High time we bring our representatives under vigil

What we require at this hour is a massive RTI movement from the common people and not some sort of publicity-monger self-righteous andolan projected by people like Arvind Kejriwal. Those crusaders (I don't know actually against what although they say they are fighting corruption) are adding to the chaos and earning some easy fame among the average slaphappy Indians.

If India really thinks a Tahrir Square is needed today, it should take each of its democratic representatives and hand out a treatment that they actually deserve. It is a mission that needs to be started at the basic level and achieved unitedly.

A massive RTI movement and constant backing up of each and every issue are required to understand how each public leader is performing in the Parliament. We, as the common people, work for our living by making some productive work in favour of an aim in general and organisation in particular. Why not then those who are elected by us?

We have two soft, time-consuming but handy options

As electorates of the world's largest democracy, we have two options. One, create a vigilance mechanism on the leaders in Parliament, big or small, for they have failed to carry out their responsibility. For this mechanism, a strong RTI movement is very much necessary. Unfortunately, the Indian media is not very interested in the RTI aspect as much as they are while focusing on a Kejriwal, Ramdev or Anna Hazare. The politico-media nexus might not allow this ever but the people of India should make it a point that RTI is exercised regularly.

Second, the Indian people should exercise the right to move no-confidence motions against their respective representatives. They should rightly disallow imposition of an election candidate by any party for them and instead engage with the parties to ensure that fitting candidates are fielded. The candidate's past credentials should be scrutinised and if any candidate is found to be tainted, his electorate must call him back. Corruption in government affairs should be made a strong criterion of judgment.

True, we don't have the mechanism to recall, but there should be a pressure to make it a reality. It is not an aim that is impossible to achieve and will help to clean up garbage in a big way. The tainted ministers should be deprived of their advantages and perks and should be given a lesson that holding a public office doesn't give one the chance to loot the nation and destroy the democratic ideals. Even the parties should be forced to involve common people to prepare their election manifestos. Whether FDI is helpful or helpless, let the people decide it before the selfish parties carry out all non-sense in the name of the commoners' good.

If each of us really care about our own constituency and try to keep things clean as we do with our neighbourhood, a cumulative effect will be visible at the highest platform. We should act to improve the condition everyday in whatever capacity we can. We can educate a Charity begins at home but are we ready?

Everything is messy because we expect somebody else will do the work

Today, we are electing undeserving people because we ourselves do not take an interest in politics. We vote for people either because they command trust in a community (religious, regional, caste-based or on any other identity) and are projected as mass leaders, charismatic people from the glamour world or political families who actually have little idea of what's happening on ground, technocrats who have no understanding of the real issues but with all bookish and theoretical knowledge and loyalists of parties and leaders who are actually non-entities.

People from all these categories symbolise greed for power, fame, money and all those worldly advantages that one can get as a parliamentarian. But is the Parliament a goose that lays golden eggs? The people of India must decide on this.

The young generation should build a collective leadership

The younger generation today has no role model to imitate. But that does not mean that they lose hope. They must grow as an inclusive community able to give a collective leadership to educate the people of this country to choose the right heads. Differences will be there for a democracy recognises differences, but the collective leadership of the country must ensure that differences do not lead to division. People with good intention and maturity are not vanishing today, but they are being sidelined and targetted in packs. Those people must be given an encouragement.

The much-needed reform can not be carried out in a day. It will take years to clear the mess that we have found ourselves in. But hopes must not die for indifference and inaction in the current situation will not give us a secure future. Why not act and kill the demon before it devours us all?