Trying to understand how things work
What are the things that do not lead to corruption?
Knowing that your turn will come
Knowing that your gain will far outweigh the loss if caught
Knowing that you will be caught if complained
Knowing that people are free to complain
Knowing that people will be able to prove
Is competition the answer? How do you bring in competition within the government and what are the downsides?
Simplistic and Naive I believe…
An Economy, Society develops when people work in harmony. Harmony is a function of trust. Trust is developed when rights are protected and rules are followed.
When exceptions to rules are made – the rule followers are penalised – which diminishes the incentive for honouring the contract/rule. This breeds and propogates mistrust and are bad for development.
A very large portion of the decadence in the Indian society can be attributed to the unchecked powers that politicians and bureaucrats enjoy. This power must be balanced by Judiciary. Every dispute brought under its purview must be resolved within a stipulated time period.
Corruption in Judiciary, however, will exacerbate the problems. There is no reason to believe that Judges have higher moral concience than their counterparts in administration. Staffing more judges would be futile as it would lead to an overbearing corrupt bureaucratic setup like the Income Tax department legitimising the wrong doing. (There are no pending appeals in the Income Tax department but in most cases these are not decided on merit.) Moreover, a number of cases won’t reach the court.
To tackle this corruption – an independent body to monitor complaint could be appointed, however, giving extreme powers to such body will attract wrong doing. A dispute that would be resolved in the courts – the deptt. that would be investigated.
The question is what is the ultimate tool that will check corruption.
That tool will allow people to own up to their contracts and deeds as all the systems that are designed to work in a certain fashion will work in that fashion.
Why did the Britishers allow Nehru to write in jail and didn’t ban Gandhi and his publications?
Meanwhile, they hanged Bhagat Singh and Haunted Bose.
One set of leaders were kept hungry in jail others were lodged comfortably.
BEATS all sense of logic. Does It? 
Poverty, Illiteracy, Child Mortality seem distant and difficult to recognise when one sees it all around from childhood. The average is closer to the normal. One gets the real experience after coming from abroad or living in a city like Gurgaon. The scale of inequity is exponential. High towers neighbour small dingys and slums. Naked children prostate on the bonet of air conditioned cars begging their share of the prosperity.
The inequities are huge with the development indicators for some of our population as low as that of sub-saharan Africa and others as high as that of a developed OECD region. The complex question is how can one single individual assist in removing these blots in a sustainable manner. The question becomes complex as the sheer size of the numbers who are in need of help is quiet large. A drop of water rather even a complete tanker of water in the barren deserts will not be of any help.
The problem is structural and needs to be tackled accordingly, I have always believed that funding people directly is not a good idea and not sustainable. Creating a framework that allows multiple generations to become self sufficient and further spread the reach is essential. But the next question is what is that framework? Is it to create entrepreneurs through micro financing, to initiate education in the region, to bring guaranteed employment to the people, to provide health care facilities? Which one of these have a maximum impact and start a chain reaction that alleviates the evils? How can technology help?
Really interesting article from Shekhar Gupta, Chief Editor, Indian Express.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/a-new-project-pakistan/499501/
This is a question that has been baffling me and I assume a number of people through decades.
Last year, Abhishek Gupta, my friend from college who studied at Upenn afterwards, posed this question to P Chidambram after the Wharton lecture. Chidambram asked him to join politics. He rationalised that Indian politics needs good and educated people like him. He said Abhishek should see that all is not wrong with politics and educated and clean people like Mr. Chidambram himself are able to get better of the dirty politics. I must definitely say that this did enthuse us to look at politics as a long term career but didnt really convince us.
Over the time now I realise that Mr. Chidambram gave a very narrow way to go about contributing to the nation. It is simply not possible that everyone has the same aptitude to go out and play the dirty game. Moreover, the way to contribute should be broad enough and inclusive. Restricting it to joining politics is bound to keep a lot of people away. There should be room for everyone to contribute.
JRD Tata once said that he wanted to join politics after hearing speeches of Nehru at Bombay but decided not to as it was not he could be good at. He wanted to contribute where he could make a difference rather than joining the agitrators in jail. The key lies right there.
It is in pursuing excellence throughout your life. It should be simply excelling and being the best at your chosen profession.
One cannot think of a situation where JRD Tata, Narayan Murthy would have not been involved in their profession. These people contributed immensely to the nation by excelling in their chosen fields. Same goes for many people from different fields – Dr. Trehan, Vinod Dham, Amartya Sen, Rajat Gupta, Satyajit Ray, Raj Kapoor, and so on.
The best part is that now is an age where intellect and capacity to excel is being given a lot of premium. Mr. Chidambram himself is a distinguished lawyer and has realised the fruit of convergence. So has his colleagues Mr. Tharoor and Mr. Sibal. But the top most honours definitely go Nandan Nilenkani to go straight from being the Chairman of Infosys to being a cabinet minister in the union govt. This trend is going to continue as people want to see progress and are looking for leaders who can manage the show and understand the nuances rather than simply agitating on streets.
Life altering indeed .
