The case of Subjective Integrity and Propriety

Pt. Nehru had a very beautiful dream of a modern India. A socialist to the core, he never wanted India to turn into a country where the rich continue to be richer and poor the poorer. Thus he tried the mix of socialism and capitalism. He was inspired by the social principles of Russia but at the same time he was wary of a communist regime like China. He thus thought that the state will control the production and businesses to keep a check on the undesirable capitalism. His bureaucracy of Red tapes and licenses resulted in what he never wanted. Unknowingly his policies gave birth to some of the biggest business houses while the businesses of others with less influence within the political class were stillborn. This led to acute gaps among the rich and the poor and some of the agonized poor took shelter in the world of crime to reach their aspirations and to enjoy the pleasures of the materialistic world which they had done only in their fantasies lately.

In 1991, with some improvements in the policies in the name of reforms, other players also started to compete against the incumbents. The concentration of crony capitalism decreased but its scope increased manifolds. In every sort of business, one has two options – either go through the compliances honestly or be in hand in glove with the government officials to get the task done. There were some who always kept on cribbing with the policies while there were others like Dhirubhai Ambani who studied the policies and adapted to them in the best possible way.

To understand corruption in the strata of our society let us divide them into three classes – the upper class, the middle class and the lower class.

The upper class is either comfortably settled in the business houses or they are into dynasty politics. Politics and the big corporate houses are inseparable. Both of them want more of each other. The business family wants to put there representative in the Government to get the windfalls of various kinds. Many corrupt politicians wants to get into business to rule out any uncertainty over their political career. They are the least bothered about the problems like inflation, drought, and healthcare because they never face such issues. They are the parasites who thrive on the hard earned money of the other less privileged classes.

Middle class are those set of people who have anyhow kept themselves educated and values of hard work and submissiveness are ingrained into them. To classify them honest will be unfair to the privileged class we have discussed above. There may be honest people but unless they are into position from where their integrity can be judged, it will be incorrect to declare them morally clean. Honesty sometimes is the lack of opportunity and there are some evidences which testify that a middle class person if promoted to the condition of authority can be equally corrupt and will not leave any stone unturned to write letter of recommendations to allocate some natural resources to his ally/business friend.

Traditionally the children of middle classes have tried to become doctors, engineers, and they also fill the enormous government positions in clerical or administrative kind of jobs. Many doctors working in government hospitals exploit the patients. The timing of a government hospital is from 8 AM to 2 PM for regular duty. These doctors have their private properties but they never give away the government houses as it make their lives ultra-convenient. They wake up at 7:30 AM go to the Superintendent’s office to mark their presence, come back to their house get ready by 9:30 or 10 AM and go back to their respective departments. They complete the formality of seeing the jostling patients till 11:30 only and immediately after that they go to the tea room to do gossiping. After around 45 minutes of gossiping they come back to their offices and continue to see the patients for another 1 hour or so. In total they are doing the duty for 2-3 hours. Then where will the rest of the patients go? They will go to their houses and clinics. As they pay a monthly allowance to the superintendent, they are allowed to do private practice right under his nose even though they are strictly prohibited by law to do so. I can challenge an inquiry team to visit any government hospital and their residences; they will be caught red handed minting money.

Many engineers in government companies give away contracts to unqualified contractors. They also use substandard material in construction of bridges, buildings and other important civil structures. Some of them are honest but seldom do they find any courage to complain against the corrupt system in which they are operating.

And then there is the epitome of corruption the ‘Sarkari Babus’. Agreed their salaries are less but if they take it as a justification for corruption this is going to create a huge social divide among their peers. This is because they are in a position to use corruption in their favor while indiscriminately exploiting the rich and the poor. Whether it is the case of passport, RTO, Railways sometimes they become so much engrossed with the easy money that they forget their limits. When a peon in the office of a minster is found to have net worth of over 200 crores of rupees, it is bound to raise eyebrows.

Let us now take the example of a self-made corrupt and how he created a difference in the lives of his loved ones. Suraj (fictional name) lost his right hand at the age of 14 as a result of an accident. He lost interest in studies and was heading towards a state of total despair and depression. By the time he reached his 20’s he had decided to earn money without caring about the means of earning. Though uneducated and especially abled, he was gifted with focus and hard work. He had figured out that LPG gas is his ticket to the world of money and power. He studied the various policies of Government and figured out that he can easily get an LPG agency with the handicapped reservation. He applied and he got the agency. He started making modest income of 10 thousand initially and 30-50 thousand per month after some years. This was not enough to quench his thrust. He decided to take the plunge in the world of corruption and starting selling cylinders in ‘Black’ while exploiting every loop hole in the policies. The city was expanding and the demand was increasing with some 50-60 thousand cylinders per day. Initially he started with 20-30 cylinders which brought him a profit of 5000-8000 Rs per day. Slowly and steadily he was selling some 200 cylinders per day with the help of the wide network and he started realizing profits of around 30-40000 per day. He is earning around 100 lacs per annum. This is outrageous, even an engineer from the best engineering college and from the best MBA college cannot earn this much in salary even in the first 10 years of his career.

The story of Suraj and others in the middle classes tells us that when it comes to easy money corruption becomes subjective and being corrupt no longer is seen as wrong, it becomes just the right thing to do and the one who are not able to do it are classified as losers not in fact ‘honest’.

If for an instant you thought that people in private organization are hardworking and honest, you may be well wrong. The fact that the management and board of various companies is many times accused and convicted for crony capitalism rest the case if corruption is an anomaly for them.

If we talk about the employees who have no say in lobbying or manipulating account books, they have other mechanisms by which they time and again prove that corruption is not an alien term to them. Not voting at all year after year clears their stand on corruption.

Since corruption has become order of the day, it is next to impossible to obliterate it.
What is possible is Hope of a perfect world and whoever stands up against the corrupt should be supported irrespective of how inconsequential his intentions and actions may seem today.