Honesty: the new 'cool'

The amalgamation of corruption, favoritism, misgovernance, especially in the recent years has resulted in a plague that is spreading to various organs of our nation. This plague is spreading fast, transforming into a vicious cycle of dis-functioning systems that compliment each other resulting in the shrinking of basic human values of our society. It has already consumed most of the systems in place: political, police, bureaucratic, business, broadcasting, publishing and judicial systems.

According to some of these reports, the corruption in judiciary is not a new phenomena. But, the practice of judiciary saving its own is certainly on the rise with the recent developments of not one case, but number of cases. This is a dangerous phenomena as it effects number of other judgements by those involved in such cases. Even the post of Attorney General of India(AGI) seems to have compromised. Certainly the current AGI proved it more than once. And all other highest government offices and organizations like CBI, CAG , etc., are following the suit like mad.

As there wasn't any credible alternative political establishment, the people had been effectively left out of the Cycle of Democracy, turning it into the above mentioned vicious cycle. This cycle formed out of the corrupt systems has already started kicking(or killing) out the honest(who don't keep their silence about the fraudulent deals), and rewarding the corrupt and bystanders(who keep their silence on the deals). 

When one of their corrupt collaborators gets into trouble(latest example), all other mates in different systems of this unscrupulous cycle collude and try to bail him out at different levels starting from registering  of a complaint and through various levels like FIR registration, Investigation, formation of charges, court trial, re-trials, appeals, etc. In case if he somehow crosses all these barricades and gets a jail sentence(after 20-30 years), even then, there are processes that makes him feel like at home with special cells in the jail and with paroles almost whenever he wants.

Its very hard to break this cycle now, which seems to have reached its full spin. The key to break this cycle, lies with the political system, which is the at the core of this cycle, and in the hands of voters when an honest alternative do present. To stop this cycle, there's the need for a constant force to act against the spin, involving both honest political leaders and honest voters. This combination is the basic working principle for a democracy to progress, which can even make the existing corrupt political outfits gets renovated or replaced to good enough proportions for the cycle of democracy to start functioning again.

The recent Delhi elections prove that the people are ready to back a credible alternative at least for once. But, can this trigger a national political revolution that we are desperately in need of? There is no doubt that, to an extent, the political awareness among the general public is gradually increasing, especially among the young citizens, most of whom had been keeping their distance from politics and there by from voting. Some heated debates among the youth is always promising, but honest, unselfish, sensitive and dynamic youth represent the real progress of a nation.

As Chetan Bhagat said in a recent animated discussion on NDTV, goodness, or rather Integrity, must become the new cool (style statement).