CORRUPTION

A s a member of the Indian Administrative Service, both

at the Centre and the State of Gujarat, I spent forty two
years in Government. In the last four years of my career,
from September 3, 1998 to September 2, 2002, I was offered an
inside view of the extent of corruption in Government of India
as I was appointed the Central Vigilance Commissioner. I have
since retired and as a citizen of India I have been witness to the
quality of governance and the impact of corruption in our country
from outside the government. It is from the combination of
these two perspectives that I will be examining the theme of
Combating Corruption.
       During the freedom struggle, our political leaders
maintained a high level of integrity. Even though they collected
money from the public at large for financing the freedom
struggle, there was hardly any whiff of corruption about the
leaders at a personal level. Sardar Patel, Mahatma Gandhi,
Jawaharlal Nehru are names which are revered. At the
personal level their integrity was never in doubt. Nevertheless,
after independence, there has been a steady and steep fall in the
moral values of the leaders in every sector of society. Especially
when it comes to corruption by public servants, including the
political leaders, an honest person is an exception rather than
the rule.
       Before I proceed further, I thought we should take
a historic perspective to understand why these things
happened. There are periods of time in history when you
find certain ideas are dominant. For example, we say that
Jawaharlal Nehru was fascinated with Fabian socialism
and therefore he went for the permit-licence raj. But if
you go back to 1947, which was just two years after the
Second World War, you realize that after the end of the
war, even in Europe, governments were playing a more
active role in the reconstruction of nations. So you had
the Labour Government coming to power in Britain even
though Churchill provided such brilliant leadership during
the War. We find, in Japan, the whole reconstruction under
General MacArthur taking place and many of the laws
of the United States on labour applying to the Japanese
industry. Socialism was the spirit of that period. The
Germans have a word called Zeitgeist — “the spirit of the
time” or “conventional wisdom”. The spirit of the time in
the post-World-War was for a more activist, interventionist
government in the economy and probably we in India also
went along that path.
       But then what happened? I read an article, maybe twenty
years ago, in The Economist which said that if Akbar the Great,
the Moghul Emperor, were to come to Delhi in 1980, he would
have felt very much at home. Why should Akbar feel at home
and be happy in Delhi in 1980? Because we were following the
Moghul system of administration. What is this Moghul system
of administration? Everything is forbidden unless it is
permitted!
       So this total control of the economy, this licensing, led
to a situation where everything in the citizen’s day to day life
became an exercise in constant interface with the government,
a constant exercise to get clearances. In fact, one of my American
friends used to say, “Setting up an industry in India is an exercise
in sequential obstructionism.”
       As time passed, as economies recovered, as nations
prospered, the realization grew worldwide, which was symbolized
very strongly by Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret
Thatcher in Britain, that we should have more freedom for the
citizen. The theory of public choice in governance became
dominant and that spirit of liberalization has continued. What
happened historically was that in 1989, dramatically, the Berlin
Wall came down, in 1990 the implosion of the Soviet Union and
the Communist world took place. The so-called Second World
disappeared, in the sense that 60 countries opted not for the
planned, centralized, “the State controlling the commanding
heights” approach but for the market-oriented approach, with
each country following its own different way. That was what
happened.
       In India, in 1991, even this “conventional wisdom”
or Zeitgeist had no affect. In India, our politicians acted as
they always do. The politicians of India act only under two
circumstances. One, there is the TINA (There Is No Alternative)
factor. Number two, there is a vote bank advantage. In 1991,
Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister. He was not known to be
a great-decision maker. He was a man who said, ‘Not taking a
decision is itself a decision.’ But such a person was able to bring
about a 180 degrees U turn in the direction of the economy of
the country, which we had followed from Jawaharlal Nehru’s
time.
       All that was given a quiet reversal because we were
bankrupt, we didn’t have foreign exchange. We had to adopt what
was called the ‘Washington consensus’, the directions of the IMF
and the World Bank, and we turned around. But this turning
around in the Indian macro economic approach has also been
in overall tune with what has been happening in the world.
That is why I want readers to appreciate what is happening
in India in the global context. Because one of the reasons for
corruption, historically, was the licence-permit raj, what they
call the inspector raj, it was widely felt that to the extent you
remove government from the economy, to that extent you can
reduce corruption. For example, the liaison man and the whole
culture of “contact man” which grew in the fifty years of licence-
permit raj, made corruption into a fine art. It was felt, suppose
we remove some of these controls and remove the licensing
system,
perhaps corruption will be reduced. Therefore, logically, if we are
true liberals; and if the market forces are going to determine the
matters economic and government is not going to be intervening
and playing a role of patronage, using discretion and distributing
licences, etc. there would be less corruption.

Many Avatars of Corruption

But corruption, we realize, is like Lord Vishnu himself.
Lord Vishnu comes in every yuga in a different avatar. So

 
corruption is also taking a different avatar depending upon the
yuga. If it is permit-licence raj, there is one type of corruption.
If it is liberalization, there is another type of corruption.
        Now what are the types of corruption in the liberalization
era? We can identify at least a few versions of post-liberalization
corruption which mock at your assumption that by removing
the role of the State, and de-emphasizing the government in
the economy, it would automatically ensure that there will be
less corruption.

        Take a sector like power. We all know the Enron scam.
Initially, there were parties who swore that they would throw
Enron into the Arabian Sea. But these parties, when they came
to power, reversed their stand and approved everything. And
then we realized that Enron itself was a big scam, it had shocked
even the American investors. Today Enron has become a symbol
of corporate cheating and lack of corporate governance. Such a
thing happened here in the power sector.

       But that is not all. A new thing started. I was told that after
liberalization, when the infrastructure was opened for private
investment, people came up with proposals of mega projects.
Many of these mega projects were never realized. But the whole
objective of the mega projects was to get various clearances
and get mega kick-backs. You find some States signing a series
of “fast track” projects in the power sector. The amount of
money that went into this became a scandal. We thought that
with liberalization and private fellows coming in, it would reduce
corruption. Instead, corruption took a new avatar in policy-
making, in influencing the policy-makers.

IT and Corruption
Another avatar arises because this era of liberalization has
also seen greater induction of Information Technology. We
are talking about e-governance. Actually, I have been connected
for twenty years with both electronics and telecommunication
and information technology. I also thought that by bringing
information technology, we can probably bring in greater
transparency, greater speed and therefore check corruption.
But here also, ultimately we find that my old observation has
proved true. I used to say when I was the Electronics Secretary
that Indians have got such brilliant brains that there is no
technology whose challenge Indians cannot meet. But is there
any technology which can meet the challenge of Indians, in the
sense of their capacity to twist the technology?

      Chandrababu Naidu called me, after I retired as CVC, to

head what is called the Commission on People Empowerment.
I told him, “Sir, you have done so much in IT, so much of
e-governance, etc. What is the need for this new commission?
You should be able to check corruption.” He said, “In spite of so
much of IT, public perception in Andhra is that corruption has
increased under the government. At least 62% of the people who
responded in a thirty thousand people poll, held this view. So
we are trying to see what can be done to check corruption.”
      So, even with IT, corruption is flourishing. How is it
flourishing? One of the things, the Andhra Government
highlights is computerization of the land records. If you go to
the Registrar’s office, you can get all the transactions done,
selling or buying of property etc. within half an hour. What
used to take one month now takes half an hour. But I am told
how corruption flourishes: Once you put everything into the
computer, then it takes half an hour. But for putting the data in
the computer, you have to give the bribe. How can we tackle this
issue? That is the real problem for those who are concerned with
the governance.

Consultants for Common Loot

  Then another avatar has come. Since we are globalised
now, every State gets money directly from the World
Bank, IMF etc. With them, a new culture has come –
the culture of consultants. In the post-liberalization era,
these consultants are being used in a very clever way
for common loot. Suppose you want to have a project,
an infrastructure project. For all mega projects, you have
consultants. If it is a Rs.100 crore project, the consultant
will say it will cost 300 crores. Now if it is a 100 crore
project, in the old system, our PWD manual operates with
a schedule of rates. People will go with a tooth comb
to find out details. Now that the consultant is there, you
can’t question the consultant. I am told, even when the
consultant is engaged, depending upon the size of the
project, kick-backs are all arranged. Now the hundred
crore project, saying it is a three hundred crore project,
will be implemented and in implementation they will do
it in 2 5 0 crores and the public will be told, “Look, we have
saved 50 crores.”
       Mega scams grabbing headlines in quick succession, in
recent months, is the latest confirmation of the enormous amount
of corruption in our system. The Spectrum scam estimated to be
of Rs. 100,000 crores, followed by the Reddy brothers scam in
Karnataka who with their millions from mining threatened the
Karnataka government and Madhu Koda’s scam running into
thousands of crores show that political corruption has reached
enormous dimensions. No wonder, India is rated as one of the
most corrupt countries in the world. She ranks at 84 out of 180
countries in the latest annual Corruption Perception Index of the
Transparency International, an NGO in Berlin which tracks
the degree of corruption in different countries.

NEW (National Election Watch) is a coalition of 1200

civil society organizations working across our country. It has
come out with a perceptive and incisive analysis of the 15th Lok
Sabha elections held in 2009. The striking message coming out
    We also witnessed the sorry spectacle of how, when public-
spirited
activists tried to stop the voters from accepting the money
distributed
by political cadres, they were beaten up by the voters. The people
as
voters have become accustomed to the idea that election time is
the time of
bonanzas and envelopes stuffed with money.

of the NEW analysis is the decisive role played by money power

in our politics – especially in the elections. Just consider these
facts highlighted by a renowned journalist P. Sainath in a recent
article:
1. If you are worth Rs. 50 million, you are 75 times more
likely to win the election to the Lok Sabha than if you are
worth under Rs. 1 million
2. 23 out of the 64 cabinet ministers have assets of over
Rs. 50 million each.
3. The 543 MPs of the current Lok Sabha are worth close
to Rs. 28 billion.
Social values also have deteriorated to such an extent that
today the Indian democracy has become an exercise of sheer
money power. The 2009 elections probably hit the nadir. The
formerChiefElectionCommissionerN. Gopalaswamyconfessed
recently in a talk in Chennai that while they could, to some extent,
control the malpractices like booth capturing and violence, they
were powerless against the naked display of money power and
buying of the votes. This exercise of openly distributing money
to the voters has been perhaps perfected in Tamil Nadu where
there were altegations that amounts close to Rs. 7,000 per vote
were paid. We also witnessed the sorry spectacle of how, when
public-spirited activists tried to stop the voters from accepting
the money distributed by political cadres, they were beaten up
by the voters. The people as voters have become accustomed to
the idea that election time is the time of bonanzas and envelopes
stuffed with money.

Has our democracy been reduced to a plutocracy where

unless you have tons of money you cannot enter the game? This is
a real chal enge to al  thinking patriotic Indians who look forward
to a clean healthy public life where the welfare of the citizens
and the development of the country will be the main objectives
of politics.

Another  paralel development  is  the  universal development of

freebie culture  where  political  parties  promise not only essential
goods like food, clothing  and  shelter  but  items like  television, 
gas  connection and  so  on.  This  natural y  leads to  diversion  of 
money  from the  public  funds  which  are meant for basic
functions
of the  government like maintenance of  law and order, public
health
and education  and development of  infrastructure like roads,
power
and water supply. The public finances of the state are therefore,
thrown out of gear and the development of state suffers. Good
governance is the victim of this process.

Thanks to our current culture of coalition politics, political

parties look upon government departments as a money spinning
machine for party funds. An idea about the gargantuan levels of
black money and money stashed abroad was highlighted in the
Swiss Banking Association’s report of 2006. According to the
report, the five countries’ nationals who top the deposits held
in  banks  in  the  territory of Switzerland are: India  — $1,456
bil ion, Russia — $ 470 billion, UK — $390 billion, Ukraine —
$ 100 bil ion and China  — $ 96 billion.

In other words, India with $1,456 billion or $1.4 trillion

has more money in Swiss banks than the rest of the four ‘top-
ranking’ countries put together. Simply put, these are monies
— doubtless of questionable origins — that are meant to and
continue to remain outside the realm of public knowledge and
reach.

Systematic efforts to reduce the presence of the black

money  in  our  system  is  therefore  a  national  priority  to
safeguard our country. The political class benefiting from the
present system wil  not take the lead. This wil  have to come
from the people, NGOs and institutions like the judiciary, the
election  commission  and  the  CVC.  Corruption therefore,  is
anti  economic  development,  anti  poor  and  anti  national.
Therefore, it is obvious that this rot has to be checked.
One  way  of  stemming  the  rot  is  to  see  that  the
impact  of  money  power  in  politics  is  reduced.  This  can
be done by bringing greater transparency  in  the  system.
So  far  as  party  campaign  funding  is  concerned,  we  can
emulate the practices in the developed countries like United
States, Britain,  Germany etc and hold the political parties
accountable. The political parties themselves will be totally
hostile to the idea of bringing transparency in their funding
but this can be forced on them by the judiciary who can give
their rulings while deciding public interest litigations. The
Election  Commission  can  play  a  stellar  role  in  bringing
greater  transparency  in  the  political  funding  and  can  use
their clout to derecognise political parties which violate the
guidelines or the rules regarding transparency in the raising
of funds as spelt out by the Supreme Court. After all, it is
the Supreme Court’s direction of 2004 that has brought a
lot of transparency in our system by which we know about
the criminal cases, the educational qualification and assets
of all the candidates. (Please see the article on page 60.)
The  fact  that  our  Members of Parliaments have criminal
records and a very large  number of them are crorepatis
highlights the extent of rot in our system.

But  we  should  avoid being  cynical.  Cynics  have never

helped in the progress of  a nation. It is the idealists who
have been able to bring about a  change.  Mahatma Gandhi
was an idealist. Rajaji was an idealist.  It  was  these  people
who could see the change. If we want to make  things happen,
we must first have  a  belief that they can happen. There are
people who
believe that it is difficult to change the mindset of people once
they become adults or fall into the rut. But here we should
remember the optimistic message of Rajaji. In a story, Rajaji
had said that the charcoal in the kitchen, the graphite in a
pencil and the diamond in the ring are all different forms of the
same carbon. If a lifeless (achetan) substance like carbon can
be a low value item like charcoal, a middle value item like
graphite, or a high value item like diamond — depending
upon circumstances — how much greater is the potential of
the human mind to enoble itself — because human beings
are sentient (with ‘chetna’). In fact, a statement — every saint
has a past and every sinner a future — shows how dramatic
changes in the mindset can be brought about. It is therefore
better to start with the optimistic proposition that mindsets
can be changed instead of cynically and in a defeatist manner
conceding that mindsets cannot be changed.
Coming back to the main question:  Can India
become corruption-free? Is it possible to combat the issue
of  corruption in society ?
I believe that it is possible. My belief is partly based on
the experience of other countries like Britain, Botswana
and Singapore, which have in the past been able to effectively
tackle  the  issue  of  massive  corruption.  In  the  Indian
context also I think such a change is possible.
My  confidence  is  also  based  on  the  following
observations by eminent men. French writer Victor Hugo
said, “There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose
time has come.” Looking at the extensive corruption in
every walk of life that we see in India today, the idea that
things must change and we must become a corruption-
free country is an idea whose time has come.
      Another French thinker Alexis de Tocqueville has said
that, “The inevitable becomes intolerable the moment it
is perceived to be no more inevitable.” Today the citizens
of India may view corruption as inevitable. The moment
the citizens of the country realise that corruption is not
inevitable, corruption will become intolerable and then
we can hope to see a dramatic change coming up in the
country for the better.
Focus on Propriety
       Vir Sanghvi, the then Editor of Hindustan Times (13th
May 2001), had dramatically brought out the difference
in perception between Britain and India. One feature of
the developed countries is that at least the type of petty
corruption, which the common man experiences in India,
is absent in those countries. Corruption may exist at higher
levels but the general standards are strict. Vir Sanghvi has
raised this issue about focussing on propriety as against the
legality aspect of corruption. He wrote :
       “As the British example demonstrates, the only way
to stamp out corruption is to begin with impropriety. Don’t
wait for the CBI to try and prove that a bribe has been
paid — they will never get the proof and the case will take
20 years to come to trial. Start with impropriety — that is
much easier to establish. The moment you see a minister
hanging out with dodgy businessmen, assume that he is a
crook. This may be unfair — perhaps he is only naive — but
it is the only way to stop corruption at the root. Follow a
policy of zero tolerance, insist on the highest standards of
propriety in public life and only then do we have any chance
of preventing impropriety from becoming corruption.”

A Few Suggestions
    I shall also also add a few practical suggestions to
combat political corruption in the country :

    i.   Total freedom should be given to individuals and

            the corporate bodies to contribute to political
            parties without any upper limit and with the
            benefits of tax deductions under the Income Tax
            Act.
    ii.    A candidate against whom charge sheet has
            been framed in a court in any criminal case or
            offence involving moral turpitude should not be
            permitted to contest elections.
    i i i . No political party should be permitted to contest
            elections unless their accounts are audited.
    iv.   No candidate should be permitted to contest
            elections unless he has got Income Tax
            clearance certificate.
    v.   The allegations of corrupt practices must
            be inquired into urgently by the Election
            Commission without waiting for the elections to
            be held.
    vi. The nexus between the corrupt elements in
          politics and bureaucracy should be nipped in
          the bud by a system by which all sensitive posts
          will be filled by a process of appointments based
          on recommendations by neutral and objective
          committees. Once appointments are made,
          person should not be transferred from the post
          for three years. Similarly, the principle of rotation
          should be strictly observed where sensitive
          posts are concerned so that no vested interest
          develops.

      Equally important is the assistance we can take

from information technology which can bring greater
transparency and speed and by this very process reduce the
scope for corruption. As mentioned earlier in the article
the use of IT in itself will not eradicate corruption in the
system of governance, but it can certainly bring in greater
transparency and efficiency. All of us benefited from the
more than two decades old computerisation of Railway
passenger reservation system and this positive impact can
be step by step extended to every aspect of governance.

Bring Systemic Changes

       Generally the moral or ethical temperature of any
organisation or any country depends on three factors. The
first is the individual’s sense of values. The second is the
social values. And the third is the system which encourages
people to observe the right values. If we take the population
of any country, we will find that 10 per cent will be honest
whatever the circumstances, 10 per cent will be crooked
whatever we do and 80 per cent will be honest or dishonest
depending on the system. If the system encourages
corruption, the country will be a corrupt country. If the
system encourages honesty, the country will be by and
large honest. How can our system discourage corruption
and encourage honesty?
       For this, the strategy to be followed is the advice given
by Michelangelo Buonarotti, the immensely talented Italian
sculptor of the fifteenth century. Michelangelo was asked,
“How do you make a beautiful statue out of the piece of
marble which does not have any shape ?” He said, “The
statue is in my mind. I go on removing from the marble
whatever is not part of the statue and the statue is there”.
In other words, if we have a vision of a corruption-free India
and even though we may all be living in a corrupt India, it we
go on removing from the system whatever is coming in the
way of a corruption-free India, then we are bound to achieve
a good measure of success in creating that corruption-free
India.

N. Vittal joined the IAS in 1960 and

was allotted to the Gujarat cadre. Later
he shifted to Delhi as the Secretary,
 Department of Electronics. He also served
as the Chairman, Telecom Commission. He
was also the Chairman of Public Enterprises
Selection Board. His last posting was
as the Central Vigilance Commissioner,
Government of India. A leading newspaper
has described him as the voice of
nation’s conscience. He lives in Chennai.
<nagarajanvittal@hotmail.com>
2 Responses to Combating Corruption
1. Pingback: Perspective | Changeforbetter

2. Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay says:
February 23, 2011 at 6:16 pm
Most of the communities in India (such as Bengali), are
succumbed in ‘Culture of Poverty’(a theory introduced by an
American anthropologist Oscar Lewis), irrespective of class or
economic strata, lives in pavement or apartment. Nobody is at all
ashamed of the deep-rooted corruption, decaying general quality
of life, worst Politico-administrative system, weak mother
language, continuous absorption of common space (mental as
well as physical, both). We are becoming fathers & mothers only
by self-procreation, mindlessly & blindfold. Simply depriving
their(the children) fundamental rights of a decent, caring society,
fearless & dignified living. Do not ever look for any other positive
alternative behaviour (values) to perform human way of
parenthood, i.e. deliberately co-parenting of those children those
are born out of ignorance, real poverty. All of us are being driven
only by the very animal instinct. If the Bengali people ever be able
to bring that genuine freedom (from vicious cycle of ‘poverty’) in
their own life/attitude, involve themselves in ‘Production of
Space’(Henri Lefebvre), at least initiate a movement by heart,
decent & dedicated Politics will definitely come up.