Special to the New York Times
NEW DELHI: It has many nhames:”No.2” “ours” “Khilana para” (“feed him”). They are all expressions for corruption for the money that makes things happen in India that assures telephones industrial contracts land sales bureaucratic appointments.
From the smallest village to the jumble of towns that speckle the countryside to the vast urban warehouses of Bombay Calcutta and above all New Delhi Indias multi-layered Government functions less as a provider of services an upholder of law and a dispenser of justice than as a caldron for greed and venality Indians and foreigners say.
Corruption has long been a feature of life in this country but many people say its growing rapidly and becoming so pervasive that India may never emerge from poverty and under development or possess a truly just legal system. “It’s spread like a cancer” said Soll Jehangir Sorabjee a former Attorney General and now a private barrister in the capital “Its reached a terminal state. There is a complete breakdown of values.” Another measure of the virulence of corruption is that for the first time many Indians are openly questioning not only whether honest government is even possible but also whether the country’s very soul has been irredeemably warped.
Corruption can be seen in India from the highest to the lowest levels. In a village in the state of Rajasthan residents report that money allocated by the United Nations Children’s Fund goes to village authorities rather than the people for which it is intended.
A self-described “liaison agent” reports in New Delhi that Government permits for the making of beer can be bought for $3700 in cash And an executive of one of Indias largest companies reports that one must make payments for a seat on the train or a power line or telephone for one’s business.
While corruption mushroomed throughout the 1980s there have never before been so many charges of malfeasance in high places. Recent accusations have been leveled at Indias Attorney General the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in the Government and at a justice of the Supreme Court.
What many Indians find remarkable is the relative complacency of the Prime Minister and others in Government toward these charges and the seeming implication that corruption has become if not an acceptable feature of Indian life at least an inescapable one.
Whether it is millions of dollars paid into a Government official’s bank account abroad to fix a sales contract on a few rupees given to local assistant to obtain a needed signature bureaucratic and government venality is causing a dramatic swelling in frustration and resentment.
India is by no means alone in the developing world in struggling under the weight of official corruption. But what sets it apart is its long struggle to survive as the world’s largest democracy with a stated commitment to casing the conditions of its poorest citizens.
For many Indians corruption has thus become a symbol of the inability of the country to live up to standards that it sees for itself. Moreover while payoffs may be common among wealthy business interests in other countries in India no one is untouched by the phenomenon.
There is no one reason why corruption has become so widespread here. Indians point to the low salaries of Government officials and a system of regulations and licensing that gives bureaucrats power over virtually every facet of economic life.
Some say a turning point came in the late 1980s. Accusations that Rajiv Gandhi then the Prime Minister had taken tens of millions of dollars in bribes from a Swedish arms manufacturer though never proven did much to encourage many people to believe that they too were entitled to profit from corruption.
“If you want a telephone repaired you have to grease some ones m Sorabjee said. “If you want to get your electricity line fixed you have to pay someone off. If you want a railway ticket or admission for your child to school everyone has to be paid.”
Tavleen Singh a syndicated columnist who is one of Indias most perceptive and acerbic commentators lay the blame on four decades of pursuing socialist ideals.
“I would say that 95% of corruption is due to the power of the state and socialism” Singh said. “If we could reduce the power of the state you would reduce corruption a lot.”
Foreign scholars also say that corruption has become a defining feature of Indian life and question where the country is headed.
“Since independence” Paul R. Brass wrote in a recent volume of the New Cambridge History of India” corruption has reached the highest levels of the I.A.S.” the Indian Administrative Service the country’s elite Civil Service. “Moreover corruption below the elite levels has been institutionalized and affects virtually all departments such that no service can be expected as a right and virtually nothing can be done without payment.”
Article extracted from this publication >> November 27, 1992
