Reply to a mail we received recently

Dear friends,
We at Lok Satta Party believe in replying to each and every mail we receive.We are posting below a mail sent to us by one Mr.Kiran Kumar Reddy. Mr.Jayaprakash Narayan's reply follows.

We hope Mr.Kiran Kumar will not mind us making public his mail. Due to a technical problem, we unfortunately seem to have lost his email Id. Since we have no other way of contacting him,we are posting the reply here on the blog. We hope you see this Mr.Kiran and we apologise for the inconvenience!




Dear Jai prakash Narayan,

I wanted to talk to you about the grave problem of hunger and poverty in the country, I happened to see this news over TV and online.

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/13-boom-for-mkts-doom-for-poor/25093-3.html

[Patna: It’s a shocking tale of two Indias, the irony of which is clearly indicative of the stark socio-economic disparity.
While the country’s business entrepreneurs raised a toast to BSE benchmark Sensex breaching the 13,000 mark on Monday, thousands of miles away in Bihar, a man committed suicide after not having eaten for 13 days.
While stock markets' upward journey from 11K to 13K was marked with nationwide jubilation, this man's agony of starvation for 13 days was lost in anonymity.
Found hanging from the roof of a local passenger train in Patna, all proof that the man left behind of his identity was a suicide note that read: “I don't belong to this world. I am helpless.”
“His body was found tied to a small rack near the berth. He was in a standing position and had apparently hung himself,” says DIG, Railways, Ajay Verma.
In his suicide note, the man - yet to be identified - hasn’t blamed anyone.
All he has repeatedly insisted is that it was his poverty that drove him to starvation, which made him helpless enough to put an end to his life.
“The suicide note says he had not eaten for last 12 days and was only surviving on water. He has also written that no one really cared for him or asked him where he had come from. We’ll get to know more about his death after the post-mortem,” says Verma.
Having lost his battle with hunger after putting up a brave front almost 15 days, this man is perhaps India’s most touching face of hunger and poverty.
But will his thought-provoking suicide note be of any relevance for the powers that be, or will his desperation be lost in the loud celebrations of an India galloping towards the goal of a global superpower?]

My heart is breaking seeing this, where are we going as a society and country, this is not what we want to leave back for the future generations. I don’t think reading these kind of news or hearing this any Indian would be proud that we are doing excellent as a nation.

I feel we have no time and we should work as a movement in this and bring civil society as a part of this movement and make sure no one dies with hunger in this country, I don’t think any company in India or any middle class person or any educated person would have a problem in contributing for this.

The point is who makes them aware of the realities of this country, we should, and we should provide them a medium to contribute back to society especially with regard to aged and helpless people and also the kids on the streets.

Everyone feels sad and hurt hearing all this or reading these, but what can they do other than try and forget if not they cannot go about their daily lives. But I strongly feel we should have system in place where every citizen gets an opportunity to contribute to the hungry and needy in whichever way they can instead of just feeling a moment of un happiness/helplessness and then going about their routine. We should try and build a social security for aged and children of this country unless we take care of the basic needs of our aged and future generation, otherwise we cannot claim to be a great nation.

I think we should find a solution to make people AWARE AND AWAKEN them to this sad state of our country. We should encourage people to participate in these causes which help poor old and children.

There should be minimum 10 old aged home and child care centers in every district and anyone above 50 and below 15 should be given food and medicine and everything to live happily
These centers should be run by retired army with the help of prisoner in open jails or members of society who are interested in helping society.
These centers should be run by the local community without any political or governmental influence only the land and funds should be provided by government.
We should encourage companies contribute for these causes, the ones who contribute should be given privilege like a STAR status or something so that people are keen to go to these shops, so that when they buy something here or eat something here a little goes to the poor.
We should involve the great corporate world of India specially IT, Telecom, Banking and others to contribute to this cause which needs urgent attention, i.e. feed the poor.

I know a contrary argument is that we are going make people complacent but see even in a family set up would we not give care and support to a member who doesn’t work or needs us? The same way we should as a country take care of all its citizens. The argument of providing employment, education etc is fine but there is an urgent need to provide the needy with the most basic of human requirement, which is food - food for the old and children of the country no matter what.

I want to tell you Dr.JP that these are the main reasons that is making me come and join a movement such as the one you have started.

I think we should find a solution to make people awake of this sad state of country. Everyone sees the roads, airports, hotels, shopping malls and think we are progressing, actually we are building a society on the dead bodies of the poor people, they have equal right on this country and its resources and its no utility to them if our country is fast progressing because our progress is in fact taking away from them their most basic requirement, which is food.

I feel so sad and heart broken when I am writing to you, I don’t know how I could have helped the who man died of hunger and I think I don’t want his sacrifice to go waste. As a mark or respect to him I want to initiate this project of old age home and home for kids through our loksatta. I want to go through what he went through, even in a small way, so I skipped lunch, break fast but I feel its not enough.


Yours truly,
Kiran kumar reddy


Reply:

Dear Kiran,
Thank you for the email.Like you, I am moved by the incident.Your passion and conviction are inspiring.I agree that we must also incorporate a program of minimum social security for all to ensure that the indigent and underclass can at least survive with some dignity.

While it is not easy,we, as a country can accomplish that.Let us be in touch to pursue the subject.

Warm regards

Jayaprakash Narayan