The Aam Aadmi Party’s electoral success in the Delhi assembly polls is reflective of how the people in the capital rate corruption as a scourge which must be eliminated over time in India. Corruption is an endemic problem here and often takes various forms, most often in the public domain, but can also be witnessed in the private domain. Some scandals that have rocked India in the recent past include the coal scam, the 2G scam, the corruption in the run-up to the Commonwealth Games et al. These can be categorised as cases of political corruption that led to the ultimate downfall of the previous government.
The present government has made a good start with the e-auctions of coal blocks and spectrum. The case of Satyam, if not an outright case of private corruption, pointed out 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 the popular perception being that whatever government comes to power, lower rung officials are bound to remain corrupt until the system is somehow reformed at all levels. We have a system of laws in place to deal with corruption and improving transparency, like the Prevention of Corruption Act and the 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 lowest 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 the 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, the lower level judiciary as well as a government clerk 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 to get things done quickly (speed money) or because it has become institutionalised within the system (Think of the money given to register a property). It also could be because the economic cost of paying a bribe is lesser than the actual fine/tax. (Think of motor vehicle challans where 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 organisation based out of Washington, talked about illicit financial outflows from developing countries. The estimates suggested that India had the fourth highest cumulative outflows from a period of 2003-12. India’s outflows were US $439 billion, compared to US $1.252 trillion for China, US $973 billion for the Russian Federation, US $514 billion for Mexico, US $394 billion for Malaysia and US $217 billion for Brazil. These outflows represent the lost capital and investment which could have been utilised for growth and competitiveness of these economies.
Some other factors that have a bearing on investment within the country are the perception of corruption, the perception of institutions affected by corruption and the citizens’ 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 CPI was 38 (up from 36 last year) on a scale of 1-100, where one represents highly corrupt and 100 least corrupt.
The Nordic countries do extremely well on the index while most of Asia and Africa fare relatively poorly. According to the Global Corruption Barometer 2013 of the same organisation, 86 per cent of the respondents in India felt that political parties were the corrupt/extremely corrupt. Similarly, by the same barometer, the military was thought to be least corrupt, with only 20 per cent respondents believing that the military was corrupt/extremely corrupt. An astounding 62 per cent and 61 per cent reported paying a bribe to the police and the registry and permit services respectively.
All this goes to show that though laws exist in India, corruption persists. Internationally, corruption dents a country’s image and causes investor confidence to plummet 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 AAP Government in Delhi tackle this phenomenon. Winning the crusade against corruption will require active public participation. We are hopeful, with 55 per cent 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 amit.kapoor@competitiveness.in and tweets @kautiliya)
Amit Kapoor
