Diary

Your kind Attention Plz! : Corruption

Corruption is a spiritual or moral impurity or deviation from an ideal. In economy, corruption is payment for services or material which the recipient is not due, under law. This may be called bribery, kickback, or, in the Middle East, baksheesh. It is one of the many problems that plague our society which needs immediate attention. Though corruption has existed since time immemorial, it is only in the recent past that it has become a part and parcel of our life.

A 2005 study conducted by Transparency International in India found that more than 55% of Indians had first-hand experience of paying bribes or influence peddling to get jobs done in public offices successfully. In 2010 India was ranked 87th out of 178 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index which throws light on the pathetic condition of our economy. India tops the list for black money in the entire world with almost US$1456 billion in Swiss banks (approximately USD 1.4 trillion) in the form of black money.

Corruption

According to the data provided by the Swiss Banking Association Report (2006), India has more black money than the rest of the world combined. Indian-owned Swiss bank account assets are worth 13 times the country's national debt.

Corruption can arise under a variety of circumstances which are often concerned with :
(i) Government contracts: bribes can influence who gets the contract, the terms of the contract, as well as terms of subcontracts when the project is implemented.
(ii) Government benefits: bribes can influence the allocation of monetary benefits such as credit subsidies, favored prices and exchange rates, obtaining licenses and permits etc.
(iii) Time savings and regulatory avoidance: bribes can speed up the granting of permission, licenses and permits to carry out activities that are perfectly legal.
(iv) Influencing outcomes of legal and regulatory processes: bribes can be used to provide incentives to regulatory authorities to refrain from taking action.

Fight against corruption, though prominent from ancient times, gained stardom recently due to the works done by Anna Hazare. Today, Anna Hazare is the face of India's fight against corruption. He has taken that fight to the corridors of power and challenged the government at the highest level. Drawing inspiration from Swami Vivekananda, Anna Hazare’s first fight was against corruption that was blocking growth in rural India, after his voluntary retirement from the army. His organization- the Bhrashtachar Virodhi Jan Andolan (People's movement against Corruption). His tool of protest - hunger strikes. And his prime target - politicians.

Anna Hazare

Hazare initiated a Satyagraha movement for passing a stronger anti-corruption Lokpal (ombudsman) bill in the Indian Parliament as conceived in the Jan Lokpal Bill (People's Ombudsman Bill) in 2011.The Jan Lokpal Bill was drafted earlier by N. Santosh Hegde, former justice of the Supreme Court of India and Lokayukta of Karnataka, Prashant Bhushan, a senior lawyer in the Supreme Court and Arvind Kejriwal, a social activist along with members of the India Against Corruption movement. This draft bill incorporated more stringent provisions and wider power to the Lokpal(Ombudsman) than the draft Lokpal bill prepared by the government in 2010. These include placing "the Prime Minister within the ambit of the proposed lokpal’s powers".Hazare began his Indefinite Fast on 5 April 2011 at Jantar Mantar in Delhi to press for the demand to form a joint committee of the representatives of the Government and the civil society to draft a stronger anti-corruption bill with stronger penal actions and more independence to the Lokpal and Lokayuktas (Ombudsmen in the states), after his demand was rejected by the Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh. The movement attracted attention in the media, and thousands of supporters. Almost 150 people reportedly joined Hazare in his fast. Social activists, including Medha Patkar, Arvind Kejriwal, former IPS officer Kiran Bedi, and Jayaprakash Narayan lent their support to Hazare's hunger strike and anti-corruption campaign. People have shown support in internet social media such as Twitter and Facebook. In addition to spiritual leaders Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Swami Ramdev, Swami Agnivesh and former Indian cricketer Kapil Dev, many celebrities showed their public support through Twitter.

On 8 April 2011 the Government of India accepted all demands of the movement. On 9 April 2011 it issued a notification in the Gazette of India on formation of a joint committee. But during the meeting of the joint drafting committee on 30 May 2011, the Union government members opposed the inclusion of the prime minister, higher judiciary and the acts of the MPs under the purview of the Lokpal in the draft bill. On 28 July 2011 the union cabinet on approved a draft of the Lokpal Bill, which keeps the Prime Minister, judiciary and lower bureaucracy out of the ambit of the proposed corruption ombudsman Lokpal. Hazare rejected the government version by describing it as "cruel joke" and wrote a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and told him his decision to go on an indefinite fast from 16 August 2011 at Jantar Mantar if the government introduced its own version of the bill in Parliament without taking suggestions from civil society members. On 16 August 2011, Hazare was arrested four hours before the planned indefinite hunger strike. On 20 August 2011 Hazare "left the Tihar Jail for the Ramlila Grounds. On 20 August 2011 thousands came to the Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi to show their support for Hazare, while "his advisors made television appearances to rally public support and defend themselves against criticism that their protest campaign and refusal to compromise is undermining India's parliamentary process.

But not everyone is happy with Hazare’s work and methodologies. Magsaysay Award winner Aruna Roy, noted author and social activist Arundhati Roy, writer and historian Ramchandra Guha, Dalit columnists like Prasad, activist Udit Raj etc condemned Hazare's actions as being anti-dalit,anti-democratic and anti-secular.

Just mere talks about effects of corruption on the development of our nation and ways to bring it under control won’t do. Nothing great was ever achieved just through words. The secret of getting ahead is getting started. Hence, actions-by the government and the people-are essential for regulating the current scenario and making corruption a social problem of the yesteryears.

By Lakshmi Vimala (S1 MSW)