on April 7, 2011 by admin in Corruption, Governance & policies, Politics, Society, Comments (20)
A bill to end corruption. Really? Who are we kidding?
The Anna Hazare melodrama is at fever pitch once again. I have said everything I had to say on this topic. All I can do now is hang my head in disbelief and disgust. Anyway, below is the post I had written a few months ago on this same subject.
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The melodrama in India is now at its fever pitch. The issue in question is a long-pending anti-corruption bill called Jana Lokpal bill. In essence, the bill seeks to create an independent body that would administer and resolve cases of corruption against ministers and bureaucrats in a speedy and effective manner. The bill has been pending for decades now and its proponents don’t accept it in its current form on certain technical issues as its exclusion of the Prime minister from the body’s jurisdiction.
As most of your would already know, Anna Hazare, a very prominent and respectable social activist, has gone on fast-unto-death to demand changes in the present Lokpal bill and its speedy conversion into law. Given the nation’s frustration with corruption, it is not surprising that he has drawn remarkable support from the Indian middle-class. I admire his intentions and the sentiments of his supporters.
I, however, don’t see a point in their demand. There are many technical questions that this proposed bill raises – for instance, the bill proposes that all corruption cases would be dealt with within one year. Is that really possible? Given the magnitude of scams in India, the complexity of the cases is beyond imagination and one year is too short a time to crack such cases. But I really am not qualified to challenge this bill on technical issues. I would assume in good faith that this is thoroughly thought through.
The question is not how it will address the problem but if it will in the first place. Anna Hazare and ‘India Against Corruption’ claim that we need a new anti-corruption system because the existing anti-corruption system has failed. Well, they don’t offer any reason why their proposed system won’t fail and I don’t believe that it won’t. You see, we’ve had a history of anti-corruption bills and laws in India and non of them have worked till date. Another bill or law is not going to change that.
For corruption is really not a problem. It is a mere symptom of a problem. And what irks me most is that people either don’t see the problem or are not willing to accept that problem as a problem. And that problem is the socialist big-state ideology.
Think about it. Where does corruption come from? Why does it take place? Forget the big scams such as Bofors and 2G etc. for a moment (we will come to those later). Think about the most basic form of corruption – bribery. How many of you have had to pay some or the other government officer to get something done? – a water pipeline, a telephone connection (in old days), passport, even marriage registration. Almost everyone of you, I assume. I had to!
Let’s take telecom as an example. I remember in the early 90s when telephone was a scarce commodity and the only service provider was the government. You would have to wait for months on end to only get a telephone number. Getting the line to actually work was another project. I remember a telephone engineer (the one that climbs on the telephone pole to connect the wires) coming to our house one afternoon and telling my mom that his price to climb up the pole and connect the wires was 5oo bucks. That is only to activate the damn line. He knew he could get away with his demand because if he didn’t fix the line, no one else would.
Now in contrast, did any of you ever had to pay any bribe to an Airtel or a Vodafone to get a connection? You don’t have to bribe them because they know they can’t demand bribes because they know that if they do, you will simply take your business somewhere else (that you may have to bribe them to not hound you with incessant calls is another matter, however!)
But jokes aside, do you see the point? The root cause of corruption is the concentration of power in a few hands. The more government controls the industry and public services, the more it is enabling corruption. The issue with bigger scams such as Bofors and 2G is a little different, although with the same root cause. There are certain establishments we can’t privatise – defence for example. But we could certainly distribute the decision-making powers between ministries and independent bodies to reduce the chances of corruption. The Bofors and 2G scams, amongst many such similar scams, took place only because the buying (of weapons) and selling (of spectrum) powers were entirely concentrated in the hands of Rajiv Gandhi and A. Raja respectively.
And this problem is not India’s alone. A look at the 2010 corruption index published by the Guardian would tell you that the nations with heavy concentration of power are also the most corrupt. Even the darling of communists/socialists, China, scores almost as poorly as India on the corruption scale.
If stricter anti-corruption laws and systems were to work, as Anna Hazare’s movement promises it would, China would be the least corrupt nation. (they just simply execute the corrupt!) Clearly, that’s not the case and hence mere anti-corruption laws are not a solution. True, privatisation won’t end corruption altogether. After all, cases such as Enron and Bernie Madoff happened in one of the most liberal countries. That’s another form of corruption but it’s very rare and it ultimately doesn’t do much good to the corrupt, as we’ve seen from what happened to both the Enron bosses and Madoff.
So with all due respect to Anna Hazare and his movement, I don’t think it will cause even a dent to the system. Another anti-corruption law will only present the corrupt a temporary problem to circumvent, which they eventually will. But if we reduce their powers over our industries and our lives, we will take away their incentives for corruption.
I will leave you with a very good argument from one of the most prominent economists of all times, and one of my heros, Milton Friedman:
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-7oMOxPjNE
Tags: Anna Hazare, anti-corruption laws, Capitalism, Corruption, India, Jan Lokpal bill, socialism
Bhagwad Jal Park
April 8, 2011 @ 12:35 am
The reason why we don't have to bribe Airtel for example is because we can choose another provider. The government however, is the sole provider of certain services (such as passport issuance, marriage licences, spectrum allocation etc.) which cannot be performed by the private sector. Every govt in the world faces this problem and not just India. So the problem isn't India specific…
Top 14 Resources on Anna Hazare's fast || Yesterday We Said Tomorrow
April 8, 2011 @ 3:50 am
[...] A bill to end corruption. Really? Who are we kidding? on indianliberals.org [...]
Aditya Nayak
April 8, 2011 @ 4:15 am
Hi there,
Really liked your post. I have compiled a list of top 15 posts on the issue and I included yours too. Here is the link:
http://www.adityakumarnayak.com/2011/top-12-resou…
IndianLiberals
April 8, 2011 @ 7:25 am
Hi Bhagwad
Yes you are right. But as I said in the post, distributing the power in cases such as spectrum allocation etc. could definitely reduce the chances of corruption. In cases such as passport issuance, they could definitely be privatised, not necessarily a la telecom or banking but contractual arrangements to independent companies with regular appraisal systems in place.
I think most of the government services could and should be privatised. But the solution is not privatisation. It's distribution of power. If power is concentrated in one hand, it is more likely to be abused than if it is in three hands.
IndianLiberals
April 8, 2011 @ 7:26 am
Thanks Aditya. Appreciate the link.
Sk
April 10, 2011 @ 1:07 pm
Interesting perspective. Although with due appreciation to the article, i wanted to ask how simple is diffusing/ outsourcing power into many hands ? For instance, how abt having two prime ministers? Rajiv Gandhi was accused guilty right ?
all i wanted to say is that there is a reason why the power is concentrated in most cases- in that case it was national security and defence. As you mentioned China definitely has poor state of affairs , but again look at the exponential growth which its making- advantages of faster decision making under monopoly- pros and cons always exist ! … If it was simply a blame game, you can blame the population , illiteracy, poverty, corruption in India- the fun part is they are all inter dependent and u cant just cut the cycle anywhere and clean the dirt when the nation wakes up. Its an organic process which will happen over time. i do not quite entirely think Jan Lok pal Bill is the solution ( i find lots of points infeasible) nonetheless a cycle of change has to begin somewhere!
Let me quote Oscar Wilde here- The root cause of Optimism is sheer terror. Ill leave you all to ponder over the relevance !
Ajit R. Jadhav
April 10, 2011 @ 1:14 pm
Ashish,
Please understand that, in a certain overall sense, I am not so much countering you as making an observation. You said:
Prominent? Yes. Padmabhushan's *are* prominent, I suppose. But "respectable"? That requires making a reference to a moral standard—objective, or other.
Let me make my point indirectly: In the late 1990s, I was in the US, and would sometimes listen to Andrew Lewis' radio show on the 'net. Once, Lewis was explaining the nature of totalitarianism in reference to the Taliban. "Under the Taliban," he said, "you take a shave, you go to jail." Reality perhaps was: "You take a shave, you get flogged."
I do want to doubly emphasize here that by no means do I wish to suggest that there is a complete analogy between Hazare and the Taliban. Yet, there is something to be said about his autocratic approach (if that's the word I want), for, how else might one explain this: In Ralegan Siddhi, in early 1990s, if you had an alcoholic drink, you would be tied to a pole a whole day long. … Now, none can deny how alcoholism destroys life, family and all. We all are mature enough to understand that part. Yet, is that all there is to it? Isn't there something to be said about prohibitionism, too? About the real dangers of that "benevelont dictator" approach?
So, to project Hazare's approach onto the national scale (a scale to which he has already taken a leap): "Have a glass of the bubbly, and find yourself tied to a pole in the Sun!"
OK, OK, OK. I do admit there might be a bit of exaggeration there. But, again, is there? I mean, sure, Hazare is not a Talibani. But who needs even another Morarji, anyway! (No point telling *you* about it. If you were a toddler in '83, you were perhaps not even born when, talking of asking friends if they were going along to visit the toilet in the college, people would casually ask: "Let's go, visit the Morarji Juice Bar.")
On a more serious note: Yours is a well-written article, one of the best blog posts on this topic, sure. But still, how I would have loved to see an article or a post (written before this comment) that mentioned any one or more of the following few things, in relation to the Jan LokPal and Hazare affair/issue: (i) "enlightenment ideas" in place of "democratic ideals;" (ii) "a republic limited by the rule of the law" in place of "[largest] democracy;" (iii) a clear-cut, direct mention of the term: "objective law;" and, a very crucial one: (iv) government as having exclusive (delegated (correct word?)) power over the use of FORCE.
Do you think that the "respectable" Hazare's mind is at all capable of dealing with any such abstractions (let alone dealing with them right—i.e. properly)? How about any of his associates, esp. the dynastic Bhushans—neither of who, despite their "idealism" and all, has ever uttered even a single word about at least restoring property rights as the first crucial step towards a full acknowledgment of Individual Rights (i.e. the only three rights: Life, Liberty, and *Pursuit* of Happiness))?
Nope. Overall, I don't think Hazare is all that respectable. Or any of his associates either, for that matter. Sorry. Our judgments differ.
Best,
–Ajit
[E&OE]
IndianLiberals
April 10, 2011 @ 2:56 pm
Hi Sk
That's a simple answer to your question – in a case such as purchase of arms, the decision to do so should be left to an agency independent of government control i.e. an agency constituting representatives of the armed forces, defence ministry, finance ministry and other relevant stakeholders. Such a committee/agency could deliberate on the offer and make its recommendations to the government. Can such an agency itself be corruptible? Yes that's a possibility but rather less likely than the possibility of one individual at the helm being corruptible. The agency won't have the authority to make the purchase/sale so its members won't have an incentive to be corrupt and the government will have to act on the agency's recommendations, which means that it can't be bribed to make that purchase/sale.
WRT to China – only time will tell how sustainable that growth is. I don't think China can keep up the pace of growth without eventual changes in its governance. Besides, the Chinese growth has not percolated down to its poorest constituents. The Chinese hinterland continues to live in misery. Do we want such growth for India? That's what we are getting today.
IndianLiberals
April 10, 2011 @ 2:57 pm
Ajit
You are right. "Respectable" is probably the wrong word to explain him. He's 'respected' (by some) but not 'respectable'. I agree with you.
Bala
April 11, 2011 @ 5:03 am
Ajit,
I had written this before reading your comment. Hope you find it alright.
http://blog.vanguardbschool.com/?p=311
And thanks for throwing light on Anna Hazare's methods in Ralegaon Siddhi. Now I have no doubts that he is not worthy of my respect (which I do not strew around carelessly).
Hades
April 13, 2011 @ 6:49 am
Nice write-up. Agree with you that a lot of our ills stem from centralisation of power although I would include greater federalism as well as flatter markets as a solution.
And that problem is the socialist big-state ideology
I wonder how accurate it would be to propose a one on one relation between big, bloated states and socialism. Is socialism and its adjuncts the only reason for big states?
In the US, for example, the federal government and specifically, the federal executive has only gotten stronger in the recent past. This is a general trend irrespective of who–republican or dem–was in power. I'm not so sure socialist mind sets could explain this. Even in India, post 91, has there been any significant reduction in Government size?
IndianLiberals
April 13, 2011 @ 4:19 pm
Hades
I see your point and agree with you to a certain extent. The link between socialism and big state is the insistence on benefits and welfare – the argument that people need to be taken care of. This idea stems from socialism and the more governments want to "take care" of societies, the more they take control of those societies.
Most of the western countries are falling for this "welfare state" mentality irrespective of which political party runs the government. That's why there's all the more reason to make a strong case for genuine free markets and smaller governments.
Akumar
April 28, 2011 @ 6:47 am
You guys have a very simplistic understanding of a corrupt person like myself. Suppose I happen to be on the independent agency. I will first ask the govt what they really want and then make the same recommendation. I will then take a cut from govt minister who acts on my recommendation. Alternatively I can let the vendors know if they want my recommendation they have to pay me so much.
What is needed is not distribution of powers, but a system of checks and balances.
AK
IndianLiberals
April 28, 2011 @ 8:47 am
AK, yes you could do that if you ARE the independent agency. But when you are PART OF such an agency, you are less likely to have an influence on the recommendation. Could the entire agency be bought? Yes possible but quite improbable.
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Siddhartha
June 27, 2011 @ 5:50 pm
Most of the communities in India (such as Bengali), are succumbed in 'Culture of Poverty'(a theory introduced by an American anthropologist Oscar Lewis), irrespective of cl-ass or economic strata, lives in pavement or apartment. Nobody is at all ashamed of the deep-rooted corruption, decaying general quality of life, worst Politico-administrative system, weak mother language, continuous absorption of common space (mental as well as physical, both). We are becoming fathers & mothers only by self-procreation, mindlessly & blindfold. Simply depriving their(the children) fundamental rights of a decent, caring society, fearless & dignified living. Do not ever look for any other positive alternative behaviour (values) to perform human way of parenthood, i.e. deliberately co-parenting of those children those are born out of ignorance, real poverty. All of us are being driven only by the very animal instinct. If the Bengali people ever be able to bring that genuine freedom (from vicious cycle of 'poverty') in their own life/attitude, involve themselves in 'Production of Space' (Henri Lefebvre), at least initiate a movement by heart, decent & dedicated Politics will definitely come up. – Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay, 16/4, Girish Banerjee Lane, Howrah-711101.
Sathish
August 18, 2011 @ 7:06 am
My friend, this argument is pure fantasy and will just not fly. Why do you need the police? Just give some arms to people and let them defend themselves. Why do you need a town planning authority – let a committe decide how far they can build their houses on the road. You see where this is going? Its not practical. And even if it were, it is too big a change and will never happen in one life time. So what we need is checks and balance. The Jan lokpal bill is in the realm of possible and is the best option at the moment. Fear in the people who wield power, fear of consequence. That alone can deter people. You should see Karnataka. Forget the big fish, even a clerk in muncipality is scared of being raided by Lokayukta who have offices in every district. This has empowered the common man to some extent – just imagine if jan lokpal bill was enacted. That power would grow exponentially and you have the babus running for cover. The consequences would be so great that there is absolutely no use risking a bribe. This alone can stop people. Human beings are just animals at the end of the day – only reasoning makes us different. If a person can reason that if he commits murder (or bribe) he’ll rot in jail for 10 years, he’ll not do it. If there was no police people would just loot and rape – there is consequence, so they don’t. Jan lok pal is about bringing that consequence. Politics must be made as non-profitable as possible, only then people who genuinely want to serve people will come aboard.
bali
October 7, 2011 @ 10:13 am
AK, yes you could do that if you ARE the independent agency. But when you are PART OF such an agency, you are less likely to have an influence on the recommendation. Could the entire agency be bought? Yes possible but quite improbable.
hard money Ontario
siddharth
October 10, 2011 @ 6:03 am
In any case the Anna drama has been a media circus. It is a very dangerous political development that many are not willing to point out.
The democratic ethos has not yet taken root in the national psyche of India. India still continues to be a feudal organism trapped in a democratic mechanism. Rule of Law, Equity, Constitutionalism etc remain mere abstract concepts for most people. We need to strengthen the republic not compromise it as Anna's media-driven farce has done.
Anna Hazare has been vastly oversold by the mainstream media for instant consumption of the public. If Noam Chomsky could write his book today in India, he would call it "Manufacturing Dissent".
I spoke to journalists who were a covering the Ramlila drama. 40 % of the people there were drunk youngsters who had come there to pose in font of the camera. Editors did not allow any of this to come through.
Street level mobocracy should never be allowed to usurp institutional powers. it can set a very very dangerous trend.
I've written a detailed article on the dangers of street-level democracy and how liberal ideals of constutionalism can get compromise by it… and also how the great historical figures were always mindful of these dangers which we are forgetting – http://www.voxmentis.com/2011/09/essential-differ…
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