Pillorying the government of the day for pervasive
corruption is the easy thing to do, whereas it might just be an escapist
option. It helps those of us who are neither in politics nor in the
government to pretend that we are not tainted, and therefore have the
right to point fingers at politicians, who we assume are not. The truth,
as recent events have brought home forcefully, is that corruption has
permeated fields that have nothing to do with politics and government.
The
cricket establishment is a disgrace, and now suspected of far worse
than the misdemeanors of the Indian Olympic Association, for which that
body has suffered the deserved misfortune of being thrown out of the
international Olympic movement. If it is spot fixing in cricket, it has
been widespread doping in wrestling; problems persist in half a dozen
sports bodies, whose recognition the government has withheld. You could
argue that it is politicians who mostly run the sports bodies, except
that none of the people around Mr Kalmadi were from the world of
politics. In any case, the cricket boss is a businessman.
And
what does one make of Ranbaxy – once a poster boy for the emerging
India, but which now stands exposed for falsifying its research results,
and then selling what must presumably be described as adulterated drugs
to unsuspecting consumers, at home and abroad? The US authorities have
slapped a penalty of half a billion dollars (about Rs 2,800 crore), but
where have India’s own drug authorities been all this while? What about
the criminal liability of all those who were in the company and part of
the fraud? What is the responsibility of the company’s directors of the
time, including many well-known worthies – who, according to the
whistle-blower, chose to ignore the red flag that he waved?
The
building collapse that killed 1,100 hapless garment workers in
Bangladesh has undermined that country’s $20-billion garment export
industry, and raised systemic questions about building regulation. At
home, now that Wockhardt too has run into trouble with the US
authorities, what is the message to the world about India’s drug
industry – seen not so long ago as a global winner? When fraudulent
accounting at Satyam cast an international shadow on India’s IT services
sector, the damage was contained because the other companies in the
field were squeaky clean and Satyam itself was quickly sanitised through
changes of management and ownership. Ranbaxy casts a darker shadow,
because faking drugs is a more lethal business than faking accounts –
though bogus financials too can cause suicides, as the Saradha mess in
West Bengal shows. The older of the two billionaire brothers who sold
the company five years ago (and now run hospitals) has pleaded an angry
innocence because five years have passed since he stepped out of the
company, but the faking of research results was taking place on his
watch, and liability for that is independent of whether the Japanese who
bought the company in 2008 did proper due diligence.
No
system-wide questions are answered by doing nothing. If the canker is
widespread, there have to be systemic solutions. An obvious step is to
come down hard on anyone who is caught, as a lesson to everyone else.
System legitimacy suffers only when businessmen find ways of avoiding
being brought to justice. But perhaps the worst outcome would be to
treat this as just one more kind of reality TV, for nightly
entertainment. All troubling questions can be evaded if we just watch
Arnab Goswami shout at, hector and pillory his “guests” for an hour
every night, for thereby we’ve earned our absolution!
(Source: Weekend Ruminations by T.N. Ninan in Business Standard dated 25-05-2013)
