Immorality is a universal phenomenon. Corruption has become a normal feature of our day to day public life. Political corruption has greatly degraded politics, administration and public life. Corruption is so deep-rooted menace that people forgot the values of morality, virtue , honesty and truth.
It is an admitted fact that if the top is not clean, the bottom is bound to be unclean. It is oft-quoted that corruption starts from palaces and revolution from hurts. Corruption breeds at the top and then gradually filters down to lower levels.
Those days have gone when the people used to enter into politics with full swing spirit fo serving the country and sacrificing for the nation. In pre-independence era, people had thrown themselves in the freedom fight knowing well that they were only meant to sacrifice their wealth and life for the nation and no return was expected . But, now the modern politicians are entirely of different set up and get up. After wining the election at a huge expenditure, they, first of all, make their target to make the best of the opportunity. Much of the time of their politics is to protect the chair and rest of the time is passed to earn the money and usurp the political power . The industrial and commercial mangnates, who gave the huge donations to political leaders or parties are also glove in hand with them in order to realise their donation-money together with interest, rewards and perks.
Once the evil of immorality is born, it grows and flourishes very fast, The temptations for palm greasing and bribery have increased with the progress of commerce and industrialisation . The increased power for licence, quota, permit and acceptance of tenders, etc have provided enough opportunities for corruption, bribery and effluence through illgotton wealth. Now a days only the acquisition of wealth and power, by whatever means, has become the paramount goal of the society, which is also one of the main reasons to increase corruption and immorality. Indian publice life is in the process of modernisation. The old religious and social value are crumbling, whereas the materialistic ambitions have become the most effective and dominant features of the public lfe.
Once , chanakya in his ‘Arthshastra’ said that as to when the fish drinks water, it is utmost difficult to know. In the same way, how and when a politician or bureacurate takes the bribe, it is also very difficult to know. Even today, due to negative attitude of bureaucracy, red tapism, lack of transparency of official dealings and lack of information in the public domain, the corruption in public life is increasing day by day. Political corruption has greatly degraded the administration and helped in spreading it to all spheres and levels.
The reasons for corruption in politics are that there is no effective law compelling the public servants and politicians to disclose their income and assets to ascertain whether their assets are disproportionate to their income or not. They are in the habit of adopting corrupt practices, e.g. favouratism, castism and nepotism, etc. Their materialistic ambitions are endless. Their motive is only to achieve power, status and wealth. Neither the law nor the public opinion make them answerable and they invariably go scot free.
Criminalisation of poliltics i.e. direct entry of the criminals, rogues and rascals in the parliament and legislative assemblies are making the situation form bad to the worst, because their number is increasing day to day. Formerely the history-sheeters and criminals used to assist the politicians in violence, booth-capturing and other anti-social activities, but now a days, they themselves are contesting and wining the elections by muscle power and money. Without any satisfactory social and educational background, they are coming in the politics thinking that only vocation of politics yields bigger and quicker returns and in the political play ground, they will get ample opportunities to play foul games also.
