Fighting corruption begins at home: Former police officer

The only way to eradicate corruption was to begin a movement against it, said former police officer Jija Madhavan Hari Singh and called upon women to empower themselves to fight against the unfair practice.

Speaking on Wednesday at a convention on ‘Women against Corruption,’ she said, “Corruption is all pervasive. There is corruption in all departments. As a police officer, I was offered bribes and when I refused, people backstabbed me.”

She asked women to fight against corruption at their own levels. “As mothers, correct your children when they commit thefts at a young age so they do not grow up to become dacoits. Corruption is like dacoity: you steal from the poor to fill your own pockets. As wives, you should ensure that you do not support corruption and not become too demanding about material things that would encourage your husbands to resort to illegal means to acquire them,” she said.

Ruth Manorama, member of Women’s Voice, said that 100 years of women’s movement has brought women’s issues to the fore. Women were the worse victims of corruption as justice was being denied to them, she said. Women’s Voice is demanding representation of women in the Jan Lokpal Bill drafting committee, citizen-centric governance mechanism, fast track courts to speed up corruption cases, and monitoring committees to check corruption in delivery of public services.