Revision summary
Corruption is private use of a public trust at a desk, a tender, or a vote. Prevention shrinks discretion: charters, DBT, e-procurement, rotation. Detection needs real whistle-blower cover and trials that end. Political funding and corporate books are society’s half of the problem. Digital trails help only if the poor are not pushed back to a tout.
Model answer
Introduction
Corruption is the private use of a public trust — a bribe, a captured tender, a bought vote, or a silent middleman. Prevention in society is not only a new Act; it is less discretion, more light, faster punishment, and a culture that stops treating the bribe as petrol.
Body
Reduce the market for bribes
- Shrink discretionary windows: published citizen charters, time-bound services, and Sakala-like guarantees.
- Direct Benefit Transfer and e-procurement so that a file cannot sit as a toll gate.
- Competitive, open tenders and geospatial public works monitoring.
- Rotate sensitive posts and recuse conflicts.
Detect and punish
- Strengthen Prevention of Corruption Act practice: trap, attachment, and actual trial speed, not only raids on camera.
- Lokpal, Lokayukta, CVC, and vigilance that protect honest officers as much as they chase the dishonest.
- Whistle-blower protection that is real, including against transfer-as-punishment.
- Fast courts for corruption so that delay is not the real judgment.
Political and business society
- Transparent political funding and a ceiling culture on cash elections.
- Corporate books that match SEBI and tax truth; a bribe on the cost sheet is still a bribe.
- Media and RTI as sunlight, with care that sting theatre does not replace evidence.
Values and the counter
- School and training that name integrity as skill, not as a poster.
- Social audit of MGNREGA-type schemes so neighbours, not only auditors, see the muster.
- Stop honouring the “fixer”; public shaming of the middleman must match shaming of the poor who had no other door.
- Fair pay, housing, and protection for the honest constable and clerk so that need is not an alibi.
Technology with a human override
- Digital trails help; they fail if the password is shared or the poor are locked out and then pay a cyber-café tout.
- A named officer must still own an exception.
Sequence
- Prevention first (design), then detection, then punishment that is certain more than it is theatrical.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD D[Less discretion] --> P[Prevention] L[Light RTI audit] --> P S[Speedy trial] --> P C[Culture no fixer] --> P
Conclusion
Preventing corruption in society means closing toll-gate discretion, lighting the file, protecting the honest, speeding trials, cleaning political money, and refusing the culture of the fixer. Law without that culture is a raid that everyone forgets.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Explain the eightfold path given by Buddha for the purification of conduct.
Next question in the 2022 paper (Q19). View answer →
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Is more punishment enough?
Certainty matters more than a rare harsh headline. Design that removes the toll gate matters still more.
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Can society stay corrupt if government is clean?
A clean office still meets a paying culture. Voters, firms, and families have to stop buying the queue.
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Q1 · UPSC Mains 2022 · UPGS4 · 8 marks
Differentiate between democratic attitude and bureaucratic attitude of public servants.
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Q2 · UPSC Mains 2022 · UPGS4 · 8 marks
Explain the role of persuasion in relation to public protest with proper argument.
Attitude
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Q3 · UPSC Mains 2022 · UPGS4 · 8 marks
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