Corruption, like any other disease has affected mankind since the advent of civilization. Community life together brought with it the need to share the resources, natural or manmade, amongst the people, and this in turn led to the scramble for it by a few. Corruption has myriad manifestations, such as the desire to amass wealth beyond one’s entitlement or ability, the urge to exercise power and influence or even control beyond  one’s reach, or it could even be a show of strength or might  beyond what one’s position allows. Social thinkers and psychiatrists have written or spoken volumes on what leads one to be corrupt and perverse. Many of them put it down to a ‘mental disease’ or ‘psychological disorder’ while others, the more forgiving ones, would try to explain it away as the ‘lure of the lucre’ or the desire to ‘enjoy life’ more than the others. Aung Sang Su Kyi, one of the greatest champions of liberty and democracy alive, says  it is the ‘fear’ or ‘bhay’,  of losing power and position, which is at the root of all corruption. The economists want to dismiss it as a natural fall-out of economic development. What with huge projects involving mind-boggling investment and the money laden multinationals wanting to hook  money-spinning contracts with honey-traps or by palm-greasing, whichever suits the corrupt,  even the most virtuous angels would tend to fall. When recently the Supreme Court ordered cancellation of 122 2G licences, Lord Megnad Desai was dismayed and lamented that the only-too-willing and much-moneyed foreign investors would now be loathe to come to India because the  corrupt deals are no longer paying.  So much for brilliance of our economists. They may very well write eulogies on corruption and propound how it  helps India develop.

    India ranks the 75^th in the Index of the World Audit (2010) in order of being most corrupt, ie, at serial No. 75 (out of 180 countries). Amongst the more corrupt countries (more than India) are Somalia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Gautemala, etc. And less corrupt than India are Ghana, Brazil, Zambia, Sri Lanka, Bosnia, Thailand, China,  Chile, Cuba, Malaysia, Oman, Bhutan, etc. If one were to see the Index, we are in the club with poorest countries and where no ‘government’ worth its salt exists.  We are in the company of banana republics, where you and I would not even dare to take visas for. Everyday before breakfast news of scams have become our routine and staple diet. The names of at least 2 former Prime Ministers, Chief Ministers of almost every state in this country, not to speak of their cabinet colleagues, have figured in scandals at both regional and national level. And each scam grew larger in proportion to the earlier ones.  The 1948 Jeep Scandal involving T K Krishna Menon (a Cabinet member of the Nehru Govt) was for Rs. 80 Lacs, the 1984 Lakhubhai Pathak (UK pickle king) case against the then External Affairs Minister P V Narasimhan,  was for only Rs. 90 lacs, the JMM bribe case in 1992, (involving the Narasimhan Govt and a former Chief Minister of Jharkhand)   of Rs. 4 crores, the 1996 Urea Scam was worth Rs. 133 crores, the Bihar Fodder scam of Rs.1,000 crores, the Harshad Mehta securities scam rose to Rs.5,000  crores, the 2002 Provident Fund scam almost brought in a few of the Supreme Court Judges under the scanner, the 2006 Telgi fake Stamp paper scandal grew to Rs.20,000 crores, the 2007 Hasan Ali money laundering scam was of Rs.30,000 crores and now the 2009 & 2010 2G and Commonwealth Games scam of Rs.1,75,000 crores and still counting. These are only few ticked off the huge list of scandals.  The Tinu-Anand Joshi IAS couple who were recently caught with properties worth hundreds of crores in MP make  the previous scandals by bureaucrats look trifle in proportion.   If one were to total up the money involved in all the scams in this country since the Independence, they would far exceed the total expenditure involved in the two World Wars of 1914 and 1944 and all the subsequent armed conflicts that took place around the world during the last century. The economists were probably right in their estimation and philosophical analysis of the canker of corruption. It has indeed helped some parties and many politicians to show to the world that India has certainly “progressed” from a poor country ridden with famines and malaria to where now  the super-rich, richer than the richest from across the Pacific ocean, live.

   After reading the above statistics, one wonders what could have gone wrong with our country. Have the laws dealing with corruption failed ? Or are the men involved or charged with administering the anti-corruption laws faltered ? It is curious case of the system failing on both the above counts. The Criminal Law Amendment Ordinance in 1944, to enable attachment of ill-gotten wealth obtained through corrupt means, and the Prevention of Corruption Act in 1947, were first enacted by the British Govt to deal with corruption during the World War II. They probably did not get enough time stem the tide of corruption that was already creeping into the system. We know the history of the Politics of Crime and Corruption after independence.  Thereafter there have been a few feeble attempts to cure the lacunae in the PCA, 1947, through amendments in 1964 and latter on in 1988 (the present day formulation that we have now). But since the Govt of the day was either too involved in the scam itself or had ‘better’ things to do and achieve progress of economy (a classical case of the ‘matter’ overriding the ‘mind’ rather than ‘mind over matter’, ie., the primacy of economics over human wellbeing), the investigating agencies were slow to act and the Courts not too much  inclined to convict and punish. Even where conviction was achieved, the punishment meted was so simple and trivial that it only tickled your funny bone.

     The battle by the Courts (very often in their confabulations at seminars and obiter dicta in judgments) was sporadic and very often lame. The Vineet Narain case (1998) before the Supreme Court, better known as the Hawala case, brought the insidious  nexus of the triad – bureaucrats-criminals-politicians to the fore (remember the Vohra Committee Report kept secret till now) and for sometime to come, it looked as if a turn around of the country had almost arrived.  But today it has been reduced to a mere reading material for all legal luminaries and the so-called crusaders of anti-corruption, more  as a holistic treatise on corruption than as precedent to be followed and acted upon. The police reforms, the independence of the CBI, the measures to render the ‘infamous triad’ asunder and the insulation of the judiciary from the corrupting influence of the executive, are matters still being debated and argued vociferously on podiums. Same year, the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in the JMM bribery case, decriminalized the act of receiving bribe to  vote on the floor of the House. While interpreting Article 102 of the Constitution, the apex Court held that so long as the legislators acted in furtherance of the ‘bribe’ received within the sacred portals of the Parliament, they enjoyed impunity from any criminal prosecution. Only those who took bribes but did not come to vote in the Parliament were to be prosecuted. While the debate on the morality or correctness of such an interpretation of a corrupt and criminal act by the politicians would continue to rage on, the sound of despair and sighs from the bosoms of many of those fighting for and hoping for a corruption-free polity was heard loud and clear. Only recently, the cash-for-vote scam so theatrically ‘exposed’ in the Parliament in the midst of a heated and acrimonious debate on the Nuclear Deal with the US, became a focal point of many jurists for sometime, in demanding a review of the Constitution Bench judgment of the Supreme Court in the JMM bribery case. But it died down with a whimper till the Supreme Court berated the Delhi Police for turning its back to the case and re-opened the investigation.

     For the corrupt politicians, life, literally, has been a picnic journey ! When on certain rare occasions, the few ‘Singham’ police have acted and unearthed wrong-doings and brought the delinquent politicians to book, the processes of the Courts against them have been tediously slow and uninspiring, prompting them to uncannily repose absolute faith in the ‘judicial system’ of delivering them ‘justice’. And when the Courts’ verdict have been unfavourable, the politicos have shifted their faith to the court of the ‘junta’ and looked upto them to deliver them from jails to the sacred House. Thus, it is not too difficult to see how they have made the ‘system’ work always to their advantage and how the players thereof have made it easy for them in all these transactions.  Besides, the bar to the convicted leaders to contest in elections, brought in much too late and contained, in the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and the Rules thereunder, have been dismally diced and invariably interpreted in favour of the convicted. Till now the situation is such that even after conviction, the disqualification to contest in election does not come into effect, if the person has filed an appeal or revision against the conviction and the same is pending in higher courts. Therefore, even after the much belated trial and conviction, the delinquent politician can enjoy and play politics (ie., play ducks and drakes with your money and national resources) till he has exhausted all avenues of appeal (to High Court and Supreme Court) and has failed. These judicial processes, in all probability, will not be over within a span of 3 or more decades – long enough for him to live a ‘fruitful’ and empowered life and lord over us, despite the law having ‘completed’ its full course against him. Thus even when the judiciary will have the last word in a crime, the convicted may not actually undergo  punishment given the advantage of the ladder of appeals and revision available under the law, which may still enable him to evade the rigours of the law.

   What then is the remedy for this cancerous ailment ? It is required to be fought as a battle and carried on till the ‘enemy’ is wiped out from the Indian polity. But nobody wants to take up arms and get battle ready. The junta wants the activists to do the dirty work, but is not willing to join hands for long (the August Delhi fever for Anna Hazare and his team died down by December, 2011, in the MMRDA ground in Mumbai), the activists cannot do without the Media and the Media wants the Courts to ‘act’ vigorously against the corrupt. And the Courts cannot do much without an invigorated and independent investigating agency. At the end of the line, a society badly caught in this ‘chakravue’ cortex, is reduced to a hapless ‘tamasbin’, quietly and meekly watching the political drama and the dance of democracy without batting an eyelid.

    The moral of the story seems to be : nice guys finish second and good things don’t last long.

     But if you want to script a finish with a resolution and an happy ending, here is a mantra. It may not work as the proverbial drop of  manna  for this malaise, which is deeply encrusted in the Indian psyche, but in my thinking there is neither any other better alternative nor can we afford to lose time waiting for another avatar to come to our rescue. We need must start with the junta, for as the saying goes, the people are themselves responsible for the kind of leaders they get.  The people must first be exorcised of its indolence and made to exercise certain degree of angst against itself, particularly at the delinquent elements it has bred and nurtured for centuries, for reasons of caste, sect, community, religion, etc. This baggage is best jettisoned at the earliest, for the aftermath of corruption hurts one and all in equal measure. There certainly can be no advancement of interest of any particular caste, sect, community or faith by protecting the corrupt belonging to their own caste or creed. Next the emphasis should be the lowest denominator of the ‘people’, ie., the family units and the individual heads or the karta of each family. The quality of bedroom and drawing room conversation must change from extolling the ‘greatness’ of the corrupt bureaucrats-criminals-politician trios, to utter condemnation of them and their ways. Let us at all moment remind ourselves of how the canker of corruption is gnawing at every pillar of the institution, be it the educational edifice, the health services, the police, the executive and the judiciary, all of which are intended the serve and advance the interests of the people and not vice-versa. The conversation and talk even at the basic level, which if oriented against the corrupt, would end in first de-abusing and re-orientation of our mind from the servile to a more robust people willing to do or die for the right cause.  Today there is not a single political party or leader that we can look upto for resolution of our issues in a simple manner without resorting to corruption. There is no political family that can measure up to the national challenges that we face today. The fear and awe which is instilled in the people’s heart and mind by the corrupt and influential should go.  This vile milieu must end. This will be possible only if we act to get rid of it collectively. What our society lacks today are glorious ancestors, pioneers and veterans, who we could look upon as role-models in our daily lives. The virtues so touted by the fathers and mothers in every house-hold are being rejected by the younger generation since they are not accompanied by any degree of sincerity in actions and practices in everyday life. This must change, and change fundamentally. The resolution starts with the family and ends with the community of people, informed and inspired by great deeds of individuals. To distinguish between what is wrong and what is right one does not have to struggle to find the answer. It calls for the easiest and simplest exercise, to wake up the long forgotten conscience and listen to the whispers it makes !

NB : The author is a lawyer practicing in Delhi