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 august 20, 2011

Economic & Political Weekly  EPW august 20, 2011 vol xlvI no 34 7

The Anti-Corruption Crusade

There is reason to be despondent and not optimistic about the current anti-corruption campaign.

Corruption is neither a new phenomenon of the past few

 years nor has it been the preserve of the Congress Party.

 Allegations of corruption had emerged even prior to Inde-

pendence on the formation of the Congress and Muslim League

ministries in 1937 and it has been a constant companion of all

parties ruling at the centre since 1947. Corruption has only grown

bigger and its tentacles have burrowed deeper over the years.

There have been two previous occasions when corruption came

to dominate the national discourse, as dened by the media and

the politically active sections of the population. The rst time was in

the mid-1970s, which climaxed in the JP movement, Emergency 

and the eventual unseating of the Congress from power. The second

occasion was in the late 1980s, when the V P Singh-led campaign,

though much weaker than the JP movement, did manage to over-

throw the Congress government. Two decades later we nd a

similar upsurge on corruption.On each of the previous two occasions, the culmination of the

anti-corruption movement did not lead to a decrease in either its

spread or intensity. What did happen on each of these junctures

 was that the electoral fronts of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh

(RSS) – the Bharatiya Jan Sangh in the 1970s and the Bharatiya

Janata Party (BJP) later – gained access to state power. That in itself 

should lead to some caution and introspection about the present

anti-corruption upsurge. This, however, is not to deect blame

from the Congress which has been the haven of choice for the

corrupt and criminal as it has had the longest stint in power. It is

also not to tar all the three movements with the same brush; the

JP movement remains a signicant step in the democratisation of 

the Indian polity and united many popular struggles, while the

 V P Singh-led movement too was radical in its agenda. What this

caution and call for introspection does is to alert us to the possibility 

that anti-corruption struggles, under their apparent progressive

exterior may be a Trojan Horse for another, more dangerous form

of politics, one which has contempt for the vote, mass politics,

and democratic institutions.

Corruption has never been clearly dened: Is it merely about

nancial misdemeanours and theft of public money? Or does

corruption also involve the abuse of power? If so, then what sort

of power – that which ows from control of state institutions or that which accretes around social hierarchies and economic inequalities?

Does corruption also involve nepotism and the exercise of personal

inuence? If the answer to the last two questions is in the afr-

mative, then how does corruption link up with caste and class,

  with patriarchy and majoritarianism? Further, does it clarify or

confuse the issue to lump petty cases of bribery with large-scale

loot of national resources? Finally, one also needs to ask whether

corruption is to be dened in legal or ethical terms?

There is no ready denition of what “corruption” connotes,

especially as it has been used in the anti-corruption crusades. Asking

these questions is not an exercise in empty phrase-mongering, but

central to the very politics of ghting corruption. What are we

ghting against, whom are we ghting against and how shall we

proceed in our ght against “corruption” depend entirely on what

questions are asked and how they are answered. Rather than asking

these questions, solutions to corruption have been conned to two

broad strategies: one, moral/ethical strictures and exhortations to

reform oneself and one’s society, sometimes extending to schoolpedagogy and public propaganda and, two, the enactment of laws

and rules. The rst has been a spectacular failure while the second

too has been largely unsuccessful. Corruption has found its way 

around excessive bureaucratic procedure and made due process (or

red tape) its unwitting collaborator. Today the greatest ally of 

corruption is the plethora of laws and rules and procedures, which

make the simplest of administrative matters opaque and distant

from the citizen. This allows the economically strong and politically 

connected to get away with almost anything they want, while deny-

ing even the basic services to the citizen without power and inuence.

 Another question which needs to be asked but is rarely pursued

to its conclusion is: Who are the people beneting most from the

perpetuation of corruption? The politically powerful surely, but also

the economically powerful – many from industry, trade and business.

 Apart from these, there are the members of the service groups –

again many among the bureaucrats, consultants, educationists,

lawyers and doctors and small businesspersons – who either

 wish to evade tax or extract an illegal fee for a service rendered.

Surprisingly, it is from within the “service groups” – often members

of the middle class – that the cry for ending corruption emerges.

If one sees the political consequence of anti-corruption move-

ments (the strengthening of the RSS and its afliates), it is easy to

gauge why the middle class supports anti-corruption movements– they lead to a rightward shift in the polity. Anti-corruption

movements, by raising an issue which hurts the poor and powerless

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EDITORIALS

  august 20, 2011 vol xlvI no 34 EPW   Economic & Political Weekly8

Strengthen What Exists

 Another “national” environment authority will duplicate, not strengthen, existing regulatory bodies.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s promise last month to

establish a National Environment Appraisal and Monitoring

 Authority (NEAMA) “soon” has been buried under the myriad

scams and controversies that have come to the fore in the public

discourse. Yet, the question of effective environmental governance

is central to the future trajectory of development in India’s growing

economy. It will also determine how fast India’s environment deterio-

rates and how this will have an impact on the lives and health of 

all its citizens, rich and poor. Yet, the issue has received barely 

any coverage, leave alone discussion in the media or elsewhere.

There are several important issues that have to be addressed

about the need for a central authority specically for appraisal

and monitoring. The NEAMA has gone through several iterations

over the last three years with discussion papers circulated amongexperts and some environmental groups for feedback. We need

to however ask whether such an authority can improve environ-

mental governance in the country.

The challenge of ensuring that the existing environmental laws

are faithfully implemented does not arise from the absence of 

institutions but the presence of a multiplicity of institutions. For

instance, there is a Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and there

are state pollution control boards. They are supposed to monitor

the implementation of water and air pollutions laws. But they are

largely ineffective, partly due to a lack of adequate trained per-

sonnel and a paucity of funding as well as the lack of a mandate

to take strong action against polluters. Especially at the state level,

 where the government appoints the chairperson, these boards are

easily manipulated. A similar story can be told about the Environ-

mental Impact Assessment (EIA) that is mandatory for major

projects. Devised to ensure that projects adhered to environmental

norms, this instrument has been rendered ineffective because of 

the lack of rigour and transparency in the way EIAs are done. The

mandatory public hearing, for instance, is usually cosmetic, and

the so-called “experts” called to assess the environmental impact

are easily swayed by one point of view. As a result, only after citizens’

groups challenge an EIA in court does the real story emerge.

 Apart from implementing laws, thousands of environmental dis-putes go to court each year. Following a number of legal enactments

to reduce the clutter in courts, in 2009, the current government

proposed the National Green Tribunal (NGT) Act that was passed

by Parliament the following year. With its passing the earlier

 Acts have been repealed. However, until May this year, only one

of ve NGT benches was functioning. The ability of the NGT to

deal with environmental disputes has yet to be tested.

Given these realities, do we need another authority or do the

existing ones need to be strengthened so that they can be more

effective? If, for instance, the state pollution control boards under

the CPCB had the technical capacity to monitor and regulate and

 were given some semblance of autonomy, they would be better

placed to stem the blatant violation of pollution laws that is cur-

rently the norm. Similarly, the EIA process needs to be more

 vigorous and transparent. In particular, the functioning of the

state environment assessment authorities, which tend to giveclearances without hesitation, needs special attention. If an EIA 

became what it was designed to be, there would be a better

record of compliance with environmental laws.

Even if one argues that something like NEAMA is needed

because the process of granting clearance to projects has to be

professionalised, it is not evident that the proposed structure of 

NEAMA ts the bill. How the decision is nally made to clear a

project, what are the criteria used, why decisions are overturned

– these are only some of the questions that are never answered.

The prime minister promises “transparency, accountability and

predictability in the clearance process” through NEAMA. But is

this really possible if the nal approval still has to be given by the

Ministry of Environment and Forests? Also, what role will environ-

mental groups, who are forced to turn to the courts, have in NEAMA?

The process of giving environmental clearances to projects is

notoriously opaque. A body that is autonomous of governmental

control, has statutory powers, and has a credible system in place

to select its members could go some way in ensuring fair and

transparent environmental appraisal of projects. Anything short

of that will merely be a duplication of existing institutions. The

prime minister said that environmental regulations should not

mean a return to “the hated licence permit raj of the pre-1991

period”. He needs to be reminded that it is the absence of trans-parency in granting or refusing environmental clearances that

has introduced another form of licence permit raj.

most, enable those who primarily benet from corruption to gain

crucial political allies from among the masses. By keeping the

denition of “corruption” unclear it enables the anti-corruption

movement to conclude without actually weakening corruption

and thus without hurting the social and economic bases of the

rich and those who aspire to be rich. Unlike the large masses of 

peasants and workers whose primary access to political power is

democratic institutions and the vote, the middle class has a naturaldisdain for democratic politics and thus the felicity with which

they attack democratic institutions and practices.

The present anti-corruption movement, led by Anna Hazare and

his “team” appears to be no different from the previous two avatars.

 As is increasingly becoming evident, this movement is opening the

space for reactionary elements like religious conservative gures,

to enter the centre stage of public debates. Despite the valiant

attempts of some left-wing forces to steer the movement in pro-

gressive directions of questioning power, the movement is clearly 

in the opposite direction. In this, Hazare’s own conservative andauthoritarian politics is as responsible as are the very terms in

 which the anti-corruption movement has been framed.