That India is ranked #80 out of 150 countries on the Berlin-based Transparency International’s Corruption Index 2022, well below Botswana, Chile, Taiwan and Cabo Verde, doesn’t seem to bother India’s politicians and middle class — “we are like that only” — who love to proclaim India’s greatness from every available roof-top. Yet for man’s sheer inhumanity to man, consider this story filed by Petlee Peter, a correspondent of the Times of India, Bangalore edition (March 1).

On February 1, IT professional Sunil Kumar received the devastating news that his wife and elder daughter were crushed to death under a concrete mixer truck driven by a reportedly sleep deprived driver. After the bodies of the deceased were taken to hospital, the driver of the hospital ambulance refused to drive the bodies home unless he was paid Rs.21,000 in cash. After the amount was paid, employees of the mortuary refused to issue death certificates unless Rs.60,000 was paid up in cash.

Nor are these examples exceptional. Many years ago, your limping correspondent was denied a ride by several autorickshaw drivers after emerging from a hospital with a pulled hamstring. The truth is that with routine extortion and rents extraction at every level, corruption has permeated the DNA of India’s middle class. To the extent that the new lumpen bourgeoisie typified by the neta-babu brotherhood, doesn’t hesitate to extort money from people in extreme distress.

Karnataka, where the bereaved Mr. Sunil Kumar had to suffer man’s inhumanity to man, goes to the polls in May. The “folk-lore of corruption” — a descriptive invented by Nobel laureate economist Gunnar Myrdal in the 1960s — is set to sink the incumbent BJP government.