Corruption is a deep-rooted menace that has eaten into the vitals of our society. There is hardly any sphere of social, economic, political and religious activity that is free from corruption of some kind. Corruption has become so common that most of the people have come to accept it as part of their life.
Bribery and corruption has increased greatly after 1947. The
growth of democracy and industry, the system of licenses and permits for setting up enterprises, securing quotas of law materials, imports and exports and expansion of trade and commerce is responsible for the increase in corruption. Stringent laws against corruption have proved to be effective in curbing this evil.
Corruption flourishes as long as there are people who are prepared to give bribe and others who are prepared to accept it, directly or indirectly. Each one of us has a weakness for easy money. People are prepared to do an;-thing or stoop to any extent of taking graft in order to maintain their so-called standards of living. People who indulge in corruption maintain double standard. On the one hand they accept bribe and on the oilier they urge people to be honest and pure. Such hypocrisy compounds the offence.
It is not difficult to locate the causes of corruption. Corruption generally breeds at the top and then gradually filters down to the lower levels. Gone are the days when people, who Joined politics were fired by the spirit of serving the nation. Those who suffered for the sake of getting their country freed from the foreigners, knew only how to make sacrifice. They had never expected any compensation for their sacrifices. Those were the times when only the selfless people joined politics. But unfortunately, the present day politics has become a business like any other business. The modern politicians are no longer motivated by an}' lofty ideals. In order to win elections, they spend huge sums of money with the hope that after they are elected, they would recover much more than what they had spent. When the people in power indulge in unscrupulous practices, a common man also indulges freely.
Government after government have made promises to root out conniption from our public life but this evil lias persisted of course, there are honest officials but they are in minority. Let us as a nation, contemplate seriously as to what will happen when our public life is loaded with corruption. Certain amounts of introspection b those who are in power can only initiate the process of minimizing the evil of corruption in our country. If the public m general is indifferent, corruption would continue to grow us like cancer.
