Shyam Parekh

If there is one crime that every Indian has committed then it is tolerating corruption. This tolerance has churned out 121 crore criminals. Accepting corruption as a way of life. Deciding not to fuss over it. With every ticking second, probably a thousand arms are jutted out asking for Bakshish and Chai-pani, resulting in a billion heads hanging in shame.

But let's face it, we are insensitive to it and we have promoted it. As Anna Hazare fasts to free India from this evil, every Indian needs to ensure that we don't end up becoming a failed state. By allowing corruption to perpetuate, thrive and eat away our systems on which our democracy stands tall, we are contributing towards it. One of the biggest factors behind the ills of countries like Pakistan and Russia is corruption. When everyone around us is corrupt, people have no one to turn to for respite, but nihilistic forces like Naxals and fundamentalists. And that's how mightiest nations crumble. We will be there sooner than we think, if we don't act on corruption, NOW.

But a Lokpal bill, a change of government or arrest of thousands of corrupt persons is not going to bring about a change. Till each of us as an individual decides not to indulge in any form of corruption and most importantly not to be quiet about it, there will be no effective change.

It's not always our greed that supports corruption, but sometimes it's our need too. The state and the union governments have to, on priority basis, bring out complete transparency in all the processes that compel people to indulge in corrupt practices. Revenue, home (police), health and education are the sectors where there is maximum corruption. At least, the kind that the common people face all the time. Till there is no attempt to rectify these processes, every attempt to curb corruption will be thwarted.

But to banish corruption for good, we need a sustainable change. Extreme forms of social inequalities will breed corruption. Traffic police assistants, teaching assistants, paramedical and health workers who work for a pittance of a pay -in the range of Rs 2,000 to 5,000 a month will be continue to indulge in corruption for survival. Police constables, teachers, nurses, doctors, panchayat employees are asked to fork out thousands of rupees as 'haftas' to simply keep their jobs. Their political masters indulge in rampant corruption to gather 'party funds' and 'election funds'. This has to end. How, it can happen no one knows. Somebody has to find an answer.

The business and corporate houses in the country are working with just one goal - to maximise their profits. And to achieve this, they stop short of nothing, till the last standing honest guy is turned corrupt. There is a shameful and despicable arrogance that the moneyed lot in the Indian society has grown -that everything has a price. Anyone and anything can be bought, the only difference is that some open their mouth wider than the others. Instead of respecting the honest members of the family, offices and society, they are ridiculed as 'budhdhu' or not 'practical'. An army of highly educated consultants, experts and lawyers work day and night with one passion - to find a solution to subvert, break and bye-pass a legal provision which will earn more money. Why this national passion for disrespecting the system that supports us?

Part of the blame can be shifted on the Indian culture of denying the obvious. Hypocrisy. This is reflected in our laws too. As a nation we refuse to legitimize prostitution. The result is that millions of sex workers in the country are harassed by police. This gives birth to the underworld which thrives on trading and protecting them. It then spreads its tentacles and eats away all the pillars of democracy. Why can't we make life simple for these heavily exploited women? Why we work hard and make laws which subject them to perpetuate in a living hell, every breath they take?

Mahatma Gandhi could not have imagined in the wildest of his nightmares that the prohibition he preached is going to be used by successive and hypocrite governments in Gujarat as a weapon to corrupt the entire society. Every Gujarati who wants to sip alcohol has to turn to a bootlegger, who thrives on corruption and thus every common person ends up supporting and funding corruption. Gangsters. Underworld dons. Narco-smugglers. Terrorists. All benefit from Prohibition. Corrupt policemen and Politicians argue, if there was no prohibition they would have turned to more abominable forms of crime to earn that extra money. The solution is legitimizing sale and consumption of alcohol.

It is interesting how an entire nation reacted to this movement. It should shape into the second Freedom struggle. Albeit this time there is no external enemy like the Britishers were. The enemy is within us. This should be a freedom struggle to get rid of the enemy within us -corruption.