The Incredible India seems to have lost its credibility over the past few years. All the scams and corrupt practices have beaten the image of India as a responsible nation in the world. On every international forum India is in the firing range, for its scams and the failure of the government to prevent its mechanism from corruption.
It was unfortunate that in the recently held elections in UP and other states, development and corruption were merely a secondary agenda for the political parties, whereas things like reservation and specific target group oriented issues were the main focus areas. The local mentality during the elections has enlightened a very important question related to our society, whether the public is concerned about a holistic growth of the nation or not?
Norway a small country, somewhere in Europe made a mockery of the Indian system in front of the world on the 2G issue; however they had a strong reason to argue whereas the Indian Government was cursing a bold judgment made by the judiciary. In my opinion, the verdict on 2G case is exactly like, doing chemotherapy on the cancer of corruption existing in the Indian system, which may have some side effects, but it is necessary to keep the long term interest of the nation instead of pleasing the capitalist for instant profit.
In past few years, we saw that, it’s not all about the government and in fact the corporate sector has also got stained in cases such as that of Satyam. The involvement of the private sector in many scams is undeniable.
J.J. Irani, a former director of Tata Steel once said that “we must discourage the building up of a ‘nexus’ between the Top Management and the Political set up.”
One of the main reasons of the private sector becoming greedy is the absence of proper corporate governance structure in the country. When everything has been done without any ethical supervision, then possibility of committing crime is very high.
Value system for both the sectors is certainly a matter of discussion at the moment and the government has to understand that merely adding a subject of business ethics in the syllabus of professional courses would not help much in nurturing the youth with a strong value system. The corporates on the other hand have to understand that values are not only a mere piece of text that has to be kept on the website, it requires to be practiced in all operations.
During all this mayhem, the Indian Judiciary came up with a strong message that no one is superior to the constitution and delivered some remarkable judgments leaving the government completely be wildered.
Last year we witnessed one of biggest revolts against corruption by Team Anna and the people of India and it is important for the people of India to understand that the time has come, to utilize their constitutional rights in the best possible way. Everyone may not be able to speak well or write well but they do have the power to raise their voice against corruption whether in the government or in the corporate sector. We have to remove this disease from all sections of society. The time to act is now.
Abhishek Kumar
