Why is India "suddenly" so angry about corruption?

[SpArK]

Why is India suddenly so angry about corruption?​

Many in India feel betrayed that neoliberal economic policies have not ended but increased fraud and corruption

Corruption is not exactly new in India. Quite apart from the extensive historical evidence of its spread, during and after the "mixed economy" period of state planning, the "licence-permit raj" was regularly accused by commentators of breeding graft, constraining economic activity and forcing citizens to be at the mercy of corrupt officialdom at all levels.



So if this is an old problem, why has it suddenly become such a hot political issue? Has Indian society now come of age, as the citizenry demands official transparency and freedom from corruption? This is partly true: the movement for the Right to Information (which culminated in a law) does reflect to some extent the social mobilisation and citizens' awareness necessary in mature democracies.

But this does not explain the recent eruption of either the problem of corruption or the social reaction to it. All indicators suggest that economic illegality, fraud and corrupt practices have ballooned in recent times in India. Increasingly, this is felt as a great betrayal by a populace that had been told that the era of neoliberal economic policies would end vices that were supposedly associated with greater government involvement in economic activity.

Scams and scandals have become a staple of the economic environment. The numbers keep growing, as hundreds of billions of rupees are extracted in various ways: through government spending on mega-projects or big events (such as the recent Commonwealth Games in Delhi); through often illegal and inadequately compensated expropriation of land to benefit large private players (for industries and real estate projects); through the gratuitous takeover and handing to favoured parties resources ranging from water and minerals to spectrum (the allocation of which was at the centre of one recent high-profile scam).

One reason for the public anger is that the period of market-oriented reforms has delivered higher aggregate growth but also significantly increased economic inequality and material insecurity for the majority of India's population. As the elites and burgeoning middle classes become more confident, they become more brazen in flaunting their consumption to a population that is generally denied any such access and may even be facing worsening prospects. So the collusion between economic power and political/bureaucratic power that leads to the rapid enrichment of a few is resented even more.

Many recent analyses of such corruption have seen it as a brake on India's growth potential. In fact, however, such graft and the "crony capitalism" associated with it have been an integral part of India's growth trajectory. The last two decades have seen strongly "corporate-led" growth, with huge rises in the ratio of profits and interest to GDP.

Much of this is related to what Marx called "primitive accumulation" – the use of extra-economic means to extract resources and surpluses. The Indian state has played a crucial role in this.

The animal spirits of entrepreneurs tend to be unleashed by such avenues of surplus generation, and this contributes to buoyant economic growth. But this is raw, wild west-style economic dynamism – unfettered by adherence to any rule of law that treats all citizens as equal, and reliant on close relations between capital and the state to ensure high levels of surplus extraction.

The extreme dependence of large corporate capital on these relations, and therefore the extent to which they are deeply implicated in the corruption that they openly deplore, is usually missed by observers. Most of the media and even the citizens' movements against corruption add to the obfuscation, by presenting the problem solely in terms of the corrupt behaviour of politicians.

Consider the two protests that are currently exercising the media and the government in Delhi. One of them is led by Anna Hazare, a self-styled Gandhian social worker with some success in water harvesting and other development activities in his village of Ralegan Siddhi, in Maharashtra. He combines personal integrity with a puritanical, and even slightly authoritarian, streak. Hazare went on a fast to demand (eventually conceded by the government) to be part of a panel to draft a bill for a public auditor to monitor the activities of top officials.

Hazare's associates pride themselves on being "apolitical" (as if that itself were a badge of honour), and persist in seeing the problem entirely in terms of the government – politicians and bureaucrats – without noting the connection with corporate power. Their demand for yet another law conveniently ignores the point that the lack of genuine implementation of existing laws is often the most obvious way in which corruption occurs.

Recently, another figure has emerged. Baba "Swami" Ramdev is an entrepreneurial yoga instructor who has built up a significant business empire based on yoga camps, traditional medicines and TV channels. Unlike Hazare, Ramdev openly declares political ambitions and plans to float a political party, and he has a large mass following. Many businessmen and bureaucrats are also impressed with his skills, despite his often socially reactionary views.

The central government behaved in an extraordinary fashion with Ramdev. First, they greatly elevated both him and his demands by sending four senior cabinet ministers to meet him at Delhi airport and whisk him off for private talks. Then – when this did not succeed – within two days they sent riot police to break up his peaceful camp of tens of thousands of followers, injuring women and children.

Such peculiar and often contradictory responses of the central government have been attributed to the possibility that senior figures in the administration and the ruling Congress party are deeply involved in many scandals and in reportedly stashing "black money" in accounts abroad.

But it might be that these strange responses reflect a deeper and genuine dilemma. Perhaps the government knows something that is not yet explicitly recognised in the media: that the Indian growth story has been reliant on corruption, and that reining this in will also rein in the extravagant growth that has become so necessary not just for the survival of the government but for the self-image of the country's elites.

Why is India suddenly so angry about corruption? | Jayati Ghosh | Global development | guardian.co.uk

 

[below_freezing]

Let me summarize this:

Corruption is good for India.

The implicit message in the other articles by the Guardian:

Corruption is bad for China.

So the end result is: It doesn't matter how corrupt India is because the more corruption the better. But if China has even a tiny problem, bash bash bash!

Watch out Indians, the West is just setting you up as a stooge and encouraging the growth of their GDPs from Indian black money.

 

[great]

self delete

 

[fast and furious]

Let me summarize this:

Corruption is good for India.

The implicit message in the other articles by the Guardian:

Corruption is bad for China.

So the end result is: It doesn't matter how corrupt India is because the more corruption the better. But if China has even a tiny problem, bash bash bash!

Watch out Indians, the West is just setting you up as a stooge and encouraging the growth of their GDPs from Indian black money.

Thank you for the heads up.

on topic-The anger was always there but what we lacked was a leader who could show the frustration and anger for the masses.
No politician with enough credibility came forward which created a vaccum.which was filled by Anna Hazare.

 

[third eye]

We have a weak Govt at the Center, coalition politics is the bane.

This Govt is unlikley to come to power in the next election, opposition parties are smelling a chance of mid term polls. Corruption has reached mammoth proportions wherein less than 10 paisa of every Rupee spent reaches the ground.

India is not short of funds or resources corruption comes in the way. What we are seeing is ground swell of public opinion which is good. Anna hazrae's campaingn is seeking greater transparency & accountability which is poison to the Politicians.

 

[nForce]

Let me summarize this:

Corruption is good for India.

The implicit message in the other articles by the Guardian:

Corruption is bad for China.

So the end result is: It doesn't matter how corrupt India is because the more corruption the better. But if China has even a tiny problem, bash bash bash!

Watch out Indians, the West is just setting you up as a stooge and encouraging the growth of their GDPs from Indian black money.

Where did China come in to the scenario,so far as the topic is concerned??Stop flattering yourself okay??

 

[Galaxy]

It's good for India. Even with so much of corruption, India reached @ Global picture and high growth. The aggressive campaign against corrupt Politicians and bureaucrats will help India in Long run. Media, Socialist like Anna Hazare and People are one step up against corruption. Corruption will not be solved completely. But At least it will bring some accountability and transparency to democracy and system. It will reduce corruption which is better than nothing.

 

[Manas]

Weak PM, limp policy | Manmohan Singh | Sonia Gandhi | Indian Express

Bharat Karnad Last Updated : 15 Jun 2011 11:53:38 PM IST

Manmohan Singh, by his own reckoning, is “an accidental prime minister”. That he has no leadership credentials worth talking about, is not a surprise. Install a career economic bureaucrat — he has been successively adviser to the commerce minister, economic adviser to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (reward for supporting Emergency), planning commission deputy chairman, finance secretary, RBI governor, and finance minister — at 7, Race Course Road, and what you get is Singh, the perfect stopgap PM — something Sonia Gandhi apparently desired. He has all the obvious virtues. He willingly takes dictation, uncomplainingly accepts everyday humiliations heaped on him as a nominated PM without a political base or constituency, by hard-bitten politicians and Cabinet colleagues, and is ready to vacate his post in a trice.

The trouble is Singh’s reputation as the Great Economic Reformer is also bogus. As a senior official present at the meetings recalls, when he was asked by Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao in 1992 to produce a “revolutionary” budget, Manmohan Singh offered a draft that was “budget as usual”. An infuriated Rao, threw down the document and curtly ordered his finance minister to do what was asked of him; namely, configure a scheme to dismantle the licence-permit raj and connect the Indian economic system to the globalising economy. Rao’s initiative worked, and Singh acquired the halo.


It is revealing that in his so far seven years stewardship of the nation, Singh has not progressed the country beyond the 1992 liberalisation threshold. Promises apart, there have been no second stage economic reforms, no revision of labour laws, no new land acquisition norms, no easing of the bureaucratised functioning of the state to enable business and industry to really take-off and produce wealth for the country (as has happened in China), no nothing. Par for the course, because Manmohan Singh does best when he is given orders that he can implement, but there’s no Narasimha Rao to provide guidance and take political responsibility, only a fractious National Advisory Council running interference, speaking at will, in different tongues, and advancing disparate mainly statist agendas under the aegis of Sonia Gandhi, who has nothing to offer Singh by way of policy direction or content. Absent a sustained push by the government, such traction as the hugely innovative Indian industrial and business sectors were able to generate, could be maintained for only so long. Predictably, the previously high economic growth rate Singh ballyhooed to cover up for his do-nothing approach, has dipped to the 7.2 per cent level, and slumping.


With Manmohan Singh at the helm, the inevitable has come to pass elsewhere as well. With political will and programmatic thrust missing, foreign and national security policies have been auto-piloting into the doldrums. An opinionated national security adviser — M K Narayanan, who knew little about strategic issues, understood even less, but had strong views about everything and was particularly susceptible to American flattery and blandishments that secured for the US the nuclear deal, was replaced by the smooth-talking Shiv Shankar Menon, who was ushered into the post straight from the foreign secretary’s seat. At external affairs, S M Krishna spends more time, it is said, adjusting his wig in his office than in running the ministry, assuming he is aware of what his senior officers are up to. This last cannot be vouched for because Menon continues to run foreign policy, in the main, because Nirupama Rao simply does not have the gumption to cut him off. The result is one of the weakest MEA setups in years — an out-of-his-depth minister relying on a foreign secretary with a not so stellar career graph overseeing satraps manning the regional desks who are conflicted but wary enough to also report to the NSA. In all these shenanigans, what’s missing are any clear directives from the prime minister, the PMO, or even the NSA. Having barely survived the civilian nuclear deal with the United States and then stepping into a storm he had unwittingly unleashed owing to concessions he allegedly made to Yousuf Raza Gilani, at Sharm al-Sheikh, Singh is in no mood to take chances.

On the other side of South Block, sits defence minister A K Antony, working on a one-point principle: No defence deal with the slightest trace of corruption. In the event, the well-oiled payoffs system has gone deeper, doling out rewards to helpful uniformed service officers and defence ministry officials. Alas, how can a bordello do business with the madame insisting there can be no hanky-panky? It has eventuated in purchases of the M-4777 howitzer from the US Foreign Military Sales programme where Washington plays the middleman. Except India has ended up with less effective artillery to outfit the new offense-capable Mountain Divisions at a higher price than the light, long-range gun Singapore Kinetics Limited, blacklisted for minor bribery, had offered, inclusive of simulators and assembly line relocated to India at no additional cost.

As the government lurches from scam to scandal and Singh twiddles his thumbs, Union home minister P Chidambaram, sensing the vacuum, has busily extended his turf, managing to make himself at once the intelligence and the internal security czar. Except his bureaucratic empire-building has not produced results. The National Intelligence Grid (Natgrid) is only partially functional because the reluctance of the intelligence agencies to share information hides behind flaws in the system interlinks. The National Counter-Terrorism Centre, three years after 26/11 is still at the talking stage, a “concept paper” doing the rounds, Chidambaram doing nothing to inject a sense of urgency into the proceedings. On the Naxal front there is desultory operations underway, except with army encampments especially in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh portions of the ‘red corridor’ — the one big innovation and success story, Maoist excesses are tapering off in that region, signal for the concerned agencies of government to slip into infructuous debates, for instance, over whether and how to employ combat aircraft in anti-Naxal operations, which has the air force fuming. But, didn’t Air Chief Marshal S P Tyagi, pitching for the Hawk jet trainer some years back, justify this multi-billion dollar acquisition from Britain on the basis that this aircraft could also be deployed in for a COIN (COunter INsurgency) role?

Half way into its second term, the UPA-II government is paralysed and the country’s foreign policy and external and internal security policies are in a state of petrified animation. A non-functioning PM, a laid-back external affairs minister, a corruption-fixated defence minister, and an aggrandizing Union home minister, may make for a dramatic tableau, but not for successful policy or effective governance.
Bharat Karnad is a research professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. E-mail: bh_karnad@yahoo.com

 

[EjazR]

People were always angry, the only difference is that our sound bite media has chosen to highlight this now. There is a joke that goes that US has only one FOX news, in India every channel is FOX news.

Corruption will not be solved in one day. RTI act has been an excellent way to expose corruption in govt. But where is the implementation of the laws? When RTI activists expose the corruption they are hounded by politicians or even killed.

And subtle message that somehow capitalism is bad is incorrect as well. The average Indian has been able to increase his/her income manifold. Sure there is now income inequality but plans like MGNREGA which guaranteed 100 days of work a Rs100 a day have given phenomenal purchasing power to the poorest segment of the society. And here again RTI has been helpful to expose corruption.

What we need is a massive grass roots effort to use RTI to expose corruptions of politicians. And then take help of the opposition to force the ruling govt. wether in the state or in the centre to act on it. And this has to be done at the State and district level. This is going to be a long war and it has just begun.

 

[utraash]

Let me summarize this:

Corruption is good for India.

The implicit message in the other articles by the Guardian:

Corruption is bad for China.

So the end result is: It doesn't matter how corrupt India is because the more corruption the better. But if China has even a tiny problem, bash bash bash!

Watch out Indians, the West is just setting you up as a stooge and encouraging the growth of their GDPs from Indian black money.

Arey Dear your government will shoot you down if you take such protest publically we are still fighting to get rid off this problem n surely we will since there is huge pressure on gov as people are ready to sit down for another hunger strike.... Can you people have chinese balls that anyone go against your communist gov. ? These peaceful protest is good for India but Bad for China... isnt it ?

 

[Manas]

Dr Swamy in Chennai 16 June 2011 on Black Money Laundered Abroad by drswamyonblackmoney on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

 

[Urbanized Greyhound]

And why is the editor of the Guardian so concerned about why India is angry ? Corruption is laying waste to "our" nation . Of course we will be angry ...