Understanding political corruption in contemporary indian politics

Political Studies

Volumn 45, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 626-638

  Singh, Gurharpal ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0040007499     PISSN: 00323217     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9248.00099     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. W. H. Morris-Jones, The Government and Politics of India (London, Hutchinson, 1971), p. 62.
2. G. Myrdal, 'Corruption as a Hindrance to Modernisation in South Asia', in A. J. Heidenheimer (ed.), Political Corruption (New Brunswick NJ, Transaction, 1978), p. 232.
3. For details of the Hawala scandal see India Today (New Delhi) 15 March 1996.
4. India Today, 30 September 1996.
5. See India Today, 15 October 1996.
6. India News Network Digest (Bowling Green University) 10 December 1996.
7. India Today, 15 March 1996.
8. India Today, 30 November 1996.
9. India Today, 30 November 1996.
10. For a review of this literature see R. Roy, 'The Political Economy of Fiscal Policy', Ph.D., University of Cambridge, 1994; P. Bardhan, The Political Economy of Development in India (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1984); and D. Lal, Hindu Equilibrium: Cultural Stability and Economic Stagnation, India C 1500BC-1980 AD Vol. 1 (Oxford, Clarendon, 1988).
11. For a review of this literature see R. Roy, 'The Political Economy of Fiscal Policy', Ph.D., University of Cambridge, 1994; P. Bardhan, The Political Economy of Development in India (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1984); and D. Lal, Hindu Equilibrium: Cultural Stability and Economic Stagnation, India C 1500BC-1980 AD Vol. 1 (Oxford, Clarendon, 1988).
12. For a review of this literature see R. Roy, 'The Political Economy of Fiscal Policy', Ph.D., University of Cambridge, 1994; P. Bardhan, The Political Economy of Development in India (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1984); and D. Lal, Hindu Equilibrium: Cultural Stability and Economic Stagnation, India C 1500BC-1980 AD Vol. 1 (Oxford, Clarendon, 1988).
13. See B. Harriss-White, 'Liberalisation and corruption: resolving the paradox (A discussion based on South Indian Material)', Institute of Development Studies Bulletin, 27 (1996), 31-9.
14. Such a contrast is implicit in the literature on political decay, deinstitutionalization and the problem of governability. See in particular J. Manor, 'Anomie in Indian politics', Economic and Political Weekly (Bombay), xviii, nos. 19-21 (May 1983), 725-73 and A. Kohli, Democracy and Discontent: India's Growing Crisis of Ungovernability (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990).
15. Such a contrast is implicit in the literature on political decay, deinstitutionalization and the problem of governability. See in particular J. Manor, 'Anomie in Indian politics', Economic and Political Weekly (Bombay), xviii, nos. 19-21 (May 1983), 725-73 and A. Kohli, Democracy and Discontent: India's Growing Crisis of Ungovernability (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990).
16. Government of India, Report of the Committee on the Prevention of Corruption (Santhanam Report) (New Delhi, Ministry of Home Affairs, 1964), p. 5.
17. See for example the threat made by the Chief Minister of Bihar, Laloo Parsad Yadev, to take his case to the 'people's court' in his state if he were found guilty of corrupt practices by the central government. See India Today, 15 February 1997.
18. For a discussion of the 'Congress System' see R. Kothari, 'The Congress "System" in India', Asian Survey, 4 (1964), 1161-73.
19. J. Harriss, 'Indian Industrialisation and the State', in H. Alavi and J. Harriss (eds), South Asia (London, Macmillan, 1989) provides a useful summary of debate about planning, pp. 70-90. See also J. Toye, Public Expenditure and Indian Development Policy 1960-1970 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981).
20. J. Harriss, 'Indian Industrialisation and the State', in H. Alavi and J. Harriss (eds), South Asia (London, Macmillan, 1989) provides a useful summary of debate about planning, pp. 70-90. See also J. Toye, Public Expenditure and Indian Development Policy 1960-1970 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981).
21. This extremely important observation was assigned to a long footnote in a seminal article by R. Wade, 'The market for public office: why the Indian state is not better at development', World Development, 13, no.4 (1985), 467-95, n.64. Wade's contention that political scientists have generally failed to see the dynamic character of this relationship is also supported by his argument that too fine a distinction has been maintained in the study of politics and administration in India.
22. J. Manor, ' "Can I Manage?" Chief Ministers and Corruption', unpublished paper presented at a workshop on Political Corruption in South Asia, held at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 29 November 1996.
23. Quoted by Hari Jai Singh in The Sunday Tribune (Chandigarh) 18 October 1996.
24. For an indication of the increase in size of corruption see J. B. Monteiro, 'The Dimensions of Corruption in India', in A. J. Heidenheimer, Political Corruption, pp. 220-8.
25. Quoted in Monteiro, p. 228 (emphasis added).
26. Quoted in R. K. Karanjia, The Mind of Mr Nehru (London, George, Allen and Unwin, 1960), p. 61.
27. This is especially so in case of the literature on political decay and deinstitutionalization. See in particular the contributions to A. Kohli (ed.), India's Democracy: An Analysis of Changing State-Society Relations (Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1988).
28. S. A. Kochanek, 'Briefcase politics in India; the Congress Party and business elite', Asian Survey, xxvii (1987), p. 1290.
29. C. S. Pandit, End of an Era (New Delhi, Allied, 1977), p. 113.
30. Kochanek, 'Briefcase politics in India', p. 1281.
31. For a review of the causes see P. B. Mayer, 'Congress (I) Emergency (I): Interpreting Indira Gandhi's India', Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, xxvi (1984) 128-50.
32. See G. Singh, 'Understanding the "Punjab Problem" ', Asian Survey, xxvii (1987), 1268-77.
33. Quoted in L. Rudolph and S. Rudolph, In Pursuit of Lakshmi (Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1987), p. 152.
34. Kochanek, 'Briefcase politics in India', p. 1297.
35. Again Wade's proposition that political competition in India increases the demand for corruption appears to be supported by contemporary events, but remains to be tested.
36. India Today, 31 March 1996.
37. One of the cases against Rao, popularly known as the investigation into the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) scandal, involved the bribery of minority party MPs in order to avoid a defeat on a non-confidence motion against Congress. See India Today, 30 September 1996.
38. These developments affect most of the states in the Hindi belt but Laloo Parsad Yadev's Janata Party rule in Bihar typifies the point being made. For details of the recent fodder scam see India Today, 15 July 1996.
39. India Today, 15 July 1996. The annual budget in Bihar has not been formally set since 1990.
40. For example, in an interesting inversion of the criticism made of the extension of affirmative action programmes for the lower castes, the leaders of these caste groups have defended the widening of patronage to their social constituency - often perceived as corrupt by the media - on the grounds that they are merely doing what the higher castes had done since 1947. See K. Balagopal, 'This anti-Mandal mania', Economic and Political Weekly (Bombay), 6 October 1990, pp.231-4.
41. J. Manor, 'Can I Manage?'
42. Little systematic research has been undertaken into this aspect of political corruption. For an example which confirms this view see J. Manor, Power, Poverty and Poison: Disaster and Response in an Indian City (New Delhi, Sage, 1992).
43. Such strategies of survival mirror the dilemmas of honest bureaucrats in a corrupt system. Writing generally about the Indian situation, D. H. Bayley, 'The Effects of Corruption in Developing Nations', in Heidenheimer, Political Corruption, noted: 'Even the honest official may be blackmailed by the threat that unless he acts unfairly he may be charged publicly with being corrupt', p. 528. Seen from the point of view of clients in the Indian political system, a corrupt official is 'not one who takes money, but one who takes no more than the normal rate, who does not haggle, and who having taken your money at least tries to help you in return', R. Wade, 'The system of administrative and political corruption: canal irrigation in south India', Journal of Development Studies, 18 (3) (1982), 287-328.
44. Such strategies of survival mirror the dilemmas of honest bureaucrats in a corrupt system. Writing generally about the Indian situation, D. H. Bayley, 'The Effects of Corruption in Developing Nations', in Heidenheimer, Political Corruption, noted: 'Even the honest official may be blackmailed by the threat that unless he acts unfairly he may be charged publicly with being corrupt', p. 528. Seen from the point of view of clients in the Indian political system, a corrupt official is 'not one who takes money, but one who takes no more than the normal rate, who does not haggle, and who having taken your money at least tries to help you in return', R. Wade, 'The system of administrative and political corruption: canal irrigation in south India', Journal of Development Studies, 18 (3) (1982), 287-328.
45. The Ombudsman established to investigate charges of corruption against the ruling administration in Punjab has recently been abolished in the interests of 'efficiency', see Des Pardes (Southall), 20 December 1996.
46. India Today, 31 March 1996.
47. Times of India (New Delhi) 21 November 1996.
48. See India Today, 31 October 1996.
49. The statutory provisions for prosecuting corrupt behaviour in India are among the most rigorous in the world. The Prevention of Corruption Act (1988) provides a broad range of custodial sentences for encouraging or participating in corrupt practices. Section 13 (1) of the Act includes the provision for assessing allegations of corruptions or corrupt practices if an individual's 'assets [are] disproportionate to known sources of income'. In addition the Companies Act (1985) and the Representation of Peoples Act (1975) limit the extent of business donations to political parties and the expenditure of parties and candidates during elections. At the provincial level every state government has an Anti-Corruption Bureau and a Vigilance Commission. The use of this legislation and machinery, however, has regularly broken down at the point of enforcement. In response to this inertia the last few years have seen the growth of Public Interest Litigation (PIL) - the filing of petitions by ordinary citizens in the Supreme and High Courts on issues of 'public interest'. Paradoxically, the United Front government which is leading the anti-corruption crusade, is now proposing to limit the scope of PIL by amending the Prevention of Corruption Act so that it does not cover the conduct of MPs or state legislators. For further details see India News Network Digest, 22 February 1997.
50. See A. December, 'Political corruption: a review of literature', European Journal of Political Science, 8 (1980), p. 462.
51. Hari Jai Singh writing in The Sunday Tribune, 24 November 1996.
52. Wade, 'The market for public office', p. 487 (emphasis in the original).
53. Myrdal went further and argued that there was a clear link between the type of 'inclusive corruption' which showed loyalty to family, caste or community group and the existence of a 'soft state' which 'implied a low level of social discipline', Myrdal, p. 238. Political scientists, as we have noted, have tended to focus on macro issues of legitimacy and governance without recognizing the relationship between these concepts and contemporary political corruption in India.
54. See India Today, 15 March 1996.
55. India Today, 15 March 1996.
56. Facing an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation, Laloo Parsad Yadev, the Chief Minister of Bihar, has threatened to take his defence to the 'people's court'. His supporters have warned that if he is charged, arrested or dislodged 'rivers of blood will flow'. India Today, 31 January 1997.