Corruption can’t be associated only with present Govt: Amartya Sen

NEW DELHI - Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has said that corruption cannot be associated only with the present Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government as the story will be the same had there been investigations into the previous government’s tenure.

“You can shoot Manmohan Singh, you can shoot his successor, but the main problem still remains. You have the satisfaction of two heads that you can hang up in your wall but the problem will remain the same,” he said.

Stressing on the point that in a coalition government, the Prime Minister is bound by certain compulsions even as his level of integrity was “exceptional”, he said: “If you recognise there is a systematic problem in the nature of the society and in the nature of politics, social and economic morality that have come to prevail, the answers that have to be sought is how to deal with them rather than say I accuse you.”

He also said that although corruption was noticed at quite a “large” extent in the present Government, it is not a “new phenomenon.”

“If there had been investigations in the previous government, the story would have been much the same. The fact is there are so much scam and corruption around is sad. The recognition of that is also sad. And yet the recognition of it is also the way of doing something about it,” Sen added.

He was also of the opinion that public critique has to be intelligent and address to issues which can be changed, and on which the general public could be made to take an informed interest and act. (ANI)