On Thursday 21 Feb 2008 6:04:09 pm Rishab Aiyer Ghosh wrote: > you mean they don't pay "legal tax", right? i believe they pay > substantial sums in forced bribes to the local cops etc...
In fact I have some experience of what happens because I have local area problems of this sort. Typically the vendor thinks, as you do, (and mistakenly, as it turns out) that the policeman is supposed to be bribed. The vendor is both a fool and a sucker because he invariably ends up paying the khaki clad security policeman (who pockets the money cheerfully). Chasing away vendors does not fall within the purview of the khaki clad security cop who gets the bribe. In fact the pavement vendor does not even come under the purview of traffic police as long as the vendor is not on the road and is not obstructing traffic. So the vendor is paying the wrong guy and complains that he cannot do illegal business despite paying the cops. This is the typically idiotic whine of a suckered bribe giver. Clearing the pavement comes under the jurisdiction of the city corporation whose job it is to maintain pavement as a free public space. Typically it is the health inspector or the engineering department that has to take a complaint about the vendor, serve notice and then clear the pavement. I know many of these health inspectors and engg dept people. They do not take paisa bribes from pavement vendors, Their business is bigger - and from others - so they are usually quite cooperative in solving a problem following a complaint, unless it goes out of their hands by becoming a political issue. The problem really is that the public, educated or uneducated have no clue as to who is to be approached for a given civic issues. In fact I have friends who pay bribes for no reason when the work can be done without a bribe and other cases where bribes are cheerfully paid for illegal work that still does not become legal after the bribe payment. It is often the bribe payer who is an idiot. There is a degree of stupidity displayed by the Indian bribe giver - who is typically educated and has more money than he knows how to handle. He goes expecting to pay a bribe and pays a bribe to some sidekick who pockets the money and directs the work to a person who will do it anyway for hundreds of people because that is his job. I have seen this happen in the water supply dept. They actually repair leaks and clear drains with no bribe - though they may want a tip. If you want to pay a bribe they won't refuse on the basis of the principle that a fool and his money are soon parted. On the other hand people will also pay thousands as "bribe" for sanctioning something illegal. The bribe is taken, but the thing for which the bribe is paid does not become legalised and the bribe payer gets penalised anyway at some later date when the bribe taker has finished laughing all the way to the bank. Illegal construction plans are an example of this. shiv
