Corruption in India

Political corruption and bureaucratic corruption in India are major concerns. A 2005 study done by Transparency International in India found that more than 75% of the people in India had firsthand experience of paying bribe or peddling influence to get any type of job done in a public office. Taxes and bribes are a daily life fact, common between state borders; Transparency International estimates that truckers pay annually US$5 billion in bribes. For 2010, India was ranked 87^th of 178 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index. As of 2010, India is the ninth-most corrupt country in the world, with about 54% of Indians paying a bribe in the past year, according to a global survey by Transparency International (TI). India needs to deal with the malice of corruption and improve governance in Asia's third-largest economy, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on 18 March 2011.

Criminalization of Indian politics is a serious problem. In July 2008 The Washington Post reported that nearly a fourth of the 540 Indian Parliament members faced criminal charges, "including human trafficking, immigration rackets, embezzlement, rape and even murder". An international watchdog conducted a study on the illicit flight of money from India, perhaps the first ever attempt at shedding light on a subject steeped in secrecy, concludes that India has been drained of $462 billion (over Rs 20 lakh crore) between 1948 and 2008. The amount is nearly 40% of India's annual gross domestic product..

India tops the list for black money in the entire world with almost US$1456 billion in Swiss banks (USD 1.4 trillion approximately) in the form of black money. According to the data provided by the Swiss Banking Association Report (2006), India has more black money than the rest of the world combined. Indian Swiss bank account assets are worth 13 times the country’s national debt. Indian black money is sometimes physically transferred abroad. The CEO of a Mumbai-based equity firm recently told journalists that the money is flown abroad in "special flights" out of Mumbai and Delhi airports to Zurich. Indeed Indians would be the largest depositors of illegal money in Swiss banks, according to sources in the banking industry. The estimated average amount stashed away annually from India during 2002-2006 is $27.3 billion US dollars.

Independent reports have recently calculated India's traditionally ruling family's (Gandhi's) financial net worth to be anywhere between $9.41 billion (Rs 42,345 crore) to $18.66 billion (Rs 83,900 crore), most of it in the form of illegal monies. Harvard scholar Yevgenia Albats cited KGB correspondence about payments to Rajiv Gandhi and his family, which had been arranged by Viktor Chebrikov, which shows that KGB chief Viktor Chebrikov sought in writing an "authorization to make payments in US dollars to the family members of Rajiv Gandhi, namely Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Paola Maino, mother of Sonia Gandhi" from the CPSU in December 1985. “The recent scams involving unimaginably big amounts of money, such as the 2G spectrum scam, are well known. It is estimated that more than trillion dollars are stashed away in foreign havens, while 80 percent of Indians earn less than 2$ per day and every second child is malnourished. It seems as if only the honest people are poor in India and want to get rid of their poverty by education, emigration to cities, and immigration, whereas all the corrupt ones, like Hasan Ali Khan are getting rich through scams and crime. It seems as if India is a rich country filled with poor people,” the organisers of Dandi March II in the United States said.

Despite this, India is sitting on unused foreign aid of over ₹100,000 crore (US$12 billion) reflecting inadequate planning by ministries like urban development, water resources and energy, a report by government auditor Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has said. “As on March 31, 2010, unutilised committed external assistance was of the order of Rs.1,05,339 crore,” the CAG said in its report tabled in Parliament on 18 March 2011. In fact, the Indian government has paid commitment charges of ₹86.11 crore (US$10 million) out of taxpayer-money during 2009-10 in the form of penalty for not timely utilising the aid approved by multilateral and bilateral lending agencies.

Overview of the index of perception of corruption, 2010

History

The economy of India was under socialist-inspired policies for an entire generation from the 1950s until the late 1980s. The economy was subject to extensive regulation, protectionism, and public ownership, leading to pervasive corruption and slow growth. License Raj was often at the core of corruption.

The Vohra Report was submitted by the former Indian Union Home Secretary, N.N. Vohra, in October 1993. It studied the problem of the criminalisation of politics and of the nexus among criminals, politicians and bureaucrats in India.

The report contained several observations made by official agencies on the criminal network which was virtually running a parallel government. It also discussed criminal gangs who enjoyed the patronage of politicians — of all political parties — and the protection of government functionaries. It revealed that political leaders had become the leaders of gangs. They were connected to the military. Over the years criminals had been elected to local bodies, State Assemblies, and even the Parliament. The unpublished annexures to the Vohra Report are believed to contain highly explosive material.

According to Jitendra Singh, "in the bad old days, particularly pre-1991, when the License Raj held sway, and by design, all kinds of free market mechanisms were hobbled or stymied, and corruption emerged almost as an illegitimate price mechanism, a shadowy quasi-market, such that scarce resources could still be allocated within the economy, and decisions could get made. [...] These were largely distortions created by the politico-economic regime. While a sea change has occurred in the years following 1991, some of the distorted cultural norms that took hold during the earlier period are slowly being repaired by the sheer forces of competition. The process will be long and slow, however. It will not change overnight." One of the major problems and obstacles to development that many developing countries face is corruption by greedy, power-hungry politicians, which is endemic in certain parts of the world.

Politics

Main article: Indian political scandals

Criminalization of Indian politics is a problem.

In July 2008 The Washington Post reported that nearly a fourth of the 540 Indian Parliament members faced criminal charges, "including human trafficking, immigration rackets, embezzlement, rape and even murder". At state level, things are often worse. In Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections 2002, candidates with criminal records won the majority of seats.

Bureaucracy

A 2005 study done by Transparency International (TI) in India found that more than 50% of the people had firsthand experience of paying bribe or peddling influence to get a job done in a public office. Taxes and bribes are common between state borders; Transparency International estimates that truckers pay annually US$5 billion in bribes. A 2009 survey of the leading economies of Asia, revealed Indian bureaucracy to be not just least efficient out of Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, China, Philippines and Indonesia; further it was also found that working with India's civil servants was a "slow and painful" process..

Land and property

Officials often steal state property. In cities and villages throughout India, Mafia Raj consisting of municipal and other government officials, elected politicians, judicial officers, real estate developers and law enforcement officials, acquire, develop and sell land in illegal ways..

Tendering processes and awarding contracts

Government officials having discretionary powers in awarding contracts engage in preferential treatment for selected bidders and display negligence in quality control processes . Many state-funded construction activities in India, such as road building, are dominated by construction mafias, which are groupings of corrupt public works officials, materials suppliers, politicians and construction contractors. Shoddy construction and material substitution (e.g. mixing sand in cement while submitting expenses for cement) result in roads and highways being dangerous, and sometimes simply washed away when India's heavy monsoon season arrives.

Medicine

In Government Hospitals, corruption is associated with non availability of medicines (or duplicate/fake medicines), getting admission, consultations with doctors and availing diagnostic services.. There have been cases of diversion of medical supplies from government hospitals and clinics as well as supply and distribution of medicines of inferior quality Some hospitals are charging extra amounts from rich people. In India there is an unfair co-operation for medi-insurance companies and hospitals.

Death Certificates

Grieving families are often asked in Government-run offices to pay bribes to obtain the Death Certificate.

Transport

Officials who over see transportation regulations, safety norms, traffic violations engage in rent seeking activity. Typically a lenient treatment for an offending driver or vehicle is accompanied by expectation of a bribe . India has multiple jurisdictions for vehicular laws as well as overlapping laws at the central government and state government level which worsens bureaucratic complications. This leads to facilitation payments to accelerate normal government processes .

Income tax

There have been several cases of collusion of officials of the income tax department of India for a favorable tax treatment in return for bribes

Preferential award of public resources

As detailed earlier, land in areas with short supply is relatively common with government entities awarding public land to private concerns at negligible rates. Other examples include the award of mining leases to private companies without a levy of taxes that is proportionate to the market value of the ore.

Judiciary

Corruption is rampant in the judicial system of India. According to Transparency International, judicial corruption in India is attributable to factors such as "delays in the disposal of cases, shortage of judges and complex procedures, all of which are exacerbated by a preponderance of new laws".

Armed forces

The Indian Armed Forces have frequently witnessed corruption involving senior armed forces officers from the Indian Army, Indian Navy and Indian Air Force. Many officers have been caught for allegedly selling defence stores in the black market in the border districts of Indian states and territories. Recent sukhna land scandal involving four Indian Lieutenant Generals has shaken public faith in the country's growing military at a time when large sums are being spent on modernising the armed forces. A string of eye-popping fraud cases has damaged the institution in recent years. The latest Adarsh land scam is another example of the nexus between the armed forces , bureaucracy and the politicians in the embezzlement of government property.

Police

Indian Police remains amongst the most corrupt departments of government. Even basic functions like lodging a F.I.R. or reporting a theft can not be done without paying bribe to police officials. Cases are firstly not registered, victims are encouraged, even threatened for not filing an official complain. If a case somehow gets registered police doesn't takes any actions.The corrupt politicians and policemen go like hand in glove, often resulting in exploitation of the masses. Despite State prohibitions against torture and custodial misconduct by the police, torture is widespread in police custody, which is a major reason behind deaths in custody. The police often torture innocent people until a 'confession' is obtained to save influential and wealthy offenders. G.P. Joshi, the programme coordinator of the Indian branch of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative in New Delhi comments that the main issue at hand concerning police violence is a lack of accountability of the police.

Religious institutions

In India, the corruption has also crept into religious institutions. Some of the Church of North India are making money by selling Baptism certificates. A group of church leaders and activists has launched a campaign to combat the corruption within churches. The chief economic consequences of corruption are the loss to the economy an unhealthy climate for investment and an increase in the cost of government-subsidised services. The TI India study estimates the monetary value of petty corruption in 11 basic services provided by the government, like education, healthcare, judiciary, police, etc., to be around ₹21,068 crore (US$2.5 billion). India still ranks in the bottom quartile of developing nations in terms of the ease of doing business, and compared to China and other lower developed Asian nations, the average time taken to secure the clearances for a startup or to invoke bankruptcy is much greater.

Anti-corruption efforts

Right to information act

Main article: Right to Information Act

The Right to Information Act (2005) and equivalent acts in the states, that require government officials to furnish information requested by citizens or face punitive action, computerisation of services and various central and state government acts that established vigilance commissions have considerably reduced corruption or at least have opened up avenues to redress grievances. The 2006 report by Transparency International puts India at the 70th place and states that significant improvements were made by India in reducing corruption.

Ombudsmen

The LokAyukta is an anti-government corruption organization in the Indian states . These institutions are based on the Ombudsman in Scandinavian countries. An amendment to the Constitution has been proposed to implement the Lokayukta uniformly across Indian States as a three-member body, headed by a retired Supreme Court judge or high court chief justice, and comprise of the state vigilance commissioner and a jurist or an eminent administrator as other members .

Whistleblowers

Whistleblowers play a major role in the fight against corruption. India currently does not have a law to protect whistleblowers, which was highlighted by the assassination of Satyendra Dubey. Indian courts are regularly ordering probe in cases of murders or so-called suicide of several whistle blowers. One of the latest case of such murder is of V Sasindran Company Secretary of Palakkad based Malabar Cement Limited, a Government company in Kerala and his two minor children, Kerala High Court ordered CBI probe on 18th February 2011. However, CBI showed its unwillingness for probing into such cases citing over-burden as a reason.

Creation of Anti-Corruption Police and Courts

Some have called for the Central Government to create an anti-theft law enforcement agency that investigates and prosecutes corruption at all levels of government, including state and local level. Special courts that are more efficient than the traditional Indian courts with traveling judges and law enforcement agents are being proposed. The proposal has not yet been acted upon by the Indian government. Certain states such as Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Pradesh Anti-corruption Bureau) and Karnataka (Lokayukta) have similar agencies and courts .

Civil sector initiatives

Several new initiatives have come up in the civil sector to raise awareness about Corruption related issues and to build anti-corruption platforms. 5th Pillar is one such organization that is promoting the use of Zero Rupee Notes to fight corruption by shaming the officials who ask for bribe. Another popular initiative Jaago Re! One Billion Votes from Tata Tea has now changed its focus from voter registration to fighting corruption . nobribe.org is another platform for corruption free India and advocates the use of direct and regular measurement of corruption to force the hands of the leadership into dealing with corruption related issues.

Another platform is http://www.indiaagainstcorruption.com India Against Corruption is a movement created by concerned citizens from all spheres, and professions, who've come together to fight corruption in India. http://www.ipaidabribe.com is one such site.

People For Lok Satta has taken the initiative to lead the National Campaign Against Corruption and Dandi March II.

Another site which has recently sprung up is www.ekakizunj.com. It is inspired byG. R. Khairnar, the erstwhile Mumbai Municipal Deputy Commissioner and intend to create a database of all the corrupt in India.

Corruption News for India

“What the hell is going on in this country,” commented an exasperated Supreme Court last week as it expressed its indignation over the lack of government’s seriousness in bringing to book alleged black money offenders like Hasan Ali Khan. The Supreme Court was hearing the petition filed by Ram Jethmalani, Subhash Kashyap and KPS Gill.

A Bench comprising Justices B. Sudershan Reddy and S.S. Nijjar, warned the Government that it would be forced to monitor investigations into black money if the authorities kept viewing it as a tax evasion issue and failed to pursue the source of the illegal money stashed abroad.

The Bench further asked Solicitor General Subramaniam why Hasan Ali could not be taken into custody for interrogation and whether Government would like custodial interrogation

“What the Hell!” is certainly not a phrase one would normally expect from a Supreme Court Bench. But Government’s behaviour these days has been so abnormal, that if you go round the country and note the language you hear everywhere, it reflects nothing other than a sense of utter disgust over the manner in which Government has been conducting itself. The comments in the media are no different.

The news on Friday for instance about the Supreme Court striking down the appointment of P.J. Thomas as Chief Vigilance Commissioner carried in a leading Daily of the capital the heading:

Last week I was invited by the Ramakrishna Mission, Belgaum, to come to Belgaum and formally inaugurate a large auditorium they had put up quite close to the place where Swami Vivekananda had stayed during his first tour of South India.

t was in Belgaum again that a Congress Session was held in 1924 exactly one hundred years after Rani Chennamma from Kittur, close to Belgaum, rose in revolt against British rule much before the first War of Independence of 1857. I recall my visit to Kittur to pay homage to Rani Chennamma during my Swarna Jayanti Yatra of 1997.

Mahatama Gandhi commanded extraordinary influence over the Congress all his life. But the one and only time he became President of the Party was in 1924.

Belgaum was an important centre of the Freedom movement. Lokmanya Tilak launched his Home Rule League from Belgaum in 1916. The town had the honour of hosting the All India 39th Congress session in 1924, that was the only session which was presided over by Mahatma Gandhi, and the only session held in Karnataka. ‘Veersoudha’ is a monument built in memory of this session. The well in the campus was popularly known as Congress Well which was built to meet the drinking water requirement of the session. The well was named as Pampa Sarovara and the Venue of the session was named as Vijaynagar, after the Hampi empire.

gandhiThis Session of the Indian National Congress saw the coming together of a cluster of personalities who helped steer the freedom struggle and have left a mark on our country. Besides Mahatma Gandhi, there were stalwarts like Motilal and Jawaharlal Nehru, Lala Lajpatrai and Rajagopalchari, Drs. Annie Besant and Sarojini Naidu, Chittaranjandas and Pandit Madan Mohan Malalviya, Saifuddin Kichalu and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Rajendra Prasad, Vallabhai Patel, and so many others.

The Belgaum Session of the Congress began with the Vande Mataram being sung by famous vocalist, Vishnu Digambar Paluskar. This was followed by two songs in Kannada, one of them by a small girl by name Gangubai Hangal whose soulful singing moved Gandhiji immensely. Gangubai later became one of the country’s outstanding musicians.

Those were the days when every year the Congress would have a new President. How much things have changed since! Nowadays, Party Presidentship seems to have become a family monopoly, and that too for life!

In my political life, I have seen many ups and downs. But one phase that I recall as extremely agonizing was our last days in the Janata Party in early 1980. The Janata Party had lost the election badly. Jana Sangh members of the Party were being viewed as a liability by the leadership and efforts were on to throw us out in the name of dual membership. The agony ended only when in April 1980, we who earlier belonged to the Jana Sangh parted company with the Janata Party, and launched the BJP.

It was during this ‘agonizing phase’ that I once remarked: “This Janata Party seems to be in a suicidal mood !” A friend commented: “It is generally believed that committing suicide is a characteristic only of human beings, not of animals. But there is a rodent in Scandinavian countries known as “lemming” about which it is said that this species is unique: for no explicable reason, these ‘lemmings’ commit mass suicide. In my writings I frequently used to say those days that the Janata Party was in the grips of a “lemmings complex”. Later, however, I could gather that this is just a belief, not scientifically correct.

Last week, I saw an edit-page article in the Hindu by one of its well known correspondents, P. Sainath, titled “The lurch of the Lemmings”. Sainath sums up the article thus: “With 2G, Radia, illicit funds, and a stubborn CVC, the U.P.A. Government’s scams are multiplying faster than Lemmings.” It makes one wonder if the U.P.A. Government also can be deemed to be in a suicidal mood !

In a Hindu article on the same subject of scams titled “Honesty is Indivisible”, Arun Kumar, Chairman of the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Studies, JNU, New Delhi, wrote in his opening paragraph:

See also

• Poverty in India
• Indian political scandals
• Corruption Perceptions Index
• List of countries by Corruption Perceptions Index
• Socio-economic issues in India
• License Raj
• Mafia Raj
• Corruption in Mumbai
• Rent seeking
• Lok Ayukta
• Notable Scams in India

References

Is the nation in a coma? http://www.thehindubusinessline.in/2010/05/31/stories/2010053150300900.htm

Corruption, a threat to democracy http://www.thehindubusinessline.in/2009/11/16/stories/2009111650710900.htm

Corruption games http://www.thehindubusinessline.in/2010/08/09/stories/2010080950280900.htm

Further reading

• Kohli, Suresh (1975). Corruption in India: The Growing Evil. ISBN 0861865804..
• Dwivedy, Surendranath; Bhargava, G. S. (1967). "Political Corruption in India". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help).
• Gupta, K. N. (2001). Corruption in India. Anmol Publications Pvt Ltd. ISBN 8126109734..
• Halayya, M. (1985). "Corruption in India" (Document). Affiliated East-West Press. {{cite document}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |isbn= and |url= (help).
• Guhan, Sanjivi; Paul, Samuel (1997). "Corruption in India: Agenda for Action" (Document). Vision Books. {{cite document}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |isbn= and |url= (help).
• Vittal, N. (2003). Corruption in India: The Roadblock to National Prosperity. Academic Foundation. ISBN 8171882870.. Excepts

External links

1. Major Scams in India laid bare
2. The masterminds behind the scams
3. Reducing corruption in public governance : Rhetoric to reality
4. Prevention: An Effective Tool to Reduce Corruption
5. Reducing corruption at the local level
6. Corrupt Cities : A Practical Guide to Cure and Prevention (162 pages)
7. Corruption through the programme cycle by TI
8. Understanding and preventing police corruption : Lessons from the literature

Indian government

• CIC - The Central Information Commission is charged with interpreting the Right to Information Act, 2005.
• DoPT - The Department of Personnel and Training, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances, and Pensions, is charged with being the nodal agency for the Right to Information Act, 2005. It has the powers to make rules regarding appeals, fees, etc.
• Complete text of the Right to Information Act
• India Against Corruption Movement
• Karnataka Information Commission The State Information Commission for Indian State of Karnataka
• Jaago Re! - Interview with RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal on fighting corruption in India.
• Jaago Re! - 'Corruption starts right before birth until death for an Indian citizen': Interview with Vijay Anand, founder of the 5th Pillar (Zero rupee note)