Friends,
It appears that someone who is a part of the "Civil Society" that is spearheading the campaign for drafting and passage of the Jan Lokpal bill has read my blog (or my notes/my friend Mohit Lila's notes on Facebook). I say this because in today's newspaper I read an item which says that the proposed Jan Lokpal bill should take into account social corruption also. I would say it is a direct take from the issues that I have raised in the earlier post on the subject. Hats off to the person who not only read my sugesstions but is also pressing for their inclusion in the "Mahabill" which is being formulated to stamp out all corruption from our country.
Actually, we tend to have a very lop-sided view of the corruption situation in our country. We tend to see corruption as an exclusively Government-Organization Specific phenomenon. Our media is largely responsible for this state of affairs which has a heavy anti-Government bias and an equally heavy pro-private sector bias. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that most of the Journalists in this country are failed Civil Service Aspirants. ( Moreover,Since 99.99% of the Media in this country is in the private sector, it is hardly surprising that they are strongly biased in favor of the same). Such a biased media has led the entire India to believe that the Government Servant is the embodiment of all evil and the manager of the private sector-of all virtue. But is it true ? Is the private sector really the holy cow that it is made out to be ?
My question is simple. Will we recognize blatant profiteering at the cost of all ethics, morality and even the nation as corruption or not ? I mean, if a Kalmadi gave contracts worth millions of dollars in excess of the actual market price, someone in the private sector took those contracts and profited left and right from them. So, will we call the person giving such contracts "corrupt" and absolve the guy in the private sector making huge profits out of them as being "Honest" ??!! Why do we have a right to information act that enables the ordinary citizen to seek any information from the Government, but lets the private guy go scot-free ? You may argue that the Government is answerable to the people because it spends public money. But my argument is that if the Government spends public money, the private sector exploits public resources. Air, Water, Land, Forests and the entire environment-all are public resources. If a private enterprise uses public air and public water, releases its pollutants in public environment and sells its products to the public then, in my view, such a firm is as answerable to the public as is the Government. But, our media has focussed all the public attention on the Government, leaving the private sector free to plunder and loot. This, my friends, is the genesis of the "Social Corruption" that is the bane of our country. If at all we have to battle corruption, we will have to battle it in both the sectors, Public and Private. Unless and until we do that, the battle against corruption, even if won, will forever remain half won !
