A Civil Society Bill?

What if there is truly a civil society mandate? What, if those who are opinion makers, and those who have the power to make the change grab the bull by the horns, and create a Civil Bill that underlines certain requirements that the Common Man asks for, from those they have to vote for?

This Civil Bill, among other things can create a Code for the politician, for the man who wishes to stand for elections. Of course, the age of retirement should be a given. If a man has to retire at 60 or 65 years to give way to new talent and new energy, in politics too, this should be the norm. The Bill can set this and others like:

1. Every aspiring politician should have a minimum education level. Papers to this effect, double ratified, not by a random notary, but by the educational institution and the university, should be presented in the public domain. This will eliminate fake degrees and certificates as well as proxies sitting in for exams.

2. Every aspiring politician should have put in say about a year of ground level social work. He should live in the area where he works, travel on local trains, visit the shanties of the poor and the homeless and have tea with them, without the press and the media being present. There should be an everyday system, perhaps with the new computerised UID support, to ensure that the year of work is clocked, say about 9am-5pm. No excuses, no hospitalisation please.

3. The area of social work can cover any field from education to social or civic support/services.

4. At the end of this year, the aspiring politico shall present a paper on his work, with suitable statistics and other information to the university of the state he belongs to. He shall then immediately be awarded a doctorate, if the quality of his paper passes muster. This short cuts the unnecessary need to get to power, pull all strings, and after two decades of struggle to stay in power, just to have some random university award him a doctorate.

5. This year long social work experience shall be the criteria for standing for any kind of elections. Without this experience, a candidate’s application should be declared null and void.

6. Once elected, the candidate should be eligible for accommodation and other incentives that will average the income levels of his constituency. For example, if the poor in the constituency are surviving on Rs.32 a day quite easily, it would be ridiculous for its elected representative to live in a villa, with Z-category security and move about in an entourage of 10 Ambassadors and a personal SUV.

7. An elected representative cannot act in a film, even if before he entered politics, films were his calling. It would be rather fitting that he should opt for reality television instead. It would connect him instantly to the viewing public, and eliminate any selfish motives of amassment of personal wealth, name or fame - since as per the Civil Bill, he would have to plough any gains thus accrued into the betterment of his constituency.

The above is just a sample of some of the codes that could well cleanse the system of its black sheep. Building on this, it would be needless to say that those accused of murder and corruption, and who may not have been convicted, still cannot apply. A clean slate is a mandate to getting to be our leader.