I keep seeing this “Everybody should be honest” solution being promoted by friends & colleagues to solve the corruption problems in India. My personal assessment is that they have never tried to be honest in India otherwise, they wouldn’t be promoting this solution.
In response to someone, somewhere, I wrote the following which I decided to share here.
There are 3 parts to it:
a) I don’t want any inconvenience for being honest. I have always paid full penalty whenever caught by traffic cops but there were times when I had to fight with the cop to get a receipt for penalty and was finally punished by double the penalty because I dared ask for a receipt. I took the matter upto DCP who asked me to go to the court. Finally, I wasted more money, a lot of time & energy for being honest. And this is one of the many things on a long list of items. And I don’t want that.
b) I want punishment for the guy who is corrupt. “Everybody should be honest” doesn’t mean anything because I am only I and not Everybody. Ultimately, wherever there is corruption, I am paying for it in one form or the other. And I want right systems in place so that the corrupts can be booked.
c) There are some corruptions (like 2G scam, CWG scam) which are not prompted by general public. These are cases of pure abuse of power. It’s my tax money that has gone into making people rich. That same money could have gone in making better roads etc which would make my life better. I need a check on that.
I have seen many people giving this “Everybody should be honest” solution but frankly, I am yet to see anybody providing an execution plan for the same. There has never been a time in the history of mankind when everybody was honest.
Some people are honest and some have honesty thrust upon them.