By Barnes Mawrie
Perhaps one of the most talked about topics during these years of the UPA-2, is “corruption.” This term has become synonymous with our system in India. Anna Hazare and now the AAP are vociferous about the need to root out all forms of corruption. In the run up to the 2014 general election, the BJP is bent on exposing the UPA’s corruption scamdals. However, everyone knows that they are not immune to this national ailment. There is mud-slinging between different political parties and the public is left mystified as to who is more corrupt than the other. Corruption unfortunately has become an inborn sickness of India from which seemingly there is no escape. There are many well-meaning persons who entered politics or civil services with the intention of remaining clean. However, in the course of time they have all been infected by the same virus. When the system is corrupt it is difficult for an honest person to survive for he/she will have to fight a losing battle. However, the question that comes to my mind at this juncture is: who is basically responsible for corruption? Can it be a collective product? When I critically analyze the process of corruption, I realize that corruption is in fact a collective act of commission.
Here are a few examples to prove my assumption. It is a common practice in our country that prior to the election, there are people who approach the candidates for financial help of every kind. Collectively and individually people seek for financial help. When a community/village/organization collectively seeks for MP or MLA schemes for any project meant for common welfare, the process is legal and the question of corruption does not arise at all. However, when groups or individuals do it for their personal interests then corruption becomes an issue. In some places there are people who camp at the candidate’s house for days and weeks having free food and lodging. Candidates of rural constituencies are usually victims of such invasions. This is the reason why a candidate needs to invest a lot of money in any election. At times a candidate has to have recourse to loans etc. At the same time, no candidate would dare to deprive his voters of their requests for that would spell his political doom. It is normal therefore that when a candidate gets elected, he has to recuperate whatever he has spent. Even after election the demands for financial assistance do not cease, nay, they only increase. Thus a politician is motivated to adopt corrupt practices like bribery and siphoning off public money. Evidently if a politician has spent one crore for his election, he feels morally justified to collect five crore when he/she is in power. There are sometimes members of the public who seek personal benefits from their representatives. There are still the so called agents (dalal) who live like parasites on the politicians. They are the ones who benefit the most from politicians by way of direct aid or assignments of public schemes.
Considering that so much money has to be doled out to such individuals, corruption becomes the normal behaviour expected of a politician. As everyone is aware, even at the centre, seats are being bought with crores of rupees by candidates desiring to contest from different parties. Now when these candidates win, do we expect them to shy away from corruption? Will they not by hook or by crook make use of their positions to make up for what they have lost? This is a vicious cycle which seems to have no beginning and no end.
Another example of corruption comes from civil servants. We are fully aware that many government jobs today are bought with big money. There are many instances where an employment seeker (qualified though he/she be) is asked to pay a huge amount of money in exchange for a job. Now such individuals when they secure a job in the government they would naturally have recourse to corrupt practices in order to make up for what they have paid for.
There is another ugly practice which is aggravating corruption. The public has to be blamed for this. How many of our citizens when they want some work to be done urgently by any government officer, offer bribes or “gifts as some conveniently call them?” Many times even the clerks are bribed so that they may pass on the files quickly to the ministers or officers. Citizens who have money often indulge in this kind of corrupt practices. Sometimes even school and college authorities fall victims to these briberies. Admissions are almost sold out to the highest bidders. This is an unjust act on the part of the citizens and it only aggravates corruption in the country. Do we realize that when we bribe a government officer or anyone for that matter, we are only teaching him/her to become corrupt?
There is another example of corruption connected with private institutions like the religious organizations, social service agencies and NGOs. Often when such institutions accept gifts from politicians and businessmen (vehicles, machines, equipments and donations etc) they lose their moral right to speak against corruption. So they become silent witnesses to the corruption of their benefactor-politicians. This is how NGOs sacrifice their principles for the sake of monetary gain and they permit corruption to grow unabated.
Here I see the reason why the Anna Hazare movement urges the citizens never to offer bribes to politicians or civil servants. When a citizen offers bribes he/she is only corroborating in the act of corruption. My conclusion is that “the monsters we have are the monsters we ourselves have created”. So next time when we accuse a politician or civil servant of corruption let us not forget that we might as well have had a hand in it. If we have not exploited the politicians, if we have not invaded their homes, if we have not offered bribes or if we have not accepted gifts, then we have behaved like responsible citizens. If corruption is therefore the result of a collective irresponsibility, it is logical to say that we can root it out only if we act collectively. Both politicians, civil servants and the public have to play their roles with honesty and a great sense of justice. In a country where corruption has become endemic, the only way to end it is by a collective conscious effort. Politicians, bureaucrats and the general public need to act according to the dictates of conscience and not by the impulses of desire.