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Thursday, June 16, 2011

Corruption Has No Defence, It’s Time People Took Offence As Well

Editorial:
Corruption had ceased to become a dirty word, but the civil society has done well to hold it up in all its ugliness, assisted by a Central Government which has spoiled things rather well to convince people of this country that they need a Lokpal, and a strong one at that. Almost everyone has been at either the receiving end, or the bribing end of this social exchange and while this had diluted the disdain one would expect for this permanent feature of “work”, the frustration of the people has reached critical mass. This frustration might ebb before it delivers any solutions, but while the people’s involvement is still around, more discussions should be encouraged at all levels. The arguments proffered to justify corruption need to be demolished. Corruption has struck such deep roots that no government is going to allow an effective Lokpal to be instituted. At least not yet. But if people express their disgust forcefully in the ballot and ensure that the corrupt are made to feel ashamed, the monster will at least get contained.
The problem with corruption is that it is no longer a civil offence and as the manner in which the hermit murdered in hospital for his protest against quarrying in the Ganga proves, the nexus is growing increasingly criminal. Being righteous comes at a risk to the life in our country now [as Swami Nigamanand's suspected murder reveals], and as Team Anna is finding out, attract character assassination from the entire constellation which draws its sustenance from the centre of present power. Only a unanimous condemnation by the people can stop this offensive posturing, but first we must agree that corruption need not be tolerated any more.
The supporters of corruption assume that it is in fact beneficial. This goes with “greasing the squeaky wheel” or simply “grease money” argument. As a 20th century thinker put it: “Had corruption not been beneficial it would never have been so common.” The problem with the “beneficial” argument in support of corruption is that the benefit is limited to a few. Worse still, these are benefits enjoyed at the cost of the larger, less privileged community. Moreover, corruption aggravates the issue of haves and have-nots and hurts the poorest of the poor. A recent study by the World Bank has revealed that “grease money” does not speed up the bureaucratic delays [to iron which out most people offer bribes]; instead it creates more hurdles on the way. The firms that pay more bribes are not necessarily efficient, rather they are more likely to spend more, not less, management time with bureaucrats negotiating regulations, and face higher, not lower, cost of capital, the World Bank report details. The reason behind this is simple to understand. Bribes are designed by the bureaucrats to extract rents [for the rules they sit on]; therefore, more bribes call for more regulations to extract more rents. This is also the reason why we say corruption breeds corruption.
No matter how much we play around with words, fact remains that corruption has an element of perverse incentive. It not only rewards the cheater but also penalises the honest thereby decaying the whole system. While there are those who might still argue that the problems of corruption are “too big” or “too pervasive” to be solved by the effort of an individual or an individual agency, the society has tackled many bigger problems to let this one continue without a fight. People like Anna Hazare have entered the ring to challenge perverse compromises being foisted on the people. It is time the people started priming themselves to deliver this malaise the knock-out punch.

2 comments:

  1. Corruption will not cease (at least in Sikkim) as long as the leading (and much respected) newspapers in the state continue to turn a blind eye to the pervasive corruption around us. The few allusions to corruption that these newspapers make are couched in a generic rhetoric against it so as to not rub the government the wrong way. If the independent agencies like our newspapers start playing safe, what can be expected of the civil society, majority of whom are government employees.

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  2. The high inflation rate that the economy is suffering is partly due to generation of high corruption money in the hands of politicians/contractors/Govt employee.Unless corruption is controlled, the common peole will suffer the most and then naxalism may be the only answer left.

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