Corruption Vs Corruption!

Corruption has deep roots in India. To get done almost all of your mundane tasks you need to pay 'speed money' and since it's 'time is money' for you, you don't mind paying. Then, for all your requirements of life like a job, licenses, favors and windfalls you need to make bribes or payoffs which is an increasing function of priority and to be a part of a lobby or a racket. It has become almost a way of life whether you like it or not. For employment you are forced to 'buy' a job which is the prevalent practice in most of the Indian states. When someone buys a job the immediate priority for him or her is to recover the 'spent' money as quickly as possible and one cannot achieve it in the normal course of employment. So, in a way it's like being 'initiated into corruption'.

Corruption is a basic function of 'greed'. Once you have enough greed you can embark on a course of making 'money' by hook or by crook. After becoming dirty rich you need to acquire 'power'. To make power ever increasing you need to be a part of a 'lobby' or a 'racket'. The most powerful ones are thus logically the most corrupt. So we can say the most powerful lobby consists of the most corrupt.

Committees are formed to probe or investigate scams and such committees have members from different fields from politics to bureaucracy. These members could be parts of different lobbies and thus the final report of such committees will be a result of which lobby works the strongest. The strongest lobby can very well afford to buy out the members in their favor so that the final report suits them.

There is hardly a way out. Fight against corruption translates into a fight of the less corrupt or the weaker lobby against the most corrupt or the strongest lobby. Basically all the lobbies, weak or strong, indulge in a democratic farce of a fight to keep corruption firmly in place. We, the people, want corruption to end now and forever, but how can we form a lobby? Public opinion can apply pressure only temporarily, because it lacks organization and strategy to operate like a lobby. Okay, you choose the most honest ones and form a committee, but the in the very first meeting you are likely to hear voices of dissent as to who have got the positions of power and who not and why. Then, even if you have been honest all your life the most powerful ones can dig up something out of the blue and taint you permanently.

The euphoria of Anna Hazare's revolution against corruption is almost over. Now it becomes a routine of committee meetings. Three of the five civil society members are already tainted and maligned by you know who. Anna is on a Mission Impossible and for his success the masses will need to come out in the streets openly and fearlessly like in Egypt or Libya or Syria.

Meantime who will decide who is free of the lobby or the racket syndromes to constitute the 'people's committee'? Brainstorm yourself and give your thoughts.