2012 comes to an end. Though like every other year it has its
good and bad phases but however it is ending on a solemn note. Living in
Delhi makes you feel even closer to what has been happening here in the
last couple of weeks.
On 16th of December, six men running an illegal bus gang raped a 23 year old student. She and her male friend were first beaten, she was raped and when she tried to resist, she was brutally assaulted. She was in intensive care since then and passed away last night in Singapore.
Most of us across the country are horrified and angered by what happened. Many women have been raped in the past and even after this incident there have been a few rapes across the country. But for some reason or because of the brutality of this incident, she has galvanised a mass movement. A lot of people are on the streets across the country remembering her, mourning for her and trying that the government listens to them.
The government of India was found fumbling. They had never thought a rape & murder could evoke such a nationwide response. Why did they think that they could get away with this? The answer lies in the basic tenant of governance. Till now throughout the history, the governance and the decision making has been top down. Suddenly they felt that something has shifted from under their feet. The comfort that they are in power and hence they can dictate what they want to react to and ignore others will not work anymore.
But here is my problem, the demand that our leaders haven’t done their job or the system has failed us is OK, but the expectation that in the present system these could be solved immediately is farfetched. Everyone has their own opinion and similarly I have my own. However, I do not want into the reasons why this happened but on an important point of Governance.
There is a fabulous quote which most Indians do not understand for sure. 'Government is at its core, what we do together that we cannot do alone.' This basically means that we need to look at the Government as something that is derived from us and not as a separate entity which functions outside us.
We need to learn to distinguish between Politics and Government. Politicians do things to remain in power, they philander, the lie, they are corrupt and sometimes they are good too. However, they are not the Government; they are at best executors of the functioning Government.
So discounting politicians, what can we do and how do we do to make the Government better and in turn the city and the country better. The important point to realize is to make the Government function well, we need to make ourselves more responsible and take the citizenship more seriously. I do not mean citizenship only in parochial country sense; I mean we all are citizens of a city and neighbourhood on one end and the world at the other.
Governments inherently have not been open and they are not attuned to collaborative processes. But we need that change of process to deal with what the technology has unleashed on us. Policies need to be created in advance of the needs. I know that laws sometimes move ahead of the society and sometime behind, but wouldn't it be a good thing if somehow we can measure the changing perception and make these changes before time. This requires values and expertise of the citizens have to be gauged and then turn them into decision.
I am not advocating that we should remove our democratic setup not even that our representative system of democracy be taken over but there has to be a kind of 'pulse monitor' this pulse monitor measures the values and aspirations of society not on a 5 yearly basis but in short pulses, days, weeks, months. This would give us enormous edge in forming policies far quicker and get citizens involved on a regular basis. Now if there is a bill or a policy which affects farming sector, urban population might not take part in the debate or if there is a city issue, folks in the country side might not, that’s OK as far as they opportunity is provided to all. In an era of Facebook and multimedia we have the tools to get it there and make it available to people. This in no way this will replace Government and in no way I am suggesting that. But this will enable people see social trends better.
20 years ago when I was growing up, we used to get a couple of newspapers at our place, if something had happened a 1000 miles away, we could read about it the next day, feel sad or elated but there was no way for us to put our voices out to be heard. We no longer live in those times. As internet is penetrating deep inside this world and is becoming more accessible we all can voice our thoughts. So no longer we are a consumer of the information, we are creators and participators in that event.
Another important point to keep in mind is that getting information and dissipating that information is not cooperation towards governance. Today in India we have ‘Right to Information’ act, we can access every public record if needed, but that is not enough, we need ability to do something with it, exposing it if it is wrong is not good enough anymore, we as a society need the ability to make an effective change in it or using it.
Facebook, Twitter and other social media have given us a great platform where we can interact with people across the globe. We find people with similar thoughts across the geographical boundaries and created communities where more important is to have similar taste rather than where you come from, what your social or economic status is. For example, how much ever it makes my stomach churn, Justin Bieber has 50 million fans on Facebook from all across the world. I am not saying that we should use Facebook as a tool but it gives us a great snapshot of what people are actually thinking without geographic boundaries. We can no longer be concerned about only our needs, we need to think global, as the world around us closes on us, the impact of good and bad in any part of the world would be felt right across. Today, vegetable prices change worldwide, the impact of it could be relative but still the trends move similarly.
There are many many things that we can do, I am trying to list down a couple of my ideas, let us make this forum open and let us collect ideas that could evolve into something that we can create, share and make it better.
The first thing is that we need to take onus of our surroundings. We need to build a mechanism where we all contribute to solve day to day problems. Problem could be in our neighbourhood or even our neighbour's. If I know how to fix a tap why wait for the plumber to come and help the neighbour. If there is a garbage dump near my area, why not few people combine and clean it to an extent rather than waiting for city it do it for you.
Another addition that would immensely help make our surroundings better is if we all could own a particular piece of equipment or a park bench or even a street. If we own it, we keep it in good shape, if I own a park bench; I keep it and the area around it clean so people can use it better. If I own a street, I can help install a CC TV camera, or extend the duties of guards in our restricted colonies to monitor roads around the colonies too. If an organization owns a road, they can provide better security by employing a couple of more people to make the roads safer. This way we would not only extend our cooperation to the city but make its inhabitants feel safer.
Another simple way is to make a panic application or a phone number which informs the closest police person instead of routing it to the central location.
Such ideas are a plenty, we need to contribute them, create them and use them to make our lives better. This is the new and really democratic way of governing. Governments are needed to keep the systems in place, check and balances between different strata and the overall law and order system in place. But we can contribute and we should contribute.
So please share one idea, it could be something that if all follow we could make this better, one idea for an application, one idea that we all can pitch to the authorities. It could be anything. Let us share so that collaborate on it and actually deliver it to people across the world.
Because until we change our mindset of citizenship we won't be able to change the government. We need to be better citizens first than we can hope for a better government.
Hoping that the new year will bring happiness, prosperity and peace in everyone’s life.
On 16th of December, six men running an illegal bus gang raped a 23 year old student. She and her male friend were first beaten, she was raped and when she tried to resist, she was brutally assaulted. She was in intensive care since then and passed away last night in Singapore.
Most of us across the country are horrified and angered by what happened. Many women have been raped in the past and even after this incident there have been a few rapes across the country. But for some reason or because of the brutality of this incident, she has galvanised a mass movement. A lot of people are on the streets across the country remembering her, mourning for her and trying that the government listens to them.
The government of India was found fumbling. They had never thought a rape & murder could evoke such a nationwide response. Why did they think that they could get away with this? The answer lies in the basic tenant of governance. Till now throughout the history, the governance and the decision making has been top down. Suddenly they felt that something has shifted from under their feet. The comfort that they are in power and hence they can dictate what they want to react to and ignore others will not work anymore.
But here is my problem, the demand that our leaders haven’t done their job or the system has failed us is OK, but the expectation that in the present system these could be solved immediately is farfetched. Everyone has their own opinion and similarly I have my own. However, I do not want into the reasons why this happened but on an important point of Governance.
There is a fabulous quote which most Indians do not understand for sure. 'Government is at its core, what we do together that we cannot do alone.' This basically means that we need to look at the Government as something that is derived from us and not as a separate entity which functions outside us.
We need to learn to distinguish between Politics and Government. Politicians do things to remain in power, they philander, the lie, they are corrupt and sometimes they are good too. However, they are not the Government; they are at best executors of the functioning Government.
So discounting politicians, what can we do and how do we do to make the Government better and in turn the city and the country better. The important point to realize is to make the Government function well, we need to make ourselves more responsible and take the citizenship more seriously. I do not mean citizenship only in parochial country sense; I mean we all are citizens of a city and neighbourhood on one end and the world at the other.
Governments inherently have not been open and they are not attuned to collaborative processes. But we need that change of process to deal with what the technology has unleashed on us. Policies need to be created in advance of the needs. I know that laws sometimes move ahead of the society and sometime behind, but wouldn't it be a good thing if somehow we can measure the changing perception and make these changes before time. This requires values and expertise of the citizens have to be gauged and then turn them into decision.
I am not advocating that we should remove our democratic setup not even that our representative system of democracy be taken over but there has to be a kind of 'pulse monitor' this pulse monitor measures the values and aspirations of society not on a 5 yearly basis but in short pulses, days, weeks, months. This would give us enormous edge in forming policies far quicker and get citizens involved on a regular basis. Now if there is a bill or a policy which affects farming sector, urban population might not take part in the debate or if there is a city issue, folks in the country side might not, that’s OK as far as they opportunity is provided to all. In an era of Facebook and multimedia we have the tools to get it there and make it available to people. This in no way this will replace Government and in no way I am suggesting that. But this will enable people see social trends better.
20 years ago when I was growing up, we used to get a couple of newspapers at our place, if something had happened a 1000 miles away, we could read about it the next day, feel sad or elated but there was no way for us to put our voices out to be heard. We no longer live in those times. As internet is penetrating deep inside this world and is becoming more accessible we all can voice our thoughts. So no longer we are a consumer of the information, we are creators and participators in that event.
Another important point to keep in mind is that getting information and dissipating that information is not cooperation towards governance. Today in India we have ‘Right to Information’ act, we can access every public record if needed, but that is not enough, we need ability to do something with it, exposing it if it is wrong is not good enough anymore, we as a society need the ability to make an effective change in it or using it.
Facebook, Twitter and other social media have given us a great platform where we can interact with people across the globe. We find people with similar thoughts across the geographical boundaries and created communities where more important is to have similar taste rather than where you come from, what your social or economic status is. For example, how much ever it makes my stomach churn, Justin Bieber has 50 million fans on Facebook from all across the world. I am not saying that we should use Facebook as a tool but it gives us a great snapshot of what people are actually thinking without geographic boundaries. We can no longer be concerned about only our needs, we need to think global, as the world around us closes on us, the impact of good and bad in any part of the world would be felt right across. Today, vegetable prices change worldwide, the impact of it could be relative but still the trends move similarly.
There are many many things that we can do, I am trying to list down a couple of my ideas, let us make this forum open and let us collect ideas that could evolve into something that we can create, share and make it better.
The first thing is that we need to take onus of our surroundings. We need to build a mechanism where we all contribute to solve day to day problems. Problem could be in our neighbourhood or even our neighbour's. If I know how to fix a tap why wait for the plumber to come and help the neighbour. If there is a garbage dump near my area, why not few people combine and clean it to an extent rather than waiting for city it do it for you.
Another addition that would immensely help make our surroundings better is if we all could own a particular piece of equipment or a park bench or even a street. If we own it, we keep it in good shape, if I own a park bench; I keep it and the area around it clean so people can use it better. If I own a street, I can help install a CC TV camera, or extend the duties of guards in our restricted colonies to monitor roads around the colonies too. If an organization owns a road, they can provide better security by employing a couple of more people to make the roads safer. This way we would not only extend our cooperation to the city but make its inhabitants feel safer.
Another simple way is to make a panic application or a phone number which informs the closest police person instead of routing it to the central location.
Such ideas are a plenty, we need to contribute them, create them and use them to make our lives better. This is the new and really democratic way of governing. Governments are needed to keep the systems in place, check and balances between different strata and the overall law and order system in place. But we can contribute and we should contribute.
So please share one idea, it could be something that if all follow we could make this better, one idea for an application, one idea that we all can pitch to the authorities. It could be anything. Let us share so that collaborate on it and actually deliver it to people across the world.
Because until we change our mindset of citizenship we won't be able to change the government. We need to be better citizens first than we can hope for a better government.
Hoping that the new year will bring happiness, prosperity and peace in everyone’s life.
