The Supreme Court has directed union and
state governments to constitute a Civil Services Board (CSB) to manage
transfers, postings, promotions, etc., of civil servants, to insulate
bureaucracy from interference by politicians. This welcome direction is based
upon a PIL, which seeks to minimize if not eliminate one aspect of political
corruption in governance that impinges upon effective delivery of services to
the people. In view of the judiciary having to step in to issue a directive
that implicitly speaks of failure of the political executive and legislators,
it is well to take a close look at governance and its bases. Further, since
governance is by people and is supposed to be for people, the individual and
instutional aspects of corruption and vigilance that affect governance need to
be examined.
Governance: State and citizens
Governance, or the control and direction
of State functioning, consists of formulating policies and issuing orders and
directions to implement them. These are or should be based upon laws, rules and
regulations created on the foundation of the Constitution of India. The
executive Council of Ministers is to be collectively responsible to the House
of the People, and hence the political executives and the legislatures are both
responsible for governance. This responsibility is declared by them in the
oaths of office as Minister or as Member of Parliament. A Minister swears to
“do right to all manner of people in accordance with the Constitution and the
law, without fear or favour, affection or ill-will”, and a Member of Parliament
swears to “bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by
law established, that I will uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India and
that I will faithfully discharge the duty upon which I am about to enter”. The
Prime Minister takes an oath to abide by the Constitution and the laws, while
the President of India has a more onerous role, swearing to preserve, protect
and defend the Constitution. Even a casual observer of daily affairs would find
that the majority of official functionaries have taken their oaths of office
rather casually.
The State consists of members of the
political executive and the legislatures, and civil servants, populating a
constitutional structure. It needs to perform its duties according to the
directive principles of state policy, using the politics of discussion, debate,
consultation and consensus, in order to deliver to the people, social, economic
and political justice; liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and
worship; and equality of status and opportunity. The State is also duty bound
to promote fraternity among the people, assuring the dignity of the individual
and the unity and integrity of the Nation. All this is to meant to make the
Nation function as a “sovereign socialist secular democratic Republic”.
The citizens however cannot sit back and
expect good governance from the State, because the Constitution also prescribes
the duties of citizens in a participative democracy. Besides being charged with
the duty to abide by the Constitution, protect the sovereignty and integrity of
the Nation and defend it when the need arises, the citizen is also duty bound
to promote harmony across religious, linguistic and regional diversities, and
renounce practices derogatory to women's dignity. Further, every citizen must
preserve the cultural heritage, protect and improve the natural environment,
safeguard public property, abjure violence, and notably, strive towards
excellence in all spheres of individual and collective activity so that the
nation constantly rises to higher levels of endeavour and achievement.
Thus the Constitution not only directs
what is to be done by whom in which sphere of activity, but also prescribes the
purpose or aim. The Constitution is India's primary strategic document, the
Nation's “holy book” according to which governance must be delivered.
But in recent years, and especially
after the New Economic Policy (NEP-1991), the economics of
privatization and liberalization has been driving politics, rather than
politics using economics as a tool to deliver good governance to the people.
There are huge failures in governance at union and state levels, innumerable
protests by people (especially the poor), rising public discontent and
militancy, and widespread disillusionment and disgust with the political class
and with civil servants. A large proportion of civil servants is complicit with
corrupt politicians, with rare courageous and principled exceptions such as
Sanjiv Chaturvedi (IFS, Haryana), Sanjiv Bhatt (IPS, Gujarat), Ashok Khemka
(IAS, Haryana) and Durgashakti Nagpal (IAS, UP). There is general ignorance
about and public disdain for the Constitution. Political and economic
corruption has risen to unprecedented levels, and this has been accompanied by
precipitous drops in moral and ethical standards of public persons in their
public and private lives.
Political corruption
Political corruption in the electoral
sense is well-recognized, since political parties do not function with internal
democracy. With the exception of elections, democracy is generally a false
facade, and democratic opposition and dissent in public life are violently
attacked verbally and physically. When the nation's sovereignty is supinely
allowed to be compromised, or its socialist or secular character violated, it
should also be termed as political corruption, since it violates the
Constitution. Representative examples are in order concerning sovereignty,
socialism and secularism.
Rather than objecting to USA's NSA spying-snooping
on India, its strategic partner, the union government condoned it as scrutiny,
as if scrutiny of India's governance and spying upon its people and leaders by
USA is acceptable. Thus, our leaders have accepted India's subordination to U.S
machinations and compromised political sovereignty and national honour. The
socialist character of the Republic is possibly the most violated, since NEP-1991 unabashedly leads to policy preference and priority to
capital investment over poverty alleviation, and to the urban-industrial sector
over the rural-agricultural sector. The secular character has been violated by
deliberate ineffectiveness to prevent, contain and prosecute religious
violence, notably the 1984 violence against Sikhs, and the
2002 pogrom against Muslims. Thus 63
years down the road, while this “sovereign socialist secular democratic
Republic” remains in the text of the Constitution, it is mostly missing in
action.
Effect of political corruption
Apart from the four major
characteristics of our Republic being mostly on paper, there are other
significant political failures of both the State and citizenry in daily life.
First, nationalism is increasingly being worn as a badge of honour by
right-wing Hindu fundamentalists, as if those who do not subscribe to their
ideology are less patriotic, even unpatriotic or enemies. Second, the armed
organs of the State as well as armed or militant civil society groups are
increasingly resorting to extreme physical violence, thereby displaying their
utter contempt for human rights. Third, Muslim and Hindu fundamentalist groups
view the “opposite” community as enemies, and use that as the means of
recruitment and rallying. Fourth, domination of Indian society across religions
by the male sex remains undiminished. The khap panchayats at rural levels,
sexist business advertisements and cultural policing at urban levels, and
unabated rape-assault-molestation cases indicate the rise of sexism and the
macho male. The sexual escapades of so-called godmen degrade legitimate
religion and social morality. Fifth, corporate control of mainstream print and
electronic mass media produces profit- and TRP-oriented news and views that are
fed to the reading and viewing public. Glittering advertisements for
high-living, soap-opera serials, endless sports matches and frothy
entertainment programs keep the public sufficiently dumbed down so as to care
for little else unless it concerns them at a personal level. Sixth, the
so-called war on terror and militancy (based on PM Dr.Manmohan Singh's
statement that militancy is the greatest internal security threat ??) has
resulted in anti-people, mass public surveillance by shadowy organizations like
NATGRID and CMS. Seventh, Hindu rituals (poojas) are conducted in government
offices, haj travellers are provided financial help by the State, temples are
granted public funds for their 'development', places of worship in public
places are not demolished as required by the Supreme Court, Government of
Karnataka grants Rs.50,000 “shaadi bhagya” to Muslim
brides, etc. But the demolition of Babri masjid at Ayodhya and its bloody
aftermath infamously exemplifies the unholy nexus between religion and
politics, against the true spirit of secularism. Eighth, corporate power
influences State policy formulation and implementation. For example, the
revenue foregone in the budget by tax concessions to corporate business and
industry far exceeds the budgetted amount for NREGA or help to poor farmers.
And land is extracted (acquisition is the polite word) from poor adivasi and
rural people against environmental and forest laws for handing over to
mega-industries according to secretly-signed MOUs. This is unsurprising
considering that a majority of legislators are crorepatis and “represent” the
“best interests” of the majority of Indians who live on under Rs.20
per day. Ninth, labour and public protest is suppressed. The brutal repression
of the workers of the Maruti-Suzuki Gurgaon factory is typical of government
using the police to protect the interests of business and industry. The filing
of hundreds of false “waging war against the state” and sedition charges
against peaceful protestors at Koodankulam in addition to brutal police attack
while legislators remain silent, is merely another recent example of the repressive
State. Tenth, there is disdain for intellectuals and the arts. The recent
murder of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar, the harrassment of painter
M.F.Hussain, the banning of books and speeches that “hurt” the over-sensitive
sentiments of various segments of society, vandalizing the Bhandarkar Institute
Library in Pune, are all quick examples of social degradation by contempt for
freedom of expression and intellectual diversity, and intolerance of difference
of opinion and democratic dissent. Eleventh, growth of rampant cronyism and
corruption in governments across political parties is undoubtedly the general
public view, needing no amplification. Twelfth, despite herculean efforts of
the Central and State election commissions, elections at panchayat/ULB, state
legislature and parliament levels are still subject to violence, intimidation,
booth-capturing, and vote-purchase. Further, political parties in our
parliamentary democracy are aping the American presidential system by
fraudulent campaigning on the basis of so-called prime-ministerial candidates
(chief-ministerial candidates for state elections), and confusing the
electorate about their programs and public commitment.
The twelve points above do not merely
indicate the social degradation of Indian polity but, when read together,
reveal a disturbing slide towards fascism, which is the anti-thesis of
democracy. Many of these conditions were obtaining in Europe of the 1930s, when Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy came to
power. The decline of democracy and the slide towards fascism is primarily due
to political corruption, and all political parties are to blame for the
failures. But the citizens, particularly the educated ones, are not free from
blame of not having performed their constitutional duties.
Economic corruption
Political corruption is often driven by
economic greed as part of the quid pro quo. Economic corruption which fuels
illegitimate money-and-muscle political power seriously affects good
governance. Economic corruption concerns the secret exchange of movable and/or
immovable property and/or services for unauthorized, unfair or illegal benefit
of both parties to the act of corruption. Obviously not all people in positions
of power and authority or possessing money-power are corrupt. A cynic might say
that most people (common citizens) are honest because they have little
opportunity for stealing and no power or authority for “exchange-corruption”, a
much smaller number who have the power and authority of office are honest
because they are fearful of being caught out and punished, and the smallest
number are honest by personal principle.
Stealing is also a form of corruption.
Stealing movable or immovable property results in the victim being the loser
and the thief being the gainer. Not giving what legally needs to be given, such
as income tax, property tax, commercial tax, etc., also amounts to stealing
because the tax avoider gains while the public exchequer loses. However, in
“exchange-corruption”, both the giver and the receiver are gainers, while the
loser is the organization, society or nation, through moral and ethical
degradation and financial or material loss. Thus, there can be little
hesitation in averring that corruption, besides being illegal, is anti-people,
anti-social, and anti-national. Corrupt persons and those who protect them are
enemies of the State, and considering the astronomical levels of corruption
scams regularly coming to light, corruption can be termed as India's greatest
internal security threat.
Vigilance and leadership
Vigilance simply means watchfulness or
wakefulness. Interestingly, the Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary provides
another meaning: “a planned effort to uncover and punish corruption and bribery
(India)”. This is probably a result of rampant corruption and bribery rooted in
British India, flowering in the seventh decade of India's independence. Thus in
the Indian context, “corruption” refers to “exchange-corruption” as failure of
integrity, and vigilance has the limited meaning of exposing and punishing it.
Political, professional, moral and ethical integrity are rarely if ever
considered or referred to in the public discourse. In order to take a more
holistic and constructive view of vigilance, we need to consider vigilance both
at individual and organizational level.
It is a given of human behaviour that
every individual within any organization, casually or motivatedly, directly or
indirectly, observes or watches every other person. Motivated watching
up-the-line may be to collect information in “self-defence” or to silence or
thwart vigilance, or even to actively gain relative advantage or bargaining
power, or for blackmail. But on the other hand, persons of principled honesty
may also watch their organizational superiors for wrong-doing. In every public
or private organization, persons are leaders at various levels, entrusted with
responsibilities and duties, and vested with appropriate powers and authority.
It is part of the leadership function to be vigilant in order to execute those
responsibilities and duties by guiding and directing the members of the team
for better individual and team performance, to ensure safety at work, etc. In a
nutshell, strive for excellence as a citizen's constitutional duty.
Watching happens in the most fundamental
social organization, the family. Children watch parents as part of the learning
process and imbibe their values and attitudes from observed behaviour, heard
speech and adult conversation. Children also watch their siblings to get
competitive advantage of parental attention or affection. Indeed, vigilance in
its holistic, constructive or positive interpretation can be likened to a
mother's watching over her children for their safety and health, and to help,
teach and guide them for their physical, emotional and social development,
including correcting wrong-doing, and scolding or punishing them when
necessary.
Public vigilance
Citizens participate in democracy by
voting persons into positions of power, authority and responsibility. After
that, citizens need to watch persons in governments and legislatures, so that
constitutional and legal power and authority are used to enhance their freedoms
and not misused to deny citizens their rightful and lawful dues. This vigilance
on the performance of public servants is also part of active participation in
democracy.
Hitherto, active citizens used
information of official wrong-doing obtained by word of mouth or from the news
media, to lodge complaints in appropriate fora. The Right to Information Act,
now expands the extent of citizens' vigilance, and sting operations and
investigative journalism by courageous media persons provide evidence. With
reference to the limited aspect of exchange-corruption, and noting the reality
that an “honest official” is not necessarily honest all the time and a
“dishonest official” is not necessarily dishonest all the time, citizens'
vigilance reduces corruption by making officials wary of getting caught. Since
public vigilance is a threat to corrupt politicains and officials, there are
political and bureaucratic initiatives to reduce the effectiveness of the RTI
Act by motivated amendments and changes. And RTI activists and others who
question governments' policies and decisions are targetted for harassment and
even elimination.
The demand for electoral reforms
includes the “right to recall” an elected representative who performs badly or
inadequately in the interest of his constituency. This is nothing but a form of
public vigilance. Civil society groups like NAPM, PUCL, PUDR and ADR are, at
least in part, vigilance-oriented, even if their primary focus is on specific
fields. Members of these groups are also subject to the predatory attentions of
governments which arrest them and file false criminal cases against them.
Corruption of institutional vigilance
As a part of mandated checks and
balances, governments have institutionalized vigilance at union and state
levels in the form of auditors and accountants, vigilance commissions, election
commissions, lokayuktas and enforcement directorates. These bodies watch
governments and quasi-government organizations not only with reference to
economic and political corruption, but also for effective performance. They are
therefore the positive and constructive, constitutional tools of vigilance.
Governments also need to watch certain
places like railway and bus stations for general public safety, and certain
people like criminal or terrorist suspects. This necessary targetted vigilance
is carried out by police and intelligence agencies, while special investigations
are carried out by the CBI and enforcement directorates.
However, in the name of keeping citizens
safe from terror attacks, governments are widening the scope of vigilance to
general mass surveillance. This consists of collecting biometric data of all
residents in India to assign a so-called unique identification (UID) number.
This UID (Aadhaar) number forms the link between hitherto independent
information silos of the election commission, banks, food and civil supplies,
police intelligence, life and general insurance agencies, regional transport
authorities, passport office, income tax offices, etc. Together with IT-based
advanced biometric recognition techniques and enormously enhanced digital data
repositories and processing power, government has the technological basis
required for mass surveillance. The structural basis for mass surveillance is
provided by creation of the National Intelligence Grid (Natgrid) and
Centralized Monitoring System (CMS), both highly secret, shadowy organizations.
Even though its technological and
structural bases are in place, mass surveillance does not have legal sanction
and cannot have constitutional legitimacy. Worse, some laws have been enacted
to enlarge the scope of misuse of government powers of surveillance, while
there is no privacy law in place to protect individual freedoms. This
unaccountable and intransparent power in the hands of self-selected, anonymous,
unapproachable officials and non-officials is dangerously undemocratic and can
be the primary tool for arbitrarily profiling individuals and groups for
political, communal or commercial purposes. Besides watching ordinary citizens,
mass surveillance will watch all persons in government, legislature and
judiciary, and the vigilance agencies, all of whom will become open to
unconstitutional and illegal influence in their official functioning, making
their oaths of office and secrecy irrelevant. Governments “of the people” will
come under private control.
This is vigilance gone haywire and is
constitutional corruption, in which We the People will be watched by unconstitutional
or extra-constitutional entities for political or commercial gain. It is not an
overstatement to say that such mass surveillance is a huge Orwellian step
towards the decline of democracy and the rise of fascism.
Future tense
There is a joke doing the rounds, on
failure of the pillars of the Constitution. Gandhiji in heaven asks Chitragupta
as to how the three monkeys (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil) are
doing in India. Chitragupta replies that all three are doing well – andha
bandar kanoon ban gaya; behera bandar sarkar ban gaya; aur goonga bandar
vidhayak ban gaya. The desperate helplessness and frustration of people in
political jokes precedes anarchic violence.
Corruption, whether political or
economic, moral or ethical, or some combination of them, stands in the way of
people's political, economic and cultural progress. Corruption, the nation's
greatest internal security threat, needs to be controlled by vigilance. But
vigilance clearly is a mixed bag. Too little of people's vigilance leads to
mis-governance and mal-governance, while institutional vigilance extending to
mass surveillance can be fatal to democracy and the constitutional rule of We
the People.
Whether India slips into fascism or
manages to keep the ship of democracy afloat will depend on several factors –
possibly the most important is the quality of leadership. There is dire need of
political leadership of unquestionable integrity, which has empathy for the
majority poor and is strong without being dictatorial, with strategic vision
based solidly on our Constitution, capable of handling and enabling civil
servants, and capable of managing dissent and opposition without capitulating
on principles. Only statesmanship displayed by political leaders can pull the
nation out of the depths of its political corruption created in recent decades
by little men and women with bloated egos, little vision of national strategic
goals, enormous personal greed, glaring ignorance or contempt of the
Constitution and their sworn constitutional responsibilities, and a penchant
for pettiness. Whether such statesmen-leaders will emerge from the present
political churning will determine the direction that our Republic will take at
the 2014 general election crossroads.
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