Of course he has to be blamed. Who else will have the final authority over the department which he heads ? If he believed that Indian Executive and bureaucratic hierarchy is too strong to be budged from its impartiality, neutrality and efficiency even if he does not say any firm statement to exert his control over the structure he leads, he is proven to be wrong. His MaunMohan status is finally doing him justice and we have a stronger proof to justify this status after the Coal Gate CAG report.
Why do people respect him when he is leading such a big corrupt structure? Or do people really respect him ? Different versions of such questions are certainly putting blemishes on an illustrous life of a civil servant who dedicated more than 40 years of his life to the development of India.An old man, who served as required by his country, is now facing possibly the biggest tumult in his life. He has lived a long rewarding career and now,at the dawn of his life, he is being thrown ink at.
Life of a prime minister may get worse than his situation but it is sufficiently too bad.
He can not, and should not be exempted from his mistakes done as the third topmost citizen of the country, and as the real executive head of the state. Whom do we have to blame if not the crowned PM for the chaos in the country, economically, socially and morally ? He was the best choice the UPA could have among the options it had. "India is a peaceful country. Let us have this peaceful honest efficient workaholic civil servant as the representative of our peaceful country and forget about the nation. He will not provide much trouble to the peace structure already established!" How punned this statement can be.
The problem no one could see , or rather ignored, while considering him for the PM post was that he fitted for the post of a PM only as an executive head. He could not be an assertive leader. He was never trained to be forceful to anyone he met and always believed, as was the case usually, that people don't try to cheat much, and even if they do, law gets hold of them. Few people can be found hard and dishonest in a virtuous academic society. He was an academician for a good part of his life. He might have been good this way as a professor, but as a PM, he certainly forgot that law is made by those very people who he should have got hold of, playing with it at the cost of the country's blood, its money, its treasury. He never had those eyes which could sense any current ill doing as he had a strong faith in the system of justice, even if delayed, even if it caused a loss of 1.76 + 1.86 + 1 lac crore presumptive loss to the nation's economy. He could never hold the belts of the positions he was heading.
He is just a free market economist. India is much more than economy. He was not 100% fit candidate for the post. A scam was being played under his owndepartment for four years and he had no air of it. Or if he had an idea of it, (2004 was the year where auctions were suggested by the coal secretary)he never noticed it (auctions were never done!). He was not a spectator to this show. What's the use of showing just concern and not acting so as to tighten the grip over process to ensure rightful implementation of righteous policy ? Mr. executive head, you have disappointed me personally.
He was supposed to act on it! He could not have let humungous amounts of money gone to a few, such a few candidates. At one end he wishes socio-economic development, which requires huge expediture by government. At the other end, why did he let go of an opportunity to get money to the exchequer and all by transparent manner? Why was he silent? Leave transparency.Who are benefitting from the block allocations ? Buying land for low price, producing coal at low price (labourers, even if they get their daily wages fully, will not be as big an expenditure to the companies as the gain they would recieve. Else the companies would not be profittingr), selling coal and other products at big market price, gaining huge profits. The gain a common man will have in this process is either becoming an official in the coal company (should be less than 1% of population, earning huge money) or a labourer (should consitute majority of the population getting their daily wages ensured). Yes, my cribbing here is about the huge amount of money earned by the official. More than that, it is about the high disparity in the incomes. Couldn't a tight grip over the policies and transactions reduce such presumptive losses and unjustified gains of a few? Our PM was not able to act on this virus catching hold of ministries. He was concerned, he sent letters to the telecom minister, finance minister to ensure transparency, but never did something which could let the defaulting ministers feel that they would do wrong economically, legally as well as morally if any transparency and public interest is compromised with. He was supposed to do this. Everyone looks up to his leader. He must have been an inspiration to a lot of people, but this situation is putting his reliability as a role model on test, and he is possibly failing at it.
But is there, in the whole country, only the PM to blame ? Or, for that matter, only the ministers to blame ? Or, say, only the government officials to blame ? Are we also not somewhere the part of this process ? We as citizens as well are responsible for it, if we say, "kya bakwaas sarkaar hai...kitne ghotaale karegi...ye manmohan bas sonia ka pujari hai... rahul gandhi bas khaayein gaon jaake ... blah blah", we ought to be held responsible somewhere for this scam. We feel connected to the government, we feel connected to the nation as we pass comments about the nation's leaders, we even select nation's leaders, hence we ought to feel loyal to the government and the nation's leaders as well.
Why do we not tell the IT authorities of a rich person living beside our house, whose source of income, we claim is coming from "number 2 ka dhandha" ? Why do we praise those very politicians in front of them whom we despise behind their back ? Why during election rallies we support a party representative even if there are civil/ criminal cases pending against him ? Why we ourselves as businessmen do not disclose our real incomes to the IT authorities ? Why do we agree to share a 100 rupee note to a constable than ppay 200 rupee challan ?
All the money that we give away as bribe or let go to illegitimate hands can be considered as a presumptive loss to the economy. Many deserving and needing citizens of this country are deprived of the money because it went to a mafia, a businessman, a fraud company or a government servant. Some more poor students could have recieved the merit cum means scholarship. Farmers' subsidy could have increased. A little more roads could have been constructed. A small decrease in economic inequity would have achieved. The opression by the landlords on the farmers would have mitigated.
A little change in us is the need. Some one who saw a drastic change in standard of living of his neighbour ought to be concerned about his source of income. Someone seeing labourers not recieving their daily wages ought to be concerned about their rights. To be proactive can be a minimal dictionary term that can summarise this thought.
Are we all also becoming MaunMohan; a leader setting by example, is he ? Or we always have been like this? Is he really a true representative of us all ? But if he really is a role model, we could not have learnt all the treachery we have learnt to defy this established system, as he himself is not treacherous (ok, its only apparent, no proof). I only saw him go to an RTO at age of 75 to get his driving licence renewed. May be it was just a publicity stunt by the old man.
We, as no uncommon citizens, should look in what ways we can be vigilant of the country's progress. It is the common citizen of India who becomes the uncommon citizen later in his life. There will be among us only who will take next PM's seat, next coal block owner's position, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G telecom operational heads, elegible for ISRO chairman's seat, and for many government positions. If we as common citizens hold the responsibility, (which would be a burden on us, as can be on MaunMohan's head as well) together we would not have much problem to deal with any inconsistency, which a single no-superatural leader has failed to act on. We can extend more hands as watchdogs of the government made by us.
I think I should not put all the blame on the PM.
