Anti-Corruption Samudaya
Writing this post from the IT capital of India, Bangalore. Bangalore is yet to be notified as a metro of the country, but having all the characteristics of one. speed of the life. Traffic congestions, amount of trading, world famous retail chains, good number of educational institutions, good number of political parties and leaders, a huge percentage of apolitical mass, big number of crimes, etc. You name one nature of a metro, there are enough number of examples here. The only missing thing might be the area. The out skirts of Bangalore are yet to transform. There are still some trees, green patches, vacant plots, farming, etc. But it will be notified as a metro in the near future.
As usual I have deviated from the topic a bit. Yesterday (28/05/2011) Saturday, I have attended cultural program organized by a 3 decade old organization, Samudaya. The event was the closing part of a 15 day long campaign they have organized across Karnataka. There were two jathas started from different parts of the state and they joined together in Bangalore.
What was the message they carried along the jathas. Yes, it was two rampant issues of our age. Corruption and price rice. You might be wondering what is new in it. Now whole India is fighting against corruption. the stalwart Gandhian, Anti-corruption crusader Anna Hasare was also here in Bangalore to attend another anti-corruption campaign. All the media attention has been drawn by Anna. So Samudaya jatha may not have reached your eyes or ears.
What is the difference between the Anna struggle and the Samudaya struggle. yes there is a difference. The Samudaya jatha didn’t get the attention of our large apolitical community. But still they have traveled to the villages and towns. They met the people. The people who were not heard any time. The people who were looted through out their ages. Corruption is now part of the culture and it is no more a crime. Samudaya jatha was talking to such people and tried to evoke some response. They were having some good singers with though provoking songs. An amazing street play. Trust me, it was a reflection of Safdar Hashmi culture. The strong narration techniques they have adopted shows the courage of the people, mostly students from a village called maloor near Mandya.
Jatha was trying to correlate the relation between corruption and price rice. There were some good cartoons with sharp quotes. One of the cartoons was as follows. When PrimeMinister Dr. Manmohan Singh backed by Congress President Sonia says “Tolerance level of his Government towards corruption is zero”. The looting done by his ministers had gone beyond the imagination of people with large number of zeros. It is good that we hve a judiciary with a spinal code still in place, which is able to bring this kind of black holes in to light. Beware they are black holes, even light won’t be able to escape, unless we are cautious.
If the 1, 70,000 crore rupees had come to the exchequer(2g scam), it would have been huge relief for the common man. Government could have distributed themone using MNREGS, JnNURM, etc, etc. The flood victims of Karnataka didn’t get their promised houses even after 5 years of the disaster. Hundreds of such sufferings are there across the country. Government could have given support to the dying farmers by giving better base price to the agricultural produce. But 2G, CWG, POSCO, Mining, Petroleum price hike, etc, etc. Still proving that nothing better will happen to the huge average population of this country.
The Samudaya jathas were not popular or published among the urban youth. They were behind the anti-corruption crusader Anna Hasare. But Samudaya was able to bring to dais the anti-corruption bull dozer of Karnataka, Justice Lokayuktha Santhosh Hegde. There were few more elite people also. I am really sorry that i could not remember all names. I can assure that there are some true, inspired, dedicated activities happening in Karnataka centered at Bangalore. Let Bangalore become metro but let it not loose the innocence of these activities.
ಸಮುದಾಯ 