An incidence from 2008 re-examined…

Could insecurity lead to reduced corruption?  I am trying to analyze it by comparing India and Singapore…  and one thing which I had read was that, level of corruption in Singapore is v.low and in India, its very high.  What all could be the reasons?

During the beginning of 2008, the share markets fell down steeply world over.  And during these days, another unrelated incident occurred – India announced it will stop export of rice.  Singapore imports lots of rice from India, and this announcement lead to an immediate rise in rice prices ;) – something like 15 to 20 rupees per KG rise. 

As a free market economy in Singapore, the prices of rice kept on increasing as a premonition of decreased supply and increased demand to stock up rice.  In supermarkets suddenly 20 kg rice sacks increased in display, and people were also trying to buy bigger packs, even though such a behavior will increase the feeling of shortage, and rice pack areas in supermarkets began to look empty.  This went on for some time, before panic subsided. 

Would such an event created similar levels of panic in India?  People might have expected the Govt. to step in at such an event, and provide low cost rice through public distribution system (of course of low-quality), and other measures etc.  Another difference is that, Singapore does not produce any rice, and overall imports most stuff from other countries (from water, electricity, to most food items).  But as India is a vast country, a sudden food shortage would not be expected and people would be complacent even when disaster occurs in one part of the country.

And in Singapore, as it’s a small country, the realization that corruption and other practices which weakens the country overall will affect me and my family as well – would be much higher than in India.  Thus, insecurity could be a factor, which changes the behavior of a Singaporean to be more national centric and less self centric. 

But, this argument will fail when behavior of citizens of most poor countries are considered.  What is the level of corruption in Somalia or such countries?  So, its not just feeling of insecurity that if our national economy falls down we will starve, but also already existing levels of comforts, that will have to be sacrificed. 

Maybe that sense of nationalism could have been engineered by Singapore govt. and due to its smaller size, there are more commonalities among the population and idea of oneness. 

Of course, the whole world is one, and ours.  The people who see the whole world as their own home, will be concerned about environment and be more broadly responsible and less greedy about ONLY their own self growth.

How to create more such people, in India & world over?

How to show that this larger connectedness & impact on future generations and their own children to more people?  I ponder on and on… ;)