Readers familiar with this weblog must suffer from nausea thanks to the countless digs I’ve taken at the pervasive corruption that affects India. The story is the same this time around. Another year, another report, yet nothing happens.

The latest report however, says that one in four (sitting) MPs (have been) charged in criminal cases. So, how are we supposed to react? Be shocked?

The only companies that have benefitted by corruption are the ones that manufacture paper. Laws, regulations, orders, probes… The Central Vigilance Commission is but in name. I remember reading somewhere that a high-ranking bureaucrat was caught taking bribe. He was convicted in the case after eighteen years.

Further, it is no use of writing illuminating tomes on this subject. The real change must come from within; an awakening that corruption is essentially an act of betrayal, an act of treachery to the motherland. This isn’t empty idealism–I can back it up by narrating a (drunken) conversation that I had with a very opinionated friend some years ago. After several rounds (of hic!), our conversation steered towards this issue. He laughed derisively at me and said that you cannot eradicate corruption through violence/force/revolution/whatever.

Then he asked me a question: “You, like everybody else, pontificate so much. Very good! Tell me, if you were to become a Minister tomorrow, are you sure you won’t make money?”

I’ll certainly not reveal my answer to that question. Yet, if we’re really serious about eradicating corruption, we need to answer that question honestly, to our own selves.