Getting involved

Getting involved is the concept of citizens participating in social-governmental processes on a part time basis for the benefit of the society .

In India, such a concept is really lacking, and to an extent that even such an expectation generates sharp disagreements. The only instance I can give of such a thing being implemented is the rule that medical students should be doing internships in villages as a part of their curriculum. Not surprisingly, it was received with sufficient angst and negativity from the students. Apart from other reason that they gave, the most understandable is "why only us?"

That gives us the idea of "yes, why only them, why not other students too". Broadening this further, why just the students, why not everybody else (who is educated and capable). Sure everyone's skills might not be as badly needed as a doctor's skill, still there is no dearth of work for educated young men and women in the country.

So what I suggest is, every educated citizen of the country spend some time doing government duty. And every graduate student does this duty as a part of his curriculum. Time can be anything convenient - 15 days, 30 days, 20 weekends - anything. The benefits shall come back to us as a society. Below are listed problem areas in which the benefits can be clearly seen.

- Lack of teachers: Rural India lacks lacks trained teachers. The deficit can be hugely filled by short (may be monthly/fortnightly) teaching internships by all graduate students in villages/small towns.

- Lack of experts/professionals in rural India: doctors, lawyers, computer trainers, business managers, are examples of professionals that can be utilized for specialized needs. Other ideas to improve the health care in India.

- Election duty: till now this is a nightmare only for government employees. Private citizens are not asked to contribute to maintain fairness. But with changed times, a stronger election commission and use of technology, a fair election is not just dependent on the election officers' honesty. Imagine how smooth and cheap the whole democratic process would become if there were more hands to share the burden.

- Courts: The Indian judicial system is almost crumbling under the pressure of the huge volume of cases it has to handle. We can lend a helping hand by providing non-expert manpower support (as we all don't qualify to be judges or lawyers). But a more important contribution is jury duty.

Jury duty -
Instead of having just one judge decide the case, have a jury of say dozen people. Let them sit through the entire hearing process and listen. And then, ask them to decide, along with the judge. Let the judge hold the veto, so no illiterate judgments can pass. This is a practice in many countries (like US) and was in India until a bad instance had it stopped. I see two big benefits of this. One, making corruption costly - its now 13 times costlier to have it decided in your favor by bribing. Two, education - it will create a vast pool of 'legally literate' individuals who can be used as judges when they become sufficiently qualified.

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The most important condition for any of these ideas to work is having a system of stakes and incentives in place. If people are forced to do it, they find corrupt ways to get away. For example, if I have chances to become a judge one day by doing consistent and sincere jury duty, I might be very interested to do it, and do it well. But the idea is not purely about incentives. It is about people getting involved to make things better.