STRIKING AT THE ROOT OF CORRUPTION
SHAILAJA CHANDRA
Corruption is nothing but a reflection of
the distribution of power within societies. The country is where it is because
the political system is self-perpetrating and no party is accountable to anyone
except a coterie of people that dominates all decisions. Unless the political
system is accountable, going after individual cases of corruption will achieve
little .By making a single point demand for a Jan Lokpal, to the exclusion of
all else, Anna Hazare’s agitation became circumscribed by its own rhetoric.
Expectedly, the government response was a slew of anti-corruption bills that
have been introduced in Parliament, unheard of in the annals of the past six
decades. From 2010, in a span of just two years, as many as 10 anti-corruption
bills have been tabled including the disputed Lokpal bill, the forfeiture of
benami property, foreign bribery, money laundering, and whistle-blowing bills
plus five more — all aimed at deterring specific acts of corruption or
purporting to give corruption-free public service as a right. And it was not
just the Central government that showed this eagerness. Bihar, Rajasthan,
Jharkhand and Odisha have actually enacted laws which can result in the
attachment of ill-gotten property of public servants — sometimes pending
investigation.
Undeniably, the citizenry will applaud such
measures, frustrated and angry as people are about corruption. But wittingly or
unwittingly, this response has deflected attention from a much larger issue.
None of the bills or laws addresses the fountainhead of corruption — the opaque
management of political parties which includes the source and deployment of
their funds.The second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC 2009) underscored
the large-scale criminalisation of politics, illustrating how the participation
by criminals in the electoral process was “the soft underbelly of the Indian
political system” leading to “the flagrant violation of laws, poor quality of
services, protection from lawbreakers on political, group, class, communal or
caste grounds, partisan interference in the investigation of crimes, the poor
prosecution of cases, inordinate delays that last for years, high costs of the
judicial process, mass withdrawal of cases and indiscriminate grant of parole.”What
is of great importance is the open admission that votes are in fact secured
through large, illegal and illegitimate expenditure on elections. This has been
termed as the starting point of corruption making cleansing elections the most
important route to bringing principles into politics. The Lokpal brouhaha has
deflected attention from issues infinitely more important for going after
dishonest politics, which seems to be all-pervasive.
And the context matters too. Much of India
lives in as unequal a world — comparable in fact to pre-industrial Britain.
Feudal mindsets prevail and the exercise of patronage is expected. In addition,
in India, money power can control decisions the voter makes. Bound by the mores
of a largely agrarian way of life, the poor remain simultaneously protected and
penalised not by the law and the police as much as by feudal lords, often
having criminal records. Indian political parties had long used these local
sardars and strongmen as trusted allies for defeating opponents. But the latter
have moved up in life by increasingly joining the political fray as candidates
— not just supporters, and they have joined to win. According to the Annual
Report of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), among 543 elected
Members of Parliament who were elected in the 2009 election, 162 (30 per cent)
had criminal cases pending. Five years earlier, that figure was 24 per cent.
Meanwhile, the votes needed to win a seat have fallen to as low as 15 per cent.
Criminal elements that once pulled in votes for party candidates are now
getting voted to power themselves, gaining social respectability and public
esteem in the bargain. Meanwhile, campaign-spending limits being easy to flout,
buying the voter is easily managed.
More worrisome than individual corruption
is the widespread concern that funds are collected by political parties and
parked in secret bank accounts abroad to be ploughed back to finance elections
often by hook or by crook. Since fund management is confined to a handful of
people in each party, it gives enormous power to the top leadership which
controls the deployment of funds and all that accompanies it. When the choice
of candidates is intrinsically linked with money power, quid
pro quos, and IOUs, clean candidates without money
or political pedigree do not stand a ghost of a chance. And it goes without
saying that once illegal and illegitimate expenditure is incurred on winning
elections, there can be no prospect of honest dealings thereafter.In the OECD
countries with which we frequently draw comparisons, three qualities on a scale
of eight, considered the most important attributes required from members of the
political executive are objectivity, impartiality and neutrality. In those
countries, a Minister is expected to publicly commit himself to observing
ethical principles if he is to set an example to public servants.In India, talk
of ethical conduct is laughed at; civil servants take their cue from the
standards of probity they are witness to — superiors in the service and their
political bosses. Until political parties field clean candidates and promote
and reward them, a climate of ethical dealings simply cannot emerge.Expecting
the clean up to come only by reinforcing anti-corruption laws though necessary,
will divert attention from the real issue of corruption — how political parties
collect funds and give tickets. The only way this can change is by educating
voters on the dynamics behind the power play. Simply put, it means having
knowledge about the origin of party funds to provide insights into the
interests that back a political party. Equally how such contributions might
influence future policies —including the future outlook for using public funds
and natural resources.It should come as no surprise that when ADR sought
information on political party funding, using RTI, all political parties with
the exception of the CPI (M) responded that they were not bound to provide such
information. This, when income tax exemptions worth hundreds of crores of
rupees, land and accommodation at nominal rates, and free airtime, are all
provided at public cost. A full bench of the Central Information Commission
(CIC) met in September to take a view on this. But major political parties shied
away.
The key issue
Whatever the outcome, it is unlikely that
the sources of party funding would be declared in the foreseeable future. But
that is the key to understanding the compulsions of political parties and the
decisions they make. One way of overcoming the clandestine collection of
election funds would be to introduce state funding of elections as so many
countries have done. More importantly there is a need for laws that mandate
transparency in the deployment of political party funds coupled with rules that
democratise inner party functioning. Unless the monopoly that a small clique
that holds the reins of power in almost every party is freed, new blood can
never transfuse into the political arena.A Bill called the Registration and
Regulation of Political Parties (2011) has been drafted by a committee chaired
by Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah, former Chief Justice of India. The bill
includes a democratic process for selecting party office-bearers as well as
those given the ticket. It talks of limits on donations by individuals and
corporations, suggests penalties for non-compliance and addresses the vexed
question of how to deal with support groups that spend money that remains
unaccounted for in the candidates’ election expenses.It is legislation like
this that the country needs. Much more than a Lokpal. It is only when political
parties become answerable that clean candidates will emerge. Then alone might
the use of public funds for private gain halt.(A former civil servant,
Shailaja Chandra is the Vice President of Initiatives for Change-Centre for
Governance, a think tank that supports social reform.)
Prof.
John Kurakar
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