Why majority of us are corrupt?
One of my friend's son wants to admit his son in a college which emphasizes on moral values than on secular education, so that, he can develop a great character. The college has a very highly competitive entrance examination. This friend asked me if I know someone in the college who can get his son a confirmed admission. He did not find this request ironical at all. Most of us may not find it ironical because we have come to believe that it is our right to seek out-of-turn favors.
We seek out-of-turn favour even for a railway berth when we have a confirmed RAC seat but find it OK to be bounced off an overbooked flight. I mean, our journeys are not always that urgent that we are under stress. We are okay to pay a traffic police a small bribe to avoid paying a fine for traffic violation we shouldn't have committed to begin with. We are okay to procure subsidized grains, sugar, kerosine, gas even if we are rich enough to afford the same. We are okay to use reservations (in schools, colleges and jobs) meant to make up for economically downtrodden castes, even though we are financially well off. Sometimes even forward castes and rich families use fake certificate to utilize these.
Those examples cover many of us, but to prove it is most of us, let's take the example of our elections. Even if we have an opportunity to elect an honest person, we would usually choose a corrupt one. There were a few honest politicians who tried in the past. Either they were forced to turn corrupt or they failed. We have our own reasons for choosing corrupt politicians. If we are poor we vote for money or alcohol. If we are lower middle class we vote for freebies like TV in one state, free electricity in another and loan waiver in the third. If we are upper middle class or rich, we want a person who can do us favours like out-of-turn college seats, jobs, contracts and licenses. Due this, we end up electing corrupt politicians and then lament that they are corrupt. Most of us are morally bankrupt and we don't even know that. Ironically, we tend to see others as corrupt, without looking at our own selves in the mirror.
Why Demonetisation will fail
In January 2015, I was volunteering in a village and we went for a visit to the temple of village godess which as per custom is outside the village. The narrow path that lead to the temple was very dirty. Villages have of using the area around the path as their toilet. I asked them, if they were aware of a government scheme to subsidize toilets for individual homes. Their answer surprised me. Most villagers have already used the scheme and claimed money from the government. And yet no one construced a single toilet, they just produced bills for constructing toilets. One may argue that the villagers needed money more urgently than toilets. Obviously, someone who is a government servant (probably village development officer) had also confirmed that toilets were constructed. I see it as concentrating on short term benefits than the long term ones. All the schemes of government tend to fail because people find ways to play the system for short term benefits.
So, demonetization will fail too. Not because people who have black money will want to play the system, but because those who do not have black money want a piece of the black pie. Government may come up with strict punitive measuers, but these people will find ways around them. When there are floods, water will find a way around the dam somehow. Similarly , a nation with a majority of morally bankrupt individuals will find way around any anti-corruption measures.
Why Demonetisation will succeed
And yet, Demonetisation will succeed, not in removing black money, but in sensitizing people about moral values.
- We have shut the mouth of conscience all these days because we could justify our actions, by saying everyone does it. Thus our inner control failed.
- We had stopped fearing law because corrupt money helped us overcome law. Government controls failed.
- Soceity started to admire money more than moral values. This meant that the means we use to earn money did not matter anymore, only the fact that a person is rich mattered. In fact moral values were considered weaknesses and morally upright individuals incapable or impracticle. Thus social controls failed.
With Demonetisation and subsequent IT raids, a few people started to fear a bit. Some are finding ways to take bribes in indirect and hidden ways instead of doing it in openly and brashly like before. Some are thinking twice before flaunting their wealth acquired through corrupt means. Governmental controls are beginning to have some impact.
Armed with this new impact, society finds it easier to look at the means of earning riches and not blinded by the riches alone. While the balance between means and ends is no where close, at least people are deriding corrupt people openly. This is giving rise to some uncomfortable but healthy conversations around good and bad. Here is summary of one such conversation I received as a forward.
"I was travelling by an autorickshaw and the driver was very appreciative of the Demonetization move. Then he admitted that that he has 5 lakhs in cash as his savings that he needs to deposit, but he doesn't know how. He then elaborated that he earns 4 to 5 lakhs a year through his autorickshaw. I asked if he is not paying income tax for this, isn't that black money? He remained silent."
Such conversations during an auto ride prior to demonetization would have never happened. If they did, the auto driver would have derided(pun intended) the passenger for his naivette. Social and individual morals are back under scanner. This is what I call as remoralisation of the society. Even, criminals who get easy money by being mules for drug traficking, human traficking or arms are out of jobs due to lack of free flow of cash. Hopefully this pause in their routine hopefully brings in a rethink of ethics behind their jobs.
Why remoralisation may never happen
In spite of all these conversations, it would be easy to shut our consciences, stop all the conversations around morality and find ways to be corrupt. The majority who have already been indoctrinated with corruption may never change. Society may never change.
Or it may.
It all depends on what we want to do as a society and where we want to be. It depends on the long term benefit we see in being morally upright vs. the short term benefit in being morally bankrupt. Government can do only so much - like
- making it difficult to be corrupt by digitization and transparency in government transactions.
- making it tough to hide black money by imposing digital transactions and recruiting honest IT officials.
But it is upto us, as a society, if we want to use this opportunity to find our moral value back or to slither back into the moral less abyss. Upto us to choose long-term benefits to the society over short term benefits to the self. Upto us to overcome animal tendencies to hoard things and start being a social being.
