corruption in India

‘Corruption’ Is the New Dog Whistle

The corruption that is off limits to the general public is seen as all right, while the corruption that is only about getting past a brief hurdle for something that should have come to you automatically brings the biggest shame.

One day back in the 1970s, my husband was talking to a friend who worked with him in Washington D.C., deploring something that he saw as corruption. He had no doubt that his friend would agree with him that corruption was a very bad thing. How could he think anything else?

But his friend did the opposite. He snapped at him: “Don’t talk like that about corruption! If there were no corruption, me and my family would all be dead.”

His friend was a Jew from Eastern Europe, and during the time of Hitler, his family was trying to leave with him and his siblings to reach the West, but first they had to get past an international border. They had taken precautions. His grandfather took one of the border guards aside and they had a brief conversation. The guard nodded and took a package his grandfather had prepared for him and examined it, and went inside and stamped their papers. The family was free to leave.

The guard was obviously corrupt. For a consideration, he was ready to ignore the law and the requirements of his job and let the family leave. If he had been law abiding, he would have arrested the entire family and they would have been sent to one of the Death Camps that had been built as Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’ to the ‘Jewish problem’.

There is just a tiny possibility that the guard was thinking for himself, that he was not so sold on the new laws that he felt obliged to send a family to their death. Maybe by leaving open a little window of corruption, he could still see himself as human, something more than just an obedient man in uniform implementing laws that were more barbarous than his conscience.

The way a traffic policeman, when required to levy a fine that he thinks is excessive, charges you what he thinks is the right amount, as a bribe. And if you still insist on paying the fine and getting a receipt, he may even wave you away and let you go for free. There is something about the enhanced penalty that he does not like.

Not all corruption is like this. There is also the corruption of the mighty, who are able to control the system and override its laws. But the law itself is not universally a good thing. Incidents like these, where our friend and his family were spared, force us to make judgments about man-made laws, with all their time-bound meanness, as against something more human and eternal, and linked to a deeper and more independent notion of what is ‘right’.

Also read: ‘Corruption-Free India’ Under BJP Government Is Just a Sham

There is something democratic about this kind of petty corruption, because it allows even the powerless to find a way to override the system. All it takes is… money. This is the kind of corruption that society at large seems to resent the most, not the corruption where just a ‘phone call’ from the right power broker can get you something out of turn.

And this is strange: the corruption that is off limits to the general public is seen as all right, and is given a free pass, while the corruption that is only about getting past a brief hurdle for something that should have come to you automatically brings the biggest shame. Or is it that ordinary people do not know about the other kind of corruption, where things that are far more outrageous, far more illegal, can easily be done with the right sort of access?

No: I am not saying that corruption is something moral, or sublime. I am only trying to question the way petty corruption has been prioritised as a depravity that must, per se, be rooted out at all costs: but not the other one. So much so that the word ‘corruption’ itself has become a dogwhistle, a demand from any pied piper on the make trying to claim the moral high ground. “If you can’t see the corruption all around you, you must be blind. If you don’t listen to me and let me set your moral compass,” so the spiel goes, “you yourself are definitely corrupt.”

Then the gaslighting will go into full force. The guilt-tripping that you are not doing enough. And that the pied piper knows what is best for you. This would be a small personal cautionary tale, the sort that so many of us have seen firsthand, were it not for the way this can grow until it becomes something big enough to bring down governments and change the course of history. Not because there was ever any intention of creating the clean stable world that does not use roadblocks, gatekeepers and the delays that make people desperate enough to seek out of turn favors, but because an allegation of ‘corruption’ is a sure-fire way of ruining the competition. And once the barb is thrown, it sticks.

The word that has been winking at me from left field as I write is: manipulation. The way an image is carefully planted in our minds and then used as a dogwhistle, so that even if we stray and start asking awkward questions, we must start out by couching our words in an apology and a disclaimer. Because we are the ones going against received wisdom, and indulging in heresy. We are the ones raising questions about long-term players who are supremely networked and intent on total control. In this context, ‘corruption’ is the little goat tied up there in the jungle to bring the tiger into view so that he can be shot down.

I once asked a government officer if things eight years ago were really as bad as the media had made them out to be. He stared into the distance for a few moments, trying to gather his impressions together, all the things he had heard everyone around him say back in those days. Trying to square his response with what he had said the last time we met. “Yes,” he said, slowly. “Maybe…”

Peggy Mohan is a linguist and the author of four books, the most recent being Wanderers, Kings, Merchants: The Story of India Through its Languages, Gurgaon: Penguin Random House, 2021. She teaches linguistics at Ashoka University.

‘Corruption-Free India’ Under BJP Government Is Just a Sham

Transparency International’s latest survey has revealed that India has the highest bribery rate in Asia.

India has the highest bribery rate in Asia according to the Global Corruption Barometer published by Transparency International. The report released on the eve of International Anti-Corruption Day, December 9, shows that nearly 50% of those who paid bribes in India were asked to, while 32% of those who used personal connections said they would not receive services like healthcare and education otherwise, without bribing. The findings are a scathing indictment of the anti-corruption claims of the ruling dispensation, which came to power on the plank of a ‘Bhrashtachar mukt Bharat’ (corruption-free India).

It is a fact widely acknowledged that unlike many countries, where corruption is restricted to the highest echelons, in India the malaise goes down to the lowest level of administration. While big-ticket corruption grabs eyeballs, it is the everyday petty corruption that haunts the common person.

Decentralised corruption cannot be tackled through any centralised fix. What is needed is to empower ordinary people to expose and report corruption locally, and systems that act promptly on these complaints to hold corrupt officials accountable.

Whittling down of RTI

Perhaps the single most effective tool available to ordinary citizens for exposing corruption in the last 15 years has been the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The law has been used by over three crore people in the country, especially by the poorest and the most marginalised who have understood the tremendous potential of the law to empower them to access their basic rights and entitlements like rations, pensions and healthcare.

A 2011 study by Yale University in India showed that using the RTI Act is as effective as paying a bribe in ensuring service delivery! The law has also been put to effective use by public-spirited citizens to shine the light on corruption and abuse of power in the highest offices.

Instead of strengthening the RTI regime, the last six years have seen a systematic attack on people’s right to information. The worst blow has come in the form of a persistent and concerted undermining of the transparency watchdogs set up under the law.

A protest against proposed changes to the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Credit: Facebook/ Somnath S.N.

A file image of a protest against the changes to the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Photo: Facebook/ Somnath S.N.

In 2019, despite stiff opposition within and outside parliament, the government pushed the RTI (Amendment) Act which compromised the autonomy of information commissions by allowing the Central government to determine the tenure and salaries of all information commissioners. The functioning of commissions has also been severely impeded by governments not appointing information commissioners in a timely manner.

The track record of the BJP-led government at the Centre has been particularly abysmal. Since May 2014, not a single commissioner of the central information commission (CIC) has been appointed without citizens having to approach courts.

The Global Corruption Barometer shows that 41% of people surveyed in India paid bribes to obtain official documents, like identity papers, and 42% paid bribes to the police. Tackling this kind of graft encountered by people in their everyday lives requires an effective timebound mechanism at the local level to deal with complaints arising out of corruption and wrongdoing.

Broken promises

The Grievance Redress Bill introduced in Parliament in 2011 created an architecture for receiving and dealing with complaints close to people’s place of residence down to the panchayat and municipal ward levels. It sought to make the supervisory structure accountable for resolving complaints in a stipulated timeframe, with penal consequences for failure to do so.

The Bill, however, lapsed with the dissolution of the Lok Sabha after the 2014 elections. Despite its poll promise to reintroduce the Bill in parliament if it came to power, the BJP has failed to do the needful. An effective grievance redress legislation would have helped significantly reduce arbitrariness and corruption captured in the Transparency International report and ensured better access to basic services and entitlements for people.

Giant cardboard cutouts of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah in New Delhi. Photo: Reuters/Cathal McNaughton/File Photo.

In fact, even the Lokpal law meant to tackle corruption involving senior functionaries, which was passed after a long and arduous struggle in 2014, has been subverted. In 2016, key provisions regarding mandatory public disclosure of assets and liabilities of public servants were whittled down through amendments. For over five years after the law was passed, the chairperson and members of the Lokpal were not appointed.

Finally, the manner in which appointments were made, by a selection committee with a preponderance of the government and its representatives, raised serious doubts about the independence of the Lokpal even before it became operational. Subsequently, for nearly a year the govt did not make the requisite rules, prompting one of the Lokpal members to tender his resignation.

The anti-corruption ombudsman is clearly a non-starter, with a deafening silence from the institution on all recent allegations of big-ticket corruption like the Rafael defence deal and banking scams that have rocked the country.

Another significant finding of the Global Corruption Barometer is that while reporting corruption is critical to control its spread, as many as 63% of people surveyed were deeply concerned about retaliation. This concern is not misplaced. Brutal attacks on whistleblowers and RTI users in the country have highlighted the vulnerability of those who dare to show the truth to power.

In 2018 alone, 18 people were killed for blowing the whistle on corruption on the basis of information accessed under the RTI Act. Despite this, the government has failed to frame rules and operationalise the Whistle Blowers Protection law enacted in 2014 to provide a statutory framework for concealing the identity of whistleblowers and protecting them against victimisation. The law establishes a mechanism to receive and enquire into complaints against public servants relating to offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

When the BJP came to power riding on the plank of fighting corruption and ensuring effective service delivery, it was expected that the government will immediately put in place a strong anti-corruption and grievance redress framework.

In the last six and a half years, however, critical anti-corruption legislations have languished and the government, despite widespread opposition, has pushed ill-conceived programmes like demonetisation and electoral bonds as the definitive solutions to the problem of corruption.

Limitations of relying on technical fixes like Adhaar-based biometric authentication in fighting corruption have been exposed through scams like the Jharkhand scholarship fraud. The Transparency International report should serve as a strong signal for the government to course correct, provided it has the political will.

Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri are social activists working on issues of transparency and accountability.

CVC Shortens Time Period for Reconsideration of its Advice on Punishing Corrupt Govt Officials

The move came after it was noticed that such proposals were not received in the stipulated time period of two months.

New Delhi: The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has reduced [halved it to a month] the time for the reconsideration of its advice against government officials accused of corruption in cases where the concerned department want a more lenient or stricter view on the quantum of punishment recommended by it, according to an official order.

The move came after it was noticed that such proposals were not received in the stipulated time period of two months, thus, causing a delay in the processing of vigilance cases.

The CVC is consulted by the government departments at two stages in vigilance cases – advice is first obtained on investigation reports and second before a final decision is taken at the conclusion of proceedings against corrupt employees.

Citing its earlier guidelines, the commission said that government departments are required to approach the CVC for advice wherein a lenient or stricter view than that advised by it is proposed to be taken in the vigilance cases.

Also read: PM Asked to Take Action Against Central Vigilance Commissioner for Caste Discrimination

Further, it was also prescribed that such reconsideration proposals should be sent within two months from the date of receipt of the commission’s advice, said the order issued on Thursday.

“Considering the need for expeditious finalisation of vigilance cases and to adhere to the timelines, the commission on review of the existing timelines has decided that any proposal for a reconsideration of its first stage advice should be made to it within one month of receipt of the first stage advice,” it said.

The Commission should be approached for such reconsideration proposals “only in those exceptional individual cases having additional/new material facts”, the CVC said.

“The commission would henceforth not entertain any reconsideration proposal/request of first stage advice received beyond the revised timeline of one month,” said the order issued to secretaries of all central government departments, chiefs of all public sector banks and enterprises among others.

The revised timeline of one month would help in expeditious processing of corruption cases, a senior CVC official said.

Diary of a Disillusioned Consumer Rights Activist

Corruption is such a deep-seated rot that the average citizen is totally helpless.

As I stepped onto the pedestrian crossing some days ago, a teenager on a scooter whizzed past me, nearly knocking me down. I yelled and stepped back, but the fellow quickly sped off. I noted down the number and made my way to the police station down the road.

The reception I got was unusual. I go there often – to collect traffic complaint cards to show during my talks at schools and colleges, and, occasionally, to file a complaint (over the breaking of traffic rules). But this time, the constable on duty welcomed me with a smile and said, “Madam, will you have tea?”

Good PR? Not quite, as I discovered a day later, when a woman called me to say, “Madam, don’t you have a son?” Baffled, I said that I do. “How would you feel if the police came after him? Don’t you have any motherly feelings?” she asked.

It turned out that the policeman had traced the teenager’s registration, visited the house and demanded a bribe to drop the complaint; failing which, he would take the boy to the police station and harass him.

Also read: Do We Know Our Consumer Rights Well Enough?

When I make a complaint, the police station is not supposed to reveal my name or personal details without my permission. This constable had not only revealed my telephone number – so the mother could call me and chide me for “causing trouble to an innocent teenager” – but used my complaint to extract a bribe.

Now I understood why I was welcomed so effusively at the station – my complaint was a source of income for the corrupt cop. Thereafter, I stopped noting down the vehicle numbers of rash or irresponsible drivers. I used to think that if more citizens assisted the police (they are short-staffed, they say), our rights as pedestrians and commuters could be strengthened. But that is not the reality.

In meetings and workshops, I used to speak animatedly about the civic responsibility of participating in law enforcement and improving governance. Now, I wonder whether I have only been helping the corrupt line their pockets.

What does one do? If policemen – who are supposed to protect us – milk our complaints for easy money, where do we turn? Complaining against the police is not feasible, since I cannot prove that the man demanded a bribe to drop my complaint. The teenager’s mother is not going to confess that she paid a bribe. Antagonising the neighbourhood police station may not be a pragmatic decision either.

It is not just the police. Corruption is such a deep-seated rot that the average citizen is totally helpless.

A handicapped woman needs an official certificate to claim her disability concessions and facilities. The official harasses her, makes her undertake several trips (which she cannot afford to do) and trots out any reason for why the work cannot get done promptly. A resident needing some routine document related to his ancestral property is made to run for months by clerks who make a variety of excuses – “the concerned file is not traceable”, “come next week as my supervisor is on leave” and so on.

Also read: Do Indian Patients Even Know Their Rights?

A “little something” (not so little, as it turns out!) pressed into their palms will do the trick in a jiffy. But for those who do not believe in bribes, it is an endless – and often futile – exercise.

While I waited with others in a queue to pay my annual property tax at the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) – a wait that lasted 45 minutes after the “official opening time after lunch” – we could see the staff through the window, just chit-chatting. We were all retired senior citizens, because working age citizens cannot take time off to stand in queue to pay dues. When my turn finally came, the clerk said, “Madam, I cannot take your payment as your property does not exist.”

Apparently my details were not showing up on his computer. Had he not keyed them in? Or was he just harassing me to extract a bribe? I had been living on the premises for 23 years and had receipts to prove annual payments. When I raised my voice in frustration, his supervisor came and asked what the “galatta” was about. He then said, “She is an elderly lady. Accept her payment and give her a temporary receipt.” It seemed like the BBMP was doing me a favour by accepting payment!

This is what activists (and thousands of citizens) come up against everyday. What was that promise Prime Minister Narendra Modi made? “Na khaaunga, na khaane doonga”?

If a day comes when activists too decide to throw up their hands and give up, where would we turn? Any answers?

Sakuntala Narasimhan is former vice-president, Consumer Guidance Society of India (Mumbai) and a National Award-winning columnist on consumer rights.

While in Session: Analysing the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill

A weekly column on the sessions of parliament.

The monsoon session of the parliament is being held from July 17 to August 11. Credit: Reuters

Since coming into power in 2014, this government has stated that addressing the issues of corruption and black money in the economy will be a priority. In the last few years, it has enacted legislation to recover undeclared foreign income and assets of individuals, and demonetised old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes. One significant Bill that seeks to address corruption in public functionaries is the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2013. It has been pending in the parliament since 2013 and repeatedly listed for discussion since. Even during this week, the Bill was included in the legislative business of Rajya Sabha, but could not be taken up for discussion.

The Bill has gone through a rigorous scrutiny process by two parliamentary committees and the Law Commission of India. The deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha (RS) has now stated that the version of the Bill as reported by the 2016 RS select committee will be taken up for discussion in the House.

Giving of a bribe

As the primary law that regulates corruption related offences by public servants, the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 penalises public officials who take a bribe. The bribe giver can only be punished for ‘abetting’ or aiding the bribe taker. Moreover, if the bribe giver agrees to turn witness against the bribe taking public official, he escapes punishment. Over the years it has been recommended that, in order to effectively tackle cases of bribery, it is not enough to punish the demand side of bribery alone (i.e. the bribe taker). The supply side of bribery (i.e. the bribe giver) should also be equally penalised. This thinking is reflected internationally as well: the United Nations Convention against Corruption, 2005 and the UK’s Anti Bribery Act, 2010 treat bribe giving and taking as equal offences.

However, in the Indian context, incidents of bribe giving can play out in complex ways. There may be cases where a person actively pays a bribe to a senior government official to acquire a tender for a building contract. In contrast, there may be another scenario where a government official refuses to give someone their ration card without an additional payment of say Rs 1000. Here, the person may be constrained to pay the amount to get his entitlements. The question is whether both, the builder and the ration card seeker, deserve to be treated as bribe givers under the law where the punishment is up to seven years’ imprisonment.

The Bill, when introduced, sought to treat bribe giving under all circumstances equally. Following stakeholder concerns and expert recommendations, the 2016 select committee’s Bill has carved out an exception in this regard – if a person who is compelled to give a bribe reports the incident to law enforcement authorities within seven days, he will not be punished. This exception seeks to differentiate between a harassed bribe giver and one who is acting in a dishonest manner to gain undue benefits. However, what remains to be seen is if a harassed bribe giver will feel safe and unencumbered to report such incidents to the police, and if this will result in an overall reduction in instances of bribery of public officials.

Credit: Aliza Bakht

Prior approval for investigating a public official

Since public officials perform a ‘public function’, they may be more vulnerable to harassment and false charges in the course of their employment. To ensure that public officials perform their tasks in a free and fair manner, the law has created certain safeguards. For one, a law enforcement agency (such as the CBI) that has obtained adequate evidence against a public official will require prior approval before initiating his prosecution. If the public official in question is an MP or MLA, prior approval will have to be obtained from the speaker or chairman; in the case of certain categories of public officials, the matter is referred to the central or state vigilance commissions.

The Bill has introduced an additional layer of protection for public officials facing corruption charges. Such prior approval will have to be obtained not just at the stage of prosecution, but at the stage of investigation as well. However, it is at the stage of criminal investigation that facts and circumstances are verified, and evidence is collected. In the absence of such evidence, what is the information that will be available to the sanctioning authority to decide whether the CBI should begin investigation? Also, this could result in further delays in investigation and prosecution of genuine cases of corruption.

Criminal misconduct

When a public official acts beyond his mandate to gain rewards or other benefits, it could result in criminal misconduct. The Act considers criminal misconduct as a higher category offence, with a punishment of four to ten years’ imprisonment (note that the maximum punishment for bribery is seven years). This includes acts such as misappropriation of property and amassing disproportionate assets by public officials. In recasting this provision, the Bill has entirely omitted one offence – that of obtaining an advantage for any person “without public interest”. Neither the expert bodies that examined the Bill nor the Statement of Objects and Reasons in the Bill have cited any reasons for this omission.

As a criminal legislation that creates new offences such as bribe giving, recasts existing offences, and modifies procedures related to investigation and trial, the Bill is without a doubt, a complex one. Over the last few years, several issues in the Bill have been resolved during the stages of committee scrutiny. The parliament is now tasked with the responsibility of carefully deliberating the provisions of the Bill to ensure that the delicate balance of punishing those guilty of corruption and protecting the innocent from harassment is maintained.

Prianka Rao is a senior analyst at PRS Legislative Research.