I was having a sick day following all these Fasting Protests by very educated & well-intentioned leaders of this great nation so I started a thread of Twitter posts which stated my anguish in these scenarios. The following is an extended version of that anguish.

Is Fasting truly necessary to fight corruption, won’t refusal to pay bribe & discouraging corrupt practices in our day-to-day life be a more relevant revolution. I would certainly recommend those who are fasting to fight corruption to form a “People Vigilance Cell” and monitor all govt. & private organizations for bribing & corrupt practices & publish them in the media. Be a Corruption Watchdog instead of wasting our time being a cultural, moral, lame protest, silly PIL or sometimes watchdogs whose main aim is create publicity.

Fasting is inaction, we need action to reform this corrupt nation. In every nook & corner, we need people who would refuse to bribe, monitor if any sort of bribing is happening & protest such actions. We need to create a people revolution not sit somewhere waiting for someone else to act. We need to act ourselves. Starting with how often we bribe officials ourselves. I have heard of people bribing Traffic Policemen to get out of some small idiotic traffic snarl they committed. Just don’t do that. Similarly for getting a Driving License to getting your vehicle registered in the RTO. Acquiring a Passport or changes in your existing Passport from the Passport Offices.

Some interactions with Government Offices such as Birth/Death/Community Certificates, Electricity Boards, Postal Offices, Government Hospitals, Metro Water officials, etc., Most of the people pay in these government establishments from small to larger amount of bribes to hasten any type of work that needs to be accomplished. This causes those with money to move past any small obstacles that may be, but it also makes poor people suffer with unnecessary demands for bribes.

Not only these, I would like to know of gentlemen or ladies paying the full sales & service taxes while purchasing jewels from their favorite jewellery shops. Pay by credit/debit cards, checks & if you pay cash get a proper receipt. If we start emphasizing on getting a proper receipts and perform our duties as Indian citizens across all private institutions as well, we can abolish black money being generated. If the black money generation gets reduced, they way they are laundered to foreign bank accounts will also get reduced. This will overall result in increase in revenue for the government which can result in development of the entire nation. Mainly it can result in lower taxation (both direct & indirect), lower interest rates, higher income.

You will face harassment when you act, that’s the fact of life. But if you want to protest, please protest in a place where there will be result. When they harass you @ the RTO when you want a driving license, then protest then & there with your fasting lessons, don’t budge until you are through. It is hundred times better than fasting in a piece of land which is not going to get you any type of results which are tangible.

As I already told Fasting is inaction, we need action. Let all of vow today that we would go out there and refuse to bribe and follow the law in aiding reduction and the ultimate ouster of black money. Jai Hind.