By Banshaikupar L Mawlong
With the 16th General Election to the House of the People around the corner, messiahs of the country -politicians, the media, the intellectuals and pundits not to forget the ordinary folks, are crying hoarse about corruption. India is now shamed to the extent that it ranks 94th among the 177 countries listed in the corruption index ranking released by Transparency International on December 2013. While it is an indisputable fact that the India is steeped in corruption at all levels of administration and while there have been more debates and questions on the problems of corruption, the answers are few and scattered.
Our emotion rich populace has forgotten what it is to be corrupt, and what it means to not be corrupt. In order to have a debate or for that matter a progressive remedy, we need to have a clear idea of what is being debated. The present debate never saw any attempt to define corruption; there was little moral reflection about where each of us stood ourselves, our own crooked timber. Politicians are not demi-gods. Like any of us, they are ordinary humans; they like us are also corrupt and dishonest. While we point one finger at the politicians, we should be wise enough to introspect that four the fingers are pointing back at us.
The problem of our society and the woe of our people is that we are so proud to be known as an emotional people. We like to think that we are different from the West because we have hearts and souls. But we only feel; we don’t think. We have a heart not a brain. In short, we are fakes. Our preferred response to everything around us, whether its political issues, social and economic problems is ‘ from the heart’. When we want to appreciate something we say, “I had tears in my eyes. What can I say? I have no words.” We feel that unless we have felt emotionally overwhelmed, we haven’t lived. Being emotional then becomes a way of avoiding debate. We don’t articulate our emotions. We are simply moved.
As always, how can we not be moved by the curse that corruption has brought to our country? Underdevelopment replaces development, communalism gets the best of secularism, the spirit of brotherhood and tolerance gets hammered for a six by poison of intolerance and hatred and last but not the least our temples of democracy are no longer a law-making body but a wrestling arena and a strip club. Such is the sorry state of affairs in the country at the moment. I would like to address two questions in this write-up – Firstly, what it means to be corrupt? And who is responsible?
While everyone is screaming at the top of their lungs against the misdeeds of corruption by our netas, rarely do we ask ourselves the basic fundamental question – Are we also corrupt? We cry wolf in the dark. But our country is a democracy so everyone has a right to an opinion. We have forgotten what it is to be corrupt, and what it means to not be corrupt. But how can we remember? We only feel. We believe we can and will bring about change not by exercising reason but through finely calibrated emotional excesses. Every issue has, as always, reduced the debate to the favourite ‘ heart’ issues, more with brawn than brains. Here come our saviours, our messiahs to preach righteousness, and condemn those who are in love corruption. They promise us the remedy in one tube of herbal toothpaste.
But I am sceptical, and I’m not particularly emotional. I have been intrigued by the spectacle of my countrymen being carried away by the sounds of their own voices. So I hover above this sea of humanity and try to find out the answers to the question- what is meant to be corrupt? This is what I find. There is a schoolteacher who doesn’t do any teaching in school so students come to her for tuitions. She doesn’t declare her tuition income to the government but here she is screaming herself hoarse about corruption. Here is a government servant who is never on time for work but always on the dot leaving her duty. And here’s the doctor who sends his patient for a battery of unnecessary tests, and prescribes unnecessary medication, which you can buy only from the chemist inside his own nursing home. And here’s a pastor who uses his ‘holy’ position to get his daughters admitted to institutions run by the church. From the cradle to the grave, he’s got it all sorted. He deserves the good life.
And then here are the excise and custom duty officers who collect ‘legal kickbacks’ from liquor shops, no explanation offered. Here’s the auto rickshaw driver, and the cab driver, who charge the passengers beyond the prescribed limit and pocket the ‘black earning’ for himself. Oh, and there’s the authorised service centre guy and his mechanic who put fake parts in your car. Don’t forget the churches who establish educational institutions and hospitals for the poor to the extent that the poor can’t afford their services at all. Wow! That’s an achievement. And there’s the Church Elder who is a Government contractor who constructs a road which couldn’t last a summer. And there is the NGO secretary who mops up thousands of euros worth of funding from international donors and has nothing to show for it. There’s the academic who pulled strings to get his daughter a scholarship to a university in the US. And there are the church elders, educated youth, respected citizens, who distribute money and alcohol during the election feasts. And there’s the student – India’s future, who has used a fake sports certificate to get into university.
The list goes on. We are all there, teachers, government servants, Civil society and NGOs activist, students, mechanics, auto drivers and businessmen, we are all there to fight big ticket corruption, but only the corruption of the government. We have forgotten about our own deviousness, and why not, for there are bigger issues at hand: the Commonwealth Games, the 2G scam, Adarsh Scam, The Coalgate Scam,etc. What we have forgotten about in our phoney zealousness is the dirt under our own fingernails. Politicians are corrupt but they are not the only ones. This is a society, or for that matter a government, of the corrupt, by the corrupt and for the corrupt. With every passing election, democracy has become a farce. I have now started feeling sorry for politicians. And that, in our country, is no mean achievement.
Now another intriguing question- who is to be held responsible? Deducing this equation of responsibility seems to be an infinite solution. While the political solution offered may seem infinite, we do have one solution. Corrupt as we are, we are all responsible for this curse that corruption has inflicted upon us all. Everything begins at home and so does corruption. We have created a society in our corrupt image, elected a government as corrupt as we ourselves are and so are our churches and educational institutions. Our morally corrupt populace has successfully implanted a politically corrupt society. I’m going to put my dancing pen to a stop by this well-known adage- Change should come with me. We must learn that until we change ourselves, we cannot change others, let alone fight the menace of corruption. Believe me, I say this straight from the heart.
(The author is Asst. Prof. Union Christian College)