Long time ago I started to read Sholokhov’s magnum opus And Quiet Flows the Don but some how did not quite finish reading despite its wonderful flow. I guess, without any basis, it tries to summarize that life in a society goes on more or less smoothly despite all the nature and man-made calamities and strong undercurrents which erode the very base on which our life depends. Particularly we Indians enjoy serene life oblivious of mega multi-trillion rupee scams, floods, earth-quakes, daily bandhs and so on. It is very simple to explain some of them: our knowledge of number theory being very peripheral, it is difficult to differentiate the gravity of a 13-digit scam from a 3-digit one. The difference appears to be insignificant. Thus, our life flows quietly!
Whistle-blowers are, positively, a menace to any society. They try to create storm by some revelation and end with a whimper. Not very long ago GOI made a minor mistake of bringing in RTI Act and made a major blunder of giving wide publicity to it. This gave birth to self styled Rights-Activists who started seeking information on anything and everything. This hampers the smooth administration we are accustomed to.
Mother Nature has solution to anything which disturbs its equilibrium. Thus all whistle-blowers and rights-activists meet untimely death sooner than later. Some may say it serves them RIGHT!
It is your Tarantula’s ardent wish to develop a comprehensive database on these two classes of anti-governmental elements and the modality of their untimely death and based on it develop a mathematical model to forecast the number of hours they can hope to survive from the time they blow whistle or file RTI petition, as the case may be. Such a scientific free web-based tool, it is hoped, should be useful to future whistle-blowers/RTI-activists in planning to live their residual life more meaningfully.
There is a brighter side to this, though. As per prevailing rules of life insurance policies, if a holder commits suicide within one year of taking a life policy, it is treated as exclusion and his nominees do not get even a rupee. To circumvent this denial problem, one can blow a whistle (or file an RTI petition) after taking the life policy. Insurer will settle claim very soon even though blowing whistle or filing RTI petition is, by itself, an act of suicide.
