( “The act of God” remark in the context of the Calcutta
bridge collapse and the indigence senior civil servants and police
officers as reflected in their property statements triggered these musings. Some of the remarks and statements have
appeared in my interviews or articles published elsewhere. After all you can’t
have something new to say everyday on the timeworn old issue of corruption. )
Eradicating corruption is an impossible task.Impossible,
because it would be a suicidal act for the governments, for the political
system, for the society; and suicides are not the norm. Apart from the
practical difficulties there are important objective, historical reasons
for it. The integrity of a people depends upon their social and cultural
context. Scandinavian societies tend to be more honest; the societies in
the Indian subcontinent fall far short of the ideal. Our system of values
favour clientelism, favouritism and nepotism (Casteism, is the main culprit but
of that later). Problems of corruption are also rooted in structural causes;
they are inscribed in the pattern of governance. The system we have inherited
was created to encourage corruption and suits us fine too.
We may be
a corrupt people but on the scale of hypocrisy and self image we must award
ourselves full marks. Under populist pressure and competitive moralistic
posturing the definition of corruption has been steadily enlarged just as the
moral stature of public servants has diminished in equal measure. More and
more areas of conduct of public servants are being labeled as corrupt.
Stringent corruption laws are being brought on the statute book setting
extravagant public goals and giving rise to enormous public
expectations. The issue of corruption naturally comes to occupy the centre
stage of public concerns and governments who are dead keen not lose support
need to be seen to be doing something. The idealistic ambition and puritan rage
are writ large in our approach to anti – corruption strategies.
At the same time impracticable, unenforceable
laws are made for no other reason than that we have elected lawmakers and
progressively there has been a radical contraction of the formally unregulated
space yielding ever greater areas of our concern to bureaucratic scrutiny and
control. As if this was not a bad enough thing in itself, poorly drafted
rules and regulations open up many more opportunities of rent seeking and
bribery.
In a
crony capitalistic order in an advanced stage of state capture, “society
naturally divides itself into the very few and the many” according to the
“unequal faculties of acquiring property” of its constituents. Such a
differentiation of traits is most likely to occur in civil servants,
politicians, powerbrokers, pimps, and all others who owe their ascent to
nontraditional means of economic climbing- proximity to power. The several fold
increase in public spending dramatically enlarges the “corruptive interface
“.The poverty alleviation programmes not only do not alleviate the poverty of
the poor as pollute the public space. (See my “The Poor Must Prevail” www.manojenath.in)
How
do democratic governments handle so many contradictions? As a matter of
public policy they resort to what, Leo Strauss calls “necessary lie” wherein,
the rulers, in a bid to displace awareness from what is terrible or inescapable
in our lives, feed the people fables to keep them peaceful and
pacified. Anti corruption strategies are palliatives, reduce public
anxiety and assuage their sentiment. Hence zero tolerance to corruption
becomes the avowed goal of governments with exaggerated self image.
Officers
manning the anti corruption / vigilance outfits know the futility of it.
That is why they do not not take the official anti
corruption policy proclamations of the government too literally. Too well
aware that even people in the highest echelons are corrupt, they nevertheless
allow ourselves to be used as props in this absurd theatre. Every day news
papers are full of stories of lowly government servants being arrested
accepting petty sums of bribe. It is presumed that such a strategy of
making an example of the lowest of the low works, even if nobody believes
in them. In fact the “knowers”know that a cynical attitude towards it is what
is actually required; for the zero tolerance policy to be
taken seriously and acted upon in right earnest is what would be
catastrophic both for the government as well as the naïve
civil servant. I learnt it the hard way, too late in the day in
fact, to benefit from it.
Our
politicians are clever, inventive fabulists. Making public the assets of all
the public servants including that of the Chief Minister is one such latest and
deeply layered fable. It is also the supreme exemplar of the idea of “necessary
lie”. Implicit in this move are several fallacious assumptions but
its sheer capacity to mesmerize the common man makes it a potent tool of
propaganda. For one thing, is it being suggested that the dishonest public
servant will grab this offer of the government and invite for public inspection
all the fruits of his forbidden pursuit? The other equally comic notion is that
the people, once they are aware, each one of them would assume the role of
amateur investigators, and try to dig out the unaccounted property paving the
way for prosecution under the PC Act for disproportionate assets. The
mother of all fallacies is that the issue of corruption is treated
as an ‘idealist’ problem of knowledge. The mere awareness of
corruption would trigger radical resistance in the people. The truth is quite
the contrary. The people know it only too well. They realize that corruption is
the ghost in machine which runs the system. There is no point
antagonizing it beyond a point, if at the end of the day one has to live with
it .Some would merely leave the corrupt to be punished by God.In such a
context, is it any wonder that falling bridges are called acts of God; non
performing loans worth a million crores of rupees, or the coal scam and many
others scams may equally be called acts of God .No wonder again that God,
unable to answer so many charges has absconded from our midst.
But
come March and we celebrate the great festival of lies when the public servants
of all hues declare their assets with great fanfare ; the public
servants lie collectively; the government proudly displays the lying product of
their ingenuity; the media enthusiastically propagate it; and we the people
consume it with great relish. What endless source of mirth and merriment do the
disclosures provide? And, Oh! how much more comfortable is to escape to the
enormous bubble of lie where at least corruption has been banished and the
poor uncomplaining, slaving public servants live within their means.
