145;Mujhe kis rang ke Mahatma Gandhi doge?146;

Thus, money has to be paid if you want a ration card; if you want to register an FIR at the police station; if you claim refund of an excess amount of a certain pre-paid tax, amount that belongs to you and which the government is duty-bound to return to you; if you want simple clearances for a house you are building or for an enterprise that you are setting up that will generate employment and contribute to the country’s GDP. In short, palms have to be greased at just about every level in government. I even know of hospitals where you have to pay bribes if you want the dead body of your relative returned to you from the mortuary faster, and of cremation grounds where the staff will delay the last rites if they are not paid.

Point is, why has corruption become integral to the functioning of the government — central, state or local — in the land of the Mahatma, who was a great preacher and practitioner of shuchita probity in public life? Why have we come to believe that it is ineradicable? And in letting that belief spread, aren’t we also letting the cancer of corruption itself spread to more and newer parts of our national life — education, healthcare, judiciary, media, capital markets, even mortuaries and cremation grounds?

There are enough academic studies to show that corruption in the political and governmental system is the single biggest single factor hindering India’s faster and more egalitarian economic performance. But we mustn’t look at the disease of corruption only in so far as it lops off a few percentage points in our GDP growth rate. Far more serious is how it distorts our democracy; assaults the dignity of our citizens especially the poor, the weak and vulnerable sections of society whenever they interface with the government; pollutes the personality of the corrupt themselves, destroying their inner joy and balance; degrades the lofty mission of the organisation they belong to; and corrodes the very national character of Indians.

Che Guevara once said that socialism in Cuba cannot be built by those who only see dollars in their dreams. Even those who may disagree with Che’s ideology will agree that a resurgent and truly empowered India cannot be built by people in our political, governmental and business establishments who lack integrity and idealism and who only dream of self-enrichment.

The battle against corruption is an old one, and frustratingly unsuccessful so far. But we must continue to fight it on a hundred different fronts — both legal and societal, and through political as well as administrative reforms. The very first of these arenas has to be the collective mindspace of thinking Indians. A good deal of progress can be made if a sufficiently large number of people believe, sufficiently strongly and sincerely, that probity in public life is a categorical imperative for nation-building, are willing to raise their voice incessantly in championing this belief, and are also ready to live by their belief in their respective professions.

This is precisely how, for example, the right to information got legislated recently after a prolonged debate at the grassroots and at various higher levels. Hats off to all those intrepid civil society organisations and individuals who waged a prolonged battle for this legislation. Now our society must be trained to make full use of its provisions so that transparency illumines all the dark corners of governmental functioning and accountability raises the standards of performance at the pain of penalty to the guilty.

As a part of this endeavour, we must insist that enforcement of the citizens’ right to information be accompanied by the government’s mandatory duty to disclose information in all citizen-related matters. We have already seen how stringent disclosure norms in the corporate sector and frequent declaration of results have improved the accountability of companies to their shareholders and brought greater transparency in their functioning. There is no reason why this cannot, and should not, happen in the functioning of the various parts of the governmental system. Let us use the power of information to fight India’s public enemy No. 1.

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