Indian youth and educated have woken up to a week that has seen the supremacy of power, diplomacy of selflessness and bureaucracy of the politicians. With all the scams that have surfaced over the last year and with the amount of money involved in those so called scams, it is mind boggling to understand the length and breadth of a small word called “corruption”. We have come out of our offices and houses on to the roads in support of a cause of a self less man who was ready to take on the government to implement few rules to arrest the easy escape of the corrupted and their supporters. It’s strange to see that everyone wants to end the corruption, not only the effected but even the corrupted.
How does it work? One said we need to start at the bottom and end corruption whereas the other says it is easier to end it at the top and drive it down. No matter what approach is taken, corruption is something that would prevail in our daily lives. With changing times, we are in a quest for a better and tranquil life for ourselves and money plays a very important role. In other words, we are on a quest for more money in order to improve our lives which again is in comparison to the ones who is leading a better one. This requirement will never end and so is the quest for extra bucks.
Everyone, to their individual capacity, limitation of power and ethics have access to take a shorter route to money. Let it be a CEO of a major IT company which went down or a financial consultant of an investor who directed them wrong, all have their involvement and abilities. Companies or the governments have policies and procedures laid down by the rules to protect themselves from corruption but how can one identify the intention of the person holding the responsibilities? It is next to impossible. Managers in a private company get their private travel approved on basis of a official trip to a location, these managers have also fought the system recently against corruption. Executives show ghost employees to obtain the salaries of these employees to boost up the unit expenditure which runs short due to tight budgets. They have not utilized the money for a personal use but only for diversion of funds. Is it not corruption when there is a change in view?
Spiritual leaders inspire the common man with their verbal strength of values and idealism. They take donations to run the ashrams at first and when the ashrams run on their own, donations get diverted for a better lifestyle. Hard earned money get reaped up by the taxes and saving the tax with wrong proofs of investment is also something that most have fought against in the recent weeks by globalizing it into a term called corruption. Paying a cop for a broken rule to molding a policy for a better performance, we are all part of the system and involve in reaping the benefits of one’s own interests. When these benefits are measured on a scale, we realize how big an advantage one has taken through his availability, ignoring our own backyard of mistakes which do not weigh up to the volumes involved.
Are we fighting the numbers involved in corruption or the intent of corruption? If it is about the numbers, let’s all get together and categorize corruption into levels and judge them by the combination of their mediocrities, leaving behind the encouragement we give. If not, we can sit and relax as we cannot and will not compromise on our priorities other than supporting a cause that someone else will raise for!!!
“Be the change you want to see in the world” – Mahatma Gandhi
