Twenty years of economic reforms have changed India in a way few could imagine when the reform programme was launched in 1991. If, somehow, 2011 could see the launch of serious political reform, how much more can India change? Today, the corrupt stalk the corridors of power even as a committed man of the people like Dr Binayak Sen is convicted as an enemy of the state. What does it say about the nature of the state that it sees a Binayak Sen as its enemy? Can the new year ring in political change that would put people like Sen in charge, while the Kalmadis and Rajas are in the dock?
The big powers with permanent membership of the UN Security Council all visited India in 2010. India is poised to become the fastest growing economy of the world. Its per capita income is growing at close to 7 percent, its workforce is young and increasingly educated, Indian investment is widely wooed and Indian films, Indian food and Indian managers spread their soft power around the world. But scams and parliamentary paralysis dominate the public imagination today. India is a nation that corruption has in its thrall. The challenge is to beat corruption.
The root of corruption, paradoxically enough, is our democratic process. Political activity costs money, lots of it. However, we have failed to institute an open, transparent way of funding politics. So politicians have found non-institutional ways to fund politics, and themselves. Essentially, there are three methods, all of which are immoral and corrupt: loot of the exchequer, sale of patronage and plain extortion.
Diversion of a portion of public expenditure to politicians' pockets is commonplace. Procurement commissions, contractors' inflated bills, etc are common methods of looting the exchequer. Giving out mining leases or ensuring non-interference in power theft are examples of patronage being sold. Collecting money for what should be routine clearance by the government of compliant commercial conduct, whether for conversion of agricultural land for commercial use, environmental clearance or even a simple power connection are examples of extortion by the state.
Since all these forms of mobilisation of resources involve use of the state machinery, they suborn the civil service as well. Since illegal extraction or diversion of money is not liable to strict accounting, political fund mobilisation also doubles as personal enrichment, by politicians, bureaucrats and powerbrokers.
The system can be cleansed only if an open, transparent system of funding political activity is instituted. The laws already permit companies to make political contributions, and these are tax exempt. However, laws requiring political parties to declare the source of their expenditure are lax, if not non-existent.
India has laws that prescribe how trade unions should function. But there are no laws effectively governing political parties. The Constitution talks about groups in Parliament , but is silent on political parties. The Representation of the People Act does have some stipulations about declaration of donations in excess of Rs 20,000 and maintaining accounts. This is not enough.
By deploying information technology, it is possible for any organisation to maintain a record of every paisa it receives and spends, without the process of keeping records becoming an onerous financial or logistical burden on the organisation. It is imperative to amend the laws to require every political party to account for every rupee, if not every paisa, it spends. And the source of funding and items of expenditure should be open to public scrutiny.
Every party should be free to scrutinise the accounts of its competitors. Citizens' watchdog groups could join in, and a statutory body with extensive manpower-the election commission itself or a similar body-could be authorised to verify the challenges to declared income and expenditure of political parties and their functionaries.
A billion cellphones, each with an embedded camera and access to the Internet, could play a major role in bringing transparency to the working of the government and of the political parties.
For the battle against corruption to progress, we need a functional legal system, not the creaking, dilapidated dysfunctional apparatus we have at present. India can no longer blame any scarcity of resources for not having enough judges, court rooms and other infrastructure to truncate the life of any litigation, from initiation to disposal of the final appeal, to, say, 18 months. What is lacking is the political will to change things.
There is far too much cynicism that nothing can change, that politicians themselves will not initiate reform that will block their own path to personal enrichment. This underestimates our politicians and the Indian people at large. Bihar has re-elected Nitish Kumar, essentially for his credible promise of governance that could open the path to enterprise and prosperity. This is not a miracle, just an example of redemptive possibility that cynicism rules out.
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