|
|||||
|
O when degree is shaked,
`DEGREE', in the way Shakespeare used the word in Troilus and Cressida, from where this extract is taken, meant order. As Ulysses explains later in this brilliantly persuasive speech, if order ceases to have any effect, chaos follows. Then "force should be right, or, rather, right and wrong /Between whose endless jar justice resides, /Should lose their names, and so should justice too." The argument is for order, for the rule of law. And it is one that holds good now, as much as it did then. We live in a time, particularly in this country, when the yardstick by which people appear to be measured is the yardstick of achievement in purely material terms. And nowhere is this more painfully true than among those in public service. Fewer and fewer public servants continue to value the quality of the service they do; and an increasing number seem to value what material wealth they can get, by whatever means; land, houses, cars, stocks, suitcases full of cash, jewellery and everything else. Sadly they are assisted in this, in a large number of cases, by their wives and their children - both daughters and sons.
Among those at the helm of public affairs, it is people who you would think would not just make their way of serving examples to follow but ensure that colleagues straying from dedicated service are suitably dealt with, who are among those who have been arrested or are being investigated for corruption charges. Order is being shaken at the very root, by those who are expected to nurture and strengthen it. A Chairman of the Central Excise and Customs is arrested; so is a Vice-Chairman of the Delhi Development Authority, a very senior civil servant. A former Commissioner of Police is investigated for his links with a case of widespread fraud; a former Chief Secretary is similarly investigated for having incredibly large amounts of land, houses and wealth of different kinds.
What is saddening is that dishonesty should have spread even to these remote parts of public activity. We know of dishonesty among policemen, various functionaries of the municipal corporations, of officials in such departments as the Income Tax or any other office where licences or some kind of permission has to be obtained. That it should be found even in remote offices of doctors who carry out post-mortems makes one believe that perhaps we are not being too fanciful in concluding that, as a nation, we are innately dishonest.
Is it, for example, surprising when you leave behind a bag or something else in a taxi or an autorickshaw, to have the driver return it to you, or take it to a police station, from where it is returned to you once the police are able to locate you? If it happens, it is unusual enough to be reported in newspapers and on television; the driver is complimented, and given some reward for his honesty. It is because it is unusual that it gets attention. No one is interested in a bag being taken away by a taxi or auto driver, because it happens most of the time.
There seems to be an irresistible compulsion towards dishonesty among far too many people; and it is not only among the taxi or auto drivers. People in high places, in public service and in private companies, are not immune to this. And it does not seem to matter what that person's level of education or intelligence is. Not too long ago, I was told of a former bureaucrat who rose to hold very high office but was then obliged to resign because the Central Bureau of Investigation discovered that he was involved in some dark dealings. And this was an officer who had taken a first class degree in his university and gone on to get a very good degree from the London School of Economics before he entered government service.
A recent survey has ranked India fourth among the most corrupt countries in South East Asia, and there is, I believe, another which ranks India among the 10 most corrupt countries in the world. To many, this must be inexplicable when the country is seen to be one of the most promising, in economic terms, and is attracting a good amount of foreign investment. True, economic growth and dishonesty are not necessarily incompatible; but large-scale graft and corruption must surely retard growth, and make prospective investors look at other countries as places where investments can be made, where the administrative machinery is relatively cleaner.
Perhaps, we have not yet entered the truly dark age of corruption; and I personally know that within the administrative framework there are some very dedicated and intelligent officers not only at senior levels but lower down in the hierarchies of power whose integrity is unquestionable. But one does worry for them; in a system where the political executive is virtually the fountainhead of corruption, how long can they survive? How many of them will accept the fact that they will never be given key posts or be elevated to higher levels, and will see many among their peers who are more pliant, less honest and above board, progressing upwards to higher levels and to the most prized posts in the bureaucracy?
AND then there is the bigger, more worrying issue; what is it that is wrong with our people, what pushes them towards dishonesty instead of looking on it with distaste and contempt? Is there something wrong with our educational system? Our social customs, such as our weddings, where wealth needs to be displayed even by those who have only modest means? Is it that the children born of such unions are born innately dishonest?
We need to know, we need answers to these questions, if we are to work towards developing a society where dishonesty, bribery and the amassing of wealth by illegal means by misusing powers entrusted to one is considered despicable by all those who are in public service. There will always be some who will have criminal proclivities, but, for one, the numbers can be brought down, and, for another, if there is a general distaste among most public service for this way of living then the dishonest, who will be the aberrations, will be quickly isolated, exposed and can be suitably punished.
This, then, is what the Central government needs to look at urgently. It is not so much a matter for the Ministry of Personnel as it is for that Ministry and the Ministry of Human Resource Development working together. Or it may well be that experts for the task will be found in the field of medical science. Whatever. They have to be put on the job, and over a period of time try to determine what makes these propensities so common among us when it is not among other communities and people elsewhere in the world. I for one am confident they will come up with rational answers and point the way to some corrective action, but it may take a long time. All research usually does.
Meanwhile, we simply have to persevere with the instruments we have, and those are themselves not immune to the disease they are supposed to be fighting. Recently the media had a report on the quiet but comprehensive removal of all the officers probing the Taj Corridor scam in which Mayawati is one of those who is involved. Soon after the report, the Deputy Inspector-General in charge had his transfer orders cancelled, and stays in charge, though one does not know what has happened to the others. But it is an indication that vigilance is not the prerogative of the Central Vigilance Commission and the numerous vigilance officers in every government office; it is equally that of people at large, in the media, in non governmental organisations and everywhere else.
As a holding action the symptoms have to be firmly tackled; and, hopefully, in the fullness of time, the root causes of this disease will be identified and can be removed.
Printer friendly
page
|
