1. If an employer does not give any instructions to his employee, whose fault is it ? Fault of employer or fault of employee ?
Answer is obvious. If the employer does not give instructions and the employee did work on his own, the employee cannot be blamed. But if the employer gave full instructions and if the employee did not follow them properly even though the instructions could be followed, the employee can be blamed.
Similarly, if majority of the Citizen-voters of an area did not display publicly appropriate instructions for their MP, MLAs, Corporators etc., representatives with their Voter number, then citizens are to be blamed and not the representatives.
If the majority Citizens displayed the instructions on internet along with their Voter ID via SMS, twitter or on a plain paper or on excel sheet, in a citizen-verifiable manner and those instructions can be followed and still the representative did not execute those instructions nor gave any reason why those instructions should not be carried out, the representative will be exposed in public with proof.
2. Methods which are usually used today by Citizens to communicate with their representatives and vice versa are not citizen-verifiable or authentic and so fail to give results
So, if you are the MP, MLA, Corporator or the chosen representative of your area, how will you and all other citizens come to know what the citizens of the area want you to do ? How will you and other citizens know which laws and systems the Citizens want ? After all, your time is limited.
Let us see some ways which are being employed today for communication between citizens and their representatives.
Many parties and candidates claim that after winning, they will work for listening problems of the society and try to solve them. And they even give a grievance email id, grievance phone, sms number or address.
But the truth is `Your MP cannot hear you, Your MP can only count you.`
Yes, you read it correct - `Your MP cannot hear you, Your MP can only count you.` . Here MP means your MP, MLA, Corporator etc. public servant. Let us see how this statement is true.
Say each voter desires that MP should listen to him for 5 minutes. Now MP has 17 lakh voters and even 25% voters speak for 5 minutes each, it is 17 lakh * 25/100 * 5 minutes = about 21 lakh minutes . And even if MP spends 10 hours a day listening, then also it would take him over 8 years to 9 years !!! In Other Words, it is materially impossible for an MP to "hear" your speech or read your letter or read your sms. And it is impossible for PM. Even corporator who has 1 lakh voters won`t be able to hear voters below him.
If elite want to put their views before public, then they can do it easily via their connections in media but if public wants to put their demands in front of the administration, then they are forced to use unorganized methods like Anshan-dharna, signature campaign, memorandum, blocking roadways, sloganeering, emails, Online Petition etc. But all these methods do not generate any citizen-verifiable proof, meaning there is no proof of support or oppose counts for a specific issue which other citizens can themselves contact and cross-verify. Since these methods are not citizen-verifiable, these methods are not reliable and citizens or officials cannot make any definite conclusions based on these.While honest officials are unable to work according to what the citizen-voters want, dishonest officials easily escape by saying that `The support signatures etc. are not authentic.` or `We will look into matter. Right now, we are working on very important issues.`
In government sites like pgportal.gov.in, citizens have no option to display their complaints, opinions etc. along with their Voter ID number and due to this other citizens cannot know whether the complaint filer is a genuine person or fake.
In some other grievance systems given by Governments, you cannot see your own complaint without logging in. Thus, if the Government officials do not take any suitable action, you cannot even show to other citizens in a verifiable manner the complaint and facts you have submitted.
Methods like email, signature campaign, online petition etc. , are not citizen-verifiable and using them, citizens are unable to reach their voice properly to the representatives.
If Email fails, we cannot know reason for that and we cannot know whether the person whom we sent the email has read the email or not.
Please note that instructions sent to MP via email are useless because email IDs can`t be linked with voter number, fake email ids can be created, email can be spoofed etc.
3. Making Decentralized, Groupable, Citizen-Verifiable systems is the solution
So, what is the solution?
Solution is that until Right to Recall, TCP media portal etc. laws come, activists, election candidates and Voters should take one or more of the following steps for Decentralized, Groupable, Citizen-Verifiable systems for Voters of their district or area -
Step 1) Non-Public Opinion Server Decentralized, Citizen-Verifiable methods
The voters can give their SMS containing Voter number and their demand to a person they trust or give their Voter numbers and their demand on piece of paper and ask the person they trust to share it on internet on an excel sheet. If the person cannot put the demands and Voter numbers on excel sheet, at least he / she should put the photo of the paper containing the data on internet so that any other citizen can put that data on excel sheet. In this way, this Public information in form of excel sheets can be gathered by anyone and easily merged.
A decentralized, groupable, citizen-verifiable, opinion displaying system, prevents movement from dying even if activist sells out or stops work
This system is a decentralized one. Because many activists can independently collect such Voter number support and put it on excel sheet, upload and share on internet. Say 10 activists in an area collect average 10,000 voter number support and put it on an excel sheet and share it on internet. Now, other activists can gather these excel sheets, remove the duplicates and merge the data. So, this method is groupable also. Even if the candidates and activists sell out or stop working for promoting good pro-common drafts, the data and movement will not die if drafts and data are in public domain. Other activists can start further work of collecting voter number support from 1,00,001 and not start from 0. And the Voter number support will grow until the aim is achieved. After getting sufficient numbers of Voter number support, the demand or pro-common drafts will be implemented.
"Decentralized" means that over which others cannot control. The data of these sites is public, which anyone can download and can share it and spread it. No one can suppress that data.
This is like putting a post, wherein the post putter can remove their posts, but anyone can download or copy paste the post. So, it is not possible to suppress things easily once they are in public domain. And since this data has contact info like address, Voter number, other citizens can contact sample of the Voter numbers and cross-verify the data and decide whether the data is true or false.
Step 2) `Voter number Public Twitter/SMS Opinion server` can be started by Voters/Activists for voters of their area
Activists / Voters can start for their area `Voter number Public Twitter/SMS Opinion server` like count.recallbytweet.com and like this website.
The activists can start such a system by spending only Rs. 1000 initially and make this within a short time. Later every month about Rs. 250 has to be spent. No special technical knowledge is needed to run the system. Anyone, with some effort can easily learn the system and has to spend only 2 hours per week initially to manage the system.
Those voters who have internet, they should open a twitter account and put their Voter number or address in their twitter profile if possible. And the voters should send tweet to @pmoindia or CM of their state along with hash tag and the link containing their demand. This is a "decentralized" method in which no one has any kind of control.
Step 3) `Voter number Public Twitter/SMS Opinion server` can be started by Public Servants / election candidates for voters of their area
Until T.C.P, Right to Recall, etc. proposed Gazettes are not printed, voters should ask their Public Servants via tweet etc. to make a `Voter number Public Opinion Server` for the voters of his area wherein voters can register themselves with their voter number and mobile and display their opinions sent via tweet, SMS along with their Voter number.
Also, any election candidate, spending Rs. 250 per month and giving 2 hours per week can make such a `Voter number Public SMS server`. If the election candidate cannot do even this much, then he must write in his election manifesto that due to lack of funds and time, he cannot make such a Public SMS server. That election candidate should give a Public mobile number in manifesto, using which voters can give their opinions along with Voter number via SMS etc. for pro-common laws or any other demand, and the activist should display and share the Voter number opinions for an issue on internet on an excel sheet.
An advantage of `Voter number Public SMS server` is that anyone can change their opinion by sending SMS again or can hide the data from being displayed publicly. This is the reason, this procedure cannot be suppressed by means of money, gangster power or media power.
4. Until TCP, Right to Recall laws etc. pro-common laws do not come, Decentralized, Citizen-verifiable systems can reduce corruption and crime in an area
When Voter number support or opposition for an issue or person is displayed publicly, on internet on an excel sheet which anyone can download, it becomes difficult for the information given on it like copy of any statement, evidence, complaint etc. to be suppressed since gangster etc. cannot possibly know who downloaded info and who distributed it as pamphlets. Since evidence is not suppressed, crime and corruption reduces in the area. Citizens using these citizen-verifiable methods can remove/replace their inefficient representatives via mass pressure and due to threat of being replaced, the representatives improve their work.
5. Truth is that there is no guarantee that any person - even those who are promoting pro-common laws via fighting elections, will not make U-turn on their promises and work after winning elections
In 2012 Delhi local elections, when voters were asked to vote for the candidate promoting Right to Recall, the voters asked "What is guarantee that you will also not change after winning when big shots have done such U-turn on their promises after winning elections ? You are saying that we need Right to Recall since people improve their behavior if they have fear of being removed. But if Right to recll law is not there and public servant has no fear of being removed, you may even stop promoting Right to Recall law after winning elextions. Then, why should we vote for you ?"
The truth is that there is no guarantee that after elections, any person in this Kaliyug - Yes, any person - will be able to fulfil his promises. Any person, after winning election, can change behavior and backtrack from their work and promises. There is much possibility that after winning election, a person can make a U-turn or can be suppressed or can be killed. Just fighting elections promoting good laws is not a guarantee that the person will not change after winning elections. If this was the case, what would be the use of Right to Recall law ? We would have just chosen people who promote good law-drafts.
Fighting elections without FIRST having a Recall system by which citizens can use mass pressure to replace their representatives is not only time waste but very harmful to the society.
Most of candidates after elections backtrack from their work / promises or are suppressed. So, the supporters who gave their money and time for campaigning for these candidates and wasted their money and time, have to start from Zero or minus. In this way, in today`s elections, only a few people have control over election and only a few people are highlighted and emerge from elections - the name and contact of the supporters who campaigned during elections is nowhere to be seen. That is why, fighting elections and promoting an issue via elections without system for citizens to recall via mass pressure is a centralized system - meaning it will result in only a few people control the show.
6. In absence of a citizen-verifiable system, sending opinions via SMS or tweet and not counting them will lead to endless, in-air discussions and time waste and people lose interest in mass-movement and pro-common laws and movement becomes centralized
In 2012, the candidates fighting on issue of Right to Recall and other pro-common law-drafts did promise that if majority citizens ask them to resign, they will resign. But these candidates did not give any method by which citizens could cross-verify the number of citizens who were happy or not happy with their work.
In the absence of a citizen-verifiable procedure, a person who is supporter of a public servant, can claim that only a few hundred people, who are from the Opposition, they only are asking for resignation. And other persons, who are opposing the Public servant, they will claim that thousands-lakhs are demanding resignation. And result will be that, there will be two sides. And result will be that, there will be two sides who will engage in , in-air , time-wasting, endless discussions. And the people will no longer take interest in mass-movement and pro-common laws.
If there is no mechanism for grouping the Voter number support, most activists tend to follow a few for fear of breaking and decrease of strength of group. As a result, movement becomes centralized
Also, these Citizen-Verifiable systems force the bad representatives to improve their behavior for fear of being expelled via mass pressure. In this way, these Citizen-Verifiable systems can act as a `Right to Recall` system until `Right to Recall` etc. laws come.
7. So, now activists and Voters have to decide - whether they would like to do their duty by displaying Citizen-Verifiable instructions for representatives in public for the representatives to work properly
If the answer to this is YES, that the activists / Voters should do their duty by displaying Citizen-Verifiable instructions for representatives in public for the representatives to work properly, then activists, election candidates and Voters are requested to take one or more of steps for people of their district or smaller area which were mentioned before.
Further reading - `Voter number Public Opinion Server` - Decentralized, Citizen-verifiable systems can reduce corruption and crime in an area
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