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what is corruption : a broader perspective

March 2, 2012

Posted by Britul under Perspective

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The question, “ what is corruption ” is very relevant in today’s

what is corruption

context. Below cited are a few grammatical meaning of corruption from few web based sources.

“Dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery” – Oxford online dictionary.

“Spiritual or moral impurity” – Wikipedia.

“Made inferior by errors or alterations” – Dictionary.com.

I was feeling an urge to write what I think about corruption for last few days. Finally I collected my perspectives and sat down to write. But, before I finally started writing this post, I made a Google search of the phrase “ what is corruption ” and went through few top results.

Basically, what I wanted to write was all about what I think about corruption. I made the Google search to know what others think about it. After going through few top results, I discovered that peoples have widely diverse perspective on the topic of corruption. Some have analyzed it philosophically, some have looked into it scientifically and many others tried to explain it in the light of culture, religious beliefs etc. etc. I have my own perspective too and here it goes, -

What is corruption ?

Whenever we pronounce the word “corruption” few common pictures come to our minds. Those are the pictures of news paper headlines regarding corruptions of politicians, government officials taking bribe in offices etc.

These pictures come to our mind because most often these are the areas where corruption happens in front of our eyes. These are the areas where we see corruption taking place very frequently. But if we give an in depth thought on what is corruption and why people become corrupt, we will find that corruption is not limited to any specific category of people. Corruption is not limited to any specific religion, linguistic group, community or age!! . so, ultimately what is corruption ?

Corruption, what I think, is actually a state of mind. The state of being corrupt. And what does that state signify? The state signifies any deviation from the standard set of principle which governs the activities of our day to day life. The social values, morals, ethics, principles of honesty etc. forms that standard set of principles.

These set of principles are framed by human beings. These were the result of evolution of good self of human being.

Various religious literatures around the world state that there always remain two different sides of a person’s personality. A god side and an evil side. The good side is governed by the social values and set of principles. Or in turn we can say that the set of principles are framed by the good self. Again, the evil self always keep on provoking human being to take the taste of instantaneous happiness, irrespective of the consequences it may bring to him/her or to others.

It just keeps on pushing human being to take short cut methods, or to do some unlawful activity which may let the person avail some additional personal comfort. But most often the short cut methods adopted by one person causes painful results for others or sometimes for the person himself in long run.

The seduction of the evil self is irresistible and we have named it as “Greed”.

Let us consider an example. -

e. g. A government engineer may pass a bill for construction of a bridge to a contractor by taking some bribe from him. The bridge was not constructed as per the design specifications and hence it’s live span s very low.

In this case,

1) The engineer had received some additional materialistic gain in terms of cash or in other forms. This materialistic gain will bring him additional enjoyment in life which he doesn’t deserve. (Reason: evil self, urge towards additional enjoyment i.e. greed).

2) The bridge was not constructed as per design specification and hence at a very low cost than estimate. Gain by the contractor. (Reason: evil self, urge towards additional enjoyment i.e. greed)

3) The life span of the bridge will be shorter than it was expected to be. Hence need to be reconstructed in future before the end of estimated life. Additional expense of Government fund. (Sufferer: common man – in two ways. a)Suffer from communication problem, b)Taxpayer’s money is wasted.)

4) If at some time in future, the anomaly comes to light, legal action will be taken against the engineer and also against the contractor. (The doer has become the sufferer in long run.).