7 January 2012 - QA 2

If government is corrupt, how can the nation create good governance.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: The government has no personality, it is the people in the government who become corrupt. It is the people who can become incorrupt as well.

See, corruption begins where the sense of belongingness ends. Nobody can be corrupt with people whom they think belong to them. They will not take bribe from their friends and family. They take bribe only from those whom they find are outside their sense of belongingness.
So, corruption and crime, these two things have to be removed, otherwise the government cannot be effective.

Criminal elements in the government is a horrible thing.
Do you know why every party gives tickets to these criminal elements? It is because they have a vote bank. If you, the good people start making your own vote banks, you can dictate to every party, 'If you give tickets to criminal elements, we are not going to vote for you', then no party will dare to give tickets to corrupt people or to the criminal elements in society.
That is why I said, we should all, together, stand up for human values in society, united. Individually we all stand up for values, but we need to stand up being united.
If all good people in Cochin stand up and say, 'We will not allow Cochin to be polluted. We stand for cleanliness in our city', then things start changing.
I feel this is necessary.