Speaking to children at Ranchi yesterday  former President Dr APJ Kalam has said that the Lokpal will only fill the jails. The need for each one of us is to start eradicating corruption from our own homes and it is only in this way that the country will finally get rid of corruption. Accordingly he has advised children to prevent their parents from indulging in corruption.

The statement is surely contrary to the expectations of most people and specially Anna followers who are agitating since long for passing a Janlokpal Bill to appoint a Janlokpal - their version of Lokpal or ombudsman as against Government's Lokpal. No wonder one of the most prominent members of Anna Team, Kiran Bedi, is quick to tweet:

Dr Kalam Sir. Prevailing epidemic of corruption needs deterrent surgeries & contaminated sent to prisons for holistic long-term containment.

What geniuses see and others don't is that there are certain malice which at times affect the whole people with rare exceptions and corruption in recent times has been one of them. So that if  proposed Janlokpal by Anna is to really take the matters of punishing corrupt to their logical end there will hardly remain many outside of jails.

At such times the best remedy is to start the cleansing process from the other side, that is, from within outwards. From within one's self, from within one's homes.

It is keeping such a situation in mind that Mahatma Gandhi is also supposed to have once said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

In fact history is full of such advice from great people.

Jesus's advice "He that is without sin, cast the first stone" also comes in this very category.

It is not to say that corrupt should not be punished. They must be punished but the emphasis should be more on the present and future rather than the past.

As for the past, as an other wise saying goes, let us "let the sleeping dogs lie." Nature has her own ways to balance things for all at the end. No body has ended happily with ill-gotten money. Everybody will learn his lessons sooner or later. 

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