‘C’ for corruption

C for cat! Cat mane billi , goes a popular ditty sung by singing sensation Kishore Kumar. Going by the pre-election campaigns and party manifestos of top contenders, it might be more appropriate to change this to: “C for corruption! Corruption mane bhrastachar .”

And then, again, borrowing liberally from a popular yester-year political slogan “ Bhrastachar hatao, desh bachao .”

Unfortunately, the latter is easier said than done. Zipping from Gurgaon to Delhi one morning recently, I got to experience some bhrast (corrupt) aachar (practice) first-hand.

The toll booth attendant asked the driver, “With receipt or without?” My driver’s insistence on taking the receipt met with derisive laughter, followed by the question: “Are you Harishchandra’s son?”

It took me a minute to understand the conversation and to figure out the driver’s refusal to be party to attempted corruption in the erstwhile land of AAP.

Giving for good A chat with some old students following this experience was an eye-opener in more ways than one. I could discern the behavioural underpinnings of corruption. Most of them were ready to ‘give’ if it was for the ‘greater good’.

By this logic, all ‘public’ goods — roads, water, electricity, which by the very economic rationale are to be provided by the government, since reliance on the market mechanism would lead to failure of provision of such goods — are all perceived as goods for which some amount of corruption may be tolerated.

Chalta hai is the attitude, as it benefits all. This attitude seems to be a variant of the ‘yeah, whatever’ heuristic described by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein in their 2008 book, Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness as reactions to messages which fail to have a persuasive effect. The thumb rule used is, as long as there is ‘common benefit’, all guilt feelings may be assuaged.

Little wonder then that India ranks 134 out of 189 economies in Ease of Doing Business and 94 (out of 177 countries) in the Global Corruption Perception Index — an index of how corrupt its public sector is perceived to be.

The public servants find it much easier to practise corruption in the provision of such public goods since it is, after all, a community thing.

The giver’s perspective Similarly, a behavioural explanation may be sought to explain corruption in the case of personal gains/losses, as at the toll booth. People use mental accounting to code, categorise and evaluate financial activities.

As long as the stakes are low, corruption may be unattractive. Would you think of cheating on a toll if the toll amount is ₹20 or less? What if the toll were north of ₹100 one way for a daily trip?

If the toll amount were a small, whole number, chances of its avoidance would be lower.

Rooting out corruption may be more difficult than it appears. A government committed to eliminating corruption may need to consider the problem from the perspective of the ‘givers’ rather than merely the ‘takers’.

Any government wishing to end corruption may have to understand why people give and then resort to strong social nudges to produce big changes in behaviour.

Until then, we may have to make do with slogans such as ‘Bring in xyz sarkar (government), door karo bhrastachar (get rid of corruption).’

(The writer teaches at the SP Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai. The views are personal)

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