It has been many months and the fight (लड़ाई – ladai) is still on. Yes, I am taking about the fight against corruption (भ्रष्टाचार – bharastachar) in India. I could not resist but to give you an overview (अवलोकन – avlokan) of such a mass campaign (अभियान – abhiyaan) that is gripping whole India for many months.

India might be on the verge of one of the superpower (महाशक्ति – mahashakti), however there are some fundamental (मौलिक – maulik) issues which are holding her back. Issues of mass poverty (निर्धनता – nirdhanta), illiteracy (निरक्षरता – niraksharta), corruption etc. Out of all, I find corruption to be the biggest culprit (दोषी – doshi). It is corruption, which led to the misuse of funds which would have been used for education (शिक्षा – shiksha) and social welfare (सामाजिक कल्याण – samajik kalyaan).  In India, the corruption has gone even to the grassroots level, affecting the life of a common man. It is impossible to get your work done if you do not bribe (रिश्वत – rishvat) an official. And, if a person complaints (शिकायत – shikayaat) about it, he may has to face atrocity. Moreover, in the recent years, there have been many disclosure (भंडाफोड़ – bhandafaud) about the mass corruption in the government sector. The amounts involved in the various scams (घोटाले – ghotale) were in trillions of dollars. Pathetic response of government (सरकार – sarkar) has led the mass level agony in the Indian society (समाज – samaj) and Indian people (जनता – janta) were forced to come down to the street to protest.

Anna Hazare (अन्ना हजारे), an Indian social reformer (समाज सुधारक – samaj sudharak) and adherent of Gandhian principle, has been leading this mass campaign against corruption and advocating for establishing an strict ombudsman (लोकपाल – lokpal) for Indian bureaucratic system. This ombudsman is called Jan Lokpal Bill (जन लोकपाल). The government, in return, proposed a weaker ombudsman. It is wide belief  that people mostly, political leaders (नेताओं – Netaon) who have been accused a numerous times for the various scams, want to safe-guard themselves.

In my opinion, it is not just the political leaders who are responsible (उत्तरदायी – uttardaayi) but also the people as the leaders come from the people itself. People vote them to represent them. And, when we are talking about the grassroots level corruption, we must not ignore the human tendency of greed (लालच – lalach). I would just like to rephrase an quote from Mahatma Gandhi that, “Be the change you want to see in the world”