https://thewire.in/society/the-republic-of-apathy
The fact that our sustained apathy for corruption has enabled the dehumanising violation of women points to one of the most distressing realities of Indian life – the widespread and persistent lack of concern for the minoritised.
“As they say in India,” the economist Pranab Bardhan wrote in an influential paper on corruption, “in the US corruption is in the process of ‘making’ laws, in India it’s mostly in ‘breaking’ laws.” American – and generally Western – models of corruption require narratives of legitimisation that are often stamped with legislative authority.
In India, on the other hand, the ubiquity of corruption keeps its moral cost low – “everybody’s doing it so why not?” The long history of the public tolerance of corruption paves the ground for the political protection, indeed, the further enactment of corruption. Just break the law with impunity. The only legitimising narrative required here is that it is done all the time and no one really cares.
In this country, the spectre of corruption meets the zombie of apathy. This leads to something far more horrifying than corruption, but something that remains more safely hidden – its nourishment and celebration by its direct and indirect beneficiaries. This includes people in power and dominance as well as ordinary people, sometimes disenfranchised ones as well.
08/09/2024