The devil's pact.

A survey carried out by research agency, Hansa covering 13 cities and 28,000 respondents in India found that 64.7% of people blame politicians for corruption. About half said that coalition governments lead to corruption and only 45% thought that the media role in exposing corruption is positive. People found education and health more important than governance. Despite civil society activism against corruption since last year 41.2% feel that government officials are more prone to take bribes and only one third say that they are less likely to offer a bribe today. HT, 16 November. You would think that people would say all politicians are crooks but what they are saying is that politicians alone cannot steal billions without help from civil servants who have permanent jobs and know how the system works. So disappointed are they with the villains that they would rather ignore them. Instead they want to educate their children and keep them healthy so that they are able to earn a living in the private sector or abroad. The media have played a role in exposing corruption but then they help politicians in the cover up as well. One way is by ridiculing civil society activists and reporting outrageous lies told by politicians without challenge. Great prominence is given to pundits who blame people for agreeing to pay bribes, making them partly responsible for corruption. Despite a massive outcry against corruption civil servants continue to demand bribes to perform their work. The reason is that they are rarely punished. The most common punishment is to transfer the person to another office, which is a minor inconvenience. Unless criminals are punished with enormous fines, loss of jobs and pensions they are unlikely to take any notice of the outrage of the people. Most people do not have the guts to take on the gigantic rotten system. We have bought into the devil's pact between the politicians and the people. The agreement is - do not bother us and we will not bother you. People are allowed to break minor laws so long as they do not interfere with the politicians committing major crimes. Traffic laws are violated at will. You will see trucks blatantly driving the wrong way on highways to save on fuel. While constructing houses sand and gravel are dumped on the road blocking traffic. Anyone can use a loudspeaker during a marriage or religious ceremony. Anyone can call himself a doctor and start writing prescriptions without challenge from chemists. Police are nowhere to be seen. If you report a crime they may arrive after an hour, if at all. If you try to stand up to the criminals then they will unleash the police, the CBI, the income tax fellows and every government agency against you. So why bother? Just try and survive until the system collapses and hope something good rises from the ashes.