Enough with the pointing. It's time to look at the mirror.

I've been waiting to make this post since 26/11 but I didn't 'coz I didn't want to jump to conclusions. I wanted to hear, read and see the reaction of people on TV, on the web and wherever the heck else before I posted what follows. 26/11 was a disaster, no doubt about it. The NSG and the likes did a great job, although they arrived late, real late. But that's not the point here. The point here, for me, is the finger pointing and what-the-fuck else not. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is blaming either the government, or the intelligence services or our neighbours to the west. I say, blame yourself.
India has 54 Million PAN card holders and 31.5 Million tax payers (as per July 2007). India has a population of over a Billion people, of which about 400 Million are below the poverty line. What about the ones that aren't? Well, a whole lot are above the poverty line but don't make enough money to feed themselves, much less to pay taxes. That's the big picture. Come down to ground level and look at the reality and how it effects everything. All around you, I assure you, are people who evade taxes, show false cash outflows and inflows, just to pay lesser taxes. And this constitutes a large amount of their black money. From what I've observed, every shopkeeper, from the kirana store guy to the designer store lady, have a Kabootar, or fake, bill book. Bills are cut on that book because they don't report it and hence, don't have to pay taxes on the sales made on those bills. The immediate benefit is to the seller and his/her supplier as both successfully evade taxes. It has to match up somewhere, but it doesn't. That's problem number 1 at the micro level. Number 2 is piracy. The best of us download and buy pirated music, movies, softwares and videos. What do you think that adds to the economy? NOTHING! The pirated copies are made by whoeverthefuck but what matters is that the sale of a movie, album or software adds certain value to the economy as it is a) legitimate and b) Tax paid. So, this amount that the government gets from each sale, it doesn't. This essentially is a useless activity for the government as its getting nothing out of the millions of tracks, videos and software's that are downloaded in the country every hour. Had they been bought legally, the government would have been happy because they'd get money on every purchase. The same stands true for other commodities as well, and you don't need a whole lot of imagination to figure out what all (btw the computer you're using right now, did u buy it off the grey market? The OS maybe?).
So for personal gains, we're screwing up the economy, and we're expecting India to shine because your God will do something for you? ehh NO! The government uses tax revenue to fund the building of our roads, training of our defence forces, and every other public service. When we don't do our bit and pay our taxes like we're supposed to, we take the life out of the economy, paisa by paisa.
Sure the government also has its shortfalls, corruption and tax rates to name a few. If people started paying taxes, the government will start getting more money and would ideally reduce the tax rates by some percentage since more money will come in anyway as the aggregate revenue will be divided among a larger number of people. Look around you, especially people in bigger cities, and see what all the government has done with the money it receives from the 31.5 Million tax payers and the state and central taxes. The only reason that the government charges VAT, property tax and what else not is because there just isn't enough money coming in through the direct tax route to fund its public services! You and I may evade taxes because the road outside our houses is broken or because fuel prices went up by Rs. 2. Whatever our reasons may be, they don't justify what we've been doing for so, so long. And you know, it is our fault. We've turned into what we are because of numerous reasons, but it doesn't justify us not changing now. It simply says that you don't give a flying sparrows feather about your country.
Imagine if everyone did everything legitimately, the government would have more revenue to buy better equipment for the army, build more roads, pay for public services and what not. Sure corruption will still be there, just like it is in the best of countries. But the point is that the effects of simply paying your god damn taxes honestly would make a huge impact simply because if more funds are allocated to public services and defence services, we WILL get better results, and we WILL be moving faster. How long can they keep fudging their books and not show results? They WILL have to allocate them somewhere and the results will bloody well be visible all around us.
If we all start contributing more toward the economy and less towards grey market economics and black money market, we can make a difference. If we pay our taxes, If we buy our commodities legitimately, If we just do this much, we CAN make a difference. Because if we do this bit, the government can spend more money on defence services, more money on intelligence services and provide better training and equipment to public servants. With all that, we can perhaps avoid another 26/11. If not, well, keep dreaming, and as far as India shining goes, not today, tomorrow, or even 2020.