There are rights and rights...

The Right to Information, the Right to Education, The Right to Employment, Right to Privacy...all these are rules and laws that the governments of the day are enacting.  As I was pondering this, I was thinking of the thousands of laws that we have, many of which seem ineffective and some archaic.  The Law I really like is the British Common Law - it is unwritten and is managed in Courts through applying precedents to the current context of society and the case that has come up for a judgement. It leaves it to the conscience of the judge to rule based on basic tenets of society.  I wish these Rights are also given through unwritten laws like the British Common Law so that they can change easily with time.

While hearing everyone scream from the rooftops on their Rights and all this noise around India Against Corruption, I was happy to see that people were ready to come to the streets to join hands to force the government to take some action.  What I have not heard in all this din is our duties and responsibilities as citizens.  Will we accept the government slapping us with huge penalties for say breaking a traffic rule - if it really does this, the government will not run any deficit financing - the daily collection will run the government itself. Will the same people not bribe but accept punishment for any infraction of law that they could have done?  It is good to shout for Rights but it is equally important to understand our duties and ensure that we are committed to them so that we can live peacefully as a society.

In our daily lives we see and do so many things that do not deliver to our duties - speeding, rash driving, cutting across lanes, disrespect of traffic lights, throwing trash all over the place, spitting everywhere, bribing to get our work done, etc.  These are all our duties and we don't deliver on them. If we do not do these, why should we expect anyone to give us our rights only?

This is a two-way street and we need to play ball and then expect everything else from the Government or anyone else.  We should also be ready to face the consequence of non-compliance. As a society, we are poor at dishing out consequences and also facing them.  Why is Singapore where it is today? It is the discipline that their Prime Minister drove through severe penalties for breaking the law and also ensured that these penalties were implemented ruthlessly when broken.  Neither do we have harsh consequences nor do we implement existing laws rigorously.  Only if we do all this, will the common man have a peaceful life.

I read an interview of a young politician on whom the future of India seems to ride quite a bit as of now.  He said that if we want to clean up politics, please don't just talk.  Come in, join politics and help us all clean the system.  He accepted that there is rot but said that all of us are to blame for this. I completely agree with him. If you want change, then, be the change.  Don't expect everyone else to do things for you while you spend your life only thinking of yourself and possibly your family and not bothering about what is happening around you.

I watched the traffic constable braving the 35 degree sun, trying to bring some sense of order in to the absolutely unruly and endless stream of vehicles.  He was doing this relentlessly right through the day, inhaling the dust and smoke. He did not have water to drink or the time to answer nature's calls.  Even if he wanted to visit the rest-room, there was none.  I walked up to him and offered him some fruit juice and water. I also told him that he could come over to my house just down the road and use my rest room when he felt like it.  When you put a person in to this situation, what would you get? Only anger, frustration and a behaviour where he will wait to take out his frustration on some hapless passerby.  What can you do to make his life easy?  You can...just follow the traffic rules!!!  Is this asking too much of you?  Would you like to be this traffic constable? 

Working out of our air-conditioned offices, we sermonize on what needs to be done by everyone else in life except ourselves.  Let us all pause for sometime, think of all the duties we have to ourselves, to our families, to our colleagues, to friends, to the society at large and then demand our rights.  We, then, actually have a right to demand for our rights!!!