Sunday, September 7, 2003		Books

Fighting a monolith called corruption
Jai Narain Sharma

Corruption in India
by N. Vittal. Academic Foundation, New Delhi.
Pages 186. Rs. 175

CORRUPTION in India is a phenomenon that one has to face virtually in every sphere of life. Transparency International, a Berlin-based NGO, publishes every year a "corruption perception index," ranking countries from the least corrupt to the most corrupt. India ranks 73rd out of the 102 countries listed for the year 2002. From the index it is clear that among the odd countries listed, a majority are perceived to be less corrupt than India. According to this study Finland is the least corrupt and Bangladesh the most.

A survey done by ORG-Marg for Transparency International-India over a period of 12 months has revealed that the health and power sectors are the most corrupt. The sectors surveyed were health, power, land, judiciary, police, taxation, public distribution, telecom, railways and education.

All this has been discussed in detail by N. Vittal, former Central Vigilance Commissioner, in his recent publication Corruption in India, the book under review.

The fifty-five years of our existence as an independent nation have resulted in one common experience of all citizens. They cannot go to any public office or organisation and get the service they are supposed to get without either paying bribe or bringing influence by way of recommendations or references from VIPs.

In the past, the perception was that a citizen would have to bribe a public servant if he wanted to get an undue benefit. But today we have reached a stage when even for getting legitimate demands met, bribe is must.

Earlier the license raj stifled initiative and individual creativity. N. Vittal observes that Emperor Akbar would have been happy to see India of the 20th century because it has been following the Mughal system of administration. What was the Mughal system? Everything is forbidden unless it is permitted. Pay the price and get anything done.

Though since the 1990s we have been experimenting with globalisation and liberalisation, any substantial change in this regard is yet to be noticed.

The book discusses in detail certain very pertinent questions. Have we become immune to the issue of corruption in public life? Can India become corruption free? At what price are we prepared to tell a lie or sacrifice the interests of our organisations or nations?

A wisecrack goes that everyone complains about the weather but no one does anything about it. The same can be said about corruption, on which Indira Gandhi once famously gave her reaction: "it is a global phenomenon," she said. Well that has turned out to be true. Conferences are held in quick succession to discuss the issue. After working up remarkable steam on environment and human rights, the global conferencing community has discovered corruption as an issue on which corrective action is urgently required.

I fully agree with the author that fighting corruption is like fighting a war. War is too dangerous a matter to be left to the generals. Fighting corruption is also an important matter, not to be left only to the conferences and a few public-spirited persons only. It is necessary to sensitise the entire population and bring together every person who wants to fight corruption.