India Arriving--Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Corruption

This chapter was extremely interesting to read. It discussed the corruption and inefficiency that is found in India today. The author mentioned that after India gained independence, it became a land of corruption. I would imagine this is because of the extreme state of poverty India was in when India became independent. Both the public and private sectors compete with each other. Competition is typically a positive aspect of a market economy, but in India's case both sectors' output is of poor quality because there is an absence of local competition.

The private sector is more efficient than the public sector and it produces more quality goods than does the public. Because of this, the private sector began to demand a bribe for the right to buy its products over those of the public sector. This can be seen in many ways in India even today--bribing police officers, electrical meter readers, telephone men, tax collectors, railway ticket collectors, postmen, etc. Corruption and bribery became a normal part of obtaining civic services. Throughout the chapter the author gives a number of good examples of corruption and even circumstances in which he experienced this type of bribery. I thought it was interesting that even though bribery is so widespread and common, when someone is "called out" on the actions of bribery, they can not afford to appear corrupt, therefore many will act with disdain towards the idea!

Although today corruption and inefficiency are not as bad as it was right after India's independence, it is still a problem. The general public has led the way out by increasing output. Reasons corruption still exists is due to the presence of underpaid and oversupplied public servants (such as police officers), corruption for the purpose of vote gathering, and because land and civic infrastructure are in short supply, corruption is a factor in where and what is built. I found this chapter to be particularly interesting, especially understanding why corruption takes place in the Indian society. I hope I don't experience this aspect of life during my time there this summer!!