Protesting arrest of Anna Hazare and Supporting his fast for JanLokPal

To,
Dr. Manmohan Singh August 16th 2011
Prime Minister of India
7 Race Course Road, New Delhi
(Through the Indian Consulate General, Various Locations around the world)

Subject : Protesting arrest of Anna Hazare and Supporting JanLokPal Bill

Dear Dr Singh,

Please consider this as the voice of all Indians professionals living and working all over the world. Every day, we see scams in India that involve colossal looting of national wealth for private benefit. Every day, we hear of and experience corruption in our daily lives where we have to pay bribes to at the airport to get into our country, to get a drivers license, register a property, get a permit, register an adoption etc. and then on the flip side see the state of our government schools and infrastructure which are crumbling due to the funds being siphoned off at different levels before it can reach anybody at the ground level. The shocking aspect to this is that there is no way for the common man to raise his voice or try to stop this from happening. No action can be realistically initiated and none is taken against the corrupt as the system is tuned to support corruption. The government is ignoring this problem and is attempting an eyewash by the introduction of the Government Lokpal bill which does little if anything to curb corruption and does not take a comprehensive look at all the areas that need to be addressed like corruption in the judiciary, corruption in the state government apparatus and corruption in civil services.

Common citizens feel helpless and powerless to do anything about this. Corruption is not only harming the country, it is also destroying our country's reputation abroad. We feel ashamed that our country is in the limelight for all the wrong reasons like scams, corruption, bribery etc. It's a shame that that the progress of our great country is hampered by this deadweight of corruption around her ankles.

As patriotic Indians, we are all part of the India Against Corruption movement to create a stronger law which will act as a deterrent against corruption. We strongly support this movement and the "Jan Lokpal" bill, which we think can be a very effective tool to prevent corruption in our country.

We are supporting Anna Hazare and the leaders of this movement in their indefinite fast to get the Jan Lokpal bill introduced in parliament and implemented by the government. We strongly condemn the unconstitutional and undemocratic arrest of Anna Hazare and common citizens in India today and demand that our nation be restored to a true democracy where the voice of the people is heard and acted upon.

We hope and expect that you will heed the cries of the nation and be seen as the leader who not only freed India from economic stagnation in the 90s, but also as the leader who freed India for good from corruption. We hope government will take a serious look at the Jan Lokpal bill and implement it as soon as possible without procrastination.

Yours sincerely,
Non Resident Indians