There is much in R-Day celebrations to tug at the heartstrings. Its crowning moment is the parade: rich in nationalistic appeal, celebration of valour, and pride in the achievements of a republic but a few score years old, and culture thousdands of years young.
In addition to patriotic fervour, R-Day is also just occasion for solenn contemplation. In thus ruminating over the state of the nation, one can't help but rue as to what ails its fortunes. Today, the most prominent such malaise is corruption. The affliction is hardly new, but has become so endmeic at the top, so brazen in its extent, that it has become morale-sapping and threatens the very fabric of our motherland.
This is not scare-mongering. Take black money, which has a deeply symbiotic relationship with corrpution. A few years ago, the Swiss Banking Association reported that banks in Switzerland had around $1.5 trillion in deposits from Indian nationals. Compare this illicit stash to the size of our formal economy, especially one that is strapped for investment to spur growth, and you wonder at the possibilities.
Of course corruption is hardly the preserve of those with access to Confoederatio Helvetica (or Bahamas, the Caymans, BVI, or other similar global money-laundering havens). Enough exists around us, in form of the friendly neighbourhood policeman, sarkari babu, driving licence agent, and so on. However, when the Central Govt gets as mired in it as UPA-2 has, then the nation starts to lose its moral compass. After all, what deterrence is to be expected when not a day goes by without headlines screaming obscene amounts and prominent names neck deep in graft. It appears almost no part of Dilli sarkar is left untouched.
With the stench in Raisina Hill reaching unimaginable proportions, one looks for answers. The mind goes back to a UPA-2 corruption headline of a different kind. A year or so ago, then CEA Kaushik Basu, had offered a striking formulation (endorsed amongst others, interestingly, by INFY co-founder Narayana Murthy). Shri Basu spoke of legalizing bribe-giving so as to encourage reporting, thereby improving incidence capture.
As solutions go, perhaps we need something similarly drastic to shake us off our slumber. This idea though, however innovative, is a slippery slope. It can easily degenerate from honest reporting, to wilful entrapment (lessons from news channel sting operations that have bred their own format of corruption). Stretch the point and one could start offering bribes by default. If caught, you are protected since it was only civic duty, trying to unearth the corrupt. Rinse, repeat, till a pliable babu is found. Voila.
My other bone with such legalization is how it shifts the onus of catching the corrupt to whistleblowers, thereby diluting the ownership of the relevant authorities. Like it or not, it is the government's job to identify and nab the dishonest. Outsourcing it to sundry 'citizen journalists' of potentially dubious intent and zero oversight, sounds ominous to say the least.
Much as the heart would wish otherwise, but there is no magical solution. Very little in the proclivities of the current government thus far suggest that a different, deep-rooted attempt to counter corruoption is likely to be made soon. It may take a regime change for the requisite political will to surface, and perhaps thats what one must pin hopes on, this 26-Jan.
In addition to patriotic fervour, R-Day is also just occasion for solenn contemplation. In thus ruminating over the state of the nation, one can't help but rue as to what ails its fortunes. Today, the most prominent such malaise is corruption. The affliction is hardly new, but has become so endmeic at the top, so brazen in its extent, that it has become morale-sapping and threatens the very fabric of our motherland.
This is not scare-mongering. Take black money, which has a deeply symbiotic relationship with corrpution. A few years ago, the Swiss Banking Association reported that banks in Switzerland had around $1.5 trillion in deposits from Indian nationals. Compare this illicit stash to the size of our formal economy, especially one that is strapped for investment to spur growth, and you wonder at the possibilities.
Of course corruption is hardly the preserve of those with access to Confoederatio Helvetica (or Bahamas, the Caymans, BVI, or other similar global money-laundering havens). Enough exists around us, in form of the friendly neighbourhood policeman, sarkari babu, driving licence agent, and so on. However, when the Central Govt gets as mired in it as UPA-2 has, then the nation starts to lose its moral compass. After all, what deterrence is to be expected when not a day goes by without headlines screaming obscene amounts and prominent names neck deep in graft. It appears almost no part of Dilli sarkar is left untouched.
With the stench in Raisina Hill reaching unimaginable proportions, one looks for answers. The mind goes back to a UPA-2 corruption headline of a different kind. A year or so ago, then CEA Kaushik Basu, had offered a striking formulation (endorsed amongst others, interestingly, by INFY co-founder Narayana Murthy). Shri Basu spoke of legalizing bribe-giving so as to encourage reporting, thereby improving incidence capture.
As solutions go, perhaps we need something similarly drastic to shake us off our slumber. This idea though, however innovative, is a slippery slope. It can easily degenerate from honest reporting, to wilful entrapment (lessons from news channel sting operations that have bred their own format of corruption). Stretch the point and one could start offering bribes by default. If caught, you are protected since it was only civic duty, trying to unearth the corrupt. Rinse, repeat, till a pliable babu is found. Voila.
My other bone with such legalization is how it shifts the onus of catching the corrupt to whistleblowers, thereby diluting the ownership of the relevant authorities. Like it or not, it is the government's job to identify and nab the dishonest. Outsourcing it to sundry 'citizen journalists' of potentially dubious intent and zero oversight, sounds ominous to say the least.
Much as the heart would wish otherwise, but there is no magical solution. Very little in the proclivities of the current government thus far suggest that a different, deep-rooted attempt to counter corruoption is likely to be made soon. It may take a regime change for the requisite political will to surface, and perhaps thats what one must pin hopes on, this 26-Jan.
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