Revision summary
The claim that bribes exist only because people offer them is a partial description and a bad excuse. Collusive petty markets do have a supply side. Much bribery is extortion of a stalled file; the poor are held, not seducing the officer. Monopoly power and grand procurement corruption do not wait for a street offer. Cure is less discretion to sell, more sunlight, and punishment — not only a sermon to citizens.
Model answer
Introduction
The statement blames the supply of bribes and frees the official. It is half a description of some markets and a full excuse for power. The problem will not end if only the citizen stops offering.
Body
What is true in the statement
- In some licences and inspections there is a collusive market: both sides treat the bribe as a fee.
- A culture that celebrates the tout as clever does feed demand.
- Citizen refusal, social boycott of the tout, and digital payments without a middleman have reduced some petty rents.
Why the statement fails
- Much bribery is extortion, not an offer: the file is stalled until the citizen pays. The poor do not “offer”; they are held.
- The official holds monopoly power — police, mutation, ration, exam — so the bargaining is not between equals.
- If offers stopped tomorrow, delay, threat, and invented objections could still extract; that is demand by the desk.
- Blaming only people is victim-blaming, especially when the payer is a widow at a pension counter.
- Grand corruption is rarely a street offer; it is designed inside procurement and posting.
- The Prevention of Corruption Act punishes both giver and taker in many cases, but ethics cannot treat the coerced giver as the author of the system.
A fuller view
- Bribery is a pair: discretionary power plus secrecy plus weak punishment, meeting fear or greed.
- Solutions therefore are e-governance, published timelines, GeM, rotation, trap and conviction, protection for those who refuse, and simplification so that there is less to sell.
- Moral education of the public is useful; it is not sufficient.
- The officer’s duty is to refuse and to design the counter so that an offer is unnecessary and an extortion is visible.
Opinion
- I reject the statement as a complete diagnosis. Stopping offers helps collusive petty bribes; it does not solve extraction by the State’s own hand.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD O[Offers] --> C[Collusive petty bribe] E[Extortion by desk] --> B[Bribery problem] C[C] --> B[B] S[System redesign] --> X[Problem shrinks]
Conclusion
People who offer bribes are part of some markets. They are not the whole cause. Power, delay, and fear will keep the problem alive unless the desk itself cannot sell a file.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Present in brief the necessary foundational values for the civil servants.
Next question in the 2020 paper (Q18). View answer →
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Should a citizen who pays always be punished?
A collusive payer is culpable. A person who paid to get a dying parent’s certificate unstuck needs a different look; the desk remains the author of the hold-up.
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If I never take, but the public keeps offering, have I failed?
You have kept integrity. You should still record offers, simplify the process, and not treat the offers as proof that the public is the only sinner.
Same topic · past papers
UPPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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