Cuts in major projects: Is it new?

I recently had a casual talk with a construction company which has on-going projects all over India.  Fresh from a reading of open page in Hindu newspaper, which dealt with articles on corruption this week, in my talk with the representative of the company, out of curiosity I inquired about the amounts of money the contractors pay the public servants as cuts.  Though not unexpected, his revelation brought some clarity on the problem.

There are two aspects to the problem, one traditional, the other modern.  Traditionally, all construction companies of major infrastructure projects, across all the states of India, over the last many decades, have been paying percentages to the engineering personnel of the respective Governments.  The break-up when averaged across the States runs something like this: 0.3% to Junior Engineer, 0.25% to Deputy Executive Engineer, 0.2% to Executive Engineer, 0.1% to Superintendent Engineer, 0.1% to Chief Engineer.  Besides the engineering personnel, the treasury office takes 0.125%, the quality checking staff 0.1% and the Vigilance and monitoring staff 0.04%, totaling around 1.2% - 1.3% on an average.  It is said that these percentages are specific to the major infra projects and those for the minor infra projects are much higher.  Percentages when worked out in major projects will run into crores of rupees, hence in some states one or two months salary is paid traditionally to all the engineering personnel involved in the project every month, in place of the percentages.  However, of late the engineers have been demanding percentage based payments even in large infra projects.  The more the number of agencies involved in checking or monitoring the projects, the higher is the out go by way of cuts.  A classic case is that of third party quality control.  During earlier days, the quality control was conducted by the respective engineering departments, but now many State governments have been engaging private agencies to conduct third party QC.  The private employees of the third party QC agency also have got accustomed to this percentage system today.  The vigilance department too has its cut in every bill received by the company.  When asked what compels an honest and genuine contractor to pay the cuts, it was replied that even to complete the work in time, supervision of departmental staff is necessary on day to day basis.  If any company refuses to pay the cuts, the staff refuse to cooperate and work gets slowed down thereby resulting in huge payments for the idle men and machinery of the contractor.  Therefore, it makes practical sense for even the professional company to see that its expenditure on idle men and machinery, interest payments, arising out of delays in work dont exceed the cut payments to engineers.

 

The other problem, recent in origin, is that of payments to the elected heads of Governments while receiving large bill payments for the work done.  The increases in election expenditure has a role to play in this.  In the recent election to various states, it is learnt that some political parties paid up to Rs.2000 to each voter.  Any ambitious politician wanting to get reelected will necessarily have to mobilise resources during the time he is in office for the next election. When asked about the position in other countries, it is said that even in some developed nations, the contracting companies, through some way benefit the elected decision making head.  However, its hidden from public view, and doesnt affect either the lives of common man or the quality of the project.  

When I heard this, I didnt know whether I have to be happy because we are moving in the foot steps of advanced democracies where kick backs are confined to the top, or due to the fact that there is fair and equitable distribution of cuts even at the bottom. This problem is visible to public eye only because of the many poor quality projects being executed, non-commissioned projects, land being acquired unfairly for non-starter projects, active press and media.  Besides this, India is in a take-off stage today where a large number of mega-infra projects, each costing thousands of crores of rupees, are coming up.  Now, even the 1-2% in such projects will run into hundreds of crores, and in a country still suffering under the weight of the 60% poor and unstable families, cuts running into crores of rupees to its large number of lower-level officials is bound to attract public attention. 

Gratitude in public

Public servants (elected representatives and officials), through out their careers, are presented with the opportunity of dispensing good to the community or the individuals.  The Government compensates them for doing the job presented to them in terms of a fair salary.  However, we come across a number of public servants deciding and extracting their own compensation from the recipients of the public good.  A question which comes to mind is, in case people come across a public servant who does his job without expecting anything in return, do they really hold any gratitude in their hearts for the service rendered by the public servant.  In case they do, does that gratitude really motivate a public servant to work for the sake of gratitude in place of illegal gratification.

That the public hold gratitude is amply demonstrated through a number of elections in independent india, where the kith and kin of a deceased public representative is elected out of sympathy.  Hence, values like sympathy, gratitude etc. are part of public virtue and can be taken for granted. But, the question is, how does one gain the gratitude of people? In public life, there is no short-cut to the lengthy process of entry into the world of the voting-majority; a world moving in its own direction at its own pace.  This process of syncing with this world has four steps, entry phase, engagement phase, transformation phase, and action phase.

Unknown to many, a world of the voting and suffering majority exists around us.  A person with the noble intention of dispensing good to the majority surrounding us and become a leader, has to first initiate the process of entry into the majority world through a declaration of his intention to all concerned.  We often find a person who intends to run for election, visiting marriages, birth/ death ceremonies.  Some enterprising people throw big parties in villages, contribute to the village festivals, public infrastructure facilities with a view to gaining some initial good will among the people.  Once the process of entry and establishing an identity is complete, he moves on to the next phase of aggressively engaging with the day-to-day lives of the public.  Any accident, flood, calamity in this world will immediately see the person landing up at the place and offering condolences and promises for help to the victims.  Taking part in the happy and sad moments of those in that world becomes a daily routine for him.  This phase takes the leader to all the places where problems exist in this world.  The most essential part in confidence building among the people is a physical visit to the problem location.  Even the most insensitive human being is bound to react once he is presented with a scene of human suffering before his eyes; such is the nature of humans.  No one knows this better than the common man.  Therefore, a public servant is often compelled by public to visit the problem area.  After getting into the world, instead of playing a passive role, an active engagement with the life in that world will make him more knowledgeable about the concerns there.  After some time a stage is reached where the leader is totally in sync with the world around him, fully aware of all the difficulties and life on a day to day basis.  He is totally transformed into a successful and active member of the world.  Next comes the action phase where he needs to find solutions for the concerns there.  Through an aggressive process of agitation and confrontation with the  Government, good is extracted and distributed to the needy by the leader.  Once the leader is being seen as someone who is identifying with them, fighting for their causes, and delivering what they aspire for, the bond and trust between the leader and the public becomes strong.  Feeling of gratitude, affection, awe etc. get generated from this continuing process of dispensation of good to the people.

The question of motivation of public servants from this gratitude alone is however not certain.

Unstable lives: Are they really a means of personal gain for rulers

The general impression of the thinking classes about the expectations of a common man, from Government, revolve around good governance, honesty, law and order, development, etc.  The baffling instances of dishonest public servants(includes elected representatives), finding support from the people, question this belief.  There is an impression gaining ground among persons in public life that the people really aren't concerned about corruption in public service as long as it doesnot touch their lives.

In order to examine this hypothesis, we need to first look at the expectations of the voters.  There are two classes of people in our society, the voting majority whose livelihoods are quite unstable and at the mercy of nature or factors beyond their control, and a mostly non-voting minority who have secure livelihoods.  People from the rural areas mostly involved in traditional livelihoods and the urban working classes, are the majority who participate in the democratic process out of a sense of compulsion- a compulsion driven by hope of finding that special someone, who will be able to pull them out of the uncertainty in their lives.  A majority of the thinking class sceptics, find this belief in our democratic system as innocent and misplaced.  However, for those whose lives hang precariously, there is no alternative except to put faith in the public servants, in the hope of gaining some stability in their lives.  For someone who is starving, any agent who comes forward to satisfy their hunger becomes their God and their embodiment of good.   Action matters here, not the intention.  As long as the agent's acts are good his intention is not looked into.  Since the immediate concern of the needy man is his need, he cannot afford to look into the merits or demerits of the agent who comes forward to mitigate his problems.  Such is the power of immediate needs and hunger.  Just as it didn't matter for the people whether Robin Hood plundered someone to provide for them, so also the vast majority of needy people aren't in a position to care about the virtue in their Government.  If someone understands this situation to mean that virtue is not necessary for the rulers or that people don't care about their misdeeds elsewhere, then its the greatest folly that they are committing.

Those with a selfish interest, take care of the peoples meagre needs and occupy positions of power.  Thereafter starts exploitation of the seats of authority for personal gain.  It has to be kept in mind that the twin actions of taking care of peoples needs at one place, and plunder in other sectors hidden from public view, are in fact contradictory in nature.  Once a person gets a taste of being in power, like a tiger which tasted human blood, will try to remain in that seat forever, which in turn requires taking care of peoples needs endlessly.  This will in course of time result in either of the two things.  A sustained implementation of welfare policies such as, housing for all, employment guarantee schemes, pensions, will result in bringing some stability to the lives of the majority.  Once the immediate needs are taken care of, people start thinking about the next thing that is good for them, and realise that their provider whom they have been revering till today is in fact a fellow with selfish interests.  The realisation will make them search for a better and selfless alternative to rule them.  Alternatively, if in course of time the stability which they are looking for from the current ruler, doesn't step into their lives, impatience steps in.  This impatience again makes them search for a better alternative.  Therefore, a public servant who is motivated by selfish interests can never find favour with people permanently in the long run. 

Todays politics finds the needy people as means for personal gain.  Peoples needs are subject to exploitation during election times by unscrupulous contestants, through offers of cash-for-vote.  It would be foolish to imagine that any election to a public office, in such circumstances, is an endorsement of the view that a vast majority are not bothered about virtue in those elected.  It could mean that either the people are so preoccupied with the current concerns in their lives that they are unable to focus on larger issues concerning the virtue of their public servants, or that they have not been well informed about their virtue.  

A snapshot of the forces that dictate the expectations of the two classes of citizens from his government is given in the table below.

CONCERNS REQUIRING GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION	UNSTABLE LIFE	STABLE LIFE
1. Livelihood	Yes; agricultural support(loan, inputs,irrigation), employment guarantee, min. wages etc.	No; self-sufficient
2. Good Governance	No	Yes
3. Food Subsidy(ration card)	Yes	No
4. Housing subsidy	Yes	No
5. Free health care	Yes	No
6. Pensions for old and infirm	Yes	No
7. Education	Yes	No
8. Corruption at top	No	Yes
9. Rule of law	No	Yes
10. Roads	Yes	Yes
11. Traffic	No	Yes
12. Village/town infrastructure	Yes; very poor infrastructure	Yes; but relatively better infrastructure
13. Drinking water	Yes; big concern	Yes; but manageable
14. Modernisation of economy	Yes; not high on priority	Yes; priority item.

Corruption or virtue of the public servants doesnt find a place on the agenda of the voting majority in our State.  This does not mean, as discussed earlier, that they endorse the short-sighted selfish behaviour of the rulers.  It can only mean that though important, it is not in the current agenda of the voting majority, and the non-voting minority have to keep up their efforts to bring the item of good governance on to the agenda of the voting-majority.

Is this farmer wise?

The unprecedented December 2010 rains overnight converted lush green paddy fields ripe for harvesting, into vast extents of brown coloured water logged lands.  One could see smelly rotten paddy sheaves floating like dead corpses, on the water, waiting for someone to cremate them.  Cries forcing their way to the innermost depths of ones ears were audible in every village without exception; cries at the loss of their four month toil, cries at the sight of  enormous debts for their small lives, cries of families whose masters had committed suicides.  Wailing women wading in waist deep waters gathering the stinking floating paddy debris,  unmindful of their mud covered sarees struggling to protect their modesty, on one side, and their men folk mourning at that sight were everywhere to be seen.  A few days later, a group of agriculture officials landed in one such village near Burja to assess the extent of paddy damaged, that needed to be procured.  They came across a farmer whose one acre semi-dried rotten paddy sheaves were heaped at one place on the threshing floor, which on examination revealed that any attempt to thresh it and convert it into paddy would yield only one bag of paddy in place of the 20 bags he would otherwise have got.  Considering that the farmer had already spent Rs.12000 till that day in return for the rotten heap of paddy sheaves, that it would cost a further Rs. 2000 to thresh it and convert it into a bag of paddy, that the bag so produced would not fetch him more than Rs.400 at Government price, he was advised by the agricultural officials to burn his rotten paddy heap and limit his loss to Rs.12000.  Little did they know at that time that we would be talking to that same very farmer after some 60 days.

On one cool winter morning, when all the Government machinery was busy with procuring the damaged paddy, a group of us visited a damaged paddy procurement centre in Burja.  Getting down from our vehicles  we witnessed a heated argument going on between the paddy assessment expert and a farmer.  On arrival the dispute automatically landed up in our lap.  The assessment officer had assessed a cost of Rs.600 per quintal of the discoloured paddy sample brought by the farmer whereas he was asking for atleast Rs.1000.  The agricultural officer suddenly recognised this farmer and asked him where he brought this sample from when his total crop was destroyed and he was advised to set it on fire.  It was revealed by him that a bag(80kg) of discoloured paddy was salvaged from the large heap of rotten sheaves by spending Rs.3000.  I asked him why he spent additional money in threshing, knowing fully well that he is only going to increase his loss of Rs.12000.  He replied with a puzzled face, "Dont you understand? the rest of the villagers would have laughed at me had I set fire to the paddy heap", to which I enquired "why so?".  "I am a farmer and a farmer is one who extracts produce from the field. If knowing fully well that some paddy howsoever little, could be extracted from the heap, I set it on fire, then how can I be called a farmer?".  Everyone remained silent for a short while.  All of us moved on to the next location in a confused state, trying to understand what the farmer said. 

Now the question: Is the farmer right?

Thinking, as we usually do like one with common sense, we are tempted to say the farmer had done a wrong thing.

But on second thoughts, if we look at the profession of a farmer, it is agriculture.  Now, the art of agriculture involves preparation of soil, sowing of seed, raising of crop etc., and finally the extraction of produce from the soil.  The purpose of agriculture then happens to be the extraction of produce, doesnt matter whether its one grain or a 1000 kg;  A tag of a true farmer can be attached to a person, if and only if he is able to fulfill the purpose of the art of agriculture, i.e. extracting some grains even if he is thrown in the middle of a forest with no seed or fertilizer.  Difficulties, big or small such as rains or no rains; high prices or low prices; insect or pest; ill health or injury; wild boars or thieves; debt or suicide; all are to be overcome in order to extract some produce from the soil. Then, and only then can a farmer be said to be to be a true farmer; one who can do justice to agriculture.  Such a man carries with him the true art of agriculture which makes him produce crop even in the most adverse environments.  The bag of paddy brought by him in the eyes of Government is worth only Rs.600, whereas the just value of the bag as demanded by the art of agriculture is Rs.15000(Rs12000 till harvesting +Rs 3000 for threshing).

Now, the question is whether our State values this art of agriculture residing in our farmers who practice it in true spirit.  There is no self-respecting State which can answer in the negative to this question.  If such is the case, is our policy so deficient of virtue, that it is ignorant of even valuing the art of agriculture residing in our spirited farmers?

Character Rating: The four forces determining the character of a public servant

The four forces guiding the life of a public servant reason(wisdom), honour, wealth and unnecessary pleasures, depending on their magnitude make each servant unique.  In their relative value, wisdom which is invaluable ranks first, followed by honour, wealth and lastly comes force of unnecessary pleasures of zero value; force of wisdom is inversely proportional to the forces of wealth and unnecessary pleasures.  When I talk of wisdom, it is the rational principle of mind I refer to here, which is the one and only guiding force which converts an animal like human led by brute desires into a virtuous being led by reason. Outstanding academic excellence of an individual has nothing to contribute in this area of widom unless guided by a superior force of a rational mind illuminated by good.  The good news is this logic of virtue can be learnt and the bad news is that very few people understand that it can be learnt.

Wisdom in an individual is determined by two factors, one by quality of upbringing by parents/teachers and the other by the true education received by him.  Availability of virtuous persons around the individual during his childhood in the form of parents or teachers or friends is not a sufficient condition but only a necessary condition for inculcation of virtue in the him.  Unless the responsibility of nurture and imparting of this wisdom during childhood had been taken up by some virtuous person, it is unlikely that our public servant would turn out to be virtuous, with the exception of those possessing divine inspiration.  Blessed are those who during childhood are groomed by virtuous parents/guardians in their environment.  Human minds are driven by two types of principles, an inferior one based on opinion and the other superior based on intellect; and those persons who are guided by their intellect are more likely to see reason in a virtuous life.  The education at school taught in the right manner and in true spirit, would push the mind into the stewardship of intellect from that of reason.  There is a notion that intelligent is the child who is quick at learning mathematics, but learning of mathematics is alone not sufficient to acquire virtue; mathematical training makes the mind rational, which inturn helps the child understand the infallable logic behind learning of virtue, provided a sincere effort is made in that direction, till he retires from this world.  The types of parents that exist in our society today and the likely value that their children are going to attain, after they grow up is a topic for another write-up. 

Honour is something that answers to the spirit in us, the passionate part of the person, and is ignited either by envy and ambition, or violence and contention, or anger and discontentment.  Though inferior to the force of wisdom, honour is something we learn right from our childhood in the form of persons spending a fortune to get elected as a Sarpanch or an MLA, determination to win a game, passion to top an exam, determination to achieve something we lack, resolution to prove our standpoint in life.  A desire to get recognition for the excellence, of whatever nature that exists in us, is the driving force here.  The person derives satisfaction and pleasure out of this honour he receives.

Money is the third factor which pleases any person and public servant is no exception.  It is extremely difficult to escape the temptations of the make-believe world it conjures up around us, and any escape from falling in this ignominious bottomless pit is made possible only by the understanding of logic of virtue.  However a certain amount confined to legitimate and reasonable necessities is mandatory and just.  Anything beyond that which the public servant justly deserves not only destroys his family fabric, but also that of the society in which he rules.

Unnecessary pleasures are those whose satisfaction is either injurious to the self or is of no use for life.  A question arises as to why then are so many public servants, servants of unnecessary pleasures such as women, wine, eating, luxury etc.  Once the mind is led astray by these pleasures, they hold sway over it, wisdom acquired earlier unless learnt truly, ruthlessly crushed, and the mind taken possession by these seductive elements.  There is no place for virtue or wisdom where unnecessary pleasures exist.  For those who might be wondering about the inferiority of unnecessary pleasures when compared to virtue, it is to say that the hypothesis that a 'life of pleasure' is superior to that of a 'life of wisdom' had been proven to be wrong by many logicians since time immemorial (most of the proofs can be found on the web).

There is a popular saying in officialdom that there are three stages in the life of a public servant, the first 10 years when he is 'garam'(hot), the next 10 years when he is 'naram'(lukewarm) and the last years of his career when he is 'besharam'(shameless).  Though appearing to be a simple observation, a lot of meaning can be read into this.  Freshly out of the college, unmarried, full of passion to abide by principles, the first 1/3rd of his career will be spent with a lot of enthusiasm.  Once he acquires a family and realises that the principles he adheres which are in contradiction to the external reality, are resulting in frequent expulsions from jobs, making him appear redundant in the system, lowering his prestige in the eyes of his family and friends, the public servant starts getting doubts about the guiding principles in his life.  The next 1/3rd of his career is spent in this confusion, neither fully principled nor totally away from principles.  Finally, the realisation that he has numerous responsibilities to perform before he retires, things such as marriages of daughters, education of kids, pressure to keep up with the expensive lifestyle in the society  make him bite the bullet; he throws whatever remnants of reason he has to the wind and turns himself into a corrupt absolute.

An attempt is made to plot these four forces on radar chart to arrive at the difference in the same employees at three different stages of his career.  100 units of guiding force, shared by reason, honour, wealth and pleasure, is assumed to direct an individual at any time of his life.  Proportions of 30%,50%,10%,10%(reason:honour:wealth:pleasure) for early career,  (20%,30%,30%,20%) for mid-career, (20%,10%,40%,30%) for late-career are taken. Perception is the sole basis for arriving at the numbers. 

There exist two fundamental remedies to this ever increasing defect in a public servant's character, with time.  The first is the teaching-learning of the wisdom and the other regulation of his injustice by operation of law.  The aforementioned sketch gives an impression that there is no escape from such a path.  However such is the fate of those persons, either in case of those whose understanding of virtue is superficial and incomplete at the earlier stages of life, or who have not made an effort at later stages of life to rekindle the dying fire of reason in their minds.  Unless the state focuses on rectifying this defect of knowledge among its recruitees, the anti-corruption machinery will have a lot of work to do in brushing all the dirt underneath the carpet.   Strong and intense training in the logic of virtue for all the public servants before entry into job is one of the foremost prerequisites for a strong, solid and virtuous officialdom.  The second remedy of enforcement by law is inferior but is necessitated by reality; the more the enforcement of law is resorted to, in order to contain its own public servants, the worse is the quality of such a State.

What are we like- Milk, toddy or illicit arrack?

Recently I watched the telugu movie Broker, which is about a professional wheeler dealer who is capable of getting any type of work done in the Government.  The case of a very strict official, who doesnt bend even under the influence of the highest offer of money, is referred to this fellow.  He in turn gets into studying the mentality of the official and ultimately finds out that he has a weakness for a particular movie heroine.  Though the story is interesting I will stop at that.  I thought it interesting to classify the different species of public servants based on the degree of virtue the fellow holds in him.  Any public servant works in pursuit of either of the three objects, money, honour, or principles.  The extent to which these three objects exist in a person defines his degree of virtue.  The value of our public servants is defined by the degree of virtue the person holds in him.

A close look at the spectrum of public servants running our Government today reveals that they belong to different classes, each one at a different stage of evolution in terms of virtue, but all of the classes coexisting at the same time.  Based on the amount of virtue each class holds, we can classify the public servants into four broad categories, the honestly honest, the dishonestly honest, the honestly dishonest, and finally the dishonestly dishonest.

Man of Principles

The first class of honestly honest are the most virtuous of the spectrum, pure as unadulterated milk.  For the people belonging to this class, honesty and integrity extend beyond their job into their lives.  Sincerity in work, devotion to family, confining the life to his legitimate means of income, expenditure of excess time in noble pursuits of acquisition of true knowledge, faith in God, and above all, leading a life of simplicity and principles is his hallmark.  Impossible is to tempt a person belonging to this class of people, with the known temptations of either money/women/wine/food, or by temptations of honour and goodwill.  These people are willing to endure hardship because they are truly knowledgeable, and live by the universal principles of good.  Very rarely do we come across such public servants, but there is an urgent need to identify and preserve such creatures as role models for the present and future.  In the interest of governance they should be honoured ,and efforts made to replicate this fast dwindling species which is at the verge of extinction.  A conscious effort to cultivate the values of this species among others, from the current and future generations, needs to be done.   Principles are the fundamental good in their life.

Man of honour

Next class of servants are the dishonestly honest, similar to milk mixed with water.  Modernised urban society values money making and pleasure seeking behaviour, when compared with a traditional rural society which values virtue.  Dishonestly honest are the direct descendants of the milk class, some of whom mutate under the influence of modern pleasure seeking society.  Honour and money are the two factors which exert some influence on these persons.  A picture of perfect honesty is displayed to our eyes, which holds good as long as no opportunity for dishonesty presents itself.  Desire for honour compels the person to subdue his desire for money lest it should be out in the open.  We often listen to accusations of dishonesty against the corrupt persons from his mouth, partly motivated by pangs of jealousy that the corrupt person is enjoying a life of pleasure, and partly by his eagerness to prove his honesty in comparison with the corrupt fellow, thereby gaining some honour.   Presentation of any opportunity satisfying his desire for money without affecting his honour will not be lost by him; honour is the chief good in their lives. 

Man of money

The third class is the honestly dishonest ones, comparable to the pure, unadulterated toddy freshly tapped.  Though inherently not good, it has a value derived out of its purity.  A culture of bribe-taking, percentage-seeking behaviour has been well entrenched, in many of the offices of Government, over the last few decades.  New comers into the department are immediately given shelter, groomed in the code of dishonesty by the senior staff, and taught to deliver perfectly on receipt of the money.  Some years ago, when a friend went to a public office to request for the family pension and benefits of a dead acquaintance, he was confronted by a money-seeking clerk.  Being a religious chap, my friend counseled him for a few minutes as to how inhuman it is to demand money for sanctioning pension to the family of the deceased.  After a patient listening his answer was "all that I deal with are dead cases.  If I am compassionate, where will I get my money from?".  The result is, today we have a large number of government servants for whom taking money and delivering work is a way of life.  Non-delivery of the promised work, or demand of excess/less money than that agreed under the rate list of bribes is frowned upon, and termed unscrupulous.  We refer to these fellows as efficient but corrupt in common parlance.  There exists no desire for honour for this class of people because they imagine their honour to be derived from the money that is earned illegally.  These are the products of the modern pleasure seeking society, which has been successful in producing its own class of citizens.  Money is the fundamental good in these fellows lives.

Man of Pleasure

Finally we come to the dishonestly dishonest, the ones comparable to illicit arrack.  While they give an appearance of genuine dishonesty, they are in reality fake, whom we term as cheats.  These are the ones totally unscrupulous, always trying to swindle government moneys through forgery, fooling innocent visitors into paying sums without need, escaping the work assigned to them, always trying to steal both honour and money without any effort on their part.  Pleasures in life bought by money totally rule these chaps, and they are beyond correction.  Even by the standards of a modern society which values money, these fellows are useless and good for nothing.  Pleasure is the principal good in their lives.

Fight against Corruption: What are we fighting against?

Corruption has been an issue which has been increasingly affecting our country(India) for the last half a century.  It has currently assumed proportions threatening to tear the very fabric of our society apart, hence the need to respond in an urgent and coordinated manner by every citizen of our country.  When we talk of corruption we mean immorality, dishonesty, lack of integrity etc. and pictures of corrupt government officials and public representatives come to our mind.  These officials and public representatives of our Government form the ruling class and are none other than the guardians of our country.  What we are concerned about is then corruption in our guardians. 

If we try to find the location of this entity called corruption we have to zero in on one guardian and try to find it there.  This thing called corruption is obviously located in the mind of our guardian.  In order to understand the nature of this entity let us compare a corrupt mind with its opposite i.e. an ideal mind.  This opposite as we see cant be anything other than a virtuous mind.  Corruption as we understand is lack of integrity, justice etc. and therefore what we are talking here is the lack of something called virtue in the guardian.  By virtue we mean morality, compassion, integrity and the like.

If every citizen is desirous of this entity called virtue in our guardian let us examine why it doesn’t exist in him.  Our guardians are a representative sample of our society and assigned that role through a process of selection (in case of officials) or election (in case of public representatives).  As every citizen recognizes and understands the evils of corruption we can safely assume that our citizens know how virtue looks like.  Our citizens i)know what virtue is, ii)want this thing called virtue in our guardian, and iii) know that it doesn’t exist currently in his mind.  Therefore the missing link here appears to be a lack of effort to inject this virtue thing into our guardian’s mind.

Is this something which can be put into a human mind and if so at what age should it be done?  Everyone knows that we learn virtue from our parents/teachers and that virtue is something which can be taught.  That which can be taught is said to be knowledge; and knowledge can be given right from childhood to old age.  Let us divide the life of our guardian into two parts one during childhood where he can be taught by his parents/teachers, second after assuming the role of a guardian where he can be taught by the State.

If we examine how far the teaching of virtue is happening in the current day homes by parents we find it happening at very few homes.  Part of our society has transformed from version 1.0 where everyone was living and working to satisfy the true human needs, to version 2.0 where the desires for luxury took the place of basic needs.  However this transformation hasn’t taken place for the whole of the population of our country.  There still remains a very big but so called outdated and underdeveloped version 1.0 of the society.  These two versions coexist currently each unaware of the existence of the other.  The version 1.0 continues to exist in the vast lands of our rural areas and version 2.0 has taken birth and is growing rapidly in the towns and cities.  It is highly unlikely to find our virtue thing in version 2.0, therefore it can be found only in the version 1.0.  The version 1.0 itself has started to melt and before it vanishes we need to find our virtue thing and preserve it for replication and future use. 

 Coming back to our guardian chap, after stepping into that role he gets a taste of version 2.0.  Since it appears to give a lot of pleasure to his senses he starts aspiring to become a successful member of version 2.0 getting rid of whatever little virtue thing he has in him.

Therefore the origin of this entity called corruption is nothing but absence of a thing called virtue in our guardian.  This again has its origin in two things, one failure of parents/teachers in educating their kids in virtue and the other in the failure of the State in imparting virtue to its guardians and valuing it.