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Front Page >> Editorials > Story

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Unsavory Distinction
On the December 19 issue of this paper we carried a report from the news service, Press Trust of India, which said that Indians spend Rs 26.7 crores annually paying bribes! The report was filed by a PTI correspondent from New Delhi and was based on the findings of Transparency International India in collaboration with ORG Marg. Apart from the large scale corruption, what is deeply disturbing is the report which state that the Health and Education sectors are most corrupt fields. 

Any man with a little sense will say that these two sectors, that is, Health and Education are two of the most important sectors in a developing economy and this is what is deeply disturbing and this is what should grab the attention of the Government. The report went on to add that Indian ranks amongst the top 30 countries in the corruption chart and here we have the perfect recipe for a country where everything seems to have gone wrong from the communal violence that one witnessed in Gujarat and the upsurge of Hindutva to the menace of AIDS to a poor economy to just about everything. We may ask why the Indian people should rank so high in dishonesty. 

We for one think that one of the major causes for corruption to flourish is the system of governance where good governance has come to mean serving the interest of the political class and the Government employees. Accountability which should be the hall mark of any effective Government is today merely a fantastic concept which exists only on paper and is never ever translated into action. It is when Government employees, especially the high ranking ones, come under the impression that they can get away with murder that corruption starts getting internalized into the system and this is what we have been witnessing for the last many decades. Remember Tehelka?

If India ranks so high on the corruption, then can Manipur be far behind? We do not have the statistics and we have not conducted any survey to check the rate of corruption here but if any private agency with their trained personnel were to conduct a survey here, we are sure Manipur too would rank very high on the corruption list, maybe much more higher than the National average. We have said it many times before and we will say it again. 

One of the major reasons why the State continues to be caught in such a rot is because of the institutionalization and internalization of corruption from the highest level to the lowest level. It is not only the political class which is embroiled in the vicious circle of corruption but also the bureaucracy and the State Police Department. We just have to recollect the fake certificate and fake appointment racket that rocked the Education Department and the uniform scandal that besmirched the State Police Department to understand how deep rooted corruption is in this tiny State. 

The shenanigans enacted by our elected representatives have only added fuel to the fire. We may also ask whether corruption is so rampant because the Manipuri people have imbibed this trait from the rest of the country or whether the Manipuri people are dishonest by nature. This should be an interesting topic for any discussion or debate.

(Courtesy: The Sangai Express)

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