In the light of truth, facts and understanding of “xyz” concepts we derive the chart of pros and cons in most situations. But what if for once I deceive your morals and ask you to confront the good side of something you’ve always considered bizarre? As insane as it sounds, let us try to offend AND defend corruption and try to understand if it actually makes or mars our country - India!
In a lecture today at class (after all I am just a student) we were confronted with the most thoughtful topic I have come across till date. Can we actually shake hands with corruption? I’ve been reading this beautiful book called “The Secret of The Nagas” – Amish Tripathi and hence, I began to correlate this philosophy to the most basic of all truths, something that justifies the facts. Lord Shiva once said, “Greater the good, greater the evil.” And it all makes sense now! Let us see how twisting the tail can help us turn the tables.
When we drop down to define corruption, we can only do it in domestic boundaries. Why? Well, the Chinese economy believes in “If they can, we can!” resulting in BlueBerry, Gulsar, Shijingshan Amusement Park, Seayahi Cofee etc. whereas if you look into Indian premises patent rights rule the market restrictions. So the underlying fact is, what is corruption for us, is a way of living for the other. So, the reason number one is, not having a proper setup to define what exactly corruption is. Another interesting concept that came up was the difference between crime and corruption. But let’s first stick to defining corruption.
If we look at a broader spectrum corruption can be mainly classified as two segments. The first category is the corruption which is massive but still does not affect the personal life of common people, aptly denoted by the Harshad Mehta scam. Such levels of corruption can be tagged as Elite Corruption. The other category is, quite obviously, the ones which affect the common man like the CWG Scam of India. A massive scam of 8kcr. which shook our economy to a large extent, hence, affecting lives of people like you and me. Such corruption can be termed as Basic Corruption in an economy.
For long we’ve been cursing the kind of political personnel our country cater to, but, for the benefit of the larger good lets understand how the basic policies of RBI boosts corruption. Take up any economy and you would realize that the biggest denomination of currency is “100”. Now compare that to Indian front. We cater to a currency note with a value of “1000” as the largest denomination. The question is, how does this cause corruption? The straight-forward answer to this is common sense. If one need to carry a certain amount of money for an illegal activity the size of holding has its own cost. To pay a currency of 10,000 outside India you might have to carry 100 notes of denomination 100 each which a lot compared to carrying 10 notes of 1,000 denominations each. This might be a small reason but it surely brings ease to the whole process corruption flow.
Another concept that rises is that of “Corporate Lobbying”. It is the process of influencing public and government policy at all levels: federal, state, and local. Presently illegal in India, what if it was to be legalized? Interestingly, human behavior acts as a catalyst to any reforms a country faces. Macau made cocaine legal for a reason which was, people there are so rich that buying cocaine would not be a big deal even if it were to be set as illegal. Hence, in order to keep a control over dosage it made cocaine freely available in the markets. Now imagine a situation where lobbying is legal. Wall-Mart wants to open a store in New Delhi (assuming). In the present scenario where to get the job done quicker under-the-table payments are made, if Wall-Mart makes the same payment to the person in charge with an invoice i.e. legally, a tax is deductable and the amount paid stays white. This situation not only will show a higher GDP, but will also speed up the whole procedure as such. Both the governments, US and India, stay happy as tax has been paid and no black money has been generated!
But, alas, the dark side of corruption in India’s case overshadows its pros! India at a whole is a country diseased by poverty. If in a situation like this we adopt the philosophy of “I have money and so I spend it, if you don’t have it’s your problem!” The only result would be rich getting richer and poor getting poorer. A country like the USA might feel at home with such a policy but for India it’s like digging a suicidal pit for one’s own loss.
Hence, looking at the larger picture one might just realize that no doubts corruption has its own positive affects for the economy but for a country like India that is currently developing, has a humongous population and suffers at the hands of poverty, it becomes near to impossible for corruption to flaunt its brighter side.
After all, John Steinbeck once said
“Power never corrupts people, fear does. Perhaps, the fear of loss of power!”
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