Curious Case of Corruption

There may be a debate on whether corruption is indeed the most dangerous threat to our nation or not, but there can simply be no debate about the fact that no other threat can materialize without help of corruption. Few days back, I was chatting with a friend. When we were talking about the ongoing general election, he asked me, “What do you think? Why do we have so much corruption?” After much deliberation on various topics, we settled on some points on which we both agreed. I wish to document that conversation through this article.

The issue with rampant corruption that we face today is fueled by multiple issues and causes. The mistake we (Government and citizens in general) all are doing is; looking at corruption through same old pair of lenses. Though it is true that corruption of any kind should not be tolerated, but trying to handle all kinds of corruption in same way might not prove to be a good idea in the long run, as it won't be sustainable. To understand this better, let us categorize corruption based on its origin.
We are well aware about the first type of corruption; that is a person filling up his coffers by looting public money. Fixing government bid processes, leasing out public land to big industrial houses for meager amounts, selling public property like spectrum, coal blocks, and gas blocks all come under Greed based Corruption. The only way to check this menace is by legislating strong anti-corruption law and enforcing it swiftly. We all are more or less already aware about this type of corruption. Moving on to the next type of corruption which, I feel, has more wide reach and which affects our day-today life in a more profound way.

Let us take a simple example from our daily life, getting a travel ticket from city X to city Y. There are 20 odd trains running between these two cities, each having around 18 coaches and each coach having 72 berths for passengers. I will skip the mathematics here, but I hope by now you have calculated the number of passengers which our system can support. We do not need to apply any rocket science to understand that the main culprit is the poor infrastructure, which force us (yes, you and me) to bribe a railway official for a paltry sum of 500-1000. I believe, here we (the passenger and the Railway ticket checker) are not looting the public money or killing someone to fill our coffers by swindling government contracts, but we are just making a compromise with the poor standard of infrastructure we have even after half a century after gaining independence (oh! that reminds me, weren’t the public services much better under British Raj?). The bottom line is; if you have more demand and less supply, then this type of corruption is bound to happen, which I feel can be aptly named as Need based Corruption.

We have a shortage of supply in traveling, water, electricity, and every other public service that we can think of; still most of these commodities operate through state machinery, whose performance is hidden by none. The frustrating paradox here is the fact that, we (middle class ordinary citizen of India) earn and thrive on the well-known and well acknowledged concept of capitalism, where we want better services and are ready to pay for it. But, we are at the same time expected to be utopian and socialistic to the core when it comes to availing public services. Why on earth, would a hard working salaried person wait for a railway ticket that will never reach him through legal means, when he can get the desired service through illegal means? For reasons obvious you can't justify one person's need to travel as more urgent than other (thanks to our forefathers that we are not living in a communist state), the only solution is have more seats available to passengers at reasonable costs and services.

Like a simple railway berth, there are many things which we need to lead a healthy and happy life. We may/can check the Greed based corruption through legislation and laws. But, if we seriously wish to remove the Need based corruption, then we need to have our complete focus on growth of infrastructure and economy or simply choosing a government which features this quality. Of course, we all have to be an integral part of this journey, just assuming that one superman will emancipate us all of all our sorrows and problems will not work.

Edit: I found this very informative and enlightening blog by Mr. Alex Paul Menon, IAS


Feel free to share your experience with corruption, where you have felt that it could have been avoided if we had enough for all.

Jai Hind,
Abhinav

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India : The Art of Surviving

"If not continuous water supply, at least get us a water tanker once in a day", pleads an old man while talking to government officials while they are on their visit to...wait a minute, not a remote area, but a well to do colony in a tier 1 city of urban India.

Surviving in India is not just a luxury, but an art, which everyone masters overtime.
We don’t have value based education; we are never taught to explore anything new, engineering / medicine / law or at the most business administration are only options which we are exposed to, taught and motivated for.

"If not continuous water supply, at least get us a water tanker once in a day", pleads an old man while talking to government officials while they are on their visit to...wait a minute, not a remote area, but a well to do colony in a tier 1 city of urban India.

Surviving in India is not just a luxury, but an art, which everyone masters overtime.
We don’t have value based education; we are never taught to explore anything new, engineering / medicine / law or at the most business administration are only options which we are exposed to, taught and motivated for.

Ok, so those freshly baked muffins (read children) are now out of the oven and are ready to be delivered to the retail centers (read colleges) around the country.
As we were never provoked to think about why we are learning the xyz subject, quite naturally we choose, rather made to choose the 'safe' career option under the able guidance of previous survivors (read parents/guardians). Testing untested waters is simply absent in the social fiber of our motherland. For example, we make engineers who may survive recession or a job lay-off, but have we even tried to make Techno-leaders who can provide and create jobs?
I would certainly choose not to blame the great Indian middle class for keeping this tradition up till now. After all it's not about living your dreams, it's about survival.

For instance, non-private government jobs (where 'generally' there is no need to have any competency in first place, let alone keeping it up, and virtually no one can remove you from your job) have a clear choice, either get corrupt or be dead/singled out /framed in false charges. I hope we all here agree that there are two types of corruption, viz; "Mujhe toh karna hai corruption" and "Mujhe karna pad rha hai corruption".
Most (read almost everyone) choose one of these. After all it's not about serving the people and performing your duty, it’s about surviving.
If in case, till now you have not understood the reason behind naming the topic as such, let me help you.
The basic idea which is being conveyed here is, though six long decades have passed by since we have attained 'freedom', we still are merely surviving. Look at the world at large; do we honestly see any value addition that India is making despite being 2nd in population and 7th largest economy?
We serve and get paid by courtiers like Switzerland, Norway, Denmark and France which are not bigger than Madhya Pradesh even if put together. Very simple and realistic reasons which I see and have felt are; ill will of our law and policy makers and the equally adjusting and accepting nature of us all. We always choose safe slavery over dangerous freedom, you see, it's in our culture. I still believe that, had we gotten freedom by Netaji's way rather than simply waiting for British oppressors to get bored and go back, we ‘may’ have been living our freedom and not just surviving it. (This might sound irrelevant, but just read it again, I am sure you'll find a connection here)

Enough of cribbing, let's see the positive side, despite the fact that more than 70% population still doesn't get social/economical or judicial justice, we are surviving. Non-efficient public distribution system, lack of sanitation and absence of waste management system, no social security, bomb blasts everyday !! Doesn’t matter, we can survive. If not anything else, we are at least number 1 in surviving, give any condition to us, we were surviving and we will survive.

People are welcome to add their cribs as well as thoughts for better India.