Fight against Corruption in India using technology
corruptiontrak.com
corruptiontrak.com
Corruption seems like an insurmountable problem because it is sociological in nature; it’s difficult for the common man to envision social change because it doesn't happen instantaneously. But here’s how social change can and has been engendered:
1) Fear of Censure - Corruption flourishes, at least in India, because people aren't worried about being caught. You can, as one user of our service put it "show [your] dirty pan-chewed teeth and shamelessly put [your] hand forth for bakhsheesh" (baksheesh = bribe) and not have a worry in the world because your act has no chance of being traced. I speak here, of course, of petty or day-to-day corruption.
Note that I don’t imply “fear” in “big brother” terms. I speak of the fear required to maintain law and order. This works in the same way that the fear of a policeman pulling you over or a radar camera catching you in the act makes you keep to road rules at all times. Here’s where we think technology has a vital role to play.
It’s difficult to have an honest policeman stationed at every street corner for obvious reasons, hence, through increasingly ubiquitous technology, we are hoping to tap into the honesty of the common man. By giving everybody the ability to make such transactions traceable, we are hoping to instill this element of fear of being traced. If the idea of citizen policing takes off, then we hope the fear of watchful eyes will make people think twice before demanding a bribe, if at all.
Of course, gathering this data is only one albeit essential step. Fear will truly come into play if people are actually caught. To facilitate this, we have several plans, including those that involve the media (sting operations etc) and the law (political allegiances aside, we eagerly await some of the provisions of the Jan Lokpal proposals, some of which institute official bodies that we hope to channel such data to).
2) Shame – Corruption, although often blatant, is still frowned upon by most sections of society. Nobody wants to be identified as being “corrupt”. The possibility of being shamed can be a massive deterrent. While this idea of an entire society being consumed by fear of a website seems a bit presumptuous at first, we think that this can be done by targeting constituent fragments of society. If you belong to a specific community, say a group of salesmen, which abides by this service religiously, you might not pay a bribe to the peon to get ahead in line at the next customer office you visit for fear of being shamed in front of your peer group. After all, the members of your group could at any time access this service and learn of your corrupt ways; even if the occurrence of such practices was previously left unsaid, the uneasy calm is likely to be shaken through validation from an external source such as this.
We have spent several months pondering the right ecosystem to realize the above goals. For instance, the above method of “being shamed by your peer group” could just as easily be used by a jealous member to slander someone else. Hence, we’re looking to leave specific names out of our system and rather, target this evil by location and by nature of crime, to shift the burden of self-governance (due to collective shame) to small fragments of society.
We are looking to strike the right balance of the various factors in play, hence this initial post on HN – our prior experiences have shown this to be the ideal ground for gaining good feedback and suggestions. If you have your own vision on how this idea should be molded, feel free to post here or contact us at admin@corruptiontrak.com , no matter what your country of origin or professional background.
My question is this: let's say everyone with access to the internet used your site and reported all the bribes they paid, how will this help change the situation?
I see it helping in few ways. First, it provides a quantitative look at it, so you know what your corruption tax is going to be. Second, there are regional variations, so in the medium-term, people can respond to this information to make better choices (yes, it is everywhere, but how bad is it?). Third, in the long-term, this can potentially impact governance. Public perception can be powerful, so I could see progressive entities trying to get off these websites.
In addition, we believe there are people in the administration who want to change things. To cite a success story for http://ipaidabribe.com/, a similar website
"Several government officials at different levels, some of them horrified at finding their department high up on the list of bribe-takers, have contacted Janaagraha and asked for its help in building better structures. One was a commissioner of a transport department, who realized that he could reduce corruption by minimizing the number of touchpoints between citizens and officials."
(taken from http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/indian-website-uncover...)
That said, this is an experiment. It will take some time before we can gauge the success of our initiative.
Here is an American perspective on corruption: none of my friends or family are corrupt. This statement is tautological - if they were corrupt, they would cease to be my friends or family.
Corruption will persist until India takes the same attitude.
Creating an anti-corruption website is great. But you'll probably do more good if you publicly disown your corrupt relatives.
I kind of agree. It is not that corruption is socially acceptable, the problem is that common man has no choice. E.g. Until recently, Section 377 of Indian Penal Code could be used against you if you are gay. In Mumbai, there has been many cases where cops have pretended to be gay in public bathroom and try to harass other gay folks. Now if you are caught, you have two choices: either go to Jail or bribe the police officer. Guess what choice you are going to make?
Another example: Four Seasons needed 165 government permits to open their hotel in Mumbai, including a permit to use a vegetable weighing scale in kitchen. [Ref: http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/may/07mumbai.htm] Now, Four Seasons may have gone and obtained all the proper permits but if there is a business man in India who doesn't have deep pockets to wait around till all the permits come through, he has no choice but to bribe the government official and focus on the business.
Finally, my own personal story: when I was applying for my green card, I needed to get transcripts from my university because I misplaced the original ones which I had. The clerk at University said it would take a month. It was clear to me that he wanted me to bribe him to speed up the process. Once again, I can stand up to the principle and wait for a month to get my transcript. [And I am sure he would give another excuse to delay giving me the transcript]. As my immigration was important to me, I bribed him and got the transcript the next day. [And I can't complain about him at the University because he did not directly ask me for money.]
There are lots of honest people in India and no one wants to bribe but there is no recourse for them if they don't bribe [law enforcement is a big problem.]
I read govind201's goal with this site and I applaud the effort (anything we can do to fight corruption must be done), I think we need a more radical approach to solve this very difficult problem. Something like a 'Lokpal Bill' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Lokpal_Bill] but not before removing the critical flaws present in the bill. Also, working on to reduce government regulation will go a long way towards reducing corruption.
That said, I don't think one single approach is going to solve this problem. Nor is it fair to label this as a homogeneous problem. There are many forms of corruption and I do believe that CorruptionTrak is relevant to a significant number of them.
I'm afraid that this might turn into an outlet for people to bribe and be ok with it because they posted the experience here. By posting it, they may inadvertently be satisfied that they have 'done something about it' which is not true...
On the other hand, if some local organization can use this to come up to actually do something about it, then we're talking.
Suppose time will tell...do the people behind the site have a vision in mind?
Honestly, i do not think any amount of technology or legislation would be able to fix corruption, unless it is sought at a different angle. Problem here does not exist with bureaucracy, but with the people.
Also, it will need translations into local languages and a volunteer base to verify claims etc. when it grows to be popular. Any thoughts on those lines?