Last month, there was a big revolt against the government by a single man named Anna Hazare in India. Anna Hazare wants the corruption to be stopped in India that made him popular among the common people who are now tired of corruption in every sphere of Indian administration and political level. Hazare’s intentions are noble and in reality if India has to grow faster and its citizens want to have better standard of living, corruption has to be rooted out from the system.
In India, corruption is not there as in other countries. In developed countries, corruption may be there at high political level. In other developing countries like Malaysia and China, corruption is made to get some favour or to do something against the law or policies of the government. But corruption is totally at different level in India. It is a norm or unwritten law to give corruption to government employees for doing his routine and normal duty. Corruption is at all levels, but the corruption at the lower level of the government administration like getting ration cards, land and property registration, government hospitals etc. much affect the common man.
Corruption has become an institution by itself. Corruption not only does affect the common man, it is rampant in business and political level. Fixed percentage of corruption has to go at different stages of business approval. One Indian Prime Minister had asserted that only 1/6th of the fund spent goes to the actual project or people for which the planned fund is assigned.
Corruption drags the growth of the country to a set level (may be 10% to 25% of its actual growth rate), but more than the growth of the country it is the quality of life of common people that is very much affected. People are tired of corruption and its evils in the society. It is sad to note that it has not only confined to government organisations, it has spread to private sector like education and other service industries also.
There are many laws added every now and then to curtail the corruption. But in reality nothing has stopped it or even reduced its level. The liberalisation of economic policies in 1991 had some positive impact in reducing the corruption. The licence raj was stopped and the bureaucratic hurdles or the number of licences to open a business were reduced and in some industries like Information technology, bio-technology and advanced industries the licences were more open with very few hiccups.
Current government’s Right to Information Act passed in 2005 had a small impact in reducing the corruption by giving the citizens to get information from different government offices. This has at least opened up a chance for the ordinary people to know what is going at government level.
There are already numerous ant-corruption laws and courts set up. Each state government have set up anti-corruption police and vigilant units. The central government have set up anti-corruption vigilance cell in important departments such as Income tax and also have special court for anti-corruption. What is the impact of all these anti-corruption government organisations? It is sad to see that corruption has not come down and all these organisations have no or very little effect in controlling the corruption.
From the past experience in India, it is much questionable how Anna Hazare and his team’s new Jan Lokpal bill can do to reduce the corruption. Though the intention of the bill may be noble and truthful in controlling the corruption, it again has to depend on the bureaucratic set up. As we have seen there are already hundreds if not thousands of laws and bills passed to control the corruption that has been only a failure due to its bureaucratic dependency.
To control the corruption in India there are two important steps needed. As we have seen in 1990’s the liberalisation has reduced the corruption at least in the upcoming industries due to the limited government requirements. Reduce the government requirements to minimum. In case of tax department, make the law easy with little allowances and deductions thereby the scope for corruption is reduced to great level.
In other cases like normal government administrative works, it is not possible to reduce the legal requirements due to its necessity. In these cases, make the anti-corruption laws which are already there in the constitution more adaptable to the present situation and implement them effectively and efficiently. It is implementation of these laws which is lacking.
Anti –corruption police and vigilant force, judicial and the media are the three important institutions that have to play important role in controlling the corruption. When there is compliant from a person against any corruption, the police and the vigilant force have to take fast and effective way to trace out the corruption and make a solid case to present it before the judicial. The judiciary for its part have to make the verdict as fast as possible and take the corrective and punitive actions. The media have to play a purposeful supportive role in these cases without discrimination and favourability.
When these policies and anti-corruptive practices are implemented with truth and commitment by the concerned three forces there is chance for rooting out corruption. It is possible to remove corruption in India as another independent body named election commission had done it in the past by conducting free and fair elections with very less irregularities and corruption in elections. If there is commitment from all the sections of the society and political level, corruption can be at least reduced to great level.
The fast and revolt done by Anna Hazare against the corruption may itself not totally stop the corruption but at least it is a starting point for the corruption to be removed from India and if not fully eradicated but at least reduced to low levels in reality. Another point by Hazare to include all including the Prime Minister and the Supreme Court Chief Justice is valid. Everyone should fall under the gambit of law and should not allow any individual whoever and whatever position he holds to escape from the law.
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