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People and society by
Hari
Posted on Sun, Jan 1, 2006 at 22:42 IST (last updated: Thu, Oct 30, 2008 @ 08:19 IST)
The media often talk about corruption. They use grandiose phrases like "corruption is the disease of society" or "corruption is the cancer that eats away at the vitals of a country" and so on. I don't know who coined the phrase equating corruption to cancer, but they aren't too far off the mark. Unfortunately, do we really know that much about corruption? How does it begin and where does it end? Well, I'll try and analyse this phenomenon from an Indian point of view, since corruption is a big problem in this country, but I'm sure the principles apply globally. Also I'll restrict the definition of corruption to mean corruption in governance and bureaucracy for the purposes of this article.
So where does corruption start? To begin with, I'll try and classify corruption based on the motivations. In other words, what motivates individuals to become corrupt? I think that there are two broad aspects to this.
- Extension of privilege
- Denial of service
Without taking extraordinary circumstances into consideration I think corruption is motivated by these two factors. Let me explain what I mean by them.
Extension of privilege
I think the source of corruption begins with the individual who wants an extension of privilege. In other words, he wants something from authority to which he is not rightly entitled to. A man who wants a favour from an officer of law or a government servant who is in a position to give it - a favour which breaches the normal rules and regulations or something to escape the consequences of crime. This kind of corruption is motivated by the bribe-giver and not by the bribe-taker. So far so good. It's restricted to an individual's motivation to attain some end which is not normally possible. So what's the problem with this if it doesn't affect others? The transaction is restricted to a few individuals and nobody suffers as a result (unless the underlying purposes are innately criminal). To answer this question, I'll go on to the next one, which is denial of service.
Denial of service
The danger of a few individuals seeking to extend their privileges in society by bribing a few people in a position of authority and power is that it creates the seeds of the second form of corruption which is rather more insidious and unfortunately more powerful and difficult to control. Because it is driven by the bribe-taker and not the bribe-giver.
When an officer of law or a government servant who wields enormous powers decides that he would not do his duty in the normal course of business but do it only in exchange for money or favours, he creates the seed of corruption in the system. Thus people are forced to pay money for getting things done in the normal course of business. Things that they are entitled to from government, but don't get unless they pay the agent (in this case the bureaucrat or officer) a bribe (also called "speed money" in India). This is a vicious form of corruption because:
- It spreads far more quickly in society and becomes institutionalized when a majority of government servants decide to follow the policy of bribe-taking for performing their normal duties.
- The common man gets entrapped into it. Corruption is enforced from the top and is not a "choice". He cannot fight the system because the system is far bigger and more powerful than he can ever be.
- It creates far more problems than the first form of corruption because it creates injustice and punishes the honest.
In short, it is far preferable to have several dishonest people in society who want to bribe rather than a few dishonest officers of government who want to take the bribe. I don't think we recognize that the bribe-taker is often in an advantageous position because he wields the control and he has some authority which can harm people if used in the wrong way. It's similar to the principle of justice that it's far better that a hundred criminals go unpunished rather than a single innocent man be convicted.
There is a hitch here. And that is: aren't these dishonest individuals sowing the seed of the second kind of corruption when they bribe those in positions of power? Aren't those officers or government servants who receive bribes begin to think of it as their privilege to receive money in exchange for their regular duties in the long run? A man who takes a bribe to perform a special favour today to somebody he knows will soon take bribes to do his regular job from everybody else. Then he spreads it to his colleagues and pretty soon, entire departments become corrupt to the core. Like it or not, it's a fact today that governments have insitutionalized this corruption right from the top-level management to the door-keeper.
The real issue here is that this form of corruption is a menace to civil society and the democratic way of life because it is driven by fear, not just by greed. The fear that a honest man feels when he opposes this institutionalized corruption - the fear that he will be denied his rights or maybe even harmed if he does not give in to it. The fear of an honest officer who is forced to succumb to corruption simply because the system does not permit him to remain honest - the fear that he might be weeded out if he does not comply with the "norm". Undoubtedly, this vicious cycle of bribe-giving and taking will continue until this fear is removed. The answers are not simple because the system has been made to work that way thanks to years and years of passive acceptance. Unfortunately the cure will not be painless. The media probably doesn't understand this when they start blaming the common man. Yes, they might have been passive witnesses to the process of spreading corruption, but the real culprits are probably less than 10% of society. The price, however, is paid by all of us.
The cure can only come when attitudes change. And that will depend on the next generation of politicians and bureaucrats. The present generation is too deeply rooted in corruption to come out of it completely. The role of this generation therefore is to provide education which promotes values, ethics and morality rather than merely train individuals to perform jobs and earn more money. Education is a topic that deserves entire books on its own and I won't go into it here. But it's obvious that education plays a huge role in shaping individuals and societies and that education systems have to be fundamentally sound and sensitive to the needs of the greater common good.
So I conclude by saying that corruption is a cancerous disease. And the cure, just like chemotherapy can hurt a lot before it heals.
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