Wrote about corruption and me sometime back...and at the time basically told myself I won't be corrupt. Will pay the fine or live the hard life, but till its possible, won't be corrupt.
but then since then, and its not been so long, there have only been a couple of incidents where there was the temptation to bribe, one was for a traffic rule violation (where fine was not even an option apparently, I was prodded to bribe, or my vehicle would be taken kinds, anyways stood my ground and won the battle that day) and another was for comfort.
Anyways someone close when through an incident recently, which kind of left me fuming. Not to bore you with the story, they were drinking (and moderately at that) and having hookah, at their own house, seems neighbors complained about the noise (there were not playing music, only 5 friends playing pictionary) and cops showed up. Thulas really, or hawaldars. They searched the house, found a couple of empty beer bottles, couple of hookahs and started haggling. Started with 3 lacs. Ultimately the 5 ended up paying a pretty big amount and ran from the spot in what they jokingly refer to as their DK Bose moment.
anyways...so why am I fuming and where do rules come in.
Well this happened in the big city in the 'dry state'. and since its a dry state, having a single bottle of beer at your place means your are breaking the law and can be put behind the bars for an unbailable offense against your name. Really, 1 bottle is all it takes. These guys were at home, not high and pretty much just enjoying their house warming party. and that should be fine, but since the rules or law says that its not, it gave an opportunity to the cops to just extort money!
I am not a big fan of rules, they are the opposite of freedom. Rules are generic, static and mostly archaic. They are inefficient, have to be enforced, and by their nature are prone to being broken. Rules by nature are unnatural...they always try to change or block the natural way something would be done. But then I understand the requirement of rules, well 1.2 billion people with a handful of not the best of the breed governing them, what choice do you have but to make a million rules. If you'd have more creative people governing us then maybe we'd have more natural ways of controlling things, but well look at Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, thats not gonna happen.
So ok, we have rules, agree there is no other easy way of managing things, it makes life easier and predictable for most. A rule kind of brings everyone to the same plane, it applies to everyone, and so for the 80% junta, it works.
Well the problem is with that 20% exception to whom the rule should not apply too, who get unfairly treated because of that rule, who loose their freedom because of that rule. For eg, in the case about, it was a house party, they were not drunk, and had not created (ok a little bit) any ruckus, so how was it fair for 5 cops to barge into their HOME and extort money because they broke a 'RULE'.
So what to do, rules are necessary, but then I think that the enforcer of that rule should have the judgement and power to make exceptions. and if not, the person or institution above should, and it should be ensured that the decision to enforce the rules goes to that point in the ladder.
Also there should be a will on everyones part to obey the rules till it is actually necessary to take the exception route. Me for example only break rules when necessary, and that really in some ways has helped me, because when i have a reason to break the rule (which is different from convenience and all that), I mostly have found myself not getting caught.
anyways, one of my worst posts, and really a rant!!! Still was fuming and so...
take care.
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