Let us put Corruption first

India Today – Has the threshold of patience being reached

Recently Union Home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, said in a function in Pune – “People of this country have a very weak memory.  They will forget the Coal scam very soon just like they forgot the Bofors scam”. Though after the media and public mew he clarified that whatever he said was just to prolong the vivacity of the evening. The reality on the other side is that he was dreadfully serious. Each and every word uttered out of his mouth was as serious as the condition of the country which is at the verge of a collapse. It was as serious as the condition of a young girl who had been gang raped and her identity is divulged to the media by the incorrigible police; It was as serious as the starving families of the farmers who have committed suicide because of the failure of rains and the unpardonable mismanagement by the Agriculture ministry; It was as serious as the expressionless face of a mother whose child has died in her arms because she does not have any money to buy the medicine which cost thousand of rupees; It was as serious as the meddlesome eyes of a child worker who gets lost in the imaginary world whenever he sees more fortunate children and the inequality in this world.

Many of us will agree that Shinde’s words were very serious and real.  It does not need any special attention of one to be aware of the catastrophic corruption we are seeing today. 2G scam, Coal scam, Thorium scam, Granite scam, Irrigation scam, fodder scam, NRHM scam, Aadarsh scam and the list is never ending. There is no point in discussing the scams again. People like to forget them and let them do that. Now it is time to focus on the way to either move away from corruption or whole heartily embrace it. The middle path of ‘chalta hai’ will be a strong disservice to the less fortunate people of this country.

Dream of a corruption free India – A Utopia?

Lately we have seen few individuals who have tried to give corrupt people a run for their money. Though they remained defiant in their efforts for some time, slowly they are losing steam because they were not able to figure out the cohesive which can keep them united. Their fight which was supposed to be a revolution is fizzling out in the form of an unsuccessful melee. On the other hand the corrupt have been able to up the ante of corruption with the help of unity of money, resources, windfalls etc. They have been instrumental in managing such a colossal Empire which is much more difficult to manage than a multinational company.

However the CEO’s of various companies can learn lessons from these crusaders of corruption. Just take the case of coal and irrigation scams. Let us not get into the details but it is irresistible to accentuate this interesting piece of parody – One of the minister is a director of one of the many companies he is having stakes in. He lobbies for the allocation of the country’s resources for his company. He gets the desired resource almost for free for his company.   The valuation of the company goes up he reaps the windfalls. This minister also helps to get contracts of Irrigation to his business partner and friend. When the contractor fails to complete the work, his payment is held back by the Government for some or the other reason. This minister again writes multiple letters to the Government to expedite the release of money for the contractor with no mention of the shoddy work if at all was done by the shoddy contractor. All these communications are preserved for future generations to consider them as precedence of The Great corruption the country has ever seen. The bottom-line is that if the government documents cannot be evidence of this humongous corruption, nothing else can.