A common yet an important struggle
Posted on August 14, 2013
A common emotional theme glorifying Indian independence is unity in diversity. This theme runs across the length and breadth of the country, be it in cultural expressions, languages, landscapes or people. But such a commonality doesn’t always limit itself to a positive phenomenon but can even spill into negative aspects like corruption.
Bribes have become so common in India, that reporting one instance immediatly strikes a chord in a person thousands of kilometres away. A person stopped on the road and asked for a bribe in Himachal Pradesh, located far north, can seamlessly relate to a bribe instance experienced in Nagercoil, located deep-down south.
There are some instances which get instant recognition. One of it is being stopped on the road by the police for a minor traffic violation. It happens everywhere in India, and in most cases there could be a negotiation for a bribe. But if you are not keen to pay the bribe, the offence though minor, is recorded as something major, so that there is a greater incentive for you to pay the bribe and get out. Laws generally are so detailed, that if a policeman wants to hold you accountable, he can look for a large number of minor violations committed by you.
But to your surprise there could be instances when the fine is immediately imposed without waiting for you to recover, and a receipt is provided within minutes for you to pay up. This normally happens when there are certain 'targets' for the police on fine collection. It is so seamlessly efficient. the minute a violation takes place you are fined.
Here is an instance of a bribe fighter whose evening began like any other but ended differently because he resisted a dominant trend of bribery.
Sandeep Giri, a software engineer was caught by the police in Delhi for a minor violation on 21st of June at 8:15 pm. His story is so common that it strikes a chord everywhere. Sandeep originally from Bangalore had moved to Delhi, and normally uses his to travel around in Delhi and it is then the story begins.
One evening in Gurgaon, Sandeep took a short turn on the road and drove on the wrong side of the road and thereby violated a traffic rule. Immediately, a cop stopped him and asked him to cough up Rs. 500. His first question to this policeman was on what basis is he being charged this high amount, while his offence attracted not more than Rs 200. The policeman then showed him a list of penalty charges, in which Rs 500 was charged to more severe traffic offences. Sandeep resisted saying that he will not pay this amount as he has not committed all those offences as accused by the policeman.
The policeman did not budge nor did Sandeep. Finally the policeman had to threaten that the car will be impounded if the fine is not paid. Sandeep let the traffic police seize the car. Though there were no demands made by the police for a bribe, the very action of the police imposing a higher penalty charge has a tendency of graduating to a bribe demand, in which the offender can easily get away by paying the bribe but Sandeep had stood his ground.
A common nature of this situation lies in the details. An offence committed can easily turn in to an attracting magnet to other offences, increasing the chance of the violator to get into a deeper mess. Once the violator resists the policeman’s attempts to extort heavier fine/bribe, the stance of the policeman becomes stronger thereafter. And with this the violator’s chances of going spot free gets bleaker.
Sandeep’s story is a case in point. He went to the Sector 29 police station to retrieve his car for which he paid a bribe much higher than the amount he resisted. He did this as many more offences were charged against him. His only weakness was that he lacked evidence to prove his stand. He finally chose not to legally fight it out but settled the case by paying up a fine of Rs 1000/-.
His experience in dealing with such a situation was not new. He already had similar experiences with Bangalore Traffic Police and he used this to resist the pressure tactics of Gurgaon Police.
Nevertheless, he stood his ground of giving in to the momentary pressure tactics of a policeman. But alas, he could not follow up and fight it out till the end.