Answer to any question beginning with 'Can we...?' must always be a big Yes!
As nothing is impossible for any human being, but before we cherish to wipe it out, we must understand what actually a corruption is and how has it evolved and flourished in our country.
Corruption is actually a state of mind, a desire to accumulate wealth fast and with a minimum of efforts. It is prominent in places where there is a huge financial disparity between the inhabitants of society. Its growth is enormous where some people of society have a sudden meteoric rise, in a short span of time. It is seen by others as an inspiration in negative form, and many others try to outgrow incongruently with their capacities. As such, it travels down the society pretty rapidly and engulfs a large section of society. When this happens, automatically an organization is formed of such like-minded people, whereby it is perceived as an “art” rather than an act of dishonesty, which has what happened in our country over the years, and citizens have now taken it for granted.
Today in our country, most of the people promptly reach to their wallet in times of crisis or at slightest discomfort, which has overtime been transferred to a habit. The discomfort may be so small as standing in a queue or waiting for the process to take its reasonable time, to deliver the wants of that individual.
As such, the process itself becomes very painful and long, for those who prefer (or could not afford) to reach to their pocket so promptly. This negative form of “art” has now become an inspiration and the younger generation is trapped easily into it for easy money. These “artists” of corruption often are knowledgeable in understanding the nuances of any policy and are adept at identifying loopholes in it to block the natural deliverable services to the common man. It is very surprising to note that this art is more prevalent in the offices which are meant to serve the people, and these offices are instituted by the Government itself, which constitutes of the people elected by the people, for serving the people. Such offices are required for good governance and are supposedly meant to provide efficient services to the masses, for making them lead a good life. All Government offices are in fact the breeding ground of this virus of corruption, which in fact has made inroads to the Judiciary too, wherein it starts not at the entrance gate but near the periphery of the offices/courts itself.
The question now is, can it be wiped out and how? The answer is yes, and by all of us, when we work in unison and amending the first act of electing our representative, to the last act of reaching our own pocket is thoughtfully done or not done at all. As far as the onus of this is on the highest offices, it should be expected from such higher government offices to make policies purposeful. The policies, ordinances, the law should be short and with minimum mention of required documents or better said it should emphasize on the purpose rather than the document, for example, an “Aadhar card” would obviate the need of any other documents as ration card, collector certificate or any other document for proving identity or residence, etc.
Generally, the art is performed meticulously by the artist, whenever there is a monetary transaction made. Hence, it should be so transparent, easily recordable and un-editable, so that it is digitally encrypted and is immediately transmitted and acknowledged. The current Government seems to be doing this by encouraging digital cashless transactions. The best example of this is the system adopted in passport offices these days where the services have become so fast and prompt that the “touts” are generally nowhere to be seen. Still, people reach out to their pocket sometimes, during police verification, even when the job is done. This reaction from such people is due to the fact, that over a period of time it has now become a habit to promptly react to such services, which generally used to take a lot of time and hassles and as such it is seen as a favor by some individuals, instead of responsibility of the service provider. Hence unless the supply side (feed) to this virus of corruption is not stopped the virus may continue to thrive.
In order to destroy the art of corruption, every individual needs to be taught that instead of reacting they should respond, as the reaction is a fall out of a habit, but the response is an action well thought of. The response should be to acknowledge the services, to appreciate and need to suggest a better model for further improvement in the system, so that the services may become instant. It is also pertinent to mention that as of now an organization has been built in our country by such artists, who perform the art on stage with blatant audacity and regularity, in almost every essential routine necessity of the society.
It is not purposeful and wise to banish an individual in this virtual organization created by all these artists, as it would take much more time, instead, it is wise to establish another organization against it, by the common people. Many organizations at the highest level, like vigilance and CBI, are instituted to fight this menace and are armed with enormous powers, as an armory to curb the menace of corruption. But they are akin to be just the front large tooth of an elephant, which look beautiful and gigantic but are totally ineffective for the intended purpose, as the virus has stealthily penetrated in advance, into these well thought of initiatives some time ago.
The best way is to create an organization within the organization of such artists, whereby it can eat itself out like a black hole. The best way though may seem unjustified or the legality of which may be questioned by the judiciary is to exonerate or minimize the sanctioned punishment to an individual who gets caught in an act of corruption, only if he could manage to provide proof of other few more persons who are associated with him. The degree of relaxation would then depend on the greater number of people (artists), an individual can bring into the net. This may sound illogical, but would turn out into a wonder drug to kill just not two birds but many with a single stone and the efficacy of this would be that, it spreads like a cancerous cell in that very organization, as everyone caught would like to get minimum punishment or would provide the number of these performers in its net, in case he or she would like an exoneration. If this model with certain well thought actions are properly injected, the disease would certainly be cured miraculously and with the success of few cases, it would also act as a deterrent and would instill psychological fears in minds of many more such artists of corruption, who would be preparing for their next performance on stage. To conclude, the main action to wipe the corruption out of the country, the following needs to be done:
Cut the supply source: Ease off reaching to wallet approach.
The episodes of sudden meteoric rise through this art form should be properly investigated, and once the hero is caught, the other character artists must also be roped in.
Kill the art rather than the artists.
Yes! We can wipe out corruption and bribery from our country, only if this art form is completely eradicated.
(Featured Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixaba)
About the Author
Shreyansh Dixit is a passionate writer, an altruistic man. He identifies himself first as a motivational speaker and then the Chief Manager of IOC. He not only follows various ideas of eminent thinkers but also perseveres to interpret and question them at an individualistic level. Having completed several full and half marathons, Shreyansh pursues to go beyond the general exegesis of life to find what appeals to him and humanity at large.