Corruption has come to make headlines more often now than ever. Political elite acquired notoriety much before the dawn of independence.[i] It is not again just the treasury benches. The dynamics of corruption transcend gender, social and economic dimensions and closer to Gunnar Myrdal’s electrifying description of “folk lore of corruptions. Public perceptions, in its generality, hold bureaucrats, business persons, NGOs, and last but not the least, criminals as critical perpetrators of the phenomenon. There are then strikingly rich, articulate and connected set of professionals, who make, mend and mar every public debate, discourse and decision but have lent helping hands as agent provocateurs.[ii]
There is literal dearth of micro study to portray of an all pervasive account of the scenario. While conceptually handicapped in more than one respect, the Corruption Perception Index (CPI), brought out by Transparency International (TI), does capture a panoramic view of the malaise. There is an unspoken truth in the findings that the citizens pay bribes to avail essential public services for their survival.[iii] Of the two sets of “need based” and “basic” services, the former has been seen as more corrupt. The need based services primarily cover income tax, police and judiciary. Monopolistic nature provisioning of these services stand at the root of the problem. Basic services include health and education. The citizens have choice to opt out for competitive private owned and run institutions. However, the poor have no choice. Notwithstanding, as a large part of public spending on welfare and development programmes do not reach the target group. Of many a manifest outcome of the phenomenon, the low benefit quotient of programmes and project have had abiding adverse impacts on the socio-economic life of the people.
The paper, in its perspective, deliberates over the institutional response and efficacy of the system to handle the problem of corruption. The assumptions include: First, the phenomenon of corruption in Indian public life crept despite the Indian Statute and the age old social value system . Second, the outgrowth and sustenance much less perpetuation and oblique social acceptance of the phenomenon draw on a variety of factors, some of which are universal while others quite exclusive to India; Third, the glitch in the organization and management of public utility services, law enforcement mechanism and check and balance system stand at the back of much of delinquent behaviour of different actors in the game; and, Fourth, a web of visible/invisible watchdogs, operating through and from the sanctum sanctorum of social, cultural and spiritual institutions in close coordination with legal system to instil transparency, integrity and accountability in the attitude and practices at large hold real and ultimate answer to the menace. The paper, in its perspective, sequentially focuses on: Forms of Corruption and the Milieu; Intensity of Corruptions and the Intervening Factors; Control Mechanism and the Slip Points; and, Challenges and the Saving Grace.
Forms of Corruptions and the Milieu
Strange and yet true - the Indian public life is severely infested with the phenomenon of corruption. In his disquiet, the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi saw symptoms of “institutionalization of corruption” as an outcome of “corrupting of institutions” right in 1985. “The failure to deal with corruption”, said he,” has bred contempt for the law”. This is there despite the age old wisdom of the land and present day statutory organizational framework of governance of the nation squarely provides for zero tolerance.[iv] However, the new developments in the socio-economic organization of the nation, in particular the importance of material existence and a number of glitches in the operating system and procedure, seem to have gone into creating aberrations.
Forms of corruptions, taking place in India, qualify much of what scholarship in the field otherwise tend to suggest. The phenomenon, as elsewhere relates to abuse of “public office for private gains”. In all such events, as the TI elaborates, the public servants, be it politicians or civil servants undertake improper and unlawful means to enrich themselves or those close to them, by virtue of extraordinary power of discretion handed down to them. Arnold J. Heidenheimer spoke of three types of corrupt behaviour: First, the public office centered; Second, the market centered; and, Third, the public power centered. In the case of public centered corruptions, the perpetrators ordinarily violated public trust placed in their office. The delinquent behaviour included bribery, nepotism and misappropriation. In market centered corruptions, the officials look upon their authority to maximize personal gains by dispensing public benefits. Quite in the same vein, where it related public power centered corruptions, the officials tend to violate common interest that provides direct or indirect benefits to the perpetrators in the last go. Pioneering Indian contributors to the concern add up to corrupt business persons, corrupt non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and criminals in the category of persons while.. As public servants remain the fountain heads of violations, the Heidenheimer typology remains sacrosanct.
No comments:
Post a Comment