Breaking the law
This morning during the
peak hours, one of the major traffic signals of this town had failed. Yet,
traffic was orderly, with motorists automatically converting the intersection
into an all-way stop. That, in essence, is America. A sense of discipline,
respect for the law and a code of public behavior is drilled into you from
birth. Sure, there are people who break the law, but those are the exceptions,
not the general rule.
Imagine the same thing
happening in a small town in India, leave alone the big cities like Bombay and
Delhi. Imagine the chaos and confusion, with each driver trying to worm his way
ahead of the rest, and wantonly blocking the other if he cannot. Ask yourself whether an all-way stop
will work there. We can talk about a failed traffic signal later.
A couple of days back, a
few colleagues were discussing the problems with Indian Customs, each of them
detailing how he had suffered at the hands of the inspectors, the money that
was demanded and paid, and the lessons that were learnt. One of them mentioned
how he had wised up after a couple of trips from the Gulf and on subsequent
trips, how he had managed to slip through with a whole lot of things after
paying only nominal bribes, far less than what an uninitiated’ person might
have had to pay. Apparently, it takes a special kind of talent to talk to these
guys, a special kind of language that needs to be used to indicate that you
know your way around, know the ropes and are willing to play their game, but at
your terms.
My colleagues held up
these experiences as symbols of how the law works, or rather, does not work in
India, how rules and regulations are used by corrupt officials to torment the
general public. This was one of the reasons why none of them wanted to go bock
to India. Otherwise, our country is booming, they said, salaries are huge, our
families are there and life is as good as here, if you have the money. And yet,
because of the problems with the law, they say, they don’t want to go back.
We’ll have to beg for electricity, beg for water connections, for the gas
cylinder, beg for everything that every citizen has a right to. Beg and bribe,
and sometimes neither will work.
All of which I agree
with totally. This is all true and I cannot even attempt to gainsay any of it.
But I do have a question to ask.
When you knew that there
were specific lows that limit what and how much could be taken into India, why
did you take more than that?
I think the answer to
that question is the answer to why India has these problems. Why is it so
important to take a music system or a television or a digital camcorder when
you know that these will be valued at more than the limit? Are these not
available in India? Are the ones that are available there not good enough for
you and your family members? Why is it that every possession of yours must bear
the ‘foreign’ brand?
Note the usual exchange
following the above questions:
A: But the government
has no right to tell me what and how much I can take.
Q: Certainly, that is
true, but what about the law?
A:
Yes, what about it? Does it mean that they will pass whatever law
they want and I will have to obey it?
Q: Yes, but isn’t that
the meaning of the ‘rule of law’? So, if you supported the use of medical
marijuana, you would take marijuana to India freely and nobody should be able
to stop you? Of course, there are laws that bad, laws that are primitive, but
in a normal society, is it up to each individual to obey only the ones that he
agrees with or wants to? There are avenues open to you to protest the law. You
can file a complaint right there with a superior, you can go to court....
A:
And then what? You file a complaint and get victimized. Or you
go to court and wait twenty years for a result! Who wants this ‘jhanjhat’ and
‘court-kacheri ka dhakka’? Better to pay quietly and get what you want....
Q: Yes, sure you can,
sir, but then, what right do you have to complain that India is corrupt when
you are the one who is breaking the law and are willing to pay to get away with
if?
At this point, the
conversation turns sour with him saying “Haan, I will break the law and I will
bribe to get away with it. Kya karne ka hai bolo?”
When a man is willing to
take off his clothes in public, what can one do or say?
If India is corrupt, it
is because of educated, knowing, aware people like us, who draw high incomes
and are able to afford status symbols we don’t need, and not just because of a
corrupt customs official who, in all probability, is annually earning a
fraction of what we make monthly, living in a government kholi’ with a family
he can barely support. How can we blame him for wanting a life less wretched
than the one he leads now, if we with our fancy salaries and our
air-conditioned apartments in Dubai’s upmarket area and our Toyota Camrys and
our Motorola cell phones, are still not satisfied with our own? What prevents
us from going to a good shop in India and buying the same television set at a
small premium?
I will tell you what
prevents us. Our innate dishonesty is what prevents us. We cheat, not because
we are forced to cheat, but because we want to cheat. We break the law, not
because we are forced to, but because we have become accustomed to breaking the
law. We break the law because we have no respect for it. We need strict enforcement
and high penalties to obey. We will misuse freedom willingly but we will
function perfectly under martial law. My anger is not against people who have
been victimized and then see no option but to bribe, but against people who
don’t even try.
Observe what happens on
Devon Street in Chicago or on any ‘Indian’ street in America or any other
country, for that matter. You will hesitate to litter the street in the
neighborhood where you live because the law will punish you, but will you
hesitate to crumple a piece of paper and throw it on Devon street? You know
that it is an Indian street, that ‘nobody is bothered’ there, because ‘the
Americans know there is no use. ‘Woh logan ko maloom hai ki yeh log sudharne
wala nahin hai! How many times have you and your friends repeated the exact
same sentence laughing stupidly at what should be counted as a great insult to
our community? But do we feel insulted? Yes, if an American were to say that,
we would become all hot under the color (but not in his presence!) and yet,
when we Indians speak of it amongst ourselves, we are almost proud of the
reputation that we carry!
Some years ago, I was
pleasantly surprised when a 10 year old boy living a few doors away told me
that he wanted to become a police inspector. My surprise turned to dismay soon
enough when he told me why he wanted to join the police force - because the guy
living next door to him was an inspector and was in the process of building his
own bungalow nearby because ‘he was making a lot of money’. Those are the
values that that 10 year old had been taught - that money is an end in itself
and it does not matter how you make it.
A friend of mine would
accompany her cousin’s wife to the jewelry shop almost every other week. She
seemed to be in awe of her cousin’s finances and status in society and the
respect that he and his family got in the shop. I guess she felt some of that
glitter rubbed off on her too. Her cousin worked in the municipality but it
never struck my friend how her cousin’s wife could afford to buy so much
jewelry. When I pointed it out to her, all she said was “Why should I care?
Uske paas paisa hai, udata hai. Apne ko kya leneka hai, kahan se paisa aata
hai.”
When these are our
values, how can we be honest? How can we lament corruption? People say money
corrupts. But I differ. I think you have to be already corrupt morally before
you can be corrupt financially. I think a man who bribes will not be unwilling
to be bribed when it is his turn.
Do you remember the joke
about how Laallu Prasad Yadav tells a Japanese visitor who tells him that he
can convert Bihar into another Japan in three years, “Give me three months and
I will convert Japan into another Bihar!”
Do you really think that
it is a joke? And do you really think it is about Laallu?
And speaking of customs,
do you think an American who knew what the import limits were, would even think
of importing more than that, free? If he didn’t know the law, he would find
out. If he knew and was charged more, he would protest, he would pay and then
go to court and sue the daylights out of customs. And yet, for all the power
that the country bestows on citizens like him, he would not even think of
defying the law by breaking it.
Let us decide, that on
our next visit to India, we are not going to carry stuff more than what is
allowed. Let us then see who stops and harasses us. That is all it takes, a
little respect for the law and refusal to toy with it.
Let’s face it. The
things we take with us are not things that we will die without. These are just
our vanities, our false sense of values. I can ‘understand’ bribery if it a
matter of life and death or even if it is something like buying your very first
house, but to corrupt the system for the sake of a television set?
Let us say no. Let us, in
our small lives, for the sake of our country that we all no doubt love dearly,
make the beginning. All we need to change is our own mindset, our own values,
not the system. India is our country, only we can make it better.