Re: [HumJanenge] CORRUPTION - Understanding and Removing It.

Dear Sarbajit,

You are fond of simple solutions. I had mentioned some of them in my interview excerpt.

I will throw a challenge to the community of social and anti-corruption activists with a one-point agenda. Can you do away with the social evil called 'dowry system' which is the worst form of bribe/corruption prevalent in every household and has been the cause for the devastation of many families and the life/honour of their daughters? There are enough laws to help you.

M.G.Devasahayam
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On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 3:25 PM, Sarbajit Roy <sroy.mb@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Shri Anand

I think you shall find that this small mailing list has many domain specialists in "corruption" with a large number of public servants (past / present) and forces personnel subscribing. We also have the usual complement of  "activists" who tend to be more vocal / shrill than our regular membership.

Corruption is certainly a complex issue to understand / deal with. The middle class examples for black money generation you listed are primarily IMHO due to the skewed and unrealistic taxation policies of the (financially and morally bankrupt) Governments of the day which favour the politician-mafia-middleman nexus to the detriment of middle class citizens who are compelled to participate.in corruption against their will to avoid losing out to sky-rocketing inflation and unjustified taxes. The lower classes in turn have their own myriad sets of victimisation examples.

In deliberately simplistic terms, my personal view is that corruption is a a rapidly spreading CANCER which causes even healthy cells to turn black. The homeopathic precriptions for this CANCER being touted by "quacks" (in all senses of this word) are sweet placebos - being heavily promoted in the media and by foolish people who should know better -  can never cure the problem which affects Mother India.  It needs RADICAL SURGERY and before it is too late.  If your house is somehow infested with cockroaches, will you dial a number (.. "you are in the queque"...)  to be given a medicine which MAY kill 1 cockroach after 2 YEARS (see wording of Jan Lok Pal Bill), OR will you yourself pick up a can of HIT and start spraying judiciously OR call in an efficient PEST CONTROL SERVICE ????

Respectfully

Sarbajit

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 2:21 PM, Y.P. Anand <ypanandindia@yahoo.co.in> wrote:

Dear Shri Sarbjit Roy,

>Thanks for your comments on my note to Shri Devasahayam. I do not know who should be called a 'Gandhian'. That is also not the issue here. Each one of us has many component identities, and putting labels hardly helps.

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>My note to Shri Devasahayam applies to everyone, including myself. With my long background experience, I do feel that the issue of 'Corruption' needs to studied much more thoroughly than it is being done by the activists at present. Corruption in its various forms is a wide-spread phenomenon in our society, particularly among the successful upper middle classes to which people like me belong. We need to be much more self-critical on this issue. Taking simple examples, black money is being generated all round through under-valued declarations of the amounts when we purchase/sell a property, when we make major additions/alterations to our houses/flats illegally, when we buy jewellery, vehicles, etc. without full receipts, when we under-state our incomes while filing incom-tax returns, and in numerous other similae cases.  

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>Corruption in all its forms must be opposed. Also, governments and the personnel involved must be held responsible wherever obvious failures to ensure integrity in public life come to notice. However, we get a right to speak on the subject only to the extent we have looked inwards also, and have assured ourselves of the facts in each case. Otherwise, it becomes a self-righteous outcry, which in the long run hardly ever helps the cause.

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>YP Anand

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