Politicians are selfish?

In India it has become a fasion to title politicians as corrupt and immoral.Politicians are blamed for every failing of this country.It is a common perception that Politicians and Government Servants are now synonymous with corruption.Yet we as a common man,as citizens of this nation fail to,rather conviniently, look at our activities which contribute to the failings of our nation despite its potential. We say politicians are corrupt.Are we not? These corrupt politicians and 'public servants' care about nothing but power and filling thier private coffers.What about us?We ignore anything that does not affect us,because we are too busy earning money.Are we doin thesame thing.Are we not busy filling our own private coffers, to even care about wat is happening arond us.It is only when we are affected by the gross misconduct of the politicians that we speak about corruption. The question remains how to they get away with it? The law has given us Right to Information Act(RTI) and our right to vote which is as much a duty. How many of us use these right of ours to keep a check on the government?Do we even bother with voting?Are we not to busy earning money at such times? We blame the politicians of indulging in votebank politics.Again let me ask,how is it that they suceed?If they suceed in such ploys isn't it because we fall prey to such games?Their acts of appeasement to a particular group gets the group supporting them.So is it not selfishness on our part if we allow such small acts of appeasement to suceed in their tasks?Do we think about the bigger picture at such times?Do we think of future effects of such act?No.all we want is benefits.Are we ready for sacrifices for the collective welfare?Are we ready to force these politicians to work on proper devlopment,instead of votebank appeasement?Are we ready to sacrifice the benefits which we would otherwise get from an act of apeasement by some politicians?The answer is a resounding no. We blame the governmet for lack of security but yet again we forget our duties to enure public security.Are we vigilant enough to spot and report any suspicious acitvity?Even if a someone does spot such a thing, but if he is geting out of that place(say alighting from a bus,or train),would he bother with reporting or alerting anyone else? We complain about lack of infrastructure and yet how well and efficiently do we use the existing one?I do not about other metros,but in Mumbai a person obeying traffic rules without a policeman around is thought to be a fool.You stop at a traffic signal without any police around and you will be honked and shouted at by those behind you.Obeying traffic rules and lane discpline can reduce the traffic woes of the city.Mumbai gets flooded by the rains every year and yes the cause is lack of proper drainage system, yet wecould avaoid a lot of floodings if we stop throwing litter around which in turn cuases blockages in the drain slowing down the drainage process.We claim that surroung is unclean.Public places are reduced to dustbins.Are we not the ones one litter these places.Many people shamelessly spit around in public.Sometimes its tobacco.Do we bother correcting them.Or to they fell ashamed to do so?Or perhaps bother correcting their own habits?If someone tries correcting he is made to shut up with a simple insult,'Abey tere baap jagah hai kya?Jaa na apna kaam kar.'How many bother siding with a person who is correcting someone? How many of us bother correcting someone who jumps a queue?Or rather how many of us bother with queues themselves?Why do these people jumping queue not hesitate when doing so? How many of us go around asking for favours from these very politicians whom we call evil? As long I am benefiting its alright.but as soon as someone else benefits over me its corrutption. Our society has become too self indulgent.Our constitution has awarded us with certain rights as a citizen of this country.At the same time our constitution expects some duties from us in return for us enjoying these rights. While we remember our rights very well, we conviniently forget those duties because it entails giving of something. It is said that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.We have forgotten that the reason a handful of British soldiers were able to gain control over much larger forces?The selfishness was the reason.We were never united against them and the British took advantage of this using thee divide and rule policy.Was that not appeasement policy?How well did that go for he Indians,even those who were initially appeased were later on forced to serve the British oce they served their purpose.They were used by the British to gain power in India.Unless we learn a lesson from this and unite against the power seeking politicians for betterment of the nation,unless we stop falling prey to Politicians appeasement policy, history is bound to repeat itself. The effect will not be immidiate.Most probably it will not be our generation that suffers the consequences of our selfisheness,but it will be the later generations,probably our children or their children.It is shameful that someone like Mayawati is able to get the post of Chief Minister of Uttar Praedesh just by playing her caste card.Someone whose only intrest is self-promotion.It is sad that politicians are able to divide us along religious lines,caste lines,or regional lines to win election by creeating votebanks.Chinese strategists have clamied that India is internally unstable.The urge the Chinese government to interfere in our nations internal matters,to widen this divide and break India.They claim that with a bit of interference they would be able to break India into 20-30 small nations and to gain 90,000 sq.km of Indian territory which is under dispute between India and China.We would be facing the same humiliation of dismemeberment that we handed to Pakistan in 1971 Indo-Pak War,also known as Bangladesh Liberation War.These claims of the Chinese are not too far fetched.Unless we pull our act together and mend these divisions, our nation will be following on the path of USSR.This time it would be a free economy non dictatorial state broken down by the dictatorial communist state.Completely opposite of what happened to USSR.China has the audacity to mmake such claims becuase they can see how we have divided ourself on the basis of every possible line we can divide by.The government claims that this is not the official line of Chinses governmentbut induvidual opinions of the people of China.Now we cannot be naive enough to believe that any government would take such sort of official stance.These things are done underhandedly.The bottomline is are we ready to make ourselves vulnerable by breaking this federation of states that forms the nation of India into its smaller components,so that the foriegn powers may find it easier to dominate us again?To rule on us?To take us back to pre-independence era?The might of India which is a deterent to the world from trying to enslave India will be divided.Let us remember our pledge. (India is my country.) Is it really?Is this how we treat our houses? (All Indians are my brothers and sisters.) Is that so?Is that how we treat our siblings? (I love my country) Today we only love ourself and after that our families. (and I am proud of its rich and varied heritage) Yes we are proud that the heritage is varied.It gives us some reason to fight amongst ourselves. (I shall always strive to be worthy of it.) I shall only strive to loot as much as I can from my this country (I shall give my parents teachers and all elders respect) I shall give myself everything I can take from this country (and treat everyone with courtsey) and treat anyone who does not matter with utmost disdain. (To my country and my people, I pledge my devotion.) To myself and my family only I pledge my devotion. (In their well being and prosperity alone, lies my happiness) In my welll being and properity alone lies my happiness. (Jai Hind) Jai To Myself. JFK had once said,'ask not what your country can do for you, instead ask what you can do for you country.' All we ask today is wahat our country can do for us. Are not our actions today mocking our own pledge.Instead of just mugging up this pledge and saying it when we are asked to, we should try to understand its meaning and try to live those lines.All we do is take,take and take whatever we can take from this nation untill there is nothing left to take,and even than we keep on taking leaving our nation barren.We should learn to give back.We did the same with nature and environment, and now we see where it has left us.Let us not forget the speech of Mr. Nehru,'A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.' Let us step out into new world again 60 years after we did it once.Let us take a new pledge. We need to change before we demand the politicians to change, before we get the thi snation to change,we must change ourselves.Letus walk this path of change.Let us step into a new era of change. Mr.M.K.Gandhi has said,'You be the change You want to see in others.' Yet I fear we will not change. We will let arrogance and ignorance to ruin us. We will stay selfish as ever. And yet we say that 'Only .......................................................................................................