There’s quite a bit of security in Delhi. I can’t comment on its effectiveness, but it’s definitely all over the place. When you drive around the city, every couple kilometers or so you’ll come across a police checkpoint where a few officers stand and spot check vehicles for, presumably, anything suspicious. The checks can range from a look in the window to a more thorough search in the trunk or through any bags that are in the car.
Once the sun goes down, though, the checkpoints seem to serve a different purpose. I’d always heard that India’s a pretty corrupt place, and got to see it first-hand last night.
I was in a car with four other people, and we approached one of the checkpoints. An officer waved us to the side, informing us that he wanted to check our car. Not a problem. We hadn’t done anything wrong. We weren’t speeding, the driver hadn’t consumed a drop of alcohol, etc.
The officer first asked the driver to come out and talk, so he did. Then another officer approached the passenger window and said they wouldn’t be able to let us go because the driver didn’t have his license. The passenger, who is from Delhi by the way, said that they should write us a ticket then. The officer changed the subject. He said he wasn’t sure the car was up to emissions standards, which was another violation. It was a brand new European car. About a year old.
And an emissions standards violation? Don’t get me wrong, I applaud the idea, but this is a city where it’s legal to start bonfires in the street. I’m pretty sure I could dump diesel on a pillow and set it on fire without anyone raising an eyebrow.
Clearly, the officers didn’t want to write us a ticket, but they also wouldn’t let us go. After about 5-10 more minutes of back and forth banter, our friend in the passenger seat paid them off, giving them about 500 rupees (roughly $10). They then walked away and let the driver come back to the car. It turned out he had his license the whole time, which is why they wouldn’t write us a ticket. They had nothing on us, and they could get in trouble for issuing a ticket for nothing. But there’s no proof of them taking a bribe.
After we drove away, I was pretty annoyed at the whole situation. If everyone pays them off, they’ll be more encouraged to keep asking for bribes, which will encourage them to pull more cars over for nonsense violations, and so on. I was convinced there had to be someone we could call to report the incident. Everyone else convinced me that there wasn’t.
Update: Just to clarify, in case it wasn’t clear – my frustration had nothing to do with being stopped or with the amount of money that was paid to the officers. It’s really about trust. Corruption, in most forms, likely slows growth because people can’t trust that laws and agreements will be honored. I wasn’t surprised by the incident, and it was obviously small and meaningless in isolation. But collectively these problems probably add up and result in a broad mistrust of the government. This incident was a symptom of an obviously much larger problem. After all, there a plenty of articles about the challenges created by corruption in India, and the recent anti-corruption measures considered by the Indian congress. So I thought I’d share this small, anecdotal experience.