Much has been said, aired and written in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks about the spontaneous anger of the populace. It is obvious that we have to be better prepared for terror strikes, like Israel or the US for example. The question is, 'Can we?' I wish we could answer that with a resounding 'Yes!' The fact is we cannot.
One reason is that there is a close connection between corruption, patriotism and security. A corrupt society, where corruption has seeped deep into the veins of every segment, can never be patriotic and secure. Politicians are only as good as the society. It's not only our politicians who are corrupt. A large majority of our bureaucracy, government departments, police, or judiciary are no less corrupt. In fact we have accepted corruption as a part of life and have stopped addressing it as a cancer that it is.
Take the our regional passport offices, regional transport offices, property registration offices and customs for example. All these four departments (among a host of others) touch our security in different ways.
Outside all the regional passport offices flourishes an industry of touts favoured by the deep rooted corruption of its officials. The department is a source of extreme harassment of the young, old and infirm alike. Even as our Ministers advice the private sector for greater service orientation, the staff of the passport offices are not even required to wear their name tags, so that you cannot even complain about a corrupt employee who gives you the hardest time over trivia, even when he is willing to oblige a tout who may be producing a fake residential certificate. Clearly, given the system of eager palms and crumpled notes, it is not difficult for unsocial elements to get a passport on demand.
What about regional transport offices? Thanks to this serious rival of the previous department, we can get our licenses without ever taking a driving test ever. The local driving school (often an organization of touts themselves) and those passing for RTO officers can ensure that one does not have to be a real person to own or drive a vehicle. So even if we had the best of our intelligence agencies, it cannot ever trace that truck that exploded in the busy street or the car that was left behind by some desperadoes.
Land or property registration offices can of course give a run of the sleaze money to any. This incidentally is the only office in the country where you pay a bribe to pay your registration taxes. These are also the institutions where if you are a big enough crook, you can manage to register the same property in several different names and collect your sale proceeds from all of them, leaving those poor souls to fight legal battles for the rest of their lives in another corrupt institution – namely, the judiciary. Thus, even a Dawood Ibrahim can acquire property in his own name, in our devil-may-care land at will and also make those papers disappear at will, because his offerings to the priests can be substantial.
And lastly our Customs. Relatively speaking, one might have had less opportunity to experience the full power of corruption here, unless of course you have ever undertaken a transfer of residence from the West. But this may be small change. The big ticket here involves a nexus between arms dealers and customs officials. Remember (but public memory is short) when none less than B P Verma, the Chairman of India's Central Board for Excise and Customs suspended and remanded to the custody of the Central Bureau of Investigation in 2001?
Hundreds of senior politicians, even senior defense personnel, judges and hordes of others have been caught on videos from time to time with their hands in the till. As a society, we are incapable of acting upon such cases, because our investigating agencies, our police and our judiciary together makes a huge corrupt and ineffective nexus. Even our routine appointments in government services, down to appointments and even transfers of teachers and police constables are not immune to corruption. If a constable or a teacher has paid a bribe for a position, what commitment can we expect of them on the job? Drive by any highway, and you will find the landscape dotted with illegal mining from the hills. How can we expect to protect our environment?
What we fail to realize is that any corruption is inherently unpatriotic. And those who are unpatriotic cannot have the moral fibre to guard their society. And if we are unable to address this huge problem of corruption, there is no point blaming our intelligence wings alone. Israel and the US have an upper hand against terror, because they have an upper hand on rank corruption. As a people, we all need a night vigil not against terror attacks, but a day and night vigil against our corruption. Corruption erodes patriotism and opens the gates for terrorism.
One reason is that there is a close connection between corruption, patriotism and security. A corrupt society, where corruption has seeped deep into the veins of every segment, can never be patriotic and secure. Politicians are only as good as the society. It's not only our politicians who are corrupt. A large majority of our bureaucracy, government departments, police, or judiciary are no less corrupt. In fact we have accepted corruption as a part of life and have stopped addressing it as a cancer that it is.
Take the our regional passport offices, regional transport offices, property registration offices and customs for example. All these four departments (among a host of others) touch our security in different ways.
Outside all the regional passport offices flourishes an industry of touts favoured by the deep rooted corruption of its officials. The department is a source of extreme harassment of the young, old and infirm alike. Even as our Ministers advice the private sector for greater service orientation, the staff of the passport offices are not even required to wear their name tags, so that you cannot even complain about a corrupt employee who gives you the hardest time over trivia, even when he is willing to oblige a tout who may be producing a fake residential certificate. Clearly, given the system of eager palms and crumpled notes, it is not difficult for unsocial elements to get a passport on demand.
What about regional transport offices? Thanks to this serious rival of the previous department, we can get our licenses without ever taking a driving test ever. The local driving school (often an organization of touts themselves) and those passing for RTO officers can ensure that one does not have to be a real person to own or drive a vehicle. So even if we had the best of our intelligence agencies, it cannot ever trace that truck that exploded in the busy street or the car that was left behind by some desperadoes.
Land or property registration offices can of course give a run of the sleaze money to any. This incidentally is the only office in the country where you pay a bribe to pay your registration taxes. These are also the institutions where if you are a big enough crook, you can manage to register the same property in several different names and collect your sale proceeds from all of them, leaving those poor souls to fight legal battles for the rest of their lives in another corrupt institution – namely, the judiciary. Thus, even a Dawood Ibrahim can acquire property in his own name, in our devil-may-care land at will and also make those papers disappear at will, because his offerings to the priests can be substantial.
And lastly our Customs. Relatively speaking, one might have had less opportunity to experience the full power of corruption here, unless of course you have ever undertaken a transfer of residence from the West. But this may be small change. The big ticket here involves a nexus between arms dealers and customs officials. Remember (but public memory is short) when none less than B P Verma, the Chairman of India's Central Board for Excise and Customs suspended and remanded to the custody of the Central Bureau of Investigation in 2001?
Hundreds of senior politicians, even senior defense personnel, judges and hordes of others have been caught on videos from time to time with their hands in the till. As a society, we are incapable of acting upon such cases, because our investigating agencies, our police and our judiciary together makes a huge corrupt and ineffective nexus. Even our routine appointments in government services, down to appointments and even transfers of teachers and police constables are not immune to corruption. If a constable or a teacher has paid a bribe for a position, what commitment can we expect of them on the job? Drive by any highway, and you will find the landscape dotted with illegal mining from the hills. How can we expect to protect our environment?
What we fail to realize is that any corruption is inherently unpatriotic. And those who are unpatriotic cannot have the moral fibre to guard their society. And if we are unable to address this huge problem of corruption, there is no point blaming our intelligence wings alone. Israel and the US have an upper hand against terror, because they have an upper hand on rank corruption. As a people, we all need a night vigil not against terror attacks, but a day and night vigil against our corruption. Corruption erodes patriotism and opens the gates for terrorism.
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