Scam-soaked India must Introspect

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Parent Category: Guest Columns

Category: Sudhansu R. Das

Created on Monday, 03 September 2012 01:07

Written by Sudhansu R. Das

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IntrospectionCulturally rich India where highest human values like universal love, nature worship, philosophy of seeing god in every living being, kindness, bravery and forgiveness are the inherent qualities of people; where a child fondly shares a loaf of bread with a hungry street dog and a common man does not have a sleep when his neighbor is hungry, has imported a bad culture infested with voluptuous greed and selfishness.

The societal behavior change to lead a lavish lifestyle with public loot contributes to the growth of scamsters like Hershad Mehta, Suresh Kalmadi, Ramalinga Raju, Ketan Parekh, P. S. Subramanium of UTI scam, Bhansali, Sanjay Agrawal, Rastogi, Telgi, Dalmia and Goyal who plundered more than Rs 1,60,000 crores from Indian public.

CAG has shown exemplary courage in digging out the 2G scam of Rs 1.74 lakh crore and massive scams in coal, airport, and energy sectors amounting to Rs 3 lakh crore. The answer to state governments’ opposition to auction of national wealth is not the tacit handover of mines to private parties. India has seen fodder scam, old mining scams, Noida land scam, Adarsh Housing Society scam, LIC Housing finance scam, MFI scam and the list is getting longer. It seems there is something terribly wrong in our family, schools, educational institutions, and organizational culture which have sown the seeds of greed and corruption in the minds of our youth.

The majority of Indian politicians right from Panchayat level irrespective of political parties work as middlemen to serve business men, traders and general public for a commission. In the process, they amass huge wealth to lead a lavish life style and force bureaucrats to manipulate rules for politicians’ advantage. Right from day one, the Indian bureaucrats face two option: first option satisfy politico-business boss and live in luxury; the second option to show honesty and face punishment. Majority choose the first option. A small percentage of people who go for the tough second choice are branded as outcaste. Britishers doled out stipends and foreign liquor to Indian kings and nobles and told them to close their eyes to systematic looting. Those nationalists who did not listen were hunted down as rebels, as terrorists, as anti national and as bad characters.

The age old symbiotic relationship between politicians, traders and corrupt people in governance mechanism nurtures scams of huge proportion. A substantial part of the demographic dividend ends up in politico-middlemen-traders’ net. As a result demographic dividends fail to create the right environment for the majority of people to increase their productivity hours.

What is the use of road infrastructure if the road needs repair every year? Over the years our metro cities have become black holes to suck public fund. They have become unlivable mess. What is the use of population policy if it is implemented discriminately? A simple constable can indirectly help increase the productivity hours of people if he is free from the evil influence of politicians. An honest collector, Superintendent of Police and commercial bank branch manager can bring visible change in their area of operation. They are there and they can perform if quality people become public representatives through political inclusion.

US President Barack Obama in his presidential address said greed is one of the reasons for global recession. It is not the animal instinct but animalization of economic models which creates human misery of unprecedented proportion. The best solution is to treat the greed virus with spiritual tools. Spiritualism does not mean doing bhajan-kirtan but to instill both moral and physical courage in our youth through regular programs and activities so that they could prevent bad governance.

The change for a better human life is happening in the west and in a faster pace due to their conviction about the way of life minus excess greed. The new MBA oath for the graduates of Harvard Business School reads "the goal of a business manager is to serve the greater good". Indian yoga is found to be an elixir for health, happiness and a better civic life.

Today around 71,000 yoga teachers in North America teach yoga to an estimated 34 million people. In USA, the corporate yoga classes are growing faster than shopping malls. Government organizations, police departments, military bases, therapists - both mental and physical, school teachers, and media people etc. become the main target groups.

Fortunately, India has many internationally acclaimed yoga gurus who have contributed immensely to increase the productivity hours and happiness level of billions of people across the world. The spiritual gurus must be given free hand to address India’s deepening HR crisis in an effective manner. The irony is that India is sitting on a treasure trove of spiritual material when the nation desperately needs a spiritual awakening for deep introspection. If India crumbles under scams, it will become weak and lose its economic and political freedom.

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