DR.

RAM MANOHAR LOHIYA

NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY,
LUCKNOW.

Political Science
Project on
Corruption in India

SUBMITTED TO:Mr. Brajesh Mishra

BY :Ayush Kumar Singh

Asst. Professor in Political Science.

ROLL No: 51

Semester- 1

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Firstly, I would like to thank my Political Sciences teacher Mr
Brajesh mishra for giving me such a golden opportunity to show
my skills through this project. The project is a result of an
extensive research study, hard work and labour, that is put into
to make it worth reading.
I wish to acknowledge that in completing this project I had full
support of my friends as well as my teacher. This project would
not have been completed without the help of my universitys
library Dr. Madhu Limaye library and through the universitys
internet.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgement

Introduction
Corruption in different fields.
Cause of Corruption
Motivations to Engage in Corruption
Measures to Combat Corruption
Anti-Corruption Effort
Bibliography

Introduction
The history of corruption can be dated back when economy of India was under
socialist-inspired policies for an entire generation from the 1950s until the 1980s. The
economy was subject to extensive regulation, protectionism, and public ownership, leading to
pervasive corruption and slow growth. License Raj was often at the core of corruption. The
Vohra Report was submitted by the former Indian Union Home Secretary, N.N. Vohra, in
October 1993. It studied the problem of the criminalisation of politics and of the nexus
among criminals, politicians and bureaucrats in India. The report contained several
observations made by official agencies on the criminal network which was virtually running a
parallel government. It also discussed criminal gangs who enjoyed the patronage of
politicians, of all parties, and the protection of government functionaries. It revealed that
political leaders had become the leaders of gangs. They were connected to the military. Over
the years criminals had been elected to local bodies, State Assemblies and Parliament. The
unpublished annexure to the Vohra Report were believed to contain highly explosive material.
According to Jitendra Singh, "in the bad old days, particularly pre-1991, when the License
Raj held sway, and by design, all kinds of free market mechanisms were hobbled or stymied,
and corruption emerged almost as an illegitimate price mechanism, a shadowy quasi-market,
such that scarce resources could still be allocated within the economy, and decisions could
get made. These were largely distortions created by the politico-economic regime. While a
sea change has occurred in the years following 1991, some of the distorted cultural norms
that took hold during the earlier period are slowly being repaired by the sheer forces of
competition. The process will be long and slow, however. It will not change overnight." One
of the major problems and obstacles to development that many developing countries face is
corruption by greedy, power-hungry politicians, which is endemic in certain parts of the
world.
Even as India continued to register one of the highest growth rates post-independence,
rampant corruption resulted in an estimated illicit out flow of a whooping $125 billion
between 2000 and 2008; a research and advocacy organisation has said. The figures of $125
billion illicit outflow of money from India are part of a report to be released by the

Washington-based Global Financial Integrity. "Much of the funds flowing out are generated
at home within India and then sent illegally abroad. So the growth of corruption and India's
underground economy contributes significantly to illicit financial flows from the country,"
said Karly Curcio, a junior economist at the Global Financial Integrity. India's economic
boom continues with an average growth rate of over eight per cent between 2004 and 2009 by
GFI calculations. As the money flows, however, the poor continue to stay poor. Corruption is
rampant in India as it is in almost all developing countries.
I start with this story to show that corruption among politicians is not recent. The numbers of
rupees at stake may have risen astronomically, but the phenomenon has been there. Over
time, the bribe takers have become more shameless and immune to the law. In the news that
Ashok Chavan has been made to resign, there is no mention of any attempt to make him
resign his seat or pay a fine to his party or to the ex-servicemen he has deprived of housing. If
you have any doubts as to whether he will be punished, fear not. The fact that the CBI is to
investigate guarantees that Chavan will get off. We may even hear that Chavan may not have
done anything wrong. He changed the bye-laws of the Adarsh Housing Society, but as a
minister, he was probably within his powers to do so. This only means such acts which are
basically fraudulent have been legalised. Suresh Kalmadi has only been sacked from a
Congress post. Even this much was done to avoid trouble at the opening of the winter session
of Parliament. No doubt we will all wait for the general amnesty that everyone involved in
the CWG scam will receive when the whole thing has calmed down. The same story goes for
A Raja. We will be told no doubt that the loss of Rs 1.7 lakh crore is only a virtual loss.
Recall the scenes of the Karnataka MLAs receiving bribes of Rs 15-25 crore to switch parties
which were seen by many on TV news channels. There was no demand from any of the
political parties that a chargesheet be filed. This is because they are all in this together and
that is why despite many promises to clean up the system, nothing will happen. Bribing of
MPs and MLAs to defect happens all the time.

Corruption in different fields

Politics- Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for
illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such
as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political

corruption. Neither are illegal acts by private persons or corporations not directly involved
with the government. An illegal act by an officeholder constitutes political corruption only if
the act is directly related to their official duties.
Forms of corruption vary, but include bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, patronage,
graft, and embezzlement. While corruption may facilitate criminal enterprise such as drug
trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking, it is not restricted to these activities.
The above argument on democracy shows that democracy has led to corruption in India.
Massive corruption and a disregard for the rule of law have transformed Indian politics. The
tragedy of millions of new lower caste voters is that their representatives, for whom they
dutifully vote en masse, have looted the public coffers and become immensely rich and
powerful while mouthing slogans about the oppression of their people. Corruption has always
existed in India, but until 1970s it was mostly petty corruption produced by the countrys
insane web of economic regulations. The typical act of corruption in the 1960s was
bureaucrat taking a bribe to permit some private sector undertaking. This was bad for
economic growth, but it did not distort the entire political process. It was after the regime of
Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri that corruption entered in the politics, it was growth of
regional politics and leaders which only worked for the interest of their people and region and
they won. They worked for their people only oppressing the interest of other people and this
led to corruption. But it become worse when they stopped working for their people also.
Bureaucracy- A study done by Transparency International (TI) in India found that more
than 50% of the people had firsthand experience of paying bribe or peddling influence to get
a job done in a public office. Taxes and bribes are common between state borders;
Transparency International estimates that truckers pay annually US$5 billion in bribes. A
2009 survey of the leading economies of Asia, revealed Indian bureaucracy to be not just
least efficient out of Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia,
Taiwan, Vietnam, China, Philippines and Indonesia; further it was also found that working
with India's civil servants was a "slow and painful" process.
Land and property- Officials often steal state property. In Bihar, more than 80% of the
subsidized food aid to poor is stolen. In cities and villages throughout India, Mafia Raj
consisting of municipal and other government officials, elected politicians, judicial officers,

real estate developers and law enforcement officials, acquire, develop and sell land in illegal
ways.
Tendering Processes and Awarding Contracts- Government officials having discretionary
powers in awarding contracts engage in preferential treatment for selected bidders, display
negligence in quality control processes. Many state-funded construction activities in India,
such as road building, are dominated by construction mafias, which are groupings of corrupt
public works officials, materials suppliers, politicians and construction contractors. Shoddy
construction and material substitution (e.g. mixing sand in cement while submitting expenses
for cement) result in roads and highways being dangerous, and sometimes simply washed
away when India's heavy monsoon season arrives.
Medicine- In Government Hospitals, corruption is associated with non availability of
medicines (or duplicate medicines), getting admission, consultations with doctors and
availing diagnostic services. There have been cases of diversion of medical supplies from
government hospitals and clinics as well as supply and distribution of medicines of inferior
quality.

Judiciary- Corruption is rampant in the judicial system of India. According to Transparency

International, judicial corruption in India is attributable to factors such as "delays in the
disposal of cases, shortage of judges and complex procedures, all of which are exacerbated by
a preponderance of new laws".

Religious Institutions- In India, the corruption has also crept into religious institutions.
Some of the Churches of North India are making money by selling Baptism certificates. A
group of church leaders and activists has launched a campaign to combat the corruption
within churches. The chief economic consequences of corruption are the loss to the economy
an unhealthy climate for investment and an increase in the cost of government-subsidised
services. The TI India study estimates the monetary value of petty corruption in 11 basic
services provided by the government, like education, healthcare, judiciary, police, etc., to be
around Rs.21,068 crore (US$ 4.8 billion). India still ranks in the bottom quartile of
developing nations in terms of the ease of doing business, and compared to China and other

lower developed Asian nations, the average time taken to secure the clearances for a start up
or to invoke bankruptcy is much greater.

Causes of corruption

The causes of corruption are many and complex. Following are some of the causes of
corruption.
1- Emergence of political elite who believe in interest-oriented rather than nation-oriented
programmes and policies
2-Artificial scarcity created by the people with malevolent intentions wrecks the fabric of the
economy.
3-Corruption is caused as well as increased because of the change in the value system and
ethical qualities of men who administer. The old ideals of morality, service and honesty are
regarded as an achronistic.
4- Tolerance of people towards corruption, complete lack of intense public outcry against
corruption and the absence of strong public forum to oppose corruption allows corruption to
reign over people.
5- Vast size of population coupled with widespread illiteracy and the poor economic
infrastructure lead to endemic corruption in public life.
6- In a highly inflationary economy, low salaries of government officials compel them to
resort to the road of corruption. Graduates from IIMs with no experience draw a far
handsome salary than what government secretaries draw.
7- Complex laws and procedures alienate common people to ask for any help from
government.
8- Election time is a time when corruption is at its peak level. Big industrialist fund
politicians to meet high cost of election and ultimately to seek personal favour. Bribery to
politicians buys influence, and bribery by politicians buys votes. In order to get elected,
politicians bribe poor illiterate people, who are slogging for two times meal.

Motivations to Engage in Corruption- Apart from certain causes which are

responsible for causing corruption there are also motivations which lead to people getting
engaged in corruption:Desire for an Unfair Advantage: - Many officials are motivated to participate in corrupt
behaviour because of the inherently selfish desire to have an unfair advantage over their
peers. Through bribery, extortion, embezzlement, nepotism and other means, corruption can
help dishonest people get ahead while the public pays the price. A corrupted politician may
seek to sway a persons opinions, actions, or decisions, reduce fees collected, speed up
government grants, or change outcomes of legal processes. Through corruption, people
seeking an unfair advantage may pay courts to vote in their favour or, as with police, customs
units, and tax collectors, to disregard a penalty. In order to obtain an unfair advantage,
governments and government officials may apply any number of methods to abuse their
power over the citizens.
Lack of Punitive Measures: - Thomas Hobbes, the great political philosopher, once said,
A man's conscience and his judgment is the same thing; and as the judgment, so also
the conscience, may be erroneous. This idea that individuals cannot always rely on a
working inner moral compass alone to guide them to virtue is at the heart of the next
motivating factor for participating in corrupt behavior. When the legal agencies do not
impose sanctions on parliamentarians and other government officials who have violated their
public duties there is a lack of punitive measure for corrupt behavior. This is the case, for
example when judges are in the pay of the ruling party or there are too few police officers to
enforce the law. When there are not punitive measures to assure transparency, monitoring,
and accountability through a working justice system, some people will participate in corrupt
behavior simply because they can get away with it. Politicians and other individuals require a
legal, monitoring system to assure that corruption will not occur in the planning and
execution of public sector budgets. Social and internal control mechanisms are required for
civil society and autonomous state auditing agencies. Without them or with only weak
enforcement measures, people in power are more likely to embezzle money from the national
budget, sway votes or participate in other actions that will result in personal gain at the
publics expense.

Lack of Transparency- Transparency describes when there is free access by citizens to

public information. When the rules, procedures, and objectives of the government are not

available to the public, there is not budgetary and administrative oversight to balance the
power of government officials, transparency is lacking and corruption can be bred. Without
oversight and transparency of budget and rules, national resources may be plundered and
power may be abused in favor of the corrupt official only. Further, when there are not public
sector mechanisms that channel social preferences and specific complaints of the population
to the agencies involved in those complaints, people of power will not serve their purpose of
representing the populace, but have free reign to do as they please in the public sector. Lack
of transparency creates opportunities for public officials to abuse their office for private gain.
This closely relates to accountability, and weak accountability mechanisms tend to facilitate
corruption. Where there is a lack of transparency and accountability corruption will flourish.
Once corrupt bureaucrats realize that they can take advantage of regulations, they will
produce more regulations and run the risk of becoming less transparent.
.
Dysfunctional Systems as a Cause for Corruption- Instability in government may also
catapult a nation and its leaders towards corruption. Among them, war, ethnic or religious
conflict, economic hardship, and social inequalities may instigate corruption. Any
circumstance that threatens a nationor its people either through identity or establishment may
diminish the good governance practices of a nation. Even in less difficult times, the
institutions and policies of government may undermine how well the government carries out
its work. When institutions and policies are weak, individuals tend to take advantage of them.
Therefore, poor governments are a product of sick institutions, or institutions that function
poorly because of inadequate resources or bad policies and procedures. As stated earlier, good
governance refers to the provision of services that are responsive to citizen needs. When
government services are not provided to citizens, either because they were deemed
unnecessary, services providers demanded bribes or were lazy, or the services are provided in
theory but are not readily available in practice without a bribe, people will aim to have their
needs met illegally or unofficially. Likewise, when financial systems are outdated, they are
more corruptible.

Measures to combat corruption

Is it possible to contain corruption in our society? Corruption is a cancer, which every

Indian must strive to cure. Many new leaders when come into power declare their
determination to eradicate corruption but soon they themselves become corrupt and start
amassing huge wealth. There are many myths about corruption, which have to be exploded if
we really want to combat it. Some of these myths are: Corruption is a way of life and nothing
can be done about it. Only people from underdeveloped or developing countries are prone to
corruption. We will have to guard against all these crude fallacies while planning measures to
fight corruption. Foolproof laws should be made so that there is no room for discretion for
politicians and bureaucrats. The role of the politician should be minimized. Application of the
evolved policies should be left in the hands of independent commission or authority in each
area of public interest. Decision of the commission or authority should be challengeable only
in the courts. Cooperation of the people has to be obtained for successfully containing
corruption. People should have a right to recall the elected representatives if they see them
becoming indifferent to the electorate. Funding of elections is at the core of political
corruption. Electoral reforms are crucial in this regard. Several reforms like: State funding of
election expenses for candidates; strict enforcement of statutory requirements like holding inparty elections, making political parties get their accounts audited regularly and filing
income-tax returns; denying persons with criminal records a chance to contest elections,
should be brought in.
Responsiveness, accountability and transparency are a must for a clean system.
Bureaucracy, the backbone of good governance, should be made more citizens friendly,
accountable, ethical and transparent. More and more courts should be opened for speedy &
inexpensive justice so that cases dont linger in courts for years and justice is delivered on
time. Local bodies, Independent of the government, like Lokpals, Lokadalats, CVCs and
Vigilance Commissions should be formed to provide speedy justice with low expenses. A
new Fundamental Right viz. Right to Information should be introduced, which will empower
the citizens to ask for the information they want. Barring some confidential information,
which concerns national and international security, other information should be made
available to general public as and when required. Stringent actions against corrupt officials
will certainly have a deterrent impact.

Anti-Corruption Effort

Right to Information Act

The Right to Information Act (2005) and equivalent acts in the states that require government
officials to furnish information requested by citizens or face punitive action, computerisation
of services and various central and state government acts that established vigilance
commissions have considerably reduced corruption or at least have opened up avenues to
redress grievances. The 2006 report by Transparency International puts India at the 70th place
and states that significant improvements were made by India in reducing corruption.

Computerisation
Bhoomi is a project jointly funded by the Government of India and the Government of
Karnataka to digitize the paper land records and create a software mechanism to control
changes to the land registry in Karnataka. The project was designed to eliminate the longstanding problem of inefficiency and corruption. Introduction of smart cards for vehicle
registration and drivers licenses by Karnataka Regional Transport Organization.
Unique Identification: Former President A P J Abdul Kalam has said the Unique
Identification (UID) Scheme, being undertaken by the government, can help in fighting
corruption in public services delivery. "One question which has often been asked by the youth
is, how can, as a nation, we tackle the problem of corruption in public services delivery,"
Kalam said speaking at a function here. "Recently, India embarked on the largest citizen
identification programme in the world through implementation of the UID scheme. I am told
that under this scheme, for each citizen of the nation, biometric scan in the form of fingerprint
and iris pattern will be registered and stored.
"This has tremendous scope in targeting public delivery services, establishing accountability
and ensuring that the intended benefits targeted people," he said.
"The successful realisation of these missions would also require the application of forensic
science, and the forensic science community of the nation has to be ready for this challenge,"
he said.
The former President was speaking while inaugurating the third branch of 'Truth Labs',
country's first private forensic science laboratory, here yesterday. "As crime is evolving new

ways to evade justice, forensics will have to constantly transform and expand its horizons...
The benefits of modern science and technology should be translated into the welfare of the
common man," Kalam said. The 'Truth Labs' was first set up at Hyderabad in 2007, and is
aimed at helping common men to resolve disputes, including criminal and civil ones. "The
common man in India prefers to resolve his personal, family or business disputes without
approaching the police or courts due to cumbersome legal processes involved and the delays
associated in the administration of justice. To make the process smooth, we decided to set up
such labs," said Dr Gandhi P C Kaza, founder president of Truth Labs. The Truth Labs is
specialised in dealing with cases related to child swapping, immigration, surrogate
motherhood, infidelity, false rape allegation and hereditary disputes among others.
Whistleblowers
Whistleblowers play a major role in the fight against corruption. India currently does not
have a law to protect whistleblowers, which was highlighted by the assassination of
Satyendra Dubey.

Creation of Anti-Corruption Police and Courts

Some have called for the Central Government to create an anti-theft law enforcement agency
that investigates and prosecutes corruption at all levels of government, including state and
local level. Special courts that are more efficient than the traditional Indian courts with
traveling judges and law enforcement agents are being proposed. The proposal has not yet
been acted upon by the Indian government. Certain states such as Andhra Pradesh (Andhra
Pradesh Anti-corruption Bureau) and Karnataka (Lokayukta) have similar agencies and
courts. The creation of a central agency with specialized courts with broad powers, however,
is likely to have greater impact in curbing corruption at all levels.
Private Sector Initiatives
Several new initiatives have come up in the private sector to raise awareness about
Corruption related issues and to build anti-corruption platforms to fight corruption by
shaming the officials who ask for bribe. Another popular initiative Jaago Re!One Billion
Votes from Tata Tea has now changed its focus from voter registration to fighting corruption.

Many websites are another forms of platform for corruption free India and advocates the use
of direct and regular measurement of corruption to force the hands of the leadership into
dealing with corruption related issues.

Conclusion
Corruption is an intractable problem. It is like diabetes, can only be controlled, but not
totally eliminated. It may not be possible to root out corruption completely at all levels but it
is possible to contain it within tolerable limits. Honest and dedicated persons in public life,
control over electoral expenses could be the most important prescriptions to combat
corruption. Corruption has a corrosive impact on our economy. It worsens our image in
international market and leads to loss of overseas opportunities. Corruption is a global
problem that all countries of the world have to confront, solutions, however, can only be
home grown. We have tolerated corruption for so long. The time has now come to root it out
from its roots.

Bibliography
Books Referred-

Corruption in India by N.Vittal

Corruption Indias Enemy Within by C.P.Srivastava
The Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria
Corruption in India by S.K.Gupta

Websites Referred

http://swapsushias.blogspot.com/2009/08/essay-corruption-in-india.html
www.essay-corruption-in-india.html
www.India Corruption & Bribery Report.htm
www.corruptioninindia.org
upscportal.com/.../An-Essay-Corruption-in-India

Articles Referred

Corruption in India-Will it ever end by Manish Gupta

Corruption Undermines India by Ramesh Thakur
Article by Lalit K Jha
Asia-Pacific Development Journal Vol. 7, No. 2, December 2000