Well, every body I know of, has sometime in his life, cursed the politicians of being corrupt. I just came across a video, which says, we have about 11,00,00,00,00,000 INR stashed in Tax Heavens. Oops. Sorry. Three more zeroes. It is 110,00,00,00,00,00,000.
Now, here I want you to meet Mr A, who owns a billion rupees, which I believe is the normal for a powerful enough politician.
(I come across this number by approximating the ~10k as the number of MPs, Ministers at State Level, rich politicians in India. Accounting for the rich IPS, IAS, etc, we can safely take that number to be 1 lakh politicians + IAS/IPS. This accounts to roughly 110 crore Rupees per person, with a very high standard deviation, and the rich guys (remember ICC chairmanship, free TVs, etc) in all possibilities have more than 10k crores each. (You might be more interested in people with more than 1000 crores, but for the purpose of raising doubt, a 100 crore suffices for me)
Now, the only other people in India, with that sort of wealth are either having their firms listed under NSE Nifty 50/MidCap Index and/or are cricketers/ BollyWood stars. Business use money as the measurement of their success, entertainers do associate what they earn with their excellence and one can understand that more money is the equivalent of success to each of them,
but what does Mr A do, with a billion Rupees? He can't drive sports cars, he lives in Government bungalow, his foreign trips are sponsored by the Government, he can't date super models. What use can one think of INR 100 crore, which is possible for our dear Mr A? In fact he is rather hated for the wealth he has amassed and he knows that damn well. Still, he can't help but plunder wealth, rob the nations of millions, and somehow, not feel guilty about it.
Well, our Mr A doesn't gain pleasure from any of the worldly pleasure mentioned below, in fact, he goes for one of the least understood and most important pleasures, the one which Joker identified in the Dark Knight - he's like a dog which is running after a car, what does he do, if he somehow catches hold of the car! -
The answer is pretty much simple, run after another car. So, what does Mr A do when he comes to power? Run after another election.. Yeap, that's right, all the money which we are looted of, most of it is for the sake of next election and next.. That's all a politician is spending all his time for, plotting day and night, creating complicated strategies, to win this high stakes game of election!
Now coming back to our question, what would Mr A do with all his money?
The first thing he would do is to buy local mafia off. That is one of the most necessary investment he has to make in this game. This is important for every politician, since murdering the opponent off is the safest way to win the game. So each politician has to ensure that the opponent doesn't get any advantage on this front. If you can't kill the opponent, kill his important man. If even this is not possible, capture toll booths. Also, they are pretty handful if you want to protect your important men. Police can't do that by themselves, because, once again, they can be bought off. So, step 1, target local gundas.
The next advantage of infinite money, buy votes off. Where there is group (eg Best Bus Drivers, Factory Union), there is a union leader, and where there is a union leader, there is an upcoming politician, Mr Aprime. Mr Aprime wants to become as powerful as Mr A, but doesn't have the resources to do so. So, Mr A provides him with a handful of money, so that Mr Aprime can realize his dream, in exchange for Mr Aprime helping our Mr A realize his dream.
The third thing, buy babas off. Yeap, if a baba puts his hand on Mr A, he gets all his devotees. Now, why do babas require money? Because, they too, want to expand their influence. The best way to increase their influence? Build more Ashrams, temples, buy TV shows to get more following. You help babas, babas help you!
Last but not the least, advertisement! Flood the streets with your posters, pamphlets.
Now, if we want to ensure that politicians don't loot our money, we need to make sure that the criteria for winning elections is not money! Ideally, the criteria for winning election, as an IITian puts it, should be your resume, stating what have you done, and what you are capable of doing, displayed side by side for all the candidates.
If I am a tribesman leaving in some remote corner of MP, I decide to vote for the name which I have heard the most. If that is not my criteria, I would go by the recommendation of the local seth, whose richness, means a greater chance for me to get a loan from him. The leader with most number of pamphlets, has a greater chance of getting my vote, because, I feel better reading his name than that of his opponent. Last but not the least, I don't mind somebody buying me off some booz (read desi katta) and at least have one day of peace. I really don't know what's the difference between our Mr A and the other Mr B. So, my first recommendation for elections: No advertising allowed! Unless you dedicate each banner/poster/pamphlet to equal part for each of you and your opponents, you can't post a pamphlet/poster.
What is the other thing, which should help secure better elections? People < "10th class pass" not allowed to vote! Now, this is a huge restriction, and it is debatable! But, consider this, every person in the country is 8th class pass since birth, and doesn't even have to go to school, to do that. 8th class passing certificate is like ration card, you go to school for some time, get the certificate, and whoa! This law should be even more stringent to the extent that only people with >60% in 12th standard (standardized across state boards) should be allowed to vote.
This might(should?) sound ridiculous, but the truth is, even if you are uneducated and are capable of making absolute sense of every decision you make, there are people who are of equal qualification as you, and hurting you and your country by over numbering you in an election. So, you can decide to trade off your voting rights, to get the better decision. The advantage of having only 12th class, 60% people voting in the election, is that they would require a statistically impossible amount of money to win the votes by bribe, and hence, winning by bribing is gone. This would also diminish the impact of babas and influential figures on the elections, since uneducated people in a large number, are far more susceptible to union leaders and religious leaders, than educated people in a large number.
The 10th class pass is just a suggestive measure, it can be decided on a per scale basis, like 5th standard pass can vote for Panchayat elections, while 8th class can vote for Nagar Palika and so on, so that the average income per month * number of people exceeds the expected amount of black money that can possibly be made out of the post, without being brought to law, and the number of people in consideration still remain large for statistical purposes!
The third suggestion, which I would want to make, is to reduce the relative power of local gundas. If they have to bully me around, they come up with lathis, hockeys, knives, etc. If they have a gun, I have a gun, and my neighbours have a gun, I think, most of the country would be a far safer place than it is now. Also, the rules of self defence, in the country should be taught to the children before 10th standard! This might back fire in some cases, with the usage of gun helping some villains escape away, but if I intend to kill somebody innocent, might as well do it with a knife, than with a gun. It should be a safer country, where everybody is equally powerful, than one, where 10 big blokes can overpower 10 civilians.
I am pretty much sure, none of these rules will ever come to force, for uneducated people won't understand statistics, election commission won't understand the significance of tipping points, and most of the people won't think positive of the concept of relative power. So, for now, all I am hoping for Anna Hazare to go forward, and do everything that looks probable!
