Tejinder sodhi
Mufti government’s yet another dream that is of controlling corruption in the state remained a dream only and nothing much was done to control this social evil as was said in the beginning of the Mufti government’s emergence. Corruption has scattered its roots such long that it has made everyone corrupt, right from a class fourth employee to a gazetted officer, from a farmer and a shopkeeper who steal electricity to the housewife who bribes the electricity department worker to reduce her bills to the clerk who takes money to put forward a file to a telephone lineman who takes money to give a telephone connection and of course, the politicians. Kashmiri people are redefining the meaning of corruption and dishonesty. Kashmir has made its position in some of the top ranked corrupt state.
“I sometimes wonder who is corrupt.” Says a young police sub inspector who joined the J&K police 5 years ago. “is it me because I am the police, or the class forth employee at the gate who takes money to leave somebody inside, or my boss who takes the official car for private use or the dozen of people who come to us everyday offering to pay us to do their dirty work for them,” “we all are corrupt, one way or another. You cannot fight the system,” agrees another sub-inspector. “all of us have to pay bribes even Policemen, last week a PHE line man asked for Chai-Pani to give me a water connection.”
Policemen are not the only government employees who are getting a taste of their own Methods. According to recent research 40% of government employees admit to having paid bribe to employees from other departments to get their work done. So rampant is corruption within and outside the government that many complain that they are now paying more than they receive under the table. The honest man has become a frustrated person.
A sociologist from Kashmir University Dr. Khalid points out, “Kashmir’s are uncomfortable with the concept of morality, we get moralistic only when someone is caught otherwise, many of the corrupt represent what we admire.”
We all are angry at over selves, because we are all guilty. However there is a big difference between the corruption of ordinary people and that of a bureaucrat, politician and businessman, for whom it is basic ingredients of their professional culture. There is a distinction between corruption and surviving inefficiency. There are those who exploit shortage for their own gain, such as bureaucrats and politicians. Greater transparency and account liability will take care of that kind of corruption. Our leaders have to set the moral standards. Many people blame politicians for corruption and politicians too blame themselves.
So can any body clean up the system? “I doubt anything can ever be done about it, “Says Manzoora Akthar who runs her bakery in Srinagar. “ All we can do is somehow survive the system and that’s why I would advise my children too.”
However people are changing as country matures, they all want more transparency and won’t be satisfied unless the system changes. The only hope is the expansion of the middleclass that is what happened in the West- as long as the middle class remained small there was rampant corruption, once it expanded and jobs, service and salaries improved corruption died out.