Not just like Gandhi

There was a text message circulating around India these days, explaining what could happen if the country somehow manages to defeat corruption and get back the billions of cash that is now in foreign banks. It said: "India's borders will become more solid than the Chinese wall. We will build 28 thousand first-class highways like in France. We can build houses for 100 million people, 1500 universities like Oxford and 2000 free hospitals." It sounds like utopia but it really reflects the moods in India. It also explains how come a 74 year old activist called Anna Hazare and his hunger crusade against wide-spread bribery and abuse of power was able to call comparisons to Mahatma Gandhi and bring the Indian government to its knees.

The third biggest Asian economy really has a very serious problem with corruption. For the last year alone a number of scandals broke out, all of them related to bribes and fraud, involving the parliament, the media, the bulding sector, the telecoms, the mining industry, the hospitals, the media and even sports. Such stories like the one about the delivery of toilet paper rolls worth 80 thousand dollars a piece on the Commonwealth Games in Delhi and giving licenses to mobile operators without any audition and at ridiculous prices that harmed the country with 40 billion dollars... this is only the visible face of corruption. But it goes much deeper. Corruption is everywhere in the life of the ordinary Indian citizen, from the cradle to the grave. They pay a bribe to obtain a birth certificate and to get a death certificate. They pay all their life. And for what? For people that are granted for free in most other countries.

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