A friend sent this to me:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2129499/Corruption-confession-Government-paper-admits-institutionalised-graft-plagues-entire-bureaucracy-plays-havoc-citizen.html?printingPage=true

 

I had not seen this till today, as I was on the lecture tour in the USA and have just returned.

 

As so often, this paper is strong on analysis and hopelessly weak on solutions.

 

Though the British looted us till the middle of the nineteenth century, and "farmed" India economically after that, when they left India in 1947, all our public services (Administration, Revenue, Police, Forests, Water, Municipalities...) were "clean" and uncorrupt, and (perhaps no thanks to them, nevertheless) our country was the number 8 industrial country in the world.

 

Then Prime Minister Nehru tolerated corruption in Cabinet even after documentary evidence was published in the early 1960s.  But it was Mrs Indira Gandhi who started the systematic politicisation and therefore corruption of our public services, which BJP boosted during its various reigns - so that we are faced with a choice between a corrupt and corrupting Congress and a corrupt and corrupting BJP today.

 

If anyone is serious about tackling corruption, then the people of India can surely only applaud,and if the paper mentioned in the link above is a start towards that, then that is good.

 

Whether it is a start, or whether it will stop at this, remains to be seen.

 

Meanwhile, I can't help commenting that this report underlines how essential it is to adopt an approach something like I outlined in http://www.theinternationalindian.com/guptara_garmagaram008.html