A curse called corruption
Amir Bashir Jan
In general, corruption is a form of dishonesty or criminal activity or unethical conduct performed by a person or organization entrusted with a position of authority, often to acquire illicit or personal benefit. It is a social issue which adversely affects the economic growth and prosperity of a country. Corruption may include many activities including bribery and embezzlement, through it may also involve practices that are legal in many countries.
India is a vast and beautiful land, however the beauty and goodwill of this great nation gets spoiled with the kind of corruption that is happening here. Almost in every sector, one could find corruption happening and corrupt people growing in great abundance day by day.
Corruption starts at the higher level and it finds its way to the lowest level too. From the senior officers to the clerks, one would find corruption making inroads and the common man finding it difficult to bypass and get his things or job done.
Corruption is a global phenomenon. It is found almost in every society in one or the other form. In ancient times, the judges received bribes in Egyptian, Babylonian and Hebrew societies’. In Rome, bribe was a common feature in elections to public officials.
Corruption can occur on different scales, corruption ranges from small favors between a small number of people (petty corruption) to corruption that affects the government on a large scale (grand corruption), and corruption is so prevalent that it is part of the everyday structure of society, including corruption as one of the symptoms of organized crime.
Corruption is an issue that adversely affects India’s economy of central, state and local government agencies. Not only has it held the economy back from reaching new heights, but rampant corruption has stunted the country’s development. A study conducted by Transparency International in 2005 recorded that more than 92% of Indians had at some point or another paid a bribe to a public official to get a job done.
In a study conducted in 2008, Transparency International reported that about 50% of Indians had firsthand experience of paying bribes or using contacts to get services performed by public offices.
Transparency International’s 2017 corruption Perception Index ranks the country 81st place out of 180 countries.
The largest contributors to corruption are entitlement programs and social spending schemes enacted by the Indian government. Examples include the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the National Rural Health Mission. Other areas of corruption include Indian trucking industry which is forced to pay billions of rupees in bribes annually to numerous regulatory and police stops on interstate highways.
Corruption is the misuse of public power by elected politician or appointed civil servant for private gain.
Corruption is at the root of nearly every transaction in the world, let alone India .From big business deals to small traffic tickets , evading the consequences of their actions motivates people to resort to corruption .It blackens the soul and hurts the mores and laws of society .unfortunately , corruption is a self perpetuating vicious cycle that threatens the very fabric of our society.
Corruption is directly related to the economy because flowing of money increases than the price of products is increasing and finally several families not survive easily in our life and farmer goes for suicide.
Former President, Nuclear Scientist and visionary A.P.J. Abdul Kalam said about corruption “If a country is to be corruption free become a nation of beautiful minds. I strongly feel there are three key societal members who can make a difference. They are the father, the mother, and the teacher.
Corruption damages the whole country’s working mechanism. Corruption is like a communicable disease whose symptoms can be seen throughout the world.
The causes of corruption in India include excessive regulations, complicated tax and licensing systems, numerous government departments with opaque bureaucracy and discretionary powers, monopoly of certain goods & services delivery, and the lack of services delivery, and the lack of transparent laws & processes. There are significant variations in the level of corruption and in the government’s efforts to reduce corruption across different areas of India.
Corruption is a global disease which mainly attacks developing countries. Corruption is the only cause for the failure of country’s economy, social and political aspects. Corruption is the misuse of public goods by public officials for private proposals. Corruption adversely affects each and every sector of country.
You may think that corruption is one among the thousand causes of country’s failure, but I consider corruption as the root cause of country’s failure and when the root cause is maintained the other causes are automatically maintained.
Because of corruption civil services has become demoralized, politicized and to some extent criminalized and disable to perform its function it is expected to.
Although other causes mal nutrition, unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, brain drain etc. are the causes of country’s failure but what if the country would utilize its corrupted money in these sectors. Why would we have to face the problems of poverty, unemployment, brain drain, mal nutrition, if the country is able to utilize its corrupted budget in these sectors?
If the population growth is main cause of country’s failure, then why our country is still lagging behind if its population growth has been reduced.
Many rich countries took or import people from other countries for job and other reasons, So if their population increases then why are they are even developed. This is because in these countries there is less corruption or no corruption at all.
How does one get corrupted?
With low salaries and high cost of living, people start thinking of making easy money, rather than trying to make money through a proper channel. There are many other alternatives to make money. Other than being corrupted, but all that takes time and effort. Whereas accepting a bribe for any small work or creating false accounts are easy tasks to make big money, which is unaccountable also.
Corruption has been spread in the common public lives, politics, central governments, state governments, business, industries etc. It has not left any field. Corruption is increasing day by day instead of decreasing or steadying because of the continuous increase in the appetite of people for money, empower, position, and luxury.
Corruption had affected all sectors of a country. Taking a personal viewpoint about corruption. Once when I passed 10th class from a local private school, namely Sayed Sakhi High School Nowshera. I went to Government Boys Higher Secondary School for Admission. But what I saw there was totally different. The clerk who was appointed in Admission sector asked me to recharge his BSNL number with ‘unlimited pack’ there I saw that the corruption had not even left the education sector.
Corruption adversely affects other sectors be it Power development department or Health Department or any other ministry.
So, corruption is the root cause of many problems in our country. It is the cause of failure of country’s economy. It affects all sectors in a nation. I sum up all my words briefly with few words that I think are good. If Corruption prevails, so will evil.
(The author is a student of BA Honors Political Science at DAV College Amritsar)
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