Bribe Outlook | Corruption in Post-Liberalisation India
Corruption is not a new phenomenon in India and it has existed since the period of British Raj, where bribery was legalised by paying officers a pittance which encouraged them to demand and accept bribes. This is also evident from the outburst of Mahatma Gandhi against the rampant corruption in Congress ministries formed in six states in the year 1937 under the Government of India Act of 1935. Corruption later graduated in the Licence Raj Era where red-tapism and favouritism stimulated corruption between the government and private companies that further continued in the post-liberalisation period. In fact, levels of corruption have increased multi-fold with scams rocking the nation day in and day out.
While there are speculations and attempts to understand what pushes one to indulge in corruption, there is also the notion that greed for money and power is the sole reason that drives everyone to pocket money illegally.
However, can we blame greed to be the root cause of such widespread corruption? Graft has infiltrated every sphere, cutting across all strata of society. Right from a police officer who takes bribes to a bureaucrat accepting kickbacks, every stratum has been plagued by this phenomenon. This was also the observation of the N.N.Vohra Committee that was formed to study the bureaucrat-police nexus in the country. However, a much deeper retrospection is required to understand and analyse the causes.
In our previous article ‘Understanding the Nuances of Corruption’, we attempted to understand the nuances of corruption after our country attained independence. In this second instalment of the four-part series of understanding corruption, we will be exploring the factors that have influenced corruption in Post-Liberalisation India.
The changes that followed liberalisation in the Indian economy led to prodigious changes economically, socially and politically. On one hand, our economy flourished, with positive results reflected by growth in GDP, increase in employment levels with surge in job opportunities. Opening up foreign trade contributed to around 24% of the GDP in 2006 as opposed to just 6% in the year 1985.
However, this gave way to a vast scope for corruption to flourish. The immediate consequence of liberalisation of trade policy was massive expansion of the country’s economy allowing the influx of various players in the market, consequently leading to inflow of foreign funds. Various companies spanning every industry began to mushroom all across the country. Fierce competition gave an impetus to the growth of corruption.
Various regulators were set up by the government as a response to the growing economy, emerging trends and the corresponding potential increase in corruption. The Prevention of Money Laundering Act of 2002 that was formulated was one such response by the government that was passed to regulate the Indian economy getting integrated with the world economy. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) was set up in 1997 to channelize the tele-density which reached 63% in 2012. The 2G scam that came up in 2010 was an indication on how such regulating bodies need to be strengthened further.
Regulatory bodies such as the Competition Commission of India (CCI) was established in 2003 to check the functioning of organisations and agencies that have the tendency to grow into monopolies and thus check competition. This was also to encourage equal participation among market players in the economy.
Corruption scandals remained under covers until the period of privatisation and liberalisation of the media industry in our country. Media, the fourth pillar of democracy, was then controlled and regulated by the government. There were less number of media players in the market and the Press Trust of India was the primary source of news. This might not have highlighted incidents on corruption as monopoly tends to control the very domain in which it reigns. Any news of corruption was obstructed from reaching the common man as there was no alternate channel through which the public could get aware of the government’s wrongdoings.
Privatisation in the media industry was allowed after 1993, or rather, eased the outflow of news and information to the common masses. The very first major television network to makes a foray into the Indian television industry was Satellite Television Asian Region (STAR Network).
Subsequently, the Press Council of India also brought forward names of media houses that were involved in paid news. This is the kind of corruption that pervades the system in an organized manner. Political parties pocket large sums of money in exchange for grants by media companies that earn out of such an alliance. The Niira Radia tapes that raked up corporate lobbying in the government speak volumes of the politician-media nexus.
The debate whether the advent of capitalism has reinforced graft has long been a point of conjecture. The recent coal scandal is an ideal example of how the government and capitalists function hand in glove, mutually benefitting each other at the cost of the country’s assets.
Moreover, corruption today has transformed into a political weapon, resulting in a trend of adversarial politics. Take the current scenario for instance: the ruling party gets mired in corruption, giving rise to the opposition party to sling mud on the former. Good governance is a key to resolve the problem of corruption. But when the governance itself is immensely flawed and guilty of indulgence in graft, one can only wonder what the fate of the country is.
What further pushed the country into the quagmire of corruption is our weak judiciary in which prosecution of corrupt politicians is difficult, slow and tinkered. The absence of a strong political will has led to the failure of establishment of strong anti-corruption bodies.
By Juwairia Mehkri
Image Courtesy -www.eastasiaforum.org