What is Corruption ?

No no , don’t think that I am going to tell you any theory about corruption or any philosophy of corruption, “what is Corruption?” is title of a story, yes today I am going to tell you a story of a King, who was known for his excellence ruling system.

Long time ago, there was a democratic state where people themselves would like to chose who would become next king from the Royal family, there was a situation when King was no more and people have to select their next king but Prince was very immature to become king and Queen was from other state so people decided that royal family’s most loyal and most honest minister should be crowned as king, and they did.

King was ruling the state under the guidance of Queen; meanwhile Prince was becoming young and playful, he was popular amongst other loyal friends of Royal family.

Everything was going fine, but suddenly there was a massive chaos in the state about corruption and scams. Everywhere people were saying that Corruption is increasing day by day and everywhere it is causing problem for common man.

One day King held a meeting with all courtiers, discussed with them that people are crying about corruption, people are saying that they see everywhere corruption, I haven’t seen yet, have you seen ever? If anybody of you has seen corruption then tell me, how it looks like? Is it a worm, virus or a bacteria or it is something sent by our enemy states?

All courtiers said in one voice, “my lord, when it is not visible to you then how we can see it?”

King said, “No, it’s not like that, sometimes something which is not visible to me, you might see, such as I don’t see any nightmare but you must have seen.”

Courtiers said, “Yes we see nightmares but that is all about dreams, here it is reality sir.”

King said, “all right then, go and search for Corruption in whole state, if you find somewhere then bring a sample for me, I want to see how it looks like.”

Then one Minister said, “Sir, we will not be able to see corruption, we heard that it is very small and you know that we all are working under Queen’s big umbrella, and her personality is so huge that we are used to see huge things only and we can not see small things.”

Then another minister interrupted, “by chance if corruption comes in front of us even then we will see only madam’s image in it, we could not see anything else.”

one of the courtier said that he knows the solution, he said, “sir, I know there is a species called CBI in our state, they are able to find such small things, they are expert so I request you to invite them and ask them to find CORRUPTION.”

King did the same, he appointed 5 people from that special tribe called CBI, he asked them to find out about corruption and scam, and if they find it then bring a sample to court room. CBI people started finding the desired thing; they kept for searching for 2 months and then returned to King.

King asked them, “Experts, have you finished your enquiry?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Did you find corruption in our state?”

“Yes, we found lots of CORRUPTION in your state.”

King extended his palm towards them and asked, “Give me a little bit, let’s see, how it looks like?”

Experts said, “sir, you can not hold it in your hands, it is not substance, it is Imperceptible, inapprehensible and supersensible, but it is omnipresent, which can not be seen, and not be touched you can only feel it, smell it.”

After hearing these many big words for corruption, king lost in his thoughts for some time and came back to experts, “you said it is omnipresent and impalpable, but these are qualities of god, so you mean corruption is god?”

“Yes sir, now corruption has become god for many people in your state.”

Then a courtier asked “but where it is, how it smells like?”

Experts replied, “it is everywhere, it is in this building, on the roads, gardens of your state, it is in bridges, it is in schools, in offices, in coal mines, in commonwealth games grounds, in railways, in administration, it is even in weapons, in the chair of queen, PM and you all courtiers it is also in shirt of the King.”

Is it in my shirt?? Where? King swiftly jumped out from his chair and stripped in the front of all courtiers.

Experts covered the king with a shawl and said,

“Yes sir, it is in your shirt, last time when you gave contract for all your dresses then the bill which was generated and presented in court was fake bill with 10 times increased price value. There are mediators involved in your government, they mostly eat money in between, and there is corruption in all your administration.”

King was very worried, he asked to experts about the remedy of this disease, can it be cured?

Experts said, “absolutely sir, it can be cured, you just need to change the system, you have to eliminate the opportunities of corruption, you have to speak against it sir.”

“what? I have to speak ? no no, I cant do that, madam will punish me.” King said.

Then Experts explained him that he has to speak to madam and not to the public, so King was ready to talk to madam.

“you said there are opportunities of corruption everywhere, how it is ? I cant see it.” King asked to Experts.

“sir, there are opportunities for example, if there are contracts then contractors and if there are contractors so there is bribe for bureaucrats in the same way if there are big projects under government then there is opportunity for the concerned ministry.”

King said to them “okay you submit your report to PMO, we will review and discuss in our ministerial meetings”.

King discussed the same with Queen Madam, madam was also worried that how to eliminate this corruption, people will not believe in royal family if they were unable to remove this bug.

Queen asked to her most qualified law makers on this situation, how to deal with it? People said,” madam, do not worry, people are used to of it now, they know that there is corruption, and it is part of their life now, so we should not worry, burn the CBI report and files. No one will ask what happened, we will say that corruption is like some black magic and it is imaginary.”

Other courtiers also said that to change the system is not possible it would be a new problem, everything will be turned down, all arrangements will be disturbed, we need such solution that we don’t need to change anything and corruption also can be removed.

Queen reciprocated the concern, “yes, I too wanted to find such solution, our ancestors knew some black magic to eliminate any problem, that is why they could rule this state for so long but what I do now?”

And here comes the master piece….

One of her family friend said “madam, we should do the same trick, what your ancestors used to perform, we should show the huge rich-poor gap to people, we should show sympathy to one specific group of people who are expanding day by day, we should declare them special tribe and we should feed them, give them land and security but not education and job, the other tribes will be jealous and instead of asking their right from us they will fight to the special tribe and all these fool people will fight each other and forget about CORRUPTION. This is the trick all your royal family used to perform, they learnt it from previous emperor, who did the same with this whole Ireland and divided it into so many small states.”

Queen was impressed with this solution, some courtiers objected then queen showed them the corruption report and threatened them that “CBI Experts” will find out more about you if you do not agree with me.

All courtiers agreed to madam, and they did what madam said.

Then once again the Royal family showed the Black Magic which is also called secularism, and the people of that state can be seen fighting everyday, they fight with each other, burn homes of each other, they abuse each other, they do not bother if they are unemployed, if they are uneducated, if they are hungry, but since their tribe is special, they will fight for it and here Royal family are having worry free and lavish dinner everyday which is cooked in the fire generated when these innocence and ignorant people torch each other's homes.

I am hopeful that One day this black magic will be exposed, and people will understand that fighting with each other is not the solution, but we have to fight against the hunger, unemployment, poverty and illiteracy.

Note: 

यह कहानी भारत की वर्तमान परिस्थितीयों से तथा श्री हरिशंकर परसाई जी की हिन्दी रचना "सदाचार का तावीज़" से प्रेरित है|

                                                                                                                                           

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