Prioritize duties, not rights to kill corruption

 

Nabeel A Khan

Sixty four years have passed but we continue to be embroiled in the spiral of corruption. We have witnessed all forms of scams in a series all these years- from coffin to bicycle to fodder and with time the size of the omnipresent malice and involvement of people have been making a northward move. The story of corruption which started in India soon after the independence in 1948 when V. K. Krishna Menon, then the Indian high commissioner to Britain, bypassed protocol to sign a deal worth Rs 80 lakh with a foreign firm for the purchase of army jeeps. The case was closed in 1955 and soon after that Menon joined the Nehru cabinet. Now the phenomenon is a part and parcel of life at every nook and corner of the country.

It is an irony that in a country with over one billion population, where every single individual shows (in words) to be the most upset due to spreading tentacles of corruption but the eloquent enigma continues to persist that how the demon remained alive. The only statement that comes from most corners is that ‘nothing can be done about it’ and finally all the blames are smacked primarily on the politicians as if they have landed on this earth from some other planet. Before you get me wrong, let me clarify that I have no intention to give a clean chit to the white-khadi clad people and I know their vital role in the germination of dishonesty in the country. But do we not need to think that how can these few thousand people overpower billions who claim to have abstained from the evil pie. 

However, in this long time period we have seen a number of campaigns and demonstrations erupting against corruption but none has been effective so far. They came and faded and in my view the only reason was that all the while the main focus was to put entire blame on a particular class of the society and no one emphasized on their own responsibilities. The proper execution of responsibilities or duties of the people is mightier than the rights. So if everyone performs his/her duties and responsibilities properly it will ultimately result into fulfilling the rights of others. So in order to form a clean and corruption-free society, we need to shift our prime focus to act upon the duties rather than rights. And we really don’t need to be somebody to have a duty or responsibility; at whatever level or status we are we all have some responsibilities attached. Suppose you are walking on the road- you have certain duty as a pedestrian –like you should always cross the road from zebra crossing, do not come in the main road and walk only in the pedestrian lane. Similarly if you are driving it’s your duty to give the first right to the pedestrian to cross the road. 

We all know an old adage ‘it needs two to tango’ so for any action there has to be a respondent, single handedly nothing can be done. Let’s take example of a petty bribery, which is apparently the most common form of corruption in India. There has to be a giver and then only there will be a taker. And we cannot shirk away by just putting all blame on one section of people as we witnessed that no one is left from being party to corruption including educationist, corporate, sportsperson, army, judiciary, policemen, media, investigative agencies, civil society or a petty clerk. They all have contributed to down rooted corruption in the country.

So, if we count the number of people supporting Anna Hazare, a noted social activist, for an anti-corruption cause, and consider that they all were really serious and committed then the graph of corruption should be substantially low. After all the millions of people who took to the street to support Hazare, at least some of them must have been part of the system as well.  I guess a substantial percentage of people who were making a statement in the recent event at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi somehow had the opportunity to eradicate corruption at their levels. But had they really stopped their direct or indirect involvement in any kind of irregularities. The kind of answer comes to your mind is the real concern. So we just not need to be upset with the corruption in words but also in action. The other concern is that just passing legislation is not enough the full implementation holds the real key. We have a number of existing laws against corruption but why have we not been able to stop it. We have got Right to Information Act then why are we not able to save people who are risking their lives to expose the corrupts. We can get the answer for all these by seeing inside us as how many times have we really lived for the society and supported such causes. 

According to a survey report revealed by Transparency International in December, 2010, 50 percent of the Indian had admitted to paid petty bribe in the last 12 months to get their job done. And half of the people said that they paid the bribe to avoid problem with the authorities and a quarter of them said that they paid the bribe to speed up the process.

The other interesting fact which the report revealed was that the bribes to the police have almost doubled since 2006 and an increased number of people reported paying bribe to the judiciary and permit service divisions. Other shocking fact revealed in the report was that the lower income earner (touted as common man) paid more bribes than higher income earners. The report further added that the poorer people are twice likely to pay bribe for basic services such as utilities, medical services, and education than their wealthier counterparts.

Going by simple calculations of the presented statistics we will notice that almost every individual is directly or indirectly party to the pandemic of corruption and now only way forward looks is to start turning the fingers towards ourselves. The main reason for the launch of Voice4You is to call for a holistic introspection amongst the fellow citizen for a cleaner and corruption-free society.