Initially when I had thought of the topic my immediate reply was “no”, but then I thought as an identity, as an entity, what is Twitter and how much independence it should get when it comes to adhering to various regulations? The problem with Twitter is that although it is a US-based company its users come from all over the world and it has become a platform of freedom of speech and expression. Since I’m not an expert on IT laws and also international laws, I am a bit confused here. When we post on Twitter, are be governed by US laws (because Twitter, I think, operates under US laws) or our individual laws are applicable? For instance, if I’m using Twitter from India, is it Indian laws I abide by or US laws? Take for instance a car; even if it is manufactured in the US, if it has been sold in India and the person is driving it around on Indian roads, he or she has to abide by the Indian traffic rules.

In a recent judgment Twitter has been ordered to turn over data on WikiLeaks supporters by a US district judge. What if some of the backers belong to other countries? Do they become criminals if the US authorities think that they used Twitter to exchange and disseminate “harmful” information? What if I, while living in India, helped WikiLeaks in a manner objectionable to the US law authorities?

Using a real example, what if the Libyan government asked Twitter to share information on people helping the rebels? Would the company comply? What about China? Yes, Google and other companies comply with local laws but what if they reveal the identity of some person and based on that revelation the person is executed by an authoritarian regime? As far as we know, the US begins to cry esoteric expressions like freedom of speech and privacy when it comes to other countries but when it comes to its own land all of a sudden it needs information even when that information is deemed private and confidential.

But then, is Twitter confidentially supreme even when it is being used by murderers, rapists and terrorists? Recently the British government asked Twitter and Facebook to help identify people who got involved in the riots. I don’t know whether Twitter and Facebook handed over the information or not, but logically, it should. Where do we draw the line then? Any country can say that they need information on criminals whether those Twitter users are criminals or not. What about political activists? Many activists prefer to remain anonymous to avoid persecution. There are many politically and socially active individuals on Twitter who are quite vocal and continuously talk against the government and at the same time have good jobs. If their identities are revealed they will not only be targeted by the authorities, they will also lose their jobs and even their careers. Anonymity, especially on the Internet, engenders unparalleled empowerment. You cannot directly confront people you oppose but you can surely spread your opinion unrestrained.

This is a debatable issue and as more and more such platforms evolve, such socio-legal issues will rise again and again. There is a difference between criminals (in the category of murderers, rapists, child abusers, psychopaths and religious fanatics) and political dissenters. There has to be an international consensus on how to deal with such people. Unless there is an international consensus, any government can force Twitter and other social networking platforms to reveal the identity of their users putting them in great peril. What do you think?

According to this recent article, it is. People instinctively want to upgrade their gadgets like mobile phones, Tablet PCs, computers and laptops. Until a few years ago, it used to be just the software. Whenever there was a new version out, you wanted to install it, or upgrade it. But hardware? It was upgraded only when the existing hardware configurations couldn’t accommodate the new software.

I agree that it is becoming an obsession especially when it comes to gadgets. People not only own multiple gadgets that solve the same purpose (for instance, owning smart phones from different companies) they also want to switch over to the newer version as soon as it is available. For example, whenever there is a new iPhone or iPad or even a Samsung Galaxy phone is introduced, if people can afford it, they upgrade it. Sometimes they upgrade it even when they cannot afford it (thanks to credit cards).

With some software it makes sense to upgrade, especially when it is freely and easily available, for instance WordPress (software used to publish this blog). One must upgrade to the latest version because it always comes up with security patches – the latest version is always more secure than the previous one. If somebody hacks into your account and you hadn’t upgraded, they are going to say, well, you didn’t upgrade.

Another bit of software that you need to regularly update is your antivirus software. Obvious reason.

You can also upgrade free source and open source software like most of the browsers and Linux-based operating systems such as Ubuntu simply because you just have to download them and upgrade your copy (but if you don’t have use for their new features you will be simply wasting precious hours downloading, upgrading and then tweaking).

If there is no security reason and unless the latest features aren’t helping you achieve more of what you intend to do, upgrading, especially when you have to pay for it, doesn’t make sense. You are simply wasting time and money.

Regarding gadgets, well, as my wife always says, these companies have to sell and they have to sell repeatedly. That is why every six months or even three months they are coming up with new features to entice new customers as well as existing customers – it is a never-ending thing. As far as business goes, I think this is a necessary evil that we have to live with.

Provided you have got loads of money with you, you can purchase and upgrade as many gadgets as you feel like (I would) but if you are stretching your budget simply because you cannot resist the craving for the latest gadget, I think you have got a problem. I crave for gadgets, but I have never even purchased an iPod, leave alone an iPhone or an iPad or even the Samsung Galaxy phone (I own a Samsung Galaxy Tab that was gifted to me by my father) simply because I would rather spend that money on my family, or save it.

The last couple of weeks have been full of contrarian arguments in different parts of the media whether it is electronic media, print media or social media. I have been planning to write a post on why we behave in a certain manner during such situations (including me, of course) and what we need to learn from the recent experience. I will come to that in a couple of days.

In the meantime I would like to share this article titled Protesters We Like: Anna, Arundhati and the doublespeak of dissent that talks about how we all have our favorite causes and how we (publicly and in private) vitiate the crusaders of other causes. The writer in this article asks:

Would they (the elite criticizing the Anna Hazare moment) be as harsh if Hazare was fasting on behalf of displaced tribals or army excesses in Kashmir? Clearly middle class angst over corruption doesn’t qualify. We all seem to have our list of pet causes — the ones that we uphold in the name of democracy, while others, we argue, threaten the same.

(I tweeted the same sentiment when I said Anna Hazare would have enjoyed more acceptance had he somehow associated the cause of the Dalits and the Muslims to his anticorruption movement.)

I think it holds true for all of us. So we get intolerant about causes we cannot relate to and this is an endemic problem. Whether it is the common office goer, school or college student or an intellectual sitting in a TV studio frothing over some current state of affairs, we always have a blinkered view. Why cannot we be objective?

Again, coming back to the idea I mentioned in the first paragraph, I want to write about why we act the way we act (but in a later post), I think more than the cause our reactions are towards the people promoting a certain cause. For example there were people supporting Baba Ramdev’s campaign against corruption and the same people vociferously opposed Anna Hazare’s campaign against corruption. Both are demanding an end to corruption but since both come from different backgrounds they elicit different reactions from the same group of people. More on this later on. Read the article, very objective, although it was posted by Shashi Tharoor on Twitter.

I got this from Facebook, but don’t know where it originated from. Let me know if you know.

==============

This one is delightfully interesting to read.

There were two rickshaw-walas vying for our business, when we wanted to go to Sankat-Mochan temple in Benaras. I agreed to go with the one, who was about 20 years of age, seemed like a regular young rickshaw-wala, but I found something interesting about him. I was not proved wrong.

He wanted Rs 50, we said Rs 30. We settled for Rs 40.

Here are the highlights of the conversation that ensued, while we rode the rickshaw:

"Aap kahan se aaye hain?"

"Delhi."

"Bijness, ya kaam karte hain?"

"Naukri karte hain."

"Kismein?"

"Internet mein."

"Humara bhi kuch wahin kaam lagwa dijiye."

I just chuckled.

"Main try kar raha hoon engineering padhne kee. Achchi naukri lag jaayegi tab."

"Achcha?" I asked a little interested.

"Haan, delhi mein Guru Gobind Singh Indraprashta University mein engineering ke liye apply kiya hai. Achchi hai woh university."

"Haan, achchi hai", I agreed.

"Haan, kal hee maine JEE bhi diya."

"JEE matlab, IIT ka?"

"Haan, Joint Entrance Examination" he pronounced it perfectly.Just to make it clear to me what JEE stood for. "Mushkil hota hai exam."

"Haan, 2 saal toh log padhte hee hain uske liye, asaan nahin hai."

"Delhi mein Akaash coaching institute hain na?"

"Haan, hai."

"Aapne kya padhai kee?"

"Main engineer hoon, aur phir MBA bhi kiya."

"Kahan se engineer?"

"IIT Delhi se."

He swung back, surprised, a little delighted, and smiled. "Ok,

"aapke liye Rs 30."

Swati and I laughed.

Swati asked "Padhai kab karte they IIT ke liye?"

"Bas, rickshaw chalaane ke baad raat mein". Then he added

"Kismein engineering kee aapne?"

"Chemical."

"Toh aapki Chemistry toh badi strong hogi."

"Nahin, aisa nahin hai."

He continued "Yeh bataiye….jab Mendeleev ne Periodic Table

banaya tha tab kitne elements they usmein?"

Now it was my turn to get surprised. He was quizzing me. I said "Shayad 70-80."

"No, 63" he said sharply. "Kaunse element kee electronegativity highest hai?"

Swati was laughing, and I didnt try too hard and said "Pata nahin."

"Flourine", he said confidently. Without a break he asked,"Kaunse element kee electron affinity highest hoti hai?"

Now I was laughing too and said "Nahin pata"

"Chlorine. toh aapka kaunsa subject strong tha?" clearly having

proven that my chemistry wasn’t a strong point.

"Physics", I said.

"Achha, Newton’s second law of motion kya hai?"

I thought I knew this one. "F=ma", I said.

"Physics is not about formula, it is understanding concept!",  he reprimanded me in near perfect English. "Tell me in statement"

I was shocked. Swati continued to laugh.

I said "ok, Newtons second law, er….was…."

" ‘Was’ nahin, ‘is’!Second law abhi bhi hai!" he snapped at my use of ‘was’.

Surely, my physics wasn’t impressing him either. "Yaad nahin, I said"

"Force on an object is directly proportional to the mass of the object and the acceleration of the object", he said it in near perfect English. "Aapne M.Tech nahin kiya?"

"Nahin, MBA kiya"

"MBA waale toh sirf paisa kamana chahte hain, kaam nahin karte."

"Nahin, aisa nahin hai, paisa kamaane ke liye kaam karna padta hai."  Didn’t think too highly of me apparently anymore.

In a minute we reached our destination. We got off and I told

him that he must and should definitely study more, and that I thought he was sharp as hell. He took only Rs 30, smiled and began to leave. I got my camera out and said "Raju, ek photo leta hoon tumhari". He waved me off, dismissed the idea and rode off before I could say anything more….leaving me feeling high and dry like a spurned lover.

Damn, what a ride that was! India is changing, and changing fast.

And so it goes !!!!!

=========

The dust is gradually settling down after almost a fortnight of public anger and high-drama negotiations and this is the time some thinking work starts. Just read this objective piece on Wall Street Journal titled Getting a Grip on Indian Corruption that suggests a balanced approach of reforms and monitoring. Although the article takes a pessimistic view of the Anna Hazare movement it rightly says that

Restricting business freedom through extensive government regulation is probably the greatest source of graft. Licenses, permits and quotas create artificial rents and self-interested bureaucrats and politicians attempt to extract these rents while entrepreneurs lobby for them. Compliance requirements and inspections worsen the problem.

Another source of corruption is the state’s welfare schemes, which are notorious for corrupt middlemen. The late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi complained that only 15 cents of every dollar spent by the government on welfare reached the poor. Too many bribes change hands for the poor to get access to their entitlements.

But people over-analyze the situation and tend to miss the whole point of the agitation. To be frank, the common person on the street (lower-middle-class, hawkers, rickshaw pullers and such) are not bothered with high-level scams where crores of rupees go waste. They are concerned with the day-to-day corruption they have to face while trying to earn their living and this was the bone of contention when the team Anna was negotiating with the government, that the lower level bureaucracy must be brought under the ambit of the Jan Lok Pal bill.

Is this problem going to go away? I’m not sure. As I have  repeatedly mentioned on this blog as well as in my Twitter postings, the thing that attracts me towards such movements is the public consciousness that is stirred by them. Whatever may the cynics say, even if 50 people are motivated and try to embrace the ideas being spread by the movement I think the objective is achieved. No political party or politician has been able to achieve this feat.

Eventually we need social, political and economic reforms and unless these reforms happen nothing much is going to change. A single agency or a lokpal (ombudsman) no matter how many thousand people are employed in the chain of control (we have a pretty big country), won’t be able to achieve what reforms can achieve. Controls, interference and misplaced incentives that are the root causes of corruption must be refined or eliminated, whether it is the reservation system, the license-permit formalities or a horde of other things that create a breeding ground for corruption.

I have been an ardent supporter of the Anna Hazare movement and I really believe that this movement has made an impact on the country, but if I say I believe in the efficacy of the “Jan Lok Pal” bill, I  will not be totally sincere. This is not because I doubt the intentions of the Anna Hazare team, it’s just that I have always believed that the people involved in the movement are not dealing with just politicians, they are also dealing with seasoned criminals, and this is where my doubt manifests. Just think of it, the corrupt class, whether it belongs to politics, business or bureaucracy caught the country in its tentacles just as the country got independence and the condition has never improved. Yes, in some sectors it has improved but it isn’t due to some effort or socio-political movement, it simply happened because the conditions at the ground level changed.

Literally millions of corrupt individuals have been the beneficiaries of this bounty for more than 60 years and they are not going to easily give up this lifestyle, whether it is the constables on the street or the elite comfortably ensconced in their couches. There is a complete network of politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, journalists, intellectuals, office goers and the general public that has been benefiting from this corrupt system for multiple decades. They are not going to give up so easily.

Today when I saw Vilasrao Deshmukh and Sandeep Dixit standing on the dais with Anna Hazare it symbolized the state of affairs in our country and also says a lot about how much needs to be done if we really want to rid the country of the scourge of corruption. Eventually you have to closely work with the guys who themselves are accused of indulging in corruption. Today in the Parliament Lallu Yadav was lecturing us on corruption – despite being involved in multiple scams and despite being a political goon he is a member of the standing committee that is supposed to review the anticorruption bill (what an irony). Kapil Sibal recently reduced the value of the scam of A Raja to a zero and he is closely associated with the standing committee. The other luminaries of the standing committee are Amar Singh, Manu Singhvi, Manish Tiwari  and Ramvilas Paswan. Just Google their names and you will find their illustrious details. This shows our government’s “sincere” intentions.

Pranabh Mukherjee signed a deal with the Swiss that the Indian government will never ask for the names of the account holders up to July 4, 2011. Vilasrao Deshmukh has had his own share of corruption charges levied against him and Sandeep Dixit’s mother, Delhi’s Chief Minister, Shiela Dixit was almost sacked (the country, she must be thankful for that, got distracted) due to her involvement in the Commonwealth Games scam. So if after fasting for 12 days Anna Hazare has to eventually stand with Vilasrao Deshmukh and Sandeep Dixit and Pranab Mukherjee emerges out as the elderly politician who eventually declares a settlement, you can very well imagine what a mess we are in. And I’m sure, Anna Hazare and his team know that.

So my support for the Anna Hazare movement has primarily been due to the level of consciousness it has been able to trigger among the masses. Whatever big or small change that comes, it will come from the masses and not from bills and the Parliament because they can only work to a certain extent.

Instead of victory, it should be seen as a good beginning. The movement could have just fizzled out and within a week people could have gone back and Anna Hazare’s team would have found one on another reason to call off the anti-corruption movement. The people of the country have proven that they can take a stand when it really matters and it doesn’t just hit the streets when terrorists strike or when we win the Cricket World Cup. The people of the country have not just proven the cynics wrong they have delivered a slap upon their faces. All this credit goes to team Anna.

Now the real battle begins. The real battle will be keeping the momentum going and not getting back into the same old, historical stupor we are so used to. Some people have rightly been asserting that the fight against corruption begins from within us. We have to stop giving bribes and taking bribes. This is the right time when the country’s mood is quite aggressive and people who ask for bribes will be a bit scared. Make it into a zero tolerance policy. The team Anna Hazare has some unavoidable compulsions and that is why they have to negotiate with politicians that are themselves steeped in corruption, but you don’t have such compulsions.

You can also continue your fight against corruption by putting the right people to power. I’m dead against the Congress party but here I won’t say don’t vote for the party. Just vote for the people you think are right for the country and those who won’t encourage corruption and the corrupt. Most of the middle class (I mean the people who might be reading this) doesn’t vote, but if you vote, rise above the communal and cast politics and vote according to credentials. Remember that if your local MLA has to spend crores of rupees (a lame excuse to hobnob with the criminals and the corrupt) to run his or her campaign it means he or she hasn’t been doing his or her job. If they do their job, they don’t have to spend so much money to make you vote for them. There work does all the campaigning for them.

Just read this well-written blog titled “Not just a Muslim” in which the writer writes about the difficulties she faces as a Muslim among her friends and colleagues. It’s not just Muslims that become victims of religious or regional stereotypes it happens with every minority group. The same happens when Muslims are in majority and people of other religions are in a minority.

Sikhs, for instance, too face many stereotypical attitudes and in their case what makes this worse is people are normally ridiculing them while stereotyping them. So if you’re acting stupid you’re acting like a “Sardar” and there are umpteen jokes on Sardars. My brother-in-law, being a Sikh who wears a turban, used to face so much redicule (people cracking really nasty Sardar jokes in his presence) that he made up his mind that his son would not have long hair if they were going to stay in the same environment.

I used to protest vocally and sometimes I used to make up my own jokes as a counter-response (jokes on pundits, on having short hair, or having multiple gods). Just as people would impose silly situations on Sardars I would impose equally silly and ridiculous situations on Sharmas and Guptas and Rohatgis. And what made me feel good about them was that they used to be really funny and consequently used to piss my “friends” off big time. Not a good thing to do but it used to be quite effective. In senior school and college, despite having short hair, I used to make it apparent that I am a Sikh when they cracked Sardar jokes. After a while such jokes would stop, at least in my presence.

The French government recently banned Muslim women from wearing the niqab. Some Muslim baiters that I follow on Twitter were naturally upbeat about the entire thing: “these Muslims want their way everywhere they go and it’s good that France is being strict with them” was the general refrain.

Is it about freedom of religion when people oppose the ban or are they simply catering to a religious sentiment that represses women? Changing religious beliefs is quite difficult, and this holds true for every religion, not just Muslims.

The problem with Muslims is, no matter what progressive, seemingly westernised Muslims claim, women and freedom are anathema to each other in the popular perception of Islam; call it a communication gap, Islamophobia, or whatever (to be fair even non-Muslim communities in Asia and Africa treat their women in quite a cruel manner). The Western perception of other religions is quite dismal, accepted (Hindus being pagan, etc.), but the perception of Muslims even among non-Western-non-Muslim countries is hardly positive. They have a millennium of history of violence and forceful conversions. Being a Sikh I’m more sensitive towards their violent nature because Sikhism and its symbols were born to fight against barbaric Mughals.

The moment they try to defend their thoughts and symbols the first expression that comes to one’s mind is “God, they go to other places but never adopt indigenous cultures, they always have to impose their own culture and way of life. ” Of course this is a narrow way of thinking because once a Muslim becomes (or rather a person from any other religion) a citizen of a particular country all the rights and responsibilities are automatically applied to him or her too. So if a country ensures religious freedom this freedom must be available to everybody irrespective of to what religion that person belongs.

Burqa, in reality, shouldn’t be viewed as a “them versus us” problem. It is about suppression of women. It is about devoiding them of an identity.

So what is burqa? It is a full body veil (again, it doesn’t have to be a full body covering, it can also be a scarf over the head are just covering the hair) that Muslim women have to wear when they go out. Muslim women are not supposed to show their faces to other men except for their husbands, brothers and father. Muslim men are easily given to temptations and hence their religion demands that other women be kept under veils so that impure thoughts don’t enter the men’s minds. Even in the pre-Muslim era in India there was no tradition of hiding women’s face; Hindus had to adopt this tradition to save their womenfolks from Muslims who would kidnap any woman they liked. This is a known history, I’m not aware of any other version.

One logic could be since this tradition originates from the hot sands of Arabia and Sahara, perhaps this was done to protect the women’s skin from burning (their veils were of a lighter shade and wearing black burqas in such conditions would be counter-productive). Later on it turned into a religious symbol. Many a times, religious symbols originate from traditional practices.

Hence women wearing burqas do it with two frames of mind: accepting subjugation as a normal consequence of being a Muslim woman, or accepting it as a religious symbol demanded by the Sharia law.

So is the French government wrong when it forcefully asks women to give up their burqas or else face discrimination? Personally I’m in favor of such practices and I often recommend them here in India also. Backward religious and cultural practices must be discouraged, even by force if required. Why so? I don’t think burqa, if used as a tool for repression, is any different from the practice of Sati, or forcing women into the devdasi system or tearing their hair off their heads when their husbands die. The sad reality is it takes years for cultures to adopt new ways of life and sometimes these new ways have to be enforced to save lives. For instance if I am a Muslim and if my sister or my mother is forced to wear a burqa I would like this practice to be abolished NOW and not wait for some cultural or social awareness to set in.

But you may say that the burqa doesn’t kill anybody or harm anybody physically and I totally agree. But it is a symbolic repression. I would call it religious symbol if even men wore burqas. For example in Sikhism both men and women can wear turbans because they are religious symbols of empowerment (the French government banned even turbans a couple of years ago, I don’t know what happened after that). Sikh symbols are never used to portray women as inferior or always requiring protection. Once you become a “Kaur” hhypothetically you are a warrior princess.

Burqa on the other hand encourages Muslim women to hide behind the veil so that they don’t have a public identity. They shouldn’t be recognized. They should be talking and walking oblique structures and they should only presume an identity once they are within the peripheries of their father’s or husband’s residence. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Why do many Muslim women insist that they wear burqa? Lack of awareness, I would say. Or Stockholm syndrome may be. Or religious conditioning. A sense of security (as they may feel that they will be more open to sexual assaults once they begin to appear without a veil). Education doesn’t have to do anything with it. Even some of the known journalists in India, including Barkha Dutt (in the name of religious freedom) support the tradition of wearing burqa; so you don’t have to be illiterate or ill-informed to sympathise with such practices.

It is high time Muslim women took a stand and opposed such practices instead of sticking to them. I think the French government has provided them with an opportunity to think progressively and declare their independence. Instead of defining they should support the burqa ban.

Phew! Scam after scam and now journalists-businesspersons-politicians wheeling dealing: we have a roller coaster society going on here. There is “outrage” and this is really stupid, I mean, who are we fooling? We have always been in the list of the most corrupt developing countries in the world (and this is what keeps us “developing” and not developed).

The problem is not with our businesspersons, politicians and journalists: they have always been the way they are, and the nexus has always existed.  It’s just that due to the Internet and social networking websites the news spread like wildfire and people no longer have to depend on newspapers and electronic media to get news and exchange opinions.

The 2G scam (4G is already out, by the way) is one of the biggest scams the country has ever endured, and so is the Commonwealth Games scam (1,70000 crores – approximately $ 37570000000 — and more than 35000 crores, respectively). There has been a litany of scams under the present government and even the most tolerant are forced to point fingers at the Prime Minister who quite undeservedly enjoys a clean image.

What is clean?  Cleanliness can be of many types:

• You just wear clean clothes but underneath you never wash your body
• You wash your body but wear dirty clothes
• You neither wash your body nor wear clean clothes
• You appear very clean but from the inside, spiritually and mentally, you are unclean
• You are totally clean, from the outside as well is inside but you operate in an environment that is totally unclean

Manmohan Singh probably falls under the last two categories. He has the saintly image and he draws a very miniscule amount of salary. But what is the reality?

The country witnessed a deluge of scams when he was the Finance Minister and now when he is the Prime Minister.  Of course the sudden gush of liberalization could have fuelled the corruption engine of the country, but what is the use of you being clean if everything and everybody around you is dirty? Are you really clean if people around you are unclean and you mingle with them and allow them to run the country knowing all the time what harm they are causing to your country?

In today’s The Pioneer column Swapnadas Gupta has written about how Nehru and Indira Gandhi tolerated, if not encouraged, corruption as a necessary evil bi-product of socialism. Is Manmohan Singh perpetuating this string of misguided philosophy? It sure looks so. But at what cost?

This mentality has cost the country billions of dollars. According to an international report discussed by Kanchan Gupta in the past 60 odd years the country has lost more than 20.85 lakh crores, and that’s a conservative estimate as most of the data is unavailable. Some excerpts:

The outpouring of moral outrage over Raja’s crime may have served the purpose of forcing one of the most corrupt Ministers (by no means was he the lone wolf in the Cabinet) in the present regime to quit office in disgrace although he remains defiant as ever. But it has also swamped a revealing report on Global Financial Integrity that was released last week. The details of the report indicate the extent of corruption in India and confirm what we refuse to accept: We are a corrupt society with a corrupt system; a nation that silently indulges in corruption while raucously protesting against it, as is being witnessed at the moment.

The GFI report says, “From 1948 through 2008, India lost a total of $213 billion in illicit financial flows (or illegal capital flight). These illicit financial flows were generally the product of corruption, bribery and kickbacks, and criminal activities.” Illicit financial flows pertain to the “cross-border movement (or transfer) of money earned through illegal activities such as corruption, transactions involving contraband goods, criminal activities, and efforts to shelter wealth from a country’s tax authorities”. The total of $213 billion is a misleading figure because “the present value of India’s illicit financial flows is at least $462 billion,” the GFI report explains, adding, “This is based on the short-term US Treasury bill rate as a proxy for the rate of return on assets.”

The GFI report provides some other interesting insights. For instance, contrary to the claims of successive Governments, more vociferously by the UPA regime, India’s underground economy, which is “closely tied to illicit financial outflows”, continues to expand with each passing day. The present value of illicit assets held abroad ($462 billion) “accounts for approximately 72 per cent of India’s underground economy — which has been estimated to account for 50 per cent of India’s GDP ($640 billion at the end of 2008)”. Just above a quarter of illicit assets are held domestically.

Go to his link for more juicy data.

Corruption has seeped into our very psyche. In fact people who are not corrupt are looked down upon. “Ooper ki kamayi” is a given. You’re termed as silly if you don’t pay a bribe and get your job done faster. Breaking rules and then getting away by bribing corrupt policemen has become an act of bravado. corruption has become a part of our daily lives and people have given up on the ideas of an upright society ruled by a principled government.  The common citizens have started following the philosophy of “if you can’t beat them join them”.

Well, that’s the problem, but what is the solution?

The solution against corruption is not a mystery, we all know what needs to be done.  As of now our politicians, businesspersons and bureaucrats will never let the rampaging dinosaurs of corruption go extinct. Too much money is involved.  Just imagine having 170000 crores stashed away somewhere in your account.  It will be mad to think that they will deal with the putrefaction when almost everybody is involved. People like Raja and Kalmadi are not so powerful that they could orchestrate scams of such proportions.  Some bigger people are involved and somehow our media and intellectual commentators are avoiding taking their names (understandable, actually). Even we know their names, but I’m not going to name them here for obvious reasons.

If ever we are going to see a resistance against corruption it is going to be as monumental as the independence struggle. Or by a miracle we may get a person at the helm  who follows a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to dealing with corrupt individuals whether they are in politics, bureaucracy or business.

A good thing that has happened due to the recent A Roy fiasco is that people are actively talking about the Indian democracy and how valid it is.  Is India really a democracy?  I think it is a trick question considering that the country has been ruled by a particular family for the past 50 and more years.  So to that extent I really agree to what Roy says that Indian democracy is a myth and actually there is no democracy. We prefer to live in a hallucination conveniently driving ourselves into believing that every five years elections are held and a new government is elected through a democratic process. It doesn’t matter how the government performs and it doesn’t matter how our politicians leave no stone unturned in order to keep a majority of the population backward and illiterate, we keep electing them to power election after election.

We all know what sort of elections are held in the country and especially in the villages and small towns (I guestimate that 80% of our population lives in villages and small towns). So one thing should be clear to us that it is not a democracy in a true sense.  Just today I read on Google news that the son of an SP MLA’s opened fire in a showroom, killing one person.  These incidents are commonplace in our cities, towns and villages because once these people come to power (in fact they don’t even have to come to power if they are local  goons protected by local politicians) they enjoy unparalleled impunity.  Of course such things can happen in any democracy.  But the tragedy in India is that these people get elected again and again by the so-called "mandate".

Nonetheless, it is not even like a banana republic as people like A Roy often accuse it to be. It is a pseudo-democracy, sometimes it seems like a pretense of a democracy, but it is far better than many other countries ruled by  despotic leaders, tribal warlords, communists and dictators. We can say whatever we want to say (at least those who have a voice and the medium). We can openly question and accuse the government and get away with that (although it cannot happen in villages and smaller cities and towns).  People are not executed at one pretense or another.  Of course thousands of tortures and unlawful killings take place in the name of law and order and people responsible for this must be severely punished, no matter what religious or political views they subscribe to.

All in all, despite appalling corruption, disheartening hunger and daunting backwardness, there are ample traces of democracy in our country and we should be thankful for them, and we should protect them at all costs.

Democracy, we have learned, is not an event.  It is not something that just happens.  It gradually takes shape, it gradually grows like a tree.  Sometimes when a tree is growing it doesn’t get sufficient nourishment, it has to face severe storms sometimes and risk uprooting, termites attack sometimes, and sometimes pestilent vines try to suck life out of it. Despite all these odds the tree grows until it is massive and strong.  The same goes for democracy.  Instead of constantly berating it we should strive towards strengthening it.