Dear Chetan, you are wrong. We don’t need to do an expose on ourselves..
…or look within. We need to think.
Dear Chetan, earlier today, I chanced upon your column in ToI, “We the Shamelessâ€. You started your piece by saying: “It’s time to stop blaming just our politicians for corruption and look withinâ€. You went on to write, “..organisations like the IAC should also send out the message that it is a lack of values within us..that has turned India corrupt†And in your concluding paragraph, you said: “it is time we did an expose on ourselvesâ€
That was what tipped me over.
Frankly, I’m sick & tired of hearing “the fault lies with/within us” & variations on this theme when talk comes to corruption.
The fault does not lie within us.
Indians are NOT genetically programmed to be corrupt.
It is the systems & processes around us that make us behave the way we do. Humans are fickle – and they are prone to temptation. Indians are no exception. But our behaviour is driven by incentives – or lack thereof.
Acharya Chanakya realised this several thousand years ago. We seem to have forgotten that.
The vast majority of Indians who live & work outside India are honest and law-abiding citizens or residents of the countries they live & work in.
Why?
What makes us – or them – behave differently in India? Could it be the climate? the heat, perhaps?
No.
It is the systems and processes.
Systems and processes that makes it almost necessary to “be corruptâ€, that provide strong “incentives†to be corrupt and that allow such acts of dishonesty to go unchecked & unpunished.
In simple mathematical terms,
“Incentive to be corrupt†+ “Necessity to be corrupt†+ “No consequence of being corrupt†= Deadly cocktail of rampant corruption.
That is what ails India.
A clear understanding of this equation and consequent action to fix these variables will be the only way to achieve any probity in public life.
How do we do that?
How about starting with a fundamental overhaul of the electoral system & reform of campaign financing laws? It is widely accepted that the need to spend enormous amounts of money in elections is what engenders large-scale loot of the kind we are witnessing today.
As friend Atanu Dey explained in a column earlier this year: “Perhaps the system selects the most dishonest and the least principledâ€.  This system provides not only an “incentive†to be corrupt (so you can outspend your opponent) but almost makes it “necessary†to be corrupt (so you can contest with a decent chance of winning).
How about bringing in transparency and creating simpler processes? So that people like us are not “forced†to be corrupt to get our driving license? or to get a clearance from the Municipal Corporation? or to get a permit from a government department?
Let’s create simpler processes. Let’s focus on transparency and leverage technology – as widely as possible and as deep within the system as possible – to eliminate petty and low-level corruption.
Let’s bring transparency and simplicity in decision-making with as little room as possible for discretion. Complexity breeds corruption; Opacity in decision-making is a tonic on top of that.
Let’s bring in a smaller government and fewer laws.
Let’s fix the judicial system – so it never again happens that a corruption case against a Union Minister drags on for more than a decade.
And finally, let us bring in swifter consequences. Consequences that tilt the “cost-benefit†balance; consequences that are delivered swiftly and transparently.
I think you get my point.
And I hope next time you catch someone saying this, you will stop them. Right away.
Trust me, Indians are not intrinsically corrupt and we can do better than doing an expose on ourselves. Thank you for reading. Jai Hind, Jai Bharat!
Track me on Twitter:Â http://twitter.com/satyamevajayate
Screenshot image, courtesy IBN’s report titled, “Bhagat’s ‘Mera Neta Chor Hai’ strikes a chord”; Cross-posted over at ToI Blogs.
Related Posts: Why Good People don’t join Politics and Tackling Corruption over Diet Coke and Salad
Update (Dec ’14): Pl note this post is now a place-holder for all comments related to campaign financing, campaign funding reform. Thanks.
Actually i dont Surprised What actually chetan wrote , In India If you ask any one , you will get same kind of answer ,
Now my Problem Where we get these Stories ??
if we see the history we can easily understand that it come from the experience of Europe had on India.
But their experience of India and India s culture is not equal to the way India is !!!
When Travellers came to India wrote their report , followed by the missionaries who came and continue the reports of the traveller , social scientist came from Europe and they continue the report of traveller and the missionaries , and they told us that India is the corrupt country , we are the immoral country ,
Now against this Swami Vivekananda , Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Gandhi and others reacted in their own way , whether it right or wrong we have to judge as because we have privilege of standing here after 150 years and we can figure out where Vivekananda and Paramahamsa were wrong , despite of Vivekananda started to answer to the European in own way as because this is the story which he saw in his lifetime what is being reproduced and he knows it , that was wrong ,
But the extraordinary thing is the same story what Vivekananda heard in 1880 , still continue in 2011 ,
To give the just one idea how pathetic the situation and how the horrible the situation is , there is one economist called Mr. James Mill who is the father of Mr john Stuart mill famous liberal thinker he wrote a book called history of British India published in 2 thick volume in the middle of 18 th century , he never visited India ( least to tell that ) but his book was used to train ICS officer , ( British administration officer) and off course he has nothing good to say about India and Indians , you won’t believe what he wrote about India, but whole other parts of the world takes this book as an authentic description about India . More than that bridged version of this book is a standard history text book for MA history student in whole parts of universities
WHERE WE ARE LIVING, WHAT WE ARE DOING …!!!!!!
So what we are doing today is merely take over the experiences of Europeans about India as the truth about India, we just reproduce these truth today, off course in sophisticated norms
For an Example , we found our politician corrupt , IAS officers corrupt , our nation is corrupt , let’s see what it means to talk about it , there is one organization in Germany transparence international which tracks the corruption level in different countries and put them in a descending order , in 2002 India is somewhere around 83rd place , and keep moving downwards , its little bit like Indian population does , because Indian population want to become backward and rest of the world want to go forward (, say for example Gujjas , what they fighting for , they want to become backwards , ever heard of a societies group of people burning buses , going on strikes because they want to become backwards in the 21st century , and others want to follow them of course ) now in 2010 the same organasisation tells us that adult population of India out of which 53% of population is corrupt , that means in a family there is husband and wife out of which one is corrupt , now whatever may be the reason for corruption , interesting thing is , this claim about Indians being corrupt , is the story that began in 17th to 18th century and simply it’s been continuing without any pause .
Which means two things , First is Indian is indeed corrupt , massively corrupt , and that’s why also we had totally unethical immoral unjust society for over 2500 years and independence made it only worse for us , so what Europeans wrote about India is all true this is one possibility ,
There is second possibility what is this experience of our today in 21st century in India is colonial in nature , what if we are failing to understand , what is happened to India after independence , what if the so called corruption is the expression of something else namely indigenous political system which existed was subordinated by other political system which came from elsewhere and the result of the distortion is what we see as a Corruption , That means Indians are not corrupt there is something else which is running in the society which we have not understood ,
so if we want to solve the problem of corruption we need to setup anti-corruption committee , we have to study the nature of the Indian political structure , we have to study was there any native Indian political structure in India before we accepted so called parliamentary democracy in India , we have to understand the public officials ,
for an Ex:- Madana Gopal talked about Dharam Pal and his students , who shows very interesting facts about bureaucracy of India today , earlier before British and Muslims came most public officials were not public officials , they are private people , who are paid privately to do certain kinds of acts which is falling under the purview of governments , for example certifying somebody was tilling the land selling the land , it’s not the task of the government , but it’s the task of private notary and you have to pay him the money and get the certificates , in other words most of what you called public task were actually private in India ,
If it’s the case then we will understand why the things are going wrong in bureaucracy and politician in India because that’s not the way we have work, that means , what we have done is just merely taking over the description of Europe about India and mindless taken over their institution of social and political structure and paying the price for that .
Indian Study ” That is What we have to Do , Develop a Very Serious Scientific Research on India , Existing Conferences , Existing Discussion , Existing Books and articles , all of them , Millions Of them are the simply reproduction of 16th 17th 18th 19th 20th European centuries stories about India , They are Not Scientific , Forget about it , Our Constitution , Society , Politics are Based on set of LIES , and that the price we are paying in India , We are each group hates the other , Such is our blindness today
“THE IRRATIONALITY HAS BECOME THE NORMS ” FOR OUR EXISTENCE and NO single Indian Intellectual is Pointing out the Irrationality
So what we need to do today in India is scientific understanding about Indian Society, Indian Culture, Indian tradition, Indian past and then we have to follow the root for the future,
And that exactly what we are not doing
Dear Mr. Shantanu,
I respect the positive outlook that you have brought with your article. However, I beg to differ with you on few of the things.
A very important that you brought out is –
“The vast majority of Indians who live & work outside India are honest and law-abiding citizens or residents of the countries they live & work in.”
Yes it is surely not the climate in India which makes the people behave differently here. Agreed that procedures to get a driving license or a ration card may not be that transparent and that is what as per you leads us Indian to become corrupt. But we need to look inside and ask what have we done to change the system or to make it more transparent. I am sorry to say that majority of the upper middle class don’t even care to vote leave alone anything else. Today’s polling in Himachal Pradesh is testimony to this fact.
I understand that people like you are surely trying to bring a change through various efforts but there is a big question mark over what the majority is doing. And in my opinion Mr Chetan Bhagat is signalling towards the majority who still believe that politics is at best to be criticized in the comforts of their living room. The change that we need is from these people and being an optimist I am sure that someday this change will surely come.
Mr Bhagwat,
The laws can be made less onerous without first fixing the campaign finance. Fixing Campaign Finance is probably the MOST difficult thing in a democracy anywhere in the world. It is like scientists asking for solving “cold fusion” first and then do any other research.
Creating simpler processes, making government get out people’s business (minimum government, maximum governance – Narendra Modi) for large part and fixing judicial system like you are suggesting are enough to make huge improvements.
I get a chuckle when in TV debates the pundits says that “take that to court and get a ruling based on the law”… It is hard to even get a hearing in India, let alone a judgement.
Yes sir, your point of view is good. But even chetan’s reasoning is correct. I agree with both. Besides Chetan’s article is not to be seen in isolation. He holds practical useful views on other related topics.
Your idea would take less time. The last resort now seems to be IAC. They have forced to bring the change, now the challenge is on them to bring the change. There is still a large no of vocal people who can influence it in favor of IAC. There is tremendous challenge and if Kejriwal can do this, it will be miracle for which words would fall short!
Regarding Indians being good outside india, its because they don’t get to run the place and are not in majority. Indians are very good workers and good followers. Besides lots of things are not known about “insider’ behavior of expat indians.
The tragic example being Rajat Gupta, who after such a successful career and philanthropic ventures himself succumbed. something which only he can explain. Some say, desi blood finally shown true colors!
I personally feel, charity must begin at home.
If nothing else works, we may outsource governance to the outside world and service them in the barter!
There should be enough for everybody. Population control is a MUST, effective engagement of the youth is the NEED for a better future.
But the problem in the long run would be the definition of “enough” would change.
In the meantime we remain engaged in our daily bread butter /dal roti and occasional pizza outing: )
rgds
madan
dear all,
I think the most dreadful disease(corruption) which has been diagnosed long back and becoming more and more dreadful day-by-day is because of our own laws and principles. I see many a times different sort of news stating that some scandals have been happened and so and so persons are involved in that scandal and all such stuff regarding the scandal and we see they getting punished very happily.Is there any sense of happy punishment??? but still it’s getting happened in india,being imprisoned for particular point of time is nothing but just spending some time happily out of all problems which arises outside.Infact, a famous person who was imprisoned at cost of a huge scandal said that it was so peaceful and happier spending behind bars than being outside. So,punishment is happier thing in his point of view.Are these laws which ought to be exist under these conditions??If punishment ought and happen to lead to a happier life, then what’s the point of being punished?
“If a child during his childhood commits a mistake out of his ignorance and instead he got sweet and pleasurly gifts for doing it,he will get habituated to perform same blunder again and again and one day he will perform or committ a great mistake which is crime in our opinion but a routine activity in his own view.,then whom to be blamed?should we blame him for committing a mistake or should we blame society for allowing him to committ such a misake???”
That’s the sort of situation we are living in at present.Should we blame the persons who are involved in corruption or instead should we blame ourselves for allowing them and giving them right to perform that crime??
I really feel embarassed in some situations where a person who steals some thousands of rupees getting punished severely and persons who steal some crores of rupees getting respect throughout and getting some fans following him saying tha the is good but has done crime,.what is the medium to measure goodness in such cases??
Finally, i want to say that it’s we the society who are giving them right to do wrong things. Here society is not people alone, the entire system of so called democracy which gives utmost respect to people when defining it but has no scope for public for action in such system.
@Madan re. Deshi blood and true colours. Please try and find out a little more about Rajat Gupta and about the issue of insider trading in general. I could provide some clues. Google Max Keiser and follow his programs. He is about to become the most viewed television personality in the world… I bet you will never write about Indian blood in a similar derisive tone after a few hours of study.
@Sudeep. Good post, right from the bottom of an Indian heart, should I say?. I wish more Indians studied Dharampal and his books.
Chetan’s article is a harmless “plant”, don’t waste your braincells on it.
Or study this sentence from the piece: “stop blaming just our politicians for corruption and look within”. De-emphasize the “just” for a while. You will see that the article’s aim is to divert attention away from politicians’ corruption and direct it to something harmless, like navel gazing.
Any highschool kid will understand this: If Indian genetics were the problem, the mix of Italian blood would have reduced the problem, instead of aggravating it. Q.E.D
@Madan Kanti: “Whether Kejriwal can do this” — I tell you he can’t.
But what Kejriwal is doing is useful, in a small way. It is his way, and we don’t need to stop him.
When your natural resources are being carved up and feasted on by greedy vultures, it is not a good time to turn inwards and “look within”, certainly not as alternative to positive and corrective political action. At this crucial point, indeed a point of inflection, we need more political participation by the masses, not less. Fortunately, even Chetan’s writings can’t stop the tide.
Read this also:
http://sabhlokcity.com/2012/11/deepak-parekh-is-wrong-to-undermine-arvind-kejriwal-and-support-congressbjp/
You will likely see a deluge, a parade of commentators coming out calling for “go soft” kid gloves treatment on corruption. Chetan, Deepak Parekh, you see the pattern ? Connect the dots guys, infer that a media campagin FOR corruption is on.
Where were these guys all along ? One wonders.
@4 Madan Kanti. You say “The tragic example being Rajat Gupta, who after such a successful career and philanthropic ventures himself succumbed. something which only he can explain. Some say, desi blood finally shown true colors!”
Please read the following link.
Indians are less equal than others….
Sorry about writing again, but I just can’t help throwing another blow at this masochistic ‘We the Shameless’ attitude of well-to-do Indians. I will be happy if one of these guys writes to tell us that he/she/it has realised his/het/its mistake and is a reformed entity now.
So, what is this about?
Another ‘insider trading’ story, this time, from an antirely different and pious field. This will clear all your doubts.
Have a look.
Prakash,
Thanks for the link to the story of Hank Paulson.
I am not trying to claim that laws are better in US than in India
and proper justice is provided in US. My simple question to you
is that whether Rajat Gupta commited a crime or not ? Is not
insder trading crime in US ?
@12 Mohan. Whether an act is a crime or not is for the law of the land to judge. As outsiders, we can only form a view on whether the system treats everyone equally.
Some relevant excerpts from a recent post by Sandeep Gautam in ToI which (I believe) support the point I have made:
…Somehow the cultural value equation is not making sense for India and we are politically more corrupt than indicated by our cultural values.
What is going here? Perhaps the structural opportunities and constraints are to blame to a major extent.
…all things are not equal and there are immense structural opportunities and constraints that are causing rampant corruption in India. I would give Shantanu a +1 in this round of debate.
…We, the trusting are not to be shamed, but we, the leaders, who take, we, the trusting on a ride, are rightly to be.
P.S. There is one other observation by Sandeep which I agree with: “..In Developed countries where wealth is abundant less people are driven by survival values. In other words, scarcity appears to be a powerful motive for dishonest behaviour..
From The Political-Economy of Black Money in India by Ajit Karnik:
…The problem at the heart of the black money problem is the nexus between those who receive discretionary favours (private business in the sectors listed above) and those who provide these favours or even those who lobby for these favours on behalf of private interests (the polity in general with a central role for the government).
Unless this nexus is broken, there is little chance that the primary cause of black money generation will be nullified.
But who will bell the cat? Given the enormous amount of resources that are required to fight elections, can we expect political parties to slay the goose that lays the golden egg? In the absence of a policy which reforms the electoral system (e.g. public funding of elections has been proposed as a solution), we the electorate might as well sit back and enjoy the show-biz of illegal foreign bank accounts being played out on the 24-hour news channels…”