Highlights of India Today issue dated July 22, 2013. The Cover Story, ‘The Bribe Republic’, focuses on the rampant bribery scene in India. High decibel scams may shake up the nation, but it’s the everyday facilitation fee that hurts citizens the most.
The Bribe Republic | |
| |
 Welcome to the Republic of Bribe, where nothing gets done until the right palm is greased. In the last nine years, he has swiftly moved up the ladder of success: From storekeeper to nurse to lecturer to observer of the Indian Nursing Council (INC). Along the way, he has amassed wealth that would turn politicians green with envy: Rs 200 crore. He has 10 bank accounts, 30 properties and ownership stake in 25 nursing colleges. How did he do it? Well, as his colleagues would testify, he is very good at "managing". He 'managed' to win the Florence Nightingale nursing award in 2008, for his "dedication to sufferers", much to the surprise of those who have never seen him in hospital wards. He 'managed' the top bosses of INC so well that he became the 'single-window approver' of government clearance for all nursing colleges in Rajasthan. He has 'managed' healthcare promoters beautifully-withholding paperwork till they greased his palms with the desired sum. And he has 'managed' ministers and bureaucrats so effectively that when the Rajasthan Anti-Corruption Bureau caught him red-handed for pocketing a bribe of Rs 5 lakh on June 30, threatening phone calls started pouring in. GREASING THE RIGHT PALM Welcome to the Republic of Bribe, where nothing gets done until the right palm is greased with the right amount. One in two Indians regularly pays bribes when dealing with public institutions, estimates Transparency International's (TI) July 2013 survey, Global Corruption Barometer. "It has turned almost into an art form," says sociologist Dipankar Gupta. Someone pays-to speed up paperwork, avoid trouble with authorities, access basic services-and someone is paid off. The job is done. Everyone smiles. In the TI report, two out of three people believe personal contacts help to get things done in the public sector. More than one in two think governments are run by groups acting in their own interests rather than for the benefit of the citizens. "Bribe thrives when there is a pervasive belief that the powerful are able to get away with it," says Gupta. "People lose trust in institutions and in those entrusted with power." |
The changing business of bribes in India
Bribes are now being channelled through corporate deals rather than cash
Illustration: Jayachandran/Mint
The latest corruption scam involving a top politician once again throws light on how bribes are being channelled through corporate deals rather than the old transfers of cash. The Central Bureau of Investigation last week said it was looking into an investment by Jindal Steel and Power in a company owned by Dasari Narayana Rao, who was coal minister when the Jindal firm secured a coal block in Jharkhand. The federal investigation agency suspects that the investment is actually a pay-off for getting the coal block.
The Jindal case is the most recent in a series of corruption investigations involving Indian politicians on funds flowing through corporate entities. Is this the new face of bribery?
The suitcase crammed with cash has traditionally been a popular metaphor for corruption—and with good reason. For example, there was the sensational claim made by Dalal Street scamster Harshad Mehta that he had handed over a suitcase of cash to P.V. Narasimha Rao when the latter was prime minister. Then there were the grainy video images of wads of currency being placed before former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Bangaru Laxman by reporters posing as arms dealers.
There is enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that cash still greases the crooked machinery of Indian politics. The Election Commission of India continues to catch vehicles loaded with cash during election campaigns. The Reserve Bank of India data on money supply usually shows a spike in cash (or what the central bank describes as “currency with the public”) whenever the country is preparing to go to the polls. The preference for high-value currency notes in recent years is partly explained by high inflation, but perhaps also by corruption.
However, many current corruption scams also tell us a fair bit about the changing nature of venality in India—more specifically the corporatization of the process. Consider some recent evidence, starting with the infamous telecom scam. The crux of the case against Shahid Balwa of Swan Telecom is that his company lent Rs200 crore to Kalaignar TV, controlled by the Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam, the party of former telecom minister A. Raja. Investigating agencies have claimed that this money was actually a pay-off for getting 2G licences during the controversial 2008 spectrum allocation. Compare this with the case of Sukh Ram, telecom minister in the Narasimha Rao government, who was caught with Rs3.6 crore of cash hidden in suitcases and bags at his home.
Several other cases have hit the headlines in recent months. India Cements vice-chairman and managing director N. Srinivasan has been questioned for investments of around `140 crore in companies controlled by Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, head of the YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh, allegedly in exchange for favours. Srinivasan has denied these charges. BJP leader Nitin Gadkari was investigated after revelations that a firm linked to infrastructure company Ideal Road Builders (IRB) had lent `164 crore to the Purti Group controlled by Gadkari. IRB had won many road contracts between 1995 and 1999, when Gadkari was minister in charge of the public works department in Maharashtra.
Activist Arvind Kejriwal blew the lid on sweet deals between Robert Vadra and realtor DLF, including land transactions as well loans given to companies controlled by the son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Once again, both sides have denied any wrongdoing. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister’s Office last week turned down a request by a Right to Information activist for a report on how the Vadra-DLF investigations are progressing.
A lot has been written and said about how companies with political access have managed to capture natural resources such as land, minerals and spectrum. What has attracted less notice is that the gatekeepers of these resources—powerful politicians—have also used their companies to collect money. Crony capitalism has worked at both ends of these deals.
http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/FlIpIS8qltutqf6zWJoevM/The-changing-business-of-bribes-in-India.html
The Republic Of Corruption
Most times I read a piece about corruption, I have what I suspect is a fairly common reaction—“Not another moralizing piece!” And so, a promise —this piece on corruption won’t preach.
We can safely declare that while we may not have achieved universal education in India, we have succeeded in universalizing corruption. Consider the list of corruption-infested activities:
Birth certificates, building licences, ration cards, medical supplies, primary school admissions, examination papers, police station postings, mining permits, master planning, defence contracts, court pronouncements, environmental clearances, NGO funding, corporate balance sheets, auditor statements, bank loan sanctions, burial grounds, petrol pump licences, natural gas concessions, power plants, water supply distribution, affordable housing allotments, parking violations, speeding violations, treating accident victims, telecom tariffs, manure for municipal parks, dairy cooperatives, microfinance, garbage contracts, highway contracts, auto-rickshaw meters, bus tickets, press coverage, beggars, hawker zones, NREGA payments, JNNURM contracts, missile systems, government school chalk contracts, army uniform supplies, temple priests, church conversions, mullah edicts, sales tax offices, small-scale industry licences, coffee boards, political parties, candidate tickets, governors’ offices, intelligence bureau, Border Security Force, train reservations, cricket boards, censor board, Olympic committee, forest preservation, backward class reservation, college admissions, panchayat presidents, municipal mayors, movie-making, temple hundis, heritage preservation, tiger protection, aircraft purchases, milk procurement, government fair price shops (ironically named), RTI offices, rape victim depositions, hit-and-run cases, FIR registration, disabilities Act implementation, foster homes, adoption agencies, fertilizer subsidies, land use conversions, Ganapati festivals, factory emissions, labour unions, employment exchanges, student hostels, passport offices, drivers’ licences, excise duties, tourist visas, pilgrimage spots, death certificates...
From birth to death, we are now immersed in corruption. Thought experiment—try and think of one public activity that is free, actually completely free, from corruption.
If there is a common thread that binds us together as Indians, it is corruption. One massive national endeavour in which each of us is an active agent—either as perpetrator or as victim or as beneficiary. The specific role we play changes—just as Vishnu takes different avatars, we assume different garbs depending on the situation: often victim, sometimes beneficiary, and not infrequently perpetrator.
It’s got so pervasive that there is an almost ubiquitous corruption-level guessing game going on in everyone’s minds, be it in government, in the private sector or NGOs: “I heard that so-and-so is corrupt, that is how they can afford all those new gadgets, and the fancy holidays they take.”
Gone are the days of “innocent until proven guilty”; today the mantra is “corrupt until proven honest”. Unfortunately, honesty is like scientific theory—it can never be proved, only disproved. And so, the honest folk who resist are fighting a constant uphill battle—pretty soon, the corrosive effect of corruption seeps in to erode almost everyone’s defence—built on a varying mix of ethics, fear and fading hope in a day of comeuppance.
We find ourselves so neck-deep in the swamp that we don’t even sense the stink any more. In fact, we have constructed twisted arguments to condone corruption, including the ingenious one which says that all the corruption-driven money eventually comes back into the economy, so it’s okay—that in fact it was India’s large grey market that helped cushion the impact of the global economic crisis in 2009.
When a phenomenon is so pervasive that it engulfs an entire society, we cannot get out of the mess by pretending that some are superior to others, or with lectures that lament a bygone ethical way of life—it only puts everyone off, especially the youth. And, for all its punchy impact, Rajkumar Hirani’s movie on Gandhigiri was never really going to work in real life. This is a problem where isolated individual action isn’t enough— we need something more, much bigger, a combination of credible systems and collective leadership—to catalyse a virtuous cycle of change.
Unfortunately, it’s not clear where the flywheel for this change will come from. Politics is a logical answer, just as it has been in other countries. But in India, large-scale politics is a Faustian bargain with integrity as barter.
For all the gloom, it’s also true that we have the capacity in our country to harness a collective energy, rise above our circumstances, and undertake massive transformation. We’ve done it before —what better reminder than 26 January? Maybe that was a unique event, and we can never have an encore. Or, perhaps, we could do it again. Happy 60th anniversary for the Republic. In hope.