The Budget Session is due and the officials in the Finance Ministry are busy putting together numbers that could get the Finance Minister lot of applause on the floor of the house and more importantly, votes for the ruling party in the General Elections to be held next year. The pundits, on the other hand, are eagerly waiting for that invite to a prime time budget discussion in a swanky studio of a Business News Channel or for that matter, to ink a guest column for The Economic Times. Their Budget Special is awesome and to feature in that is like an extra credit to the CV. Senior Citizens in Kolkata are already discussing the "good for nothing" policies of the government....."jaanen moshai, Chidomborom aar Monmohon Shing kono kaajer na.... HOPELESS EKDOM HOPELESS!!!". Classroom discussions hotting up in the galaxy of Management Institiutes, Dalal Street Executives getting nervous and the Aam aadmi, well we are insulated from any damn shock....isn't it???? We have learnt to live with any shit that is thrown at us either by life or at an alarmingly consistent rate,by our political class(read crass) of course. Budget comes and goes every year. There is a bit of OOHs & AAHs but all that is forgotten the very next morning as if God does an update of our systems at night, while we are asleep, in order for us to be able to accept the changes. Infact, Aam Aadmi is God's best invention in this volatile environment. And its IRONICAL to say the least.
We have learnt to live with politics on religion, politics through reservations, politics of corruption and the disgusting state of politics itself. Nothing bothers us anymore in the long run. There is a widespread acceptance of the fact that the corrupt system is incorrigible and corruption is like an enemy that you have to sleep with. There is no point in losing one's sleep by trying to stare at its eyes. Turn your back towards it and hope that you are not it's prey. Our politicians and other corrupt forces are looting the nation and are able to go scot free. Aam Aadmi's digestive system is very good. "Hazam karne waale hum hain......khaane waale koi aur hain".
There are times when an oasis is spotted in this desert bereft of morals but the discovery of a mirage leaves the thirsty society disappointed instead. Take the last couple of years for instance, it seems as if there is an IPL of CORRUPTION going on with one team trying to outclass the others. The scores have been ridiculously high and yet they get bettered each time some new incident comes to light. Mr.Anna Hazare seemed to strike a chord with Aam Aadmi momentarily and most of us jumped like monkeys at the thought that its CLEAN UP TIME. Most of the remaining population were motivated to login and post some words on Facebook or Twitter while some of us(including me) were circumspect about the whole thing. It seemed too good to be true or sustainable. Unfortunately, we were right and this "Safed Topi" activism got hijacked by the ambitions of the core group of people involved with the cause. Out of this episode, emerged a political party, led by Mr.Arvind Kejriwal, with a single objective of naming and shaming people. Mr.Anna Hazare seems to have withdrawn from all this for the time being while Mrs.Kiran Bedi is hopping from one studio to another.
The idea behind this post is an outrageous one but nevertheless, it appears to be a reasonable one to me at least, for this concept is entirely mine....lol. Looking ahead, this sarcastic person within me can foresee a Budget Session in the coming years where that Budget Paper would carry "Provisioning for the losses on account of corruption". The monetary resources of our nation is not a happy picture for our economy going by the huge fiscal deficit that has been one of the two problem children, the other being inflation of course. We follow a deficit budgeting system and Grand Canyon between expenditure and revenues is funded mostly through debt. Foreign exchange reserves have not increased enough with imports far outweighing exports. On the debt side, the reserves will get further stretched once the foreign currency repayments get voluminous. Self-sufficiency is a dream that has still remained a dream.
Now, let me introduce the "corruption" factor into the mix and the picture gets real gloomy. India is strong in natural resources which have huge tangible worth. We have not been able to make use of those resources to the fullest and instead what we are seeing is that these are gradually getting drained or looted with every passing day. Loss of such valuable resource is bound to have an impact on the economy's Balance Sheet and hence I am advocating that such loss has to be accounted for. Time has come when our representatives need to be appraised in terms of their performance. Only with accountability norms in place would these people wake up and do what they were meant to do. When I talk about provisioning for loss due to corruption, I am being objective as corruption is bound to happen. If we cannot stop the criminals, we can at least force the "people in power" to crack the whip, if not by intent than at least in fear of being thrown out by the electorate. The provisioning would be divided into various sectors and at the end of the year, the concerned minister would be judged in terms of provisioned amount vis-a-vis actuals. I guess with tools like RTI and people like Arvind Kejriwal, percentages would be high. In fact, morals or ethics based scores should be
encouraged in every appraisal system, why restrict it to politicians alone!!!!
Honesty is one inconsistent virtue. Even the brutally honest person at times resorts to some form of corruption or other. It is all about curbing human instincts. We ourselves are not clean and hence we tend to accept the corruption in others and of much larger scale. Ethical cleansing has to be injected into the social framework by force till the Aam Aadmi learns to live with it. God will be running the updates even then and hence I am sure that WE WILL ACCEPT THE POSITIVE CHANGES AS WELL!!!!
