No, we can't keep being like this only

In India, 'casual corruption' is still seen less a crime than a cultural condiment - sprinkled liberally over daily life, adding flavour to transactions to facilitate 'ease of going about one's business'. Paying 'extra' to jump the queue for a gas cylinder delivery, slipping a note to a traffic cop for an infraction, or employing an underage domestic help - these are still seen by a significantly large enough section of the citizenry as 'normal', not as legally-dodgy aberrations but 'Indic behaviour'. 'Chalta hai' becomes an alibi posing as a cultural marker.

So, when the state, in response to protests against a skewed system that has, over time, added another layer of haves and have-nots - in this case, pay or not-pay for leaked exam questions - decides to enforce the law against cheating, the realm of undisturbed accepted behaviour is also suddenly disturbed. For many, buying a leaked paper is no more scandalous than buying pirated DVDs once was. What begins as 'jugaad' morphs into a parallel economy, undermining institutions and entrenching inequality.

Corruption is simultaneously condemned and condoned with the same amorphous logic that seems bereft of human agency: 'It's the system.' Statutory crackdowns are, therefore, both tricky and necessary. Tricky, because they pit legality against lived culture that will have its own quieter pushback in a society where no one likes queues. Necessary, because without them, the rot metastasises into the very marrow of governance. The challenge is not merely to punish corruption and the corrupt but to delegitimise it socially - to make paying for a leaked exam paper as shameful as cheating on a spouse. Until then, every attempt at a fix is likely to meet the refrain: 'We are like this only.'