Guru Nanak had once famously remarked to his disciples – Tell me which direction there is no God and I will point my feet there. Corruption  too has acquired similar proportions.  There is nowhere to hide from Corruption. It is becoming omnipresent.

The next time you happen to pass by a roadside Traffic Police ‘May I Help You’ booth, on way to your office in the morning, look closely.

You just might see the Traffic Policeman doing puja with ‘Aggarbatti’ (incense sticks) in his hands. No! he is not merely being religious. He is also acknowledging the fact that apart from this being his duty station, it is also his seat of business. He is beginning his workday like any other shopkeeper by propitiating goddess Laxmi.  He then proceeds to be on the lookout for candidates to extort money from. The more entrepreneurial of the lot, even hire an assistant at their cost to receive bribe money on their behalf. This is to protect themselves from getting caught red handed. Is it any secret then, that many of these booths at strategic locations are prized possessions and transfer postings to them take place after considerable sums of money exchange hands.

The situation at the Police Station is far worse. Everything there begins and ends with money. Try lodging an FIR for any crime or incident. Once you satisfy many of their preconditions such as whether the complaint is genuine, whether it falls under their jurisdiction, whether it is for a ‘material’ item or not, whether the item (if missing) is insured or not, whether the complaint is not against any prominent person, etc etc., the next thing you will be told is that there is no paper for writing the FIR. Bring the paper, get copies made, add the customary ‘paper weight’ of bribe and then only your FIR will be entertained. Post lodging of the FIR till the filing of the Final Report, the complainant becomes a potential source of regular income to the inquiry officer unless he can find the criminal(s) with whom he can cut a deal for implicating them or setting them free.

If you still can’t find corruption, walk into any of the tax collection offices. What is most shocking to a young entrepreneur is that even if one wants to take the first step for paying tax by applying for a tax registration number, be it for sales tax, service tax, excise tax etc., you need to pay a bribe to procure the tax registration number. You need to bribe for the luxury of being able to pay tax. From then onwards, for every rupee you pay as tax, the bureaucracy needs their own share. Don’t be surprised if the Tax Commissioner is cross with you for paying the entire tax that is due. He would rather, that you pay less and share the booty with him.

From one department to another the gods of corruption are watching you every step of the way and they seek your obeisance for letting you pass by.

Another common den of corruption is the Railways. Corruption here, is like a 24 hour news channel, its always on. Street knowledge will tell you that if you have no reservation and you still need to travel, it is easier for you to board the train with a simple Platform ticket or even no ticket at all, rather than with a full paid ‘wait-list’ ticket. Why? Because it gives the Ticket Inspector more room to play with. A ticket-less traveler in the reserved compartment travels as the personal guest of the Ticket Inspector. Its a win win for both of them, the traveler pays half the fare , the Ticket Inspector gets his bribe, only the government looses out in between. However the situation is downright frightening in the unreserved class. Passengers are packed like sardines. Peasants and poor people are routinely harassed by the GRP and the Ticket Inspectors.  A number of times such harassment leads to their off loading from running train, often causing severe injuries and sometimes even death. But the extortion carries on throughout the days and especially the nights.

Politics and corruption have almost become synonymous in India. Of all corruptions, political corruption is the most brazen of them all. Politicians easily explain away corruption as political conspiracy and opposition’s move to defame them. The images of Sukhram caught with crores stashed under his bed, Narsimha Rao’s son declaring more than 200 crores in VDIS, Shibu Soren casting his vote in favour of the government in lieu of money found in his bank account, Mayawati declaring to the Income Tax Department, hundreds of crores of rupees, as personal gifts from her poor followers, and the very recent Buta-son act – all have one thing in common – the persons concerned continued in active politics even after being exposed. Politicians use their control over the levers of power to milk the system on a sustained basis. Their need for corruption grows in tandem with their stature as corruption is their primary source of revenue for keeping their political fortunes alive.

If corrupt politcians and officials are the Gods of Corruption, the Judiciary is truly the temple of corruption. Armed with the powers of contempt of court, and the discretionary powers of granting bail and dispensing punishment , Judiciary lords over corruption. Everybody swears by the Judiciary and bows before it. It is difficult not to get corrupted by such power. Corruption has been institutionalised in Judiciary, and everyone partakes. The lawyers, registrars, court orderlies, and the judges all join in to fleece the litigants and the accused. The longer the case meanders, the more chance there is to extort money. From the most minor task of seeking deferral to the grat of bail, and the highest task of deciding the case, everything carries a price tag. The secrecy, the lack of alternatives, the fear of reprisals, everything conspires to keep the judicial corruption under wraps. In the odd cases where it comes to light, progess is slow and ineffective. Not only does the Judiciary brim with corruption, it is also used by the beureucracy to cajole common citizens into submission. The threat of facing a corrupt, inefficent Judiciary soon brings them to their knees. Government after all, is not only the largest litigant in the country by a huge margin, but is also the largest abuser of law to persecute citizens on fabricated or inflated cases.

Out of the many advices that Gandhiji gave to the nation, none has been turned on its head more completely than his three monkeys sermon. His three monkeys symbolised the purity of inner self with ‘See No Evil, Hear No Evil and Speak No Evil’ . The bureaucrats and the politicians have conveniently taken two of his three advices to their hearts - See No Evil and Hear No Evil.  That is what prevents them from seeing any corruption or hearing about any either.

Governments routinely go about their work with blinkers on, paying scant attention to the rampant corruption all around them. While government can’t find corruption, people can’t seem to lose it. A common man meets corruption everywhere. To him, government itself has become the fountainhead of corruption. Wherever citizens come in contact with government, corruption potentially happens. The incidence of corruption is so pervasive in the day to day life that it is ironical that government vigilance departments have to work so hard to nail corruption. When corruption is present everywhere, all one needs is the determination to confront it. Yet the charade of catching and releasing culprits goes on, while the malady of corruption festers and grows by the day.

If the government is serious about confronting corruption, first of all, it needs to get its head out of the sand and boldly acknowledge the existence of the problem. Any solution can only emanate from there. The government can then begin its war on corruption by holding ‘Anti Corruption Weeks’ for promoting awareness and informing about future corruption control methods.  This should be followed by ‘Corruption Audits’ of departments for both the people as well as the processes. The aim of these audits should be to locate those departments that can be easily rid of corruption and used as models for the rest of the departments. The audits should review official documentation and the procedures that are being followed, especially with respect to common citizens. It should also review the financial status of the officials to match their known sources of income. Most importantly public comments should be invited to gauge the perception about the department. Wherever feasible social media should be used for the purpose. The audits should certify certain departments as ‘Corruption Free’ based on their findings. The rest of the  departments should be asked to draw a migration plan for being certified ‘corruption free’ after repeat future audits.Once certified, the departments should be subject to even higher standards of accountability and any transgressions should be severely punished. All this may seem like a fairy tale but a driven person like T. N. Sheshan or A. P. J. Kalam, as our ‘Corruption Czar’ can quickly turn fairy tales into reality.

ndian Elections are full of last minute entrants. First there are the ‘turncoats’ who switch sides right before elections owing to ‘political differences’, disillusionment, or simply the  realisation of being on the weaker side. Then there are the ‘rebels’, who on being denied ticket by their original party, either move to another party, float their own party or contest as independents. Next are the ‘proxies’ such as wives of criminals who replace their husbands if they are rendered ineligible to contest,  or wives of dacoits, underworld dons, politicians gone underground to evade arrest etc.. Also there are  the ‘overnight’  politicians like the wives, sons, relatives of powerful politicians or actors, sportsmen, public figures etc. who jump into the fray at the last minute to try their luck. None of them have any serious commitment to serve the electorate and are solely motivated by their personal gains.

To avoid such last minute entrants, internship for MPs & MLAs should be made mandatory. This could be implemented in a simple manner by :-

a) Fixing the term of the Parliament/ Legislature.
b)  Mandating all political parties to notify their candidates a minimum one year in advance of the polls. Independents too must be required to register their candidature at least one year in advance.

The one year waiting period should be treated as internship. This will give the electorate ample chance to evaluate and observe a candidate before voting for him. Candidates should use the one year period to nurture their constituency and try to solve the problems of their electorate. Competitive pressure will ensure that the interns work hard at winning the confidence of their electorate. Ironically though, the interns may turn out to be better than the eventual winners.