ABSTRACT
If you ask poor people why they do not get what they should, the most popular reply will be that it is because of corruption and nepotism. What is an irritant for the middle class and a theoretical debate for the affluent cuts at the roots of survival for the poor? But it is a unifying concern. The rural middle class is affected by corruption much more directly than the urban group, because the denial of services – the badly built road, the dry well, the dispensary without medicine, could be even a matter of life and death. A bus service or reaching a critically ill person in time to the hospital is dependent on there being a serviceable road. The problem of corruption re-surfaces through the electoral system, where votes are bought and sold. How do we counter this entrenched system?
