Political corruption-who has to be blamed

Corruption is an abstract term. The World Bank in its report 1997 defined corruption as “abuse of public power for private gains”. Considering the present multi-faceted form of corruption, this definition is very simple and failed to reflect the true avatar of corruption. The License Raj of Indira’s regime institutionalized the corruption in this country. During this period, the economy was subject to extensive regulation, protectionism, and public ownership, leading to pervasive corruption. Let us see some notable scams that rocked India : 1) Bofors Arms deal scam 2) JMM Bribery Scam 3) Sukhram Telecom Scam 4) Urea Scam 5) Lalu’s Fodder Scam 6) Hawala Scandal 7) Oil For Food Scam 8) Madhu Koda’s Money laundering case 9) Taj Corridor Case 10) Telgi’s Security stamp paper scandal 11) Harshad Mehta and Khetan Parekh’s securities scams 12) The recent CWG Scam and 13) Adarsh Scam 14) 2G Spectrum Scam. I tried to mention a few of the important scams and there may be many more of such kind. The size of corruption and the amount involved can be traced out from the Swiss Bank’s revelations. According to them an amount of Rs. 7,00,000 crores is said to be lying in the Swiss Bank. This amount is about 13 times larger than the country’s foreign debt. The Swiss Bank Accounts were only mentioned here, we can’t rule out the other means of money crossing the borders. Who has to be blamed for this? I would like to point my finger at the people. Let us see how they are contributing to this evil. In a democratic set up, people elect their representatives for local bodies/Assemblies/Parliament. Most of the educated people used to stay away from this exercise for the reasons best known to them. At the same time the rural illiterates largely takes part in this. Unfortunately, these illiterate common folk lack judgment and are failing time and again to elect their correct representatives. These people are emotionally blind with caste, religious and regional feelings. They are addicted to spoon feeding. They very often sold out to politicians/political parties. They can be lured with cheap schemes like free power and Rs. 2/ kilo rice/wheat etc. etc. They don’t bother about the consequences of such schemes. They are more interested in short term gains. They don’t believe in sustainable development. Taking advantage of this, politicians lavishly spend during election campaign to purchase the votes of the people, irrespective of the restrictions of the Election Commission. Political party’s ultimate goal is to grab the power. They believe in winning horses, they need not have any ethical considerations in this. Once these politicians are elected, they naturally try to get back the money they spent in the election process and try to earn manifold to it, to get elected once again in the next elections. This cycle continues for ever. In India, politics has become a lucrative business/profession to earn money easily. Lack of transparency, responsiveness, accountability, probity in public life is some other causes to this evil. I consider the failure of the political leadership to take a principled stand against corruption is one other contributing factor for the eruption of corruption to this present level. The appointment of Mr. P.J.Thomas as Chief Vigilance Commissioner who is facing charges of corruption unveils the seriousness of the Govt. in eliminating the corruption. The Attorney General in his argument justifying the appointment of Mr. P.J. Thomas as CVC informed that "impeccable integrity" of the person is not mandatory for the appointment as CVC. This argument is yet another example of the level of seriousness of the Govt. in fighting against the corruption. The Swiss Bank authorities expressed their willingness to divulge the details of the account holders of the massive deposits, if the Indian Govt. makes a formal request accordingly. But, the Govt. is reluctant to make a request as such, because they have their own apprehensions. The opposition parties who are expected to expose the flaws of the Govt., maintaining a strategic silence, because they all belong to the same piece of cloth. Corruption has become a culture these days. It is no more an immoral one. As long as money rules the minds of the people, this culture will continue to flourish. The mindset has to be changed to eliminate the corruption from the society. (This is my blog posted on indyarocks.com and I won the blog contest of this week)