Corruption as a national scourge and shame
Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
B.S. Raghavan / August 9, 2010

"Little evidence of corruption going down, says Plan panel" is the headline of a news report appearing in Business Line, August 2). The Planning Commission has discovered that corruption "has permeated the entire social fabric" leading to "large-scale misutilisation of resources". The solutions it offers are equally original: A quick identification of those guilty; swift decision; deterrent punishment; taking away the scope for discretion in decision-making; and bringing in more transparency. The Commission has certainly justified its existence for the mere reason of being so insightful. There was a time in India when scams and scums were few and far between, and it was possible to deal with them to good effect. Finance Ministers, R. K. Shanmukham Chetty and T. T. Krishnamachari, left the Cabinet for lapses which today may seem piffle. The Chief Minister, Pratap Singh Kairon, loomed large as an embodiment of corruption, but you will really wonder what the fuss was all about if I narrate his peccadilloes.

A price tag
During Janata rule, poor Morarji Desai and Charan Singh came in for a lot of bashing for the former's son and the latter's wife and other relatives dabbling in affairs of state for a consideration, but, again, by today's standards, their transgressions, if there were any, are a mere speck in the political spectrum. Even the Bofors payoff was peanuts compared to the dizzying heights scaled by persons in positions of authority in recent years. India has come a long way since then. The day is not far off, if it is not already upon us, when a passer-by will demand a 100 rupees to tell you the time of day. No public figure, no institution, no authority, no seat of power any longer commands the people's confidence for unimpeachable rectitude. Every one of them is assumed to be in on the take, to have a price tag.

Supreme Court and High Court Justices, Vice-Chancellors, Central and State Ministers and Chief Ministers, MPs, MLAs, bureacracy, police, media barons auctioning 'paid news', now office-bearers of the Organising Committee of the Commonwealth Games - the cancer has metastasised into every nook and corner of the polity. There is a regular flow of news, almost by the hour, of some big shot or the other being either caught in the act or covering up his and his cohorts' misdeeds.

Eating into the vitals
Figures of 100 or 200 crores of rupees have become contemptible. When the fodder scam of Bihar touched Rs 900 crore, it looked like a huge amount. The plunderers of public coffers and the fleecers of the people may sue you for defamation if you associate them with such paltry amounts, when the Madhu Kodas and their ilk have notched up Rs 4,000-6,000 crore as the minimum 'respectable' amount for qualifying as a star swindler, a Grabber Ratna as it were.

Indeed, the stories of wholesale daylight robbery have become so blasé that people don't even bother to take notice of them any more. They read the headlines or momentarily listen to the lead stories on the TV, and blank them out of their minds. Promises of inquiries, law taking its course, punishments being meted out and the kinds of stale findings the Planning Commission has come out with are all regarded as hilarious jokes because not one big-ticket blackguard has ever been locked behind bars in half-a-century.

Whereas, in the last five years alone, in the US, two Governors (akin to India's Chief Ministers), and six Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives have been sentenced to serve between six-12 years in jail for crimes which pale into insignificance compared to what India's counterparts are capable of. In the same period, China executed five top officials, including a Mayor and the head of a government agency after summary trial.

Is it possible to hit upon a similar quick, firm and legal way of fighting the scourge in India? For answer watch my next column.