Cynicism of an Average Indian and the "Vicious Circle of Corruption"

“A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.”
- Sidney J. Harris
Poverty, corruption, illiteracy, malpractices have found an irreplaceable place in the high-school social textbooks. These words have an everlasting effect on the immature minds and mould them into cynic about Indian bureaucracy and political system.
Ask any young educated Indian about politics, legal system, government officials or college professors, he will have only one word to describe and that is “hopeless” that too with a disinterested look on his face.
The problem lies in our system which resists “change”. Indian people should start believing that change is the law of nature. Due to this mentality, the vicious circle of corruption goes on and it has an aggravated trickledown effect on other government machineries. A young undergraduate student goes to bank for a loan and he is asked for various documents, names of which he has never heard of before. After a span of few years when he is in his twenties he wants to get a driving license; for that he has to bribe. Same thing happens when he gets whims about “foreign-soil” and its glamour and luxurious lifestyle, he has to fill the pockets of policemen and give few 100 rupee notes under the table to the passport agent. After spending 3-4 years in abroad, comes back and gives civil services examination, qualifies in it and immediately gets into power; and now the vicious circle takes a half revolution. The coming few months are spent in saying no to “corruption” but as we all know it hardly happens that a public servant escapes the pressure of the boss or the greed of quick and easy money. He also supports his actions on the grounds that he has given it, so it’s the time to take it back with 200% interest. His hunger never ends and soon the vicious cycle of corruption is completed and it always goes on.



Even if few people do succeed to remain honest in their profession their self-respect and dignity is hurt. There is a funny incidence about a newly-appointed IRS officer who is being offered “posting in a good place” by a peon of his office. I mean there is no way a self-respecting person can handle this insult. (No pun intended)
While vicious cycle of corruption follows its periodic motion it irritates the common man and his beliefs are reinforced and he turns a poor cynic Indian. He gradually forms a belief system that Indian system is hostile towards change. In addition, the overly obsessed Indian mindset of “extrapolation without proper analytical reasoning” even worsens the situation prevalent in our country.
This has to change very soon in India. However, I doubt that to completely bring corruption, poverty and illiteracy to a tolerable level it’ll take at least 20 more years even if we start working from right now.
Let’s uproot the cynicism within us and plant a seed of hope and vision in ourselves.


PS: The IRS Officer, I mentioned in the post is Arvind Kejriwal.

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