Does Government really wish to eradicate Corruption ?

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Corruption is something in India which a child knows since his childhood. It has become a phenomenon which everyone has to face in every walk of life. For example, the milk we drink everyday, gas cylinders bills, telephone department, driving license, any legal work which one needs to get it done as soon as possible, persons convicted for offences, many more can be cited here as India has a a full fledged variety in the name of corruption. People have become so helpless that they shifted the burden onto the youths to fight against corruption which has taken its roots into our country. Why so? The youths were not alone while choosing their corrupt leader. If anything could be done, it will be done united nation, because there is a risk of fall if we diverse. Corruption in any form is treated as an incurable disease, a cause of many social and economical evils in the society and it damages the moral and ethical fibres of the civilization. It has been prevalent in society since ancient times. History reveals that it was present even in the Mauryan period. Great scholar Kautilya mentions the pressure of forty types of corruption in his contemporary society. It was practised even in Mughal and Sultanate period. In simple meaning of it is that corruption implies perversion of morality, integrity, character or duty out of mercenary motives, i.e. bribery, without any regard to honour, right and justice. In other words, undue favour for any one for some monetary or other gains is corruption. Corruption has spread its tentacles in every sphere of life, namely business administration, politics, officialdom, and services. In fact, there is hardly any sector which can be characterised for not being infected with the vices of corruption. Corruption is rampant in every segment and every section of society, barring the social status attached to it. Nobody can be considered free from corruption, right from a from vendor to the bureaucrats.

Lets talk about a milkman, who serves every morning a packet of milk at certain places. Even if the people know, he mixes water to the delivered milk, still they seem just helpless to even speak up! They rather find it more convenient to utter these things when they sit and chat with their friends at a corner of their house. Why dont people realize their rights? Here, he is paying for the service done, still he is afraid to ask about the default in it. Why? They have set it as a trend that it would never improve or rather they will just say, I cant change the system alone man! But you can atleast choose to lead it. The corrupt practices have now become our lifestyle to such an extent that, we do not seem to feel that there is anything wrong in what all we are doing., and that things should not be as they are. All our ethics, self respect and love for our motherland is lost somewhere in the last fifty years. Today we are standing at the threshold of a new millennium with, the erstwhile Indian National Congress and many other parties without a single leader of stature. Today the sets of politicians of all political parties are just money spinning actors just working to establish estates for their seven generations. The scams which have come to light in last one decade have amounted to multi crores, like The 2G Spectrum Scam, The Common Wealth Games Scam, Telgi Scam, Satyam Scam, Boffors Scam, Fodder Scam (Chara Ghotala), Hawala Scam, IPL Scam, Harshad Mehta & Ketan Parekh Stock Market Scam and so on, so forth. This should be considered as the progress of our nation that the politicians who were involved in the above cases are still not punished, not even taken into consideration. The set of actors who set the policies are sitting above, eating all of the countrys wealth and later news comes up that India is ranked at the top for the BPLs. India has changed from the Land of Ethics to the Land of Consideraton. Anything can be done here just for mere consideration. Here, money travels underneath an officers table and so on. People choose their leaders here on the basis of their caste, if they are from their own caste, they will automatically get a vote on. We remember that we cant blame anyone, as we are the ones who selected our leaders but we forget that we even have the power to replace them if they do not fall upon their promises. A leader gets elected and then instead of coming on news channels for his achievements, he is seen as cartoons on the television with his everlasting same dialogues. Corruption in India is the nexus between bureaucrats, politicians and criminals. When we open the tab of Wikipedia and type for list of scams, there is a huge difference as it starts from 1948 with the jeeps scandal 80 lakhs to 2012 with the coal mine controversy 185,591.34 crore. A heavy progress in India! The causes of corruption in India include excessive regulations, complicated taxes and licensing systems, numerous government departments each with opaque bureaucracy and discretionary powers, monopoly by government controlled institutions on certain goods and services delivery, and the lack of transparent laws and processes. There are significant variations in level of corruption as well as in state government efforts to reduce corruption across India. Some of the largest sources of corruption in India are entitlement programs and social spending schemes enacted by the Indian government. Examples

include Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and National Rural Health Mission. Other daily sources of corruption include India's trucking industry which is forced to pay billions in bribes annually to numerous regulatory and police stops on its interstate highways. Indian media has widely published allegations of corrupt Indian citizens stashing trillions of dollars in Swiss banks. Swiss authorities, however, assert these allegations to be a complete fabrication and false. There are various steps even taken to eradicate it through the Government . There are Income Tax Officers, The CBI, The Bureaucrats, IAS Officers, various NGOs, Anti Corruption Laws,
Anti- Corruption Police and Courts , these all are fighting against corruption. But the question is, Why arent they effective? Even The Indian Armed Forces have witnessed corruption involving senior

armed forces officers from the Indian Army, Indian Navy and Indian Air Force. A number of scandals in the 20002010 period damaged the military's reputation; such scandals included skimming of armed forces money, re-selling of government property, and faking combat missions who are working against corruption. Such policies are still existing in India, if we go on browsing, number of steps taken by the government will come up, the issue is that they are not implemented. They are just discussed, thought over and decided for the sake of an upcoming news which would say, Government is taking serious actions against corruption, then everyone is expected to forget about any such action was taken and we do so. They rule us, not the laws, and we follow them. The Constitution is just laid down for the poor ones who cannot afford to pay the money for their consideration and he will be punished as the law was codified just for him, even if he had done a theft of hundreds and the persons who did a gondogol of crores are shamelessly moving throughout the country. If we do not blame the law, then whom should we? We do not feel proud while calling our own nation corrupt but we have to. It seems that the Government is the mother and these corrupt ones are his children whom hes just going on protecting. Crime happens because, we let them - Take the example of the terrorist, Ajmal Kasab, how many lives had he ruined, what loss he did to us, we and the law knows it very well then why till date the government is fast tracking efforts to dispose of mercy petition of 26/11 death row convict Ajmal Kasab at the earliest? The terror happened on 26th of November, 2008 and it is 2012 now! Any layman can imagine the speed rate of justice in India. A social worker, who had barely left the CST railway station when Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab and his accomplices wreaked havoc in 2008, has been sending letters, every day to the Prime Minister and President since then, praying that he must be hanged immediately. Here, the social worker knows a better justice. Mere complaining the fact that corruption is being prevalent would not work. If we want it to be our land, we have to snatch our rights back. Recently, In Jharkhand, some posters were put up

through some people which said : Girls at Ranchi would be wearing salwar- kameez when they step up the streets. What was it and Why was it done, no one knows but if we ask for the reasons, they will say that girls are going out of their limits thesedays. The Recent Guwahati Case, the girl was stripped in the public area just because the members around felt that her dress was indecent. Who gave them power to insult her? Is this also laid in the constitution? Right to control the activities of the female members rather there is Article 21 which states that no one should interfere into ones private and personal matters. They say that due to these kind of girls, rape cases are increasing day by day as these things arouse the desires of the male members of our society. Here, if we take an example of a 5-6 year old girl or rather a baby, who is raped, where does her fault lies? She was just to start her life still holding her parents hands. She is no more be provided with any justice neither the person who ruined her life would ever get imprisonment. These instances are very common at crowdy places such as, where some rituals happens, at the same place if officers are there to protect us, none of these can happen. Even if we lost hope with the law, some bothers can be employed there to check these things. To call them brother wouldnt be wrong as right from the childhood, we take a pledge where we say, All Indians are my Brothers and Sisters, then I have to help my each and every kin. We always, till we die, have the right to revolt if something wrong happens with us. If someone is illiterate, educate him/her to know things. Inequality exists due to us, not to the law. We have divide each other. It is not like any particular caste/religion is wrong. The burden of proving yourself lies on you. It depends on individuals, whether they do right or wrong. We were and we are the owner of our land and we cannot let anyone walk through dirty legs on it. Corruption is a termite in every system. Once it enters the system, it goes on increasing. Today it is rampant and has gradually become routine. Worldwide, bribery alone is estimated to involve over 1 trillion US dollars annually. It is indeed the biggest challenge in front of any government because the system itself is handicapped as its own employees are slaves of another. Many big problems such as poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, pollution, external threats, underdevelopment etc. are posed in front of the Indian government. The government and its employees all are corrupt so the schemes floated by the government for the betterment of poor are not properly implemented. The same was hinted post 26/11 attack in India. According to the sources the attack couldnt have been possible without the help of the insiders. Corruption is not just limited to administration. It is very much prevalent even in legislation and judiciary so much so that it is probably the biggest challenge and needs to be eradicated from its grass root. For the same purpose the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 was enacted. The Criminal law was amended but no change could be observed. These acts just seems to have been enacted for the sake of using their powers, the authoritative persons sitting at the top. Talking in layman terms, there was a Mathura Rape Case where a girl was raped through two policemen, one of them was in an intoxicated position at the police chowky itself, Maharashtra.

She went there with her guardians to lodge a complain and when her guardians were returning, she was asked to stay back by the officials for further information. As soon as they went out, she was raped. The most interesting thing here is The Supreme Courts judgment. It was held that she was a liar and was habituated to sexual intercourse, her consent was involved in it and if it was not the same, why didnt she make an alarm during her rape or during her check-up, there were no marks of injuries on her body. These were the grounds, on which the bench reached this judgment. How can the persons sitting on the bench know why she was unable to shout or why werent there any marks? They did not look that one of the officials was intoxicated, why she was asked to stay back, It may have been like she have been forced to do so with some serious threatens to kill her or her close ones. Here, any common man would protect the raped girl but the court here tried to think in a more innovative and interesting way and saved its officials. Law no more seems to be of the people, it is of the officers, policemen, politicians, criminals and itself. The argument can come up that the amendment came later saying that, in a rape case- if a girl says that her consent was not there, then the court has to assume that it was so. Several revolts and rebels were seen against this case. Before the situation could turn violent, government enacted the above law and thus got a safe side. The government no doubt makes policies, but it is being unaffective. Everything has been done. Agitations, riots, rebels, revolts, all violent and non-violent steps had been taken. Still, the case is similar. It seems like now god has to come and save this land. To quote here, John Rawls Government should implement such policies which gives the most of the advantages to the least ones. The burden of proving yourself lies on you. There is nothing like some particular caste/ religion is wrong. It depends on individuals, whether they do right or wrong. We were and we are the owner of our land and we cannot let anyone walk through their dirty legs on it.

Pragya Shambhavi NUSRL, Ranchi