Corruption

by **angry indian** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 8:05 am

More and more corruption stories coming out these days. Looks like there is no limit to corruption in our society.
 
 The politicians/bureaucrats eat our hard earned money. They misappropriate billions of rupees that could be used for developement projects.
 
 How do we start tackling this problem?

by **Sajeeva Rao** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 1:52 pm

My dear friend we can do nothing. Ours is democracy, Here in our country we can do nothing. Our Father of India Late Mahatma Gandhi he showed us how to live in democracy that is He gave Three Monkeys Example: That Monkeys State that, 1. First Monkey State that Even if you have eyes pretend to be a blind person.
 2. Second Monkey states that Even if you have Ears to here Pretend to be as a Deaf Person.
 3. Third Monkey States that Even if you have Voice to speak pretend to be as a Dumb Person.
 In our Democracy inorder to live you must follow the above Monkeys other wise here livliehood will become dangerous. Firstly Britishers suppressed our Indians with their rule. Now Politicians tooked charge from Britishers and now politicians too are following the same policy of britishers like Divide and Rule Policy. If possible they are adding more glitters like seperatism, Scams, Bribes etc. In India Godse killed Father of our Nation Mahatma Gandhi itself. If god himself comes to our country he also cannot change our country. Our Country is Heaven for some and Hell to all. From B.C days to A.D days in the history of our country suppression is going on. Why? Our Ancestors digged their own burrows.

by **c\'mon** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 6:28 am

Didn\'t expect so much pessimism. I think our negative thinking is the reason for our society being where it is as regards to the QUALITY OF LIFE.
 
 I think problems such as corruption are so rampant in our society because people lack WILL to change things. They just give up and say \'nothing can be done\'.
 
 Hope to hear some optimistic voices.

by **Mayavi Morpheus** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 6:45 am

IMO, root cause of all ills in India is Population & Socialism.
 Over population results in poverty, unemployment, excessive competition and as a result corruption.
 socialsm = inefficieny. People are paid but they dont work. in the present set up Govt. employess,not all but most of them, are not questionable. They are not answerable to anyone. This leads to inefficieny in production in public sector and corruption in Administrative offices.
 Inefficieny in public sector companies means low profits, instead of earning profits govt ends up spending more money on sustaining these public sector companies.
 And people have to excercise their vote rights to elect a good leader instead of thinking that nothing can be done about it. But people will act only if they all suffer, which is not the case in India.

by **angry indian** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 10:52 am

MM,
 I like your line of thought on what causes corruption.
 But can\'t agree with your last 2 statements.
 Are you saying that most people never did or will never suffer due to corrupt politicians / bureaucracy ?
 
 How about a bad road full of potholes that was laid out only a few months ago. Say the contractor greased the palms of some official(s) and got the contract signed for himself. Used some cheap raw material or never executed the work properly. Doesn\'t common man suffer every day because
 of that ?
 
 We have zillion such examples.
 
 The problem is that we are not able to see the connection between corruption and our daily quality of life. It is not just when you apply for say a permit and the official asks a bribe. Even at other times, all during the day and night we suffer due to our bureaucracy being corrupt.

by **Mayavi Morpheus** » Wed Nov 19, 2003 2:27 am

No Indian, thats not what I meant. There is no denying that everyone in India suffers from coruption harrasment, but they fail to realise that corruption is a problem. They are the victims of the crime and in several instances they are the perpetrators(?). Corruption has been institutionalized in India. So much that its not a crime anymore in view of many people. You just pay up to get your work done. Simple equation. How many times did you bribe a traffic cop who caught you for signal violation or Licenseless driving? I did that atleast thrice. The mistake was mine, and I payed money to be let off without paying hefty fine. I comitted a crime. The blame is equal, as much on me as on traffic cop. But how many times do we blame ourself for such incidents? This is trivial issue, yet very important. This has become Indian psyche post independance. Blame others for corruption, and when it comes to us we dont see anything wrong with corruption. I am talking about govt employees. They are kings in their office, they demand money to do work, they dont think its wrong. They complain only when they have to bribe some other govt. official. The common dialogue is \\\'sir ji you know how things work in govt. offices, yourself are an employee\\\'. Well how many govt employees are there? millions, in AP administrative services alone there are 600,000 employees. Atleast a 100,000 employees are corrupt. Add their families. 100,000 * 4 = 400,000. You get 4 lakh people who do not hate corruption just because they are involved in one way or other in that crime. This in Administrative affairs only. There are there are countless government offices and public sector companies.

by **angry indian** » Wed Nov 19, 2003 10:04 am

Fortunately I never had to bribe anyone so far. If I face such a situation, I would opt not to do so. Anyways, good to see you accept that you bribed an officer.
 
 But don\'t you think that only when people pay a hefty fine do they not commit the same mistake again ? Now since they know in the back of their head that they can get off with a
 small bribe they will tend to violate the traffic (or any other) rules again.
 
 Imagine the kind of chaos that will prevail with everybody violating every rule. Actually such chaos does prevail all over our society, our country. In every project internal or foreign that has ever been taken up, including National Defence.
 
 On the short term say people don\'t pay fines (\'coz they bribe). Such cases add up exponentially and lead to more serious problems, may be terrible accidents in the context of traffic. Something else in some other situations, like if development funds are diverted from a particular region by corrupt officials (and people don\'t protest or see that justice is done) it could lead to fall in production, famines, starvation deaths and what not.
 
 So do we want the rules to be implemented strictly ? or do we want some short term advantage and commit mass suicide in the long term ? We have a choice here. I think what we are / we will be depends on the choices we make.
 
 From your numbers it\'s clear that there are so many corrput officers but atleast people with good sense should push for a change.

by **Mayavi Morpheus** » Thu Nov 20, 2003 5:11 am

I am not saying that we should allow corruption to continue, I am just trying to explain why it flourishes, why people dont protest.

by **hyderabadi** » Thu Nov 20, 2003 8:55 am

In countries like USA, people demand services from Govt officials , police , MCh etc etc coz they know the fact that they are paying Taxes and these taxes pay the govt servants salaries.Here in India its reverse , we have to beg them or bribe them for a service from them.Its basically ignorance and negligence from our side.We dont know how to get things done by these corrupted officials.If we stop paying taxes , how will this govt run?

by **angry indian** » Thu Nov 20, 2003 12:09 pm

MM,
 People who suffer are also not protesting (forget the ones
 who are benefiting). They just want to suffer silently, as if that is a Great thing to do.
 
 They probably don\'t understand or even think what will
 happen in the long term. Even if they think, they don\'t
 do anything. People think short term - now, today. Where will we end up if this keeps on going ?
 
 I think if this goes on the whole country will be bankrupt.
 \'coz all the money will be in the bank accounts of people
 like Harshad Mehta, Telgi, lakhs of politicians and
 bureaucrats. The other scenario will be high prices of commodities, bad civic amenities (roads, power,
 transportation etc), corrupt policies in every sector....
 
 Hyderabadi,
 If we don\'t protest aren\'t we (the common people) the losers ? Is it not good for us if we protest and say NO to
 Corruption. It is guaranteed that the politicians won\'t do
 anything because it\'ll affect their income.
 
 Here is something Funny : We borrowed / are borrowing
 Western values (music, dance, dress, food...). But not the
 good things such as strong justice system, no intermixing
 religion and politics, strict implementation of laws for
 everyone (common man to president). What do you say ?
 
 Of course we need to pay taxes. That\'s all and no more. No bribes.

by **Jbda** » Fri Nov 21, 2003 1:30 am

\"All that is necessary for evil warts to triumph, it is that a
 few good men do nothing.\" -- Edmund Burke

by **Mayavi Morpheus** » Fri Nov 21, 2003 1:45 am

You are right, people are suffering but choose to ignore. I have given one of the reason why they are ignoring such a deep rooted problem. But I am hopefull that with privatization and computerization, atleast some of the corruption problems will be solved. And with an increase in standard of life and percapita, most problems will be solved.
 Our economy was opened a decade ago, it will take some time to see the results. Already we have seen great improvement in services available. Yes, I dont have to bribe someone or use my minister unlces influence to buy a scooter or get a telephone connection. Now I dont have to pay 100 bucks to the lineman to repair my telephone line.
 These are minor things which we may not even notice, but thats how change comes, it seeps without us noticing. If we compare with 1990\'s, we will notice how our quality of life has changed.
 We are going through the same phase that western countries have gone through during the start of century and south korea in 1950\'s and China in the 1990\'s. Going by their it will take atleast 30 years to become a developed country, and I am willing to wait. Overnight change is not possible and is not good for the country.
 
 And one nitpick, In the western countries there is no seperation between state and church. Thats because they are predominantly Christian with a maximum of 5% minority population. Infact India, China and other east asian countriesfollow better model.

by **angry indian** » Fri Nov 21, 2003 8:46 am

Yeah! really hope computerization will turn things on their
 head. We will probably be able to get most of our routine
 work done through online applications. This will leave the
 corrupt officials with no choice. Although bribing will still exist whenever officials and people have to interact.
 
 But that is only one part of the equation, corrupt deals can still be made bw or within public and private sectors.
 Stamp Paper scam, Enron/Dhabol Power scam and there are many more in AP itself, where in the last few years the politicians/bureaucrats took bribes from companies to give them plumb deals, and many more will keep occuring as long as people don\'t raise a voice. Did anybody get sentenced for Dhabol scam? I don\'t remember.
 
 Deals as above are more damaging to national economy and security than the daily inconveniences we face at govt. offices.
 
 My point is that the educated, intellectuals, sensible people in the country should start a dialog on how to tackle this problem, how to get transparency and accountability to everything we do. Unless there is public pressure politicians will not do anything. Computerization will solve a few problems but many more multi billion rupees scams will keep occuring.
 
 Did you say there is church/state separation or not? Not sure about some of the European nations but separation exists in US, UK. You are right, our scenario is different, we have huge % of minority. But politicians should still win based on development projects undertaken, not by raising religious fervor. Just a little concerned about BJP
 whipping up this temple or that temple issue esp. during elections.

by **Mayavi Morpheus** » Fri Nov 21, 2003 10:29 pm

Indian, even if we privatize everything, including government (if we can) we cannot completely stop corruption. No country in the world can do that or did that. There is always a nexus between Large corporates and Government, it doesnt affect general public as such as they dont have to bribe anyone. These corporates bribe the government officials to curry favour and bypass the competition. Thats general world order and we can do nothing about it.
 One example I can give is the Bofors scam. The armed forces wanted a 105mm Howitzer which Bofors supplies. The gun worked well, beyond expectations, in Kargil war. Yet the Bofors company had to bribe Rajiv gandhi government. Technically speaking its corruption, but it doesnt effect general public as such except costing the exchequer money.
 What concerns me more is the local Police, MCH official asking me money to do work.
 
 Regarding seperation of state and Church in the US or UK, they are worse than India (You can read about the recent Alabama 10 commandments case). It very much exists but people donot realize that cos they are predominantly christian population. Every issue is linked to religion.
 Say Gay marriages. In India Gay marriages are not legal \'cos our culture is different. In US too they oppose Gay marriages \'cos Catholic church in 1214 or so defined marriage as a relation between a Man and Woman.
 The American constituition is based on Ten commandmendts or so people believe.

by **CorruptionSolution** » Thu Dec 11, 2003 5:04 am

I can give you a simple answer to solve corruption one is Accountability. We should be able to make every citizen of this country Accountability for there actions this can be done by a very good tracking system( i mean like a tax id number). And the next thing is the LAW or the judicial system should be very powerful and everyone who has done a crime be it a simple one like skipping a red light in traffic to a murder whould be punished in the lease amount of time so that people are afraid about LAW and ORDER. Ask anyone in India how many people are really afraid of doing a small crime they think they can get around it by bribing some official or politician.

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