where is the revolution?

The book of your revolution sits in the pit of your belly, young Indian. Crap it out, and read.

Instead of which, they’re all sitting in front of color TVs and watching cricket and shampoo advertisements

(-The White Tiger, in Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger)

clean your shit yourself

This is the latest good lesson I learned.

In the middle of some conversation Uma tells me how she never allows the toilet cleaner lady to clean her toilet, (the pot, that is). The reason? Do they not clean it properly? No, just that it is not the right thing to do.

On giving more thought to this, I realized that she was very right. It is surely against human dignity. I would never want to clean anybody's toilet, let alone the pot. But this also is work, which is being done with all honesty and hard-work, and hence must be valued and respected (another philosophy of mine). Contradiction?

No. She does ask the lady to clean her bathroom, but not the pot. She can tell where the dividing line is. We all can. We all can make out the difference between the dirty and the dignified, if we care. There is no contradiction.

The more important lesson here is that she deems the cleanup as her own responsibility. Not only that she won't allow the lady to do it, she would do it herself. Think how beautiful and clean would our environment be, if we could all, as individuals, corporations and nations, graciously shoulder the responsibility of pollution cleanup (control).

So,
- Our garbage is our responsibility.
- Never ask another man to do something you think is dirty for you.

Pan chewers will be beaten up

This appeared in Times of India on Saturday 17th Jan 2009. (the article)

The administration of the SSKM hospital in Kolkata has put up a warning board for pan and pan masala chewers entering their premises. The warning is simple, enter chweing a pan and you will be beaten up. They are also planning to put up such messages for smokers.

Though it appears bit bad (and unfortunate) that such messages are really needed. But what brings us to smile is the news that it works. Is it the tough message that works, or the strict implementation?

What this message does is that it not only states the rule/request - like a "no smoking" board, it also informs the people of the consequences of breaking the rule - I should know what punishment I get if I smoke. The punishment in this case can be delivered immidiately - no court of law to be moved. Plus, the punishment is very embarrassing - getting a slap never equates a fine of Rs 500.

A lesser punishment of an immidiately delivered punishment can also work, provided it is implemented strictly. For example, people generally follow traffic rules if they know that a fair chance of getting fined exists. Such a messages, being extreme and unique, attract more attention and support. But the only risk is that the hospital staff someday runs into trouble by beating some criminally minded politically powerful pan chewer.

But the worst risk is getting an image of being farzi. The public should never be allowed to think that the warning is not being implemented strictly. That would not only tarnish the image of the administration, it would make them a laughing stock. More than that, it would further encourage rule breakers and demoralize those who follow.

The bottomline - clear information and strict implementation. Tell me the rule, tell me consequences of breaking it, in simple and clear language. And if I break the rule, punish me, without fail.

Why pay tax ?

I'm compelled to write this because of the tax evading attitude is in the air there days. People don't want to pay taxes, and want to get maximum exemption, even by illegitimate means. Some common logic/excuses -

1. Its my (hard earned) money. Why should I give it to anyone ?

2. Everything I buy is taxed. I am already paying a lot.

3. Don't want my money to go into some corrupt politician's pocket. 

4. Are you stupid? Everybody does it.

My answers to these -

Answer 1. Freedom is not free. The entire setup of armed forces and security personnel/agencies, for protecting our freedom, is financed by public funds. Moreover,  if you have ever been benefitted by governement facilities like public hospitals (AIIMS is one, for eg), government colleges (IITs, IIMs etc), infrastructure (roads, bridges etc), you must know that all these are either fully free or heaviliy subsidized. Even the petrol in our cars is subsidized. Tax is the price we pay for all this.

Answer 2. That calls for a very tough calculation. Add up the value of all the public services, facilities and subsidies you ever recieved. Add up all the tax you ever paid. See which one weighs more. I can bet we get more than we ever paid.

Answer 3. That is a really genuine concern. But is tax evasion a solution? Let us see. Suppose we all decide not to pay taxes and able somehow able to bring down the tax collection figures significantly. Does it really affect the crooked politician ? No really. Even if the cash flow coming from the government funds dries out, being powerful, rich and evil, he has many more ways of upkeeping his earnings, many of them criminal too. Who suffers then? 

Many. But few very direct examples I can quote are -

First - the lower-middle level government employees with their salaries stopped/suspended (that actually happens in UP and Bihar). These are the people (health workers, primary school teachers etc) who actually bring governance/welfare to people.

Second -Pensioners - pensions irregular or stopped. These are elderly people or widows of govt. employees. This includes ex-armymen and widows of soldiers who die fighting to protect us.

Third -the (below) average Indian. Remember the average Indian earns Rs 30-40K per annum. He is desperatly dependant on the government for healthcare, education, ration, employment, credit etc. Is it ok to deprive him even of the 10% (sadly enough) of the govt. expenditure that reaches him?

  

Answer 4. I can't answer that. Not right now. 

More Comments:

1. Tax exemptions (at least most of them) should go. There is no good reason I should be exempted for my conveyance expense, while most of my countrymen struggle to buy a bicycle. Neither should real-estate industry be given an unfair advantage by exempting their customers. There are many more provisions, most them just serving as tax-evasion-enablers. The only ones that look okay are exemption on charity, education loans and retirals.

2. Tax structure should be further simplified. Straightforward tax slabs, so nobody needs experts to understand it all. Less tax for low earners, more for the wealthy, and even more for the even more wealthy. For eg, 10 lacs pa falls in 30% slab, and 10 crore pa too - clearly unfair.

(re)Starting notes

This blog is a representation of my thoughts and ideologies that might be relevent and useful to others.

Starting this after deleting posts from the old blog, I'm planning to make this more public than personal. The reason why I am preserving one old post (Rang de ... somebody .... ) is the beauty of the post. The dilemma of a common man, and the tinge of hopelessness. I am glad that I have come a long way from there.

Its more about obligations and responsibilities now than hopes and dreams.