Recent news about India jumping in 'Ease of doing business' from 130th to 100th position is appreciated by followers and drew flak from the opponents depending upon affiliations. While the hoopla around this is uncalled for and is hilarious. Does anyone notice how poorly we are placed in index which portrays our true smudged picture to the world and how frantically we celebrate trivial achievements? We seems to be fully content with mediocrity. As long as our rate race with feeble accomplishments are matter of joy for us, the crux of the problem will never be debated and weeded out from system which in the first place is dysfunctional and is crying for overhauling.
All political parties are in habit of promising and distributing freebies to win elections. Freebies promised by political parties in their election manifestos shake the roots of free and fair polls, disturb the level playing field among players contesting the polls and vitiates the election process. The truth is, it is an open invitation of bribe to a section of electorate and the bills gathered lands at the doorsteps of exchequer to be paid from the revenues collected from honest tax-payers. From freebies like distributing laptops, TVs, grinders and mixers, electric fans to free electricity and loan waiver schemes are nothing short of fleecing of hard earned taxpayers money for political gains of individuals with shameless brazen display of gimmickry.
All political parties are indulged in pulling out such public stunts without concern about repercussions. In a vast country like ours with population comprising of sixth of the world, our political class is corrupting the section of society with freebies. The outlook of politicians is getting narrower by the day with more emphasis given on winning next election thus lacking broad national outlook. This emerging trend is alarming as bribe is often paid with ulterior objective in mind and with politicians, its the guaranteed ticket to riches as numerous scams plundering the wealth and reputation of country testifies .
Most of the ills in the society arise from corruption in the government . Earlier this corruption was confined to petty officials, although Jeep scam in 1948 corroborated politicians had corruption skills from partition itself, but with time, corruption has reached monstrous proportions as our economy and society matured. It has now spread to the every echelon of civil society and the political leadership. This has greatly reduced or compromised the governments ability to control corruption. In my opinion an important factor in unending growth of corruption is centered around our election process. It is therefore, not possible to curb corruption in India as long as the electoral and the political system of country depend on illicit funds from dubious sources . It seems sometimes that elected representatives have no other alternate path but to indulge and support corruption.
The constitution of India considers all Indians as equal and the rule of law shall prevail on everyone equally, but the politicians often acts arbitrarily . Many times it gives the sense that the political leadership is above the rest of the citizens. It reminds me of the 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell (quote that) “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Nepotism among political class leads to irrational decisions, often taken without reasoning, thus jeopardizing the whole system . Even Judiciary is not immune today from clutches of corruption and all the reform measures to correct the wrong in judicial process face the roadblock . The Reform process pending to overhaul the judicial system itself is moving at snail's pace, making the mockery of the whole process. There are vested interest and people, well entrenched at the highest possible positions who reaped benefits from prevalent flawed system and hold tremendous influence over different arms of government .They are allergic to change as harping on to scandalous system is beneficial.
Incumbent govt has started the reform process, some structural reforms are implemented but fact of the matter is these are too little to transform India. The two major problems confronting India are explosive population growth and corruption and both are intertwined. While refraining myself from commenting on social issues, i have focused on one major issue that fosters corruption. Periodical upsurge of resentment among masses to weed out corruption has gained limited success. We need comprehensive political, electoral, judicial and administrative reforms to confront the menace of corruption .
