Governance and mutiny

Are we capable of mutiny only against external threats? Like when we were struggling for Independence. Is it the case that if our house member does something wrong, we accept it and live with it, and never attempt to correct it? No, we have a vested interest in the whole thing, right? We would try and do our best to solve the issue.

If another country threatens our land, our army men rise up to the occasion, our country men and women, the patriotic lot that we are, rally support for the whole situation, vent online, do whatever it takes, but feel justifiably perturbed about the situation.

But, and its a big but that amazes me day in and day out; we live with shoddy governance and its effects day in and day out. And we get peeved by it, perturbed by it, but there is no action on it. Case to point - the roads in Bangalore in many places are terrible. Years pass by and nothing is done about it. And we pay the highest road tax in India. Thousands of commuters from all walks of life put up with this ridiculous state of affairs. What do we do about it? We rant about it on the Bangalore Police Facebook page a few times. Then we get tired of it. We sign online petitions on ChangeMyCity or change.org etc. Armchair activism at its best. I got pretty good with that at a point in time.

But that is not really the solution is it? I want to be able to do something about it, something more than armchair activism that I am doing, but something that does not take time away from my core responsibilities. Isn't this a problem each one of us faces? We want to work on causes that improve some social or community aspect of the life we lead, but we lack a good forum or channel for it. Even if we dedicate time to grassroot level activism, and I know many organizations and individuals have started willing dedicating their personal time to this, it takes a long time to get results. Government organizations have a certain culture, right? Its just the way it is.

So back to my original question. Is mutiny only against outsiders? Can we not have a mutiny against bad governance? Yeah, we elected them, they are our own people. So should we not challenge the results of their governance? Is voting for someone like the Hero Honda ad of "Fill it, Shut it, Forget it"? Should we just vote and trust them to do their jobs and then live in the vain hope that one day somebody will come who will look at this damn road that's in this state for 4 years, and fix it?

If I don't pay taxes for a year, will the officials not look at it for 4 years? If they don't work on something expected of them, should we stay silent for 4 years or more? I suggest we do our bit of mutiny. Stop paying road taxes. Seriously? Yeah I know, its rather easy to say it than do it. This, my friends is the power of the govt. Elected by the people, but accountability to the people can be zero, and we live with it.

The system has to change...the culture of acceptance has to change.....