Corruption in India

When so many writers are talking of the emergence of India on the global stage, it is interesting that we are getting riddled with scams. From the Bofors Scam, Commonwealth Games scam, Adarsh Housing Scam, IPL scam, to the Fodder Scam to the 2G scam, we seem to have covered the whole spectrum (cheap pun).  

Someone even tried to sell the Taj - yes, that's true. There are scandals involving the Army, the judiciary and of course the politicians. There are scams involving the poor quality of bullet proof vests for the policemen and yes, there is a Kargil Coffin scam as well.

Some professions have become entirely tainted - much to the chagrin of the honest minority that shares the profession with the corrupt.

So much so that today there are movies made about honest police officers (The movie Singham being the most recent example). There is even a Wikipedia page dedicated to a chronological listing of scandals in India. <read this page>

One cannot but help marvel at the ingenuity of the variety of scams and scandals that have erupted every year and each one has redefined the amount of money that an individual would have made. The 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency Internationalshows that nearly three quarters of the 178 countries have an index score below five, on a scale from 10 (highly clean) to 0 (highly corrupt). India ranks low at 87th with a score of 3.3 a distinction shared by Albania, Jamaica and Liberia. Denmark, Singapore and New Zealand ranked No 1 ie the cleanest countries according to this ranking.

Why is there so much corruption in India?

I believe that it depends on the way we visualise the term family in our mind. India is a country of relationships and some of these relationships can be hard to understand for someone who does not share this world view. Ask a a few Indians to draw all the people who they consider to be family. This may or may not be limited to their blood ties.

While the nuclear family is a by product of urbanization, the joint family perhaps better reflects the emotional reality. The extended family would include maternal and paternal uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins twice removed and the list could go on. It is not uncommon to be introduced to someone who is "my brother" or better still "like my brother" where the term brother refers only to emotional closeness with that person. The concept of a "Raakhi Sister" refers to a girl who has tied a "raakhi" (a holy thread) around the wrist of someone she considers emotionally to be her brother. This transcends any confines of clan.

Raakhi can create a sense of kinship even among enemies. The great Hindu King Porus refrained from striking Alexander, the Great because the latter’s wife had approached this mighty adversary and tied a Rakhi on his hand, prior to the battle, urging him not to hurt her husband. In parts of rural India, anyone from the village back home will be referred to as a "Bhai" when they meet in the city.

This kinship can be traced to notion of Jaati and Varna - as explained by Dr Edmund Weber.

The colonial term 'caste' is muddling the two sociological categories meaning completely different social states of affairs: 'jati' and 'varna'. Jati means real working community of birth, marriages, of profession, culture and religion (closer to the widely (mis)understood meaning of caste; varna, however, means the social rank, status, order (closer to class). ”Varna”does not mean the work-sharing assignment of the “jatis”. This has been always an element of the “jatis” The socio-cultural evaluation of the “jatis”, their ranking place (again, as in class), is expressed by the hierarchical “varna”.

The Responsibility of the Successful

What does this have to do with corruption? That perhaps places a "responsibility" in the mind of the person in power to use his or her power to provide for the "family members" - some of whom may not be in such a fortunate position themselves. In a society which is power distant (ie the extent to which the poor and less powerful accept that the rich and powerful have more privileges), there has been some passive acceptance of corruption. The rich or powerful relative has a moral duty to find a "good" job for the family members.

This ad for the Maruti Omni car shows that the successful son (or perhaps the "ideal" son?) does not only keep the spoils of success for himself but brings home goodies for the entire family. Even a daily wage earner is expected to borrow money from the money lender to feed the extended family of the village on occasions of birth, death and marriage. The duty towards the extended family transcends all logic.

So it is not enough for the powerful family member to line their own pockets, but also line the pockets of the extended family. Does that explain why A Raja, forfeited $39 BILLION (Rs 176,000 “crore”  - a crore is $10m: almost $40 billion in all) as the telecom minister while auctioning the 2G spectrum. 

Would love to know how large is the definition of "family" in the mind of  Raja or a Suresh Kalmadi.