Corruption hurts our psyche and self-esteem…..Anil Dharker
Here is a real challenge to anyone who reads newspapers: find a single day when your paper is free of a corruption-related story. When this was being written, Spectrum Raja was on the front page, but inside there was a news item about the CEO of Aarey Dairy in Mumbai caught by the Anti-Corruption Bureau while accepting a bribe. What was most people’s reaction to the story? The total bribe demand was only Rs5 lakh! A man with limited ambition, this CEO chap, that’s what most people said. No wonder he heads only a dairy and spends time with buffaloes and cows.
On the other hand, look at the two engineers of Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC). When the ACB caught them, the bribe money in their hands was Rs50 lakh, and that was out of a total demand of Rs2.5 crore. These guys for sure knew their onions (how appropriate that phrase has now become!)
Then there is the notorious IAS couple Arvind and Tinoo Joshi who have been looting the country from every position that they have occupied. Recent income tax raids have uncovered that they have become major landholders, with 373 acres of land in Bhopal and other places. They also have two dozen flats spread over Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Delhi, interests in resorts and liquor and major bank deposits. Their total estimated worth: Rs262 crore!
This illegal accumulation of wealth not only has a direct cost like loss to the national exchequer, but incalculable collateral damage. For example, the dairy CEO was awarding an annual maintenance contract for the Aarey colony. The contractor can recover the bribe cost by inflating his tender and/or doing a shoddy job of maintenance. The two MIDC engineers were demanding a bribe to certify the quality of roads in industrial areas. Obviously those roads are going to crumble at the first signs of the monsoon. Arvind Joshi was, amongst other things, principal secretary in the water resource department: how much long-term damage would he have done through his single-minded greed?
To give another example, in the Adarsh case, bureaucrats colluded to give away some of the land reserved for a BEST bus depot to the Adarsh society in order to increase its FSI. When the bus service needs more space in the future, where will it get land from? Worse, these conniving bureaucrats even managed to reduce the width of a major road in order to give Adarsh more space: the Capt Prakash Pethe Marg was to be 60.97 metre wide; it is now only 18.40 metre wide! Considering that this is the road that will carry most of the traffic from the Worli-Nariman Point Sea Link when it is built in the future, you can only imagine what a mess the traffic situation will be.
But even greater than all this collateral damage, is the damage to the national psyche and our own self-esteem. Indians had begun to wear their Indianess with pride; now attached to our nationality there is a tag which says ‘Most Corrupt’. When you meet foreigners, for example, sooner or later the subject of national corruption raises its embarrassing head.
That isn’t all: when corruption becomes as pervasive as it is now in our country, it is possible that sooner or later it will stop being a dirty word. People will say: everyone’s making money hand over fist. Am I an idiot not to do it too? You can see the deep, deep abyss that stares us in the face.
That is why A Raja is so important. The Congress’ jettisoning of Ashok Chavan and Suresh Kalmadi was a welcome step. The arrest of Raja is even better. But it can’t stop there. If he is guilty, as all indications suggest he is, he should he prosecuted for the maximum sentence possible. Karunanidhi and the DMK have made statements in support of Raja, but you can see that these are the obligatory noises expected of them. The signs seem clear: if Raja is convicted, the DMK isn’t going to walk out of the government.
If we have misread the signals and Karunanidhi and company are foolish enough to rock the UPA coalition, Dr Manmohan Singh now has no option but to put his foot down. This is needed to restore his credibility. It will also show the country that Raja or pauper, there is punishment that befits the crime.
It’s a simple enough principle. But it’s a principle we seem to have forgotten.