The various corruption scandals that have grabbed national attention are yet another reminder of how deep the rot is.
Corruption is not a new problem in India. Kautilya had bluntly talked about 40 methods of embezzlement in the Arthashastra, his famous treatise on government. President Rajendra Prasad had written to prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru in the early days of the republic to warn him about the growing incidence of corruption in government. A committee headed by K. Santhanam was formed in 1962 to suggest ways to reduce corruption. The first Bill for a Lokpal was tabled in Parliament in 1968. Institutions such as the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Central Vigilance Commission were set up in those years. And add to that the flurry of legislation that sought to check corruption.
At least some of the corruption in the socialist era was linked to the discretionary powers vested with the government. C. Rajagopalachari often lashed out against the insidious way that the licence raj was undermining honesty across the country. The Santhanam committee also tried to establish a link between economic controls and corruption. There is undoubtedly a lot of truth in their observations. The advent of economic reforms in 1991 reduced corruption in a lot of sectors; one does not hear of cement allocation scams these days. A transition to auctions could have prevented the telecom spectrum scam.
But it is also true that economic reforms have not stamped out corruption. The nature of the beast has now changed, with massive amounts of money being made in public procurement, land deals, welfare schemes, infrastructure projects and the like. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the size of the loot has also multiplied. The Bofors deal seems like a pittance today, even after taking inflation into account.
The venality within government is mind-boggling, from the national minister in New Delhi caught with his hands in the till to the district official who demands a bribe to help a farmer access his land records. Yet, it would be wrong to pretend that the problem is restricted to the innards of government. Dishonesty has become ubiquitous in India: the corporate sector, education, the legal system and the media, for example. It would not be far from the truth to say that India suffers from a crisis of values.
The fact that corruption is an old disease, it is ubiquitous and has become culturally acceptable should not lead to the pessimistic conclusion that nothing should be done about it, that silent rage is the only rational response. Many countries have won the battle against corruption, at least against the sort of pervasive corruption we see in India.
The most natural place to begin is the political system. In 1967, Atal Bihari Vajpayee had pointed out with his trademark irony that every parliamentarian begins his career with a lie, when he reports the size of his election fund. The lies multiply after that.
The main attack against corruption in the political system has to begin at the top, just as there is little hope of cleaning up the corporate sector if the focus is on the small entrepreneur rather than large business houses.
There has been enough discussion in recent decades on the solutions: reform of electoral funding, independent watchdogs, greater autonomy for the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Right to Information, more transparent public procurement and ombudsmen such as the Lokpal, for example. Of equal importance is a political culture that respects these institutions rather than treats them as instruments of political control.
The Manmohan Singh government has preferred to distract national attention whenever a corruption scandal has erupted rather than try to address the problem. Also, the Prime Minister has used his reputation of personal probity to protect himself against being equated with several corrupt ministers in his cabinet; but it is high time this layer of Teflon was ripped off. The buck should stop with him.
The time to be impressed with his weak platitudes about corruption has gone.
