CINEMA-A Scheme of Life

IMPLICATIONS One crucial thing to understand is that corruption among village officers cannot flourish without the aid and encouragement of the higher officials from Girida- vari to Tehsildar or the Taluq registrar. The Patels don't do anything without taking the Police Sub-inspectors or Excise Officers into confidence. It is a matter of mutual understaning that all the concerned share the bounty in every case. Telugu Desam government's piecemeal measures consider things in isolation from each other. If the part-time village officers are ill-trained, unqualified, corrupt and caste minded the higher officials are much more so. The ill effects of their corrupt practices and casteism are much more consequential and theirs is the lion's share in the bounty of corruption. Maybe, they are less exposed as the actual job is done by the village officials. However, Telugu Desam Party does not have this com prehensive approach to the problem of "corrupt, casteist" part-time village officers and has launched an isolated attack on them leaving the giant administrative apparatus in the countryside untouched. How can we ensure that the new village officers known as the village assistants will be free from these practices as also the officers at the block and tehsil level who are used to these practices? The outgoing village officers arc mostly Congress landlords or those associated with them; but the new officials will also be from either Telugu Desam landlord families or Congress landlord families; at the most a few may be from urban oriented non- landlord families. But in any case all will be under the heavy pressure of the local landlords, be they of Telugu Desam or Congress. Bureaucracy can never work in a social vacuum in a neutral fashion because of its linkages with the society at the individual level and also because of its social values.