Breaking the circle of corruption

It was Winston Churchill who said that “ democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” During the past six decades, many in India have yearned for an authoritarian government to accelerate economic growth. Fortunately these yearning have, except for a brief interlude in the mid 1970’s- been roundly rebuffed by the country and India has seen a remarkable resurgence with its change of policies in the nineties. But now the side effects of a laisse faire policy and removal of an effective regulatory system are leading the country into a morass of corruption and inequality.

The heart of corruption in a democracy lies in the process of elections which requires politicians to solicit funds from business houses and industrialists. Once ensconced in power the same politicians are then beholden to the funders to alter regulations and laws to favor them. In many cases the payback is quite brazen. So the circle of corruption is complete- politicians need money, industrialists provide the money but need favors, politicians provide the favors and change laws and regulations to benefit them, industrialists make money from these changes and they are happy to provide a part of these ill gotten gains to the politicians to get elected again.

So how does one break this circle of corruption. A relatively simple solution is for the government to finance the elections so that politicians do not need to solicit funds from the industry. Unfortunately no country has managed to do this. A second solution is to get the electorate to finance their candidates. Obama showed the possibility of this approach in the 2008 election. But the U.S Supreme Court managed to gut this effort by allowing companies to provide unlimited funds for future elections.

So if we are not able to control the spigot of money, it will continue to oil the wheels of corruption. Let us remember that dealing with corruption in public life is dealing with the effects of the electoral system and not its real cause. Calls for eliminating corruption – virtuous as they may be- will remain exactly that- calls till we tackle the underlying cause – the need for funds to fight elections.

Let us now move to examining efforts to control the most egregious forms of corruption in public life. We are not alone. Public life in the US in the early twentieth century was almost as corrupt as ours is tending to become. It was investigative journalists like Ida Tarbell and Lincoln Steffens- and later on Ralph Nader- that focused public ire on the machinations of the rich and powerful. It was this progressive movement, which did much to mobilize public opinion and to compel the government of the day to reign in the all-powerful private moguls and industrialists.

In India, too, there was some movement a few years ago when Tehelka exposed corruption in the armed forces. But these efforts have tended to be squelched and become sporadic. Though to its great credit Tehelka has continued its muckraking ways. But times have changed and the scale and depth and width of corruption in the country has finally sunk in in public mind and forced a realization that not only this miasma of corruption dishonors the country but also that it is in the final analysis deeply disruptive and counter productive of economic growth.

There are, in my view, two elements that need to be focused on: one, the level of information and public debate needs to be vastly improved. The fact is that the present day newspapers and newsmagazines are controlled by the very forces that need to be exposed. Hence the quality and depth of their coverage remains spotty at best. All stories in the present day media - especially after the Nadia tapes- call into the motives of the journalists in writing so called exposes. So what we need is an independent and objective source of news and analysis – perhaps India's own National Public Radio and many more Tehelkas -perhaps one in each state- than we presently have.

The second element is an institutional framework that can deal with the corruption that is exposed in a timely manner. Anna Hazare's fast takes us much closer to this goal especially if it helps in setting up a Lokpal with the kind of powers enumerated below[1]. The outpouring of support for the fast until death of the Gandhian Anna Hazare - for a clean public life and the fact that the government was forced to cave in and agree to create an Ombudsman with wide powers is indicative of what is possible if the public is sufficiently aroused.

But when all is said and done, the real issue will still need to be tackled – how to finance our democracy in a democratic way.

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[1] 1. An institution called LOKPAL at the centre and LOKAYUKTA in each state;

2. Like Supreme Court and Election Commission, they will be completely independent o;f the governments. No minister or bureaucrat will be able to influence their investigations.

3. Cases against corrupt people will not linger on for years anymore: Investigations in any case will have to be completed in one year. Trial should be completed in next one year so that the corrupt politician, officer or judge is sent to jail within two years.

4. The loss that a corrupt person caused to the government will be recovered at the time of conviction.

5. If any work of any citizen is not done in prescribed time in any government office, Lokpal will impose financial penalty on guilty officers, which will be given as compensation to the complainant. So, you could approach Lokpal if your ration card or passport or voter card is not being made or if police is not registering your case or any other work is not being done in prescribed time. Lokpal will have to get it done in a month’s time. You could also report any case of corruption to Lokpal like ration being siphoned off, poor quality roads been constructed or panchayat funds being siphoned off. Lokpal will have to complete its investigations in a year, trial will be over in next one year and the guilty will go to jail within two years.

6. Its members will be selected by judges, citizens and constitutional authorities and not by politicians, through a completely transparent and participatory process.

7. The entire functioning of Lokpal/ Lokayukta will be completely transparent. Any complaint against any officer of Lokpal shall be investigated and the officer dismissed within two months.

8. All existing departmental vigilance bodies and anti-corruption branch of CBI will be merged into Lokpal. Lokpal will have complete powers and machinery to independently investigate and prosecute any officer, judge or politician.