Feb. 20, 2003

Corruption

• When the prosperity is greater than values, corruption rears its head.
• Corruption is rampant in India, but the body-politic is not yet putrid.
• It can still be saved, if at least a core in the leadership desires.
• Long before Independence, Rajaji said that we would have a corrupt government in India when independence arrives.
• There are a few possibilities to get rid of corruption.
• Should a corruption-free leadership, however small, come to power, it is not really too late to eradiate 75% of corruption.
• As other countries passed through it, India too will overcome it one day.
• England, the USA and several European countries passed through as much corruption as India has today.
• Education and self-respect gradually removed it in those places.
• No longer are people ashamed of being corrupt. Sometimes they are proud.
• The value of material prosperity, not moral values, leads to corruption.
• Often incorruptible officers are forced into corruption by family or colleagues.
• There are shining stray examples like the Chief Minister of Kerala who does not own a car and whose wife works as a teacher.
• These stray cases indicate that the hope of redemption is not utterly lost.
• Should an incorruptible person be centred in Spirit, incorruptibility will spread in his circle. That is a spiritual hope.
• As education spreads, it is expected that self-respect too will rise.
• Today people DO want quality goods.
• It means better education.
• Better education does lead to self-respect.
• When Rs. 2000/- was offered to strangers in a mall, several people refused, a phenomenon unheard of earlier. So, there is hope.
• Corruption is self-defeating and therefore will work for its dissolution.
• Corruption destroys systems like examination. It may produce a system without examinations. That is better.
• India can become prosperous either by removing corruption or by saturating it.
• Unless a leadership bent upon uprooting corruption emerges, it cannot be removed. I have not lost hope for it.
• The basic values of India are noble and therefore corruption cannot rule here forever. How soon and how she will get rid of it is the only question.
• Action taken against defective products and services generates an awareness in the public which is directly against corruption, and will prevail in the long run.