Is Anna Hazare’s tirade against corruption justified? I think yes. He has helped ignite all the repressed ire of the middle class workers in India, and as is given his movement’s backbone lies in the strength of unity amongst these middle-class people, who are frustrated, disgusted, and plain fed-up of the prevailing system of bribery. It might, and then again might not, sound strange: in India, the system of bribery is an accepted part of any government office; it is as if you are expected to pay up to them for any job, which may just be his regular duty.
Anna Hazare says stop this! This is enough! You cannot go on giving out bribes to everyone, for this system will just go on and on, and it would act like a whirlpool of illegality and stupidity, and at last would not justify having any system at all.
I respect his views, but my brother pointed out a complex problem: why do people ask for bribes?
I do not think that all big, fat people sitting behind a desk in India are greedy, or that an epidemic of avarice has gone on spreading faster that malaria. I agree, most of the people taking bribes are slobs, who just want more comforts out of their life, and some are plain weirdoes. But a slight majority of them are small level officials, or perhaps rank lower down in hierarchy. Why? They don’t get paid enough.
A traffic constable stands on the street for about 5-hours, continuously, on roads on two separate shifts, including night, for India suffers sufficiently from a shortage of people (yeah, seriously) in the traffic police in some places. And for all this hard work, they hardly get Rs. 5000 a month. That is like $100. What if he tries to earn a few more thousand for himself, and in the process try to extract some bribes? According to my brother, he would gladly give some money to the constables, and perhaps even some to the peons, who are, if you don’t know, unskilled workers doing odd jobs in an office. And, mind you, they work harder than sloths like me. My brother says, giving some rewards, perhaps even voluntarily, is good.
But the sad reality is, even though their numbers are more, and they only take Rs. 100 or Rs, 20 from you, the amount of money they take shirks away shamefully in front of the sums that the infamous baboos take from you. Sadly, there are high ranking officials in India, including the ministers who actually take bribes whose amount stretches well into the millions of dollars.
My father is a minor government official, and though we aren’t affluent, what I am proud of is that I can walk with my head held high and proud, abreast with my father. He doesn’t take bribes, and I know that: he has been in troubles with his seniors in his office when he has reportedly and reputedly denied taking bribes from contractors, thus not favouring any of them. He tells me the actual reason behind all of this.
People want more: and this reason inadvertently asks them to indulge in anything and everything in order to earn more money. As long as this want exists, corruption will be there. We will corrupt our ways to earn more. That is but human tendency, and only people who have not surrendered to this desire, can truly be called elevated people.
In the end, everyone is now frustrated, mostly with the stinking government, and everyone, including the ones who take bribe out survival value, want this tradition to be gone. People in general have come to understand, that one way or the other, this system only benefits the powerful; the less powerful constable cannot now bear the shame or extracting that measly little more to gift his three kids some early presents. No, bribes are now frustrating.
If only, oh! If only, the people could understand that more is not the answer on the materialistic side, it is only on the spiritual side that they should ask more! If the government assures some standard living conditions for these poor constables, of whom, in Mumbai, over half live in the slums littered around this gigantic city. But, now, it is the time of the people.
People it seems have now taken the summary of Lincoln by word, and their uniting force is Anna Hazare. How true it is to the spirit of democracy, is a question that would be answered later. For now, only action is important.
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