The pen, the sword & corruption

More often than not, whenever someone has questioned the limitations of the IAC movement for the passing of the Jan Lokpal Bill, the spontaneous response of the pro-Anna zealots has been the age old counter-attack levelled at the pen - "Have you done anything yourself? If not, why are you criticising others who are doing it"? To a mind conditioned on today's popular culture, this refrain resonates deeply. After all, aren't we the same generation that grew up watching our beloved heroes in films struggling against the villains all throughout and in the end, having to resort to beating them up to set things right? The sword has always held a greater allure than the pen in our collective consciousness. The minuscule number of films that did try to restore a balance were mostly dismissed as "boring art films" by the audience addicted to adrenaline & testosterone. This call of the zealots to act instead of what they feel is intellectualising from ivory towers is a subconscious reaffirmation of the primacy of the sword over the pen.

In the heat of the moment, it maybe understandable, though in no way reasonable, for us to succumb to this conditioning that owes itself to what we consciously know to be mere fiction. Don't we ourselves justify the tripe that's fed to us week after week saying chalta hai...entertainment hi to hai? If we use a manufacturing analogy to illustrate the relationship between the pen and the sword, we have a design engineer who works from the cool confines of an office with at least a fan, if not an A/C and a worker who toils in the midst of the enormous heat generated by the smelter & furnace. Point being that while debate can't undermine the importance of action, the other way round is just as stupid and impractical. If the absence of action makes a process a no-starter, the absence of debate makes it a ticking bomb, threatening to explode anytime. So, its high time we shake ourselves out of this conditioning and start thinking rationally, try to go deeper than what might seem obvious at face value - in short, let's not undermine the importance of the pen anymore. Its pretty clear that we, as a nation, have lost the patience for reading and hence, feel it to be an exercise in redundance, for don't we know everything already? If we think so, we can't be any further from the truth. Our educational setup, with its preoccupation with grades, marks, ranks and such relatively irrelevant motifs doesn't help.

But is it that easy to shed off the conditioning we've been subjected to, all our lives? I agree, its not. Its a painstaking process, borne out of difficult reflection within ourselves. Often, we have to confront our strongly built belief systems. Often, we have to go through social ridicule just for thinking differently. Often, we have to suffer ignominies of the worst kind for attempting to display any irreverence towards what this conditioning, in its larger form of the social value system of a time & place. Its rigorous like nobody's business, but it's necessary and there are no shortcuts to it. Unless we walk through this difficult path ourselves, right to the destination, we can't free ourselves from the shackles of conditioning. And no amount of coercion or pressure can make us walk it if we ourselves are unwilling to do so.

The corruption that we're suddenly so repulsed of over the last few months is an integral part of our conditioning. Whatever strata of society we might belong to, our lives can't remain untouched by corruption. Each of us has to engage with it every single day, be it as a victim, a perpetrator or even a mute spectator. And just like the romanticism of the sword looms large on our consciousness due to our engagement with cinema of a certain kind, the ether of corruption too pervades it just as much due to our everyday engagement with various hues & shades of corruption. We have internalised the mechanisms, the lexicon & the culture of corruption deeply and even though we're consciously aware of the fact that it's not desirable, our subconscious frequently tweaks our conscience in matters of corruption. The economically backward section of the upper castes will justify using a fake caste certificate to get a job in the name of necessity. Little is he aware that he's trampling upon someone else's right like the NREGS agent trampled upon his. The upper middle class father casually shoves a 100 rupee note into the hands of a constable who has caught him jumping a red light, blissfully aware that his 6 year old son is watching and internalising something that'll help him 15 years later when he's caught driving after downing 6 pegs. Life goes on.

Corruption is not merely about money - that would be reducing it to too simplistic an issue. Instead, its a systemic product of the myriad frictions inherent in our socio-economic setup and thus, a metamorphic entity unlike the demon figure attributed to it in popular lore. For a casual labourer, it would be something on the lines of him getting only Rs.50 a day under the NREGS, the rest going to various mouths in the bureaucratic food chain. For a Class IV municipal employee in a city, it could mean having to pay Rs.5 instead of Rs.2 per kg of rice to his PDS agent and getting only 5kg a month instead of the 10 allotted to him. For a student in a municipal school, it might mean having to study under the severe summer sun while the school building is rented out for a wedding function. For the student in an international school in a metro, it could be having to bribe the traffic cop for riding his bike without a license. For an upper middle class student trying for higher education abroad, it could mean bribing the passport official to get his passport fast-tracked. You get the drift. Point being, to some its an evil that threatens their very existence. To some others, its a source of frustration. To some more, its a convenience. And to a few, its a tool to victimise the others.

Given this fluid nature of corruption, the legislative route is not an ideal way to combat it. Ever heard of a cholera endemic being cured by dropping chlorine tablets in the municipal water supply? Won't help as long as proper food, sanitation & proper nursing are not part of the picture. Legislation needs to be well-defined in terms of its scope and scale. But how can we define something that means different things to different people in the context of a legislation where black and white is pure compulsion? If we were to have laws to cover everything that could constitute corruption, we'll keep doing just that till the cows come back home. Even if we were to achieve this seemingly impossible goal, there are other bigger roadblocks. The sheer volume of cases could overwhelm our judicial structures. And after all that, these laws would do nothing to change our social value systems that have shaped and gotten entrenched over centuries. So while the statistics on cases, prosecutions and sentences might convey a picture that corruption is well under check, the systemic rot from within will get from bad to worse and then beyond.

One might ask, what's the need for legislation then? The need is one of handling residual corruption, because if left unchecked, residual corruption can blossom into the same monster that we're feeling threatened by in recent times. One might ask further, how do we bring down the gigantic levels of corruption that we're seeing now to a residual level? By bringing about a positive change in our collective social consciousness. For that, we'll have to focus our energies at the very entities that determine the conscience, thus making it largely a two pronged struggle. The first would be at the most basic unit of our social structure - the family, gradually working its way upwards in the social hierarchy. The second will have to begin at the top echelons of the state and then percolate down to the individual citizen through the civic structure. And make no mistake, we cannot take a shortcut around this painstakingly long route to a healthier society.

At the family level, we could begin with inculcating the values of honesty, transparency & tolerance into our children. The only way this is possible is if we lead by example. As they grow up, we'll need to help build their thought process on the lines of reasoned & critical thought. We should provide them with a holistic environment while they grow up in terms of optimum stress on nutrition, physical activity & intellectual stimulation along with the education they get in school. We need to engage with them on subjects hitherto considered taboo and educate them instead of blocking them out as is the norm. This will give us a generation that'll score far higher than us on their emotional & social quotient who are a far better bet to uphold the basic principles of public propriety compared to our generation, that's stuck in the firm clutches of a corrupt social value system.

The state on the other hand, should work with the quality of life of the citizens as its top priority. This quality of life could be defined as access to quality food, quality education, quality healthcare, quality infrastructure, clean & fair governance & varied and ample vocational opportunities. The attitude of the state should be that of an enabler instead of a big brother. There will have to be a concentrated effort on the part of the state to win over a strong sense of faith within its citizens, making the approachability of the state a crucial factor.

Listing out the ideal approach to combat corruption took barely two paragraphs but the job is easier said than done. The state's part of the bargain is something that could take decades as consensus is a rather scarce commodity in this diverse nation. The difficulty level will be elevated further due to the sheer scale of the job at hand. But all this would seem like child's play in comparison with the other prong of this struggle. The bottoms-up change will be contingent to individuals rising above the prejudices inherent in their subconscious and bravely confronting their conscience at regular intervals. And till the efforts from the state converge with its opposite prong, this will be one uphill battle for we'll have to emerge victorious in this battle at an individual level without the support of reasonable quality of life from the state. Once we reach this stage of convergence though, both the prongs of the struggle will feed into each other and we'll have a far more coherent final lap in this marathon.

Can we expect the state to follow its end of the bargain as things stand now? Perhaps not. And that's where the current revolution should move now. To the political arena. We need an infusion of fresh blood into our political circles. Fresh blood with a pragmatic vision and a common agenda of delivering on the "quality of life for everyone" promise. In my next piece, I shall outline my views on what this fresh blood would be walking into. In other words, a vision, ideology & broad agenda for a vibrant & progressive India.