Why is there so much bribery in India.

Asking this question as an OCI. I am a British citizen who has lived outside India since I was 2. I did come back every year for holidays to visit my grandparents but stopped when I was 8. Since then I rarely visit. However, when I have I have noticed that there is a lot of bribery. A few years back I got married to my wife and she had renewed her passport due to name change. We had to get police verification done ( from what I remember) which needed a bribery for all the police officers to speed things up. This is because I wanted to apply for her visa and had already waited for a few weeks. I am always affected tad afraid to talk to anyone in India due to my accent. Once that happens things suddenly become a lot more expensive 😂. I am not even rich in the UK and not used to paying bribes to get things moving. Thankfully my wife is well accustomed to it. What can be done, if anything, to stop it? Or is it just sadly part of life in India?