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Some Thoughts On Corruption

Another friend holds that corruption is, in India, a way of life, something that has been around for centuries or longer. My own experience at age 9 bears this out. I was witness to money changing hands for the grant of what was no more than an ordinary right. This puzzled me and I sought an explanation. The only answer I got centred around the word “dastoor”. Its meaning was that bribes had always been given and would always be given: and the ordinary people should just go on giving them without raising irrelevant and unseemly questions.

Later, in my 20s, I saw that villagers in western U.P. knew exactly what they would have to spend to get what they wanted from the sarkari persons in charge: not privileges but actions which were the duty of the officials. In the same way, the touts at the Tilak Marg Regional Transport Office in Delhi could rattle off from memory the current “rate chart” for different services. The official rate chart was painted on a large board, but that was of no value to someone going for a driver’s licence or a duplicate registration certificate.

For decades we have had the myth of the “trickle down effect”, which says that if the rich make money, some of that will go down to the poor. This is of course a justification for not having arrangements to ensure that the moneyed and privileged do not feast overmuch on the labour of the toiling people.

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