Corruption eradication should be bottom up and not top down

Right now, India is reeling from an overdose of corruption/anti-corruption drives. I do not understand how or why people always tend to judge things and black and white. Whether Lokpal or Jan-lokpal bill is good or bad is a totally grey question.

Personally, my thoughts are that the version of Anna Hazare etcs Jan Lokpal is too aggressive. Corruption is a big problem but not the biggest problem for India. So, Lokpal should NOT be the most powerful person in the country. But Anna's bill suggests something different.

The other thing is what people mean by Corruption. Dictionary.com says it is perversion of integrity or dishonest proceedings. So anything dishonest is corruption. And so, unlike popular belief, watching pirated movies, downloading songs illegally, photocopying books, acquiring illegal version of Windows, MS Office, MATLAB and other such s/w are all acts of corruption. I have specifically mentioned these 3 points because I believe that most of the facebook and twitter noise is created by the people who have done these in the past and not even feel guilty about it. When I talk to them, they say, "Oh that is nothing, look at the politicians. They are collecting crores."

It is never the question of crores. I bet if all the social media noisemakers give 100$ per corruption they did (not even say for every movie watched but like 100 for all pirated movies watched, 100 for all s/w download, 100 for photocopying pages of books, 100 for music, 100 for the Indian Driving license you got, 100 for using the Indian Motorbike license to decrease your 4 wheeler license in US etc.) and donate that money to the government, it will be much bigger amount than even what A Raja has got.

Secondly, why is there corruption in the society? Well, Indians in general have a mindset that if a thing is available for cheap, why spend and more often than not it crosses the moral boundaries. Now, how to eradicate this mindset? Education, education and education. How education? Population Control, Poverty Control etc etc. So you see, how corruption is not the biggest problem in the country? And even if it is, the right way of correcting it is a bottom up approach and not a top down.

People might argue that catching the big people have a quick and bigger impact and will deter small time corrupts but that is not true. And again, implicit in that argument is the word quick which is the root cause of all corruption (getting things done QUICKLY.)

Continuing on the same example, BIG time money laundering will be caught anyways. You really don't need a Lokpal for that. A Raja and Kalmadi were caught without a Lokpal.

So in conclusion, yes probably we need a revolution/uprising to curb corruption, but that revolution should be a self realization rather than a blame game. I think this is what true Gandhianism is.

Image Courtesy: Audiovisit.com