印度百姓采取自主行动打击腐败。

维贾伊•阿南德（Vijay Anand）从美国回到自己家乡印度泰米尔纳德邦（Tamil Nadu, India）后，很厌恶基层的腐败行为。人们需要向官员行贿，才能获得原应免费的常规服务。

于是，阿南德开始采取行动。

他创办了一个组织“第五支柱” （5th Pillar），帮助百姓采取自主行动打击腐败。为了配合反腐败行动，他还开发了一种有力的武器：价值为零的卢比纸币。这张纸币乍一看像是50卢比的钞票。但钞票上没有官方标记，只印着两句话：“铲除各级腐败”和“我保证既不受贿也不行贿”。

志愿者在火车站等行贿受贿司空见惯的基层场所发放零卢比的纸币，鼓励公民把这些钞票交给想接受贿赂的官员。这种由普通公民提出抗议的方式简单易行，在许多情况下对方因害怕会受到处罚 （贿赂在印度属于非法），往往会提供颁发许可证，运送行李等服务，不再给人们制造麻烦。

Zero rupee notes stop bribes that long have been expected for services that should be free.

When Vijay Anand returned from the U.S. to his home state of Tamil Nadu, India, he didn’t like the low-level corruption that made it necessary to pay bribes to officials for ordinary services that were supposed to be free.

So Anand did something about it.

He created 5th Pillar, an organization for empowering citizens to defy corruption, and he created a powerful weapon to go along with it: the zero rupee note. The piece of paper is designed to look, at first glance, like a 50-rupee note. But replacing the official currency markings are the slogan “Eliminate corruption at all levels” and the pledge “I promise to neither accept nor give bribe.”

Volunteers handed out zero rupee notes at train stations and other places where low-level bribes are commonplace, encouraging citizens to give them to officials expecting a bribe. In many cases, this simple protest by an ordinary citizen made the recipient fearful of triggering disciplinary action (bribery is illegal in India), and the service (granting a permit, carrying luggage) was provided without further trouble.