In a Democracy people get the leaders they deserve —- Joseph. D. Maistre
Just as it is impossible not to taste the honey that finds itself in the tip of the tongue, so it is impossible for a government assistant not to eat up, at least a bit of King’s revenue. —- Kautilya
In 2021, the country was ranked 85th out of 180 in the Corruption Perceptions Index.
In a survey released in March by Transparency International, among 16 countries of the Asia-Pacific region, India has the highest bribery rate of 69%. (Source:Mint)
The CMS India Corruption Study, using survey data for the period October-November 2016 for 20 major states in India, found that the highest percentage of households reported experiencing corruption in police (34%) followed by land/housing (24%), judicial services (18%) and tax (15%) related public services. (Source:Mint)
As per the India Corruption Survey 2019, 51% of the respondents admitted to paying bribes. Rajasthan and Bihar fared the worst in the country with 78% and 75% of respondents admitting to paying bribes. (Source: IAS Express)
Engineering and Medicine. The craze for those two careers has been ingrained in an Indian’s psyche since long. As if no other careers existed on earth, a general degree other than science was looked down upon. Though Commerce was meant for the sons of businessmen parents, eventually leading to MBA and Chartered Accountancy it served as a qualification for looking after the family business at least; yet Arts was a contemptible stream of learning.
As if who study Arts was such a wretch as to be left with no other choice after having been denied a chance to study either Science or Commerce. But teaching was still believed to be a noble profession those days and those studying Arts could at least make better teachers, other than clerks. IAS or IPS were for the more meritorious and other government jobs had started to grow out of reach of the middle-class owing to absence of any clear, established route towards their attainability.
A few parents who had the required contacts and the value system of a jugaadu – either by selling away a part of their land or breaking their fixed deposits at banks, even taking loans saw their wards in getting the prized job catch; however their numbers were less.
Thus a greater number of parents harnessed their hopes on only those two careers. Whether their wards had any interest in understanding physical laws of nature, loved mixing liquids – fuming and frothing inside test tubes, didn’t retch while dissecting frogs in practical classes was immaterial; they fastened their belts in setting about to make their children engineers or doctors.
The best tutors in science subjects were sought for and special coaching classes for JEE commenced in class nine itself. In our times we knew the few highly meritorious students seeking admission in engineering got into IIT, followed by Jadavpur, Shibpur and Regional Engineering colleges of West Bengal.
The SCs and STs obviously had advantages over general students despite acquiring lower ranks (we called the SC and ST by ‘Shonar Chand‘ and ‘Shonar Tukdo‘ meaning ‘golden moon’ and ‘golden piece’ respectively), while the good for nothing, general students born of wealthy parents were sent to private colleges in South India.
At our times private engineering/ medical colleges weren’t in plenty alike today. Those who failed in JEE accepted their limitations with exasperated sighs and switched of to general courses. The more ambitious ones wasted a year or two after Class Twelve and sat for the exams again. But their aspirations came to an end after that, unlike now when one only had to sit for the exams formally and private colleges would take it from there.
There are colleges in galore now at every nook and corner of the city one is living – literally selling degrees for hefty donations. So it is not unnatural to find a doctor or engineer at a stone’s throw from one’s house nowadays. There are three dentists operating within 500 metres distance in the locality I live.
Coming down to employment post college, once there was a huge exodus of young people to other states where they found their bread and butter. But not now, owing to the massive privatization of education every state has much lesser jobs to offer to the lacs of engineering/ medical graduates every year leaving little scope for accommodating outsiders.
Campus interviews held in few creamy colleges employed the most meritorious ones leaving the huge numbers to join the bandwagon of general unemployed youths in the country.
Again the few jugaadu who knew whom to pay procured government jobs and pulled up their collars. The doctors made by wealthy parents opened posh chambers and ran private hospitals/ nursing homes in the heart of the city, while the more greedy ones managed both government job and private practices, some even moonlighted.
So much so was the picture from our times which got drastically changed with evidences of corruption in government bureaucracy to have come into the limelight now, thanks to media. Earlier, bribes could be paid in exchange for jobs only if one knew the right people and the entire act was hushed up so that the job recipients could boast of having been selected on merit.
However with so many willing to pay for lifetime security and comparable earnings from salaries and inducements now, a job post had started to get auctioned for sale.
Needless to say, the bids has increased in leaps and bounds over the years. In the recent SSC scam in West Bengal where a number of applicants for primary school teachers jobs were selected despite having submitted blank answer sheets; the price reigned from ₹ 5 to 15 lakhs for a post.
Even for sweeper and clerical posts in some municipalities the bid prices was ₹ 4 lacs and ₹ 5 lacs respectively. And going by the high scale of salaries offered by the government, the prices at which senior management posts – technical, non-technical, medical, non-medical etc. would be put up for sale can be easily envisaged. NARADA sting operation saw a number of ministers taking bribe on camera.
While everyone is accusing the state government of failure to curb corruption, and rightly doing so; the question to be pondered over is whether a government is solely to be blamed for any injustice towards its people? In a democracy where every people have the right to choose their candidate and have a collective responsibility of electing a better government to power why does it always happen that the political parties, the leaders remain the one and same – changing only their jersey colours after every election?
Does it mean all fraternities of political leaders are evil? Why? Are these people aliens, residents of a different planet, descending on earth at the time of elections to promote their party’s honesty and efficiency in eradicating and finding solutions for decade long problems?
The answer can’t be in the affirmative since these people are born and brought up in the same society as ours, know our characters well, watch us closely to learn about our emotions, desires and prepares a list of promises every five years using which they can lure us into voting them to power. Now what about us? Are we such immature fools so as to continue believing them despite their deceiving us every time?
No. If after exposure of corrupt leaders, ministers and government officials following a scam people belonging to different sections of the society are asked separately whether they had trusted the people they had voted for completely, they would say ‘No’ in unison. Then why did they vote for them? There are various reasons for that. The poor people who are fetched on trucks and buses in huge numbers before an election rally to propagate the myth of a party’s popularity amongst the masses are purchased with few quick bucks and food.
The rich industrialists and businessmen would vote for the party whose election campaigns they have funded with a lookout for their interests being served later on e.g. cutting of corporate taxes, sanction of bank loans at minimal interest rates. This is a result of crony capitalism – an unholy nexus between politicians and corporates. Examples are PNB scam, PMC scam, Harshad Mehta scandal.
The middle-class sandwiched between the rich and poor classes with fixed incomes who have to bear the maximum brunt of mayhem brought out by corrupt governance, with little or no benefits received from the government run welfare schemes and compelled to pay all taxes over the high costs of commodities during inflation are left with no other choice but to select the least corrupt of the parties – not everyone has guts to press the NOTA button. To sum it in a single sentence, every voter is aware of the corruption in the party they harboured their hopes upon and breeds hatred against the candidate they are voting for.
The consumerist culture which gives wings to a common man’s desires takes him to a state where his middle-class value system gets compromised and material pleasures, societal status takes the front seat. Cut to SSC scam in West Bengal once again. There’s no doubt about the need to punish the guilty officers of the commission, ministers and middlemen who took large sums of money from willing parents in return for their wards’ jobs.
The unworthy candidates’ jobs must be taken away, their salaries confiscated; the deserving candidates whose marks were reduced and who are sitting on dharnas more than a year long should be handed appointment letters. If the guilty is punished and the government responsible for the scam voted out of power will it end corruption in recruitment forever?
We all know the answer to be a big ‘No’ and accept the inevitable with a deep sigh. Let us now analyse the root cause of the scam. If we believe it to have been planned through a definitive set of activities with the goal of stealing the jobs from the deserving candidates and selling in open market how were the guilty sure about the success of the sale?
The answer is research. The buyers were not middle-class this time but poor people who sold off their lands to procure permanent, respectable, good paying jobs for their wards. Many of them had come down to the streets after selling away even the residual assets they owned e.g. money, gold – the greed sparked by consumerism.
Even in regular government jobs other than education the employees find means of passive earning right next from the day they procure their appointment letters. Why? Those in teaching profession get more interested in giving private tuitions than teaching in class. Were they born dishonest? Did their workplace serve as the catalyst? I had personally asked a friend of mine, a Sub Assistant Engineer in the PWD, the reason and learnt that the amount he had to spend to procure the job needed to be recovered. Slowly the need had turned into habit over time.
In earlier times government pay scales were less making it necessary to take bribes to run a family, but not now. Apart from the vast number of people struggling in unorganized sectors who were overindulged with moralist values since childhood or whose parents didn’t have surplus money after running their families to invest in their wards’ career; there are entrepreneurs who loved to take risks. But these government officials were perhaps the only ones in the country who didn’t require any capital investment to run their businesses side by side their regular jobs.
That government employees were corrupt has been known from time immemorial. People had been making illegal investments for procuring government jobs. It is only now when the level of water has risen over the head that there is so much furore. Who is not aware of the fact that clerks won’t move a file from their tables without having their palms greased. Out of pocket expenditure by the poor to get things done creates a vicious cycle of poverty. One more time the most pertinent question which gets raised here is ‘Which came earlier, egg or hen? That is to ask how did corruption start?
Was it started by government officials who took bribes or the common people who gave bribes to get their job done? Who is responsible for corruption – the bribe donors or recipients?
People may argue that they were compelled to pay and if it were not for the sake of necessity they wouldn’t have let gone of their morals so easily. So necessity it is. But this one word varies from person to person. For some it is just to get little monthly remuneration after retirement to pass the remaining days with respect. For others it is to carve a life of security and contentment for their children.
But wait a minute .. why this necessity is on the rise day by day? The greed to multiply money in less time led lacs of people to lose the last bit of their savings in the SARADHA scam-many committed suicide. Why even the people thriving on the lowest fringes of the society are now thinking of changing their lifestyle? The promoters of fascism would argue that it made people wealthy.. hence it was progress.
The consumerist enticements are spread and popularized which grew human greed. And human greed bred corruption. Once people fell into it’s trap it was difficult to come out of it. The people in higher hierarchy of power ladder reaped the benefits. So despite knowing that only a small percentage of people of a country had access to the maximum wealth the rest of the population helped them grow richer and richer.
Transparency International data suggests that corruption is directly proportionate to the economic gap in a nation.
What exactly is Corruption?
Transparency International (TI) defines corruption as “The abuse of entrusted power for private gain. It can be classified as grand, petty and political, depending on the amounts of money lost and the sector where it occurs”
Let us take for example a construction project. The contractor quoting the least price is awarded the contract – supposing he was technically qualified, experienced and financially capable without any foul play involved in his selection. To his official investments the inducements at various levels of the project life cycle added minus the profits he wanted to reap is the actual money he wanted to spend for the project.
Now, the more economy in construction is sought, the design, completion time and other parameters remaining the same; either the quality of work gets compromised or the contracting company is compelled to reduce it’s profit margins. For a professionally managed company with greater overheads, this means either reduction in staff salaries or retrenchment of staff.
So at the end of the day only construction giants who have multiple other businesses and who can divert funds from them to maintain continuous cash flows can stay put. Or Lala companies which have tremendous political clout and flourish in corrupt / heavily regulated regimes. Such monstrous degree of corruption in government can be traced back to paying bribes for job procurement.
An example of ‘Vicious circle of corruption’
1. A job-seeker / businessman pays bribe to government officials to get his job done.
2. The government official, once a candidate for the post, has paid a huge amount as bribe to the head of that department for his appointment. So he is trying to recover the amount from public / businessmen.
3. The respective head of the department has already paid a huge amount (more than his junior has paid to him) to some state or central minister. So he is trying to recover it from his juniors.
4. The respective minister has incurred huge expenditure in contesting elections and winning them. The so called huge expenditure also includes amounts and ‘benefits’ paid to common people to cast vote in their favor.
But what starts as a recovery exercise grows into a habit over the passage of time due to the absence of accountability and regular surveillance procedures in the system. It is evident from above that we, the common people are tethered inside the vicious circle.
We play an active role in creating the circle, whether we like it or not. Take for example if we are to construct a house. Apart from the bribes we have to pay to the local bodies for getting our plans sanctioned, we have to buy raw materials e.g. cement, sand, stone chips from the local syndicates, if the project is in West Bengal.
Who are these syndicates? These are groups of unemployed youths, many of them even civil engineers, who supply building materials. One might think what’s wrong in helping the youths in their business endeavours. But the reality is these syndicates sell inferior quality materials at higher market prices.
The nexus with the ruling party and the local municipality/ corporation results in promotion and under the table approval of these materials to be used in construction – the liability for harm caused to the buildings as a result of using inferior materials rest of course on the house-owners’ shoulders. A good percentage of profits from the business goes into the coffers of the ruling party. Clashes between syndicates are common in a bid to snatch supply orders, sometimes resulting in deaths of syndicate members.
The educated, jobless youths are compelled to take up the profession and the common people is left with no other choice but to support such hooliganism. On one hand the house-owner either personally or through an agency has to get the plans of his project sanctioned through inducements in addition to the department’s legitimate sanctioning fees. On the other, dishonest promoters get illegal building plans sanctioned by paying huge bribes to the department officials.
During construction the local clubs/ dadas often backed by political parties has to be appeased too through donations or favours without which it becomes impossible to carry out the project. So whether a project is legal or illegal corruption is involved.
The yearly maintenance of roads is another common example of vicious circle of corruption in construction. The contractors who win contracts for stretches of roads quoting the least rates get to make good rapport with the government officers over time. They in their turn help these contractors procure tenders who obliges them with money again.
As a good percentage of contract value gets drained from the contractors’ pockets to satisfy the officers, work suffers. Roads grow potholes, rutting etc. during rainy season and gets deteriorated in no time calling for fresh tenders again. Tax-payers’ money is thus wasted and looted with no practical improvement in the conditions of roads.
With the passage of time people have accepted corruption to be an integral part of their lives. And they have slowly let go of their grudges too for such an acceptance – thriving in a mixed economy, making ends meet, is far more difficult, they’ve understood, than to find time for complaining.
But what is alarming is the mindset of the present generation that doesn’t look at the problem seriously and even accepts it as a necessary part of the system, quite happily. Such a mentality is always at a lookout for slightest opportunities when they can be beneficiaries of the practice too, which only elevates the menace to colossal proportions.
One may argue ‘A common man can keep paying road challans for traffic violations honestly without paying bribes to traffic police, may declare their actual incomes to the Income Tax Department without trying to save tax and without paying under the table remuneration to officers to get their legitimate job done, but can he wait endlessly with empty stomach watching his pension file getting lost under heaps of others on government officials’ tables? In other words will becoming an honest, law abiding citizen help in eradicating the century old evil? From my earlier example of house construction the answer can be found to be a ‘No’
We can always find people coming together to denounce a government’s scheme, sitting on dharnas to get their demands fulfilled but have we ever found any group with the resolution of not paying a single rupee to government official to get their job done? Take for example the pensioners case.
What will happen if no one pays to get their files moved across tables? Their pensions will never commence. Okay. But for how long? If more and more people join hands and jointly petition to the higher authorities reporting their experiences, sooner or later the practice of greasing palms of government clerks will stop.
In an example in Kolkata, a section of state government employees have been sitting on dharnas to get their demand for Dearness Allowance fulfilled by the government which has been pending since long. Some had even gone to the extent of organising death fast campaigns to seek the attention of the government in this regard.
Of course, their cause is legitimate – having been promised higher percentages of the allowance at par with Central government employee reservations all these years, yet having been offered peanuts till now. But along with it the pensioners right to pension after putting their entire lives to the service of the government is legitimate too, without facing harassment.
But has any pensioner protested till now? People who have experienced through generations the futility of protesting have grown a tendency of hiding their plight from the public and come at a settlement with the situation. Many of the government clerks would surely be cursing themselves for not accounting these expenses while charging their inducements to move files during their times.
So this is another vicious circle of corruption. The clerk who had to pay a huge kickback to procure his job tries to recover it back during his tenure, but has to pay-off for a last time to get his pension commenced.
So is there no way to end corruption? The answer is both a Yes and a No.
As the saying goes ‘If an egg is broken by outside force, its life ends. If broken by inside force, its life begins’.
No, there is no end to corruption because we don’t have control over the working of things at macro level – of organisations, governments, world. But Yes, we do have control, because we have control over our actions. We can let go of our age-old prejudices and see things with newer perspectives. What if our sons or daughters do not become engineers or doctors? There are many other lucrative professions, many which match our children’s flair and interests. What is the point in being a jugaadu and contributing to the already crammed up professions?
A profession is not a choice of one’s favourite restaurant dish, a posh dress or a costly mobile phone one can buy according to one’s parents’ capabilities. It involves services to nation – to whom every citizen is accountable. Governments are providing random licences to private colleges – carrying out businesses of churning out lacs of doctors and engineers every year without caring to realise the market demand versus supply ratios – capitalising only on our ambitions.
Becoming a doctor or Engineer is not glorious nowadays but landing a job is .. finding means to recover the huge expenses incurred in studying is. Without recognising our children’s aptitude .. by remaining blind to the reality behind the myth of the successes promoted by media, we are only allowing some opportunistic people to grow rich, throwing our children into a world of uncertainty.
It is we who have to control our greed, understand the difference between necessity and affluence. It is we who have to understand that just by emulating the rich won’t make us wealthy. From mobile phones to bikes, cars and flats – everything is available on EMI. In a bid to show-off others we often overlook the fact that we have actually mortgaged these prized possessions to the bank, which became legally ours only after we complete the payment of loans.
Is it worthwhile taking such risks at a time of economic slowdown? Are posting photos of purchase of a new car or house, admission of our child into elite school – despite the the GDP having sunk down to the lowest in the decade, LPG, Diesel and petrol prices increasing continually, prices of commodities burning holes in the pockets – means of proving success?
To boost one’s lifestyle and achievements virtually in order to grow complexes amongst friends is a peculiar way of gratification of self-ego – while remaining blind to the reality which affects everyone. It only alienates people – can never unite them for a larger cause.
Corruption doesn’t just involve money for personal gains, it alters the integrity, value-system of individuals, thereby making it difficult for them to differentiate between the right and wrong. People never introspect to question the means they take in achieving their ambitions. In no time their children too get dragged into the same vicious circle. It will take time but it is not impossible to fight corruption if fought collectively.
Example can be given of the recent skyrocketing in prices of tomatoes. The involvement of multiple intermediaries in the tomato supply chain resulted in price manipulation and exploitation – another vicious circle in vegetables trade. Middlemen exploited the discordance of information and exerted their control over prices, adversely affecting both farmers and consumers. When people stopped buying tomatoes slowly the price came down.
If there’s no one to give bribe, surely there can’t be any takers. People need to understand the simple truth that if they get hold of things – opportunities, position, lifestyle etc. they don’t deserve, they have to also honour the undeserving and compromise on the quality of goods and services; unwillingly – being part of the same vicious circle.
For some corrupt people everyone in the system suffers. If academically poor, undeserving candidates become teachers in our education system how can we expect our children to become better students under them? We have to be prepared to sacrifice our house, land, savings, belongings etc. in addition to risking our lives under treatment of medical practitioners who obtained degrees and licences through unfair means.
In that vicious circle the doctors would want to recover the huge expenses incurred in procuring degrees from patients. In parallel circle pharmaceutical companies would tax patients with hefty medicine prices to recover the commissions they need to pay doctors in order to get their brand’s medicines prescribed to patients.
If one procures a job through recommendation and/ or paying bribe to higher officials, he/ she should be ready to work with, take responsibility for the actions of worthless colleagues, subordinates under him/ her who have procured their jobs through the same means. If a government department allots a tender to an undeserving consultant or contractor on the basis of inducements, the project would suffer, public money would be wasted and public security might be at risk.
The collapse of Vivekananda Flyover collapse in Girish Park neighbourhood of Kolkata killing 27 people can be attributed to defects in multiple aspects of project cycle including design, construction, raw materials and supervision. Maintenance issues were found by SIT to be responsible for the caving-in of 100-year-old suspension bridge over the Machchhu River in Gujarat’s Morbi municipality with as many as 135 people reported to have been dead. Recently, the Sultanganj-Aguani Ghat bridge on the Ganga, which was supposed to connect Khagaria district with Bhagalpur, in Bihar fell down like a house of cards – laxity between the State government and contractor cited being the reason observed by court. Vigilance, Enquiry commissions etc. should be stricter in order to make government officials accountable. And common people can have better reasons to take to the streets and sit for dharnas.
Even if we, having been brought up through hardships in our childhood adapt to the change somehow, disregarding the sighs of the deserving people whom we left behind – with a view to leaving a secure future for our children can we be sure they’ll be really happy in their lives after us?
If they get everything unasked for and without having to earn them would they be able to handle such ‘passed on success’? What if they fail to remain put inside the vicious circle? If not directly, these vicious circles of corruption are connected in some way to each other. If we get successful in breaking one vicious circle the others would get broken at some point of time.
That is to say our efforts in eradicating corruption would reap benefits at macro level some day. We can then dictate election of honest, qualified, experienced people without criminal records to become our representatives and work for the betterment of our lives. But for that we must make ourselves deserving first. The fight against corruption is much within than outside.
Featured Image Source: Wikipedia Commons
