Driving a bike or car can be your freedom but driving without a license or hurting people intentionally is not freedom — rather an offense punishable. Similarly engaging in a legitimate piece of work can be your liberty but damaging anyone’s property or harming any innocent is barbaric and unlawful.
Respecting the laws of the state /country is — real freedom. It feels great to learn about the government’s committed and resolved actions against the law breakers, those feathering their own nests at the expense of others. Yet, some grave but taken for granted offenses do happen at an alarming rate and call for a robust counter strategy to combat them. Anything else shall continue to bode ill for the society at large.
Take the case of deep-seated and all pervasive corruption; it is widely accepted that bribery, undue influence, undesirable delays , misleading information, lobbyism, favoritism, forgery, embezzlement and indifference to public needs and defiance to the statutory rules and regulations– all these reprehensible deeds are simply various forms of corruption , the monster wrecking havoc to make life miserable for wider society. In fact, this menace is what a poison is into milk.
Regretfully, government officials — seen as the guardians of public faith and the constitutional guarantees — have time and again indulged in corrupt practices in any form, including lies and other misleading information for their selfish motives. Some such thugs are caught; most manage to escape unlawfully. Several self centered officials reportedly demand bribes or other considerations blatantly and brazenly for a service book entry, signing a bill, shifting a posting place; longer is the list.
Graver and lousy is perceived to be the scenario in multiple public service institutions ; being the means of constant livelihood, the public works departments devour not only public taxes through forged and repeat bills but blackmail the innocent citizens for some ignoble ends through lawfare .
An instance. A family may build a wall or a house at the bank of a stream or other water body. The act is opposed by some officials — understandably so if it is unlawful. But the same activity resumes soon or after a few days on that spot. Disturbing for the people at the ground level since such public serpents impiously gobble down significant extra income from even the legal construction works by the gullible near water bodies.
This plunder can be traced to the inability or unwillingness by the law book which, it appears, gets defeated before the criminal activities by its very guardians. Worse, this ill gotten money births social/ national insecurity: the affected public loses trust in institutions and bears resentment towards them.
Second, there are countless well to do households which do not pay fee for electricity and water, two essential services, on purpose. A shocker: even a sizable number of government employees do not pay it — lakhs of rupees are outstanding with them as their monthly bills reveal. Since the legal fear has withered away in their case , they do not pay the fee enjoying the electricity service smoothly. The water supply services face a similar situation in dozens of cases.
Not finding some ways and means to collect the dues from the defaulters in return for the services of electricity and water provided to them, is an irresponsible and indifferent and self-seeking conduct — a way of corruption. This comes at the cost of the national economy and — social insecurity.
Similarly, there are plenty of cases of property disputes involving parents and children. This is ironical. Some children are treated fairly and gifted everything hands down whereas some are harassed, disgraced, disowned and disinherited on most occasions. This is pure human rights violation, a crime punishable. It is mainly the incompetent and partial media that is a major reason behind such relations between children and parents.
Not conveying the complete message and not stating both sides of a legal provision encourages some uneducated parents to misuse their control over the family property. This creates endless pain for the children not in their parents’ good books. Leading to moral degeneration and social anarchy, the property disputes can be traced to corruption climate.
Showing little or no compassion for fellow citizens/ humans for some unlawful consideration is a major form of corruption. It allows a perpetrator to convey misleading, biased and selective information and create an illusion. If a convincing probe is not done, innocents get punishment; the real culprits or illusionists escape.
An example, a teacher is good if she/he attends duty regularly and punctually and goes by the school timetable with dedication. But unless this good teacher lets the whims, wishes and tastes of the immediate boss prevail, he/she is bad and harassed or disallowed to work at a place of work for the students. The public/ student approval is disregarded. All this moral bankruptcy is rooted in the massive corruption which protects the miscreants by disallowing an inquiry into a fabricated complaint against the honest and student -favorite teacher.
How else can a school head disallow a teacher to join/ work at an institution? The government posts a teacher at a school for serving the poor children, not for serving any other teacher but the vested interest of the unscrupulous officials at the school removes the teacher– not fitting in the scheme of such treacherous goons– by leveling charges against him/her. Why such charges are not probed? Why the law-abiding teacher gets expelled within minutes? Why the opinion and evidence of the students, the chief stakeholders, is not sought? All because of bribery and other dirty practices running the show.
The crimes in question can be prevented provided the political leadership does not just focus on vote gathering and show indifference towards justice delivery for the innocent. Impartial and competent media can expose lies. The administration can reverse the worsening scenario if protecting the weak, the innocent and voiceless remains the noblest goal. Thus the administrative writ shall stay afloat and — earn public goodwill.
(Author is teacher by profession and RK columnist. Feedback: [email protected])