Murder or Suicide?

After the bombs in Hyderabad, we all might have talked about the fear of terrorist attacks and unsafe home one more time. This was followed by the collapse of an under-construction flyover due to heavy rains. It speaks about the quality of construction and lack of any social responsibility on part of the contractors, officials, builders and others involved. Each one of them might have conveniently pocketed a part of the budget and hence the quality suffered. There might also have been design issues. Probably a not so qualified engineer or contractor might have bribed the officials to get the project. It's not something that we haven't heard of in the past. Another thing that caught my interest was "Chief Minister Dr Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, who visited the scene of accident, did not order inquiry into the mishap. When contacted, officials of the CMO said that he would hold a full-fledged review on Monday and take a decision on ordering probe." (source: Deccan Chronicle online edition). I smell something here and it's pretty obvious. Does someone need to think a lot to even order inquiry into this incident? In majority of the cases, the guilty never come to light and even if they did, they escape the punishment without much effort. And in this case the fact that they are even delaying the inquiry speaks volumes of the state of affairs.

It seems like more and more people believe that it's acceptable to do wrong if everybody else does the same. I wonder what's the thought process in their bone-heads. "Survival of the fittest, whether it's by hook or crook?" A man who's really nice to his friends and family doesn't mind doing it as it increases his social or financial status and it's all for the sake of the well-being of his kids. His son can afford the latest brands and his daughter can have a lavish wedding and Benz to go shopping. Doesn't it occur to him that she might get trapped under the same fly-over or get electrocuted because of some cheap quality electric wires that he might have set up earlier as part of another of those projects? Imagine this kind of thing being done in every sector and by each official or each one of us. It may not take long for our worst fears to come true.

So what can we do to prevent this? When I heard of the fly-over mishap, I thought of using RTI act (http://persmin.nic.in/RTI/WelcomeRTI.htm). But then the reality dawned on me. If they can fool the government about the cost of the materials used, then the same information would be provided to me. Even if I had the right information, I'm not a specialist to be able to evaluate the costs and quality of the materials. Suppose I could take help from other professionals and was able to find the facts, then what do I next? Seriously, how can I help?

No laws can prevent corruption. It's the people's mindset that has to change (and at some point we all might have participated in numerous debates over this and corruption). The people in power and the elite should set the trend of following rules. And each one of us should have the ethics, moral values and responsibility to "not misuse power or public resources, to not cheat an exam as a student, to acknowledge the source to avoid plagiarism, to not just pass by an accident or some corruption but take the responsibility of fighting it......". We need to have the courage and will-power to not do the wrong thing just because everybody else is doing the same. Also, take care of other people and nature like they are our own family. Do not ridicule others for their ignorance but share your knowledge. We cannot change the past or others. But we can surely make this a part of our personality and maybe pass it on to our kids and so on. Alright, I'll end my preaching here.

The truth remains that we don't need terrorists or insane people to destroy our nation or the world. A majority of us have the talent to do it to ourselves. It's just the trade off between "Is getting murdered better or suicide?"