Events &
Issues
New Delhi,
17 May 2010
Changing Times
THE MULTI-CRORE BRIBES
By Proloy Bagchi
One wonders whether it is just a coincidence.
In at least three recent cases, three different individuals were nabbed for
asking for and accepting bribes of Rs. 2 crore (Rs. 20 million). Ketan Desai,
former Chairman of the Medical Council of India, was nabbed while taking a Re
2-crore bribe. Manjit Singh Bali,
holding the very senior position of Chief Postmaster General of Maharashtra
& Goa, was too caught red-handed accepting bribe of Rs. 2 crore and was
promptly arrested. Similarly, a senior lady officer, perhaps an additional
commissioner of the Income Tax Department in Thane, Maharashtra,
was also arrested for taking Rs. 2 crore as bribe. She was working in cahoots
with her husband who acted as the cash collector. Coincidence or not, this
infernal amount, apparently some sort of going rate, is jinxed.
There is something about
crores that make those who want a great life ask for it. A few lakhs or even a
crore, apparently, are passé – presumably, not enough to buy all that an
ambitious and thoroughly unscrupulous person looking for a great life desires.
Looks like, the amount of a couple of crores or more is somewhat like El Dorado; it
drives people to put at stake everything they have to get there. The seductive
high life beckons them like a temptress and, finding it irresistible they
succumb to its charms and take the plunge.
How times have changed! Only a
few decades back a crore was something eminently ungettable any which way for
an official. Back then not many aspired to accumulate even a lakh (one hundred
thousand rupees). Lakhpatis were few
and could be counted on the finger tips. Among the middle class
“four-figure salaries” were a big deal. Parents used to look for “beautiful,
fair and highly accomplished” brides for their sons claiming a “four-figure
salary” for them.
In the 60s the best of services, including the
civil services, used to start off with a three-figure salary of Rs. 400/- with,
maybe, Rs. 10/- as DA. Only at retirement one would end up with a salary of
four figures. Looking into the future in those days one thought one’s life
would be made if one, after judiciously managing one’s finances, could retire
with around a lakh in the bank and live off the (woefully meagre) pension that
was yet to be made 50 per cent of the last pay.
Looking back, one finds that
ambitions and aspirations of the kind one sees today to strike it big had yet
to raise their ugly heads. Unbelievable as it may seem, those were the days of
innocence. Not quite open to the wider world, we were yet to be exposed to the
glitz and glamour of the West – its acquisitiveness and its consumerism. The
system had kept the people, including most of the bureaucracy, insulated from
external influences.
While politicians made merry, the rest lived
out their lives in an economy of shortages. Those who were straight – and most
were so – lived a life, even at the higher levels of the bureaucracy, which
was, if anything, Spartan. Even in early 80s Secretaries and additional
secretaries to Government of India would routinely ride chartered buses in Delhi to go to office –
and they were not ashamed of doing so.
A sea-change seems to have
occurred with the opening up of the economy. With multinationals and foreign
corporations setting shop in the country and consequential burgeoning of
demands for IT and management professionals the pay packages skyrocketed. Not
to be left behind, the last two pay commissions gave the salaries in the
government a huge heave, so much so that the top bureaucrats today are at
spitting distance of the five-figure mark. And yet, corrupt remained corrupt,
perhaps became more so, setting their sights higher looking for multi-crore
underhand deals, presumably to compete with those in the private sector.
In Madhya Pradesh as many three IAS officers,
including an IAS couple (both of Principal Secretary level) were found by tax
officials with money and jewellery stashed away in several lockers worth
several crores, sources of which they could not explain. Recently a Joint
Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs at the Centre was nabbed and
disclosures made by intelligence sleuths on phone tapping carried by the Outlook magazine made a mention of a
senior official in South Block negotiating for a bribe of Rs 8 crores. Seems
like everyone is chasing rainbows!
There were corrupt even then
but their numbers were limited. Politicians were (and are even today)
considered corrupt. They used to play around with ill-gotten crores during the
elections. Hung elections were happy events for many politicians as that was
when they would sell themselves to the highest bidder. Bureaucracy was,
however, largely untouched by this malaise. Some would surely indulge in
wheeling-dealing but that would not involve mindboggling sums like those of
today. With ethical and moral standards getting a knock-over, people now have
become reckless. Those who want to make it big by hook or by crook, seemingly,
think nothing of facing the indignity of being caught in the act of committing
a crime which is still considered reprehensible, though bribe-giving or
bribe-taking has virtually become our way of life.
They are not held back by the prospects of
being unable to look at their family, friends, colleagues and subordinates in
the eye or being hustled like common criminals in public and media gaze by
policemen into waiting vans with heavily grilled windows and, unlike their
official luxury sedans, with seats that are hard and straight-backed on which a
posse of gruff cops make themselves comfortable all around, seemingly, to
prevent an escape, if attempted. Myriad 24X7 TV news channels show their
discomfiture in half-hourly news-bulletins dragging their names through mud and
slime. Further indignities await them when they are detained and eventually
jailed by having to rub shoulders with the dregs of society.
Consumed by the Western consumer-culture people
in general and those wielding power and influence in particular seem to be
losing their sense of balance and character. Worse, our demand-driven
development model, unfortunately, promotes the same cult of consumerism. With
the progressively loosening grip of traditional values, weaker minds seem to be
falling prey, as it were, to this monster and are opting for a self-defeating
denouement. It is a contagion which seems to be rapidly spreading in the
current Indian society and, unless checked, may engulf all of it with
consequences that could be disastrous. --- INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
|