Rebel India… A dream

My father the Late K Kasturi Rangan a Gandhian and veteran journalist drafted this concept Rebel India about the people running a parallel government ultimately resulting in partyless democracy.

REBEL INDIA
By Swachid K Rangan
India that is Bharat, reconstituted into a Gandhian republic based on his concept of “gram swaraj” or Village Self government, is Rebel India, free of corruption, hunger, ignorance and disease.
Mahatma Gandhi was the foremost rebel in the world. All his life he rebelled against untruth, injustice, oppression and discrimination. In South Africa, he led an Indian civil rights uprising against the racist authorities. It was nothing short of a rebellion. Similarly, the Indian Freedom Movement was also a massive rebellion guided by him.
The word ‘Rebel’ is usually associated with violence. But Gandhi doused it with his non-violence principle and turned it as a potent weapon of defiance. He called it Satyagraha. Now it has become a means of protest all over the world against the authorities. The Rebel India Movement will campaign for the alternate political, economic , educational and social setup that prevails in the country. Serious flaws are pointed out by many people in the system and drastic changes are called for to ensure food security, water, housing, quality education and health care for all.
To accomplish this task, the Rebel India movement has an action plan.

Polity
1. Change over to partyless Presidential form of government instead of the present multiparty parliamentary democracy where unprincipled and opportunistic political parties rule the roost.
2. Each of the 535 districts of India will be declared as a sovereign republic as in Switzerland which is a confederation of sovereign independent Cantons.
3. The district councils will elect a president who will nominate a suitable person to the national parliament. The parliament will elect a president for a 5 year term and he will have absolute authority without the pulls and pressures of political parties or coalition partners as there will be no political parties.
4. Elections will be held every 5 years only to the panchayats of the villages and towns. The Gram sabha or the Nagar Sabha will elect a president and a 7 member panchayat. [Where there are more than two contestants, the majority will be decided by preferential voting.]
5. The president will also serve as a councillor of the district council.

Economy
6. The country’s economy is widely seen as the most mismanaged and devised to benefit only the privileged class of people, big industrialists and foreign investors. People are kept in poverty forever. A vast majority of people live in thatched hutments and hovels in the cities. They are forever forced to depend on government doles for their food and other means of livelihood. The agriculture economy is ruined by the expansion of industries and encroachment of urban complexes.

7. The divide between the super rich and poor is growing with extremists stepping into the gap. The economic policy of Rebel India will seek to narrow down this gap by raising the minimum wages to at least Rs 1 Lakh a year or Rs 300 a day and siphoning of surplus funds from the rich to be used for development projects. Those having income beyond Rs 10 Lakhs will be required to deposit the amount in a lifetime savings plan called “Public Investment and Deposit Insurance Corporation” [PIDIC] which will be wholly owned by the Union Government.
8. After one year, the depositors will get 10% interest annually and after 30 years of maturity the entire amount will be paid back to them or to their nominees. There will be no direct taxes on personal income.
9. Those who are earning between Rs 1 Lakh and Rs 10 Lakh a year will be required to deposit a percentage of the income with the PIDIC. The advantage of this plan is that besides getting a regular amount every year as interest, at the time of old age, the depositors will get a substantial amount which will give them financial security.

Education
10. Rebel India will revamp the education system that will really be purposeful. Regular schools will be run for students from standard 6 onwards. Primary education will be provided by RISS in association with SWACHID Academy of Enhanced Education.
11. Children upto age of 10 will acquire at single teacher home schools writing and reading ability in three or four languages – Mother Tongue, English, Hindi and Sanskrit/Urdu.
12. Teachers and students will be enrolled in regular schools for the continuation of education from the 6 standard onwards. After the primary school the children will study in classrooms upto 8 standard where they will be prepared for public examination. And a middle school certificate will be issued to them. Most of the unskilled labor force will benefit from this middle school level learning and they can go in for vocational training in jobs like driving, plumbing, etc.
13. There will be public examination at the end of Standard 10 where the student will be given secondary school leaving certificate. Those who qualify will be eligible for jobs in the government and the private sector and also take training in various vocational jobs.
14. All the schools will be upgraded to college level after SSLC. Students will undergo a three or four year curriculum which will take them upto arts, commerce and science subjects. They will sit for the university exams and obtain bachelor’s degrees.
15. By this system, the university college complexes will be available for higher education in various professions and post graduate courses. This will put an end to the present system where the students have to run from pillar to post to seek admission in professional colleges. Education at all levels will be free.

Rebel India Security Services(RISS)
16. Rebel India will create a Rebel India Security Services which will be a non- governmental organization. They will recruit anyone who is seeking a job including the extremists. They will be given training in appropriate skills and put on regular wages.
17. The RISS will be made responsible for maintaining peace and protecting public property. The RISS cadre will not carry any weapons. They will work with local police force in maintaining law and order, and any activity disturbing public peace will be considered as a crime.
18. The Indian Penal Code will be replaced by a new punishment code where there will be only one verdict – that is 15 days to 15 years of hard tolabour in any of the RISS projects. The convicts will be paid daily wages with which they will have to buy their own food and support their families if necessary. Corruption will be considered as a heinous crime.
19. RISS will also oversee the maintenance of infrastructure such as roads,parks and other public utility services.
20. There will be no restriction for joining this movement, either by age or by learning, but the youth between the ages of 18 and 35 should be persuaded to get involved in this Rebel India movement as the future of the country is at stake for them.
21. RISS will undertake a massive housing project and build a network of canal system. The existing canals will be made navigable by widening and deepening. Every district will be ringed by a canal which should be linked to the nearest reservoir or water body so that there will always be enough water in the system. Besides recharging the underground water level, the canal will provide a cheap means of transport for the benefit of the rural people.
22. Alongside the canal, a housing complex will be built patterned after the railway coaches that can be upto a length of upto 1 km and 20 feet wide so that it can be divided into several apartments with good ventilation. It can accommodate atleast 100 families with educational, medical and other facilities for the people.
23. There will be two categories of RISS workers. One, voluntary and the other – fulltime paid. The voluntary workers will spend atleast one day a week with the RISS supervising the projects and engage themselves in public service.
24. RISS will be a buffer between public and the authorities. The public have many grievances but the authorities are mostly insensitive. The RISS will take up the grievances with the appropriate authorities and will ensure that the issues get redressal. Thus the direct confrontation between the public and the authorities will be avoided.
25. The RISS will derive its authority from President of India and the Presidents of the district-states. The government will use RISS as a conduit to reach the people with whatever benefits they are offering.
26. The RISS will follow our guideline ‘WHAT IS NOT RIGHT, WE WILL SET IT RIGHT’.