A year back, we\u00a0were visiting\u00a0my wife’s relatives. The head of the family, my wife’s uncle, used to be in the police force before he drank himself to death.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As is the norm in these cases, his eldest son was given a job in the police department.\u00a0 Of course, he had to pay a bribe for the job.\u00a0 He got a discount because of his late father, but he wasn’t exempted.\u00a0If the son had been a graduate, the amount would have been lower, but he would still have had to pay.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And oh – he did not get an actual policing job. That would have cost him much more. He was given a clerical job in the department, dealing with personnel matters.\u00a0 That cost lower.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I don’t suppose you have any opportunities to make extra money in this section?” I asked him.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It turned out that he did. It is not just citizens who have to bribe India’s government officials. Even government officials bribe each other. For routine matters like leave applications. A policeman’s leave would not get sanctioned unless he paid for it.\u00a0 The money was channeled to superior officers through my wife’s relative. His superiors, when they gave him a job, had warned him against showing\u00a0“leniency” to his colleagues just because they used to be his dad’s friends.<\/p>\n
I was more fascinated than shocked. \u00a0If you are a salaried middle class person in India, it is easy to forget just how deep-rooted corruption is in India. \u00a0Corruption is just an annoyance that stops you when you jump a red light and extracts bribes from you. It is easy to forget that there is a large section of the population – in fact, for an overwhelming majority – corruption is an inseparable part of their lives.<\/p>\n
There are three points that flow from this, which I will cover in three separate posts, which I will introduce below. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n