

We all agree that the politicians and the political system in this country is corrupt and that's one of the reason progressive changes have taken the back burner.  In order to ensure the political system changes, the following are the steps we can take to ensure the system becomes more transparent and every citizen of the country participates in the electoral process.

• Voting should be made mandatory.  It is the basic duty of every citizen to participate in the election process.  In order to facilitate every citizen to participate, we can implement a system of voting through mobile app, internet and so on.  In today's technology, you need not go to the voting booth to participate.  Make all options available and make voting mandatory.  Grace period of about one week should be given for people who are attending family functions or family emergencies and counting of the votes shall begin after the expiration of grace period.  People exempted from voting should be either critically ill and in hospital undergoing life saving treatment and such.  Anybody and everybody else should have to vote as the technology allows you to do it from anywhere you are.  I am not going to go into technicalities of how this can be done as most of you are aware, with today's technology this is possible.
• For any individual who does not participate in the voting process and couldn't give a valid explanation to support it, should be penalized.  Penalties could be in the form of cancellation of subsidies he receives (for LPG cylinder and such), increase the income tax payable by him by additional 1% or so, increase the cost of insurance premium for all his insurance policies, reduce interest on his deposits with banks by 1% and so on (all these penalties should be applicable till next election when he/she casts his/her vote).  This will force every individual to exercise their right.  If we are lazy to exercise our basic right as citizen, how can we blame the society and the elected government?  The Tamil saying தண்டைகள் கடுமை ஆனால் தான் குற்றங்கள் குறையும் has a meaning, isn't it? Charity begins at home, right?
• Now, lets come to the role of politicians... No individual can contest the election if he/she has not completed her mandatory education as described above and have served in the armed forces.  Just academic qualification alone doesn't make a person intelligent and I totally agree with that...  So, to contest for a MLA post, one should have served at least 3 years as local Ward Councillor or equivalent.  To contest for a MP post, one should have served at least one term as MLA. To become a minister, one should have served as MLA for at least two terms and a Chief Minister should have served as a minister at least three terms and so on.  Does anybody think this is impossible to implement?
• Now, my major recommendation/suggestion (within all these major actions) is that the election commission should make the democratic election process a truly democratic one.  If a candidate does not get 51% or more of the votes within the constituency (simple majority as described in any democratic system), he cannot be a winner.  If no candidates gets 51% or more votes, automatically the election is null and void and without wasting further public money in re-election, the district collector of the constituency gets the post of MLA or MP.  District Collector is an administrative person with required qualification and to eradicate any corruption at his level, such DC's should be transferred every year and the next DC taking charge will represent the constituency as MLA or MP.
• Apart from getting 51% of the vote from the constituency, if NOTA gets more than 10% of votes in that constituency, the election becomes null and void as 10% of the public believes that none of the candidate is good enough to be elected and the DC becomes the MLA or MP.  The reason I am stating this is that only in recent years the option of NOTA was introduced.  NOTA is getting a sizable portion of vote in India and what difference does it make now?  Nothing... because it has just become a formality for people who do not believe in any candidate to press that button and no party takes that percentage of vote seriously.  With refined electoral process, politicians should be more worried about the qualification of their candidates since even if 10% of people in the constituency thinks they are all unfit, no politician is going to win that constituency.  Or otherwise, we can get rid of NOTA option itself and set 51% of vote to be winning margin.
• Any political party who does not get at least 10% of vote within the state (for regional parties) or nation-wide (for national parties) should be debarred by the election commission and their recognition as political party should be withdrawn.  The leader of such political party cannot start another party for 10 years and cannot contest the next election as the public have lost their faith in that party.
• On an average India is spending about Rs. 4,000 crores to conduct a public election (Parliamentary election).  It's a huge sum of public money spent.  In order to avoid repetition of election for state and center, an election should cover the State Legislative Assembly and the Parliament.  Every voter has to cast 4 votes (one for local MLA, one for MP, one for his choice of Vice President and one for his choice of President).  This combined election can save a lot of public money.
• Any party winning election after implementation of all the above conditions, should also adhere to certain policies regarding appointment of ministers.  A guy who has not completed graduation cannot become education minister and such.  If the winning party does not have a candidate with adequate qualification to become education minister, the state secretary of education department will take over the job of Education Minister even though he has not contested the election.  He has become the secretary of Education department based on his qualification and that's sufficient enough.  This should be applicable for all other portfolios of the cabinet.  In all reality, in current system, the ministers are just representatives and the administers does the job... With this system, we are giving him/her the post as well, that's all.
• Many senior posts in the country (Governors, Chief Justice of India, Vice President, President and the like) are considered as final post before retirement.  This should definitely change.  A senior post with lot of authorities conferred by the Constitution cannot be a final post before retirement and act as a rubber stamp of the ruling party.  With revised and revamped electoral process, along with MP candidates, the Vice President and President should also openly contest and the public should vote.  Any candidate who gets 51% or more votes should be the VP and the President and failing which, the election commission in consultation with CJI conducts polling among the MP's to choose the VP and President who have already contested publicly (only the top two candidates from each category) in the election.

I sincerely believe these changes are not impossible and purely a work of fiction by me... This sounds highly impossible because the current politicians have corrupted the system so badly that we believe such changes are impossible.

The reason I want to make voting mandatory for the public is that the highest polling record was during the last Lok Sabha election in 2014.  Total voter turnout was 66.40% (previous election was 64%).  This is nation-wide average even though some states and UT's have recorded voting percentage as high as 87%.  How come about 34% of common public is so lazy that he/she doesn't want to perform their basic duty as citizen?

BJP, the party in power now, got absolute majority on their own in terms of number of MP's required.  But BJP got only 31% of the votes... How come 31% has become majority??  If we have recorded 100% voting, by implementing above measures, the result could have been totally different or we will have the confidence that the elected Government had absolute majority even in terms of voters choice.  Combined percentage of vote between BJP and Congress (during 2014 election), was only 50%.    So between the two largest national parties they have secured only 50% of the votes!!! 

By implementing the above measures to the electoral process, I sincerely believe a lot of common man with the idea and vision of serving the society will start to participate in the elections as candidates.  Lot of younger generation with social cause and sense of social responsibility will enter the scene and it will be a big welcoming measure for the democracy.

The "money for vote" has become a common phenomenon in India now.  The general public are grumbling that politicians are corrupt.  General public who accept money for vote, obviously takes money from all the parties and finally vote for their choice of candidate.  In this case, isn't the common public more corrupt than the politicians?   If we implement that a winning candidate should get 51% or more vote, many candidates (under the current political system) will not even contest the election as they know it's impossible for them to get 51% votes.  Many political parties in India will cease to exist as many of them do not get 10% or more of the vote share...  This is the best and sure-shot way of cleaning the system.... We want true politicians who are popular among the public and who will definitely have the public support.  If none of them get the approval of citizens, the government will still be formed with the administrators who have worked hard in their life to complete the Civil Services exams and have become IAS, IPS, IFS and so on.

As stated earlier in one my blogs, if a common man with little knowledge can think of so many ideas, do we think the administrators doesn't know about all these measures?  They do know but the problem is that the political system has become so corrupt, they all stand united in order to avoid bringing the changes which will be in the greater cause of the nation and its citizens.

I am sincerely hoping that many of you have come this far to read this paragraph and I am really happy about those brave souls.... 😀

By now, many of you would have had a thought of branding me as lunatic (and I won't be completely surprised or shocked if you have thought so).  But radical changes need radical ideas.  No idea is too small.  When Thomas Alva Edison failed 100 times before inventing the light bulb and was inquired about it he said "I didn't fail 100 times... But, I have found 100 ways how we cannot invent a light bulb"....  Many new ideas and systems will have it's own flaws when we implement, we have to make changes as we come across such hurdles and it's a dynamic process.

On 28th August 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. started his speech with "I have a dream" and it resulted in end of racism and creating equal rights for Afro-Americans in the USA.  No dream is too small.

Around 350 BC when Aristotle said that Earth was a sphere (and Pythagoras said Earth is round in shape in 500 BC), the world branded them as idiots.  I am, by no stretch of imagination, comparing myself to Aristotle or Pythagoras or Martin Luther King Jr., but we didn't believe those brilliant minds to accept a change.  Today, we are sending satellites to Mars and thinking/researching to send satellite to Sun....

No dream is too small and no ambition is too big to achieve.  Let us aim for the stars and probably we will reach the sky...

Remember, every great revolution and every major change in the history of this world was born from a small idea... We, the common public, are the force which can initiate the change!!!