We are Politicians, we are not in the honour business

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                        You’ve probably come across this statement at least once in your life, ‘How are these politicians so rich? Where do they get this kind of money? Is it an individual problem or a systematic failure? Well, let us look at it through a different spectrum, the politician’s point of view. 

                        Grassroot politics in India usually begins at the gram panchayat level, every village has a gram panchayat consisting of a sarpanch and its members. The sarpanch is the head of the village and he receives a salary from the government which is barely enough to cover a week’s meal. Climbing the political ladder from being a sarpanch to possibly Prime Minister of the country is fundamentally flawed with respect to the financial aspect and essentially forces politicians to be corrupt to survive to perish. This is the gist of how these people survive through government work and welfare schemes. For e.g. A proposed construction of a 500m cement road in a village should cost about 25 lakhs according to the government estimation and the funds are allocated at a premium price. The party worker retains 30-40% of the money and completes the work in about 15 lakhs. This is the very essence at which corruption begins but with a survival instinct. This compromises the quality of the work and then there is an investigation which leads no where because everyone is involved. 

                     The primary accusation on the opposition party’s leader Rahul Gandhi is that he isn’t a full-time politician and does not take it seriously. On the other, for someone to become a full-time politician he needs financial support right from the bottom, as they say “There is no such thing as a free lunch”. The system is definitely broken but the politicians are not the only ones responsible for it, the bureaucracy, the administration and my dear citizens…. we are all equally culpable. To answer the question, I had asked at the beginning, they get filthy rich because there is no accountability at any stage. Initially you are the one who gets the work contract as a worker, later on you give the work contract as a minister or MLA and the process rambles on. 


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