Can the common man be corrupted?

His biggest fear was that his party will squander the "historic opportunity. If we made some mistakes, then I think we will not be able to forgive ourselves, and history will not be able to forgive us. And that thought is constantly chasing me."

Said Arvind Kejriwal of the new political party, Aam Aadmi (Common Man) in this profile of him in the New Yorker in the September 2nd issue (sub. reqd.).

Kejriwal can rest easy, it appears:

[The] Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) stole the show in its debut by scooping up 28 seats. ... AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal proved to be a giant killer by defeating three-time Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit in the New Delhi constituency by a margin of more than 25,000 votes.

As the New Yorker noted:

Since 2010, Kejriwal's essential message has not faltered; to overcome endemic political corruption, momentous change is required. ... [Few] officials are ever indicted of corruption. As Kejriwal put it, "You can just get away with murder in this country.

Of course, this is merely one small change.  How much of a consequence it will have is, well, the cliched "remains to be seen."  It is one thing to campaign against corruption and corrupt politicians, but another to get to some of the systemic problems that then create opportunities for rent-seeking, as economists refer to it.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta, of the Center for Policy Research, said that he gets "no readings, from Kejriwal, on his thoughts on markets and economics, which are central to corruption." ... Kejriwal insists that he is attacking a problem that transcends macroeconomic policy. ... "Liberalization, globalization--these things will never work until you improve the governance of the country."

India's corruption and bureaucracy are notorious.  Of course, here in the US, too, we have corrupt officials.  But, at least our every day existence is free of hassles.  Renewing a driver license or registering the purchase of a used car does not require bribing the DMV clerk.  In India, even such mundane transactions almost always require bribes.  Recently, when my sister chose not to offer bribes in order to get the official papers related to the death of her husband, they made sure to string her along for a few days and for quite a few meetings!

Let us see if the election results will have any impact on the corruption index, which refuses to budge:

Despite a vocal anti-corruption movement and even a new party aimed at fighting graft, the level of corruption in India has not fallen in the last year, according to the latest survey by corruption watchdog Transparency International.
The Berlin-based organization released its latest Corruption Perception Index report Tuesday. The index grades countries on how corrupt their political parties, police, justice systems and other organizations are perceived to be.
Transparency International’s rankings start with the countries that are least corrupt. India’s ranking of 94 out of 177 was unchanged from a year ago.

Maybe India should try bribing the researchers at Transparency International in order to get a favorable ranking? ;)

Source

Interestingly, that cartoon is not about India!

Corruption is perhaps even a part of the culture?  I was reminded of a story that I read as a kid. It was one of those witty stories involving Birbal.  I tracked down a version of it on the web, should you--the curious reader--feel intrigued.  It is a wonderful bottom-line: "A corrupt man will find ways to take bribe whatever the job he is in."

Try corrupting me with an offer of a few million dollars, will you please?

Men in White ... means ... dirty politics? :)

You make the call:

The context for such a gathering of men in white

The prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has been one heck of a disappointment.  Maybe like Seinfeld, he ought to have called it quits when he was ahead--when the country and the rest of the world was all praise for him for having initiated the economic reforms back in the 1990s.  After his first term as the PM, Singh should have walked away.  Instead, and increasingly, he seems to behave like a hostage to his captors and comes across as if he suffers from a serious case of Stockholm Syndrome.

Caravan has a lengthy feature on how much Singh has fallen:

“The fall has been so dramatic,” said a former Union Cabinet minister who has known Singh since the 1960s. “There is a visible drift, without any direction, and he appears to be helpless. People will say that of course he is an honest man and nobody doubts his personal integrity, but when you are presiding over an outfit that is dealing in corruption, you have to answer for that. How do you defend it? You can’t defend it.”

“Just look at the cartoons,” the former minister continued. “He is shrinking in size every day. He must be feeling awful.”

Modi begins his campaign to become India's PM. I wish him defeat!

Blogging about Gujarat's Narendra Modi means only one thing: I am worried about his increasing popularity--I have been doing this since this in March 2009! 

First came this news that a "US report lauds Modi"

Identifying Gujarat as perhaps the best example of effective governance and impressive development in India, a congressional report has showered praise on Chief Minister Narendra Modi, saying the State, under him, has become a key driver of national economic growth. ...

“Perhaps India's best example of effective governance and impressive development is found in Gujarat, where controversial Chief Minister Narendra Modi has streamlined economic processes, removing red tape and curtailing corruption in ways that have made the State a key driver of the national economic growth,” said the report.

An independent and bipartisan wing of Congress, the CRS prepares periodic reports on issues of interest to lawmakers.

Typical American perspective, I thought to myself.  After all, it is the same America that appreciates China, while conveniently sidelining human rights issues most of the time.  The Chinese model of controlled political expression with relatively free economic expression is becoming a favored model.  This itself is not that different from a pioneer's--Singapore's development model, led by Lee Kuan Yew.

The American blessing of sorts was immediately echoed in India, where the current government led by its silent and figurehead prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has to deal with scandals mushrooming by the hour, it seems like!

Former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani has startled the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership with an apparent endorsement of Gujarat Chief Minister's claims to be the party's candidate for Prime Minister in the next general election.

In an article posted on his blog on Friday, Mr. Advani wrote: “Now, American lawmakers and the State Department are being primed for the return of the BJP to power in New Delhi, with [Mr.]Modi at the helm as Prime Minister, following what U.S. analysts say is a precipitous decline in the Congress party's fortunes due to a string of corruption scandals.”

For his assessment of United States official opinion, Mr. Advani has relied on a recent report of the Washington DC-based Congressional Research Service.

Holy crap!

The Indian electorate voting for fascists maniacs like Modi is not unimaginable--they are sick and tired of scandals and corruption, and voting for a guy with a track record of fiscal integrity will be way tempting, even if they know well Modi's guilt in the communal violence when he was the chief minister.

Modi is all too ready to seize the opportunity:

Fighting hard to remove the taint of 2002 violence, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday began a three-day fast for peace and communal harmony vowing to end votebank politics but said nothing directly by way of regret for the post-Godhra carnage.

Buoyed by the Supreme Court’s refusal to pass any order against him in the Ehsan Jafri murder case and words of praise from a U.S. Congressional report, Mr. Modi sat on fast on his birthday in the air-conditioned Gujarat University Convention Centre flanked by top BJP and allied party leaders.

“I had said at that time (2002) these riots should not have happened in a civilised society. At that time I had felt the pain and now also I am feeling the pain,” he said in his speech to an audience that had a sprinkling of Muslims, Christians and Sikhs among others. 

Hmmm ... a 'sprinkling" of minorities :(

Source

Anna Hazare's 15 minutes are over!

Three weeks ago, as the Anna Hazare-led anti-corruption movement hit a high note, I blogged that this will not be any version of Arab Spring in India:

India is a country with a history of exciting events, which eventually die down without doing any serious damage to the status quo.

More than anything else, Hazare was proposing something quite bizarre--setting up an all-powerful body, and assuming that this will somehow be insulated from corruption.  I remarked elsewhere that such reforms cannot be legislated and that it has to come through changes in the everyday practices of people.  I have a metric for this: the day trash will not be dumped anywhere and everywhere.


Anyway, I am not the only one who thinks that this will not be productive, and could become highly counter-productive too.  Here is another immigrant from India, writing at Reason:

Protests are like morning ablutions in India’s cacophonous democracy: routine and purgative. One can’t sneeze without running into a demonstration by some interest group fighting for some special benefit....
one agency can’t effectively deal with the volume of grievances it is likely to receive. Alternatives to the Hazare proposal suggest creating mini-Lokpals at the municipal level. But all of them suffer from a fatal flaw: They treat corruption like an enforcement rather than a policy problem. ...
Eradicating corruption will require more than simply adding yet another layer of bureaucracy, however. So long as government officials have too much to gain from dishonesty—and citizens have too much to lose from honesty—corruption will remain a fact of Indian life.

The Economist adds this:

Mostly sceptics bristle at Mr Hazare’s methods. The most revered Dalit leader, the late B.R. Ambedkar, chief draftsman of India’s constitution, has been much quoted this week for an early warning about the “grammar of anarchy”, by which he meant using Gandhi-style fasts to impose your will on a democratic government. Hunger strikes, a form of blackmail, might have been justified against the British, but not against elected leaders.
Such grumbles will not dent Mr Hazare’s progress. His camp hints at possible future campaigns on electoral changes and education reform. Rival fasters might also jump in since a hunger strike’s extended drama so clearly suits live television. Yet elected politicians can push back. They have an easy way to remind voters how they matter, by getting on and passing many long-promised bills, for example on further economic reform. Dull and undramatic: but for many voters it matters at least as much as corruption.

Meanwhile, the country's attention has already turned away from Hazare to terrorism in the capital city of New Delhi:

Less than four months after a mysterious bomb went off in the parking lot, a powerful blast ripped through the reception counter of the Delhi High Court complex in the heart of the capital on Wednesday, leaving at least 11 people dead and more than 75 injured.

Even as a red alert was sounded in the city, an email sent to various media organisations claimed responsibility for the blast on behalf of the ‘Harkat-ul-Jihadi.'

The claim, sent from harkatuljihadi2011@gmail.com, threatened similar blasts at the Supreme Court and other major High Courts if the Parliament attack case convict Afzal Guru's death sentence was not “repealed.” (sic).

 Caption at the source:

"A man injured in the bomb blast being brought to the Ram Manohar Lohia hospital in New Delhi on Wednesday."

The Anna Hazare moment is not any "Arab Spring" in India

One of the neatest first experiences for me when I came to the US was at the Social Security office in Los Angeles.  Right on the first day, I was advised by personnel at USC and by other students that I needed to get to the Soc. Sec. card at the earliest--the lack of which meant no paycheck.

At least now, the neighborhood around USC looks presentable, especially since the construction of the Staples Center and USC's basketball arena.  Those days, it was a typical downtown in deterioration,  A couple of us walked over to the Social Security office, all the while wondering whether this was really the richest country on the planet when the conditions around us were not pretty.

The organized system at the government office made it clear that this was no India.  The ticket number I grabbed gave me an idea of how long I might have to wait for my turn. There were chairs to sit on.  When my turn came, I presented my papers to the clerk, and we both had a little bit of problem with our respective pronunciations and accents.  And that was it.

This was no where near any of my experiences at government, and private sector, offices in India.

In India, there is a formal way, which takes a very long time, and another way that cuts through the process as long as one paid the prevailing bribe rates.  When I got my driver license in India, for instance, all I did was give a couple of portrait photos and money to the driving instructor, who took care of things for me--a week later I had my license!

Every visit to India, there are more experiences--direct or otherwise--that remind me about the strange inner workings of the Indian system characterized by bribes, corruption, and "black money."

Though most people complain about all these, they generally feel powerless to change anything by themselves.  Further, bribes and corruption and black money do not become serious political issues primarily because getting elected even to the lowliest office is a sure way to start getting ahead in economic terms.

A few are now voicing that old movie line, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore."

A small, quiet, 74-year old man has become the voice and symbol of this frustration.

Anna Hazare has quickly become a 21st century Mahatma Gandhi inspiration for millions of Indians fed up with rampant corruption, red tape and inadequate services provided by the state despite the country posting near-double digit economic growth for almost a decade.

As much as I am excited to follow the developments, I am equally confident that this too shall pass.  After all, India is a country with a history of exciting events, which eventually die down without doing any serious damage to the status quo.  Which is why I agree with this:

The anti-corruption movement has the simplicity of a third-rate fable.
There are the good guys (the reformers and the average Indian citizen) and the bad guys (the politicians). But the real story is not a fable but art cinema.
Indians have a deep and complicated relationship with corruption. As in any long marriage, it is not clear whether they are happily or unhappily married. The country’s economic system is fused with many strands of corruption and organized systems of tax evasion. The middle class is very much a part of this.
Most Indians have paid a bribe. Most Indian businesses cannot survive or remain competitive without stashing away undeclared earnings.
Almost everybody who has sold a house has taken one part of the payment in cash and evaded tax on it.
Yet, the branding of corruption is so powerful that Indians moan the moment they hear the word. The comic hypocrisy of it all was best evident in the past few months as the anti-corruption movement gathered unprecedented middle-class support. 

While the middle and upper classes might voice their support to the cause, particularly at the click of the computer mouse, as individuals they are trapped in a classic game theory situation: if they don't pay up for the service, then there is always somebody else who will, which makes a loser out of the one who wants to fight the system.  Not wanting to lose out, everybody becomes a participant.

Ultimately, it is the economically disadvantaged who get screwed.  Because, they cannot things the proper way, and nor do they have the resources to take the bribe route.  To make things worse, they trust the politicians to deliver for them :(

As I noted here earlier, in another context,

When I was a kid, I remember elected politicians switching parties like crazy depending on who offered a better deal.  And everybody knew that such deals were going on.  One politician was referred to as "aaya ram, gaya ram" (aaya meaning to come, and gaya means to leave--characterizing how the politician, ram, entered and left parties.  Hilarious it was to some extent, more so when we did not have television to entertain us ....

The Economist has a neat statistic about India:

The country’s politicians are mostly an unsavoury lot. Of the 522 members of India’s current parliament, 120 are facing criminal charges; around 40 of these are accused of serious crimes, including murder and rape. Most Indian politicians are presumed to be corrupt, which is less surprising. In India’s poor and fractious society patronage politics is inevitable. But Indian politics has got much muckier in recent years because of two factors: the rise of regional and caste-based parties, nakedly dedicated to delivering patronage; and the mutinous coalitions this has led to.

WikiLeaks: the aftershocks now in India

Here in the US, where yesterday's news becomes staler than the stalest in a context of the 24x7 news cycle, and when Japan and the Middle East have overwhelmed us, and rightly so, it is not any surprise that WikiLeaks barely registers a blip anymore on our radars.  Thus, there is pretty much no ripples from the news of the unusual and cruel treatment of the alleged leaker, Bradley Manning, and the recent resignation of the State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley, over this matter.

But, the effect of WikiLeaks is now being felt big time all the way across in India.

The Hindu has a special on the Indian connections to WikiLeaks, and India Today lists "eight bombs" of which the #1 is:

Wikibomb 1: Congress bought MPs for 2008 trust vote.
US cable suggests MPs from Ajit Singh's RLD were paid Rs. 10 crore each by the Congress during the 2008 trust vote.

To the common man (aam aadmi) in India, politicians being bribed isn't exactly news.  It is a given that it is a rare exception when a politician is considered "clean."  What is new then?  Phenomenal evidence, from information leaked by outsiders who have no personal investment in the outcomes.  The Hindu reports:

In a cable, dated July 17, 2008, sent to the State Department (162458: secret), accessed by The Hindu through WikiLeaks, U.S. Charge d'Affaires Steven White wrote about a visit the Embassy's Political Counselor paid to Satish Sharma, who is described as “a Congress Party MP in the Rajya Sabha ... and a close associate of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi considered to be a very close family friend of Sonia Gandhi.”

Mr. Sharma told the U.S. diplomat that he and others in the party were working hard to ensure the government won the confidence vote on July 22. After describing the approaches the Congress leader said had been made to the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Akali Dal, Mr. White drops a bombshell of a revelation:

“Sharma's political aide Nachiketa Kapur mentioned to an Embassy staff member in an aside on July 16 that Ajit Singh's RLD had been paid Rupees 10 crore (about $2.5 million) for each of their four MPs to support the government. Kapur mentioned that money was not an issue at all, but the crucial thing was to ensure that those who took the money would vote for the government.”

Lest this should be construed by the visiting diplomats as an empty boast, Mr. Sharma's aide put his money where his mouth was: “Kapur showed the Embassy employee two chests containing cash and said that around Rupees 50-60 crore (about $25 million) was lying around the house for use as pay-offs.”

Well, the ruling government won the crucial confidence vote, and the coalition (UPA) continues in power even now.  As one can imagine, the opposition parties are trying their best to seize the opportunity, in the grand traditions of carpe diem.  Again, The Hindu:

The Opposition sought to mount pressure on the government outside Parliament too. At separate press conferences, both the National Democratic Alliance and the Left parties said that Indian democracy had been “maligned” and demanded the immediate resignation of the government.

Not that the politicians from the opposing camp are saints!  But, all these make for interesting political theatre, while the common man is screwed by the corrupt politicians, rising food prices, ....

So, even otherwise, how does India compare with other countries when it comes to corruption?  According to Transparency International, India ranks at # 87 out of the 178 countries analyzed.  Guess who else shares that same ranking?  Albania, Jamaica, Liberia.  Excellent company, eh!

On Corruption

First, this graphic, from America's Finest News Source, about Chicago:

Of course, that was satirical. After all, it is from The Onion.

Foreign Policy--no satire publication--has a different take on corruption.  It questions whether there is "good" corruption versus "bad" corruption:

By the end of President Suharto's 30-year rule in 1998, Indonesia ranked as one of the half-dozen most corrupt economies on the planet, according to Transparency International (TI). Yet in those three decades, the country also experienced growth in per capita income of 6 percent per year, a rate almost unparalleled in recorded human history. The past 30 years have seen comparable economic progress in China: since the 1976 death of Mao Zedong, the Chinese economy has eclipsed even Suharto-level growth rates despite also holding position 79 in TI's latest ranking, tied with Burkina Faso.
This is not to say that corruption has been good for Indonesian and Chinese incomes (though many would argue it has been) -- perhaps they'd be even richer otherwise. But it certainly suggests that not all corruption is created equal.

George Ayittey at Univ. of Oregon

Thanks to a friend, I came to know that Ayittey will be in town on February 10th.  So, yes, here I am at 11:30 in the night, embedding this video clip, which is a talk that Ayittey gave at TED Global, in Arusha, in 2007.
More info about the talk at the university here, and more info about Ayittey here

So, why are Swedes not so corrupt?

Am following up on a comment in a discussion on whether liberals are more corrupt than conservatives; the comment there was this:

How much you pay your public servants matters. And culture probably matters most of all. One of my favorite studies from the last few years looked at parking tickets for diplomats in New York, who of course can get away with leaving them unpaid because of diplomatic immunity. The Kuwaitis averaged 246 unpaid tickets per diplomat per year; the Swedes averaged zero.

Naturally, I followed up on that. So, what does the study say?

The authors find that there is a strong correlation between illegal parking and existing measures of home country corruption. This finding suggests that cultural or social norms related to corruption are quite persistent: even when stationed thousands of miles away, diplomats behave in a manner highly reminiscent of officials in the home country. Norms related to corruption are apparently deeply engrained, and factors other than legal enforcement are important determinants of corruption behavior.

I am willing to buy into this idea. I suppose there is a great deal of value in "lagom"

Corruption, and the government NOT at work :-)

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Your Government Not at Work - Jane Harman Scandal
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

America is India?

American politics, which has always involved "dynasties", patronage, and backroom dealings are looking more and more like India's politics and politicians.  And this is not something to be proud about!

When I was a kid, I remember elected politicians switching parties like crazy depending on who offered a better deal.  And everybody knew that such deals were going on.  One politician was referred to as "aaya ram, gaya ram" (aaya meaning to come, and gaya means to leave--characterizing how the politician, ram, entered and left parties.  Hilarious it was to some extent, more so when we did not have television to entertain us ....

The Economist has a neat statistic about India:

The country’s politicians are mostly an unsavoury lot. Of the 522 members of India’s current parliament, 120 are facing criminal charges; around 40 of these are accused of serious crimes, including murder and rape. Most Indian politicians are presumed to be corrupt, which is less surprising. In India’s poor and fractious society patronage politics is inevitable. But Indian politics has got much muckier in recent years because of two factors: the rise of regional and caste-based parties, nakedly dedicated to delivering patronage; and the mutinous coalitions this has led to.

It is disheartening that the 230+year old American democracy is not that different.  In the last few weeks alone we have had everything from a long-time senator found guilty, to the latest nutcase "Senategate" in Illinois.  Not much of a role model for many of the African countries struggling to establish democratic institutions ....