Ten years ago, this writer paid a bribe of Rs 30,000 to an income-tax officer in Mumbai for getting the official to release a refund cheque of Rs 3,00,000 that an overzealous accountant had deducted in excess as tax deduction at source at his then employer, Reuters.The message came from a chartered accountant that the cheque was lying in the official’s drawer and he wouldn’t part with it until the customary fee of 10% was paid. Upon my refusal, the CA advised against it, saying the official would simply sit on the cheque until it expired. Once that happens, he said, getting a fresh cheque out of the department would be impossible. It was a case of shutting my nose to force-open my mouth at a time when my finances were crumbling.It’s a memory that has stayed, turning this writer into a litigious fellow, threatening long legal and other battles against anyone who dares cross his path. The difference is that today I have the financial wherewithal to pay my way through the system to fix wrongs. Then, I did not. You can’t right wrongs if you’re poor.Indians suck above and kick below and the placements on the ladder are determined solely by the quantum of money owned. That is why honest whistle-blowers, who are never ever rich, make good short-term bursts of news for hyper-ventilating TV newscasters, while the moneybags remain permanent fixtures.Money, regardless of its colour, is important in a nation where there is no social security, no dole, no public healthcare and no respect. Check out the cases of seemingly respectable middle-aged men in expensive cities like Mumbai who harass their aged parents to transfer ownership of their flats in Dahisar or Thane, into their names.Mr Tie and Briefcase fears that if it is not done, married sisters will come back to claim their share, forcing him and family to move to a slum nearby. How often have you paid money in the bad old days of government monopolies in areas such as phone and milk? Almost certainly, a large majority whose daily routine depended upon it has.The only ones who never paid a bribe and do not do so even now are the really poor — that’s because they have nothing to lose. They’re living off the streets, having meals if they come by at all and don’t care if somebody threatens to shut off the streetlight under which they cook their dinner.Everyone else has paid bribes at one time, or another. To get their phones fixed, to escape a traffic violation fine, to get a passport, to get school admission, or even to get preference in a queue at an important religious shrine. To state it baldly, there’s corruption even when people want to think of the sacred. No one thinks of these as wrong.In India, wrongdoing and short-term public outrage are not about a hundred rupees, or a thousand rupees. It has to start at Rs 25 crore and go into several multiples. It has to involve a politician, or a rich businessman, both of whom despite their villainous nature, are clearly capable people.They loot the treasury and then preside over it, unlike losers who pay Rs 100 to a petty clerk to get their work done faster than their neighbours’. So why is it that what the ordinary man or woman does is not considered corruption and a generator of black money, while a powerful person’s similar actions on a larger scale are vilified?It’s the result of our self-righteous middle-class morality that permits us to under pay our domestic workers and make them slog seven days a week with no health or retirement benefits.Arvind Kejriwal’s expose on the big players having black money in bank accounts overseas is laudable, but for it to have a lasting impact it is necessary to go to the roots of it rather than just scream for the villains’ scalps.Black money, all over the world, is income that’s earned from illegal activity, such as drug peddling, arms dealing, or trading with countries on which there is an economic embargo. Since the activity is not permitted, the income cannot be reported and that makes the money black.India is probably the only country where black money is generated out of perfectly legitimate businesses, such as building a home, mining iron ore or exporting shrimp to the Middle East. That’s because our laws are very restrictive and more importantly vague and open to varying interpretation by bureaucrats and petty clerks.India’s IT industry succeeded because its output goes barrelling down fibre-optic cables to the West and there are no gatekeepers who can stop the flow saying: “Hey, you can’t export that as you need a permit and after that you need to pay 100% duty.” If IT were a tangible product and had to be shipped out of Nhava Sheva Port, our customs and excise would have strangled it in infancy.Black money on a large scale is generated at every point where the government, or an authority, has the power to grant a licence, or to charge an unreasonable direct, or indirect, tariff. The peak income-tax rate in Indira Gandhi’s regime was 97% and you needed to be a lunatic to work hard to create wealth and hand over that to a corrupt and inefficient government.Her “Garibi Hatao” was more like “Amiri Hatao” — impoverish the wealthy and that would make the majority happy as everyone is wallowing in the same shit. Mrs Gandhi is the inventor of black money in modern India — a monster that never dies, but keeps swelling and has become too big to let fail.If with a magic wand we were able to get rid of black money instantly, our economy would die because our political parties would wither away, business would come to a standstill as no approvals will be forthcoming, the stock markets will collapse and peoples’ salaries would be choked.Not all black money is lying unproductive in Swiss banks as is naively suggested by Baba Ramdev — it is in active circulation with the black marketers’ spending becoming other people’s income. Black money has supported several initial public offerings as they come back as foreign institutional investments.They also come in as foreign direct investment because there are few places like India, where returns can double your money in three years. Why then would the holders of this cash keep it idle in a Swiss vault, or put it in US government bonds?There’s another moral dimension to black money — it is income on which taxes haven’t been paid to the government. It’s well known that substantial money from the state’s coffers are pilfered by politicians and bureaucrats and hence the ethics of not feeding a greedy dog can be argued any which way.The solution to black money lies with the upcoming generation and there are very good chances the scourge will diminish substantially by 2025. When I was in school in Mumbai, none of the children of our domestic helps went to school. Today, I find all of them going to good institutions and getting jobs as IT professionals, or animation designers.The government’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan is helping to educate children in villages and it’s a good thing even if the quality of learning may be a bit shoddy. When these children go to vote, they will look for quality parliamentarians. They will be unlike our current illiterate electorate who get carried away with rustic jokes, false promises and cash doled out.This will reduce the need for black money to fund political campaigns, in turn easing the pressure on politicians in power to extract money from businesses. A healthy economy and higher per capita incomes will also spur the quality of India’s democracy, as individual rights have no meaning and dignity if you’re starving and deprived.Until then, it is good to be reminded constantly by Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal that we live in a rotten society and the blame lies not just with politicians and rich businessmen, but all of us who use cash, or connections, to get in faster to see the Balaji shrine at Tirupati.(The writer, a former journalist, is founder of a financial firm that advises global private equity funds on real estate in India).