we have all inured ourselves into a 'culture of corruption'

My writings on corruption helped me out

Internationally-acclaimed American-Indian architect and planner, who is settled in Pune, steered clear of the lanes of bribery

Christopher Benninger

When I first arrived in Pune in 1976, RA Zubairy, ICS, shared his wisdom. First he cautioned me: "India is a religious country, but not an ethical one!" Then he warned me of corruption's long arm, distinguishing between "corruption of coercion and corruption of collusion"! I recently experienced the first kind of corruption when applying to the Pune collectorate to have a piece of land demarcated. Later, I came to know that there are officially 'two lanes' of government service — the regular, old lane and the fast 'tatkal' lane for which there was a higher official fee. I realised both these roads headed nowhere! There a third lane called the 'grease my palm' lane — to pay a coercive bribe. A young lady clerk, less than 26 years old, put up the first proposal. She quoted a bribe of Rs1 lakh! We decided to wait a few weeks for the second lane, and as suspected, it was a dead end. Many visits later, we saw our case up on the notice board with a cell number next to the name of a surveyor. We called him and he referred us to his 'PA' at his 'private office', which emerged to be a typing stall at Sadashiv Peth. The PA had shifted the venue of corruption from the government sphere to civil society. "If you want it this week, it will be Rs20,000. We can do it for Rs15,000 if it's next week." We opted for a fourth path: Newton's Law; an equal force in the opposite direction equals no force! I sent the saheb in the surveyor's office a dossier of my articles on Pune's development, or lack thereof, highlighting corruption in our urban management strategy, and noted his key role in bringing order and rationality to the city's land development regime and urban plan. He was a good student! Within two weeks we got a call to have our chalk ready and our lineout poles on site as, "We have no time and we're going to do it fast". My belief is that these are potentially good people who know how to do a good job. But we have all inured ourselves into a 'culture of corruption' where neither side thinks twice; life has become one of 'corruption of collusion'!