Corruption and India

More than half a century has passed since India was liberated and was able to do what it chose to. Today it is the world’s largest democracy and has crossed the one billion-population mark. India has now come a long way. India has the largest written constitution and with a Supreme Court to force strict enforcement of the constitutional safeguards provided for the freedom of individuals. The country has made remarkable progress in many fields. Now it has one of the largest numbers of top class specialists, scientist, engineers, software-experts managers, lawyers etc. We can boast of a vibrant press, vast industrial base and infrastructure and a capability of manufacturing almost every item from a needle to huge ships and aircrafts indigenously. India has undergone a green and a white revolution. India is now self sufficient in respect of food items. We also have very well established systems of rural and urban polity, administration and judiciary.

With all this and through half of the century India should have become by now very well administered and reasonably prosperous country. There should have been a reasonably high standard of living among the rural masses. But it is apparent that this is not yet the case. It is most disheartening to learn that a large proportion of the population in India is still below the poverty line. According to the National Human Development Report an overall 27.09% of people are below the poverty line. However in States like Orissa and Bihar and poverty ratio of 47 and 43% respectively. Many of these are still denied the basic amenities of clean drinking water and basic sanitation. There are also indicators of loss in traditional values in families as well as society. The truth is that even after 55 years of independence, India is beset with numerous critical problems, which may have attributed to the present situation of under achievement in India. The most glaring, alarming and lethal of these is the pervasive corruption in the polity, in administration, in society and in business. This module focuses mainly on the problem of corruption and attempts to discuss why the country is gripped with pervasive corruption. It attempts to emphasize the damage caused already and warns of the dangers the country might face if we do not. The module is presented with a suggestion that corruption can be checked and combated to a great extent. Corruption is eating into the vitals of the country – it is the common man who is suffering and facing difficulties because of petty corrupt practices. “The ultimate tragedy is not the brutality of bad people but the silence of good people”…said Martin Luther King, the great American Civil Rights Leader.

In this era of increasing violence and brutality all around, diminishing concern for human life and the increasing gap between the haves and have-nots, make the above statement more relevant than ever before. Corruption is one of the aspects that is responsible for the predicament of the society that we live in today. In this context a question arises as to whether corruption is the creation of modern civilization and way of life or did it exist from time immemorial?

Studies have shown that there is no reference to the existence of the corruption or bribery in the vedic texts nor does the code of Manu i.e. Manu Samriti mention bribery or corruption as a crime. However, a number of stories about corrupt practices that were followed in the society in the Sixth century B.C. find a place in the Buddhist Jatakas. It is an undeniable fact that bribery of officials has been in existence for centuries. If one goes back into history, one can find that there was not major support for corruption when administration was run in the form of very small groups of people coexisting together. An example of this was the small City States in ancient Greece where there were no political parties or groupings. But as the City States enlarged their activities in the areas of economic and political spheres, corruption took shape in the form of bribery etc. Corruption was also the result of accumulation of riches as a consequence of political victories of the kings and emperors, and the consequent spoils of the war. It is said that during the period of Roman Emperors corruption in the form of bribery was rampant in all walks of life including election, legislature and judicial forum. More often than not, official in the hierarchy when they apprehended revolt, kept the soldiers in good humour with rewards and the people at large with ‘bread’ and ‘circuses’. Coming back to the Indian context, as complexities of administration increased, the administration found that controlling different sectors of public life became very difficult. As a result of this corruption became manifest in all walks of life. During the time of a highly organized Mauryan empire, Kautilya in his Arthasastra had devoted a whole chapter enumerating directions for detection and punishment of misappropriation of money. It is very interesting to note that the treatise of Kautilya lists some forty types of embezzlement.

Without further elaborating the existence of corruption during various times,suffice it to say that this is one bane of the society, which has been in existence from time immemorial and has acquired gargantuan proportions in the modern society.