public participation in national integrity
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Public participation in promoting integrity and eradicating corruption
Einstein quite rightly said, “The world not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.” India is a developing country facing many challenges. Corruption is the most detrimental of them. India was placed at 76th position out of 168 countries with a score of 38 out of a possible 100 in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index 2015.
Corruption is like a canker to the health of the economic and technological prosperity of a nation. Corruption became rampant with the winning of freedom. Owing to the fallible democratic system and lack of stringent punishment mechanism for the culprits, it thrived, more in politics, government administration departments. Gradually its nexus became more nefarious. Corruption in India spread as a result of the connection between bureaucrats, politicians and criminals.
Earlier, bribes were paid for getting wrong things done, but now bribe is paid for getting right things done at right time. Further, corruption has become something respectable in India, because respectable people are involved in it. Social corruption like less weighing of products, adulteration in edible items, and bribery of various kind have incessantly prevailed in the society.
Political corruption is worst in India. The major cause of concern is that corruption is weakening the political body and damaging the supreme importance of the law governing the society. In the past few decades there was every conceivable scam and scandals in all key ministries. These cams and scandals tarnished the image of the country nationally as well as internationally. There were so many scams that people lost complete trust in the government. Indian Coal Allocation Scam, 2G Spectrum Scam, Commonwealth Games Scam, Telgi Scam, Satyam Scam, Bofors Scam, the Fodder Scam, etc, are some of the many scams that were done by elected ministers, politicians, bureaucrats, and high government officials. The Indian Law system is so incompetent and vulnerable, that in most of the scams, no politician, bureaucrat, high government officials were punished.
Owing to these scams and scandals national wealth worth billions of rupees was wasted. The burden of this entire loss was borne by the people of India whose hard earned money was thus wasted by these corrupt government officials, bureaucrats and politicians. If the whopping amount of national wealth that was wasted, misused, and misappropriated in these scams and scandals, had been spent on creating the infrastructure in the country, it would have given the much required impetus to the pace of the developmental progress of the nation.
Now the most crucial question: ‘How to curb this evil of corruption?’ Although many anti-corruption agencies have been created to fight curb corruption, but they exist in name only. The only solution to the problem of corruption is people’s involvement in eradicating it from the face of our country. They will have to take the issue in their hands. The French Revolution and the Russian Revolutions stand as perfect examples which show when the people of a country unite against an oppressive evil, how the evil just vanishes. Since they are the losers in all the scams and scandals, as the money wasted and misused is their tax money, they have the right to curb scams and scandals. There must be large scale protests by the people against scams and ill practices.
The people must play a more proactive role in curbing corruption. The corruption has grown to such a big problem only, because we, the people have condoned these scams and scandals. If the people of India had protested against these scams initially, and demanded explanation from the government, these scandals would have been nipped in the bud. However, they did not take it seriously. Now, the time has come when they must unite against this evil, and launch a campaign to make India corruption free.
Of late owing to the growing awareness and protests by the people, the central Government has been taking some steps to curb corruption. Some anti-corruption agencies have been set up. Agencies such as RTI, the Central Vigilance Commission, and PIO have been created. The people, along with their unified protest, must use these agencies to curb corruption. The media can play a great role in curbing corruption. The concerted efforts of the people of India, anti-corruption departments, and media have the power to root out this evil from India.