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Corruption is as old as mankind itself. It has been in existence like a stealthy shadow in every nook and corner of the world. But never has it been so rampant and open as it is at present. Corruption today has become institutionalized and is more organized in the corporate world and the corridors of power.
It is an acknowledged fact that corruption is today rearing its head all over the world, without discriminating between developed nations and third-world nations. Let us limit our discussion to the prevalent corruption in India.
Corruption has been integrated into the fabric and morale of the Indian bureaucracy, politics and the corporate world. While it existed since Independence, never has it been so rampant, as huge in terms of the amount involved and as remorseless as it is now. In the good olden days, people used to get shocked and raised their eyebrows at the corruption levels involving relatively smaller amounts of money. But the 2G scam and Raja changed all that. The alleged corruption figure of Rs.176000/ crores was beyond the comprehension of most of the Indian public and they were dizzied by the mind-boggling sum.
Corruption has been taking various forms, be it commission, kickbacks, brokerage or any other. Whatever on calls it, it is still corruption. One read in the newspapers that there has been a raid in the Income Tax Offices by the Central Bureau of Investigation and a Senior IT assistant commissioner has been arrested for possessing unaccounted sum of money to the tune of Rs.5 million. Such news refuses to stun the ordinary citizen. Not anymore. Not after the post-Raja era any way!
The classic case is the Anna Hazare-led anti-corruption struggle. Emerging into India's public domain out of nowhere, Anna aroused the hapless public and the still more hapless news media, both print and visual, into taking up a cause which according to many, is only about creation of a statue rather than addressing the corruption issue.
India is a country, which has no dearth of statutes. We have a law against smoking in public, spitting in public, addressing gatherings in public, holding up traffic and organizing strikes and shut downs. But we violate these statutes almost on a daily, hourly basis. No one is least bothered.
The real issue is not about new laws but implementing existing laws in right earnest. But who is listening?
Really corruption is growing, growing like a menace, growing like terminal cancer, into India's body politic.
It is really a meaningless exercise to list all the areas of corruption that exists in India today. Judiciary, Executive, Legislature, bureaucracy, no segment of the society has been spared.
Benjamin Disraeli, the former British Prime Minister, said famously that every nation deserves the government it gets. How true! We Indians are ready to bribe and be bribed. How then can be the elected Government from our own midst be any different?
Unless we rediscover our lost values and shake off our lethargy and apathy, there is no hope of eradicating corruption.
Let us say corruption is here to stay, if not grow!
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