PREVENTION OF CORRUPTION IS A MUST FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE

Author: Abhishek Mishra

The standard definition of governance states as - “all processes of governing whether undertaken by a government, market or network; whether over a family, tribe, formal or informal organization or territory and whether through laws, norms, power or language.”

Corruption is the misuse of authorized power by a person for illegitimate private gain. By all means corruption deters the governance mechanism but its impact depends on its level. Veiled corruption generally tends to decrease the efficiency while rampant corruption at its peak can even cause a complete failure of governing machinery altogether.

The brunt of corruption on governance can be perceived in three exclusive dimensions – First is economical aspect, second is chaos & inconvenience to people and third is breach of ethical values along with loss of morality and integrity. Let’s have a detailed analysis of each of these dimensions separately.

Considering economical dimension we can say that the wealth acquired through corrupt practices is ultimately the loss of the common man. The black money is free from auditing and taxation, thus it creates a web of parallel economy to the main stream economy. This undercover channel is so gigantic that it even has tools like ‘hawala’ analogous to RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement system)/NEFT (National Electronic Fund Transfer) for transaction across the national border. It is obvious that as more money would go black, lesser resources will be available for developmental processes, deficit will increase which in turn will increase the pressure on common man via heavy taxation and expensive amenities. A similar story goes at the individual level too. Majority of people who are not so advantageously placed or not too retarded to indulge themselves into corrupt activities tend to lose a remarkable chunk out of their income in attempt to peacefully avail basic necessities. So they are left with lesser resources which they would have otherwise utilized in their upliftment. To some capable city-dwellers the difference brought by corruption in their personal budget can be ignorable but for a larger population it amounts to life-threatening levels. For example consider that seventy percent population which depends on agriculture and animal husbandry for its livelihood. In their life corruption is inaugurated with the drafting of birth certificate which is required for some monetary benefits under several government schemes and haunting them throughout their journey of life, it ends with the making of death certificate which is required for the process of property allocation to the offspring. During their lifetime nearly all the facilities that they deserve, i.e. water-shed development in heavy rain fed areas, tube well and canal irrigation infrastructure in rain shadow areas, roads to market, electricity, agri-consultancy, etc. appear to succumb at the feet of corruption. Not only this, farmers face the thrust of corruption yet at other fronts like crop failure assessment for compensation, irregularities in subsidies of HYV seeds, fertilizers, diesel etc. No wonder that India has recorded 12360 farmer-suicides in the year 2014. It is clearly an utter failure of governance and it would not be an exaggeration to mark corruption as the core culprit for the cause.

Coming to the second dimension of corruption, let’s analyze the disorder, aggravation and vexation created by it. It is well known that corruption is an illegal practice; so the innocent victims are often taunted by use of legal loopholes and are compelled to fall into the trap. For example consider a farmer applying for loan. He rushes to bank keeping pending all his work and his loan is repeatedly delayed by the authority due to some document error or employee absentee or any other excuse. The unpaid opportunity cost for the pending work keeps on increasing day by day and then finally he has to realize the bitter truth. After falling in the trap every hurdle vanishes dramatically. This was about the direct inconvenience caused by corruption but there are many indirect blows as well. It drastically decreases the quality of production, for example, the roads which are expected to remain intact for 20 years gets mutilated by single monsoon. Corruption in recruitment processes places undeserving candidates at strategic positions that not only hamper the efficiency but also put a stigma on the organization concerned. Sometimes there is such a naked display of corruption that we are not even left in a position to care about the quality of output as the output itself gets disguised, for instance, we have records of such scams where the tube-wells existed in documents of all concerned departments such as municipality, commissioner’s office, block office, except only it was missing from the real installation sites.

Now let us have a look at the third and most worrying dimension. These days a growing fashion of killing one’s righteousness and overriding one’s conscience can be easily observed. Due to its omnipresence, corruption has crept into the blood of most of us. The implications of corruption on its perpetrators are so covert that though it steadily eats up their peace, value, dignity, and body yet they live in an illusion that the cause of their miseries is some alien and also that the wealth acquired through corrupt practices can mitigate the ill-effects. Once a soul is corrupted and values are lost, the person is not even able to distinguish between its victims, i.e., the unethical behavior would be reflected in their each and every activity which will consequently make their personal life distressful and hell. It is quite alarming that corruption has already augmented to its next level, ‘theft’. Unlike earlier, now people proudly claim and flaunt their wrongly acquired wealth and assets. These days, people openly steal electricity to operate air-conditioners and brag about it to others. If the percentage of thieves, dacoits and people of retarded mentality keeps on increasing then the day is not far when the collective ethical stand of the society will be biased towards criminals and then ‘governance’ will become a hypothetical dream-project. Moreover a corrupted soul is always followed by a spoilt brain or a diseased body or both because as per the Bhagwat-Gita, ‘a pure soul resides in a healthy body & vice-versa.’

As virus doesn’t even spare anti-virus, similarly corruption is so contaminating that even anti- corruption squads and vigilance authorities are not immune from it. The potency of its threat to governance is tremendous because it has found its space in nearly all sectors, be it politics bureaucracy or defense. Its roots are so deep that it seems well synchronized with the governance and at few instances it even appears to be completely homogenized with the governance. Confusion always prevails that whether corruption is a byproduct of ill-governance or corruption itself initiates illness in governance. Though it is like wondering that whether the hen came first or the egg, yet let us scrutinize the nature of relation between corruption, governing system and people.

In the light of corruption, people can be categorized into three sections. The first section is the higher extreme that constitutes of people of high values and concrete determination. They provide a steel frame to the governance. It is their selfless contribution and spirit that provides ground for governance. Second category constitutes of people of lower extreme such as evil spirits, psychopaths and criminals. The third section lies between these two poles and consists of the majority. They are the opportunists who are on the boundary between ditch of corruption and ocean of honesty. A slight push or a mild greed is enough to make them fall in the ditch but to keep them honest we need to drag them all the way along the ocean. The force of drag can be provided by an efficient governing system. People of this section are highly vulnerable to prevailing circumstances, e.g., a person working honestly in a private firm with strict norms may become corrupt if appointed at any lenient public post.

The big question is that how to set rules for governance in order to prevent the common man from corrupt practices? It is a universally accepted theory that as the governance leans toward socialistic ideologies then corruption increases and if governance is inspired by capitalistic ideology then though corruption reduces drastically but humanitarian aspects are compromised. So the challenge is to check corruption while keeping a balance between both ideologies. First thing required in this direction is political will and secondly we can make extensive use of technology for the purpose. Digitization, electronic-surveillance and transparency can help a lot. Besides these, education for all should be the prime target instead of mere literacy and in this field we urgently need a revolutionary approach.

Thus it can be concluded that corruption and perfection are two faces of the same coin called ‘Governance’. Though the darker side is of remarkable magnitude yet there are ways and means to lighten that part. Complete eradication of darkness seems impractical but, ‘if the night is dark, when is the lighting of lamp prohibited.’