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Corruption-who's to blame.Dont we bribe ourselves to get things done?
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Akanksha
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Jul 10, 2011 12:56AM
Ummm let me save my comments for later....but yeah i definitely agree with it!
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I don't claim to be perfect but change has to come top down not bottom up.How is it that the same person when in America suddenly follows rules and flaunts them here?If he is inherently corrupt,he would be the same everywhere.Instead,it is the system difference which makes people what they are.If the top people decide on making India corruption free,it is my hunch that 90% of Indians will follow suit just as they did when they followed the Mahatma!!
Not really...I mean yeah thousands followed anna hazare but these same people would not hesitate to pay up alittle extra if that means quicker service. Supporting anti corruption policies and campaighns doesn't mean we are not corrupt. Before pointing fingers at others we should de-corrupt ourselves.
Okay you keep on pleading and you get nothing..the best option is spending some moneywho is to blame?Do we have any other option?
Actually we don't..
just to be clear here Axy who do you think likes empty pockets?Who loves to spend money on bribes..I think no one and I am not very sure but I think you will agree with that won't you?
we are resilient by force not by our nature...
But aren't we encouraging corruption by paying that little bit extra for OUR CONVINIENCE, just coz we HAVE the money. We never think about the people who DON"T HAVE it. How the hell are they gonna get their work done??? Why can't we live by our IDEALS and get things done the difficult way???
Barkha Dutt posted a very interesting tweet about it some days ago. She asked of all the people who were following Anna Hazare, how many had bought or sold their property all in white money?it's very easy to blame politicians. But the fact is that they are only more corrupt because they have greater opportunity and get more returns from it. Otherwise, most people, as soon as they have a power, find out ways to abuse it for personal benefit. From a poor milkman to the richest, we all are corrupt, more or less.
Actually, bribery is contextual. I'll tell you my example. Every now and then we used to have our MTNL phone line down, and we needed to call up the linemen to get it repaired. Later on, we realized that it was just their way of making some extra bucks from the whole locality.
We did not want to encourage the bribery custom, so we started a new one. We started offering them water, cold-drinks, tea, whatever available, (basically, chae-pani in true sense), but not money.
Now, I'm confused, is this bribery, or calming someone in the biting heat of May-Jun or killing cold of Dec-Jan?
I think we should realize the true needs of people, rather than getting off by giving them money, and getting our work done.
Having lived in both the US and India,I reiterate my stand that change has to come from top down.Let me ask Barkha Dutt and the pseudointellectuals,how many of you secretly rejoiced when Kanimozhi and Raja were arrested?The aam aadmi succumbs to circumstances-a case of survival (a function of the limbic system)winning over neocortical functions(of good judgement and behavior).As a case in point,the aam admi is not a hypocrite when he follows anna and also pays Rs 100 to fix his BSNL line.The former is a higher cortical function asserting itself when the lower,baser instincts(of survival) are not acting.The latter is a case where he has to make a pragmatic choice between getting his line fixed or staying off for God knows how long?
Let us see the example of Raja and Kanimozhi.Their siphoning off crores of rupees is not a choice between survival and moral values.It is a choice they consciously made between moral values and immoral ones.Thus we should not compare apples to oranges!
Anna is fighting the people at the top who make things uniformly rotten by the time it percolates to the common man.By setting them right,we give the common man a choice between doing the right thing and the wrong thing...instead of the right thing and the survival thing as we are doing now....
This opens another debate- IS it ok to give bribes but not ok to take bribes??
Most of us (common man) may fall in the first category ...we may have given bribe for small things (like train tc/ to minimise time/waiting period etc) - small price to pay for big conveniences in life...so we are ok with that
On the other side are the big time politiicans or bureaucrats who accept bribe for a lot of things
Both the scenarios can be termed as "corruption" but the magnitude of the crime differs...
a practical mind will say the "taking of bribes" is a bigger offence - but that does not make the former category pure..
I will differ as my previous argument shows...We do not pay bribes out of choice.We do because of compulsion..because we are given the choice of the survival thing Vs the right thing.
We pay taxes,that is payment for the conveniences we use...such as good roads,clean air...etc
Politicians do not accept bribes because they have a compulsion,they do so out of greed...
It is not ok to give or take bribes but change has to begin top down like Anna is advocating....
We give bribe not only for our convenience but also becuase we are lazy to know the rules and regulationsand follow them. Dont we pay more for quality? Let it be restraurant or Bank or any other institution.
Minister they take the bribe but tell me one thing what do they do with that money? They do not enjoy as the business men do. They need to spend a considerable amount of it political propaganda and then give it to other people from whom they need favours.... So it is a kind of circulation in itself. The telecom licenses had been distributed at minial price, so did not lead to lowering of the telphone charges. Did it not lead to increae in FDI in this sector?
Anna Hazzare.. I am from delhi and during the movement many of my friends participated and some organised camps in my college itsef. But many did not knew about the Lokpat bill, The history of the bill in India. What are the differences between anna hazzare and the government. This is the kind of knowledge in the most educated youth who are trying to erase corruption?
In a country like India,if we wait for a change coming from top,we'll have to wait till eternity!And infact be it America or India or England or any other nation,as long as there are individuals forming the system,no country can claim to be scoring a perfect 10 when something like corruption is concerned. Yes,the levels of corruption are different and the developed countries who have better enforcement facilities per capita are better equipped to remove corruption among general public which is the grass root level.And this corrupt-free mindset in general public changes the way they think over time and it becomes difficult for them to take advantage of the loopholes in a law (all laws cant be fool-proof)as they r not used to it. Now the big question here is that under these circumstances,in India, -- wherein the system is ineffective owing to many reasons such as lack of enough enforcement facilities per capita,lack of enough services to cater to the enormous population,under-paid officials,reluctance of the deep rooted political will to change & so on..--- are we justified in taking advantage of the massive ineffectiveness or loopholes of our system?Our society has been evolved over decades in such a manner that we live with this idea of corruption as our way of life.
Admission to schools/colleges, procuring a passport/DL, slipping from traffic police without your DL and insurance,evading sales tax/income taservice tax --- it is all thriving at the grassroot levels and across all sections in the society. ---these are mere examples of forms of bribes even Mr Anna has no solution to.This form of corruption is at the social level and cannot be curbed as long as we pass it off as "tips" paid for "value added services" than terming it as bribes.Ofcourse u'll feel inconveniences and delays when going with the system---but then isnt this all about affordability at the end,some environment that we ourselves are nourishing.
The lokpal bill which will mainly target corruption on the ministerial level will indeed once passed will bring about a change.But the bill alone will not work.Such work needs to be done on all levels of society and most importantly the mindset of the people needs to change.
DrDork wrote: "I will differ as my previous argument shows...We do not pay bribes out of choice.We do because of compulsion..because we are given the choice of the survival thing Vs the right thing.
We pay taxe..."
what is the compulsion here?? how is convenience - a survival issue?
Survival issue would be more extreme circumstances - a death and life situation..how can standing in a queue/ taking an extra ticket/ upgrading a class become a survival issue?
Mansee wrote: "DrDork wrote: "I will differ as my previous argument shows...We do not pay bribes out of choice.We do because of compulsion..because we are given the choice of the survival thing Vs the right t..."
compulsion as in if I do not pay,there is no other choice.A single choice is not a choice,it is compulsion.
I have to get a certain certificate from my university,if I do not pay up,my work does not get done.It is pay up or zilch...that is unspoken yes,but compulsion nonetheless...
As for taking an extra ticket/standing in Q/upgarding a class...these are not my illustrations for survival,it is yours...:)
The reason I use the word survival in a broader sense is coz if I do not play by the 'corruption rules'I will stand to be a loser...don't you want to survive in the game of survival of the fittest...?
"Some are born corrupt,some achieve corruptness and we(aam aadmi) have corruptness thrust upon us"....:)
Tarun wrote: "In a country like India,if we wait for a change coming from top,we'll have to wait till eternity!And infact be it America or India or England or any other nation,as long as there are individuals fo..."Change coming from bottom up is called revolution...
Dr.Dork, i disagree that bribery is forced upon in India, it's a constant complaint i hear from my US returned cousins too! For the same examples that u cited like taking certificate from university can be done without paying bribes too. U just need to have the will. There are N num of TV channels, journos etc. who will be ready to latch on to any kind of falthu scam including taking bribes for certificates etc. There are numerous channels thru whch u can complain on officials, that we are not aware of. It's mostly our laziness, or our ignorance that makes us say that "hum majboor hai". There is no way u can blame the top for ur habit of bribing for services. The instruments like RTI act or the LokPal Bill are merely tools in the hands of common ppl, if u look at Anna's proposal, he isn't saying he will eradicate corruption at the government level, he is giving us a tool to use, which am sure the public will conveniently forget as long as the process of bribing is convenient and easier than the process of using RTI act or lodging a complaint with the Lokpal! Imagine, tmrw some one in Lokpal asks u for a bribe to just register ur case/complaint, what will u do then? Again complaint that system needs cleansing, pay the bribe and carry on. There is no corruption proof mechanism as such, it just has to be inside us to combat it, no use blaming the cow for the milk u spill on the floor! If only there is no cow.... :P
Rightly said that change from bottom up is called revolution and that's precisely what is needed to change the situation in countries with our kind of population figures!
DrDork wrote: "Mansee wrote: "DrDork wrote: "I will differ as my previous argument shows...We do not pay bribes out of choice.We do because of compulsion..because we are given the choice of the survival thing V..."
I have to never pay a bribe to get a certificate from a university and still the work is done...and people in my circle...family and friends also did not have to....so where is the case of "single choice" or "no other option" ???
DrDork wrote: "Tarun wrote: "In a country like India,if we wait for a change coming from top,we'll have to wait till eternity!And infact be it America or India or England or any other nation,as long as there are ..."Yes,Revolution means a radical change and thats what is reqd. for bringing about a change of this magnitude.
Imp thing to be highlighted here is what kind
of revolution are we talking about.Revolution here
def does not mean marching at Jantar Mantar or India Gate with candles in hands.It is about what each of us as a group can contribute to achieve that radical change.
I'll give u a personal example to explain what revolution i am talking about.We manufacture a product that is also in demand with various hospitals & hotels.We all know that in order to supply to a Govt establishment one needs to follow certain procedures commonly through tenders.And companies who are awarded the tenders are the ones who bribe all the concerned chain of individuals (the reason why a Rs. 1 crore project costs the govt more than 5 crores).
We as a company have a policy of not dealing with govt
establishments as we have a fixed price for bulk orders and we do not over charge to accommodate bribes.My point here is that if all the 8-10 suppliers
like us currently in Delhi form a cartel and work on the same policy,these govt establishments wud have no choice but to procure at the rates offered by us without any cuts/shares.
It so happened about 3 yrs ago that a reputed hospital in Delhi required bed linens of a certain quality and quantity which was so short in supply at the time that their regular suppliers ran out of stock of the same.Needing the linen urgently they came up with a resolution and sent their team into the market to procure from wherever they could source the reqd quanitiy.
We supplied to them their reqd. quantity on our rates
without entertaining a single individual in between.
And the amusing part is that now they had no other option but to buy from us in future as well because our effective rates were much lower than their other suppliers who had to accommodate the bribes to their cost.We are still supplying to them but only that particular quality of bed linen whose real rates have been exposed in their records.
The bottomline: its not the system that is so wrong,its the individuals on either sides who manipulate to crack it up and hence the need for a change/revolution.
Sometime back I wrote a blog post (in Tamil) on the same topic. There were huge arguments and very few accepted my views that most of us are equally corrupted as those accused of corruption.Some of my points are these. How many of us refuse to bribe if we are so sure that our work will be given preference and we do not need to waste too many days on the work. Do any of us think about those who made to wait more time simply because he could not offer the money that you could for the same work? The answer is no.
How many of us register the real estate buyings on the actual market rate? Hardly anyone.
Given a choice, have we ever said to traffic police that we are ready to pay the fine in court instead of giving bribes to the policeman?
So how can we expect the officials and politicians, ‘the representatives’ of our society that never thinks bribing is wrong as long as it serves well for the matter, would be any different?
We are cheating the government with our capacities and they are doing at theirs.
First we need to change before we speak about wiping out the corruption from the country.
How can someone grown up in the environment where corruption and bribing is part of life would change and became pure as soon as he comes to power?
How do u differentiate between a token of appreciation and a bribe??
In an imperfect system, corruption can be democratic.
The main problem is accountability.. No one at Govt Job is held accountable.. Someone takes a bribe he is let go with a warning. Next time he is "suspended" until the news dies and he is back.Caught taking bribe? Proven? Fire him! that's the least..
For eg. in China if a govt official is caught in corruption charges and is proved he can be executed! Until the govt officials are not held accountable corruption will not die in India.
Prevention is better than cure. So, preventing corruption also must be better than dealing with corrupt individuals and politicians after they become corrupt. I am the author of the book, 'Let's Transform India - First Things First' and I have suggested a very novel method to prevent corruption.
Please visit my website http://www.vrmeenakshisundarambooks.com for more details. Do remember to read a short story by clicking at
'ShortFilmScript' in the website.
