IIPM mobilises students against corruption

"If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem." That's what IIPM believes in, and with that message in mind, it brought together on Thursday think tanks from across the country and such social activists who have had the guts to "speak up, be heard, and bring change."

In a special initiative called SACK (Students against corruption and kickbacks), which aims at rooting out corruption, IIPM had travelled to over 1000 colleges and interacted with over 35,000 participants over the last few months.

Inaugurating the talk, IIPM Founder Director Malay Chaudhuri said that it is not the poor people who are corrupt or greedy but the relatively well-off who are engaging in corrupt practices.

"In a survey done recently, bundles of notes of thousands of rupees were left in roads and streets to judge people's reaction. The team behind the survey was surprised to find out that in 98 per cent of such instances, people actually deposited the money to nearest police stations rather than taking it away. This dispels the perception that ordinary Indians are corrupt," he said.

He said that it were the educated Indians who are corrupt and they are the ones responsible for pushing India into the list of most corrupt countries.

"Education hasn't brought spiritual upliftment in people. It is our failure as teachers that students cannot resist the temptation of acquiring surplus money by foul means when they become officers," he said.

Mr Chaudhuri said one of the major reasons behind corruption is that the CBI is not really able to function as an independent body. He said that if the CBI was not corrupt, or had there been any system in place to regulate it, a lot of problems could be averted. "The ultimate boss of the CBI is the prime minister and the political establishment. They do not let the CBI function as an independent body," he lamented.

He suggested that CBI be given the status equivalent to that of the Election Commission.

Understaffed judiciary, he added, was another major reason why corruption goes on unchecked. "We are concerned about corruption in judiciary but not the shortage of staff in the judiciary which is a bigger problem," he said. "Because of the lack of judges, cases remain pending for years, which has actually encouraged people to indulge in corrupt practices fearlessly. Nobody is afraid that he would be put to jail."

Mr Chaudhuri said that the number of judges in Sessions Court is 13,000 but it needs to be increased by ten times. This would require Rs 15,000 crore - a mere two per cent of the annual budget.

IIPM also felicitated a number of guests on the occasion. They included Vivek Dutt, CBI official; Prashant Bhushan, social activist; Shailesh Gandhi, Central Information Commissioner for RTI; Ajit Singh, president of the NGO Gudiya (which works against sexual exploitation of women and trafficking); Uttam Theron, activist who started Parijat Academy, a school for poor children; and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, a noted doctor in Ranchi who charges his patients only Rs 5. Mr Chaudhuri gave away Silver Phoenix awards in recognition of their good work and commitment for social causes.

Vivek Dutt, while receiving the award, intruded a note of dissent to what Mr Chaudhuri had said about the CBI. He said that the organisation is free and fair, although there were black sheep. "You cannot generalise that an entire organisation is corrupt. We are doing the best we can in the discharge of our duties," he said.

Prashant Bhushan, however, stamped Mr Chaudhuri's views as far as the judiciary was concerned. "It is an illusion that we have a working system of justice in India. Only one per cent of the petitioners get justice in our country. In fact most of the people cannot enter even the threshold of courts since they do not have the money to hire lawyers. Unless we are not able to reform the judiciary, things would not change," he said.

He lambasted the government for not having the political will to enforce reforms. "There is a nexus between judges and politicians. The government does not want to do away with corrupt albeit favourable judges. They say that judges should be self-accountable, which is an oxymoron," he said.

He hailed the ongoing anti-corruption movement in India as a landmark event. "It has been in decades that people of India have come out to the streets to fight for their cause and that is remarkable," he said.

Shailesh Gandhi shared similar sentiment. "Dysfunctional judicial system is the root cause of many ills," he said. "It is not just the question of less number of judges but about the selection and accountability of judges. Judges are picked up based on whims and fancy of the government. There are far better criteria for selecting constables compared to selecting judges."

He cited digitalisation of judicial proceedings and other public offices as a solution to the existing problem.
 
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee said that money has become the prime consideration for everybody. "Kids of BPL families who do not even have one square meal a day are not shown mercy. They are not admitted to any hospital or attended to by doctors since they are unable to pay fees," he sighed.

The Silver Phoenix awards were also posthumously given away to Satyendra Dubey and Manjunath Shanmugam. The awards were received by Shailesh Gandhi.