The whole question of corruption is built around what gets corrupted and what corrupts. We need to address these questions. Anna is leading a great movement in the country these days, and lakhs have thronged to meet the great man and pledge support.

AFTER A  very long period has emerged an issue, which is making the whole country sit and think. When I first heard about it , I got the feeling, "So what, one more mass event.. like the cricket magnum opus,a television spectacle that will grab public attention for a while. Maybe this will last for a while and perhaps cause discomfort for a couple of bigwigs, so what. Maybe I'am angry that I have to pay more money everytime I have to get something done from the government, so what? Dont we realise that these are all fleeting emotions. What happens once the heat cools down? Wont we be back to bribing our way? Or is there some fundamental shift that we can affect on ourselves and society later?"

Now that the public mood has been stoked up like never before and collective attention is focused on the actual issue of corruption itself, should we not first attempt to understand what corruption is. Not as piece of it here and there but the whole concept itself. For without this we will be attacking the visible symptoms of corruption not the very idea itself and as long as the idea remains it will rise its ugly head in some other form.

To get to the root of it all lets consider two most prominent branches of corruption , that which happens in an individual's private life and that which occurs in his public life. Firstly, lets look at the obvious form of corruption, and then let's consider a more subtler variety.

Common economic knowledge is that premium is paid over and above the regular cost for an exclusive service. Isn't corruption in public domain a premium for an exclusive service as well. The question hence is why is the service exclusive? If the service is publicly available then how can the requirement for a premium on it survive? Hence, there must by a party or parties, which have interests in keeping the services which should have been widely available scarce. By introducing scarcity this party breeds competition. Hence, ensues a struggle for survival of the fittest. In strictly economic sense of the word it may also be termed 'survival of the richest'.

As long as people are caught in this vicious circle of scarcity and competition they fail to see the game plan. How do we solve this problem - simply reduce the scarcity or factors inducing scarcity. For example, if for every 1000 vehicles that ply on the roads if there is just one registration person the premium for his service is a thousand times his regular income.

Hence, he has an incentive to be corrupt. No matter how hard some one tries unless this ratio changes the situation cannot change.

When hiding truth is in some ones interest then begins corruption. This could be for many reasons some holy and some sinister. Parents hide things from their children out of their fear that their children lack the maturity to handle the truth this is a reason worth appreciation. Some politicians hide truth from their constituencies so that they can cover up for their faults. This process of thought corruption can be as simple as an inducement that appeals to the constituents tendency to a more thorough planting of mysteries that obfuscate the seeker. The solution to this form of corruption is more a civilizational and evolutionary in nature. Those civilizations which have a strong desire to seek after the truth retain their vitality in spite of centuries and adversities while those which seek to obfuscate it tend to get relegated to the annals of history.

So let's hope that this old man, who so appeals to our quest to set out after truth, succeeds in his inspiration.