N Vittal, Central Vigilance Commissioner, is set to step down as Chief Vigilance Commissioner after four years in office. The post was created with the noble purpose of fighting corruption in high places, and particularly against those individuals whom the law, for various reasons, cannot touch, such as the bureaucrats and the politicians.
There is no doubt that Vittal's appointment was greeted as a whiff of fresh air by the middle-class of India that was, and is, simply fed up with the entrenched corruption that is so much part and parcel of India. Vittal began bravely, but it woud now appear that somewhere, the bureaucratic maze, the system of rules and procedures that seem to exist only to protect the corrupt in high places, and the network of politicans and bureaucrats who ganged up against CVC, managed to stifle his efforts.
So, will India, and Indians, ever be rid of corruption, hat today almost every political party and most bureaucrats simply accept as part of daily life? Is India doomed to forever be ranked among the most corrupt nations on the face of the earth? More particularly, why is corruption so rampant among our representatives and our well-paid bureaucrats, whose only purpose today seems to be to enrich themselves at the expense of the common man?
Vittal has worked against corruption from close quarters, and might have some of the answers. Find out from him on The Rediff Chat on Friday, August 23, 2002, at 5.30 pm IST [8 am EDT].
Also see:
'Parliament is entitled to know the CVC findings on defence deals'
'I don't want to be a hijra'
Man for all reasons
N Vittal's columns on infotech
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