Everyone is corrupt, then why target politicians At the outset, the first part of the problem statement is surely

farfetched in the absence of concrete evidences in support of the same. Bereft of a scope/context to analyze the argument, I wish to set the argument to the Indian context and proceed. Admissibly, there is widespread corruption in the society and there can be no denying the fact that corruption is a cancer for any society, more so for the developing ones. An old quote in Sanskrit reads Yatha Raja, Thata Praja, meaning the citizens only mirror the kings. Historically, India has been a country of followers and continues to be so, understandably. The kings, perhaps, played the most crucial part in contributing to the character of the society. The honest, upright and competent ones were a huge draw in their kingdom and they set tall standards of public life for their citizens to emulate. Sadly however, things have changed and the social disease called corruption started setting in to Indian political establishment in the mid 1960s, has since taken deep roots and now looks extremely difficult to eliminate. Beyond doubt, there is possibly not an office in India now untarnished by corruption, from the ones lower in the power pyramid to the higher ones. So, who is to be blamed? There is a huge swell of public opinion on the dire need to revamping the political and electoral systems and serious tirade against the politicians. Invariably, the question of why only politicians arises? A countrys character is undeniably governed by the quality of its government in terms of providing impeccable governance and maintenance of law and order. Although, luckily, by and large governments have been able to reinforce law and order, all the governments since independence have miserably failed to provide good governance. The quality of leadership has deteriorated with time across levels of the government machinery. Since the people in power are most responsible for a countrys well being and since the power flows from top to bottom, it is absolutely imperative that the leader perched on the top of the system sets really tall standards of professional and public life and let them be known very clearly to the other functionaries and the fellow countrymen. Because the Prime Ministers and the Chief Ministers have not been able to articulate their stand and ensure such standards are always met, either because of inability or because of political coalition based compulsions and because effective governance is a product of the sum of outstanding work that needs to be done at every single office of the government for which various ministers and legislators are responsible, the politicians become accountable, most importantly, the Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers. It is precisely because most of the politicians have shunned responsibility and accountability, big time, and are shamelessly living in denial to popular public demands and perceptions, they are being targeted. Most politicians make god fathers and get ensconced thereafter, in their positions of power. Along with meritocracy, quality too has gone for a toss. Sadly and bitterly, politics is now viewed as an easy route to making seriously big and quick money, with little investment. How else do you explain the series of scams that have ravaged the country in the last 20-25 years? Year after year, the country ranks far below in the Transparency Internationals Corruption Index (India, in 2010, has an index value of 3.3 in a scale of 10, 10 being very clean and 0 most corrupt. It is a shame that the country has been able to do nothing about tackling the epidemic despite knowing it has serious repercussions on business, trade and delivery of social services and justice. Whom else does one blame, other than the legislators for this? Consider the classic case of Singapore (Refer http://www.tdri.or.th/reports/unpublished/os_paper/ali.pdf). The author says In 1959, when Singapore attained self-government, we inherited from the British a government service where corruption was quite rampant. Syndicated corruption and greasing the palms of public officers in return for the services was common. Enforcement action then was difficult against the corrupt because of various reasons. After independence the political leaders amended the laws to give more powers to the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) officers. To win public trust and confidence, the leaders took it upon themselves to set good examples for public officers to follow. They created a climate of honesty and integrity. Some of the examples set were: a. they divested themselves from any involvement in financial or commercial ties; b. they reported for work earlier than their subordinates. Besides setting good examples, legislative measures were also taken by the new political leaders to ensure that the anti-corruption law was adequate and provided sufficient punishments for corrupt offenders. The law was revamped to give more powers to CPIB officers and punishments for corruption offences were enhanced. The law is reviewed regularly to ensure that offenders do not escape from legal punishment and that corruption does not pay. If the offence relates to a government contract or involves a Member of Parliament or a member of public body, the term of imprisonment can be increased to seven years. Besides fine and imprisonment, the person convicted of corruption offence will be ordered by the court to return the amount of bribe, which he had accepted in the form of a penalty. In addition to the punishment, which the court may y impose on a convicted person, the court is also empowered to order the confiscation of the property obtained by corrupt offenders. A public officer who is convicted in court of a corruption offence will also lose his job and if he is a pensionable officer, his pension and other benefits as well. He will also be debarred from any future public appointment. Now, if anybody can do anything about tackling corruption, it is the politicians. Because, they have been abysmal and irresponsible, they are being targeted and justifiably so.