Corruption may be a hardy perennial in Indian public life, but every once in a while, it bursts into even more exuberant foliage. Currently, thanks to Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi’s ‘ordinance’ bomb, followed by the conviction of several political luminaries in various corruption cases (and their consequent disqualification from holding public office), the issue is once again the subject of heated debate amongst the talking heads population of various television studios.

Which is all to the good. As the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi, whose birth anniversary was perfunctorily observed last week, famously remarked, “sunlight is the best disinfectant” for corruption. The more ‘sunlight’ that falls on the issue, the more corruption gets exposed, the better the chances of finally getting to grips with the problem — or so logic would dictate.

Unfortunately, when it comes to corruption, logic has had little to do with the way people have reacted to it. Take the issue of the presence of criminals in politics. The fact that almost a third of our elected representatives in Parliament and State legislatures are facing criminal charges of one kind or the other has been repeated ad nauseam .

But most have overlooked the fact that in a vast majority of these cases, the said criminal charges had been made before these worthies got elected. The conclusion is inescapable: at the individual level at least, being criminally tainted is clearly no disadvantage when it comes to winning elections.

In other words, voters, at the individual level, do not appear to care very much about the issues of crime and corruption when it comes to electing their representatives. At the wholesale level, of course, electorates have behaved differently in the past, punishing governments which were perceived as extremely corrupt. In fact, the newly-formed Aam Aadmi Party is banking so heavily on this wholesale anti-corruption sentiment working in its favour in the elections that it has made fighting corruption almost its sole poll plank.

Only rhetoric

At the establishment level, too, our attitude to corruption has been filled with rhetoric, but little concrete action.

A recent report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) pointed out that while the Government has as many as 35 different ministries at the Central level alone, it does not have any laws or central mechanisms on public procurement. At the State level, the picture is only marginally better.

Only two States, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, have legislation on public procurement.

According to the UNODC report, the General Financial Rules 2005, under which most of the public procurement is done, is not a law, does not mandate compliance, and has little to say on public-private procurement. The penalties are also not severe.

India became a signatory to the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) in May 2011. One of the key requirements of becoming a signatory is to enact legislation which is compliant with the convention. Here again, we are doing great on paper — the Public Procurement Bill 2012 and the Draft Rules for Public-Private Partnerships 2011, are both compliant with the UNCAC.

However, they are yet to see the light of actual legislative action. It is a supreme irony here that the frequent disruption of Parliament, usually on corruption-related issues, has been repeatedly cited by the Government as the reason for not getting more laws passed! The UNODC report also recommends another key action, on which there has been little public discussion in India — that of widening the definition of public officials, and bringing the private sector into the ambit of anti-corruption legislation.

This is not surprising. Both in public policy and public debate, we have always tended to focus on the bribe-takers — but not on the bribe-givers. The private sector, arguably the generator of ‘wholesale’ corruption in India, has often waxed eloquent on the pervasiveness of corruption in India and the need to clean up public life — but has little to show when it comes to taking concrete measures to fight this menace at the individual company level.

The business of corruption

A recent survey by risk analysis firm Control Risks (‘International business attitudes to corruption — Indian perspectives’) points out some startling gaps between perception and reality in the corporate sector on the issue of combating corruption.

Corruption is a part of life for those doing business in India. Some 76 per cent said they regularly faced demands for what Control Risks terms “operational bribes” — demands to ensure smooth running of their businesses, from police officers, customs and tax inspectors, and the like. But only one-third of the companies surveyed admitted to having a formal policy in place against giving bribes. The report said the lack of a clear anti-bribery policy was a “serious deficiency.”

And even if a corporate employee’s conscience troubled him, it would be foolish to expect him to do anything about it. Only 24 per cent — less than a quarter — of the respondents said they have a whistleblower mechanism where employees can raise issues in confidence. With India’s Whistleblower Act still in legislative limbo, this means that a potential whistleblower has neither internal nor external protection.

One reason for this is that most Indian companies may be upset by the endless demands for bribes, but do not actually see it as a serious business risk. An astonishing 89 per cent of the companies in the survey felt it was “somewhat” or “very” unlikely that they would come under investigation for suspected corruption offences. In other words, most Indian companies may dislike having to pay bribes, but do not expect or fear punishment for doing so, although every act of corruption requires a giver and a taker of bribes.

Make a start

It is time to change this. It may be too much to expect the hapless common man to stop indulging in ‘retail’ corruption altogether — the power of the bribe-demanders to disrupt his life is too great, his ability to bring such corrupt public servants to book, limited. But we could make a start by at least restricting the wholesale supply of bribes, and the vast engine of misgovernance which it fuels.

We could make a start by pushing forth the agenda of legislative reform by passing the Whistleblower Bill, or the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill. And the private sector could back its indignation with concrete action by setting in place clear anti-corruption policies, protecting whistleblowers, and training employees in anti-corruption practices and how to resist demands for bribes.

If we can’t stop the taking, let’s at least try and restrict the giving.

Response to >raghavan.s@thehindu.co.in

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