“Why we Indians fail the nation” by Ramesh Khazanchi is a good read. However there are a couple of points which require a different perspective. Here is my perspective on them.
We keep our homes spanking clean and dump all the garbage outside, on the streets.
Should we be ashamed of our behavior? No. The civic agencies are corrupt, lazy and don’t clean the streets at all. I have never seen any worker from any of the civic agency cleaning the streets in my life and I have been living at one single place since my birth. Most of the families here have put in place a wonderful system of cleaning the street in front of their houses, either by employing a maid or doing it by themselves.
The garbage collection system is erratic and the driver of the garbage truck is always drunk. Moreover, we pay him 20 – 50 bucks every now and then to ensure he does not forget to come and collect the garbage.
What should we do, set up garbage disposal units outside our homes? I guess the civic agencies wouldn’t mind as it would give them another opportunity to fleece us with extra taxes, not that we are paying them enough already.
The community bin concept does not work here as they are hardly cleared and always overflows. Obvious isn’t it? Oh and the one thing that the so called civic agencies are good at is sending notices if we fail to pay our taxes on time.
We routinely employ children below 14 years of age as domestic help or in jobs of hazardous nature.
I am totally against this as I believe in the basic fundamental right to education which these children are entitled to. But spare a thought for those who have received education and are languishing on the streets without jobs.
What is the guarantee that the education will land the child a job? What if the child does not want to learn and wants to work in order to support a family. The child may be the sole bread winner for its family. Pulling the child out of a job and putting in front of a blackboard does not help as its family might die of hunger. The child might die of hunger. Learning to read and write does not satisfy the hunger pangs.
Our social security system does not exist as it does in the developed countries that frown on such practices. The poor and the jobless are left in the lurch to fend for themselves, with no help coming from the government that is busy in introducing legislations for an increase in the salaries and perks of the netas. They don’t care if we are eating our own shit, as long as we are paying sanitary taxes on time.
62 years of independence, after spending countless years of being ruled under different invading hordes; does it matter anymore? Corruption is gnawing away at the roots of our freedom. How long will the stability last? Something’s got to give. Every day we inch closer to tag of a failed nation. (Look at Congo for an extreme example). All our successive Governments and their policies have failed us and we as citizens have failed it by not raising our voice against corruption and allowing it to flourish.
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