Commentary/Dilip D'Souza
Corruption Is Our Destiny: The World Thinks So
The day I reached Jerusalem, about a month-and-a-
half ago, the Jerusalem
Post carried a column by Yosef Lapid titled "Corrupt The Legal System." He
discusses corruption in Israel and some other countries, building an
interesting thesis that I won't get into here. But doing so, Lapid makes an
oblique mention of India. These few lines from his article will tell you
just what that mention is about:
'In other countries, Mexico for instance (or India, or Nigeria, or Egypt,
or Romania, or a hundred others) ... there is also no need to check whether
a politician is a crook. Everyone there, from government ministers to the
mayor of the most far-flung town, knows that corruption is his destiny. No
one bothers to check whether a policeman is corrupt. They pay up in advance
-- cash on the table, according to fixed rates -- whether it's to the chief
of police, or to the village cop. In those countries everyone knows there's
no point wasting money on hiring a lawyer, when you can buy a judge for
less.'
What struck me about these lines was the matter-of-fact tone, the offhanded
way in which India was included in that little list. It's as if Lapid
thinks India's corruption is so entirely self-evident, it needs no
explanation. He does not find it remarkable, or even just unusual, to
equate India to corruption. It's just one of those things, just another
fact of life. Like: Bill Clinton is the president of the USA, the Sahara is
a vast desert in Africa, India is a land of corruption. One day, if not
already, all these will be in general knowledge books, one fact no more
noteworthy than the next.
I read the column in some dismay, because this is the image the world has
of us. We can rail against it all we want, argue the truth of what Lapid
writes, shout loudly that nobody looks at the positive side to India.
There's merit in doing all that, but it really matters not one tiny bit.
Around the world, India is seen as a place where corruption rules. Simple.
That article is partly why I have gone on and on in this space about
education, health care and the state of our people. It's why I am busy
inflicting just one more column in that vein on you right now. If you're
groaning already, treat it this way: this is a break from all the analyses
of Governments and coalitions and elections and Kesri's garments that you
see elsewhere on these pages. In that spirit, bear with me.
Actually, I've already had my come-uppance. A breathless sort accused me of
knowing nothing about national honour when I questioned our vast defence
budget here a couple of weeks ago. I had wondered about spending instead on
less glamorous things, like education, health care and drinking water. The
breathless sort is right, of course. Because our national honour is truly
pushed in our faces by articles like Yosef Lapid's. That's the national
honour we have to lug around: the honour of being one of the world's most
corrupt countries. It's true: I have just no idea what impact enormous
spending on defence has on that honour (though there is the little matter
of Bofors guns).
Now even Lapid indicates that corruption is a widespread disease, that
India is not unique in suffering from it. From Indira on down, our leaders
have regularly reminded us of that too, only so that they can hide behind
that fig-leaf and refuse to do anything about it. I cannot pretend hope
that we will ever be free of corruption, or even that its pervasive
presence will wane anytime soon. I do know, however, that if left
unattended, corruption will remain the first thing people think of when
they see the word "India": just as the Jerusalem Post article showed.
So how do we attend to it? Corrupt ministers and officials must be
punished, nobody should give or take bribes: these are things we should be
working to achieve. But what does "should" translate into in real life?
I think about this a great deal. You see, I don't own a gun, I'm not even
sure I would know which end one fires from. I have simply no influence with
the law, with the police, not even with God. Though if I did, using it
would probably make me corrupt anyway. Simply put, I have no way to stop
corruption, no way to force it to be punished. I think that's true of most
of us.
Of course, there is one thing I do have. My voice. So again and again, I
return to just one conclusion: none of those things -- an end to bribes,
punishment of the corrupt -- is going to happen until enough of us stand
up, use our voices and demand that it happens.
Think about it. How is it that 10 years later, the CBI can still claim to
be investigating Bofors instead of having clapped the guilty in jail? Why
were the hawala investigations soft-pedalled for four years, then
selectively pursued, only to see that selective pursuit eventually shot
full of holes by the Delhi high court? When tens of millions of rupees in
unaccounted cash was simply lying around in his house, how is a Sukh Ram so
able to delay investigations that he is essentially a free man? Why is it
that we have so many scams -- telecom, fodder, housing, stock, locomotive,
cobbler society, hawala, choose-a-name -- but not one single punishment?
Yes, I know that justice demands we presume men innocent until they are
proved guilty. I also know that justice delayed indefinitely is no justice
at all. So why is it so slow in coming?
This is when I return to that same conclusion: In the end, it's because too
few of us demand justice. Because we don't use that only weapon we have,
the corrupt get away with their corruption.
This is also when I can't help making one final connection: Too few of us
demand justice because as a country, we have managed to educate just too
few Indians. We are not a corrupt country solely because we have corrupt
people. We are corrupt also because we have people who stay silent. We are
corrupt also because millions of us don't know how to demand punishment for
those who cheat them -- or even, indeed, that they can demand punishment.
There are simply too many Indians who think corruption is the way things
must be.
What does education have to do with this? A lot, actually. Educated people
demand services, justice, their rights. Educated people also know how to
demand those things: they know the law, how to make use of the courts, the
press, the power of public opinion. And perhaps most important of all,
educated people are better able to hold rulers politically accountable.
I'll hastily admit here that an educated India may not necessarily be a
corruption-free India: Italy, Japan and Korea know that truth quite well.
But a half-literate India is certainly fertile soil for corruption. Among
innumerable others, this is just one more reason governments have
approached education so half-heartedly through our 50 years.
There is, I am convinced, a deep and twisted connection between illiteracy
and corruption. Education, questioning, the survival of democracy and
governance: these are intimately connected ideas. To me, these are the
reasons we need to question that defence budget; at least, its obscene
scale when compared to spending on education. We can pile up all the
military hardware in the world to protect us from those inimical foreigners
who surround us. But what will protect us from the enemies right here in
India, men eating away at our country in the most insidious way possible?
When we accept defence expenditure as some kind of investment in national
honour, when that makes us indifferent to the need to put young Indians in
school and keep them there, we will get national honour all right. The kind
Yosef Lapid touched on in his article.
I think we can do better.
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