I just read this and was appalled!
Arvind Kejriwal is motivating people not to actually pay their electricity bills?
God save them all.
This suggestion is directly telling people to become CRIMINALS!
What is the legal definition of a Crime? Check this link from which I am producing a para:
Crimes are usually categorized as felonies or misdemeanors based on their nature and the maximum punishment that can be imposed. A felony involves serious misconduct that is punishable by death or by imprisonment for more than one year. Most state criminal laws subdivide felonies into different classes with varying degrees of punishment. Crimes that do not amount to felonies are misdemeanors or violations. A misdemeanor is misconduct for which the law prescribes punishment of no more than one year in prison. Lesser offenses, such as traffic and parking infractions, are often called violations and are considered a part of criminal law.
This is why Arvind Kejriwal is SO WRONG:
– You cannot consume electricity and then NOT PAY for it! That’s a crime!
When you apply for an electricity connection, you AGREE to pay for your consumption! If there is a discrepancy in the bill, there is a method of resolving it. If you don’t like your electricity supplier, change the Company. But you HAVE TO PAY for what has been consumed by you!
How to change your electricity supplier in India?
It’s not easy but it’s not impossible. Check this facebook post that addresses this question. From what I understand, in situations where the supplier cannot be changed, consumers can easily go to court (IF they are being looted/charged obnoxious and unfair prices and get Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission to intervene/ go to consumer court?)
Check this twitter conversation on the same subject:
NOT PAYING your electricity bill for electricity consumed is an Economic CRIME because it’s a breach of the contract you have signed with the electricity Company. The Company has technically ‘lent’ you electricity on CREDIT,to be consumedby you, at a pre-agreed price. You have to pay your dues!
– If the ‘protest’ against whatever grievance Mr. Kejriwal is fighting for, is linked to the highcost of electricity, then the legal and sensible method is to write to the electricity Company and DISCONNECT your connection!! PROTEST by not consuming, and not by Not Paying!!
– The electricity Company has the rights and means to legally recover all the moneys from these people, disconnect their connections, and also blacklist them. I don’t think Arvind Kejriwal realizes but ‘citizen reputation’ is very important and being rapidly shared between institutions. Getting blacklisted for not paying DUES – be it credit cards, bank loans, EMIs and electricity bills is ECONOMIC SUICIDE for any citizen’s long term future!!!
– Finally, I am amazed by Arvind Kejriwal’s statement (see black box in picture) that goes, “We have told them (people), not to be afraid. If the government cuts your connection, get an electrician and get it restored. This is your electricity, not the government’s.”
Honestly, I have no words to describe the interpretation of this sentence. Simply put, it’s misleading, deceiving, illegal and criminal in intent.
This leads to many, many, illegal insinuations. Farmers can stop paying loans, businessmen can easily default on taxes (Why pay taxes? They are too high!!), so on and so forth. Essentially this is a PUBLIC CALL FOR ANARCHY.
I rest my case. Not paying for what you have used is plain, simple cheating. And cheating being encouraged by a politician who wears a Gandhi Cap is PORNOGRAPHY.
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and this is the HUMILITY of the reps of Arvind Kejriwal!
A ‘message’ arrives in my FB. I actually ask the person to post on this article so that I CAN PROMOTE the view – instead, I am told that I am A TOOL!!!
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You can read the compilation of my articles on
AAP, Arvind Kejriwal & Anna Hazare in AAP the BIG Fail
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Siddhartha Ahluwalia
Awesome Alok, this post is hilarious and enlightening.
Less corrupt politician doesn’t means that he is more sensible.
Sanchita Dutta
i m absolutely against not paying bills. confrontation of this kind will eventually not yield anything good.
though in that conversation, i found akash madnani comparatively more sober, restrained and mature…
this is ofcourse my personal observation from what i just read. if this conversation is in public domain, fine, but if it was private chat between two individuals, making it public here again wud not be in good taste… though there is a big if… i really dont know if its public or private
Sanchita Dutta
i m not able to edit my comments even when i m trying it within the 15 minute window 🙁
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
why should any conversation between strangers be ‘private’, specifically when its not ‘personal’?
i’m confused??!!
Sanchita Dutta
the very idea of not paying bills is bad…
confrontations of any type should be avoided, esp if it escalates to calling each other things which they do not like.. if there is an option or alternative to it, it should be chosen…
uncompletely different but somewhat related… i have been telling my 6 yr old boy for many years that if u get into a situation of altercation or fight, just move or run away from it.. one two occasions, once by a girl of same age and another girl of just 4 years old, he was “beaten” by both of them…
he did come home back and proudly said, ” today i have been thrashed by so an so, i told my friend to run away and took all the thrashing myself” .. after a little first aid, he was back playing…
point i m making, if there is a choice to avoid confrontation, even if it comes at a cost of a little compromise (or thrashing in this case), i think it is worth it… m convinced bout it, dont know if its right approach. perhaps time will tell…
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
No. I dont agree.
LOGICAL confrontation, debate, argument and any non-violent disagreement should be welcomed.
Anything ‘bottled’ up leads to perversion.
Trust me on that.
Thats why the “Great Debate” is such a successful format. That’s whats makes the BEST minds AGREE to DISAGREE….
Never RUN – and you know why? Because you can NEVER HIDE…
Sagar Yadav
It is easy to create monopoly over an area in industries centered around services like electricity distribution, road transportation, railways etc. The whole idea of privatization of such services means long term exploitation of the population that is dependent upon them. Such services should be community driven and while nobody should be taken for granted, serving inflated bills of such basic services to consumers is a crime in itself.
Laws are meant to be modified and updated from time to time. Let us assume a case where a person kills another person while defending his own life from a murderous attack. This is not a crime in the law.
Here the consumer is retaliating to the service provider by not paying bills, where all other means have failed to stop their harassment.
Let me conclude with a holistic perspective. This kind of behavior signifies failure of law to protect the consumers and consumers respond by taking their fight to the companies. They do not have the option of not consuming the service as the kind of service being talked about here is one of the basic services upon which modern lifestyle is dependent upon. What could have been a better option however would have been to wait for elections and bring to government the ones that are believed to be in sync with the demands of these consumers. AAP might be using this protest as a tool of publicity to get the message across to population that their party will help consumers get fair deal on such services. This tool of publicity is a unique one adapted by AAP when organized media has failed to give them enough thought space lately. A TV channel starts with a minimum investment of Rs 100 crore (ask Mahesh) and needs to renew it’s license which is totally in the hands of government. Even more than carrot, a stick which can reach your flesh works. The carrot of TRP does not work when the stick of license regime comes into strict enforcement.
There is a funny aspect of democracy itself, that is, if 51 percent people decide that the rest 49 percent should be slaves to them, there is almost nothing that shall stop them. There is nothing in a democracy that can criminalize what the majority wants.
Mostly revolutions start with rebellion. Rebels rarely adhere to the status quo.
Milind Katti
All the revolutions start with breaking the law because the archaic law/system is what they intend to change. When the black lady refused to make space for the white in a bus, she broke the law & was arrested. But that small incident of bravery lead to huge serge of black Americans rising up against racism. Eventually laws were changed with equal status to blacks & whites.
Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘civil disobedience’ was actually asking Indians to break the laws that British enforced.
Arvind Kejriwal is attempting to cause such revolution to root out corruption & Govt apathy
Anubhav Goel
Alok, I pity people like you, or even People like me, who know nothing but to criticize doers like Kejriwal. I am not an AAP member, am sitting 1000s of miles from India, in NZ enjoying my life. But here is a man who took the path seldom taken by an IITian, or IRS officer. When British were in power, slavery was the law, then what changed? Few years ago gay marriage was crime under law in a lot of countries, now what has changed – dont tell me there were no gays then, and who were there, were criminals. Desperate times need desperate measures. Today, corruption is law in India. Yes, law. But you will not agree, you live in a world where govt and purchase managers in private cos are clean. Why I pick private cos – yes corruption is all pervasive now. Corruption jacks up prices as well – not only in India but other countries as well. In Delhi, you might know that you cannot switch distributors – when the sector was privatised the two private cos were allocated specific regions. Even if region allocation was avoided then, perfect competition would have been difficult coz cartelization is quite easy with two players. Your solutions, don’t use power – great! Is that practical? Or put a loop on a live wire and steal electricity? Yes, not paying is criminal. But that might get us a solution, and a small win for Kejriwal who has a larger agenda. This man got us RTI, and govt is struggling with that now, why? Yes, it is an overhead to provide information. But then why killings over RTI, is it that big an overhead – that govt officer decides to hire goons to kills the RTI applicant. Show some trust in him, or have your very own unique activism project or why the trouble, dont do anything. Pick up another activist after Kejriwal has long disappeared into oblivion and criticize after thats what an average Indian does really well.
Abhishek Bharadwaj
It is not about Crime, it is about Civil Disobedience. Mahatma Gandhi broke Salt Law which too was a crime. But when things go really worse, you have to adopt to such practices to restore fairness in the Governance. Dont tell me that you can change things by changing Government or by protesting on Jantar Mantar. You cannot always do the Right thing in Right way.
And it is not possible to switch Power Supplier everywhere. The Power is still in the hands of Electricity Boards. And to my opinion, the prices of essential things like domestic power must be regulated. Else it would slip away from the access of common man.
Rohit Thomas Koshy
When there is a dispute with a credit card company on wrong / inflated charges, we are advised to first pay the bill and then lodge the complaint. Else, our credit history with CIBIL gets messed up big time. Sad that a party with former bankers and entrepreneurs are not able to think through the repercussions of their actions before suggesting to the gullible public.