Implosion (37 page)
Authors: John Elliott
2
.
http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/dynastic-secrecy-protected-by-india%E2%80%99s-tame-media/
3
. JE, ‘In Asia, the dynasties still rule’,
New Statesman
, 8 November 1999,
http://www.newstatesman.com/node/136052
4
. Conversation with JE
5
. Aarthi Ramachandran,
Decoding Rahul Gandhi
, pp 81-83, Tranquebar Press/Westland, Delhi 2012,
http://www.westlandbooks.in/book_details.php?cat_id=5&book_id=348
6
. ‘Sonia more comfortable with Left than with regional allies’,
The Hindu
March 27, 2011
www.thehindu.com/news/the-india-cables/article1574328.ece
7
. ‘Sonia Gandhi undergoes surgery’,
Indian Express
, 4 August 2011
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/sonia-gandhi-undergoes-surgery/827112/
8
.
http://www.firstpost.com/politics/sonia-was-being-treated-for-cancer-for-8-months-reports-54551.html
9
. ‘Her mother ill, Sonia fiies to US with Rahul’, 30 July 2010
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/her-mother-ill-sonia-? ies-to-us-with-rahul/653776/
10
. ‘Sonia Gandhi a national leader and her health not just a private matter’,
Economic Times
,
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-08-06/news/29858915_1_rahul-gandhi-active-politics-sonia-gandhi
Aug 6 2011
11
. ‘Right to Information – Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s health is a matter of public concern’,
Business Standard
, 7 August 2011
12
.
http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/175244/the-last-word-sonia-gandhis-illness.html
13
. ‘How ill is Mrs Gandhi?’,
India Today
, 16 October 2012,
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/sonia-gandhi-cancer-surgery-in-us-upa-2g-scam-manmohan-and-rahul-gandhi-lurch-into-crisis/1/153246.html
and
http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/dynastic-secrecy-protected-by-india%E2%80%99s-tame-media/
14
. ‘The omertà on Sonia Gandhi’s illness’,
The Hindu
, 22 September 2012,
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article2473752.ece
15
. ‘Government denies information on Rahul’s foreign trips,
The Times of India
, 7 October 2012,
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-10-07/india/34305718_1_rti-applications-rahul-gandhi-foreign-trips
16
.
http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/rahul-gandhis-inevitable-and-incredible-appointment-as-congress-no-2/
17
. ‘The fifth monarch – Will Rahul sit on his great-grandfather’s (and grandmother’s and father’s) throne?’,
http://www.economist.com/node/4494143
18
. Rahul Gandhi speaks with
Tehelka
magazine, 24 September 2005 – later claimed not ‘an interview’,
http://www.tehelka.com/story_ main14.asp? filename=Ne092405_I_could_CS.asp
19
. Ritam Sengupta, ‘323 ads, nearly 160 pages to mark 5 anniversaries’,
Sans Serif
, 14 November 2011,
http://wearethebest.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/323-ads-nearly-160-pages-to-mark-5-anniversaries/
20
.
http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/rahul-gandhi-shows-the-nehru-gandhi-dynasty-is-firmly-embedded%E2%80%A6%E2%80%A6%E2%80%A6/
21
.
http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/india-raised-ulster-when-rebuking-miliband-on-kashmir/
22
. Parliamentary Performance, research by PRS –
http://www.prsindia. org/mptrack/rahulgandhi
and
http://www.prsindia.org/mptrack/SoniaGandhi
23
. ‘As a brand, Rahul Gandhi hasn’t taken off ’,
The Times of India
, 20 November 2011,
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-11-20/special-report/30421925_1_rahul-gandhi-brand-prahlad-kakkar
24
.
http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/rahul-gandhis-inevitable-and-incredible-appointment-as-congress-no-2/
25
. ‘Rahul Gandhi emerges as Manmohan Singh declines’,
http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/government-in-blundering-retreat-on-corruption-crisis/
26
.
http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/crony-capitalists-line-up-changes-in-up-as-rahul-gandhi-stumbles/
27
.
http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/rahul-gandhis-inevitable-and-incredible-appointment-as-congress-no-2/
28
. Transcript of Rahul Gandhi’s speech at AICC Session, Jaipur,
http://www.sify.com/news/full-text-of-rahul-s-first-speech-as-congress-vp-news-national-nbvk60ffaei.html
and video
http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/congress-will-support-every-indian-says-rahul-gandhi/262506
29
.
http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/would-rahul-gandhi-like-to-close-his-family-dynasty/
30
. ‘Rahul Gandhi says no to marriage and prime ministership’,
Indian Express
, 6 March 2013,
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/rahul-wrong-to-ask-me-if-i-want-to-be-pm/1083780/0
31
.
http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2013/04/04/rahul-gandhi-dreams-with-a-beehive-of-buzzing-thoughts/
32
.
http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/corruption-tamashas-and-gossip-flood-india-but-change-will-be-very-slow/
33
. Dipankar Gupta, ‘Our political parties are throttling democracy by declaring certain issues and debates out of bounds’,
The Times of India
, 13 October 2012,
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-10-13/edit-page/34414269_1_taboos-caste-system-scandals-pile
34
.
http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2013/08/28/sonia-gandhis-2bn-bid-for-political-security/
35
. ‘Sonia’s ambitious food bill wins LS vote; UPA gets its “game-changer”‘,
Hindustan Times
, 26 August 2013,
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/newdelhi/sonia-s-ambitious-food-bill-wins-ls-vote-upa-gets-its-game-changer/article1-1113348.aspx
36
. ‘Cabinet overrules Supreme Court, clears ordinance to protect convicted MPs’, PTI, 25 September 2013,
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/cabinet-overrules-supreme-court-clears-ordinance-to-protect-convicted-mps/1173585/
37
.
http://ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/rahul-gandhi-stops-a-small-compromise-on-lalu-yadav-but-does-he-have-the-stamina-to-be-a-leader/
Corruption is ruining India. It pervades Indian society and government at all levels, undermining the authority of those responsible for running the country, crippling institutions, and frequently leading to bad decisions. The individual whims and wishes of politicians and bureaucrats, often corrupt and maybe also vindictive or vengeful, override laws and regulations. Distrust in public life has developed to such an extent that officials are often assumed to be guilty until proved innocent, which now impedes decision-making and ultimately, slows economic growth. The international image of India is suffering because what used to be regarded as relatively harmless ‘baksheesh’ is now seen as criminal fraud, deception and extortion, fed by personal greed and a lack of respect for the law.
Bribes, fraud and deception have become accepted as a way of public life, with the rewards far exceeding the minimal risk of detection and even rarer risk of punishment. People at all levels of society feel they have to fall in with much of it, whether or not they are actually motivated to do so. But it leads to bad decisions, increased costs, poor-quality work, project delays, and plundering of national assets. It is practised at all levels of society, particularly among politicians who, once their caste or social group moves into the mainstream of the country’s political and economic life, begin to emulate those who arrived earlier. For them, corruption has become a get-rich-quick option that suddenly generates enormous and irresistible wealth while they are in power and the going is good. This is demonstrated by the massive unaccountable wealth declared at election time by established politicians, though there must be much that remains hidden.
‘Corruption rules over the country with its stranglehold in every aspect of the state and consequently in all aspects of the life of citizens,’ says Bibek Debroy, an economist, in the best recent book on the subject. With co-author Laveesh Bhandari, he points out that corruption and bribery have become ‘a universally recognised medium of interaction and transaction between the citizens and the government’.
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It happened across all areas and levels of politics and bureaucracy, the judiciary, and publicly owned enterprises. ‘The parasite has eaten into the edifice of the state. Lower level bureaucracy and police thrive on bribes and baksheesh, higher level on grease money and scams.’ Such criticism, of course, also extends to financial services, where India has had major stock market and other scandals, the corporate world and sport.
Debroy and Bhandari stress the role of administrative problems that are caused by ‘improper allocation of discretion not backed up by adequate monitoring, poor enforcement of laws, and lack of punishments’. This ‘creates an environment where corrupt behaviour has become more a norm rather than an exception’. Discretion, they say, is ‘the power to judge what is to receive priority’, which can involve the power to veto or delay, or to approve and sanction, or maybe both.
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‘On big ticket corruption, the problem is that whatever you do, you will never be able to eliminate discretion and discretion opens up avenues for abuse,’ says Debroy.
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He differentiates ‘big ticket’ corruption with large-scale bribes and projects from ‘small ticket’, which is due to shortages in many services that include health, education and electricity and water supplies and even banking services and access to aid schemes, especially for the poor.
Corruption stories fill the headlines of newspapers almost every day, tumbling out one after another, with each story edging earlier ones out of the public gaze. In the few weeks that I wrote the first draft of this chapter, the news was dominated by a surge of scandals that illustrated the range and frequency of scams. The minister for railways resigned over bribe allegations. There were long-running stories on coal mining and telecommunication scams that stretched to the prime minister’s desk. There were more developments in a dramatic cricket match-fixing scandal in the glitzy IPL with political, business and other links that included a leading family-controlled company based in Tamil Nadu. A $500m penalty was levied by US authorities on a top pharmaceutical business for falsifying drug research results and other malpractices. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s state government in Karnataka was voted out of power after five corruption-riddled years, and a former Uttar Pradesh state government was accused of large-scale draining of funds allocated for construction of a chief minister’s egotistical monuments. The son of a former chief minister in Andhra Pradesh was refused bail after a year in jail during investigations of massive graft and extortion led by him and his late father.
The coal and telecom scandals involved a nexus of politicians and companies that fixed and fiddled contracts and licences, and were especially shocking because the government tolerated them, even when they were being widely talked about. The cricket and pharmaceutical scandals were significant because they pulled down icons of what were unwisely dubbed the ‘India Shining’ years of the 2000s when the country was riding high on strong economic growth. Corruption in the states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh had dragged down the international reputation of their capital cities, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, which led India’s information technology boom in the 2000s. All the unfolding sagas illustrated the malpractices that lay behind much of that growth in the mining, communications and manufacturing industries, showing how weak the foundations of modern India were.
Corruption happens in all types of societies; India is not alone in this. Its impact varies according to market forces and political systems. In some countries – China, for example – it has eaten into the structure of government, but it does boost economic development because bribes paid to a minister or a city mayor usually generate official approvals and economic activity such as construction of infrastructure projects. In India, it slows growth because of the pushes and pulls of a hyperactive democracy, and the greed of politicians and other vested interests. Extensive and complex government rules and regulations within an overdeveloped state apparatus provide politicians and officials with endless opportunities for exercising discretionary powers, and businessmen with consequential opportunities to gain illicit advantages over competitors. This is corruption at its most destructive. In India, it is damaging the heart of the society, pushing dishonesty down to the lowest levels so that even members of tribal communities and other poor suffer when they take their first steps into India’s mainstream economy.
