Apr
5
Why is India Corrupt?
Why corruption exists? In a simple line I can summarize the whole answer and that is “corruption exists because it makes people’s lives better”.
Let me come directly to the example part. Lets say in Indian law society the government passes a law that all the restaurants must use gold utensils(silverware made of actual gold). The plates in which they serve must be made from Gold, the government may have whatever reasons they think its important for the people to use gold utensils. For the sake of example just presume the government made this law for what they think is good for the people.
What do you think would be the consequences of this law? Would restaurants in India will really start following such a law? Lets take the honest and the dishonest restaurants one by one.
Honest Restaurants
A few restaurants who would be honest enough to comply with these regulations would go out and buy golden utensils, but to cover the costs of those utensils they will have to raise the prices of their utensils. So a regular tea which costs about Rs 5/- in any restaurant in India would cost about Rs 500/- in a golden cup and saucer. It cannot be reasonably expected that people in India would start paying Rs 500/- for a cup of tea. The overall consequences of this would be that the restaurant will soon go out of business.
Dishonest Restaurants
Now lets take a look at the dishonest restaurants which did not bother to comply with the regulation. Whenever the inspectors from the food department come around they bribed then to ignore the violation of the law. Since they did not bother to buy gold utensils, the prices of food in their restaurant are marginally higher(the bribe increased the costs). So a cup of regular tea costs about Rs 6/- in such a restaurant. It is quite reasonable to expect that people will be more than willing to drink coffee and eat from this restaurant than from the honest restaurant(where the food costs 100 times than this one).
Consequences
Overall any restaurant which tries to be honest will be wiped out of the business. Whose fault can we say this would be? Clearly the government’s fault which passed such a law. In fact it would be stupid to assume that ANY restaurant would be complying with this law. Now lets take a look at a more real world scenario.
In real world the government does not pass a law about using gold plates, rather it passes a law about using only plastic plates in the restaurants for hygienic purposes. Using plastic plates could be more hygienic but its also more expensive, on the other hand using washed(often poorly) china or metallic plates might be unhygienic but it would also be more cheap.
Whenever food department inspection happens, most of the restaurants prefer to bribe the inspector to overlook at all the violations because the lower costs and continual business tells the restaurant owners one thing and that is “People WANT cheaper unhygienic food, over expensive hygienic food”.
In fact the golden plates law is so stupid that even food inspectors will not bother to ask anyone to follow this regulation.
Democracy can go to hell, people WANT cheap food, thereby implying that they prefer reused dishes over clean disposable dishes, so they are ordering the restaurant owner to somehow keep the prices low. Therefore indirectly people WANT the food department inspectors to be bribed.
In richer societies like America people can afford to follow all the stupid rules and regulations and still pay the higher food costs, but expecting those kinds of standards in India would be really stupid.
Why is India so dirty?
Again just like the previous issue, its not because “Indian people are just too dirty and they have no regard for cleanliness”, India is so dirty because people prefer to live in that dirty environment than to clean things up and increase the cost of everything around them.
Lets again take an example. Lets say there are two convenience stores(Kirana shops) one is kept very clean, everything very tidy, and its located in a clean well maintained shopping complex. The other one is located in the middle of the regular flea market, its very messy, dirty and its surroundings are really unkept.
The tidy convenience store
The store which is located on a very well maintained shopping complex and is kept very tidy. It has a guard standing on its door, it uses electronic bar code system to keep track of prices and products. The store is always staffed with enough people, and it has achieved all that by spending money on the maintenance of the shop. This causes the store owner to increase the prices of his store products. 1 Kg of Sugar might be available for Rs 15/- on this shop.
The untidy, unkept convenience store
The other store which is located in the middle of a crowded flea market does not spend any money on the maintenance of the shop. This enables him to keep the prices of his store low. 1 Kg of Sugar is available for Rs 10/- in this shop. Where do you think the customers in India will go to?
Consequences
Its clear that the tidy store will either go out of business or will do very little business because people will prefer to go to the messier dirty shop, because they prefer to buy the Sugar at Rs 10/-. This thing tells all the convenience store owners ONE thing, that Indian consumers don’t care for cleanliness as much as they care for cheaper prices. So the market rewards people to reduce their maintenance costs and reduce the core prices of the services and commodities.
Any public service place in India would be only as clean as its owner personally would like to do the effort of keeping it clean. A small shop would be kept much more clean because only one guy operates in it. A larger shop can cut its costs by reducing the cost on the maintenance.
Conclusion
Only one thing can be concluded from both these reasonings, and that is you can never beat the market. Its the market which will not follow the stupid laws because a politician may not be having the welfare of everyone in his mind, but the Market always wants to serve the maximum number of people in the best possible way.
People in India are not corrupt, they pay through their way because it enables their live through the mess of the government hinderance created at every step. They are no more or less corrupt than Americans in nature. Its just that in America people can afford to follow all the rules and regulations(though the sheet is being stretched too far with the latest assaults on free market and all the scapegoating of the free market and lack of regulations).
Similarly, people in India are not dirty, or unclean, they prefer untidiness over cleanliness because it enables them to buy more products and make their lives better. If Americans tomorrow stop paying the huge maintenance costs of the big departmental stores they will be able to save more money, thereby invest more money and thereby make themselves richer.
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1 views36 Responses to “Why is India so dirty and corrupt?”
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prashanthguevara Says:
April 7th, 2009 at 12:12 ami don’t know why, but i love this post!!
Rajat Says:
April 8th, 2009 at 3:27 amYour Article is interesting and we had a talk on bribery sometimes back. But I believe you could have given a modest definition of the word corruption as the term is contextual.
To complement your post: I found this article by Daniel Kraufmen, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1149337, where he clearly states that ” corruption may introduce an element of competition into what is otherwise a comfortably monopolistic industry…Hence tendency toward efficiency is introduced into the system. Also Bribing strategies..minimize the avg value of time costs of the que..” I hope you enjoy his work. Cheers!
GP Says:
April 10th, 2009 at 9:16 am@Author
In richer societies like America people can afford to follow all the stupid rules and regulations and still pay the higher food costs, but expecting those kinds of standards in India would be really stupid.
<<<<<Well certainly : ) its true, But you got to give credit to their discipline and honesty in following all the rules.>>>
Nice article , but the flip side of such cost reduction by not giving importance to cleanliness and proper hygien is end up wasting same amount of costs in medications and treatment once you suffered from illness/ some chronic disease.
People hardly think about long term effects in short term goal. hmmm…. Human psyche! what else.. : )?
But I think your anologies are perfect when end customers of your restaurents are ppl BPL. But if you need quality you got to pay for it and in INDIA nowaday’s ppl do expect quality so you can see a surge of big shopping malls and expensive restaturents in small towns/cities too.
For me INDIA is dirty - bcoz certain indians do not understand importance of cleanliness and always like to live in filth n dirt(may be due to lack of its ill-consequences/awareness/poverty..reasons cud be anything)
and want everything at cheaper rate without understanding why vendor charging more?
Why INDIA is corrupt ? -bcoz avg. income of ppl in govt. offices is less than wht they can get through bribes n obvioulsy if u have 4kids and demanding wife to tolerate( yeah i am not using word “feed” :)) then obviously u have to get that money..so result is - corruption and bribery
and if u talk about big tycoons and their deals — then its for “favouritism, monopoly and lack of morality”..Now why its lesser in US ..coz their “The price he/she have to pay when get caught in bribery case is far more severe than - what he can buy through a momentary bribe amount. And also his/her salary is good enough for him/her to get wht they want to feed their families
(if they don’t ..they just get separated..which is hardly option for indians..i am talking abt avg. indians ..but anyways that will be separate topic for discussion. : )
Kashif Says:
April 14th, 2009 at 5:09 pmThe story doesn’t just end there. An even more interesting fact is that businesses in the US that do not opt to provide good clean and hygienic services still get to sell their products at the same level of inflated prices and thereby increase their profit margins significantly without having the added burden of costs.
Obviously there may be repercussions for such businesses if and when they get caught. But until that happens they still make unjustified profits without having the market object to it. They are accepted by the consumer because the consumer expects to pay at the same level as every where else so such businesses don’t really stand out enough for the consumer to react.
I find this phenomenon specifically interesting because it provides ample of opportunities while living in the “Land of Opportunities” and such opportunities just do not exist in Indian market possibly because of competition, but mainly because the market is geared towards getting the best possible value for the money it spends.
Vijayraj Says:
May 10th, 2009 at 5:14 amI see a gap in your argument.
The ‘law’ that you have describes is itself ‘unjust’. It is like saying - from tomorrow everybody will have to pay Rs. 500 per month as ‘oxygen tax’. People will try to avoid it by paying bribes. It is like creating an artificial demand…and hiking prices(read tax). A black market(read bribes) then opens up. You are simply taking a loss of Rs. 50 (bribe) to avoid a loss of Rs. 500 (Tax) The solution is not corruption…but to eliminate teh law which demands Rs. 500 for something that is free. In short - laws should help, not trouble its followers
But what if the law was on Minimum level of cleanliness and hygiene? Or against using harmful food products? And hotel owners try to circumvent it by paying bribes? And give ‘cheap” food to the customers? The customers will gobble up the cheap food without realizing the ‘high price’ (medical bills, loss of health/job/life) they are paying. Or put another way, they had not planned to spend their food savings on MEDICAL expenses, right? So even though corruption brings about short term gain to the hotel owner and supposedly to the customer, it causes a long term (but maybe intangible) loss to the customer.
Corruption is not the solution but the result of inefficency
Cleanliness - do you think all the developed countries were as dirty and filthy as india when they were developing? Prices come into picture when we are talking about spanking malls, decorated hotels, marble floored restaurants. Cleanliness is about basic hygiens and civic sense. What money is a person saving when he chooses to spit or throw rubbish on the road? That’s civic sense. What money are the tax payers saving when the sanitary department is not working? That’s inefficiency. Lack of work ethic. We cannot expect to have roads which have a streetlight at every 2 feet…or mechanised cleaning systems. But we can expect to have a level of cleanliness which does not HARM human life. Just because we pay TAXES…if there is no better reason!!
renegade_division Says:
May 10th, 2009 at 6:59 am@Vijayraj said:
Well I am sorry to say but that’s your value scale you are putting up there. I just chose the example of putting golden silverware so that it looks universally ridiculous.
Well I am sorry to say that you are championing the “Govt is always right, knows everything, and always does thing right for everyone” cause here.
The truth is, that if govt makes a law saying that nobody must eat Chicken because of Avian flu, and yet you find people eating chicken, its does NOT mean that those people are evil law breakers who don’t know what’s right for them and their welfare must be given in the hand of the govt.
Rather, it simply means that people who still eat chicken would rather risk dying of Bird flue than to starve because of hunger. It is THEIR PREFERENCE.
Similarly, there are restaurants which charge you only Rs 25 for a plate of food, and there are restaurants which charge you Rs 50 for a plate of food. According to the law of supply and demand, people should simply stop going to the dearer restaurant and all the restaurant charging Rs 50 must go out of business.
Yet you see all the businesses striving. In fact if I came to your house as a guest and if you were to take me out somewhere, you wouldn’t take me out to Rs 500 per plate 5 star hotel, but at the same time you won’t take me to the cheapest restaurant either. In fact you would NEVER go to a really cheap restaurant because you are concerned about your hygiene.
Why? Because you know that there are various cost cutting measures employed by the cheap restaurants and you might get sick. Haven’t you heard your friends and family saying “don’t go to that restaurant, or else you might get sick by eating food there”.
The whole point is, for really poor people eating unhygienic food is a better option than starving.
YOU may not find a reason why people should resort to corruption for avoiding minimum hygiene laws, but there are PLENTY of reasons why people would do that.
Summarizing that point:
You wanna decide the minimum hygiene level yourself, this is why it is wrong and immoral, you must allow the market to do that. Corruption against the minimum hygiene laws clearly show that YOUR MORAL SCALE IS WRONG and not acceptable to everyone.
Nobody does that. Not sure how old are you, but try living on your own and you will see the beauty of personal decision making.
IF you don’t like unhygienic food, you will stop going to an unhygienic restaurant. You will PAY MORE and go to a better clean looking restaurant.
For example, there are restaurants where only Truck drivers stop and eat, since they are on job, so they need cheap food. Therefore their restaurants are cheaply constructed buildings, the water is unfiltered and acquired from a hand pump, chairs are shabby etc etc. Now if you were to enforce YOUR VALUE SCALE for Cleanliness, you will invite corruption on the behalf of the Dhaba owner. Because then truck drivers will flock to any dhaba which bribes the food dept people and does not follow the law.
Restaurants where food continuously causes people to fall sick get shut down pretty fast.
That’s your choice. You want clean stuff, go pay for more clean stuff. 5 star hotels are VERY VERY VERY Clean. Why don’t you ALWAYS eat in them??
Seriously how many times have you had food in 5 star hotels compared to the non-5star hotels??
No matter what you say you prefer, by choosing to go to a regular restaurant, you prefer the less hygienic environment of that restaurant over a 5 star restaurant’s super hygienic environment.
renegade_division Says:
May 10th, 2009 at 7:13 amOne more thing I wanna talk about, and I might write an article about it.
Real Preference vs Psychological Preference.
Lets say John says that he really prefers going to Switzerland for a vacation over going to Germany for a vacation.
But then he looks at the prices for the tickets and finds out that he is getting a deal on the air tickets to Germany for half the price compared to the ticket for Switzerland. So he ends up going to Germany for a vacation than Switzerland.
What does he really prefer? Going to Germany over going to Switzerland , or going to Switzerland over going to Germany.
Its clear that he real preference is to go Germany on half the cost, and maybe spend that extra money on something else. That is he prefers enjoying Germany and buying more stuff over enjoying only Switzerland.
Although lets say if he had won a contest and the award was an option between tickets to Switzerland and tickets to Germany, he would have taken former over the latter.
Similarly when people say they wanna prefer eating in a clean environment over an unclean environment, they are just telling you about their psychological preference.
On the other hand when they actually end up going to this cheap restaurant they are demonstrating that they prefer eating in unclean environment and using that extra money for something else, over just eating in a clean environment.
An example:
http://techniesk.com/women-worries-about-sound-of-jackhammers-effecting-her-unborn-child-while-smoking-a-cigarette
A woman is quoted that she is worried about the sound of jackhammers affecting her unborn child, but in the picture you can clearly see her smoking a cigarette.
What does that mean? It simply means that she doesn’t really care about her child, though she does say that she cares.
Vijayraj Says:
May 10th, 2009 at 8:53 amOK. You did trap me with my words :-) Your responses do remind me of Ayn Rand, Fountain head and of course…Atlas Shrugged. I BET you are an ardent believer yourself. I used to be a great AYN RAND fan myself….now I am a little less obsessed - not because the philosophy is not good..but because I find it incomplete. Anyway, that’s my PERSONAL opinion…and I don’t want to digress ;-)
Coming back…in short what I actually intended to say was though corruption forces you to take a lesser loss than being lawful - its a “loss” anyway. The hotel owner who bribes…might not pass on the Rs. 500 overhead to the customer…but he will of course HAVE to pass on the Rs. 100 BRIBE overhead to the customer. Either by charging more or reducing quality.
Infact, the Randian thought might make it more crisper. The government has ALREADY interfered and introduced its own value scale. Corruption just seeks to minimize the subsequent losses. So saying that my opinion means ‘Govt is always right’ would be too simplistic. In fact its the other way round. I am saying thaht the govt is WRONG - as wrong as imposing one’s moral scale on others can be (I leave that judgment to you!!) The corruption has already begun. The subsequent ‘corruption’ is just a measure to reduce the pain…or distribute it. In fact, looking at it this way…to me it seems taht YOU draw the line of ‘corruption’ only when the PUBLIC starts to pay ‘bribes’….and not when the govt introduces such a law in the first place. Just because its a law does not make it “right”. I am not talking about removing the govts value scale and introducing my own either.
My only fear is: Justifying corruption would end up justifying its origin: - somebody who imposed his own value over other’s…instead of just letting the market decide. If a person does it, he is a criminal..if a govt does it, its becomes a ‘law’.
Corruption/bribes is just an instrument of compromising with..and an indicator of the ABSENCE of a free market…and not an indicator of its PRESENCE. Calling them a mechanism of a free market justifies it. It is the sanctioning of the victim.
Yes, I would like the truck drivers to have their cheap meals for Rs. 10…and others in 5 star restaurants for Rs. 500. Because they ALL choose to. And I would like it to remain that way always..without the dhabawallas or their custiomers having to take hit by bribing the lawmakers at anytime.
Vijayraj Says:
May 10th, 2009 at 9:15 amBTW…I found the ‘story of inflation’ and the blog on article,currency AWESOME. Explains pretty complex concepts with nice analogies. You have a knack for that!!! And thanks for introdcuing me to mises.org. Its like finding a treasure!!!
renegade_division Says:
May 10th, 2009 at 10:17 amI am not an Ayn Rand Fan, I just read her “Atlas Shrugged”, though I am familiar with her philosophy.
So when you said I sound like her, I realized that I ended up using some phrases which sound like what she uses.
But my intention of those words was totally in a different set. My background is Austrian Economics, and Libertarianism, not Objectivism(with a capital O, as in philosophy associated with Ayn Rand, not the abstract school of though about objectivism).
The phrase which might have got you confused is “Value Scale”, or “Value Judgment”, this is not an Objectivist term, rather its from Austrian Economics. In fact my biggest problem with Objectivist movement is its value judgments.
Rand talks about objectivity, but then she blows it apart with the various value judgments about everyone, that religious people are retarded, and objectivity means no personal preference, but absolute value scale as she puts it.
Anyways, coming back to what I was talking about “Value judgment” means you cannot put values preferences on other people. For example Chicken is more nutritious than Wheat, but then saying that everybody must eat chicken, and punishing anyone NOT eating chicken(like the vegetarians) is putting YOUR value scale on them.
Austrian Economics insists that Economics must not make value judgments. If Jaini people are dying of hunger, and there are wild rabbits everywhere, you cannot criticize them or somehow use govt to force them to consume Rabbits when clearly they don’t think its eatable.
This is exactly what you do when you talk about “a basic minimum hygiene”. That is your criteria, let other people decide for themselves among themselves.
Well the competition ensures that he will have to pass the Rs 500 or Rs 100 overhead to the customer.
Unless the overhead is really really small, no business can survive by doing what you are saying. Anyone not passing the cost to the customer is doing charity, and his business establishment will not last for long.
I am serious about it, I cannot argue over this point, coz NO BUSINESS DOES THAT. Its completely impractical. You can go and talk to businesses out there.
I am not saying that every cost fluctuation is shown in the food prices, but food prices DO go up with cost increases.
Exactly where Rand is wrong. Govt is totally unnecessary. Even by her own philosophy Govt is unjustified, but somehow she justifies it.
Anyways enough of Rand. The point is, Govt ALWAYS distorts the value scale.
And Black Market is people’s way of enforcing their value scale. And this is the whole point of this discussion of the article. Bribery and corruption takes place because the govt imposes a value scale on the people, people don’t like that value scale so they bribe.
Similarly hygiene, people’s value scale is for less hygiene over more hygiene. That’s why poor people and houses will always remain dirtier than rich people and houses.
I am confused here, did you say in your first comment that “having a minimum level of hygiene requirement is totally justified”? Your minimum level of hygiene requirement is definitely higher than most people’s. Otherwise the restaurants would be much cleaner, they only adhere to the REAL preference of people, that is whether they want lower prices of more hygiene.
Sure I would love to have the govt go out completely, but then isn’t the govt laws anyways being neutralized by the black market? All I am saying is, there is no need to get agitated, or resist it, any more or less than resisting the govt intervention itself.
Well if you read it again I have never used the term “Free Market”, I always used the term “Market”, if you talk about the nature of the market then its a Black Market.
Black Market is not Free Market, but is a Market in every other aspect.
Good that you agree finally. I also want the same thing, but I wrote this article in an attempt to make people realize that Market(black or white) is not their enemy. Good thing that you understand Free Market, but most people don’t. The title of this article has made it quite a famous article on this site. More people read it more they understand Market.
Vijayraj Says:
May 10th, 2009 at 11:11 amNo. I did not mean that introducing a law for minimum hygiene was completely justified - or completely wrong or anything. Because that would again be a value judgment on my part
I gave it more to illustrate that corruption might seem white against the black background of something even worse - like a ‘ridiculous law’. So to introduce an element of grey - I introduced a ‘softer’ law. Just for driving home my actual point.
I am not sure where I seemed to convey taht the dhabawallas should NOT pass on the overhead of bribe and engage in ‘charity’. Infact I said that they would HAVE to. An unfortunate but inevitable overhead of an imposed value judgment
I agree that the black market neutralizes the government laws anyway. And a black market is better than no market. I just thought that your article seemed to say that black market/corruption/bribe is as good as a totally free market. Whereas in fact its just a pain killer, a work around - not the cure.And people should not end up confusing the two. But yes, as you said - you did not use the term ‘free’ market.
“Rand talks about objectivity, but then she blows it apart with the various value judgments about everyone, that religious people are retarded, and objectivity means no personal preference, but absolute value scale as she puts it” Exactly what I think. And even better put!!! She just thrashes all value judgments - and then imposes her own :-)
Whether government is totally unnecessary - hmm, I am not sure I agree completely. I think that merits a separate discussion though!! Have you read ‘Common sense economics’? They give a clear grouping of products that need/do not need a governemnt. Say products like ‘roads’
Also, one point I would like to bring up is that a free market is many times confused with ‘majority’ as in: Supply will follow what the majority demand. Though this is true…Many times (especially when things have reached a breaking point due to the ABSENCE of free markets) the majority FEARS the free market (when truth is too bitter) Say when it comes to eliminating heavy government subsidies etc. Though a free market is what works in the long term always, it might be hated because it displays reality without sugar coating it!! :-)
mishra Says:
June 17th, 2009 at 2:31 pmindia is not only corrupt and dirty ; it is filthy superficial, over crowdwd, cowardises, completely frauded and what not.
Arnab Says:
June 26th, 2009 at 6:09 pmA fat load of BS
Rahul Chaube Says:
October 25th, 2009 at 2:37 amI liked it.Good examples.Probably you could have elaborated on corruption about ministers,top officials etc.
Renegade Division Says:
October 25th, 2009 at 3:28 amRahul you are probably right, but then the focus on my article was aiming at the crowd(which probably is having millions of people in it) which believes that India is so dirty and corrupt because Indian people are dirty and corrupt(as in by nature) and the reason why USA and other western countries are so clean because their people are quite clean and honest. The same group of people uses the fact that Indians when they go to Singapore and USA would keep everything quite clean and follow cleanliness as the demonstration of the fact(rather than contradiction) that Indians are so dishonest that they would make a mess in India but not in USA/Singapore(I read Kalam’s speech saying the same thing).
The thing about politicians and ministers is the same thing except that talking about it would have diluted the article. The reason why public officials are corrupt, not because they are dishonest people or we elected the dishonest people, but because they are Public officials.
You have given them the power to be dishonest and not face consequences like any other private employee would, and then you expect honesty from him? Government employees in India are dishonest for pretty good reasons. Imagine the public health inspection official in the article who is being bribed by the restaurant owners. Do you think he is doing a good thing?
I think he is doing an awesome thing by accepting bribes. He is negating the disastrous effect of the stupid laws we have in India. The law was stupid, and it makes people waste say Rs 1000 everytime they wanna eat in a restaurant, so he accepts a smaller bribe, say Rs 100 and allows people to evade the law. Yes it happens from time to time that a corrupt official would accept money for a completely faulty product/service/contract, like a restaurant which causes food poisoning to its people. But the truth is, this is the price we have to pay, and we are not paying this price to have the privilege of eating for Rs 900 cheap, but its the cost we are paying for having that stupid law, its the punishment for having that law.
If that law didn’t exist, if the govt employees weren’t given powers for these kinds of stuff, then the restaurants will compete among each other for real value, rather than the govt instilled value. Most restaurants in America have way higher food quality inspection policies, inspected by the private food and health inspection agencies and the govt health inspection agencies are complete waste(it is to be noted that in America people prefer paying more for cleaner food than people in India prefer to pay for cleaner food, that’s why the private agencies have higher standards, whereas in India the private restaurants can self-manage their cleanliness and hygiene standards).
I would suggest you to read this article on how banning or prohibiting stuff results in creation of corrupt public officials and organized crime syndicates.
Prohibition always kills more people than non-prohibition
lecram Says:
December 22nd, 2009 at 8:25 amHaving just come back from India (and Nepal) I was very intrigued to see what Indians think of hygiene and the concept of filth/trash.
I think your article and arguments are specious - you should use real-life arguments to make your point rather than an unrealistic example of ‘gold utensils’ for 500Rs.
It would be simply prejudiced (maybe racist) to say that all Indians are dirty and unhygienic - but it is also incorrect to say that Indians aren’t unclean because they prefer uncleanliness and cheap prices over cleanliness and cheap prices.
Market competition keeps prices low in the West and the cost of cleanliness is not as high has you might think.
You are right that it is the government in India at fault - but the people must also take responsibility. It is YOUR fault if you throw rubbish on the street (rubbish is everywhere in India). It is YOUR fault if you spit on the street. It is YOUR fault if you urinate or defecate on the street. These things are dirty and these things are unhygienic.
In Australia we have much better infrastructure for dealing with waste. We have better waste management and better recycling. We have government campaigns to educate people not to litter our country. Spitting on the streets is considered dirty and urinating on the streets is illegal.
That’s not to say that our waste management is perfect or everything gets recycled - but we certainly don’t have piles of rubbish on every street corner where pigs and cows graze - this is very unhealthy for the cows which are sacred in India; surely if cows were considered sacred they would be treated better than this.
During our trip to India we saw people throwing rubbish (all rubbish: plastic, paper, food, cardboard etc) on the ground. Where do Indians think this rubbish goes? It is scavenged through by animals, some goes to landfill and is scavenged through by children, most ends up in the rivers or stays in the streets. This is absolutely shameful. I repeat: absolutely shameful. Your rubbish, which you throw on the ground goes into the rivers which you call ‘sacred’. What a paradox!
You can only blame the government so much - sure, in most parts of India the infrastructure is poor (sewerage is worse in the North than it was during the Indus Valley civilization). But it is your responsibility (and my responsibility) not to throw rubbish on the ground, to reduce the use of plastics, to not spit on the streets, and to keep the streets free from human waste. It is the responsibility of government to build better infrastructure and educate.
This may seem like an oversimplification - I have not lived in the country; only visited. So I would be interested in hearing your response to these comments which I do not wish to be inflammatory, but are actual responses I have had after my recent trip there.
Renegade Division Says:
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:11 am@Lecram
I am sorry but overall it sounds like you are still not over the shock of what you saw in India. Most of your post is more about “How could they?”, “That’s beyond comprehension”. I did not talk about public property in this article, I was only talking about private property.
All the places you saw which were so dirty, were public property. You could throw anything on the ground because its public property, nobody owns it.
If it is YOUR fault if you spit on the street, then why do the SAME people not spit in their houses or any body else’s house?
Let me give you a simple rule for post processing, If you saw any land where two people who don’t know each other are walking upon, or using it in some manner, and it does not bear a brand name(that is its not a store) that is a common property owned by the government.
I have peed in public in America, not because I wanted to do it but because I thought nobody in America does that and my American friends made me do it just as ‘rite of passage’ kind of thing on being American. I stopped doing it because I found out that there are laws in America where if you are found peeing in public that’s considered sex offense and then you will have to register in national sex offender registry and then you cannot live within 1000 ft of a church, school or a park.
And its pretty racist to think somehow being Indian comes with being dirty and unclean. You can shove up that smugness up your butt. If you weren’t racist you wouldn’t make judgments based on your petty understanding of the world, and at least acknowledge that maybe you don’t know that many things. We all have seen Australian racism, the level of education, which can educate everyone to not spit on street, yet cannot teach racial harmony to people.
I am sorry but what kind of education does a man need to understand that he shouldn’t spit in public? What have you taught your people which Indians cannot be taught? Get out of your cacoon of national identity, and think, there are two people standing in your living room, one is highly educated, other is highly illiterate, which one of them will spit in your room, and why?
The answer is, you cannot tell. Chances are, neither of them. They are on private property, they were invited their by the owner, education or no education, everybody knows not to do it.
Second question, would you pee in a jungle if you really had to go? Why or why not? If you are educated then shouldn’t you wait until you get out of the jungle, or hunt for a cabin or a toilet of some kind.
The point is education has nothing to do with anything. MY article was working on the rational reasons on why people act the way they do. Race is an irrational reason. Education is also an irrational reason in terms of a customary thing. Waste Management is the last thing which has to do with anything.
This blog is not about nationalist ****, this blog is not about the merits of education(or whatever makes you sleep well at the end of the day), this blog is about rationality, reason. Using Praxeology which uses human action axioms such as ‘Humans act purposefully’, I derived on the conclusion that the reason why Indian houses or private properties for public are more unclean(And this unclean isn’t really ‘trash all over the place unclean’, but more like why isn’t there a rug in every house, why its not vacummed daily, why the leaves aren’t collected and send to recycling, why grass isn’t cut every other week etc etc) than their western counterpart is because people can acquire more goods by not spending so much on cleanliness than they can if they did spend a lot on cleanliness.
This again explains why Indian roads and highways are so bad than say American highways and roads, well you aren’t going to spend Rs 100,000 per year on a road to your office which enables you to earn only Rs 50,000 a year. Even if you manage to make the worth of the road out in salary, people still prefer taking more pains traveling on a terrible road and spending that saved money on their family than taking the school fees out of the kids and using a smoother road to their office.
Of course roads aren’t private so these individual basis decisions aren’t really taken, but the government takes the same decisions when they perform economic calculations.
BTW if you don’t think you are being racist/nationalist, read the number of times you have done we/you in the second half of the post, I mean just re-read the second half of your comment.
lecram Says:
December 23rd, 2009 at 7:16 amWow - that was a very reactionist response to my comments; from reading your response I think it appears that you have missed the point of why I wrote on your ‘blog’. But, looking around the internet it seems the Indian people responding to such questions as ‘why is India so dirty’ have responded in an incredibly rude and defensive manner, rather than attempted to get to the heart of a problem which is really affecting Indian people and tourism.
You also did not address my point that your arguments are specious and it would be better to use real-life examples. I await a response (if you wish)
Overall, I found private RESIDENTIAL property to be very clean; almost obsessively clean. I do not think Indians are dirty; but public areas in India ARE dirty and it is a pity that Indian people can keep their houses clean, but certainly do not attempt to keep the area outside of their houses clean. Is this a lack of civic pride? (I ask this as a real question, not to be inflammatory).
In response to your question: ‘what kind of an education does a man need not to spit in public’ - the education needed is ‘public awareness’; you misunderstand my use of the term ‘education’. I do not mean that they must go to school. I mean the government should create public awareness campaigns to educate (ie. ‘impart knowledge’) that diseases such as the flu can be spread by saliva.
I have admitted to having a limited understanding of this issue and made it clear that I am aware it may be an oversimplification. This is why I posted here, expecting a rational and adult response. For you to personally attack me as racist and having a ‘limited understanding of the world’ prevents us from having any logical and polite discussion about why there is an issue with pollution in India.
It is incorrect to say that ‘public property does not belong to anyone’ - public property belongs to THE PUBLIC - in a legal sense, to the Indian people and the government. This does not mean that it is then ok to mistreat it. In fact, The World belongs to us all and if one person drops a plastic bottle on the street (in any country) or drives a car (in any country) then this impacts on us all. The plastic bottle may end up in the ocean and the carbon monoxide may end up in the atmosphere. This is not an issue of nationalism, it is an issue of common sense, morality, love for nature and the survival of our species.
To answer your question: ‘would I pee in the jungle if I needed to go?’ Well, there’s no yes or no. If I could wait, I would wait. But if I couldn’t then I wouldn’t - and I would feel find about it because I know there are microorganisms in the jungle fully capable of breaking down anything harsh in my urine. I would also know that the jungle does not have a densely built-up population of humans, who could contract disease from my urine. In India, people urinate in areas with a dense population - so it is not just one person’s urine but thousands of people’s urine in one area. This causes imbalance: there are not enough microorganisms to break down the nitrogen from the urine and there would also be a higher chance of contracting diseases which are spread through urine. I would be comfortable urinating in the jungle because there would be little chance of another human finding it before it was broken down. However, I would not urinate within 100 feet of water (ie a lake or stream)
I’m shocked that you would think that waste management has nothing to do with issues of pollution. I see your use of Praxeology would suggest that Indians do not rank reducing pollution/rubbish high in the scale of things they want in their life. It is interesting how much one has to generalize to make this assumption. Praxeology was a science developed to work out truths in human nature; but your examples are too exaggerated, too generalized and too unspecific to have come to any truth. They may sound logical, but they have little mirroring in the real world. I think it would be better to spend your thinking time and your use of logic in real-world scenarios. Go to one area and look at why it is dirty. Ask some people. Speak to heads of government. Look at the infrastructure. You may find that there are many reasons. You may find that people have varied thoughts and views on the issue. You may also like to have another play with Praxeology and you could restructure your argument to show that pollution is one of the most pressing sources of dissatisfaction for many everyday Indian people, but desire for wealth is the most pressing goal for members of government. Or you might find that it’s the other way around. Chances are, this kind of reasoning will never give you any real answers. It will give you answers; but not real ones.
I do not believe I was being racist in my comments (or smug) - please re-read what I wrote: To summarize I said “it WOULD be racist to say those things” (ie. I am NOT saying those things as it would be an oversimplification).
India does have a major problem with pollution: pollution in the air, pollution in the water; rubbish and waste (both organic and toxic) on the streets. If this is pointed out to you and your response is to accuse someone of racism, and to be defensive, then we know where part of the problem lies. Australia has big problems with rubbish and waste too - but when this is pointed out, I believe that generally action is taken to attempt to fix the problem. You have misunderstood my comments as nationalism based on racism and you have also assumed I am white Australian. I’d rather not contribute to a post when the author responds irrationally and loses the focus of the original subject so I hope you see fit to make good, honest points and argue like a gentleman rather than a raging teenager.
Just one more point regarding ‘Australian racism’ - racism does exist in Australia (as in any country) but it is only found within a tiny minority of people (usually teenagers looking for a fight). To accuse Australia of being racist is a racist comment in itself. Australia is not a racist society (but has pockets of racism and has a racist past).
The perceived racism was a media beat-up. Independent sources of news will give you a more accurate story. Generally Australia has opened its arms up to Indian people and most of us were shocked that Indians were perceived as targets for racists. Most Australians have never seen racism against Indians or even heard of Indians being a target for racism (except maybe in a primary school playground).
In my understanding of Indian history, India is a far more racist and segregated society (for example 2500 Muslims massacred in Gujarat in 2002). Nothing like this happens in Australia.
lecram Says:
December 23rd, 2009 at 7:23 amJust one more point regarding ‘Australian racism’ - racism does exist in Australia (as in any country) but it is only found within a tiny minority of people (usually teenagers looking for a fight). To accuse Australia of being racist is a racist comment in itself. Australia is not a racist society (but has pockets of racism and has a racist past).
The perceived racism was a media beat-up. Independent sources of news will give you a more accurate story. Generally Australia has opened its arms up to Indian people and most of us were shocked that Indians were perceived as targets for racists. Most Australians have never seen racism against Indians or even heard of Indians being a target for racism (except maybe in a primary school playground).
In my understanding of Indian history, India is a far more racist and segregated society (for example 2500 Muslims massacred in Gujarat in 2002). Nothing like this happens in Australia.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:00 pmI have never seen Renegade Division ever getting reactionary or angry or whatever while answering someone’s comment. You are the lucky chap to get his attention, or may be you were enough wrong.
I don’t think “Public Awareness” has anything to do with cleanliness. Rather cleanliness is a matter of education of profit and loss.
In an Indian village, at a farm, if one spits, or looses his excrete, it obviously adds up in the farm as “Biological Fertilizer” and increases the productivity of the farmland. When the same man goes to a city where, the land is obviously not requiring any human natural service to add fertilizer to the land, if he pees in the lonely corner of a street, it becomes a reason of dirt.
Now he needs to think/learn that by spiting or peeing around, he is not helping anyone.
Also, no matter people throw their dirt in open farms in villages, villages are much more clean and environment friendly than most of the cities.
Renegade Division is further right about the issue of private property and that can be proved by the wide contrast between a private toilet service centre near a highway or Bus stand and a government administered “Sulabh Shauchalaya” (Free toilets). Obviously, the private service providers are cleaner.
As I said earlier, in a village, when one throws excrete out of his body in a farm near the village road/street, it increases the fertility of the farm. He doesn’t need any education to realize that in a city his spitting or similar actions are of no use to anyone. Also, he need proper facilities to throw his wastes at appropriate place. Just because peeing may spread disease, a person cannot stop peeing. So he need proper toilets near the roads. Now if a road is privatized, obviously, the road owner will provide proper facilities to avoid dirt on his property. In case of government owned roads, its futile to aspect any proper services. Government may get some success at maintaining the major roads/streets of some of the major cities, but it is certainly impossible for government to provide any such environment that supports/promotes overall cleanliness. Privatization will obviously be successful in doing so because that will ensure more profits.
That means nothing. I am Indian, Taj Mahal is in India, that doesn’t make Taj Mahal my property. If I spit at my house, I will be the person who will have to clean it because it is my property, if someone else spits on my house, I may slap him, because it is my house. If same person goes to Taj Mahal and spits on its walls, I won’t care. Why should I care? I don’t get any revenue or sort of comfort if or not a tourist visits Taj Mahal.
lecram Says:
December 26th, 2009 at 6:47 amInteresting take on the matter - which really (for me at least) highlights why India has such a problem with pollution and rubbish in the streets.
In response to your comments that farmers use excrement as fertilizer:
- In many countries this is illegal because it is the best way to transmit disease. Human diseases are spread by human waste.
This highlights my point about education: not in the sense of an academic education, but simply imparting the knowledge that human waste contains disease.
The argument of ‘profit and loss’ is invalid when it becomes an issue of ‘life or death’ or hospitalization or civic duty and morality.
Definitely better infrastructure such as public toilets would counter the argument that ‘if you gotta go, you gotta go’ - and talk of finance comes into it if you are thinking about privatizing. However, this is a governmental responsibility and proper handling of income (eg from taxes or reducing misappropriation of money in governments) would increase money available to infrastructure.
Your argument that the ‘it is certainly impossible for government to provide any such environment that supports/promotes overall cleanliness’ intrigues me. Why is this? Is it a population issue? As a citizen of India and a taxpayer I would think you would demand this. How can other countries have great infrastructure, sanitation and environment policy when others cannot?
Your comments about the Taj Mahal are also interesting for a number of reasons. There seems to be this recurring comment that “it’s not my property so why should I care?” It is such a nonsensical argument for so many reasons! IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT MONEY! The whole world is our property - or, more accurately, our RESPONSIBILITY. We all have to reduce the impact we are having on the environment, no matter where we are. While in India it would have been so easy for me to spit on the streets or throw my rubbish on the streets but I would NEVER do that. In fact, I took rubbish back with me to Australia to be recycled because I knew the facilities were not readily available in India.
You used the example of the Taj Mahal, which is in fact changing colour due to acid rain which is caused by pollution - so the Indian government has set up the Taj Trapezium Zone.
Honestly, does it really not affect you that one of your country’s most well known monuments is being degraded by pollution?
Just like you hold your own private property sacred and would ‘slap someone’ if they spat in your house, some people hold public property sacred regardless of financial gain or loss.
There are more kinds of ‘wealth’ than just financial wealth and I’m sure you can even play with Praxeology to find a formula that reveals people will begin to put their health, the health of others and the earth in front of financial well being.
I’m so surprised that at no point has anyone said: ‘I know, this is horrible and we need to change this.’ There are people in India who are outraged by the pollution and rubbish on the streets; there are people who are doing things to counter it. It’s just a pity that some people have the attitude that “it’s not my property” and will continue to throw their rubbish, spit and excrement on the streets while a humble few clean up after them.
The most revealing sentence in your comments is “Why should I care?”
If you really need an answer to that question take a walk outside.
And, if you ever do see someone urinate on the street you might want to point out that a lot of people in India actually live on the streets and it’s not very nice to piss around where they sleep (as a matter of respect, if not of cleanliness).
pradeep Says:
January 3rd, 2010 at 8:56 pmthe person who has come out with this article is absouloutly foolish he has done no research on anything but has just put this article when he was drunk i think i really wasted my time reading this bull ****
Renegade Division Says:
January 3rd, 2010 at 9:16 pmWhich part do you think is completely trash, the fact that world thinks Indian people are dirty and corrupt, or the part where I gave a rational explanation to it?
Lets take a simple question and see what you think is an answer to it.
Why doesn’t India have good roads like western countries? Its not like India does not have the technology to build awesome roads.
1) Western countries have more honest and efficient governments so they build good roads there, India has a corrupt and inefficient govt so they don’t build good roads.
2) It makes no sense to have a road which is build by spending Rs 5,00,000 a year on it when the revenue collected from that road(which is an indicator of the amount of utility it is to the people) is no more than Rs 3,00,000 a year. The utility I am talking about is not how much do you think this road is valuable or useful to you, but how much money will you be willing to pay to drive on this road. This number will never be more than the amount of extra money you make by driving on a worse road.
For example if lets say your office is at 1 hour drive. Total time you spend driving on that road is 2 hours a day(back and forth). If a better road enables you to drive faster so you reach to the office in half the time, this means you are having 1 hour extra working in the office, and you earn Rs 100 extra everyday because of a faster road then the maximum amount you will pay to drive on that road will be Rs 100.
If the cost of the road comes to Rs 500, whether you pay that money or not, its a wastage of resources.
Irrespective of how much you complain about the road, its just not worth paying Rs 500.
Now whether you really work that extra hour or spend it at home with your kids or do whatever with that saved hour makes no difference. Your opportunity cost of an hour is Rs 100. For all that matters you could stop on your way to office and spend 1 hour everyday at a coffee shop and thereby taking same time to reach home.
The point is logically speaking until our jobs are really worth running on that smooth roads Americans and western countries enjoy we are not going to have those kinds of roads. Our time will not be worth saving until the value of our labor in India goes up.
The above is an example of the kind of rational approach I have used in my article. I know this article is posted at a lot of blogs and forums by all sorts of people, those who wanna explain things or just wanna use it(without even reading it) to throw dirt at Indians. But Pradeep, something tells me you haven’t even properly read the article.
Maloon Says:
February 16th, 2010 at 10:21 amA lot of the West is sanitized and clean but lifeless. India is dirty but there is real life in the streets.
Some European cultures get it right. Lots of life on the streets, markets, but also clean. However others get it wrong. The government sits on the back of people and businesses unleashing an endless stream of taxes, regulations, and edicts. This sucks the life out of
India must work as a whole to squash corruption however. It is a betrayal of the entire concept of public service. If theres not enough money for the public servants hire less. If people are using government power as a racket, find them and put them in prison.
The US is starting to suffer as a whole because of corruption and bribery also.
zais Says:
February 17th, 2010 at 6:22 amboo. this are all lame excuses and we indians are dirty, corrupt, greedy. raciest etc etc. we always try to hide our dirty faces under some neatly woven excuses. please wright some truth and try to open our eyes. I want my country to be the best.
khalida begum Says:
March 12th, 2010 at 10:49 amIndia is dirty because of over population,that creates lack of education and awareness-poverty,which means schools cannot be afforded by the poor.Government schools are useless.
Overpopulation is an answer to everything in India,besides the heat,less rains.Lot of dirt gets washed in western countries due to rains.
People are corrupt because the leaders are corrupt,and people are selfish-they like to read the righteous in their religions but not follow it practically,Indians are dishonest to themselves and wouldnt like to face it ,they are hypocrites.Also they never revolt,because they believe in karma theory-if the ruler is harrasing us,making us poor,its all in our karmas!!!
India,Pakistan,Afghanistan and the likes are a big burden on the world.
kakku Says:
March 27th, 2010 at 6:18 amhi folks,,, india is unclean because people in villages had no formal education,, you will get what i mean if you skip between city and so,,,india will developed if the mind set of people changed ,,she only produces most no of graduates in world..u.s is far behind,even obama concious about indian kids overtaking americans,, to get off rotten all they have to got off what they called politics,, personal hygine is high in india but poor performance in public sanitaion because no body cares about it,,, and indians far advanced in mental cleanliness than western people,,they hate gunshots,, but they like to piss on free air,,rock on…….
stewart Says:
March 30th, 2010 at 10:59 pmI shall tell why india is a corrupt nation
IT IS BECAUSE OF OVER POPULATION
IT IS BECAUSE THE POLITICIANS OF OUR COUNTRY FEED THEMSELVES BEFORE THE DO ANYTHING GOOD FOR THE COUNTRY
IT IS BECAUSE AN HONEST SERVICE CLASS EMPLOY IS NOT ALLOWED TO WORK IN AN HONEST WAY… HE HAS TO PAY THE MINISTERS TO GET A DECENT POSTING.
THE MINISTERS OF OUR COUNTRY BEHAVE MORE LIKE MIDDLEMEN THAN MINISTERS..
JUST LOOK AT OUR PARLIAMENT HOUSE… YOU CAN FIND ALL KINDS OF CRIMINALS THERE….I AM NOT SAYING THAT ALL OF THEM ARE BUT THERE ARE QUITE MANY..ALL SORTS OF CHARGES AGAINST THEM.
CORRUPTIONS STARTS FROM THE TOP
Aneel Says:
June 10th, 2010 at 8:42 pm“That means nothing. I am Indian, Taj Mahal is in India, that doesn’t make Taj Mahal my property. If I spit at my house, I will be the person who will have to clean it because it is my property, if someone else spits on my house, I may slap him, because it is my house. If same person goes to Taj Mahal and spits on its walls, I won’t care. Why should I care? I don’t get any revenue or sort of comfort if or not a tourist visits Taj Mahal.”
I’ve come across this stupid way of thinking far too often. Something about the subcontinent seems to breed tiny minds with selfish outlooks. I prefer not to go there any more, because there’s nothing worth going for. Stupidity, filth, noise, ignorance and dishonesty. That’s India.
stewart Says:
July 2nd, 2010 at 6:17 am@shalini
we are a group of patriots ma’am who are frustrated by the indian leadership.
we have been frustrated by the indian leader since time immemorial, our aim is not just to crib but to spread awareness to readers like you who are far, far, FAR away from the ground reality of the indian society. we cannot just sit at home and say that everything is all right when it is nothing near all right. Supressing the truth, ignoring the truth will lead to much worse consequences than we are sitting in today.
If you read this coment today then I would urge you to switch on your television and tune to any of the news channels. the top two stories playing are the naxalite violence and the unrest in kashmir. the naxalites were law abiding indian citizens too who kept hoping that situation will improve someday but when it did not they had to do what they are doing today. when they were sitting quietly waiting for food, water, jobs for the young generation… their appeals were ignored by people like MADHU KODA who was busy involved in a multimillion rupee scam. No one was listening to these problems but now suddenly when they have picked up the arms everyone is like those naxalites are out of their minds breaking the law.. Though I am not saying that what naxalites are doing is completely right but then what else can they do. some people say there is a non violent way. Like what… a candle dharna at the india gate? the amount of problems we have in the country there will be a wax hump bigger then the india gate itself. We people have become selfish because we know that no politician, no government will improve our standards of living, we have to earn ourselves and move up in society, this is where the corruption starts. It is a chain started from the top..
Just think about this..
Where does all the tax money go?
yes, they are spending it on defense and what else? thats it.
where is the inflation going?
IS delhi ready for the commonwealth games?
or was the delhi govt. busy demolishing houses and taking corruption money from people like me.. Yes I had to pay because they would not let me construct my house. For every truck of trolly of construction material that came to my house I had to pay something to the police.
This is the truth we have to live with in india. and shalini it doesnt change by saying AAl IS WELL, Aamir might be able to do it but sorry I cannot.
Please step out for yourself and see our beautiful country.. it is really beautiful.. even troubled parts like kashmir are very beautiful but its depressing to see our country go down. They say the gdp is this much the economy is growing.. yeah that must be happening in metros like delhi bombay but wts happening in the naxal it areas someone is robbing the coal mines, iron ores and I refuse to believe that the local authorities do not know.
we are emptying our country from the inside out.. I say inside out because this time its not the britishers, Its us WE THE PEOPLE of INDIA…
freedom fighters like bhagat would be feeling bad today, he must be thinking that why did he sacrifice his life for the country. Did the freedom fighters sacrifice the country so that our politicians can replace the britishers, well britishers would have been better.
Please think about it and see for ourself sometimes even the news channels do not have the real story and sometimes they are even paid to keep shut.
Its all about paisa today.
*there has been no exaggeration in this comment about any instance of corruption.
Shalini Says:
July 10th, 2010 at 8:25 pmThis is the stupidest article I have read. It is becasue of people like YOU that India is still dirty and corrupt!!! You people never want to strive to be better, just take the easy route! Dont blame the Amercians for actually having some minimum standards! You are putting your own people down by saying “don’t expect teh same from India”.
Renegade Division Says:
July 12th, 2010 at 12:11 am@Shalini, I refuse to believe that you read or understood the article. I am sorry.
India Association Says:
August 4th, 2010 at 7:45 pmOur country is full of corrupt officials. We should now stand up together and bring a complete change. Join Young India Association
say no to net ids Says:
August 15th, 2010 at 8:23 pmthis is absolute ****, do u honestly believe in ur bollocks. india is corrupt cause its politicians are bought and sold like the pigs they are. if india was not as corrupt as you think why does india go with the rest of the rat race in increasing taxes, using false flag attacks to put its citizens in a secure jail with no freedom of movement and expression, take civil liberties away such as the not so far away requirement of a net id, monitoring of peoples movement lifestyle (we are not monkeys), genetically modified food, concept of fake money. one final word to you all wake up before you realize you owe everything to me.
PaPankaj Says:
September 11th, 2010 at 9:19 amIf one goes on thinking rationally why, why , why …i.e. why no education. public awareness , is because a lot more people need to be educated…. a lot more cars than the roads can susatin, a lot more people to feed than the govt has its capacity, a lot more people to impart formal/informal education and most important infrastructure…. a lot more people with 1 toilet at every street can manage with….
So a lot has to do with population as its roots and that can be controlled as in china with 1 child policy throughout imparating common civil code for all residents (any reliogion any race)….foloowed by strict law implementation, followed by streamlining the existing infrastructure…followd by improvements in living condifitions….follwed by changing the system one by one….
Pankaj Says:
September 11th, 2010 at 11:25 amOK so India is dirty and Corrupt….Now what can I and we collectively do to improve the situation???
Results should be powerful enough rather than the question why?