Ever since 2014, when the blissful era of Amrit Kaal began, it is said that the nation has been spared the shame and disgrace of corruption in high places. Of course, this is not because there has been no corruption or that India has become bharastachar-mukt (corruption-free).We simply do not notice corruption, we do not recognise corruption, we do not report corruption. No reports, no corruption. No intrepid editors, no crusading anchors. And, we do not allow auditors like Vinod Rai to take liberties with our national gullibility.Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.Still, curiously enough, anyone reading newspapers (even the complicit and compromised ones) can easily read between the lines and connect the dots to figure out the pattern behind the infringements, embezzlements, short-changing, underhandedness, and other unholy crimes all around us.Take, for example, the July 3, 2026 Delhi edition of The Times of India. Now, this is one of the most read – and most responsible – national newspapers. Neither its owners nor its editors (whomsoever they may be) are hostile to the Modi government. It is a newspaper that by no stretch of imagination can be dubbed as ‘subversive’ or ‘radical’.So let us take an inventory of a few news items in the July 3 edition of TOI.Exhibit no. 1: ‘Ayodhya trust not answerable to government, MHA told CIC last year’.The story tells us that the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust is accountable to neither the Union nor Uttar Pradesh government, a curious oddity in these times of the totalising state. Even Kafka would be bewildered.Here is a body of trustees who in their collective wisdom put together an arrangement for collecting and accounting donations to the Ram temple. And, there was pilferage, supposedly by ‘small’ players.This theft could not have taken place without an enabling ecosystem. And, obviously, this ecosystem is totally devoid of ethical or spiritual vibes. For it was put in place by calculating men who thought that after years of ‘struggle’ they were entitled to put their hand in the till. A permissiveness that mocks the pious platitudes our rulers regularly fling at us. TOI story informs the reader that the RSS and VHP are represented at high level as “invitees” on the Ayodhya Trust. Some guardians of Hindu samaj these.Exhibit No. 2: ‘To avoid legal battles, ED settles 150 FEMA cases with RBI nod’.This brief story details how the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has come to some kind of settlement with some of the big, fat, rich entities/enterprises whom it had accused, in the first instance, of hanky-panky under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). And, precisely because these accused entities were rich and big, they could hire the best legal defence and engage the ED in prolonged litigation.Also read: Ayodhya’s Ram Temple And Six Past Charges of Alleged CorruptionThe story tells us how three figure violations are being ‘compounded’ for a two-figure peanut of a fine. All this with the permission and sanction of the Reserve Bank of India, that fierce guardian of our precious foreign exchange.Here is a government agency that has been weaponised with deadly effect against the regime’s political opponents, yet it now opts for understanding and indulgence against major economic offenders. Of course, there can be no suggestion that extraneous considerations or actors were involved working out these settlements; for that would be corruption.And, what is charming about this set of ‘settlements’ is the rationale attributed to the ED: “By shifting from a purely punitive policing model to a facilitation one, the ED significantly enhances the ease of doing business in India. How touching. Kafka would approve.There used to be old adage in the Indian bureaucracy: show me a bureaucrat and I will show you a rule. We seem to have settled for a new one: show me an economic offender and I will show you a policy shift.A policy, by very definition, cannot be corrupt.Exhibit no. 3: ‘SC nixes rulings by NCLT, NCLAT based on fake AI citations’.This story, on page 15, tells us how fakery – so far the preserve of politicians and demagogues – is now being ‘normalised’ by those who have the gravest responsibility for administration of justice.TOI reports how the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) relied on “AI- generated material and cited six non-existent Supreme Court judgments”. Kafka seems to be overworked.And, at the appeal level, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) also did not find anything fishy. According to the story, the “fake, non-existent, and hallucinated material” was not supplied by the lawyers but the “tribunal obtained the material through its own research.Also read: Six Reasons Why Modi and the BJP Can’t Evade Accountability in Ram Temple TheftReading between the lines, this seems to be a snapshot of the mediocrity and underhandedness that have seeped into our institutions. Intellectual dishonesty of this kind is worse than any financial hera-pheri (foul play). This too is the new normal.Exhibit no. 4: ‘Judge gets threats for convicting ‘cow vigilantes’, MP HC steps in’.The page 10 story is abut how a sessions judge, Tabassum Khan, was facing threats for having sentenced 14 men in ‘a lynching case tied to suspicions of cow smuggling.” Intimidation of Muslims, even if one happens to be a judge, is all in a day’s work in Naya Bharat.The only redeeming aspect seems to be the willingness of the high court to come to the rescue of the judge. It may be dawning on the higher judiciary that if goons are allowed to threaten a session judge, tomorrow the same mob can storm the high courts. The failure of the “system” to protect a session judge until the high court’s intervention is invisible corruption of the most disquieting type.Exhibit no. 5: ‘Bombay HC: Are all citizens being made slaves of Indian govt?’Finally, a judge of a high court had the courage to ask of the police under what provisions of law could an externment order be passed against someone for shouting: “BJP government murdabad… Amit Shah murdabad.”The orders for externment, according to the TOI story, were passed by very senior police officials who ought to know the law. Surely, official lawlessness must also be counted as corruption.These five random exhibits from a single newspaper in one day tell the larger story of a republic under stress. And, this stress is translating itself into a harsh existence for millions and millions of our citizens. Yet, our rulers are blissfully distracted by their own power games. And they can remain so indifferent and callous because they know they have succeeded in denuding us of our civilisational values. For it is emotionally and spiritually exhausted societies which succumb to submissiveness.Harish Khare was editor-in-chief of The Tribune.This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click .