A Small Note on Corruption

As a teenager I once asked my father, Papa how can we get rid of corruption in India like the developed countries have? He told me that these developed nations are also not devoid of Corruption, but, they have almost zero corruption at the level where government transacts with the public. Corruption is quite prevalent at levels where governments, politicians and corporations deal.

In the present times in India, we are only focusing on corruption at the level of corporations and government dealing and painting all politicians with the same brush which has given rise to some leaders over night. We are hardly interested in corruption at lower levels which affects us more.

Eradicating corruption at lower levels requires good governance and good governance requires a non populist approach which we all fail to understand or refuse to understand. This is because good governance would force us to step out of our comfort zones. In 1989 when NT Rama Rao of TDP lost to Congress many people where happy just because they will not have to wear helmets while driving scooters. This is our basic approach.

We have issues if women pillion riders have to wear a helmet, we have issues if we are stringently fined for traffic rule violations, we have issues if the government orders closure of bars at mid night. We have issues with most of the things which are actually good for us collectively as a society.

Now my liking for BJP or in fact parties like BJD, TDP etc is because they give good governance. They are also not able to ensure everything because they have to after all keep the voter happy. But, they have a strong will to improve system and make it deliver.

Next, my opposition to Congress is because it’s the oldest party and has ruled for quite a long time. Most (not everyone) of the people who have joined it ever since independence have had vested interests. Such people want to be associated with the people in power to push their personal agenda. These people look for “Satta Sukh”, the pleasure of being in power.

Such people have also joined parties like BJP, but, they get sidelined as they rise. This is because of the robust organizational structure.

In Politics one has to come to power and sustain in power to bring about change. In a scenario as mentioned above where people have issues in stepping out of their comfort zones, even a right thinking and progressive person also has to manipulate to sustain in power because power is his opportunity to bring about positive change in the society. I am sure that had Gandhiji been in electoral politics, he would have never become a “Mahatma”!

I would like to end with an incident. During college days, a student of some other college came to me and asked me to get some of his personal work done. I told him that he knew so many RSS pracharaks, why doesn’t he ask them for help? His reply was a bit surprising then, “Bhaya unko bataoonga to hone wala kaam bhi nahi hoga”.

All the Best!!