By Rajiv Dixit : This 3 line proposed law can reduce poverty and corruption in police in just 4 months
1.1 Is this a joke?
The intellectuals of India have claimed that poverty, corruption in police, corruption in judges, corruption in education etc problems are so difficult that it would take decades of Herculean efforts to reduce these problems.
And here comes Right to Recall Group, and boldly claims that CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) – a mere three line proposed Govt Notification – can reduce poverty and corruption in police, judges, education etc and that too within mere 4 months. And I further boast that the proposed CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) draft has no negative side effect, and the proposed CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) draft is 100% Constitutional and in synch with all the existing laws. And it doesn’t need a legislation from MPs/MLAs – a Govt Notification will suffice as all three clauses of CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) already come under existing powers of PM, CM etc. Can such a short GN draft even exist? Most intellectuals of India have refused to accept that such a trivial short law-draft can reduce poverty and corruption even by 1%. Either these intellectuals are all wrong or I am a 200% liar and also a 400% insane joker. You, the reader, can decide, whether the intellectuals are wrong or I am a joker, if and after you decide to read this chapter and next 3 chapters, and have read the intellectuals’ rebuttals against my proposed CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) law-draft. And I will add more to my claim – the 3 line CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) Govt Notification that I have proposed will do lot more than reducing poverty and corruption in police\courts\education. Within 4-8 months, CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2)-GN will improve Military, ration card system (public distribution system) and ALL depts in Govt. And proposed CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) has no negative side effect. If these claim ever turn out to be true, it would be an extremely shameful event for all intellectuals.
So finally, what is this three line proposed CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) GN, and how can this CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) GN do these tasks and that too within mere 4 months?
And one more question comes is : how do I propose to mobilize activists and citizens to force PM to sign CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) draft? On this, I make a much taller claim. If as small as 200,000 anti-corruption pro-poor activists in India spend just one hour a week on the list of 30-40 tiny actions I have proposed in chap-13, then in less than a year, their actions will create a non-violent mass movement that will force PM to sign the CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) law or a law which contains CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2).
1.2 The draft of the proposed CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) GN at National level
The proposed CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) GN has only 3 clauses, as follows. Please note that the 3rd clause is a mere declaration. So the proposed CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) GN has only 2 operational clauses.
I request all citizens of India to force PM to sign the following Govt Notification :
# | Officer | Procedure |
1 | Collector(or his clerk) | The President hereby orders Collector that : if a woman voter or dalit voter or senior citizen voter or poor voter or farmer voter or ANY citizen-voter in his district submits a Right to Information application or complaint against corruption or any affidavit to the Collector and requests to be put on the website of Prime Minister, the Collector or his designated clerk will issue a serial number and put that affidavit etc on the website of the Prime Minister for a fee of Rs 20 per page. |
2 | Talati, Patwari, Village Officer(or his clerk) | The President orders Patwari that : if a woman voter or a dalit voter or a senior citizen voter or a poor voter or a farmer voter or ANY citizen-voter comes with voter ID, and specifies Yes-No on an RTI application, complaint or any affidavit submitted in cluase-1, the Patwari will enter his Yes-No on the PM’s website with his voter-ID and give a printed receipt for Rs 3 fee. The Patwari will also allow citizen to change his Yes-No for Rs 3 fee. The fee will be Re 1 for BPL card holder |
3 | [To all Citizens, Officers, Ministers …] | This CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) GN is not a referendum procedure. The Yes-No count will not be a binding on PM, CMs, officers, judges etc. If over 37 crore women voters, dalit voters, senior citizen voters, poor voters, farmer voters or ANY 37 crore citizen-voters register Yes on a given affidavit, then the PM may or need not take necessary action on the RTI application affidavit ; or the PM may or need not resign. PM’s decision will be final. |
I summarize the CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) law as
o If a citizen wants, then by visiting DC’s office, he can put RTI application on PM’s website.
o If a citizen supports an application, complain etc, then by visiting Talati’s (Patwari etc) office, citizen can register his support to an RTI application etc on PM’s website for a Rs 3/- fee.
This 3 line proposed CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) law will reduce poverty and corruption in 4 months !!
1.3 Do all citizens in India have internet to use this law?
This is the most common wrong question I get on proposed CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2)-GN. I call it wrong question, because the proposed law does not at all require the citizens to have an internet connection to begin with. Whether the citizen has internet or not, he must visit the Collector’s office in person to submit his complaint or RTI application. And whether he has internet or not, he must visit Talati’s (Lekhpal, Patwari, Village Officer, VO) office in person to register YES on a complaint or affidavit. So internet is not at all required for a citizen to use this law. And even if a person has internet, it would make no difference. So the law can be used by all citizen-voters of India. If he has internet connection, he can read the affidavits with ease. But then so can someone without internet — he only needs to ask someone who has internet connection.
1.4 One line summary of CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2)
One line summary of CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) is : if a citizen wants, Collector will put citizen’s complaint on the website of the Prime Minister for a fee.
The words “RTI application, complaints against corruption, any affidavit” only re-state the word complaint. And allowing citizen to file YES on complaints is only so that if 10000 citizens have same complaint then all 10000 need not go to Collector’s office and pay Rs 20 per page – only one person needs to go to Collector’s office and rest can submit same complaint by paying mere Rs 3 to local Talati or Patwari’s office. So clause-3 is just a re-statement of clause-1. And posting answer on website pf Prime Minister is again re-statement of clause-1, for any citizen can always put the answer on website of Prime Minister by filing affidavit which contains the answer.
1.5 More about clause-1 of CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2)
The clause-1 of CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) reads as “The President hereby orders Collector that : if a woman voter or dalit voter or senior citizen voter or poor voter or farmer voter or ANY citizen-voter in his district submits a complaint ….“ – Why write woman voter, dalit voter, poor voter when just writing any voter would have sufficed? Because if anyone opposes clause-1, then an CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) supporter can portray him as anti-woman, anti-dalit, anti-poor, anti-farmer etc . And a large number of activist leaders in India have specialized as saviors of women, dalits, tribal, poors etc. and these if these activist leaders oppose clause-1 of CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2), then pro-CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) supporter can label then as anti-woman, anti-dalit etc. This will enable CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) supporters to ensure their silence.
1.6 Is that all?
Yes, that’s all about CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2). Nothing more. So now the question is : how can such a mere 3 line law solve daunting problem of poverty? How can it solve equally tough problems like corruption in policemen/judges? And many problems as I claim?
1.7 So how does CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) reduce poverty within 3-4 months?
When I said that three line law can reduce poverty and corruption in 4 months, you must have taken it as a lie and a joke and I wont blame you. And now after reading these three lines, you must be intensely puzzled that how can such innocent looking three line bring change? After all, all CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) says is – let people put their complain on the website of Prime Minister if they want. What change can it bring at all?
The day PM signs this CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2)-GN, I will submit about 200 affidavits. The drafts of all these affidavits are on my website http://www.righttorecall.info and drafts and brief description of some of the affidavits is given in this manifesto. The first affidavit is what I call as MRCM – Mineral Royalties for Citizens and Military.
The MRCM affidavit is a 7-8 page proposed Govt Notification listed in chapter-6 titled as “Mineral Royalties for Citizens …”. The proposed MRCM draft creates an administrative system by which each citizen of India directly gets mineral royalties and land rents from GoI plots. E.g. Say in Nov-2010, the mineral royalties and land rent from GoI plots was Rs 30000 cr. Then as per the proposed MRCM law, Rs 10000 cr will go towards Military. And from rest Rs 20000 cr, each citizen will get about Rs 200 deposited in his local post office account or local SBI account. Is distributing cash to 75 citizen-voters too complicated? No, it is not. If each of the adult citizen of India visits bank once a month to withdraw the cash, only about 100,000 clerks will be needed. Is 100,000 clerk a too big a number? No. Existing SBI has staff of over 300,000 and all PSU banks together have staff of over 600,000. So the staff needed to support MRCM-draft is not very large. The proposed MRCM Govt Notification has Right to Recall Chief Officer built into it to ensure least corruption. Each and every detail is given the 7-8 page draft mentioned later in chapter-6.
Now I will ask some questions to the reader. Please read rest of the chapter only after answering these question as they come. Background information for the question is as follows :
1. Say citizens have forced PM to sign CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) law.
2. Say someone submitted MRCM affidavit which says that mineral royalties and land rent should directly go to citizens
3. Now in a later chapter, I have explained how 72 crores citizens of India will come to know about the proposed MRCM affidavit within one month.
4. Of the 72 crore adult citizens of India, for the purpose of this question, please consider the economically bottom 80% i.e. economically bottom 55 crore adult citizens of India, who barely make Rs 50 per day
My first question to you the reader is : How many of these 55 crore citizen-voters who barely make Rs 50 per day will say – I do not want this Rs 200 per person per month or whatever may be the amount and let this money go into GoI account?
Please read further ONLY after answering the above question.
My answer is – less than 5% will say that I do not want this Rs 200 per person per month. So most of the citizens in bottom 55 crores of the 72 crore adult citizens will have one main thought — what do I lose? only Rs 3/- (see clause-2 of CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) draft) and nothing more. And if luck favors, I may actually get Rs 200 per person per month. What is your answer to this first question? How many citizens in bottom 55 cr in your opinion will say that I don’t want this mineral royalty and land rent money?
Now I have another question to the reader. The background information for the question is as follows :
1. Say PM has been forced to sign CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) law.
2. Say someone submitted MRCM affidavit and 50 crore citizens submitted YES on it
My second question to the reader is : do you think that PM will dare to say that “I will not sign the proposed MRCM law”? i.e. Will any PM dare to defy the YES from 50 crore or more citizens? Again, please read further ONLY after answering the above question.
Please re-read the clause-3 of the CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) draft. The clause clearly says that even if all 72 crore citizen-voters submit YES on an affidavit, then also the PM is not at all required to sign the law proposed in the affidavit. But no PM has courage to defy 50 cr citizen voters. So my answer is – PM will sign the MRCM law. Why? Because each citizen who has registered YES knows that he has 50 crore fellow citizens supporting his demand, and so each will confront PM openly thru means he sees legitimate. And PM knows that citizens will agitate and he also knows that his 15 lakh policemen cant stop so many citizen. So PM out of fears will not dare to defy so many citizens. So within 1-2 months after CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) law comes, the citizens will be able to force the PM to sign MRCM law. And within 1-2 months after MRCM law is signed, the citizens will start getting mineral royalties and land rent from GoI plots, and thus poverty will reduce. Later, the wealth tax reforms suggested will increase industrial production and remove poverty completely These tax reforms are enumerated in the chap-25 in this book
This is where power of CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2)-draft comes. CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) doesn’t reduce poverty. But without CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2), PM will never ever sign MRCM-draft because he and MPs want to eat away mineral royalty. But if CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) comes, PM will be compelled to sign MRCM-draft. How is CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) making difference? CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2)’s clause-2 allows citizen to register YES on a draft submitted in clause-1. And the same clause-2 also tells citizens that crores of citizens are with him. It becomes easy for citizens to bring change when crores have agreed, and these crores of citizens know that crores are with them. They will not feel alone — they will feel each other’s support. Just as a person is more powerful in mob, CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) makes citizen-voters more powerful when majority’s agreement has been proven.
1.8 How will crores of citizens come to know that MRCM affidavit has been submitted?
I will first describe a real event. In around year 2002, GoI made a scheme that every senior citizen whose income is below Rs 50000 a year will get Rs 200 per month. GoI did not advertise the scheme in TV, newspaper, radio anywhere. Yet, within a short span of say 9-10 months, almost every senior citizen who was eligible was enrolled in the scheme. How did the word spread? When something is in immediate, personal and direct interest, the words spreads like electric current.
Once citizens force PM to sign CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2), and once MRCM affidavit is filed, the word on MRCM affidavit will spread equally fast, because MRCM is in direct, immediate and personal interest. The task a citizen has to do is — only visit Patwari’s office for 10-15 minutes and pay Rs 3 fee. And since MRCM is in his direct and immediate interest, he will tell as many neighbors, relatives, friends etc about it. This is how word on MRCM affidavit will reach to crores of citizens within few days.
1.9 How does CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) law reduce corruption in police?
Now my third question to the reader is : Why is corruption in US policemen low? The one and only one reason why corruption in US police is low is because citizens in US have procedure to expel District Police Commissioner of their district. So the District Police Commissioners in US take very less bribes and also ensure that their junior staff doesn’t take too much bribes. If a Police Commissioner in US comes to know that his junior staff is taking bribes, he will immediately run a sting operation, gather evidences and gets them expelled. Because he fears that if corruption in junior staff increases, the citizens may expel him. But in India, citizens have NO procedure to expel Police Chief. And so the Police Chief not only collects bribes, he asks his juniors to collect maximal bribes as well. A typical Police Commissioner keeps half of what he collects from his juniors and passes the remaining half to MLAs, Home Minister and CM. I explained this the chap-2 of this book.
Now I have prepared a draft of a proposed Govt Notification in chap-22, which when signed by CM will create a procedure by which the citizens of district will be able to replace the District Police Commissioner, if they want. I call this draft as Right to Recall Police Commissioner. The draft is 100% consistent with each of the 33 dozen Articles of our Constitution and all our existing laws. The draft is given in chap-22 related to “Improving Police” in this book.
Now my 4th question to the reader is : Will any existing CM of India, be Sheela Dixit of Congress or Modi of BJP or Bhattachrya of CPM or Karunanidhi of DMK ever sign a law enabling citizens to replace District Police Commissioner today? My guess is : NO. Because if citizens get procedure to expel District Police Commissioner, then the Commissioners will get scared and will reduce their monthly bribe collection from Rs 1 crore to mere Rs 1 lakh. And in that case, the monthly hafta Police Commissioner gives to MLAs, Home Minister and Chief Minister will also fall from Rs 50 lakh to mere Rs 50,000. And so MLA, CM etc as of now will refuse to enact a law that would allow us commons to replace District Police Commissioner.
But the situation changes after we citizens manage to force the PM to sign the proposed CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) GN. Say citizens have managed to force the PM to sign the CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2)-GN. Then someone will submit is DPC-RP affidavit. Most citizens will think “if this Right to Replace District Police Commissioner reduces the corruption in police even by 5%, my Rs 3 is worth spent ”. And the biggest reason that will motivate citizens to register YES on DPC-RP is hatred against corruption in policemen, who make lakhs of rupees a months, while a common man barely makes a few thousand a month after hard labor. So again, if 70% to 80% of citizens of a State register YES using clause-2 of CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2), the CM out of fear will mellow down, lose all his bravado and will sign DPC-RP law. The fear of losing job is Supreme in a govt. officer or a judge. So within 14 days after citizens get procedure to expel District Police Commissioner, the corruption in Police Commissioner as well as other policemen will reduce by over 99%. Thus within 3 months after CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) passes, corruption in policemen will become near-zero.
The Right to Recall Police Chief. is just beginning. Next comes recall procedures by which we commons can replace PM, CM, MLAs, MPs, Supreme Court Chief judge, High Court Chief judges, Reserve Bank Governor, State Bank Chairman, District Education Office, Mayor and officials at 251 positions at National, State and District levels. Which recall law do you think citizens will oppose? My answer is : NONE. So after CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) passes, chances are very high that within 6 months citizens will force PM to enact replacement procedures over 251 positions. And so corruption in all these positions will end for good.
1.10 Asking CM to sign State level CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2)-draft
By ensuring that CM signs the following Govt Notification, the citizens can have CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) at State level. Now if citizens can force PM to sign CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) at National Level, this CITIZENS VOICE/JANTA KI AWAZ (RTI2) at State level is not needed at all.
# | Officer | Procedure |
1 | District Collector(or his clerk) | The Governor hereby orders the Collector that : if a woman voter or dalit voter or senior citizen voter or poor voter or farmer voter or ANY citizen-voter submits a Right to Information application or complaint against corruption or any affidavit to the Collector and requests to be put on the website of the Chief Minister, the Collector or his clerk will issue a serial number and put the affidavit on the website of the Chief Minister for a fee of Rs 20 per page. |
2 | Talati, Patwari, Village Officer(or his clerk) | The Governor hereby orders the Patwari that : if a woman voter or a dalit voter or a senior citizen voter or a poor voter or a farmer voter or ANY citizen-voter comes with voter ID, and specifies Yes-No on an RTI application, complaint or any affidavit submitted in cluase-1, the Talati will enter his Yes-No on the CM’s website with his voter-ID and give a printed receipt for Rs 3 fee. The Talati will also allow citizen to change his Yes-No for Rs 3 fee. The fee will be Re 1 for BPL card holder |
3 | [To all Citizens, Officers, Ministers …] | This is not a referendum procedure. The Yes-No count will not be a binding on PM, CMs, officers, judges etc. If over XXX crores women voters, dalit voters, senior citizen voters, poor voters, farmer voters or ANY XXX crore citizen-voters register Yes on a given affidavit, then the CM may or need not take necessary action on the RTI application affidavit ; or the CM may or need not resign. CM’s decision will be final. |
XXX in the above draft is equal to 51% of voter population in that State.
Most of the communities in India (such as Bengali), are succumbed in ‘Culture of Poverty'(a theory introduced by an American anthropologist Oscar Lewis), irrespective of class or economic strata, lives in pavement or apartment. Nobody is at all ashamed of the deep-rooted corruption, decaying general quality of life, worst Politico-administrative system, weak mother language, continuous absorption of common space (mental as well as physical, both). We are becoming fathers & mothers only by self-procreation, mindlessly & blindfold. Simply depriving their(the children) fundamental rights of a decent, caring society, fearless & dignified living. Do not ever look for any other positive alternative behaviour (values) to perform human way of parenthood, i.e. deliberately co-parenting of those children those are born out of ignorance, real poverty. All of us are being driven only by the very animal instinct. If the Bengali people ever be able to bring that genuine freedom (from vicious cycle of ‘poverty’) in their own life/attitude, involve themselves in ‘Production of Space’(Henri Lefebvre), at least initiate a movement by heart, decent & dedicated Politics will definitely come up.
– Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay, 16/4, Girish Banerjee Lane, Howrah-711101, India.