A few days ago, I read this article by Ajit Balakrishnan, which left me scratching my head in bafflement. "Dazed and confused" about sums it up, not to say more than a little worried about the implications of his article.

Balakrishnan referred to the writings of Mark Granovetter, and Leela Fernandez in his article. Since I have not read either author, I will not comment on their theses that Balakrishnan has quoted, with obvious concurrence.

The following questions came to my mind after reading this article:

* Is Balakrishnan trying to tell us that, as we understand it, is OK? That this is the way of the new world, and this is what we will have to live with?
* Is he trying to tell us that there is no corruption, and what we call "corruption" exists only as the figment of our "New Middle Class" imagination?
* Is it an attempt at obfuscation, an attempt to shift attention from the attempts to reduce corruption, by bringing in a "larger picture", quoting a pair of writers from American universities to support this stance?
* Is this article a part of the larger campaign under way to scuttle the Lokpal Bill and the people who wish to make it happen? The various parts of this campaign have so far included attempts to 'smear' people in the Lokpal Bill Drafting Committee, challenge the legality of the Government notification, and other tactical ploys.

I must state that I am old-fashioned enough to believe that "corruption" is bad for our country and for us, and must go. I also believe that the standard understanding of the word "corruption" is good enough for me - I don't need a new definition of this word. Simplistic, but there it is.

While it is interesting to note that the word now appears to be (according to Granovetter and Fernandez) a part of the arsenal of words in a new class war, there is the reality of activities which the Oxford online and the Merriam-webster online dictionaries define as below:

Oxford:

* dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery
* the action or effect of making someone or something morally depraved.

Merriam-Webster:

* impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle : depravity
* inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (as bribery)

If any reader could throw some light on how one should decode Balakrishnan's article, given my bias, I should be most grateful.