Everyone is guilty of India's graft

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/SOU-03-160114.html



Everyone is guilty of India's graft
By Samir Nazareth
Jan 16, '14

It was just a few years back that Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi, Prashant Bhushan were the three musketeers and d'Artagnan fighting the Cardinal Richelieu-like machinations of "corrupt government" in India. Their fight's rallying cry was the Jan Lok Pal Bill, the citizen's ombudsman bill.

The bill, the four swore, would cleanse India of corruption, which was eating into the very foundations of the nation and so denying the common person their rights. This had resulted in the country joining this battle against corruption. The emotion of the common citizen that was channeled into promoting the bill was labelled as outrage against the pervasiveness of corruption that had allegedly permeated the government.

Could this sentiment then have been the manifestation of a false sense of victimization? Could this conflagration of rage have been cleverly fanned by an "us and them" strategy - the "us" being the common Indian trying to overwhelm "them" the government? The outrage was used to corner if not coerce "them" into accepting the Jan Lok Pal Bill. Even though this bill was sold as being the cornerstone of democracy, the way the "us" wanted to get the bill passed was anything but democratic, unless of course one defined democracy as mob rule.

Unfortunately, this "us and them" structure of the anti-corruption movement is also the primordial soup that gives rise to corruption. Corruption exists because people believe they are above the rules that are meant for all, or feel that laws restrict their freedom which they presume they are more entitled to than the rest of the population. Corruption exists when individuals do not wish to follow rules created by society for the common good.