Something for Nothing

In 2007, a new note was added to the currency already circulating in India. It is the zero-rupee note, and since its appearance, one million of the unprepossessing notes, printed in five languages, have been circulated. The note is not legal tender, although it bears a resemblance to the 50-rupee note. Like all Indian notes, it bears the image of the Great Soul, Mahatma Gandhi, on it and I rather think that were he alive to view one, he might feel most pleased with it.
The idea for the notes presented itself first to an expatriate Indian physics professor who was appalled at the baksheesh culture he encountered on a visit to India. He found himself constantly facing upturned palms thrust at him by officials expecting to be bribed for the performance of their duties, and so he devised the note as a way to tell them politely to bugger off.
The notes came to the attention of Vijay Anand, president of the NGO, The Fifth Pillar. Visit the Fifth Pillar website and you will see that they describe themselves as, "an organization that strongly believes that the people that make up a democracy are the strongest members of such a system." They declare their belief that, "if each one of us changes our own habits, we will be attacking corruption at its roots, and corruption will cease to exist." That is the reason why each note now bears the Fifth Pillar's email address and phone number and the vow "I promise to neither accept nor give a bribe."
Anand feels the success stories attributed to the passing of the notes are due to the ordinary person's feeling that having the weight of an organization behind them makes the protest more likely to be effective than would the action of a solitary individual. Likewise, corrupt officials who find their palms being greased by one of these notes fear the possible consequence the organization behind the note might be able to affect.
In one success story told by Ravi Sundar, an IT recruiter in the southern city of Coimbatore, the notes produced an immediate change of heart on a cupidinous tax official. Apparently, this official had refused to process documents unless Sundar paid her 500 rupees. Sundar says he handed over just one of the zero-rupee notes which he keeps omnipresent in a pocket and the about-face was almost magical. "She was afraid and didn't want to take it. She completed the job immediately and said she was sorry and asked me not to take it forward", says Sandar.
Transparency International, a global civil society organisation leading a fight against corruption, states that each year almost four million poor Indian families have to bribe officials for access to basic public services, such as registering a birth, for example. These are services the people are supposed to receive for free, or for set fees, but too many of them come complete with the added burden of a bribe to be paid. The Fifth Pillar claims it amounts to £3 billion ($6.6 billion) paid in bribes each year. That's a huge amount of rupees finding their way out of the pockets in which they belong and into the hands of those who have no business palming them.
In the same report in which Transparency International declares dealing with bribe-demanding officials to be a way of life for 4m poor Indian families, they also announce that India has fallen in its corruption index from 72nd to 85th in a list of 180 countries. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says the problem of corruption among public officials threatens India's future economic prospects. Most certainly, a change has to be made.
Gandhi taught amazing lessons about how to affect great change with passive resistance; basically by doing nothing. I am sure the Great Soul would smile happily at this little piece of paper. Maybe it has no monetary value but it does have a great potential for getting something for nothing.