That should probably the name of this country after what we have seen in the last year. For anyone who rates integrity as a core value of mankind, 2010 was a horrible year.
Corruption was not limited to any specific sector. It was apparent that corruption exists in all walks of the society. Here are a few of those (which came to light):
- 2G was of course 'too(2) (G)rand' a scam; mother of all scams. I am sure the stakes (read rates) would have been even higher for the 3G spectrum allocation.
- The politicians' greed also spread to an institution which is known for its discipline, the Indian Army. The Adarsh Housing scam dragged the Army into the mud.
- Land was the cause for other scams involving chief ministers and their families in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
- Sports had its own share of scams. CWG and the mess around it projected the country in very poor light, whereas the event was actually meant to do exactly the opposite. IPL and the infighting amongst its stakeholders blew the lid off another can of worms, putting the much celebrated Lalit Modi in the dock.
- Of course, when money is the root cause of all, how can the financial sector be behind. The LIC Housing scam where the topmost officials are said to be involved continued the shameful trend.
- Medicine was not spared as well. Ketan Desai, the president of the Medical Council of India, was finally removed from his office for allegedly amassing wealth through corruption in the medical education sector.
The very institutions which are supposed to control this disease were mired in controversies of their own. Former Chief Justice of India (CJI) was accused of amassing a lot of wealth during his tenure. Moreover an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court alleges that 8 of the last 16 CJIs are corrupt. The office of the Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) and the process through which a CVC is appointed also came under scrutiny when P J Thomas, who is accused of corruption, was appointed to the post.
All of these are only symptoms of the sorry state of the Indian polity and the society, where greed seems to be a worshipped evil. We have all been celebrating the Indian growth story. I am sure if we did not have the scourge of corruption, we would be growing at a much faster pace. Purely in cash terms, the amount of money which is diverted into the parallel economy of corruption, could easily contribute to the GDP and a couple of percentage points of growth!
What can be done? Every issue has a process and people component. This one needs transparent processes and accountable people. Unless we put in place both of these, corruption will continue to be a drag on our economy and culture! This will mean different approaches and measures in different sectors of public life, the end objective of which would only be to secure the collective futures of all the hard-working citizens of this country. I strongly think that we can make a start by ensuring that the judicial process for convicting such accused persons is expedited as well as the punishment for those individuals is severe. Restrictively severe.
Take care!
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