The Third Eye

OUR COUNTRY had entered a dangerous phase a few years ago when people had started accepting corruption as an inevitable part of life. The rampant corruption that is prevailing all over the country affecting the day to day life of an ordinary citizen has of late assumed colossal proportions. A stage has been reached where the corrupt go about their business in a brazen manner. The tariff for each approval or sanction or the follow-up action to be taken up after such approval or sanction is almost publicly announced. The tariff naturally gets revised upwards periodically. People are not outraged anymore by this wanton extortion as they realise that they simply cannot survive if they do not accept the terms set for their legitimate entitlements. The story is even more bizarre when it comes to seeking favours which require bending or breaking a rule. Unfortunately there are people who want such favours and they are prepared to cooperate to any extent.

Be it a telephone connection or repair, allotment of land or apartment, electricity, sewerage or water connection, registration of a complaint in a police station or any such essential requirement, the harassment by the functionaries at the cutting edge of the administration has reached unbelievable limits. These functionaries openly say that the loot is shared up to the top of the hierarchy. There is no means of verifying this. But one thing is certain. If for such jobs you approach the higher officials and complain, the matter gets more complicated and the game is so cleverly played that you are driven back to the operational level to meekly surrender and pay up.

Statistical requirements

There is no fear of the CBI, CVC or the Income Tax Department as the corrupt very well know that these watchdog institutions seldom are able to take the cases to their logical conclusion. These agencies seem to catch people just to satisfy statistical requirements. After all they have to justify their existence. Even if a few get punished ultimately, it amounts to an insignificantly tiny percentage of the whole lot of corrupt officials in the business of moneymaking.

Politicians who have indulged in corrupt practices have gone scot free. Since Independence no politician has ever been sent to jail for accepting bribes and amassing wealth. One often wonders if there is an understanding among the politicians belonging to different political parties, that, when one is in the Opposition he will make just the necessary noises about the corrupt practices of Ministers in power and await his turn to come to power to carry on the loot. One has heard that some Chief Ministers make sure that the Opposition Leader is also paid, though a smaller sum, for each transaction.

It is known that the underworld dons have a secret understanding about their territorial jurisdiction so that each one flourishes without cutting into the domain of the other. Similar seems to be the situation with the politicians. Some parties can now even boast of having on their rolls persons with impressive criminal track records.

It is often said that corruption is a global phenomenon and therefore we should not bother too much. This is just sanctimonious humbug. There may be payoffs at the top levels even in some developed countries. But no leader can dare compromise national interest. More than that, the ordinary citizen is not engulfed in an environment of corruption as in our country.

I have heard prospective foreign investors say why in India there is no single window system of delivering the money and getting the job done. They say that in some countries where dictators rule, such a system prevails and there is no hassle whatsoever in completing and commissioning the projects, as the entire hierarchy cooperates without further inducements. They say that we seem to be practising democratic decentralisation with a vengeance!

These days there is a lot of talk of the so-called hidden agenda of political parties. But one thing is certain. All political parties do have a hidden agenda. They say ever so many things in their manifestos, but corruption is the hidden agenda which does not find mention.

Desperate remedies

Where do we go from here? The Third Eye is the answer. It is the people who constitute this Third Eye. They should go all out to expose the corrupt. We are just witnessing a beginning of this grand awakening. No one has any business to say that the methods employed to catch the thieves red-handed are unethical. Desperate situations require desperate remedies. Lord Siva's Third Eye is said to burn and annihilate the evil doers. Let the people make that happen.

S. VARADAN

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