India: fighting corruption or adapting to it?

(The article was published by Asia Times as following)

The fight against corruption may be the fashionable thing going well in India. But there exist some forms of corruption still to be recognized as such. A startling example of a double murder to obliterate a scam speaks a lot about the issue.


SPEAKING FREELY
India: fighting corruption or adapting to it?
By Jiwan Kshetry

Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing.

When the communist political regime collapsed in the then-USSR more than two decades ago, the centrally planned and controlled economy saw that factor of "control" lifted suddenly.

It was as if a huge old dam had suddenly sustained a mega earth quake, with its water gushing out through the cracks even as the whole structure was in a process of ultra rapid dismantlement.

In that gush and rush of the wealth, those who happened to be


attached or close to the evolving power structure had their hands full with whatever they could wish for. But soon there was little water left in the former dam and those unlucky to be away from the wealth-gusher at the time of the quake found it terribly hard to navigate in the coming days.

Boris Yeltsin's terms in power were all about witnessing the process of mass pauperization as oligarchs saw their fortunes shining, at the same time being tutored by the International Monetary Fund and Western mentors as how little to intervene in the process termed "liberalization".

Interestingly, the collapse of the USSR almost coincided with the beginning of the rapid process of liberalization of the economy in India, the Asian counterpart and an important former Soviet ally whose founder Jawaharlal Nehru had been enormously impressed by how the Soviets managed their economic affairs, though he had similarly big reservations about communist ideology.

India's deviation from the Nehruvian socialistic economic policy came almost a decade after China under the post-Mao Zedong leadership of Deng Xiaoping had shown impressive growth, marrying a communist political system with the capitalist economic system. Thus, the events in the early 1990s seemed to reinforce capitalism as the only system viable for periods in history long enough to witness and celebrate the downfall of rival systems.

Now, looking back more than two decades after those changes, the contrast between the evolution of Russia and the rising Asian economic giants China and India can be hardly overestimated.

If it were not for the sharp rise of the petroleum prices in the past decade, it is hard to imagine where the Russians would be now after the massive theft of Soviet-era state assets.

The contrast between the paths taken by India and China on one hand and Russia on the other have been in discourse for a long time. But lately it is being acknowledged that the miraculous economic growth and apparent prosperity in both China and India have been possible not because of good governance and incorruptibility of the political and administrative system, but despite appalling poor governance and rampant and deeply institutionalized corruption.

Mammoth corruption scams in India or rather the sudden exposure of those scams to the people over past many months has caused such a furor among the Indian public that the integrity and honesty of everyone high up in the power hierarchy has been in question, including that of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was before the episodes praised for his integrity and incorruptibility.

The change in perception among the people has been so prominent that, in a desperate attempt to contain the damage, each of the political parties is busy attacking the other for one or other scandal as most of the prominent national and regional parties have their own share of mega scams. In the polls, in the states like Tamil Nadu, the issue of corruption has been the single-most cause behind the sudden fall from grace and loss in the electoral race of the incumbent party/coalition.

Recovering the state wealth misappropriated or simply stolen by many of the powerful persons may be very hard, but penalizing them through imprisonment may be possible to the extent that the anti-graft bodies and courts in the country act judiciously.

Similarly, bringing them down to powerlessness by defeating them in the polls could be theoretically possible if people knew exactly who embezzled how much.

But penalizing only those at the leadership level is only a tiny part of any process that aims at checking corruption. Even larger, subtler, more pervasive and more devastating to the daily lives of ordinary people is a somehow different form of corruption that takes place systemically with involvement of, rather with the collusion of, people at various levels from high up all the way down to the grassroots level.

Ironically, this is rarely taken as corruption with its ordinary meaning, let alone the possibility of any effective drive against such malpractice.

To illustrate this subtler, more institutionalized, less obvious but more pervasive corruption with multi-level stakeholders, I take the example of a multi-billion dollar scam involving the health sector in Uttar Pradesh (UP) state that came to notice and was investigated only after the collateral damage of the continuing theft of state assets had led to two murders of high government officials.

The trail of investigation that led to the exposure of the scam began with the gunning down of chief medical officer (CMO) (Family Welfare), Lucknow, B P Singh on April 2 this year. Before Singh, his predecessor, Vinod Arya, had been gunned down on October 27 2010, surprisingly, with the same gun. After initial clues behind the motive of the crime, the deputy CMO, Y S Sachan, was arrested and imprisoned, but soon he was apparently murdered inside the prison.

According to the cover story published in a prominent Indian magazine Tehelka on August 20 by Ashish Khetan, the opposition parties alleged that Sachan, the deputy CMO and the alleged mastermind of the double murder, was eliminated by someone higher in the government as he/she feared that Sachan could have revealed the involvement of senior politicians and bureaucrats in the embezzlement of National Rural Health Mission (NHRM) funds.

Apparently, the state of Uttar Pradesh, whose capital is Lucknow, had acquired a staggering 86 billion rupees (US$1.7 billion) from Delhi since 2005-2006 for the ill-fated NHRM program.

While millions of people in one of India's most highly populated and impoverished states with annual incomes as little as few thousand rupees just kept suffering from easily curable ailments, the funds to help them had been diverted to the pockets of people from high up in the ministries down to the health workers in the barely functioning rural health facilities.

While women kept giving birth to babies at home in extremely unhygienic conditions - contributing to high maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality - data in the health institutions were cooked to siphon off millions through the scheme. Similarly, elderly people with cataracts had to pay as much as 15,000 rupees at nursing homes that had received millions of rupees from the government to provide free cataract surgery.

This was only one among many such scams, most of which have not been exposed because the circumstances have not led to high-profile murders.

The fact that there are such big and so many pervasive acts of theft and treachery is shocking. But what is more appalling is the fact that the communities, society, the provinces and the Indian state itself have adapted so well to the persistence of such scams. The fact rarely coming to public notice is that a significant proportion of the population is just getting poorer and unhealthier because such scandalous arrangements are in place to divert whatever the state attempts to spend for their welfare.

Even the most conservative statement about the economy of India will be that corruption is not the monopoly of top politicians and bureaucrats, as often portrayed, and those corrupt people may well form the tip of the iceberg.

The body of the iceberg has managed to remain underwater, thanks to the rapidly growing economy that has been able to create wealth at a rate somewhat higher than can be stolen at the same time.

But now the economy is showing ominous signs of slowing and with the attention of politicians and policymakers fixed on mega scams like the infamous 2G scam of the distribution of telecom licenses and the mammoth scams of illegal mining, little is being done to fix the subtle form of corruption.

The long term costs of such barely visible scams are so profound and accumulating that basic services like health and education for the future generations are in severe jeopardy.

Since the coverage of the bright side of the world’s largest democracy is far more appealing than doing the reverse, the majority of the print and electronic media in India and outside have chosen to extensively cover the former.

The dark side has recently attained a seemingly wide and "bold" coverage, but that too is primarily to increase readership/viewership as sensationalism around the mega scams has proved to be a valuable commodity.

Against this background, proper exposure of all forms of corruption followed by forceful and coordinated attempts at curbing the pervasively corrupt acts is the only way out.




The original form that I wrote is as follows:

When the communist political regime collapsed in the then USSR more than two decades back, the centrally planned and controlled economy saw that factor of ‘control’ lifted suddenly. It was as if a huge old dam had suddenly sustained a mega earth quake with its water gushing out through the cracks even as the whole structure was in a process of ultra rapid dismantlement. In that gush and rush of the wealth, those who happened to be attached or close to the evolving power structure had their hands full with whatever they could wish for. But soon there was little water left in the former dam and those unlucky to be away from the wealth-gusher at the time of the quake found it terribly hard to navigate in the coming days. Yeltsin’s terms in power were all about witnessing the process of mass pauperization as unavoidable process in which the oligarchs saw their fortunes shining, at the same time being tutored by IMF and western mentors as how little to intervene in the process termed ‘liberalization’.
Interestingly, the collapse of the USSR almost coincided with the beginning of rapid process of liberalization of the economy in India, the Asian counterpart and an important former Soviet ally whose founder Nehru had been enormously impressed by how actually the Soviet Russians were managing their economic affairs, though he had similarly big reservations about communist ideology. India’s deviation from the Nehruvian socialistic economic policy came almost a decade after the China under post-Mao leadership of Deng Xiaoping had shown impressive growth marrying a communist political system with the capitalist economic system. Thus the events in the early nineties seemed to reinforce capitalism as the only system viable for periods in history long enough to witness and celebrate the downfall of the rival systems.
Now looking back more than two decades after those changes, the contrast between the evolution of Russia and the rising Asian economic giants China and India can be hardly overestimated. If it were not for the sharp rise of the petroleum prices in the last decade, it is hard to imagine where the Russians would be now after the massive theft of the Soviet era state assets. The contrast between the paths taken by India and China on one hand and Russia on the other have been in discourse for pretty long. But lately it is being acknowledged that the miraculous economic growth and apparent prosperity in both China and India have been possible not because of good governance and incorruptibility of the political and administrative system but despite an appalling poor governance and rampant and deeply institutionalized corruption.
The mammoth corruption scams in India or rather the sudden exposure of those scams to the people over last many months has caused such a furor among the Indian public that integrity and honesty of everyone high up in the power hierarchy has been in question including that of the PM Manmohan Singh who was before the episodes praised for his integrity and incorruptibility. The change in perception among the people has been so prominent that, in a desperate attempt to contain the damages, each of the political party is busy attacking the other for one or other scandal as most of the prominent national and regional parties have their own share of mega scams. In the polls in the states like Tamil Nadu , the issue of corruption has been the single most cause behind the sudden fall from grace and loss in the electoral race of the incumbent party/coalition.
Recovering the state wealth misappropriated or simply stolen by many of the powerful persons may be very hard but penalizing them through imprisonment may be possible to the extent that the anti-graft bodies and courts in the country act judiciously. Similarly, bringing them down to powerlessness by defeating them in the polls can be theoretically possible if people know exactly who embezzled how much. But only penalizing those at leadership level is only a tiny part of any process that aims at checking corruption. Even larger, subtler, more pervasive and more devastating the daily lives of ordinary people is a somehow different form of corruption that takes place systemically with involvement of, rather with collusion of people at various levels from high up all the way down to the grassroots level. Ironically, this is rarely taken as corruption with its ordinary meaning, let alone the possibility of any effective drive against such malpractice.
To illustrate this subtler, more institutionalized, less obvious but more pervasive corruption with multi-level stakeholders, I take the example of a multi-billion scam involving the health sector in Uttar Pradesh (UP) state of India that came to notice and was investigated only after the collateral damage of the continuing theft of state asset led to two murders of high government officials. The trail of investigation that led to the exposure of the scam began with the gunning down of Chief Medical Officer(CMO) (Family Welfare), Lucknow, BP Singh on 2 April this year. Before Singh, his predecessor Vinod Arya was gunned down on 27 October 2010, surprisingly, using the same gun. After initial clues behind the motive of the crime, the deputy CMO Y S Sachan was arrested and imprisoned but soon he was apparently murdered inside the prison.
According to the cover story published in a prominent Indian magazine ‘Tehelka’ on 20 August by Ashish Khetan, the Opposition parties alleged that Sachan, the deputy CMO and the alleged mastermind of the double murder was eliminated by someone higher in the government as he/she feared that Sachan could have revealed the involvement of senior politicians and bureaucrats in the embezzlement of National Rural Health Mission(NHRM) funds.
Apparently, the state of Uttar Pradesh whose headquarter is Lucknow, had acquired a staggering Rs 85.7 billion from the centre since 2005-06 for the ill-fated NHRM program. While millions of people in India’s one of the most highly populated and impoverished state with annual incomes as little as few thousand rupees just kept suffering from easily curable ailments, the funds had been simply diverted to the pockets of people from up in the ministries down to the health workers in the barely functioning rural health facilities. While the women kept giving birth to babies at home in extremely unhygienic conditions contributing to high maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality, the data in the health institutions were cooked to siphon off millions through the scheme in which for each delivery in health centre, the woman got Rs 1400 and the midwife got Rs 700, a substantial amount given the average income levels and poverty in the community. Similar was the fate of those elderly with cataract, only few of whom could afford the operation costing as high as Rs. 15,000 from Nursing homes that had received millions of rupees of grant from the government for conducting ‘free’ cataract surgeries.
This was only one among many such scams most of which have not been exposed just because the circumstances have not led to high profile murders as in this case. The fact that there are so big and so pervasive acts of theft and treachery is shocking. But what is more appalling is the fact that the communities, the society, the provinces and the Indian state itself have adapted so well to persistence of such scams. The fact rarely coming to public notice is that significant proportion of the population is just getting poorer and unhealthier just because such scandalous arrangements are there in place to divert whatever the state attempts to spend for their welfare.
Even the most conservative statement about the economy of India will be that, corruption is not the monopoly of the top politicians and beaurocrats as often portrayed and those corrupt people may well form the tip of the iceberg. The body of the iceberg has managed to remain underwater, thanks to the rapidly growing economy that has been able to create wealth at a rate somewhat higher than can be stolen at the same time. But now comes the time when the economy has in many years time shown the real and ominous sign of slowing while the world economy at large remains mired with economic difficulties. With attention of politicians and policymakers fixed at the mega scams like the infamous 2G scam of distribution of telecom licenses and the mammoth scams of illegal mining, there is little that is being done to fix the subtle form of corruption. In the mean time the long term costs of such barely visible scams are so profound and accumulating that the basic services like health and education for the future generation are in severe jeopardy.
Since the coverage of the bright side of the world’s largest democracy is far more appealing than doing the reverse, majority of the print and electronic media in India and outside have chosen to extensively cover the former. The dark side has recently attained a seemingly wide and ‘bold’ coverage, but that too is primarily to increase the readership/viewership as sensationalism around the mega scams has proved to be the most valuable commodity. In this background proper exposure of all forms of corruption followed by forceful and coordinated attempt at curbing the pervasively corrupt acts is the only way out. Though as every other problem that is far easier said than done.