Anarchy Inc.

Elbobo- Pablo Picasso

Anarchy Inc.

A democracy cannot be both ignorant and free. --Thomas Jefferson

The propensity, the scale, and audacity of Government corruption in India of late seems to rival anything associated with Central African regimes or South American dictatorships. Corruption, petted, cosseted and by implication condoned, has mutated and evolved into a ravenous bare-fanged and fast loping Steppenwolf, brazenly keeping pace with our overall rate of progress.

And this corruption is seen to be most fecund amongst the depressed classes in an inversion of the ethical dilemma to do with the privileged and deprived. The humbler the origins of the alleged culprit, possibly less the fear of social ostracision and greater the thirst for rampant brigandage!

And for alleged venality, recent reports on both former Chief Minister Koda of Jharkhand and Union Minister Raja of the Telecommunications Ministry are hard to beat.

In a lesser key, witness that a week-long fire at an Indian Oil Depot in Jaipur that killed 11 and injured over 30 could, it now emerges, well have been arson. The fire may have been lit by IOC officials themselves, callously trying to destroy evidence of massive oil pilferage and associated fraud unearthed by the CBI recently.

The Central Government and its watch-dog agencies seem inept at doing anything to prevent such occurrences. If they get wind of something before it is too late, it is often not acted upon by higher ups more interested in a cover up or to prevent inconvenient public scandal. So, mostly they wake up in time to conduct expensive post mortems and make futile attempts at redressal.

The main thing is that corrupt politicians are not afraid of consequences. Our laws are soft on economic offences and money spread around protects admirably. Besides, many politicians feel only nominally accountable, and more to their party bosses than the public in any case. They view their limited time in office as an opportunity to feather their nests and those of their supporters.

And since everything to do with politicians, including bringing them to book has a political calculus, no action is undertaken on the merits of the rule of law alone. Besides, these are the days of coalition politics which works as a virtual open sesame for political corruption.

As it stands, the various wings of Government, their supporting bureaucracy and associates, fixers and agents inclusive, seem to be in a state of competitive corruption, with the corporate private and public sectors unwilling to be outdone!

But is there a remedy or are we to sink into the morass and quicksand of our greed till we all but disappear? Is this the anarchy come upon us that Winston Churchill prophesied for India run by Indians?

Well, it has often been said by imperialists from the dying days of the Raj, confronted by rising nationalist protest, that the Indian character can always benefit from a bit of stick. This is probably why, in a leftover sense, the symbol and most of the substance of public law and order enforcement to date is still, and literally, the humble danda.

And this, along with light bamboo shields to withstand the brickbats of rioters, in an age of suicide bombers, Kalashnikovs, Uzis, AK 47s and so forth is a little hard to take seriously. Our law enforcement danda may be the supple and seasoned bamboo stave, wielded with dexterity by semi-literate but rangy lads, but they don’t frighten even the local hood with a country made revolver anymore.

Most accusations of police brutality in India might mean a havildar laying about his victim enthusiastically with said danda and have little to do with torture and sadism doled out in dungeons. And this softness of approach and lack of a sinister secret police may well be animating the entire machinery of sarkari retribution and doing its unintended bit to encourage corruption.

After all, there is no sharp uniformed Gestapo/Stasi/Savak/Robocop component to our law enforcement, overt or covert. This includes our investigative and intelligence agencies such as the IB, CBI and RaW, peopled, as they are, with time-serving and out- of- shape babus. There isn’t a single James Bond type in sight outside of the regular armed forces which, constitutionally, and for that matter temperamentally, keep out of politics and domestic administration.

That leaves the Black Cat, the Cobra and other such exotic crack unit seconded from the Army- who look and act the part and are certainly capable of cleaning up the badmashes chop chop.

But in the main, the Rapid Deployment Force apart, they are used to tend to their high profile neta protectees, ironically some of the best of breed that corruption can offer.

So generally, India’s law and order is administered by waved danda, as much in greeting and traffic control as in warning. Figuratively, the danda may well stand for the impressive big stick. But in practice, our danda, for internal strife, daylight robbery or external threat, is not what it ought to be.

If we truly had a big stick, we could, to paraphrase President Theodore Roosevelt’s famous aphorism, speak softly enough as long as we carried it about.

So what can we do being deficient in the menace department, at least for the moment?
Well there’s transparency, and worked properly, it does very well to quell corruption over time.

And recently, two quiet steps towards transparency have indeed been taken. One is to do with the decision to divest 10% of the equity in profitable central PSUs as an opening gambit. This will not only yield at least Rs. 30,000 crores for the Government coffers, but bring about a scrutiny of their functioning by virtue of their listing on the bourses.

The other was to begin monitoring primary items including food and fuel on a weekly basis for inflation, using the base year of 2004-2005, which is far more relevant than the Wholesale Price Index base year of 1993-1994, not to mention its out of date composition.

Everyone knows and feels the pinch of food prices that have rocketed up over 100% in the last year, but the remarkable thing is now the Government is willing to place it in the form of official data before the public, with the intent of controlling it. This is most commendable and will yield good results over time.

(1,052 words)

8th November 2009
Gautam Mukherjee