Md. Kamal Uddin. Bribery experts’ advice to bribe takers: If you take a bribe alone, you will be noticed by the evil eye of everyone. Therefore, make everyone indulge in bribery – give them some… Be careful, if you consume all the money alone and deprive someone, you will also be humiliated. Bribery masters give bad advice in the form of bad advice, if you take a bribe, you have to take a risk. Of course, they can say that if you are caught red-handed, you will lose your job and may even have to go to the government shrine. If you have to go, go. There, very greedy bribe takers like you are waiting there first. You will meet them very easily. But there is nothing to be ashamed of. Even bigger charioteers than you have come back from that pilgrimage and have become strong, and many of them are so respected and humiliated. Along with eating various kinds of food, ‘Ghush Khai Daroga’ was written by the poet Sukumar Roy in his poem Khai Khai. Parashuram wrote the theory of bribery. There were many stories about bribery in his book ‘Chamatkumari Etc.’. At that time, Mahamati Chanakya said, when a fish drinks water and when a royal servant drinks bribes and useless gifts – it is not always possible to distinguish between them. Bribery is a very old thing. Probably as old as human civilization. From the day when rules and restrictions were created in society, profit and loss, greed and lust came, bribery also started. Sometimes it is not very difficult to get any work done and to benefit from a powerful but corrupt prince by giving some bribes. However, for this, the bribe giver has to be a little brave and quite unscrupulous. Let’s study a little historical bribery story. This is definitely not a fairy tale, but pure history. No matter how impossible it may be today, it is true that the world-famous capital of the wealthy American country, Washington, was once established with bribes paid by the raiyats and feudal lords of East India. Let me make this unpleasant fact clear – in the early days of the English rule in India, a British civilian named Thomas Law came. He was very efficient. Thomas Law was one of those who implemented Lord Cornwallis’ permanent settlement. This Law was a relative of the first President of the United States, George Washington, by marriage. Although Thomas was a skilled administrator, he had a habit of embezzlement. His enthusiasm for accepting bribes was immense. Of course, he was no exception among the British civilians of that time. It was a time of great anarchy. The Mughal Empire had collapsed. The East India Company was ruling in East India. In Rabindranath’s poem – The merchant’s standard appeared in the form of a shabari scepter. This is about the dark times of that shabari era. The English princes had no sense of ethics. Stealing and accepting bribes had become a regular habit of the ruling class. Meanwhile, when these news reached Britain, there was a lot of strictness there. The new civilians who were coming from Britain were asked to give an account of their wealth before leaving the country. After returning after completing their service, it would be checked to see if there was any illegal wealth. Our Tomasal Sahib had become red by sucking the blood of the native subjects by committing various kinds of injustices and atrocities. His jurisdiction was the former Bengal and Bihar. The news that strictness has started in Britain regarding the wealth of Indian princes reached this country in due time. Tomasal thought, I did not give an account of my wealth when I came,Now, if you return quickly, there will be no trouble. He set off for the country. But on reaching the port of Aden, he received bad news. From now on, when you land at the country’s port, you will have to pay the fine for the wealth and possessions. If there is any discrepancy, they will be confiscated. No one wants to give up this stolen wealth so easily. Thomas Law is a man of action and intelligence. He changed ships at the port of Aden and boarded a ship bound for America and reached America safely on time with his wealth and possessions. He invested all his wealth in building a town and established a sugar factory next to it. Later, he sold that land to the US government for money and other things, and the US government built a new capital there. One day, the US capital was built with the bribe money that our oppressed ancestors had paid for with blood and water. Such an incident is rare in the history of international bribery. There is no point in going back so far. The article will not go beyond the scope. Rather, if I do not highlight some specific incidents of bribery in modern times, the character of the history of bribery will not be fully revealed. The British East India Company took the opportunity to establish itself in India to treat the burnt body of Emperor Shah Jahan’s daughter Jahanara. Taking advantage of the opportunity, it secretly formed a friendship with Prince Shuja and obtained permission to do business through a business organization called the East India Company, which gave Prince Shuja a large bribe, which can be proven by reviewing history. Behind the fall of the Nawab of Bengal Siraj Daulah at the hands of the British was the cursed face. Mir Jafar was dishonest in exchange for a large bribe. The cursed history of that bribery has been around since ancient times. Regarding bribery, the Holy Quran and Hadith contain provisions for exchanging bribes and punishment in the afterlife for the briber. What is mentioned in the Holy Quran about bribery – Allah Almighty says about bribery, ‘Do not take money from one another unjustly. Do not take money from the rulers so that you may enjoy a part of people’s money unjustly. Even though you know that doing so is not permissible. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, Allah Almighty has cursed both the briber and the bribe-taker. The hadith related to this has been narrated by Abu Dawud and Tirmidhi. In it, the third person between the briber and the bribe-taker who helps both is also included among the cursed. Bribery is forbidden for the ruler in all circumstances – whether it is done by destroying someone’s rights or to prevent some injustice. Therefore, in the light of the above Quran and Hadith, it can be understood that dishonesty, corruption and bribery in the judicial process are completely forbidden in the eyes of Islam. That is, prohibited. It is not possible to define bribery or to determine the number of bribe-taking institutions. However, if a microscope can be used to identify bribe-takers, there is a possibility of some success. Listen to how a person got into trouble for bribery while filing a case against bribery in court. This was several years ago. Bribery is rampant in the country,The country was floating on bribery. Bribery had become an unspoken policy. I went to the court to attend the court marriage ceremony of a couple I knew. When I was coming back from the court marriage ceremony, a gentleman was sitting on the wooden steps of this ancient building, looking for something. The poor man looked absolutely miserable. He must have lost something! I was also curious to see. The gentleman stood up in despair and said to himself, ‘You are a bribe taker, the court building is the agora of bribe takers. I came to file a case against bribery and fell into the clutches of bribe takers. Earlier I knew that court employees take bribes in the court, but now I saw that even the steps of the court are bribed. Later I came to know that the last thing that that person had in his pocket was a five-takara coin that fell from his hand and went into the gap of the broken wooden steps and was never found again. I remembered the doctors called Manabsevaks. Many people say that prisons, slaughterhouses, and hospitals are three similar institutions. Doctors are engaged in human trafficking in the name of human service. When you visit government hospitals that are busy in the business of making money, you understand that all the employees of the hospital take more bribes than the amount of medicine the patients take to cure their diseases. It is also seen that doctors open chambers to issue certificates to file false cases without any attack. However, even if there is no accountability for that, they do not know that one day they will be held accountable in the court of conscience. Everyone knows that police take bribes. Police cannot do their job without bribes. It is as if they have become addicted to drugs. The reason for this is that there is only one thing: bribes to get a police job, bribes to pass training, bribes to get postings, bribes to get benefits, bribes to go to the police station as an apprentice, bribes to get transferred to a good police station, bribes to get duty instead of bribes to get good wages. It is an open secret. However, the police have made the open, untried bribery policy legal by using the excuse of the ‘as many policemen as they can get’ made by the British. A police friend of mine often says that bribes have to be paid to the police because they have to be taken. Earlier, it was heard that courts, police stations, customs, forests, etc. were the arenas of bribery. But now it is seen that those places have been surpassed by other related departments of the government, starting from the education department. ‘Exchanging bribes’ has become the rule with every job. No, there is no tendency to investigate such dirty matters more. Giving bribes is no less difficult than taking bribes. No matter how much the need or urge, who to bribe, how to pay, how much to pay – these are very complex problems. Common people cannot grasp these. Many say that those who do not take bribes do not do any work. They always have to be followed. Everyone is more or less aware of taking bribes by withholding files in the office. Where is the place for bribes? “Doesn’t taking gifts as a joke instead of accepting dowry at a son’s wedding fall under the category of bribery? Some people are giving bribes in cash to get a boy married to a girl, while others are entertaining guests by spending lakhs of taka at big clubs through banquets. Is this also not a small bribe? Bribery is a social disease. It is our responsibility as future generations to get rid of it. The initiative taken by the current government to stop the trend of bribery is undoubtedly praiseworthy. However, if it is unpopular, it is the truth.Bribery has not stopped. The tactics of bribery have just changed. Today you are a corruption-free, anti-bribery government official. But the saying will remain that there is no opportunity for bribery in jobs where there is no opportunity for bribery. Those who do those jobs are fairly honest. Because it can be said that they do not have the opportunity to be dishonest. But the opportunity for bribery in police jobs, customs department jobs, license permit issuing jobs, purchase department jobs is very high. If someone here does not take bribes, then he can be called truly honest. But it is not that there are no such people. I have seen many. But they are few in number. I have also seen a traffic police officer request the authorities to make him the OC of the statistics department instead of giving him the responsibility of the traffic police. There is a lot of bribery in the traffic department. He will face great temptation there. And there is no bribery in the statistics department. This article was published in 2008 by Shaili Prakashan, my first comic book, Banka Katha. Tomorrow you will receive a white paper on the bribery trade at the Chittagong Passport Office. Author: Journalist, researcher, writer, television presenter and Secretary General, Chittagong Citizens Forum.
Email: Kamaluddin 2247@gamal.com