INDIA: Winter of graft

In recent weeks, the ripples of the '2G' scam in India – over parcelling out contracts for bandwidths of 'second–generation' wireless technologies – have spread ever wider. In their course, they have engulfed not only politicians and industrialists, the usual suspects, but also the media. Even senior members of the judiciary have been making contradictory claims on whether Telecom Minister A Raja had been named by them in official letters or not. Coming close on the back of the Delhi Commonwealth Games scandal, in which millions of rupees allegedly lined the pockets of New Delhi politicians and their minions, the extent of systemic corruption has become the subject of heated debate in India. Unlike in the past, however, the figures being bandied about currently are truly mind-boggling, making even the Commonwealth Games losses seem puny: according to reports, the 2G scam has caused losses of some INR 1.8 trillion to the national exchequer.

The 2G matter provides a potent lesson in how the business of governance is carried out in today's India. The composition of the Rajya Sabha is already an indication of corporate influence on law-making, with fierce lobbying for entry into the portals of the legislature without the risk of standing for elections. Moreover, industrialists, we now learn, hold massive influence over ministerial appointments at the Centre, technically the sole prerogative of the prime minister. Some national-level journalists appear to have little compunction about acting as messengers between industry and government – whether for financial gain, flattery or keeping a source on track. Everyone, it seems, wants to think of themselves as a player in running the country, and this includes those who have no business doing so.

The corruption that pervades state and local governance in India come as no surprise. But what the 2G scam as well as the leaked phone conversation of Nira Radia indicate is systemic malfeasance at the topmost level of the creamy layers of Indian governance that cannot be passed off as an aberration. Although corruption is deemed to be 'a way of life' in the Subcontinent, India is, if anything, actually one of Southasia's less corrupt countries, according to Transparency International's recent Corruption Perception Index (where corruption is defined as 'the abuse of entrusted power for private gain). India ranks at 87 with a score of 3.3 on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the least corrupt. Most of the rest of the region, however, fares far more poorly. Afghanistan and Burma tie for the second spot of those perceived to be most corrupt. If one leaves aside Bhutan, which ranks an impressive 36th, the other Southasian countries range from a high of 91 for Sri Lanka to a low of 146 for Nepal.

While we can laugh or shrug at the situation, suggesting that this is simply the way things work, there are serious ramifications to these numbers. Corruption is acting as a massive brake on development and the improvement of the lot of the poor. Yet even as politicians and others regularly pay lip service to 'development' and 'upliftment', none has yet been able to tackle the most important issue at stake: that of impunity. Scandal after scandal keeps emerging, each bigger than the last, most of which tend to implicate individuals at the highest levels of our societies – and yet, life seems to go on as usual. Politicians are rarely, if ever, convicted of any crime, leave alone forced to serve actual jail time; if anything, the occasional bureaucrat gets a rap on the knuckles. Even politicians generally perceived to be not corrupt, such as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, seem to have no difficulty in turning a blind eye to the doings of their colleagues.

Transparency prescription
Many 'solutions' to this situation have been tried over the years, but with little success. The salaries of government servants in India have been raised, while enforcement agencies have been given more powers – but the problem persists. This is because, as Chanakya, the prime minister of the Gupta empire, wrote over two millennia ago, 'It is just as difficult to detect an official's dishonesty as it is to discover how much water is drunk by the swimming fish.' And here lies what might be the key to tackling corruption: transparency in governance, coupled with a deepening of democracy.

Trite as this panacea might sound, it has yielded some notable successes. In India, the transparency that has been built into the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has given beneficiaries a vital weapon in terms of uncovering corruption. The right to information, which has been progressively strengthened over the years in India, has enabled campaigners and common citizens to uncover graft by bureaucrats and politicians. Furthermore, though the media has shown an unwillingness to scrutinise itself that needs to be corrected, it has played a huge part in drawing public attention to corruption. The Opposition in Parliament, while following the usual script of disrupting proceedings, might also consider practising what it preaches. A Parliament of Caesar's wives would do no harm.