The Aam Aadmi Party's electoral success in the Delhi assembly polls is a
reflective of how the people of capital rate corruption as an important
criterion that has to be bettered over time in India.
Corruption
is an endemic problem in India and often takes various forms. Very
often, it takes the form of public corruption but can also be witnessed
in the private domain. Some of the scandals that have rocked India in
the past decade include the coal scam, the 2G scam, corruption in the
run-up to the Commonwealth Games et al. These can be categorized as
cases of political corruption that led to the ultimate downfall of the
previous union government. The present government has made a good start
with e- auctions of coal blocks and spectrum. The case of Satyam, if not
an outright case of private corruption, pointed out as to how a corrupt
mindset can wreak havoc on the growth story of an entire economy.
In
India, most recently, the focus has been on public corruption with
public perception that whatever government comes; public officials at
lower levels are bound to remain corrupt till the system is somehow
reformed at all levels. India has a system of laws in place for dealing
with corruption and improving transparency like the Prevention of
Corruption Act and Prevention of Money Laundering Act and the Right to
Information Act, among others. While these have to an extent made
government machinery somewhat accountable, corruption at the lower
levels remains a challenge that has to be addressed.
The
lowermost level is where the citizen interacts with the state most often
and faces harassment, and this is where there is a governance deficit.
The leadership at the top certainly helps to create a culture, which
acts without fear and favour, but the agony of the citizen persists at
lower levels. The focus on transparency and usage of technology to solve
people’s problems should be looked at as a solution at lower levels. It
has to do with public officials like police officials as well as in the
lower level judiciary as well as a clerk in a government department and
their attitude towards the citizens of India.
The
Merriam-Webster dictionary defines corruption as ‘impairment of
integrity, virtue, or moral principle’. Thus, it is not just a social
and economic problem but at a deeper level a moral one. One may ask why
does one pay a bribe? The answer may be because of getting things done
quickly (speed money) or because it has become institutionalized within
the system (Think of the money given for registering a property). It
also could be because the economic cost of paying a bribe that is lesser
than the actual fine/tax. (Think of motor vehicle challans that one
gets away with a payment of Rs.50-Rs.100 to the traffic police).
Corruption often manifests itself in various ways.
There is a
significant link between corruption and capital flight. The December
2014 report by Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a research organization
based out of Washington, talks about illicit financial outflows from
developing countries. The estimates suggest that India had the fourth
highest cumulative outflows from a period of 2003-12. India’s outflows
were $439 billion, compared to $1.252 trillion for China, $973 billion
for the Russian Federation, $514 billion for Mexico, $394 billion for
Malaysia and $217 billion USD for Brazil. These outflows represent the
lost capital and investment which could have been utilized for growth
and competitiveness of these economies.
Some other factors that
have a bearing on investment within the country are the perception of
corruption, perception of institutions affected by corruption and
citizen’s role in tackling corruption. Transparency International, an
anti-corruption watchdog does the annual Corruption Perception Index on
which in the previous year India ranked 85th out of 170 countries.
India’s score on the corruption perception Index was 38 (up from 36 last
year) on a scale of 1-100 where 1 represents highly corrupt and 100
least corrupt. The Nordic countries do extremely well on the Index
while most part of Asia and Africa does fare relatively poorly.
According to the Global Corruption Barometer 2013 of the same
organization, 86 percent of the respondents in India felt that political
parties were the corrupt/extremely corrupt. Similarly, in the same
barometer, the military was thought to be least corrupt with only 20
percent respondents believing that the military was corrupt/extremely
corrupt. An astounding 62 percent and 61 percent reported paying a bribe
to the police and the registry and permit services respectively.
All
this goes on to show that though laws exist in India, corruption
persists. Internationally corruption dents a country’s image and causes
investor's confidence to go down while also causing illicit financial
outflows. It acts as a hindrance to bettering the country’s
competitiveness, transparency and ease of doing business. It would be
heartening to see how the present union government and the elected AAP
government in Delhi tackle the phenomenon of corruption. Winning the
crusade against corruption will require active public participation. We
are hopeful with 55 percent ordinary people (as per Transparency
International’s Global Corruption Barometer 2013) feeling that they can
make a difference in the fight against corruption. In the years to come
this number should increase so that we fight and reduce corruption with
the twin swords of public participation and consensus and laws
preventing corruption.
(The article is co-authored with Sankalp
Sharma, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Competitiveness, India.
Amit Kapoor is Chair, Institute for Competitiveness & Editor of
Thinkers. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at
[email protected] and tweets @kautiliya)
