For the cause of "poor" bribe taker

All of us criticize the "bribe taker". Let it be the local traffic constable, or any government servant in any government organization. But we never look at what causes them to take bribe. ( I am only trying to justify the position of low level bribe takers in a government organization, many of whom I have come across being "forced bribe takers"). Bribes in lower level of bureaucracy can be best explained by the trickle down effect of corruption!!!

In one of my previous blogs, I had mentioned about the apathy of a traffic police constable and the terrible life he is being forced to live in. In this post, I am trying to extrapolate and generalize this concept, i.e. the plight of any ordinary government employee who earns an average of less then 30,000rs/month.

At this age, cost of everything right from education, to daily rations, travel etc have become so high that the lower class and middle class have found it virtually impossible to bridge the gap between expenditure and income. India has become a living model of how the government policies can be designed in such a way that rich get rich and poor get poorer.

Coming back to the core point of this blog, why does some officer take bribe? Simple, because he has to take it. He cant get decent food, he cant get his kids educated in good schools or colleges and ya he cant provide his family a decent place to live in. In order to bridge this gap between expenditure and income he is forced to take a bribe.

I will like to give the example of a real life incident (that does not involve a government employee). Once I had taken an auto-rickshaw from Chennai CMBT (main bus stand) to my home in chrompet (roughly 20KMs away from CMBT). Over the coarse of journey I had a chat with the auto-driver about how life is getting tough for normal middle class people and what the government did (or does) for making the condition better. He begin telling me about his personal life experiences and how he is fighting to get his three kids educated so that atleast they can have a better life then his. He was forced to give "capitation fees" to get his kids admitted in private schools. Just hearing at his plight made me realize how much of a comfortable life I am living in.
Though this auto-driver (or any auto driver) charged me extra for the ride. This is an indirect form of bribe. But again he is forced to charge me extra. If he had some help from the government, he would have charged me right!

Imagine a situation when cost of petrol is as low as 10rs per liter!!! Ya, it can be a possible if the government brings back all the black money!!, and it makes better use of the gas in KG basin(There is a separate scam involving KG basin and Ambanis, which is set to explode in the next few days). They would be able to provide enough subsidy to the poor people (like the auto-rickshaw driver). Petrol cost is one thing that affects the life of majority of the people in this country. Right from the vegetable vendor, autoricksaw guys to any ordinary citizen of this country.

Why cant the government bring in effective policies to control effective distribution of PDS of foodgrains? Why is the opposition silent on it? The answer is straight forward. All the political parties and its members get their monthly money (read it as 'salary') from this theft!! Why cant the government do something about it? If we had effective PDS, the bribe taker need not take bribe. They need not go to the local ration shop to buy foodgrains at highly inflated rates.

The bribe taker at the lower level is taking money which indirectly reaches the people in the higher level of bureaucracy! And therefore rich get richer and poor get poorer.

India vs China

Can India ever overtake china? can India ever feel all of its billion population? can India make nalanda university an MIT?

Before answering any of these I would like to highlight some of the factors i have considered for comparison!!

Infrastructure!!
Some of the buildings/railway networks that china has built over the years made the world stand up and notice. For example let us take the Tibet-china superfast express ( Qinghai Tibet Train aka the Lhasa Express), In certain parts in this networ, the tracks have been laid over ICE. ya I mean actual ICE!!! It works fine in winter, but summer?? chinese government, keep the ICE in the full length of the railway network frozon! This is the first of its kind, hundreds of kms of ICE kept frozon for almost 4-5 months every year!! Another example I am giving here is the the new buses chinese are planning to introduce by the end of 2011. The buses will be running like trams, 20-22ft above the ground, the two legs of the train being in the two ends of the road!!ya!! and cars can will run underneath this!! this sounds like some scene in James bond movie to me!! But chinese will do this as early as 2011.
Where India stands in comparison? roads that are literally washed away by the first monsoon, power shortage even in major cities like mumbai, bangalore, kolkotta, chennai, hydrabad etc (I am purposely not including Delhi here!! CWG effect :( ), In most of these cities metros are being built right now, there will be atleast a 1000 cases in the court for staying the construction of the metro!! 90% of the railway network in India were laid by the Britishers in 1920s!! post independence, all the expansion work of the rail network was stopped!! Can we boast of any engineering marvel in India?? and for heavens sake please dont tell Taj mahal or any other monument!!

Corruption!!

the punishment that china gives to corrupt officials is death!! India, years in court!! most of the politicians in India would be having accounts in Swiss bank!! They have cini-houses, tv channels etc!!most of the police fellows in India are corrupt!! I need not give any more information on this, we have living examples like the bhopal gas tragedy, boffors scam etc which have stood the test of time, and has not punished a single officer!!

Politics
This has been the only setback in India, most of you may argue that chinese setup may not stand the test of time, but Indian democratic setup will outperform all our competitors on a long run!! my only question is 'really??'

Despite all these, and all our politicians, Myself, being a patriotic citizen of India, believe that there is a way forward, India has the likes of tatas, birlas ambanis and agarwals(vedeanta). I beg the indian government not to bring in politics in between to make these people consider other countries as thier possible future destinations. With three major avoidable incidents in the last decade(Singur and the most recent one of Orissa and Cairn Energy). We have got the best private workforce in the world. These workforce will take India to the next level, perhaps India can be a better country if it becomes a capitalist economy.

India may never overtake china, but India can always try to follow the chinese model. Many of its policies can be studied and implemented in our system. Instead of spending crores in research, India can start adopting some of these strategies and apply in our economy.
The rest can be left to the Indians!! they will take better care :)