Corruption is good

A weird thing happened this week A politician said something that may actually be food contains no artificial flavours for thought At a meeting with IAS officers Shivpal Yadav a minister with the Samajwadi Party said and I quote ldquoAs long as you work hard you can steal a little but donrsquot behave like dacoitsrdquo The implications here being that as long as said officers deliver services to people itrsquos okay for them to make a little cheddar or if theyrsquore Masterchef fans emmenthal with garlic on the side The caveat being ldquodonrsquot behave like a dacoitrdquo which makes sense because how can you take a guy in a cave with a shawl covering his face seriously when asking for a water connection But then an even weirder thing happened The media reacted with outrage calling for his head Watching this outpouring of anger online and on TV taught me two things 1 Nobody in the media has ever had to apply for a gas water or phone connection 2 If Fido Dido were old jaded and Maharashtrian hersquod look like Rajdeep Sardesai Does our media live under a rock Or did everyone in it suddenly realise they finally had an opportunity to use that awesomebutsofaruseless idealism they paid so much for ldquotry our latest design we call it Poseur Jholardquo at journalism school What Shivpal Yadav said isnrsquot outrageous itrsquos realpolitik Irsquom now going to say something thatrsquod make Team Anna choke on their food so itrsquos probably a good thing they donrsquot eat any Consider for a second if Shivpal Yadav is right What if corruption is awesome Frankly speakingu00a0At a meeting with PWD officials PWD Minister Shivpal Singh Yadav uncle of the UP Chief Minister told them that they can steal a little bit of public money if they work hard but they should not behave like dacoitsu00a0 I should point out before I go any further that I know as much about economics as a doorknob does about poetry So this is the view from my chair thatrsquos all But from this chair it looks like corruption in India is like marijuana everyonersquos doing it nobody wants to say it and maybe legalisation IS the answer It isnrsquot an external virus attacking the system that is our economy it was built into the source code Ripping it out blindly would be akin to ripping three legs off a table If yoursquore going to do that yoursquod better have another way of holding the damn thing up If you grind your teeth at the thought of paying off everyone from your gas guy to the cop that stopped you from jumping a light consider how much more annoying those systems would be without corruption Imagine standing in line for six hours when you could be at a movie or showing up in court when yoursquore supposed to be at work Corruption keeps systems lubricated After her two hour commute to a deadend job that pays nothing maybe the lady that sorted your passport out in two days instead of weeks needs the extra cash you slipped her just to stop from taking an axe to her coworkersrsquo heads And why shouldnrsquot you pay a little convenience charge to the cop that lets your club stay open until 3 am He probably has to work until 11 And thatrsquos pm the next day In India corruptionrsquos a philosophy not a crime I love the word we use for it lsquoBaksheeshrsquo As a word itrsquos so much more romantic than ugly words like lsquokickbackrsquo or lsquobribersquo or lsquomoistrsquo Baksheesh implies that your payment is a gift an expression of appreciation at the fastlane your taskrsquos been put in Itrsquos an acknowledgement of the fact that someonersquos making your life easier for you and yoursquore helping them out with a surrogate financial reward they probably deserved in the first place from whoever they work for The truth of it is in Mr Yadavrsquos second line ldquoDonrsquot be like dacoitsrdquo What if wersquove just gotten to a point where wersquore executing corruption wrong The problem isnrsquot that wersquore corrupt the problem is that wersquore greedy Corruption works if you take five thousand rupees but then get a gasconnection to me It doesnrsquot work if you eat a thousand crores but then deliver nothing but potholes to the people Yoursquore supposed to run a gravy train But our government runs a railway network Corruption only works if I walk away from the transaction in the same way I walk away from a meal at a fivestar hotel I know I paid too much but service and quality were so good I can rationalise it Of course Mr Yadav works as a Public Works minister in Uttar Pradesh a combination of designations that is second in sinisterness only to ldquoson of Satan and Hitlerrdquo so itrsquos entirely possible that his definition of earning ldquoa littlerdquo is nine million crores But what if we could get corruption to work for us What if corruption IS awesome What if Fido Dido DID get old and jaded Rohan Joshi is a writer and standup comedian who likes reading films and people who do not use the SMS lingo You can also contact him on wwwfacebookcomtherohanjoshiu00a0