To speak of a tsunami of scams in India today would be palpably wrong. However disastrous a tsunami’s long-term effects, it is essentially a brief phenomenon. By contrast, corruption has become an integral part of India’s life and permeates the entire bodypolitic. This term is, by no means, confined to politicians in power and their bureaucratic henchmen all too happy to collude with their venal bosses. It includes the judiciary, the media, private sector tycoons, power brokers and so on, as the Niira Radia tapes have established so eloquently. Santosh Hegde, Karnataka’s intrepid Lokayukta, has practically said so.
The corrosive menace, let us admit candidly, is not new but rather ancient. Over 2,500 years ago Kautilya could record “40 different ways in which the king’s minions would cheat him of his revenues”. Hyderabad’s charming euphemism for graft, mamool or customary, has its roots in the Mughal times, Mumbai’s substitute of it, hafta or weekly payment, in the British Raj. The trouble is that what in the past — including the earlier years of Independence — was only a trickle is now a relentless torrent. Having increased arithmetically first and then geometrically, corruption on a mammoth scale in this country is now taking a quantum jump. It has indeed become the country’s fastest growing and least-risk industry. How and why this has happened is best exemplified by the 2G spectrum scam — the mother of all scandals since the tryst with destiny.
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