Towards a Developed India...

Corruption is the root cause of all the problems India is facing. If you tackle this monster, you hit the bull’s eye. How do you do it? It’s easier said than done. It is actually a vicious circle. You want to fight corruption. For that you need a team. You need to ensure that your team is free from corruption. It keeps coming back to square one whichever way you take.

Probably we should strike a deal with the police personnel that we would raise their salaries to comfortable levels so that they don’t have to take bribes from people to earn their living. It is a sad fact that the salaries and wages of the government agencies are not adequate in this day and age to lead a comfortable life. If we can get their buy-in for this proposal, we will have a platform to fight corruption. The assumption here is that if people are blessed with a good income, at least 80% of them will not resort to corruption. This assumption can be totally false but we have to start somewhere.

If the law enforcement agency is clean, we can take their help in dealing with corruption. Our top most priority should be to increase the cash inflow. First – Make taxes compulsory. Get rid of section 80’s and 88’s. Everyone has to pay a flat 30% tax on his/her income regardless of the investments he/she chooses to make. Act on the tax evaders mercilessly. The additional funds acquired by this move should be used to pay better wages to government servants.

Our next move should be to make our judiciary system more effective and efficient. The lead times for court cases should be brought down drastically. It might need more automation or a complete paradigm shift in our constitutional thinking. More thought should go into this.

Transport is a nation’s backbone. It is not preposterous to say that America is in this state just because of its I-80 and I-90, the two superhighways which connect most of the nation’s important cities. The golden quadrilateral project which is a brainchild of Atal Behari Vajpayee is a good move in this direction. However the road infrastructure needs to be modernized at all levels. Not just freeways but country roads and village roads should also be developed. This will reduce the overall transit time and will be a boon to the economy.

Politics: Make education compulsory for politicians. Candidates aspiring to be MLAs or MPs should have finished graduation at least. Again it is an assumption that educated people are harder to manipulate.

Education: Change the present day yard stick for counting the number of educated persons in a constituency. Just knowing how to sign one’s name does not make him an educated person. He should have finished at least five years of schooling to be considered as educated. Once the new yardstick is in place, we should find out where we are at. Then proper programs must be devised to increase the education levels at a constituency or ward level.

Why is an average educated Indian whose heart bleeds for his/her country not willing to do anything to uplift the country from the sorry state it is right now in? It is because of fear… fear that one day the criminal arm of the country’s bad elements would reach the person. What if Gandhi thought this way? What if Bhagat Singh were scared of facing the gallows? We would have still been slaves of England.

It takes a single person to start a revolution. You might not be able to make any perceptible impact to India in your life time but small drops do matter. Small things which are in your jurisdiction do make a difference if only you have the correct vision. For instance if you see a person smoking in the corridor of a railway compartment, you can confront him. On your part, you can start by adhering to the rules wherever you can. As a responsible citizen of India, as a person who is writing a five hundred word essay on How to Improve India, it is imperative that you follow the rules first.

Change yourself. Convince yourself. Act upon your ideas. Don’t look for the results.

Hope to see a real revolution.

Venu.