When you see a lapse in the society, as a responsible citizen you correct it through proper channel. Of course it’s not possible many times to correct the lapses in the society. But remaining indifferent to the injustice and atrocities is considered as a dangerous quality in a person.

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it ---Albert Einstein.

When it becomes a herculean task to expose an irregularity or a lapse in the system, form a group. For a group there is nothing impossible. Because Unity is strength.

It’s only when two hands join, sound is created.

When two hands join sound is produced.

When four voices join, can make a slogan.

When 10 heads and 20 hands join, will form a union.

Where a single blade of grass fails, a thousand grass blades can immobilize an elephant.

Unity is strength... when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.

Unless people question the atavistic and barbaric forces and their ways in the society, the very meaning and purpose of freedom will be lost. 

Service before self.

There are people around us who look beyond themselves. They go to any number of sacrifices. To rub off the society's lapses and to expose the injustice perpetrated on the have-nots by the influential and rich few. The satisfaction that these selfless derived from changing the lives of the down trodden, failed to get in the fat purses of their salaries.

These selfless people who failed to derive satisfaction in the luxurious lifestyle, found solace and satisfaction in uplifting the people dwelling in the slums. 

They always direct their endeavors to meet those like minded blessed with social awareness, clear minded awareness about their goals and objectives. And they form in to groups with the sole aim of doing good to the society, in order to declare war against the evils plaguing the society.

• One Group keeps a hawk eye on the Leaders and makes a regular noting on their activities. 
• One Group , toils hard to spread the awareness in the youth on the importance of exercising the power of their Vote.
• One Group relentlessly exposes the corruptive practices prevailing in the society.
• One Group explains the rudiments of administration to the Rulers.
• One Group delves in large about the necessity of ‘Questioning’ the erring society .

Different Groups with different jobs are doing the watchdog functions to save the crumbling Society and the system of administration. Though their duties are different, their main objective is only one. That is, ’Preserving the human values, thereby preserving the sanctity of the Society.

Common Man’s dilemma.

One should appreciate the enormous size of the patience and endurance in the lowest level of the Society, “Common Man.”

Day in day out, his eardrum is bombarded by the shallow promises of the Double-tongued politicians. They pour gallons of love on the voters just before the elections. They vouch for their sincere and undivided commitment for the welfare of the common man.

I stood by the common man in his Ups and Downs and have been hailed as the “champion” of the down trodden.

I have fulfilled all the promises I made.

My life is an open book sans blemishes.

This Bridge on that River and the Roads laid in this city connecting to the airport are done by me, which the previous government kept in the cold storage for decades.

Vexed by these monotonous stuff less speeches of the politicians, a common man’s mind will be wavering like a pendulum with a plethora of doubts. ‘Which is true. Which is false. Whom to believe and whom not to believe. How to pick up a sincere politician from the pack of these wolfs?’

Exactly at this juncture, poor voter thinks, ‘How good it would have been, had there been a record of all these politicians, their clandestine activities and shady deals in a big volume that would be within the reach of all poor voters like me.’

Who are these Netas?

Our leaders fondly called as Netas are no ordinary species. They are the strong people in the society with immense wealth and with privileges only a very can enjoy. They enjoy a big clout in the political and hi-fi rich circles of the society. Trying to peep in to their private lives in an attempt to know the real nature of these politicians is nothing short of committing suicide. It’s nothing but playing with fire. Its willingly inviting trouble.

No backtracking.

Despite all the facts about the rich politicians, ‘Peoples’ groups’ are not cowed down. From land grabbing to grave heinous crimes committed by the politicians and the influential are being recorded by these valiant and brave hearts, risking their own lives. It’s part of their mission to clean the society by sweeping away the dirt accumulated since decades.

History of Majority of the politicians’ writ with blood.

4807 M.L.As in the country and 30 percent of the Members of the parliament are having crime history. Among them 14 percent are involved in grievous crimes like murders and atrocities of different hues and colours .

Between the period of 2004 and 2011, the main and big political parties’ income was 4895.66 crores. In this about 91.01 percent of income from the anonymous donors and patrons.

Making mockery of democratic system.

The above figures speak in no uncertain words about the huge holes prevailing in the democratic system. They speak of the weakness of the system. They speak of the indifferent and inefficient system. These statistics and figures make the blood boil in all those people who think of the society’s welfare in true sense. Their determination to root out these evils will become stronger by day.

Association For Democratic Reforms.

A.D.R, the Association for Democratic Reforms an association, with the sole aim of erasing the corruption in the sphere of politics started functioning 15 years ago with Delhi as its center. It keeps away from the glitz and glamour of propaganda. It never yielded and gave away to intimidation of the rich politicians. It did not leave its mission exposure owing to pressures from Bureaucracy.  The group is committed to question any lapses that take place in the society or in the political system.

ADR was established by a  group of professors from The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmadabad, Gujarat. It has filed a PIL, Public interest Litigation with Delhi High court  requesting the disclosure of  all the details about the election contesting candidates pertaining to their criminal, financial and educational background.

Based on this, the Apex court made it mandatory for all those candidates contesting the elections to disclose all the details related to criminal, financial and educational background before the elections to the Election Commissioner In the year 2002. 

Subsequently ADR for the first time has presented all the details of the election contesting candidates before the electorate in the year 2002. This enabled the electorate to weigh the pros and cons before they exercise their franchise. Starting from 2002, ADR has conducted Election watches surveys in collaboration with The National Election Watch for nearly all the state and Parliamentary elections.

ADR’s activities are not just limited to conducting election watches. It also gives a clear picture about the transparency and accountability in the political system through its different kinds of Projects. ADR also kept the details pertaining to all the election contesting candidates in its website. 

ADR has collected the details of 63000 election contesting candidates in the previous elections pertaining to their  property and other aspects. By typing the name of the candidate  at ‘My Neta info’ in the site anyone can get all the details pertaining to the candidate.

There are several other organizations in other cities which are working with the sole aim of restablishing transparency and accountability in the governance.

Praja, is a non profitable organization operating from Mumbai mainly focusing on creating instruments for change,Transparency in governance and accountability through people’s active participation. Praja releases every year the progress reports of 227 councilors and 27 MLAs. In these reports people can get the details of the people’s representatives related to  their utilization of funds allocated towards welfare schemes, how they discharged their duties as the people’s representatives in the assembly.

Mumbavotes.com’s website legend is, ”Don’t Vote. Select” says it all. 

Mumbaivotes.com lets the electorate to keep a track of MPs, MLAs and Councilors. It directly meets those all the contestants in the elections and conducts an interactive survey. They will be asked straight forward questions related to their views and actions about people’s problems like civic amenities, schools to name a few. And the proceedings of the interviews are kept in their website Mumbaivotes.com. Its not all, it also adds about the negative comments appeared in the media.

SNS, Satark Nagarik Sanghatan  is a  Blog that operates from Delhi. SNS is a citizen's vigilance group  that strives to establish transparency and accountability in government functioning.  It’s main motive is to bring in more and more people in to its activities. Thereby SNS directs all its endeavors to empower the citizen.

‘Daksh’ is a Bangalore based nonprofit, apolitical, independent organization . It’s registered with the name ‘Daksh Society’.

It focuses on activities of politicians and those who are on the job of welfare activities financed by the government to check if they are sticking to democratic norms. It also checks if the people, the owners of Republic of India are aware and keeping an eye on the representatives of people whom they have empowered and act on their behalf. Daksh’s progress reports of the people’s representative are based on their performance and the results they could succeed in doing their entrusted jobs like maintenance and construction of Roads, medical facilities to name a few.

Let’s Vote.

We have celebrated with pomp and grandeur 64 th Republic day celebrations. It’s a matter of concern that even today our electorate participation did not cross 60 percent. And the registration of the names in the votes is also very poor. Democratic pundits are very concerned about the indifference and lack of interest prevailing in the people.

Still more pathetic is the condition amongst educated people. If this is the condition in the educated circles, what would be the fate of this country? What would be the fate of ‘Democracy’?

Seeing the conditions prevailing in the electorate, ‘Lets vote’, an organization was established in Hyderabad. It’s aim is to drive away the indifference  in the people and to impress the value of Vote. Let’s vote first turned its attention towards IT employees whose only primary objective is their projects and Fat purses. It brought CEOs of IT industry, the Election Commission and IT employees under one umbrella and the programme of ‘Voter registration’ was taken up to IT corridor.

With this initiative of ‘Let’s Vote’ voter registration in the IT firms showed an increase of 50 to 80 percent.

The same condition prevails in students. They show immense patience in watching a game of cricket for hours together. They spend day in day out before the computer clicking on “Likes” in the FaceBook. But they don’t have the patience to stand in the queue to vote.

It’s a pity, students are not showing their interest in the activities of those people’s representatives who are dictating the future and development of their future as well as the country’s. It’s to boost the interest towards elections in the youth and students, Let’s Vote took the lead and conducting different workshops and seminars in different districts of Andhra Pradesh including Hyderabad.

It has also created an ‘APP’ to enable the voters for registration through Cell Phones.

‘It’s because of this indifference prevailing in the youth, honest and sincere people are unable to win in the elections. Corruptive forces are sitting at the helm of the affairs.’, says the founder of ‘Let’s Vote’, J.P. Chowdhury.

If the condition prevails even after 100 th Republic day celebrations also, corruptive forces continue to rule and dominate the country.

We give you Questions.

It’s of common experience, if a common man wants to question pertaining to innumerable lapses and irregularities happening around him and if he wants to find a solid base and proof related to the atrocities committed by Politicos and the disruptive activities of anti social elements with the blessings and support of Politicos, it becomes impossible to obtain such information.

In this scenario, SPARC, Social Political Analysis Center  has come forward to the rescue of Common man.  It provides information related to education, public health collected through  Census records, information collected through ‘RIGHT TO INFORMATION ACT and information from the government documents. This information is being used even by Political leaders in Maharashtra.

Lapses in the government Acts.

It’s not an exaggeration  to say, no government Bill is free from flaws. And these flaws continue even after they become Acts. This gives an opportunity to the practitioners of corruption. Owing to this reason Corruption has growing with an alarming rate. This in turn is adding more miseries and burden to the common. 

Seeing this sorry state of affairs, Arghya Sengupta an M. Phil in law from Oxford University, his associates Dhavani Mehta and Rukmini das established a voluntary organization, Vidhi Center for legal policy. The organization helps in framing the Bills and Acts to both the center and State governments. It checks if they are in accordance with the international norms, constitution and Supreme court guidelines. If necessary it suggests amendments to the government acts.

Arghya Sengupta and his team are responsible in framing the Bill, against superstitions in Karnataka.

Rwitwika Bhattacharya.

We know that our political leaders have political secretaries and personal secretaries. But not a ‘Development Secretaries.’ Owing to this reason our representatives have least knowledge about the problems in their own constituencies. This is quite a sorry state of affairs. This simple thought that did not come to our leaders, Ritwik Bhattacharya could get. 

Ritwik Bhattacharya’s brainchild,’Swaniti initiative provides the services of an expert who fill the gap of ‘Development Secretary’. These experts from Swaniti will act as the much needed Development secretaries without any fees. What all the expert needs is a place to sit in the respective leader’s constituency.

An M.P from Barrackpore, west Bengal asked Swaniti to have a look at the conditions of the jute workers in his constituency. That was the first opportunity for Swaniti.  A member of Swaniti from Hyderabad gone to West Bengal and studied socio, political and financial conditions of the Jute workers. He has also studied the amenities and facilities including their medical care schemes provided by the Management of the Jute factory.

Swaniti has suggested the necessity of joint efforts of Jute workers, Management and the government. 

Seeing the commendable efforts of Ritwik Bhattacharya, another group  consisting of 14 MPs and 3 MLAs entrusted the job of studying the ways to improve the conditions in mobile hospitals and schools to the group of Ritwik Bhattacharya. 

The Hunger Project.

When the commissioner of Greater Hyderabad Municipal corporation wanted to contact some women corporators to discuss a corporation related issue called them over the phone. To his utter astonishment all the responses came from the male voices. It goes without saying that the husbands of the women corporators are the real bosses running the show making their women corporator wives Dummy.

What a strange state of affairs !!! If this is the condition in the state capital of Andhra Pradesh, what would be the condition of Panchayats of remote villages? Its mandatory for knowing their responsibilities of the elected members .

Hunger Project was established with the aim of creating awareness in the woman representatives of Panchayats on woman empowerment. As part of the training, the woman representatives are taught to improve their communication skills, introduces different  welfare schemes of the government, makes them understand the laws and Budget nuances. 

Chandra Mukherjee’s integrity.

Chandra Mukherjee who has undergone training in the Hunger project belongs to a remote village in Gajapati district Odisha. When an intermediary came with an application requesting permission for a wine shop in her village, Chandra Mukherjee flatly refused permission. Excise officials tried to convince her. She was offered huge amounts as a bribe. Chandra Mukherjee stuck to her guns. In this process she has refused to hear the pleas of her own husband. Her aim was to change her village in to an ideal village free from liquor shops.

Ganga Gupta, the founder of Hunger project says, ‘ in fact this system should not be restricted to only Panchayats. It should be extended to state assemblies and to Parliament levels. It’s not enough to have an act on woman empowerment. It doesn’t mean woman empowerment can be achieved just with acts. The woman should be able to express freely. We are working in this direction.’ 

The project was immensely liked by the government of Norway. It came forward to provide adequate funds to Hunger project. But , pity is our own Government did not realize the importance of Hunger Project.

CMCA, Children’s Movement for Civic Awareness.

It’s mission is to inculcate values of Democracy and  active citizenship in Children and youth. It’s not necessary that one should be a Leader’s son in order to become a leader. Public life is not the property of inheritance. If encouraged, masses will generate leaders.

In a bid to drive away political indifference, CMCA, Children’s Movement for Civic Awareness has come in to existence. CMCA is doing yeomen service by conducting awareness programmes on democratic values in schools. It enables to upload videos related to people’s problems . CMCA shows the uploaded Videos to the concerned official and questions, “ what is your response?”

Organizations and Associations which are projecting people’s problems and grievances are now increasing compared to early days. It’s heartening to see, youth using modern technology, building strong People’s movements. These organizations are exhibiting extraordinary courage and strength of will to expose the evils and lapses in the society. In this process, many are losing lives. Still, these setbacks fail before the strong will of the youth. Nothing seems to dampen their spirits.

Patriotism is not listening intently and applauding the Speech delivered by P.M from the ramparts of Red fort. Patriotism is not standing up in attention the moment you hear the National anthem.

As a member of the society you can do your bit by involving with like minded people to eradicate the evils in the society. If you have this will to do something to the society, there are a plethora of organizations which enable you to go in the right direction in your endeavors to do good in your own humble way

 Right to information:

Any information pertaining to any sphere can be had through the Right to information act. It may be about the amount of Rice allocated to a particular ration shop to the funds allocated to the bridge built for irrigation purpose.

Public interest Litigation:

From the Dharna undertaken by a local leader that’s disrupting the traffic system to any issue that is causing inconvenience to the people can be brought in to the notice of even highest court of the country through public interest litigation.

Human Rights Commission:

Discrimination, exploitation, in any form and violation of human rights can be reported to this organization.

Citizen Journalism:

Websites like ‘I paid a bribe’ are making the people sit and ponder about the rampant corruption around us. These websites are encouraging agitations against corruption. You can air your views in the online websites which are endeavoring to drive away corruption deeply rooted in the society.

You can file petitions to this effect through websites like ‘Changeorg.’ you can give key information to the media.

Lokayukta and CBI :

Lokayukta in the state level and CBI in the central level are there to receive your complaints on corruption practices and illegal activities.

Indirect help:

You can be of help to all those voluntary organization without profit motive in your own way. For example if I’m a digital artist I’ll be helping the organization by designing Posters related to evils of corruption free of cost.

Mizoram  shows the way.

Mizoram hasn’t become the staple food of Media even in the time of recent elections in 5 states. The reason is political agitations, political violence and election rule violations are far less compared to other states.

Behind this ideal situation there lies a voluntary organization known as ‘Mizoram People’s forum’. Citizens from different walks of life formed a committee who look after starting from selecting the candidate to the political meetings in an organized and democratic way. The committee authored the guidelines to be strictly followed by all the contestant irrespective of the party.

• All the political parties in the fray have to speak from one platform.
• All the details related to the contestants will be released through the committee.
• The respective parties should allocate the seat only to the people of integrity.
• No political glamorous shows and Roadshows are allowed.

The best part of this experiment is almost all the political parties agreed to abide by the committee’s rules. Ex Chief election commissioner Lyngdoh has liked this system immensely.

Unity is strength.

With unity, anything can be achieved.

Image: Author