Corruption: A long battle

Corruption is omnipresent in the country and Anna Hazare and even thousands of his likes cannot eliminate it. At best they just can stymie it, if ever they are more than successful. But if you start believing that it will be wiped out in one go, you could be sadly mistaken. Given the rot in our life, where corruption has become part of the system, it will take ages and a long fight, a very long fight indeed, to be free of the menace.
India is perhaps one of the most corrupt countries in the world. And we don’t need Transparency International to tell us so.
From getting a driving license to space spectrum, everything is up for grabs. Money is no more given and taken under the table but it is now the ‘system’. Clerks claim bribe money as their birth right. The passport verification officer who comes to verify, rightfully demands his share of doing you a favour by coming to your house and give you good marks that would enable you to get the document to travel out of the country.
Who will fix the beat constable, local clerk or even safai karmchari who comes to seek Diwali gifts?
And then we have prime ministers, ministers, bureaucrats, judges taking huge amounts as bribes at the higher levels.
Will the Lokpal be able to stop that?
Corruption has grown in size and intensity despite the number of agencies floating around. Today, the anti-corruption and policing paraphernalia floating around in abundance is unable to eliminate corruption. India has the Central Vigilance Commission, the Central Bureau of Investigation, and several other watchdogs and policing organizations.
Each state police has an anti-corruption branch and each public organisation maintains vigilance group and department. In addition, India is burdened with Economic Intelligence Council with RAW, IB, CEIB (Central Economic Intelligence Bureau), DRI, DE, DGAE, CBEC, CBDT, customs… phew! These acronyms and abbreviations have even stopped making sense.
On top of it, the Income Tax Department maintains its own corruption wing and is scanning tax records and tapping phones. (Radia tapes are a boon because of this snooping around.) In the infamous 2G scam, the country knew the scam was happening. A newspaper was crying hoarse but the perpetrator, A Raja, was crowned telecom minister again in the UPA II. Only when the Supreme Court was critical of Raja did the shameless government wake up and asked him to go. Look at the way the 2G scam is being probed. Besides CBI, Income Tax, IB etc, it is being investigated by PAC and JPC of the Parliament. And even if Raja is nailed, is his boss who got the Rs 214 crore bribe amount even bothered that it could possibly put him in prison. The 2G spectrum loot is now an open secret.
Nevertheless the scams continue to grow. Today we are concerned with Commonwealth Games loot, Adarsh scam, money laundering, black money, Antrix scam...
Despite the plethora of agencies looking at these scams, people are still walking through the system, like in the case of Commonwealth Games. Suresh Kalmadi, Sheila Dikshit, Tajender Khanna. Manmohan Singh, no matter how innocent he may claim to be, has not owned up to the Antrix deal. The case of Singh is different. He claims to be innocent but various scams have taken under his guidance and chairmanship of leading the club. Ignoring or looking the other way or even outright inefficiency is also corruption.
The corrupt netas are still zipping around in beacon cars with impunity.
The moot question is will another anti-graft body with another fancy name, the Lokpal, be able to make the difference. It’s just not going to happen even if Lokpal Bill with tremendous powers becomes a functional authority.
What we require is ‘honest’ people not organisations and more rules and laws. It’s anyway complicated out there. What we need is better implementation of existing laws. And if it comes to that, certain modifications in a few rules will help. Like for instance, the powers of the CBI to go after administrators above the rank of joint secretaries. The agency is impotent when it comes to probing ministers and secretaries and needs nod of higher ups.
Even if the Lokpal comes into existence, from where will the people come to change the system?
The top bosses of investigating agencies will still be appointed by corrupt political leaders who become ministers. We need resilience of the people against corruption. Let us promise to ourselves that we are not going to bribe our ways through even if means waiting for licences or delayed Government clearances.
We, the people of India, need to change to stand up to corruption – at every level. Let us take a pledge today that no matter what, we are not going to pay the babus and netas. Can we stop seeking favours? Can we start waiting in long queues?
To weed out corruption, we need concerted effort. While we support Anna Hazare in getting a Lokpal, let us change ourselves.