Our daily extortions

Brazil, Terry Gilliam8217;s film of a future dystopia where things keep falling apart and a senseless bureaucracy lurches between ineptitude and malign intention, is a fictional country. But like many fictional places, it exists at an angle to reality 8212; surely most of us would recognise the familiar frustration of getting a plumbing or electricity odd job fixed by public works agencies. In Punjab, the government sponsored a survey to assess corruption levels, and found that a staggering 77 per cent of the respondents had paid a bribe at some point, and even paying the bribe did not guarantee results. A large number also felt that knowing someone of influence was essential to get their problems solved.

Even more damaging than the extent of corruption is the sense of cynicism, the way bribes have almost been naturalised in our transactions with the state. Sociologists have described how touts and middlemen humanise impersonal bureaucracies 8212; but the acceptance of this petty thievery is only the first of many worse compromises. Seen from another angle, for most citizens, municipal authorities and low-level bureaucracy are the only point of contact with the state and this early disillusionment affects their investment in the entire political process. Water, sewers, street lighting, and roads are public entitlements; they should not have to be wheedled out of a whimsical and difficult municipal 8216;authorities8217;. And providing people their due might make more electoral sense than huge sops and outlays for political jiggery-pokery.

As the American Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis famously said, 8220;a little sunlight is the best disinfectant.8221; It8217;s creditable that the Punjab government has tried to take a hard look at its own unsavoury underpinnings, but this also makes the state responsible for fixing its own backyard. This study only has shock value if it does not result in a more transparent and responsive administration, and put the public back in 8216;public amenities8217;.