The curse of corruption is felt in every circle. We are told that this new epidemic is spreading like wild fire in India in every sphere of activity; from the bottom rung of a low paid worker to the highest strata of society-the judiciary. After all man is the same wherever he is. Michael de Montaigne, the great French philosopher, had once said, "we are all the same wherever we are seated, but upon our own arses.” How true! Even Shakespeare must have had the taste of this human malady when he said: "Man whether in the palace or pad, castle or cottage, is governed by the same emotions and passions.”



Many of us think that this is an Indian disease. A good look at the world gives us a better picture. Only this week Hermedt Kohl, the former German Chancellor of great repute, has been stripped of even the Party post, because of large scale bribes he is said to have received while in office from time to time, running into millions of dollars. Following on the heals of that news comes the suicidal death of the secretary of the same Christian Democratic Party in Germany as he was also involved in millions of dollars of money scandals. Christian Democrats in Italy have, of course, been in the forefront of all this for many years.



Now it is the turn of the Israeli President, a nation that boasts of only patriots. He is reported to have received two million dollars from a French business friend in return for some favours. A fighter pilot in the Israeli airforce, the President, even in old age was consumed by this lust for money. A man who almost gave his life for the country when he was young, in his evening of life becoming greedy is a good example how even the apparently clean people could become corrupt under temptation!



American Presidents have not been exceptions to this rule, either. Many of them had to face inquiries against them and some had even to relinquish their positions, although many of them must have got away with their booty. While familial corruption is the rule in India, it is not very rare in America either. President Bush’s son had swindled the Savings and Loans Bank of 800 million dollars.



Many heads have rolled because of corruption even in a very efficient country like Japan, not to speak of the lesser mortals in Latin American, Oriental and African nations. Mother of democracies, with an unwritten constitution, Britain was not bereft of this malady.



Root Cause of corruption:



It is all in the human nature. The monetary economy of competition breeds corruption in a big way. The ego, the constant manifestation of the impurities and inadequacies of the ones mental attitude, makes one forget his true nature-Godliness; man being the true image of God, the compassionate, all pervading, helping, and giving self. Better interpersonal relationships, emotional independence and tolerance should be the basis of mental peace, and not hatred, greed and one-upmanship. Unfortunately the present atmosphere of competition in the monetary economy makes man forget his true nature while trying to acquire wealth by fair means and foul.



Slowly the new awakening is palpable in the distant horizon. The world’s richest man, Bill Gates has donated a whooping sum of a billion dollars for charity. It is not for nothing that he has done that except to get mental peace. Tatas, Birlas, Rockefellers, Nobels, Fords and many others in the past did just that to get peace of mind. Ego shrinking is said to be the new mantra for the younger generation all over the world. They have seen the destruction and carnage of their elders in search of money and fame and they would want a more peaceful life for themselves.



If this catches on, may be, a day would soon come when making money no longer would be our sole religion. Prof. Hubbell’s telescope and the advances in quantum physics should teach the future generation that our physical and mental self, the basis of all our ego problems, is only an apparent reality. Interdependence would be the order of the day following on the networking of the computer era. Rather than decreasing personal freedom, it would respect the right for freedom of others equally important. That would take away the wind out of the sail of this ship of corruption, which seems to circle the world over and over again.



Indian Malady:



Soon after independence the leaders very quickly lost the patriotic fervor that brought them together to fight the British. Unfortunately, the anti-establishment mind set did not change very much and even the common man did not look upon his own government as friendly. The multitude of rules and regulations made matters worse. A vicious cycle started functioning. The unscrupulous used the very rules to help them get what they want by bending the rules and they took the help of the politicians and the bureaucrats to do just that. The politicians could see their fortune for the future elections to keep their seats of power intact. They needed money and this was the easy way of getting that money. As a quid pro quo monetary gratification must have started. The officers, the ones who did not have a conscience, could also cash in on this golden opportunity. Together they built up this devil of corruption.



Man’s greed and his proclivity for comfort gradually got the better of his judgement and his ethical considerations. Later leaders thus institutionalized corruption of political parties. Late sixties and seventies saw the rise of this breed with the then rulers using dubious methods of ruling the country. Their minions grew like mushrooms all over the country, some of them past masters in the art of corruption. They were all over the country but some states had more of them. Gradually the system marginalized the good ones among the politicians and the officers. A few of them, per force, had to get away, as they were unable to bear the suffocating atmosphere.



Today it is respectable to be corrupt. Nobody bothers about being corrupt and the common man many a time likes the corrupt politician and the officer, as the latter are easily amenable to get his wants howsoever sinful they could be. In today’s scenario the truly honest politician or officer could never survive. The adult franchise system that we have adopted from the British is a boon to these anti-social elements to get elected with money and muscle power. This has become a mouth-eating-the-tail business with more and more corrupt politicians and criminals entering the hallowed portals of our Parliament and the assemblies.



The laws of the country to punish the guilty are adequate to catch these, but the implementation of the rules depends on the men and women who seem to have lost their moral fibre soon after we became independent. Naked corruption talked about even inside legal temples makes one shudder to think of the future of this country. If the custodians of the law themselves start eroding into its core, resulting in the common man losing faith in the judiciary, would be a sad day for all of us. The whole system becomes a mockery of keeping up the hoary tradition of this great country.



An occasional small fish is caught and paraded and made much of in the media and that is the last that one hears about the story. What happens to that man at the end of the day is another sad story? The various wings of the law enforcing machinery themselves have become experts in making black money through corrupt practices. They have also devised ways and means of getting out of the net of the law. Recent reports of the customs officials in airports trying to cover the closed circuit television monitors in the customs area is ample proof that many others are using similar methods to operate freely.



Anatomy of Corruption:



There are different breeds of the corrupt.



Casual converts:



This breed is less these days. They are not perennially corrupt but succumb to temptation on and off. They are not very dangerous as they have corruption free interludes where they might attempt to do good.



Congenitally Corrupt:



This is a dangerous variety. Corruption is in their genes. The environment today makes the gene penetrate very well and this manifests in the hard core corruption. These are very difficult to treat and they would be very good in escaping the anti-corruption dragnet. The gene could only penetrate in a conducive atmosphere. Our only hope of reforming these is the possibility of the change in the environment.



Compulsive behaviour:



This is a mental state where they have an irresistible urge to be corrupt. Whether they like it or not they have to take money. I was told that there was a Chief Minister of a state who would not get sleep unless his daily booty has been more than a crore of rupees! Such are the people who even get awards in our country if there is any political expediency!



Criminally Corrupt:



This has a dignified name in our set up. They are called extortionists. They strike unheralded, but mostly catch the large sharks in big cities. They could eventually percolate down to smaller targets if the bigger fish disappear from the waters! Unlike them the white-collar extortionists, the corrupt politicians and officers have no ethics in their trade!



Corruption Generators:



These are the wheeler-dealers, called the middlemen. They entice the politicians and the officialdom into their net to get their work done. These are the most dangerous variety. They are like poisonous snakes lurking in our midst. They are usually very “respectable people” who mingle with the rich and powerful and strike in broad daylight to catch their prey. These operate internationally and they know no boundaries. They would go to any extent to get at their target. They could even be a national security risk.



Management of the Disease:



What would be the remedy for this cancer? There is no cure for cancer. We could, however, try and prevent cancer, if possible. As a palliative measure we could make the cancer grow slower than its pace and ease the disabling symptoms of cancer.



That should be our strategy for the future. Immediately we should apply all the palliative measures. Some of them could be as harsh as the radiation and chemotherapy of cancer with all their attendant side effects.



The radiation therapy for corruption should take its lessons from the underworld dons. When these dons want to extort money from some one they threaten him first and when the victim does not respond positively he is shot at and if possible killed. On the surface of it may look preposterous that they are killing the hen that could lay the golden egg. But in the long run they are doing their job very systematically. The underworld wants every one to know that they mean business and they sacrifice this golden egg-laying hen to frighten all the future hens so that they could collect the eggs before they hatch! What a strategy! One or two corrupt politicians should be sent to jail for life and made to do hard work. The latter should be publicized so much that all the others must get the message.



What we do today is the opposite. We advertise the act of corruption so much that people get fed up with it and at the end no one is really caught and the whole episode is forgotten. No politician or senior officer one so far has been sent to jail for corruption among politicians although it is common knowledge that most of them, if not all of them, are corrupt.



Every case, including the Bofors case, would eventually come to naught. The adversarial judicial system that we have inherited from the British could never get at the true culprits if they could hire an excellent lawyer to defend them. Many corrupt politicians even celebrate their acquittal by the courts. This is the best encouragement for the novice in the field to get into this habit.



If a few genuinely corrupt people are given the capital punishment it will work wonders to lessen the menace in society. Then we have to have devise palliative treatments like effective measures to contain the disease and treat its symptoms.



Long term measures should start in the elementary schools where the true Indian ethos of dharma should be inculcated into the virgin fertile but innocent minds. Macaulay’s system of education that we use today is the cause of all our troubles. He had contempt for us in India when he wrote: “ West is best and the East is only beast.” He must have evolved the educational system for the beasts in the East, which we, unfortunately, follow in principle even today. This must change to the Indian style of education of the timeless Vedic wisdom; the latter has no religion or God attached to it, as many would want us to believe. It proclaims the Dharma (not religion); the obligations of an individual to society. If one knows that he is a part of society and is what he is because of society, he would never resort to such base instincts like corruption.



This awakening should start in childhood. It is very difficult to convert a convert later in life. The Indian wisdom and learning have been the basis of all wisdom in the world although the West has now distorted that in their favour. In a classical book, India in Greece written in 1852 in England, a Greek author E. Pococke clearly provides evidence to show how the Greek civilization was the result of different groups of migrants from India who brought the Vedic wisdom to Greece to start the so called western wisdom. All that is history now.



The next generation, at least, should have exposure to the truth. The Vedic wisdom proclaims that it is for the whole world and all the future religions should also be respected equally. This idea of universal brotherhood, coupled with the modern scientific discovery that the egocentric attitude of the mind with the "I” concept is detrimental to mental peace should give enough courage for the future generation to abhor corrupt practices.