- To aspirants with Public Administration optional: if you’ve read Fred Rigg’s theory about Prismatic-Sala society, this article will make more sense.
- To others: a good read nonetheless, for essay/ interview fodder.
4. Will India remain corrupt forever?
- In Western society, too, there is some corruption, but it is only at a very high level, and it ordinarily does not affect the common man.
- In USA, you cannot offer a bribe to a policeman if he catches you violating some traffic rule. If you attempt to do that it will be a second, more serious, offence. Similarly, you cannot bribe an income tax official or other officials there.
- But in India corruption exists at every level, for example, in registering a sale deed, getting mutation in revenue records, getting an FIR registered, getting permission from a municipality to build a house, tax matters, etc.
- first, corruption is the normal feature of the transitional period when a society (such as India’s) is passing from a feudal, agricultural stage to a modern, industrial stage.
- Second, it is only when the transition is over and the country becomes a fully industrial society, like that in North America or Europe, that things will get relatively stabilised, and corruption will be considerably reduced. This, in my opinion, will take about 15 to 20 years more in India.
- Feudal, agricultural society is a relatively stable society, with everyone knowing his place, with stable social and ethical values.
- In contrast, when the process of industrialisation begins, things become topsy-turvy. In this transitional period, before the process of industrialisation is complete, two things happen.
1. First, old (feudal) moral values disintegrate, but a new moral code does not come into existence.
2. Second, prices start shooting up [inflation], while incomes are broadly stagnant (or rise much slower than the price rise).
- For both these reasons, corruption becomes rampant.
- To maintain one’s lifestyle, one must supplement one’s regular income, and this is only possible by corruption. Since the old moral code has largely disintegrated there is little check on one’s conscience to prohibit taking bribes.
Will India remain corrupt forever?
- Corruption is inevitable in a transitional society like India in which industrialisation has commenced, but is incomplete.
- Historical facts support this conclusion. For example, there was rampant corruption in England in the 18th and early 19th centuries when industrialisation was going on but was not complete.
- Similarly, in America too there was a lot of corruption in the 19th century when the process of industrialisation was going on.
- It is only when the process of industrialisation is broadly completed that society once again becomes relatively stable and corruption subsides.
Ref
Originally written by Justice Markandey Katju, a former judge of the Supreme Court, is chairman of the Press Council of India
http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/985116/
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