Today, on 06-5-2015, again we have an article on corruption in Indian Express, this time by a professor at JNU (where else!), Arun Kumar.
Politicians, bureaucrats, professors, courts, and mediapersons of India are all busy these days in finding the cure to corruption. Some fancy words have been chosen: transparency, accountability, whistle blower, detection, punishment, public interest, gratification, quick decisions, review of decisions, etc. These words are then moved around in various combinations, and lo, the article on corruption is ready.
But all take very great care to never mention that the cause of all corruption in India is socialism. That the government is doing things it must not be doing: running businesses, regulating businesses through licensing, permissions, clearance, etc., running a Welfare State, running utilities that do not belong in its domain. In addition to that, because it is socialist, so it has to pretend that it lives simple, and so keeps salaries of bureaucrats and politicians woefully low: lethal combination.
The fact is that most corruption is such that both the giver and the taker benefit, most decisions are such that some benefits have to accrue to somebody, even if all procedures have been impeccably followed, and the beneficiaries are ever ready to oblige, otherwise they can be harassed without limits, that too following the laid down procedures. A decision may be correct today but may not remain so two years from now. A decision may be correct but long term costs may be very high. There can never be any water tight objective criterion to judge the merit of a case, otherwise computers could have run the government.
The only solution of corruption is complete dismantling of socialism, separation of economy and state, downsizing of government, taking it out of the lives of the citizens.
But the livelihood of the whole class that is pretending to fight the corruption: politicians, bureaucrats, professors, courts, and mediapersons; depends on socialism. Al derive humungous benefits from its continuance. It speaks volumes about human nature that man is never able to see that what gives him livelihood may in fact be a very destructive system for the society and the country.
Read the article in Indian Express here.
(The book, Corruption In India, by Anang Pal Malik, gives complete analysis of the problem of corruption-the extent, consequences, causes, and remedies. To download your free copy, click here. -Ed.)
