This is a letter I recently wrote to Ms Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson, National Advisory Council.
I write to you today as a common man, a person having no interest in politics whatsoever, a man busy from dawn to twilight in thinking about a decent life for himself and his family, and toiling hard to etch a respectable living.
Like every other apolitical Indian, which is in fact the largest majority in this country, it doesn't bother me whether the office of our Prime Minister comes under the ambit of the yet-to-be-constituted Lokpal or not.
But what most certainly causes an alarm to me is that the draft your government has tabled in the Parliament includes only the MPs and higher bureaucracy, and excluded the lower rungs of the bureaucracy, the Panchayati Raj institutions, Municipalities and the like, which come in daily contact with us, the common folk.
Most of us don't have to deal directly with a politician or the higher bureaucracy (thankfully). But we do interact with the street-level bureaucracy every other day. And it is this lower-level bureaucracy which creates hassles for us at every step of the so-called governance.
If we want an LPG connection for our homes, we have to give a bribe. Want a ration card, passport, driving licence etc, pay a bribe. Only yesterday I applied for an electricity connection for my house, and the Sarkari Babu in the Electricity Department openly said that I wouldn't be getting one unless I paid a bribe of Rs 2000 cash for it. I gave in and paid the cash, which he audaciously stapled with the Application Form, indicating that this practice was openly prevalent and deeply entrenched in the system!
For its personal/political vendetta, your government has successfully altered the Lokpal Bill to its wish, and in the process, is attempting to create an institution completely aloof from the contact of the masses, so that the people may forget about its existence soon and the government can continue plundering the nation.
Please tell me, as a common man, where am I supposed to go for all these problems? Do we also share the right to live in this country, or is it bestowed only upon the selected few of your kind? These are a few questions troubling me, as part of the largest vote-bank of this nation, the common-folk.
I sincerely put my trust in you and hope that you'll do something concrete about these concerns.
Sincerely,
Prashant Sharma
