In the last week I wrote to you about Anna Hazare’s hunger strike against corruption. With the support of millions of people, the government accepted his demand. So they will pass the ‘Jan Lokpal Bill’ which will make sure that corrupt politicians will be sentenced as soon as possible by an independent body.
This will now be a law against politicians and it was high time to have such a law. There are already laws against government employees but until now there was none with which one could properly prosecute the highest point of corruption, those with whom it all starts: the politicians. It is not enough, though, only to make a law. You have to be able to implement it, too! By making a law, not everything gets alright and free of corruption overnight. The government has to be strict in implementing all those laws against corruption.
There are laws stating that a government employee is not allowed to take bribes. In spite of these laws however there is so much corruption that you have to bribe even to get the easiest and most basic things done. The general public usually has the feeling that there is no other way than to bribe the official because if you don’t, your file will go to the bottom of a big pile of papers which hardly ever get looked at and you can wait months and years for your work to get done.
Bribe giving however is just as illegal as is taking a bribe! This has the consequence that probably every registered Indian citizen, who has an ID card for voting and maybe even a passport, has once in his life committed a crime – the crime of bribing for getting that ID card or passport! There is no other way because you need to have your address verified for getting a passport and this in turn requires bribing police officials. Otherwise they will simply not sign the address verification document. When Ratan Tata said that he was asked for bribe, it was big in the news but ask an average Indian person on the street how many times he committed this crime and you will see that he had to, that it is just normal and necessary in order to be able to keep on living.
Due to corruption the whole system does not work properly. How are you supposed to make an accurate account of your income and expenses if a part of your income goes into unofficial pockets? You won’t get a receipt for your bribe that you could file with your tax return! It will go from your private pocket, from the profit you made. No wonder that people are angry about corruption! No wonder that there is so much black money in the market! People think they already pay enough to the government whenever they do any official work. Why to give them even more?
There has now been a suggestion by the Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu to change the law and legalize the action of giving a bribe while taking a bribe should remain illegal. He believes that in this way, the general public would be encouraged to report that they have been asked to give a bribe – and they could get it back! Once the official who took the bribe would be sentenced, he would have to give the money back.
In my opinion this is a very good idea. The situation is so bad already that everybody whom I know has definitely already committed this crime of bribing an official. There is just no other way. And as long as it is a crime, people will be quiet about it. They may be angry that they had to pay but they won’t report it as they, too, have actually done wrong. I believe that with this change of law people will feel encouraged to participate in the fight against corruption. They will see that there is another way than handing over the Rupees that they were asked for and this might be a way how we can get out of this big problem. It will of course take time but India has to get rid of widespread corruption.
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Average Indian is not at all criminal. corruption is world wide and it is more or less the same in developing countries.As regards to India,to the best of my personal experience people are not giving bribe willingly.The system has been so deteriorated that an average Indian has to bribe in Govt offices to get his work done.The conditions are not such in private sector.This point has also to be kept in mind why corruption is flourishing in Govt.offices or Govt owned undertakings.For an example if your telephone from a private service provider is out of order and you complain,their man will come at the earliest and will get it in order without asking for any bribe.Whereas if you complain for your Govt. telephone your complaint is not attended quickly and the man coming to check you line either asks directly or expects some extra money.This is one example.Similar is the case in various fields.In today’s busy life everyone wants his work done quickly and intend to bribe. Though there are already laws to curb corruption but they are not implemented in true sense.making law only is not important.How to implement the law or rules is more important.Even if the Lokpal Bill comes in force it won’t be of any use if it is not implemented in its true sense.There are Lokayukts in many states but Govt is always reluctant to accept the findings and recommendations as far it is concerned with the persons sitting in Govt.Still Lokpal can be a good tool to curb and control corruption.Though corruption is wide spread from top to down but if actions are taken against top most authorities and they are punished the message will go downwards thereby curbing corruption.
Dear Tiwari Ji,Thank you for your comment. I also don’t see myself as criminal and proud to be Indian. Of course corruption is worldwide but in developed countries situations are not as bad as in our country. Nobody wants to give bribes willingly but as you said they are forced to, otherwise nothing will work. You can wait to have your file moved from here to there for the rest of your life. That’s why all this anger in normal people made Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption a success. In developed countries normal people’s daily life is not affected by this kind of corruption which we see in our country. I spend half of the year in India and the other half traveling here in western countries. So I can also tell from my experience. I am so happy and positive to see this success in India. And it’s great to have people like Anna Hazare and everybody else who were involved in this movement and also people like you who are actively supporting and working for this. I give my little contribution, too, by writing here on my blog and website.
I just want to thank you again for talking about the bad and negative sides of things, as this is essential to a realistic outlook. This is why I was attracted to your posts from when I first saw them on Facebook, because I could see that like me you question everything and you don’t see or want to see anything through rose colored glasses. Whenever I see anything written about any person or place, if it is only rosy happy talk, I know something is being covered up, because that’s not the way the real world is. I’ll know they’re being honest and straight with me if I see them talking about the negative sides of things too, because the real world contains both positives and negatives. I always had enough basic common sense to have doubts about all the rosy happy talk from Pollyanna people about India being a “land of enchantment”, and you tell the stories that I know are much more true and real about the culture and society there. Maybe it was much more a land of enchantment 100 years ago, but much of that world is gone. I mainly want to know truth, and if truths are unpleasant, those are the truths I no less want to know than the pleasant things. A worldview based on false idealism is a fool’s paradise, and many prefer to live in such a paradise than to face the facts, but that’s not for me. I want the whole truth about everything, and I know I can count on you to be honest about that and to write and talk about the real world.
Dear Deniz,Nice to hear from you. Your way of putting things is always nice. Thank you for your appreciation. It inspires me. I just want to be Positive and Honest… With much Love…
haha, a whole nation of bribe givers and takers :)But you know, then everybody who lives in our street in our town has committed crimes against the traffic laws by parking on the walkway instead of on the street. But if they didn’t the whole street would be blocked
So sometimes the system forces you to do something illegal. And if you tried to do it fully legally you would either harm yourself or others. Isn’t it contradicting the idea that the system of government and legislation should be helpful to the people of a country?
All Indians are not criminals. The govt. offices, the state offices are corrupted. Whole office employees, police department, sales tax office, income tax office, DEA office expect bribe. As soon as they walk into your door if you hand over and envelope of cash they leave you alone or they give you a hard time. People who does honest living are crucified. Do you think people want to give their hard earned money to this rascals. People in India need money under the table to get every thing and anything done. To repair your phone line, to get your passport done, court offices, schools asking for donations, get a job in govt office……….Do you think people are willingly giving money? Most of the times people are forced to do that, because that is the only way the system works. It is a shame…..but that is the fact.
Of course the idea of a system is to enforce law and order. So if from time to time the individual law may not apply in every individual case but still, the overall benefit can be understood: if everyone parked on the walkway, there would never be space anywhere to walk! So we have to forgive the law not to fit into each and every of our own situations. But surely nobody will ever come and give you a fine for parking in your street. Policemen are not stupid, they also know that you have no other option!