Gunnar Myrdal, in his famous treatise, "Asian Drama - An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations", aptly described the political and economic dangers of corruption.Bribery, corruption, nepotism, etc. have been in the society since historical times. History is replete with instances where only money counted overriding all other preferences including the life of an individual and the security of a country. Indian history is full of such instances. The British occupied India mostly by bribing the nobles. The independence struggle gave India some of the strongest, truthful, and honest men. However, even these men also could not stop corruption and the first scandal of free India was in the news in 1957. Feroze Gandhi, the Lok Sabha member exposed the Haridas Mundhra Scandal in that year in the first Lok Sabha. Almost every Lok Sabha has witnessed scams of different magnitudes since then. We have come a long way from the Mundra scandal to the latest Tehelka expose of the self -proclaimed Samaritans with holier than thou attitude. The people are aghast at the magnitude of the mess and low morals that have been exposed.
Tehelka
is only the tip of the scamberg and if a sincere investigation
is carried out then the number of scamtons that will fall
from the cupboard may be shocking but now it has become a
part of an Indian's daily life. There are so many frauds that
an Indian steeped in his culture as he is has started regarding
these as the karma of his previous birth. From a birth certificate
to the death certificate, a citizen is forced to resort to
bribery. So, what is new about corruption? It is not surprising
that India ranked as the 72nd most corrupt country in the
world by Transparency International, an anti-corruption watchdog
based in Washington, faces the danger of collapsing politically
and economically, if corruption is allowed to sustain itself
in the system of governance. We should not console ourselves
by the fact that it is not only in India, today corruption
is all-pervasive and no country in the world has escaped it.
The developed countries are also responsible to some extent
in encouraging corruption. Their Multinationals offer kickbacks
to the people in power and their middlemen in the developing
world. According to Transparency International, the three
top economies, namely, the US, Japan and Germany, are also
the top three sources of corruption in developing countries.
The head of the agency, Mr. Peter Eigen, has said that these
three countries, "Permit exporters to bribe officials"
in importing countries, which "is totally unacceptable
because it forces tax-payers to underwrite gains of corrupt
executives and diverts the much-needed funds away from developing
countries into pockets of unscrupulous businessmen".
There is no doubt that the victims of such practices are only
the world's poor. |
