September 16, 2015 No.4
https://www.facebook.com/mehtarahulc/posts/10153040835361922
BBB = The Betrayal by the Beneficiaries ---- why many many committed activists often sellout ; and solutions I propose --- (1) be a parttime activist and have a real job/life on side, and never become a fulltime activist. (2) a company structure that would prove BBB or may "refunds" the activists
.
One of the MOST important topics in activism IMO is this BBB = "Betrayal by the Beneficiaries". And IMO, every activist should become aware of this so that he can understand the merit of parttime activism over fulltime activism. And this will reduce the damage that "ex-committed now soldout" do to non-soldout activists as well as nation.
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List of chapters
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01. Why do we need political activism?
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02. Characteristics of TRUE-ACTIVISM
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03. Shortage of activist-hours
.
04. Betrayal by the Beneficiaries
.
05. Why many TRUE-activists sellout
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06. So whats so wrong if committed activists sellout?
.
07. How to avoid ill effect of Betrayal by the Beneficiaries?.
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08. A structure to reduce chances of BBB from happening
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09. Summary
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DETAILS
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chapter-01. Why do we need political activism? And that we already have procedure of election, do we still need activism?
.
I will restrict to activism where goal of activists is to bring political changes of person / system in country's polity/administration. I will ignore activism where goal is to provide social services or use courts such as PIL based activism. I consider social activism and PIL-based activism as timepass. So throughout this article, the word activism here means "political activism".
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So why do we need activism? Arent elections enough? Well, the procedure of election itself came due to activism that happened between say year 1800s to 1946 !! But that doesnt answer the question fully. One can put same question as "now that we so indeed have procedure of election, do we still need activism"?
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IMO. Yes. Why?
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I will state my answer to -- "why do we need political activism in general".
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We need economy, personal relations and social relations to live. We need economy to make basic goods, luxury goods, medicines and weapons. And we need laws to enable factory owners and employees to keep relations in synch. And we also need laws to reduce chances of betrayal in personal relations, business relations etc. And we need politics to decide which law-draft should be printed and which law-draft should NOT be printed. And we have procedure of election to decide which persons we will appoint as MP , MLA, Corporator etc.
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And we need activism to keep politics in control. Why?
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Thats because every system without some external feedback control degenerates and doesnt fix its bug. Free market creates a feedback system which forces players to fix themselves or players get removed. But to maintain free market, we need Military, police , courts and also roads etc . The Military, police , courts , roads etc have monopoly in their regions. So we dont know how to operate them using Free Market principles which presume multiple players and new entrants. So we have Politics is to regulate these monopolies such as Military, Police, Courts, Roads etc. And there are high chances that people in Politics can subvert their internal checks and balances, using nexuses , which will kill freedom in market and thus ruin economy. And so we need activists and activism to keep politics in check.
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But then, who will keep activist in check? If every system need external feedbook as per my thesis, then activists too need some control and so the line will never end.
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The activist , in my definition, is a person who has NO govt power. And his capacity to damage , is no more than average common citizen. So all controls that apply on common man will apply on him, no less and no more. And thus no extra institutional control is needed over activist.
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Then without Govt power, how can activist control players in politics, who have significant power. The ONLY means I approve is --- (A) activists should inform citizens of alternatives (B) activists should also work to create alternatives. (C) activist MUST himself also try to get political positions. So he can play multiple roles. I do not approve violence. We must remember that all our freedom fighters such as Mahatma Udham Singh, Mahatma Bhagat Singh, Mahatma Chandrashekhar Azad, and Rastrapita Mahatma Subhashchandra Bose were 100% non-violent. And they got us freedom. So activism needs no violence. So since activist has no govt power, and has no violent tendencies, no extra control is needed over him.
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Now I will give my reply to second question --- "given that we already have procedure of election, to control men in politics, do we still need activism"?
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My answer is -- YES. Because we have "procedure of mono-election" and "recruitment by written exams", while our rival or enemy, USA has 4 procedures over and above "recruitment by written exams". These 4 procedures are (a) multi-elections (b) right to recall (c) Jury system (d) referendum . And unless we have all these 4 procedures in India , we will lose against USA. And to install these procedures in India, activism is needed. Why? I have given my reply in chap-14 to chap-17 ofhttp://rahulmehta.com/301.htm .The replies run into pages and pages. And I dont have shorter replies
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And finally, who is a true activist? Well, over 99% of senior activists are IMO frauds. Some examples I give are Duratma Anna and Mahatma Arvind Gandhi. So citizen and true-activists will have to decide who is true activist and who is fraud. I have no litmus test to tell whether an activist is fraud or real. Each citizen and each activist must decide on his own sing his own incomplete information and his own subjective senses.
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chapter-02. Characteristics of TRUE-ACTIVISM
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I define "x% activist" as person who is willing to spend "x% of time" for activism, and during this time, he will NOT worry about how much gains that hour will fetch him, how much economic damage that time will cause. And in this time, he will work ONLY for the political agenda that he thinks is best and not second best for India. And for that, he is willing to give say "y% of his income" and "z% of his accumulated wealth every year" and so forth.
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So is activist a true activist? That is something a citizen or a fellow activist has to decide on his own using his own
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The activist has to decide the agenda items he will spend time on, and agenda items he will NOT spend time on. It is necessary to decide agenda items he will NOT spend time on, as one has only 24 hours in a day. So if one choses to spend time on item-A , that means, he has less time to spend on item-B. There are some 200 topics for activism in India. One can surely spend two hours in his whole life on all the two hundred topics. But one can NOT spend 1000 hours on each of the 200 topics.
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One argument unacceptable in activism is that --- "I will confine to items which are paying or at least self-paying or sustainable". Because, a large number if items may be very much necessary for India may be completely unpaying and may even cause expenses and zero revenues. It is perfectly fine, if activist confines to activism 4 hours a week and focus on paying normal business activities. But an activist who insists on ignoring all unpaying items, regardless of how necessary they may be for the nation, is a timepass activist only.
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chapter-03. Shortage of activist-hours
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A sad part in activism is that in any country, be India or USA or UK, a very very small % of population will decide to spend more than 4 hours a week to bring political changes in which there is national interest but no personal benefit or no benefit . I take 4 hours a week as one benchmark. One can take any other number.
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The % is small. May be --- 2% or even less. But it is uniform across world.
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So activist-hours are very short supply.
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So a large population will not spend time in activism.And activists' benefit will get divided amongst whole population. And sometimes, benefits may get distributed in form of new opportunities. And the activists who have worked to get these new opportunities may be mentally as well physically exhausted or even handicapped to use these new opportunities. In such, activists will be left in a poor state.
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Unlike soldiers, the activists have no enrolment list in Govt, no uniform and no contracts with Govt. Nor should activists have any contracts with Govt or uniform or any enrolment list in Govt. In such case, they would be Govt employees or Govt contractors and not activist to begin with.
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So whether a person was activist or not will be based on information held by individual crores citizens about who was non activist, who was true activists and who was just a fake activist. Sometimes , information can be local and sometimes it can be state / national level. So there is a proposal to compensate the activists for their efforts and their losses, then citizens need to combine information from citizens and non govt sources, to get an estimate of efforts and their losses. This requires that citizens have to spend time. I repeat ---- this requires that citizens have to spend some time to carry out this activity.
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chapter-04. Betrayal by the Beneficiaries
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Now following are some of the possible outcomes of activists' actions
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1. The activists' time and actions may fail to bring any change in polity, administration, courts, Military etc .
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2. The activists' time and action do bring change in polity / administration / etc, but bring no change in society / economy or worse, bring negative changes.
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3. The activists' time and action do bring change in polity, AND changes they brought in polity also do bring POSITIVE changes in economic / social lives of citizens
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4. In many many cases, even if (3) happens, the citizens will NOT repay the activists for their loss of time, loss of money, loss of mental abilities , loss of limbs, and will not even work to compensate the family members of the dead ones
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(4) is what I call as Betrayal by the Beneficiaries.
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The activist, before he decides to give time and money for activism, MUST be aware of this possibility that they will NOT get anything back.
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In case of (1) , (2) and (3) , there is NO moral reason for citizens to repay the activists. Because activists time and actions brought no positive change in their lives. But in case of (4) , it is immoral for citizens not to pay back. But that happens, and has happened 10s of times in past --- activists do not get paid..
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The political changes activist bring may create economic changes and betterment. The betterment creates a lot of avenues to compete as well as have entertainment. So most citizens take a CONSCIOUS decision NOT to spend time in figuring out which activists caused that betterment and whether the activists are in any need, And most citizens take a CONSCIOUS decision to spend their time in entertainment, career , competition, family etc.
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And activists , unlike soldiers, do not have any contract with citizens, they can ask for renumeration for time they lost, money they lost, mental abilities they lost, limbs they lost or have compensation for family members of dead activists,
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So due to CONSCIOUS decision of citizens, not to spend time to decide which activists need to be compensated, and citizens' decision to spend all the time in new opportunities, the activists losses remain uncompensated.
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Of several examples, a BIG recent example is freedom of India. The freedom came in 1947 because lakhs of activists collided with British, Many died, and many like Mahatma Batukeshwar Dutt. survived, but were in miserable state. Many had lost their limbs (eg soldiers who fought in Azad Hind Fauz). It was only in 1972, Devi Indira Amma started pension for freedom fighters. In 1947, Congress apex leaders such as Jawaharlal Ghazi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Lalbahadur Shashtri etc very well knew that there were 1000s and lakhs of freedom fighters who have lost mental sanity because of years and years of imprisonment and tortures, These 3 leaders and all other leaders also know that many freedom fighters have lost physical health due to age , years of imprisonment , tortures etc. But all apex leaders, including Jansangh MPs and CPI MPs, refused to start any pension type scheme for those freedom fighters. Because if freedom fighters had got economic stability in their lives, then many would have entered politics and cut votes of Congress, Jansangh, CPI.
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So leaders such as Jawaharlal Ghazi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Lalbahadur Shashtri etc had personal selfish reasons on why they didnt start any scheme to support freedom fighters. In 1972, Devi Indira Amma started freedom fighter scheme , because (a) she needed an alibi to cancel kings' privy, and she wanted to kill king's privy because most ex-kings were Jansangh supporters and were anti-coongress (b) she saw that giving economic stability to freedom fighters will NOT decrease congress votes, as most freedom fighters had aged. IOW, there also, it was more real-politik than a genuine care.
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But why did citizens decided to ignore freedom fighters? Why did educated citizens also decided to ignore them. Why did educated citizens, who benefited from these activists , also decided to ignore them? .They had no benefit to get by ignoring them.
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The decision of educated citizens to ignore the miseries of freedom fighters in 1947 and there after was ---- they CONSCIOUSLY decided to allocate all their time for new career opportunities that freedom offered, new avenues for entertainment that came and usual tasks such as family affairs. They CONSCIOUSLY decided NOT to allocate time to know who brought this new opportunities , what cost they had paid and whether they are well or are in misery.
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One example I would cite is of Mahatma Batukeshwar Dutt. He was Mahatma Bhagat Singh's colleague and had thrown bombs in National Assembly aka Parliament in 1929. He was imprisoned for 10 years. (Bhagat Singh was hanged because of he executed Police Chief Sanders.). Mahatma Batukeshwar Dutt was so brilliant that he got admission into one of the best colleges in Punjab in 1920s. Back then, passing metric was sufficient to get a prestigious job of bank manager. And clearing metric and getting admission in college was a great achievement in itself. After 10 years of imprisonment and TB, Dutt in 1950 was in deep misery and pain. He became a vegetable vendor , and failed because he could not compete with other vendors who would do some dishonesty here and there. Business has a simple rule --- if 99 out of 100 businessmen are dishonest, and govt officers dont arrest any of them, then the honest businessman will lose and will have to leave. Dutt got financial assistance from his friends. Mahatma Dutt died in 1964 and was economically very poor. My point was --- Mahatma Dutt was never compensated by citizens for losses he suffered during 1929 - 1947. If Mahatma Batukeshwar Dutt had joined Congress or Jansangh or CPI, and become dirty like them, he could have easily become MLA, MP or even Minister. But he chose to remain committed. He refused to join Congress, Jansangh, CPI etc. Even then, citizens never found time to compensate him.
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This was the fate was 1000s or perhaps lakhs of of freedom fighter.
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Now consider a story you will often hear from a 80 year non-political men who were born in poor family, but got a good job in bank or PSU or govt. The story they would tell will be as
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a. I was born in a very poor family (very right)
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b. I studied hard (very right)
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c. I gave a competitive exam for recruitment (right)
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d I got good score , got the job and came up. (all right starements).
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The part he will REFUSE to cite is --- some 70 years back, most banks , most PSUs and even govt depts used to hire by jaan-pehchaan aka nepotism and favoritism. It was due to efforts of countless activists, that freedom came, the first batch of MPs less corrupt, and institutionalized Recruitment by Written Exams. And it was due to those less corrupt MPs, that Govt decided to create a large number of goods schools and collages , which enabled poor to study.And in fact, it was due to activists efforts that freedom came , and 100s of private / public companies started and 100s of collages started,. Otherwise, British were NOT interested in creating too many industrial units as well as too many collages.
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IOW, it is very much right that the Beneficiary had studied hard, got goods score in written exams etc etc. But 100s of collages came in 1950s , and this was due to sacrifice of activists from 1800-1947 . And the procedure of the "recruitment by written exams" was also product of same sacrifice. The "successful" person did NOT notice all this, He didnt notice because he CONSCIOUSLY decided NOT to spend time in figuring out what brought this opportunities , such as education and competitive exams , to him. .
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And I can give countless more such examples.
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My point here is --- Betrayal by Beneficiaries is common. And it is because activists' efforts often creates new OPPORTUNITIES and new LESS UNFAIR LEGAL PROCEDURES , and may not give DIRECT benefits. And beneficiary has to work to convert these opportunities into benefits. So most beneficiary will always gives 100% credit to their efforts, and will refuse to allocate time needed to decide who lost how much, and how can they be compensated.
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Finally, one question comes ---- if activists' efforts improved everyone's well being, then activists' well being also improved. So why ask more. Because many times, the efforts of activists will ONLY create more opportunities and not create any direct goods. Many activists will be now menatlly and physically spent out forces and will not have any strength left to work on these opportunities.
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So in a away, it is irony. Those who did NOT do activism, and did NOT spend time . money, health etc after activism will be in better shape to use the new opportunities. eg Consider two youngmen in say 1940. Say one decided to join freedom movement and other decided to improve his abilities. The freedom fighter, due to imprisonment and tortures, will be almost half insane in 1947. And so when freedom would bring new business / career opportunities, the person who DID NOT work for freedom will be in better shape to use those opportunities.
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chapter-05. Why many TRUE-activists sellout
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The Betrayal by the Beneficiaries is the more important reason why they sellout.
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The sellout doesnt happen when an activist fails to bring change in polity.Nor does it happen when changes he brings in polity fail to being changes in life. When an activist fails and gets tired, he leaves , starts with some other work, but he doesnt sellout.
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But sellout can happen when activist is betrayed by beneficiaries.
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Now its not the case that each and every activist will sellout. Some like Mahatma Batukeshwar Dutt never sold out. But most after betrayal do sellout.
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The feeling of being betrayed to too much to bear. And being betrayed by whole society is far too difficult, And so the activist, rather, ex-activist, sees nothing wrong in selling out.
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Many sellout to the extent that they see nothing wrong in even becoming agents of foreigners.
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chapter-06. So whats so wrong if committed activists sellout?
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A soldout activist is still seen as committed by most people around him. And so he can now do more damage. And he can be more effective in netralizing other committed and non-soldout activists. IOW, the ex-committed now-soldout activist is more dangerous that army of soldouts who have always been soldouts.
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chapter-07. How to avoid ill effect of Betrayal by the Beneficiaries?.
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Betryal by the Benefits seems unavoidable to me. So my next proposal is to reduce the damage that BBB can cause.
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One proposal I have is that activists should remain parttime activist and never become fulltime activist. That way, he is investing only say 5% of his time, 5% of his income etc in activism. And so when the beneficiaries betray him, he will fell a loss of only 5% . Loss of 5% can be seen as normal bad luck and digested.
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Wont this slow the movement?
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It will. But if an activist is parttime, then he can easily convince other new comers to become partime activist like he is. It is difficult to convince a person to become fulltime, but easier to convince him to become 5%-activist i.e. put 5% of his time / money etc in activism. That way, parttime activism can increase number of activists and thus movement can go on with parttime activists and no fulltime activist.
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And even if the movement is slow, then also it is worth it. Because otherwise, the damage that betray causes to activists is huge. And then the damage that "ex-committed now soldout" ex-activists cause to nation is humongous.
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So when I put all possibilities, my suggestion to all activists is that --- become a parttime activist ONLY and never become fulltime activist.
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chapter-08. A structure to reduce chances of BBB from happening
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I will try to create a company-based structure .to reduce the possibility of BBB and damages it will create. The structure may not work for all activist, but may work for recallists.
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The recallism is specific type of activism, which we at Right to Recall Group are doing. We at Right to Recall Group aim to FORCE PM / CMs / MPs / MLAs etc to print certain law-drafts in Gazette , with or against their wish. Theis wish is immaterial to us. And the ONLY route acceptable to us is --- over 45 crore voters MUST ask MPs / MLAs via SMS and other means to print these law-drafts. If MPs / MLAs print these law-draft without 45 crore voters' SMS, then fine --- we cant stop them anyway. But thats not what our goal is. Our goal is to FIRST convince over 45 crore voters or as high as 75 crore voters to send orders to MPS / MLAs via SMS and other means to print these law-drafts.
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So the biggest task is to INFORM 85 crore voters and some 20 lakh activists about these 100s of law-drafts. And that task involves printing crores of pamphlets and giving 1000s of newspaper advts. To be specific, we need 500 pages per citizen of printed material, and we need 100-200 newspaper advt per reader. The costs will be in Rs 10000 crore to Rs 50000 crore. We will NOT be paying a penny to activists. So that cost for us is zero.
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So by maintaining a careful record of which activists paid for which newspaper advt , we can issue him certain number of shares of a company. And later, he may manage to encash those shares by selling.
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I havent worked out the full details. Some of the details are as
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1. Say I form a company called as Right to Recall Company.
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2. Anyone who gives newspaper advt worth Rs X gets X/100 shares of the company. eg if one has given newspaper advt of Rs 500,000 , then he will get Rs 5000 shares. If 100 activists have each contributed Rs 1000 each, then each will get 10 shares.
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3. The value of share will increase by same % as rupee3 printed by RBI. So if RBI has increased supply of rupee3 by 20% in one year, then next year, activists will get 1 share of Rs 120. So next year, if a person gives advt of Rs 300,000 , then he will get Rs 300,000 / Rs 120 = 2500 shares and not 3000 shares
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4. The activists via RTR-company or otherwise, maintain a record of who gave information of RTR-drafts to whom. i.e. each person who become supporter of RTR-draft has to indicate which RRG-activist or RTR-supporter informed him about that specific drafts. When N supporters inform Right to Recall company that they got information about RTR-drafts from Mr. X , Mr. X will get N/10 shares.
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5. Each RRG-activists who contests election and gets N votes will get N shares. He may need to divide the shares amongst the activists who campaign for him.
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6. I have not been able to think of way to compensate for pamphlets.
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7. Thus Right to Recall company , via process of share allocation and share transfers, maintains the record of monetary , information spreading and electoral progress made by RRG-activists for RTR-drafts
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8. Now if RTR-law-drafts dont come, then shares should, and will remain worthless. And if RTR-law-drafts come, and dont cause benefit to anyone, then also shares should and will remain worthless.
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9. But if RTR-law-drafts do comes, and they do create positive benefit to citizens, then the shareholders of RTR-company can request voters to buy all the shares of the RTR-company and dissolve the company !!
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10. As this point, if voters refuse to pay money value for the shares, then BBB becomes clear. And if voters agree to buy shares, and BBB will reduce , depending on the price of the shares they agree to pay.
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11. And before the final sale , if anyone wishes to exit, then he can sell the shares to the buyer at what price buyer wants, and then the buyer becomes the "contributer"
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I will summarize.
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This method may or need not work for all activism projects. I have designed it specific to RTR-campaign. Here, we have a company called as RTR-company, and gives shares to activists based on (a) money they spent for newspaper advertisement (b) no of supporters they created on FB (c) votes they got. The RTR-company takes no payment for shares !!!
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If RTR-laws dont come, then activists have failed and there is no moral obligations on citizens to pay. If RTR-laws come and citizens see no benefit, then also there is no moral obligations to pay. If RTR-law-drafts come, and they benefit citizens, then only voters have moral, NO LEGAL, binding to pay the RRG-activists. They may pay Rs 0 , they may pay peanuts, they may pay twice the expenses, and they may pay 10 times the expenses.
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If citizens refuse to pay anything or pay properly, then BBB will become clear. I have no remedy. However, it may happen that citizens refuse to spend time, but may agree to give out money to the activists.. If he is dead, the shares will be owned by his relatives and they may get paid. The activists may not get any fame, any recognition, any appreciation, but may get monetarily paid. They should be content with that. The freedom fighters didnt even get a penny for their sacrifices.
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chapter-09. Summary
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The RTR-activists who are spending time, money etc to publicize the RTR-drafts may NOT get any appreciation etc for their work even if drafts comes, and drafts benefit citizens. Just as citizens after 1947 took a CONSCIOUS decision not to spend time in figuring out how to compensate freedom fighters who had become partially or wholly hmentally or physically handicap, the same may happen again. And in such cases, a big fraction of RRG-activists may sellout and then damage to those who didnt sellout as well as nation will be immense.
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So IMO, RRG-activist should remain parttime ONLY. This will reduce damages BBB will cause. And we should a company and share holding structure to keep a TRANSFERABLE / SALEABLE record of contributions. This may reduce possibility and extent of BBB.
https://www.facebook.com/mehtarahulc/posts/10153040835361922
BBB = The Betrayal by the Beneficiaries ---- why many many committed activists often sellout ; and solutions I propose --- (1) be a parttime activist and have a real job/life on side, and never become a fulltime activist. (2) a company structure that would prove BBB or may "refunds" the activists
.
One of the MOST important topics in activism IMO is this BBB = "Betrayal by the Beneficiaries". And IMO, every activist should become aware of this so that he can understand the merit of parttime activism over fulltime activism. And this will reduce the damage that "ex-committed now soldout" do to non-soldout activists as well as nation.
.
=====
List of chapters
====
..
01. Why do we need political activism?
.
02. Characteristics of TRUE-ACTIVISM
.
03. Shortage of activist-hours
.
04. Betrayal by the Beneficiaries
.
05. Why many TRUE-activists sellout
.
06. So whats so wrong if committed activists sellout?
.
07. How to avoid ill effect of Betrayal by the Beneficiaries?.
.
08. A structure to reduce chances of BBB from happening
.
09. Summary
.
====
DETAILS
=====
.
chapter-01. Why do we need political activism? And that we already have procedure of election, do we still need activism?
.
I will restrict to activism where goal of activists is to bring political changes of person / system in country's polity/administration. I will ignore activism where goal is to provide social services or use courts such as PIL based activism. I consider social activism and PIL-based activism as timepass. So throughout this article, the word activism here means "political activism".
.
So why do we need activism? Arent elections enough? Well, the procedure of election itself came due to activism that happened between say year 1800s to 1946 !! But that doesnt answer the question fully. One can put same question as "now that we so indeed have procedure of election, do we still need activism"?
.
IMO. Yes. Why?
.
I will state my answer to -- "why do we need political activism in general".
.
We need economy, personal relations and social relations to live. We need economy to make basic goods, luxury goods, medicines and weapons. And we need laws to enable factory owners and employees to keep relations in synch. And we also need laws to reduce chances of betrayal in personal relations, business relations etc. And we need politics to decide which law-draft should be printed and which law-draft should NOT be printed. And we have procedure of election to decide which persons we will appoint as MP , MLA, Corporator etc.
.
And we need activism to keep politics in control. Why?
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Thats because every system without some external feedback control degenerates and doesnt fix its bug. Free market creates a feedback system which forces players to fix themselves or players get removed. But to maintain free market, we need Military, police , courts and also roads etc . The Military, police , courts , roads etc have monopoly in their regions. So we dont know how to operate them using Free Market principles which presume multiple players and new entrants. So we have Politics is to regulate these monopolies such as Military, Police, Courts, Roads etc. And there are high chances that people in Politics can subvert their internal checks and balances, using nexuses , which will kill freedom in market and thus ruin economy. And so we need activists and activism to keep politics in check.
.
But then, who will keep activist in check? If every system need external feedbook as per my thesis, then activists too need some control and so the line will never end.
.
The activist , in my definition, is a person who has NO govt power. And his capacity to damage , is no more than average common citizen. So all controls that apply on common man will apply on him, no less and no more. And thus no extra institutional control is needed over activist.
.
Then without Govt power, how can activist control players in politics, who have significant power. The ONLY means I approve is --- (A) activists should inform citizens of alternatives (B) activists should also work to create alternatives. (C) activist MUST himself also try to get political positions. So he can play multiple roles. I do not approve violence. We must remember that all our freedom fighters such as Mahatma Udham Singh, Mahatma Bhagat Singh, Mahatma Chandrashekhar Azad, and Rastrapita Mahatma Subhashchandra Bose were 100% non-violent. And they got us freedom. So activism needs no violence. So since activist has no govt power, and has no violent tendencies, no extra control is needed over him.
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Now I will give my reply to second question --- "given that we already have procedure of election, to control men in politics, do we still need activism"?
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My answer is -- YES. Because we have "procedure of mono-election" and "recruitment by written exams", while our rival or enemy, USA has 4 procedures over and above "recruitment by written exams". These 4 procedures are (a) multi-elections (b) right to recall (c) Jury system (d) referendum . And unless we have all these 4 procedures in India , we will lose against USA. And to install these procedures in India, activism is needed. Why? I have given my reply in chap-14 to chap-17 ofhttp://rahulmehta.com/301.htm .The replies run into pages and pages. And I dont have shorter replies
.
And finally, who is a true activist? Well, over 99% of senior activists are IMO frauds. Some examples I give are Duratma Anna and Mahatma Arvind Gandhi. So citizen and true-activists will have to decide who is true activist and who is fraud. I have no litmus test to tell whether an activist is fraud or real. Each citizen and each activist must decide on his own sing his own incomplete information and his own subjective senses.
.
===========
.
chapter-02. Characteristics of TRUE-ACTIVISM
.
I define "x% activist" as person who is willing to spend "x% of time" for activism, and during this time, he will NOT worry about how much gains that hour will fetch him, how much economic damage that time will cause. And in this time, he will work ONLY for the political agenda that he thinks is best and not second best for India. And for that, he is willing to give say "y% of his income" and "z% of his accumulated wealth every year" and so forth.
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So is activist a true activist? That is something a citizen or a fellow activist has to decide on his own using his own
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The activist has to decide the agenda items he will spend time on, and agenda items he will NOT spend time on. It is necessary to decide agenda items he will NOT spend time on, as one has only 24 hours in a day. So if one choses to spend time on item-A , that means, he has less time to spend on item-B. There are some 200 topics for activism in India. One can surely spend two hours in his whole life on all the two hundred topics. But one can NOT spend 1000 hours on each of the 200 topics.
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One argument unacceptable in activism is that --- "I will confine to items which are paying or at least self-paying or sustainable". Because, a large number if items may be very much necessary for India may be completely unpaying and may even cause expenses and zero revenues. It is perfectly fine, if activist confines to activism 4 hours a week and focus on paying normal business activities. But an activist who insists on ignoring all unpaying items, regardless of how necessary they may be for the nation, is a timepass activist only.
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chapter-03. Shortage of activist-hours
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A sad part in activism is that in any country, be India or USA or UK, a very very small % of population will decide to spend more than 4 hours a week to bring political changes in which there is national interest but no personal benefit or no benefit . I take 4 hours a week as one benchmark. One can take any other number.
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The % is small. May be --- 2% or even less. But it is uniform across world.
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So activist-hours are very short supply.
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So a large population will not spend time in activism.And activists' benefit will get divided amongst whole population. And sometimes, benefits may get distributed in form of new opportunities. And the activists who have worked to get these new opportunities may be mentally as well physically exhausted or even handicapped to use these new opportunities. In such, activists will be left in a poor state.
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Unlike soldiers, the activists have no enrolment list in Govt, no uniform and no contracts with Govt. Nor should activists have any contracts with Govt or uniform or any enrolment list in Govt. In such case, they would be Govt employees or Govt contractors and not activist to begin with.
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So whether a person was activist or not will be based on information held by individual crores citizens about who was non activist, who was true activists and who was just a fake activist. Sometimes , information can be local and sometimes it can be state / national level. So there is a proposal to compensate the activists for their efforts and their losses, then citizens need to combine information from citizens and non govt sources, to get an estimate of efforts and their losses. This requires that citizens have to spend time. I repeat ---- this requires that citizens have to spend some time to carry out this activity.
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chapter-04. Betrayal by the Beneficiaries
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Now following are some of the possible outcomes of activists' actions
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1. The activists' time and actions may fail to bring any change in polity, administration, courts, Military etc .
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2. The activists' time and action do bring change in polity / administration / etc, but bring no change in society / economy or worse, bring negative changes.
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3. The activists' time and action do bring change in polity, AND changes they brought in polity also do bring POSITIVE changes in economic / social lives of citizens
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4. In many many cases, even if (3) happens, the citizens will NOT repay the activists for their loss of time, loss of money, loss of mental abilities , loss of limbs, and will not even work to compensate the family members of the dead ones
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(4) is what I call as Betrayal by the Beneficiaries.
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The activist, before he decides to give time and money for activism, MUST be aware of this possibility that they will NOT get anything back.
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In case of (1) , (2) and (3) , there is NO moral reason for citizens to repay the activists. Because activists time and actions brought no positive change in their lives. But in case of (4) , it is immoral for citizens not to pay back. But that happens, and has happened 10s of times in past --- activists do not get paid..
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The political changes activist bring may create economic changes and betterment. The betterment creates a lot of avenues to compete as well as have entertainment. So most citizens take a CONSCIOUS decision NOT to spend time in figuring out which activists caused that betterment and whether the activists are in any need, And most citizens take a CONSCIOUS decision to spend their time in entertainment, career , competition, family etc.
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And activists , unlike soldiers, do not have any contract with citizens, they can ask for renumeration for time they lost, money they lost, mental abilities they lost, limbs they lost or have compensation for family members of dead activists,
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So due to CONSCIOUS decision of citizens, not to spend time to decide which activists need to be compensated, and citizens' decision to spend all the time in new opportunities, the activists losses remain uncompensated.
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Of several examples, a BIG recent example is freedom of India. The freedom came in 1947 because lakhs of activists collided with British, Many died, and many like Mahatma Batukeshwar Dutt. survived, but were in miserable state. Many had lost their limbs (eg soldiers who fought in Azad Hind Fauz). It was only in 1972, Devi Indira Amma started pension for freedom fighters. In 1947, Congress apex leaders such as Jawaharlal Ghazi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Lalbahadur Shashtri etc very well knew that there were 1000s and lakhs of freedom fighters who have lost mental sanity because of years and years of imprisonment and tortures, These 3 leaders and all other leaders also know that many freedom fighters have lost physical health due to age , years of imprisonment , tortures etc. But all apex leaders, including Jansangh MPs and CPI MPs, refused to start any pension type scheme for those freedom fighters. Because if freedom fighters had got economic stability in their lives, then many would have entered politics and cut votes of Congress, Jansangh, CPI.
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So leaders such as Jawaharlal Ghazi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Lalbahadur Shashtri etc had personal selfish reasons on why they didnt start any scheme to support freedom fighters. In 1972, Devi Indira Amma started freedom fighter scheme , because (a) she needed an alibi to cancel kings' privy, and she wanted to kill king's privy because most ex-kings were Jansangh supporters and were anti-coongress (b) she saw that giving economic stability to freedom fighters will NOT decrease congress votes, as most freedom fighters had aged. IOW, there also, it was more real-politik than a genuine care.
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But why did citizens decided to ignore freedom fighters? Why did educated citizens also decided to ignore them. Why did educated citizens, who benefited from these activists , also decided to ignore them? .They had no benefit to get by ignoring them.
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The decision of educated citizens to ignore the miseries of freedom fighters in 1947 and there after was ---- they CONSCIOUSLY decided to allocate all their time for new career opportunities that freedom offered, new avenues for entertainment that came and usual tasks such as family affairs. They CONSCIOUSLY decided NOT to allocate time to know who brought this new opportunities , what cost they had paid and whether they are well or are in misery.
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One example I would cite is of Mahatma Batukeshwar Dutt. He was Mahatma Bhagat Singh's colleague and had thrown bombs in National Assembly aka Parliament in 1929. He was imprisoned for 10 years. (Bhagat Singh was hanged because of he executed Police Chief Sanders.). Mahatma Batukeshwar Dutt was so brilliant that he got admission into one of the best colleges in Punjab in 1920s. Back then, passing metric was sufficient to get a prestigious job of bank manager. And clearing metric and getting admission in college was a great achievement in itself. After 10 years of imprisonment and TB, Dutt in 1950 was in deep misery and pain. He became a vegetable vendor , and failed because he could not compete with other vendors who would do some dishonesty here and there. Business has a simple rule --- if 99 out of 100 businessmen are dishonest, and govt officers dont arrest any of them, then the honest businessman will lose and will have to leave. Dutt got financial assistance from his friends. Mahatma Dutt died in 1964 and was economically very poor. My point was --- Mahatma Dutt was never compensated by citizens for losses he suffered during 1929 - 1947. If Mahatma Batukeshwar Dutt had joined Congress or Jansangh or CPI, and become dirty like them, he could have easily become MLA, MP or even Minister. But he chose to remain committed. He refused to join Congress, Jansangh, CPI etc. Even then, citizens never found time to compensate him.
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This was the fate was 1000s or perhaps lakhs of of freedom fighter.
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Now consider a story you will often hear from a 80 year non-political men who were born in poor family, but got a good job in bank or PSU or govt. The story they would tell will be as
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a. I was born in a very poor family (very right)
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b. I studied hard (very right)
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c. I gave a competitive exam for recruitment (right)
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d I got good score , got the job and came up. (all right starements).
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The part he will REFUSE to cite is --- some 70 years back, most banks , most PSUs and even govt depts used to hire by jaan-pehchaan aka nepotism and favoritism. It was due to efforts of countless activists, that freedom came, the first batch of MPs less corrupt, and institutionalized Recruitment by Written Exams. And it was due to those less corrupt MPs, that Govt decided to create a large number of goods schools and collages , which enabled poor to study.And in fact, it was due to activists efforts that freedom came , and 100s of private / public companies started and 100s of collages started,. Otherwise, British were NOT interested in creating too many industrial units as well as too many collages.
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IOW, it is very much right that the Beneficiary had studied hard, got goods score in written exams etc etc. But 100s of collages came in 1950s , and this was due to sacrifice of activists from 1800-1947 . And the procedure of the "recruitment by written exams" was also product of same sacrifice. The "successful" person did NOT notice all this, He didnt notice because he CONSCIOUSLY decided NOT to spend time in figuring out what brought this opportunities , such as education and competitive exams , to him. .
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And I can give countless more such examples.
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My point here is --- Betrayal by Beneficiaries is common. And it is because activists' efforts often creates new OPPORTUNITIES and new LESS UNFAIR LEGAL PROCEDURES , and may not give DIRECT benefits. And beneficiary has to work to convert these opportunities into benefits. So most beneficiary will always gives 100% credit to their efforts, and will refuse to allocate time needed to decide who lost how much, and how can they be compensated.
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Finally, one question comes ---- if activists' efforts improved everyone's well being, then activists' well being also improved. So why ask more. Because many times, the efforts of activists will ONLY create more opportunities and not create any direct goods. Many activists will be now menatlly and physically spent out forces and will not have any strength left to work on these opportunities.
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So in a away, it is irony. Those who did NOT do activism, and did NOT spend time . money, health etc after activism will be in better shape to use the new opportunities. eg Consider two youngmen in say 1940. Say one decided to join freedom movement and other decided to improve his abilities. The freedom fighter, due to imprisonment and tortures, will be almost half insane in 1947. And so when freedom would bring new business / career opportunities, the person who DID NOT work for freedom will be in better shape to use those opportunities.
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chapter-05. Why many TRUE-activists sellout
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The Betrayal by the Beneficiaries is the more important reason why they sellout.
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The sellout doesnt happen when an activist fails to bring change in polity.Nor does it happen when changes he brings in polity fail to being changes in life. When an activist fails and gets tired, he leaves , starts with some other work, but he doesnt sellout.
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But sellout can happen when activist is betrayed by beneficiaries.
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Now its not the case that each and every activist will sellout. Some like Mahatma Batukeshwar Dutt never sold out. But most after betrayal do sellout.
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The feeling of being betrayed to too much to bear. And being betrayed by whole society is far too difficult, And so the activist, rather, ex-activist, sees nothing wrong in selling out.
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Many sellout to the extent that they see nothing wrong in even becoming agents of foreigners.
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chapter-06. So whats so wrong if committed activists sellout?
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A soldout activist is still seen as committed by most people around him. And so he can now do more damage. And he can be more effective in netralizing other committed and non-soldout activists. IOW, the ex-committed now-soldout activist is more dangerous that army of soldouts who have always been soldouts.
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chapter-07. How to avoid ill effect of Betrayal by the Beneficiaries?.
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Betryal by the Benefits seems unavoidable to me. So my next proposal is to reduce the damage that BBB can cause.
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One proposal I have is that activists should remain parttime activist and never become fulltime activist. That way, he is investing only say 5% of his time, 5% of his income etc in activism. And so when the beneficiaries betray him, he will fell a loss of only 5% . Loss of 5% can be seen as normal bad luck and digested.
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Wont this slow the movement?
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It will. But if an activist is parttime, then he can easily convince other new comers to become partime activist like he is. It is difficult to convince a person to become fulltime, but easier to convince him to become 5%-activist i.e. put 5% of his time / money etc in activism. That way, parttime activism can increase number of activists and thus movement can go on with parttime activists and no fulltime activist.
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And even if the movement is slow, then also it is worth it. Because otherwise, the damage that betray causes to activists is huge. And then the damage that "ex-committed now soldout" ex-activists cause to nation is humongous.
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So when I put all possibilities, my suggestion to all activists is that --- become a parttime activist ONLY and never become fulltime activist.
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chapter-08. A structure to reduce chances of BBB from happening
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I will try to create a company-based structure .to reduce the possibility of BBB and damages it will create. The structure may not work for all activist, but may work for recallists.
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The recallism is specific type of activism, which we at Right to Recall Group are doing. We at Right to Recall Group aim to FORCE PM / CMs / MPs / MLAs etc to print certain law-drafts in Gazette , with or against their wish. Theis wish is immaterial to us. And the ONLY route acceptable to us is --- over 45 crore voters MUST ask MPs / MLAs via SMS and other means to print these law-drafts. If MPs / MLAs print these law-draft without 45 crore voters' SMS, then fine --- we cant stop them anyway. But thats not what our goal is. Our goal is to FIRST convince over 45 crore voters or as high as 75 crore voters to send orders to MPS / MLAs via SMS and other means to print these law-drafts.
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So the biggest task is to INFORM 85 crore voters and some 20 lakh activists about these 100s of law-drafts. And that task involves printing crores of pamphlets and giving 1000s of newspaper advts. To be specific, we need 500 pages per citizen of printed material, and we need 100-200 newspaper advt per reader. The costs will be in Rs 10000 crore to Rs 50000 crore. We will NOT be paying a penny to activists. So that cost for us is zero.
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So by maintaining a careful record of which activists paid for which newspaper advt , we can issue him certain number of shares of a company. And later, he may manage to encash those shares by selling.
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I havent worked out the full details. Some of the details are as
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1. Say I form a company called as Right to Recall Company.
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2. Anyone who gives newspaper advt worth Rs X gets X/100 shares of the company. eg if one has given newspaper advt of Rs 500,000 , then he will get Rs 5000 shares. If 100 activists have each contributed Rs 1000 each, then each will get 10 shares.
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3. The value of share will increase by same % as rupee3 printed by RBI. So if RBI has increased supply of rupee3 by 20% in one year, then next year, activists will get 1 share of Rs 120. So next year, if a person gives advt of Rs 300,000 , then he will get Rs 300,000 / Rs 120 = 2500 shares and not 3000 shares
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4. The activists via RTR-company or otherwise, maintain a record of who gave information of RTR-drafts to whom. i.e. each person who become supporter of RTR-draft has to indicate which RRG-activist or RTR-supporter informed him about that specific drafts. When N supporters inform Right to Recall company that they got information about RTR-drafts from Mr. X , Mr. X will get N/10 shares.
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5. Each RRG-activists who contests election and gets N votes will get N shares. He may need to divide the shares amongst the activists who campaign for him.
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6. I have not been able to think of way to compensate for pamphlets.
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7. Thus Right to Recall company , via process of share allocation and share transfers, maintains the record of monetary , information spreading and electoral progress made by RRG-activists for RTR-drafts
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8. Now if RTR-law-drafts dont come, then shares should, and will remain worthless. And if RTR-law-drafts come, and dont cause benefit to anyone, then also shares should and will remain worthless.
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9. But if RTR-law-drafts do comes, and they do create positive benefit to citizens, then the shareholders of RTR-company can request voters to buy all the shares of the RTR-company and dissolve the company !!
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10. As this point, if voters refuse to pay money value for the shares, then BBB becomes clear. And if voters agree to buy shares, and BBB will reduce , depending on the price of the shares they agree to pay.
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11. And before the final sale , if anyone wishes to exit, then he can sell the shares to the buyer at what price buyer wants, and then the buyer becomes the "contributer"
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I will summarize.
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This method may or need not work for all activism projects. I have designed it specific to RTR-campaign. Here, we have a company called as RTR-company, and gives shares to activists based on (a) money they spent for newspaper advertisement (b) no of supporters they created on FB (c) votes they got. The RTR-company takes no payment for shares !!!
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If RTR-laws dont come, then activists have failed and there is no moral obligations on citizens to pay. If RTR-laws come and citizens see no benefit, then also there is no moral obligations to pay. If RTR-law-drafts come, and they benefit citizens, then only voters have moral, NO LEGAL, binding to pay the RRG-activists. They may pay Rs 0 , they may pay peanuts, they may pay twice the expenses, and they may pay 10 times the expenses.
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If citizens refuse to pay anything or pay properly, then BBB will become clear. I have no remedy. However, it may happen that citizens refuse to spend time, but may agree to give out money to the activists.. If he is dead, the shares will be owned by his relatives and they may get paid. The activists may not get any fame, any recognition, any appreciation, but may get monetarily paid. They should be content with that. The freedom fighters didnt even get a penny for their sacrifices.
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chapter-09. Summary
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The RTR-activists who are spending time, money etc to publicize the RTR-drafts may NOT get any appreciation etc for their work even if drafts comes, and drafts benefit citizens. Just as citizens after 1947 took a CONSCIOUS decision not to spend time in figuring out how to compensate freedom fighters who had become partially or wholly hmentally or physically handicap, the same may happen again. And in such cases, a big fraction of RRG-activists may sellout and then damage to those who didnt sellout as well as nation will be immense.
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So IMO, RRG-activist should remain parttime ONLY. This will reduce damages BBB will cause. And we should a company and share holding structure to keep a TRANSFERABLE / SALEABLE record of contributions. This may reduce possibility and extent of BBB.
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