Bribing is a way of life

The Chief Economic Adviser to the Union Ministry of Finance, Mr Kaushik Basu's recent working paper “ Why, for a class of bribes, the act of giving a bribe should be treated as legal ” has raised certain issues about the act of giving and receiving a bribe which, at the very least, throws light on the fundamental nature of this composite activity and, importantly, suggests that the legal path to remedying the social scourge – in Indian conditions – may not be as efficacious as is being expected.

The central point in Mr Basu's thesis is that if bribe-givers (in an area described as “harassment bribes”, or bribes relating to things which people are legally entitled to, say, gas connections, ration cards or passports) are conferred “full immunity from any punitive action by the State”, it is likely that this class of people will turn the tables as it were on bribe-takers after the “transaction” has been completed.

This would make the latter category of offenders more cautious in going about their illegal business, the inference being that the very act of extracting a bribe would thereby receive a dampener, to the benefit of society.

In Mr Basu's words, “in the post-bribe situation it is in the interest of the bribe-giver to have the bribe-taker caught. Since the bribe-giver will cooperate with the law, the chances are much higher of the bribe-taker getting caught. In fact, it will be in the interest of the bribe-giver to have the taker get caught, since that way the bribe-giver can get back the money she gave as bribe. Since the bribe-taker knows this, he will be much less inclined to take the bribe in the first place. This establishes that there will be a drop in the incidence of bribery”.

Indeed, the professor writes with confidence that “this paper predicts that the end result will be a sharp decline in the incidence of bribery”, which is certainly a happy thought provided the medicine works.

But, will it? The argument on paper is unexceptionable, of course.

To quote Mr Basu once again, “What is being argued here is that the legal amendments being suggested in this paper will not remove all incentives to bribery. But to the extent that it does create mistrust between the bribe-giver and the taker in the post-bribery situation, it means that the comfort zone within which bribery occurs in today‘s world will cease to exist and the upshot will be a decline in the incidence of bribery”.

There is little doubt that the “comfort zone” which the Chief Economic Adviser speaks of will be affected adversely for the bribe-taker because he knows that, in terms of the new law, the person giving the bribe will, briefly, not be in the same tainted boat as he himself.

But then the real world is much more complex and, as Mr Basu himself admits, the entire expected sequence of events, leading to a drop in bribe-taking, will work out in the way expected only if the bribe-giver is careful enough to marshal adequate evidence of the act, which may not always be the case.

Further, one of the implications of Mr Basu's suggestion is that every act of bribe-giving becomes a “sting operation”, which is impractical.

Another important criticism of Mr Basu's suggestion is that those who pay a bribe are equal violators of the law of the land and, therefore, should on no account be provided with legal immunity.

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