Corruption Tree

One day, the great king of great territory announced,” from now onwards, drinking wine is strictly outlawed and if anyone was found drunk, would be directly hanged till death.” The sudden decision of king spread in every nook and corner of city like fire in the forest. People became restless as it was not easy to leave their lifelong addiction in one moment. A group of dignitaries were formed to present their case before the king.

The chief of the group said with a ton of humbleness,” O, Great king! You are mightier in the mightiest. Please let us give some time to leave this addiction. Otherwise half the people of city would be hanged.”

Meanwhile a villager who was standing near the group whispered to his neighbour, “How fool our chief is! Does he not know that king's decision would be valid for a single day? “

To the embarrassment, his neighbour replied in mocking tone,” if you were so intelligent, you would be chief. It is such a serious issue and you, fool, are beating about the bush.”

The villager replied with annoyance, “Don’t you see, king himself is drunk. Do you think that king would like to be hanged too? Once king would come into sense, no longer this decision would be valid.”

King tried to answer the ‘chief’ but to the surprise of courtiers and people, he trembled and fell to the ground and his crown rolled and rolled and hit the feet of the villager.

Analysis:

 What I want to illustrate through this story is the distorted image of corruption of which we are somewhat addicted to. Corruption is more like a banyan tree that grows from the roots but once it is rooted deep it become so hard to drag it up. So the best way to kill the tree is to cut it branches, its twigs, its trunk and slowly- slowly it would get weaker and could be killed.

Corruption in society starts from basic level; like from a village, spreads to higher level. But to eliminate it, it would be better to eliminate it from bigger level to basic level.

How can we expect a thief to leave his act when the police take bribes?

How can we expect from babus to be honest when bureaucrats and leaders at higher level stock illegal money in their Swiss account.

How can we expect a student to be prudent and honest when his teacher himself is not prudent and honest?

It’s the system that is forcing the commoner to become corrupt.

No Corruption-preventive law can be fully utilized unless we start blotting corruption out from the top.

CBI is not meant only for investing and solving petty cases. It is shame for CBI for not to be able to solve bigger cases.  Do you want to read about this more? Click here

*I am not here blaming people at the higher level for more corruption than people, at lower level. I just want to suggest a solution for its prohibition. Individual transformation is required for tackling corruption but I always feel the need of catalyst in form of inspiration and motivation that can be better transferred from people at higher level.

*I have tried my best to write the story congruent to the message I want to deliver. But if anyhow I have not succeeded. Please read it as two separate posts...