Chits, Sheets and crime: Clean cheats are an Indian phenomenon

Proof of India’s basic faith in the principle of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan surely lies in the unending procession of ‘clean chits’ dished out with democratic abandon. Not only do they appear to be readily available in every corner of the country, no speck of dirt can survive the onslaught of those magical, exculpatory billets; nor are they visible to the naked eye. No wonder politicians and public servants, tycoons and sportspeople, multinational corporations and governments — in short, all those with even a suspicion of taint — miraculously end up being scrubbed clean by those ubiquitous chits, sooner or later. If no official body obliges in time, they even give each other clean chits if necessary.

Surprisingly, those pristine if imaginary ‘chits’ appear to exist only in India, as that word for English speakers in the west generally denotes a pert young girl. For them, people let off the hook for suspected wrongdoing are deemed to have obtained ‘clean sheets’, which in India would probably be construed as being bestowed with spotless bedding. India does, however, have ‘history sheeters’, who in other Englishspeaking nations may be more succinctly known as serial felons for their long record of criminal offences. For most of them, unfortunately, clean chits — and even sheets, actually —are a distant dream.