Religon and Corruption in Indian Context

8/3/2019 Religon and Corruption in Indian Context

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RELIGION AND CITIZENSHIP

Economic & Political Weekly EPW january 7, 2012 vol xlvIi no 1 61

Vinod Pavarala ([email protected]) and Kanchan K Malik teachat the department of communications, University of Hyderabad,

Hyderabad.

Social Constructions of Religiosity and Corruption

Vinod Pavarala, Kanchan K Malik

Religion coexists with what may be described as a

liberalised, cosmopolitan and global outlook among

Indians and remains an indispensable part of the cultural

ethos and social fabric of Indian society. However,

interpretations of both religion and corruption are

extremely diverse. Notwithstanding the existence of

deep-seated faith with strong moral values, religion is

not seen as contributing to the moral or spiritual fabric of

the nation in present times, while corruption is regarded

as pervasive. Very few of the respondents canvassed in

this study thought that we should count on religion to

make a difference in peoples general attitudes towards

corruption. Respondents indicated that their confidence

in the accountability of religious organisations is low,

and it is therefore problematic to assume that religious

organisations are likely to be either appropriate or

effective vehicles for fighting corruption. In fact,

religion is looked upon as a discredited entity by many,largely due to a sense of popular disillusionment with

its caretakers.

Notions of religiosity vary greatly and religion means

different things to different people. However, there is no

denying that religion plays an important role in the

everyday lives of people in India, both inside the home and in the

public domain. It is also looked upon as a potent tool for promot-

ing moral and ethical conduct and for inculcating discipline in

the lives of individuals. In countries where religion plays a vital

role in the lives of most people, it has often been assumed that

many persons, including public servants, derive their ethical

framework from their religion. Faith does indeed provide many

with a language of ethics and, often, an actual list of rules to

live by, some of which can be interpreted as being of particular

importance in ghting corruption.

In India, neither the prevalence of corruption nor anxieties

over it are new. A number of public ofcials, politicians, corpo-

rate executives and so-called spiritual leaders amongst others

implicated in corruption scams and scandals continue to make

regular headlines, even as we approach the 65th year of our inde-

pendence. Corruption is a taken-for-granted reality, and one with

a strong multi-sector presence in India. One cannot help but em-

pathise with the views of the former Central Vigilance Commis-

sioner of India, N Vittal (2003: cover page) that the average Indiancitizen cannot go to any public organisation or ofce today and

get the services which they are supposed to get without either

paying [a] bribe or bringing inuence by way of recommenda-

tions or references fromVIPs.

Academic scholarship on the issue of corruption draws on

theory from economics, public administration, and political science.

Such approaches have produced a materialistic understanding of

corruption, resulting in a focus on issues of good (or bad) govern-

ance, bureaucratic (in)efciency in postcolonial state formations,

political scandals that erupt from the politics-business nexus,

and rent-seeking behaviours. Although such understanding may

prove to be a basis for policy formulation, it does not adequately

capture the complexity of the eld beyond paying lip service to

how cultural factors embodied in religion, morality, ethics, and

notions of modernity and tradition determine the nature, con-

tent, and context of corruption.

This paper seeks to address this oversight. It explores the

hitherto uncharted relationship between religion and corruption,

before examining related concepts of morality, ethics, modernity

and tradition. The idea is that corruption cannot be understood

as a purely political and economic phenomenon; nor is religion

merely a set of textual tenets, but is rather a lived reality embo-

died in social and cultural practices. We explore the terrain of beliefs,ideas, and meanings embedded in constructions of religiosity

and corruption in order to understand socially constructed


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january 7, 2012 vol xlvIi no 1 EPW Economic & Political Weekly62

realities, as well as locally contingent and emergent meanings

when people categorise themselves as being religious or others

as being corrupt. We seek to understand the inuences that

shape the value systems of people, to assess the extent to which

the patterns of thought and behaviour of our respondents are un-

derwritten by religion and to what extent non-religious factors

shape their personal and professional codes of practice, and to as-

certain whether people believe that religion can play any role inpromoting more ethical conduct in public life.

Religious Values and Corruption in India

The recurrent theme in the literature on religion and morality,

and specically in Hindu thought, is the concept of dharma, com-

monly translated as duty and righteousness. Its signicance

resides in texts that prescribe a moral course of action and a code

of conduct that advances an idealistic prescription for how one

should lead ones life. The most widely cited text that offers

Hindu perspectives on dharma is the Bhagavad Gita, a dialogue

between Lord Krishna and Arjuna in theMahabharata, the great

Indian epic.Manusmriti,Arthashastra,Rajatarangini, andHar-

shacharita are some other examples of ancient Indian works

which give insights on the history of corruption (John 2000: 61).

According to McGregor (1973: 70), dharma tells us what our

duties are, both social and religious. It tells us what vices to

avoid, mainly those owing fromKama (lust),Lobha (covetous-

ness) andKrodha (anger). Thus dharma, as expressed in religion

or religious texts, becomes a code of conduct to be followed in

routine actions by human beings. Sheth (1995) draws upon the

Bhagavad Gita to offer a similar denition. According to this

source, whenever dharma (collective behaviour guided by

values) is in jeopardy and society is dominated byadharma(violation of values), there is a human incarnation of a god who

comes to the rescue.1

There has been a reasonable amount of research and theorising

on corruption in India and this has produced several denitions,

explanations, taxonomies and typologies for public discourse around

the problem. Given the nature of corruption, there is rarely any

agreement concerning the concept except, perhaps, with regard

to bribery and the interpretations of corruption tend to vary with

specic social contexts and archetypical knowledge. While schol-

ars seek to provide a working, universal denition of corruption,

our literature review suggests that we are unlikely to nd a deni-

tion that is universally applicable across and between cultures.

In his study of a variety of denitions given by the elites from

the state of Andhra Pradesh in India, Pavarala (1996) demon-

strated that corruption is indeed a site for contested meaning.

Narrow/legalistic denitions list a limited number of acts under

the category of corruption and approximate the denition of cor-

ruption as established by the law. While these denitions are

mainly a simplistic reection of existing legal provisions, more

commonly they are an expression of the spirit of the law, and are

therefore fundamentally legalistic. Although legal codes are usu-

ally products of complex negotiations among dominant elites

over issues of morality and moral boundaries, narrow/legalisticdenitions are often expressed in language that is instrumental,

rational and even amoral.

Broad/moralistic denitions, on the other hand, include

aspects identied by the law as corruption, but often go beyond a

legalistic view, articulating an abstract, amorphous morality.

They list a large number of acts under the category of corruption:

gift-giving, nepotism, cheating, fraud, lying, lobbying, and

adulteration of food. Some denitions even include intellectual

corruption, corruption of the soul and moral corruption.

Heidenheimer et al (1989) have organised denitions ofcorruption available in the social science literature around three

basic models: public-interest-centred, public-ofce-centred

and market-centred (see also, Pavarala 1996; Sandholtz and

Koetzle 1998; Amundsen 2000). Sangita (2000: 91), for example,

provides a denition of corruption concerning public interest:

public-interest centred denition stresses the violation of com-

mon interest that provides direct or indirect benets to the public

ofcials. Guhans and Samuel (1997), in summing up a critique of

denitions that tend to be either too broad or indeterminate

(misuse, violation), or too narrow (bribery), stress the need for

an operational rather than an abstract denition.

These classication schemes may be helpful in sorting out an

often confusing variety of activities considered by many to be

corrupt, but they tend to impose an order on things that may

inherently be less orderly in real life. As a consequence, classi-

cation schemes are likely to have limited value in comparative

and cross-cultural comparisons (Pavarala 1996). Understanding

of corrupt behaviour needs to be culture-specic, as practices

that one society may disapprove of and label as corruption may

be considered acceptable in a different sociocultural context

(Sandholtz and Koetzle 1998).

Findings from the FieldworkThis study focused on two religions Sikhism and Hinduism

chosen partly because of the research teams cultural and linguis-

tic familiarity with these traditions, and partly because of the na-

ture and scale of inuence these religions exert in Punjab and

Andhra Pradesh. Research was carried out at Amritsar, a major

city in northern Punjab and home to the Golden Temple, Sikhisms

holiest shrine; Chandigarh, the capital of the region; and nally,

Hyderabad, the capital city of Andhra Pradesh in southern India.

Thirty-nine in-depth interviews and 11 focus group discussions

were conducted with a total of 120 representatives from a variety

of social groups, including the media, bureaucracy, academia, the

corporate world, development organisations, youth/students, and

religious associations. The majority of our respondents were, thus,

urban, English-speaking, and to an extent, cosmopolitan. In this

paper, the views of the respondents of both religions in general,

and their own religiosity are presented rst, followed by their

conceptions of corruption and their perceptions of how their

ethical codes are shaped. Before concluding the paper, the views

of the respondents about the potential for religion to be harnessed

in attempts to reduce corruption are summarised.

On Being Religious

Not a single respondent among those we interviewed or held dis-cussions with claimed to be an atheist, although a majority said

they were not religious in any dogmatic, or narrow way. One


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Hindu bureaucrats, corporate executives, media persons and

academics from Hyderabad were also liberal in terms of their

interpretation of religiosity and wanted to be identied as going

beyond the ritualistic aspect of religion. They regarded religion as

a higher reality not limited by rules which dene a particular reli-

gion. A dynamic woman civil servant was quick to confess that,

although she believed in prayer, she was a quintessential cos-

mopolitan, and did not take going to temple regularly as beingreligious: I go there because it is a place which has a particular

energy. I could nd the same energy in a mosque or a church. ...It

is not as though I must go there. It is not a dogma. A young pro-

prietor of an IT company in Hyderabad was clear that religion is

about realising oneself and not about rituals. In the long course of

history, he suggested, people have forgotten the real meaning of

religion and mistake the rituals that they practise for religion.

Some of the bureaucrats and several corporate executives, in

both Punjab and Andhra Pradesh, also regarded religiosity per se

as relatively unimportant, while emphasising the need to be spir-

itual and follow the underlying philosophy and values professed

by religion. A former chief secretary of the government, in his late

70s, stated that he did not have any faith in rituals or what he

called superstitions. For him, every religion has a spiritual basis,

leading him to prefer to follow the teachings of those gurus who

were, in his opinion, mystics of the highest order. Religion for

him was a thing of personal faith and spirituality.

Similarly, an IAS ofcer and a managing director of a public

sector company in Hyderabad did not equate religion with ritual-

ism, saying I dont run from temple to temple and perform all

religious ceremonies. In addition, he claimed to believe in what

he called humanitarian religion, where one human being is not

pitted against another in the name of religion, a view that wasechoed by a radio producer from the state-controlled All India

Radio, Hyderabad, who was of the opinion that: We must be reli-

gious in a very broad sense. Religion interests me in a cultural

sense, basically as a thing which denes the way people behave

and live. In India culture and religion are not separate things.

The development workers interviewed largely attributed their

inspiration to work in the social sector to have come from religion

and its teachings. As a doctor by profession and social worker by

choice, the woman president of an internationally acclaimed home

for the destitute called her institution a laboratory of the teachings of

the Guru Granth Sahib. The main thing in the book, she asserted, is

to work for the well-being of all creatures Sarbat-da-bhala. She

thought rituals to be important because if one does not go to the

gurdwara, it would be difcult to know what the gurus have writ-

ten, but, she argued, if one only follows ritual and forgets ethics, it

is of no use: Do not just chant wahe-guru wahe-guru [the name of

God]; act according to the written rules and follow ethics.

A physician and social worker in a renowned medical centre in

Punjab believed that his values come from his religion, and as-

serted that Sikhism was unique in many ways

the tenth guru gave us the tag Khalsa and he gave us this form, he

gave us this particular appearance. So, he said that with this appear-

ance you cant hide anywhere and every Sikh is the messenger of theAlmighty that itself alters your behaviour and everything, in per-

sonal and ofcial life.

interviewee, an anthropologist and a public servant, claimed, I

have never really been a religious-minded person as he challenges

the opinions, beliefs and ideas propagated by religion and analyses

them very critically. However, he claried, I am an agnostic;

Im not atheistic. Our interaction with representatives from dif-

ferent social groups (both Sikhs and Hindus) revealed considera-

ble diversity in the interpretation of religiosity, as well as be-

ing religious. Professionals such as bureaucrats, corporate exec-utives, media persons, and academics wanted to be categorised

as partly or moderately religious (which they did not think in

any way meant being less religious), as they are not particularly

ritualistic in their outlook. Still others in the same categories em-

phasised the spiritual and values dimensions of religion. Those in

the development sector insisted that it is only by the practice of

teachings that one justies a claim that one is religious. Respond-

ents who are traditional business people were emphatic in high-

lighting the importance of both the ritualistic and symbolic as well

as the values and ethical characteristics of religion and made no

bones about dening the role that religion plays in their lives. The

responses from among the youth and students on professional

courses were wide-ranging and many of their interpretations

reected one or the other of the four viewpoints mentioned here.

Religious vs Ritualistic

A majority among the bureaucrats, young corporate executives,

media persons, and academics preferred not to be categorised as

very religious, at least if a strictly ritualistic sense of the term

were adopted. Sikh respondents indicated that they may not

strictly follow some religious practices, such as visiting the gurd-

wara regularly, reciting the holy scriptures, baptism, and wearing

of religious symbols. Among Hindus, rituals like temple attend-ance, fasting on holy days, doing pujas (special prayers), going on

pilgrimage, and wearing of bottu (vermilion) on the forehead

were suggestive of a persons religious inclination.

Although it was evident from the appearance of many of the

Sikh respondents that a majority displayed the prescribed symbols

of their religion, clearly many felt that this was not enough to be

called religious. As one bureaucrat who is the managing director

of a public sector company claimed, I am religious by appearance

because we have some [overt] symbols, and so I display those

symbols. But he did not want to be categorised as stringently

religious, as he felt that his actions are not guided by ritualism. He

claimed instead to be religious to the extent that he consistently

follows the basic tenets of every religion humility, service to

humanity, and welfare of the needy and downtrodden.

A Sikh media person who considered himself religious said that

at the very crux of it, it means accepting and trying to understand

certain core values of religion as a part of your life and at a very

supercial level it means adhering to the various symbols. A public

servant and president of a trade association in Punjab suggested

that there are two types of religious Sikhs: rst, the person who

looks Sikh, i e, is externally religious (by way of dressing), and sec-

ond, the person who follows the path set by the gurus. The second,

he asserted, is more important, but he also emphasised the need tobe a Sikh of the rst kind, as outward symbols, in his view, inculcate

the discipline of learning about and understanding the religion.


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Interviews with some young managers working at different

levels in international NGOs in Hyderabad conrmed our

observation that those working in the social sector derive practical

guidance in their lives from religion, underlining that religion

must be reected in the way people live their lives and not just

praying to God: We need to be good citizens and help others.

A total identication with religion and the Gurus bani (words)

or god by two of the traditional businessmen interviewed inAmritsar and Hyderabad stood in striking contrast to the moderate

stance that we have discussed so far. These respondents were out-

spoken concerning their faith in god, the religious scriptures, and

rituals, which they considered to form an indispensable part of their

personal and community lives. Although they claimed that being

religious had nothing to do with business as such, we might infer

that such a close identication with religion might also have been

necessary in order to build up an image of good conduct among

members of the society and their credibility among customers.

The rst businessman, a senior citizen with a ourishing busi-

ness in the central market of Amritsar, declared unequivocally:

Of course, I am religious, with Gods grace! He asserted that he

was religious and that his faith brought meaning to his life. The

businessman we interviewed in Hyderabad was equally positive

about the inuence of religion in his life:

I am very religious and I frequent temples very often. I have faith in

God. I dont need a philosophy to believe in God. I like to be absorbed

in rituals. Religious beliefs are totally a part of me I go to temples for

satisfaction, nothing linked to business. It makes me feel happy and

peaceful towards life.

Different Meanings

Among the youth, young Sikh women were okay with not beingtoo religious. They seemed to think of themselves as religious, but

there was clear discomfort with some of the restrictions that reli-

gion imposes: I am religious, but I do not compromise on my looks. I

like cutting [my hair]. And I like Western outts, although, my par-

ents are very much against it. This does not make me less religious.

In contrast, young professionals from management and engineer-

ing departments in a higher education institution in Punjab were

quoting verbatim from the book and aunting their grasp of the

essence of the Sikh religion. However, even they were sceptical about

the practicability of some religious teachings in their personal and

professional lives: Many people think I dont go to Gurdwara, so I

am not religious. As students of technology, we have such busy sched-

ules and no time to go to Gurdwara. But, I have wahe-guru [God] in

my heart and that is more important than going to Gurdwaras.

In Hyderabad, the youth tended to endorse spiritual interpre-

tations of religion. Both young men and young women favoured

universalist and supposedly more progressive or individualistic

interpretations of being religious: For me, religion is for doing

good things. It just shows you the path for good things. Every re-

ligion is [the] same to me.

Definitions and Perceptions of Corruption

In this section, we focus attention on the different ways in whichthe problem of corruption is constructed by members of the

various social groups with which we interacted in Punjab and

Table 1: Social Groups That Offered a Narrow/Legalistic Definition

Social Groups That Offer ed a Narrow/Legalis tic Definition Examples of Corrupt Acts Cited by Them

Bureaucrats (75%) Bribe (monetary exchange)

Corporate executives (60%) Use of substandard material

in construction

Academics/media persons (50%) Misuse of discretionary powers

Youth (50%) Siphoning off money

Development workers (30%)

Andhra Pradesh. Borrowing from Pavarala (1996:60), the deni-

tions and interpretations that shape our respondents under-

standing of corruption are grouped into two general categories:

narrow, or legalistic, and broader and more moralistic, which, as

Pavarala recommends, should be seen more as denitional ten-

dencies than xed categories. As noted above, there is a certain

amount of ambiguity in what people consider to be corrupt, as

illustrated by these denitions, which suggest that a communityof shared meanings is unlikely to exist. The wide range of reac-

tions that our interviews and discussions elicited conrm this,

revealing what Pavarala (1996:53) describes as uidity in mark-

ing the boundary between corrupt and non-corrupt acts and con-

rming his contention that the concept of corruption is xed

neither in time nor space; rather, it evolves.

Narrow and Legalistic Definitions

In this study, almost three-quarters of the bureaucrats, two-thirds

of the corporate executives, nearly half of the academicians/

media persons and two development workers offered some form

of a narrow legalistic denition. The young students and profes-

sionals also came up with legalistic denitions, but an equal

number dened corruption within a broad, moralistic idiom.

Among those who gave a narrow legalistic denition of corrup-

tion, the vast majority identied acts that involve monetary

exchanges as corrupt. Bribery, misuse of ofce, and misappro-

priation of public funds and donations were the most frequently

cited examples of corruption. These respondents were also of the

view that corruption involves the use of public ofce for private

gain and is in violation of the public interest. However, it was

interesting that none of those who gave a narrow/legalistic de-

nition identied gift-giving, adultery or nepotism as a form ofcorruption (Table 1).

All the respondents were asked to dene/explain what for them

amounts to corruption. As is clear from the samples of denitional

statements given below, these individual responses relate to the

professional social roles of individuals and do not include activi-

ties within the private realm of life, such as the family:

(1) In public ofce, corruption is when you are demanding

something from somebody or pressurising the other person to

make payment before his or her routine job is done (A senior Sikh

bureaucrat and head of a public sector enterprise in Chandigarh).

(2) Supposing I have to get a birth certicate made, I have

to make 10 rounds [visits] for it. This is corruption. When a

medical representative from a pharmaceutical company asks a

doctor to prescribe drugs manufactured by their company for

two or three years and in return they give him/her a car or asponsored trip abroad, (this is corruption) (A middle-aged Sikh

public servant).


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(3) In the engineering eld, there is cheating in quality of con-

struction work by contractors to make prot ( A 40-year old

woman engineer of the Government of Andhra Pradesh).

(4) Basically, giving a person a favour s/he is not entitled to, or

disfavouring somebody using your discretionary power for your

self-interest that is corruption (Woman bureaucrat, Greater

Hyderabad Municipal Corporation).

(5) Although I am a god-fearing person conducting my busi-ness honestly, I gave ve lakh rupees for admission of my daugh-

ter because they were demanded from me I had to arrange it by

hook or crook (A Sikh businessman in Amritsar).

(6) Anything which is not legitimate, offering to get certain

things done by taking money, taking a favour is corruption.

Something that is damaging for the system, for the taxpayers and

ultimately for our work culture (Director ofHR in an IT company

in Hyderabad).

(7) I think there are two things, one is, you are siphoning off

the money meant for welfare and secondly, you are not per-

forming your duty sincerely (A Sikh 30-year old woman lecturer

from Punjab).

(8) If you want to gain more than what you are entitled to

legally, it is corruption (A media person from Hyderabad).

(9) The private auto fellows in my village have gone to the

depot manager ofRTC (Road Transport Corporation) and asked

him to reduce the bus service as it is affecting their livelihood. He

agreed to reduce the bus service by 50% if they can pay him

Rs 3,000 a month. It was done (Head of Legal Affairs with an NGO

in Hyderabad).

Other acts which were considered to be corrupt by both the

Sikh and the Hindu youth, represented by young college and uni-

versity students from diverse educational and family back-grounds, include:

(10) Bribing to get even registration of birth done or to get a

death certicate you have to bribe the panchayat.

(11) When you are driving and do not have your vehicle papers

or your helmet, instead of giving ne on a chalan (ticket) of

Rs 500, you can give Rs 50 to the cop and escape.

(12) I wanted to have a licence, so we went to the Road Trans-

port Organisation ofce and wrote a test that one has to write

before you get your licence. The person there failed me and the

second time I went, he demanded I give him Rs 500 and he will

get me the licence.

(13) To give a bona de certicate, the ofce superintendent in

the college ofce is asking us for money even if it is just Rs 5-10

we have to pay.

Broad/Moralistic Definitions

Broad/moralistic denitions include aspects identied by the law

as corruption, but go beyond a legalistic view, articulating an

abstract, amorphous morality, and listing a large number of acts

as corrupt.

Almost one-quarter of the bureaucrats, one-third of the corpo-

rate executives, nearly half of the academicians/media persons/

youth and a signicant number (three-quarters) of the develop-ment workers interviewed presented broad/moralistic deni-

tions of corruption, listing several different acts as corrupt. In

their view, gift-giving, nepotism, womanising, tipping and dowry

all amount to corruption. In addition, some more unusual types

include psychic corruption and moral corruption.

There was a general feeling among the respondents that per-

sonal agendas have taken over from the public good. Today, it is

claimed, people proudly admit how much they get as a bribe.

Some blamed the non-implementation of strict rules and laws for

corruption. One would expect bureaucrats to advance morerestrictive and legalistic denitions of corruption because they

are steeped in the norms of public ofce. However, as noted

above, although not representative of all bureaucrats among the

respondents, some in this category favoured broad/moralistic

denitions (Table 2), of which a selection is given below:

(1) It means gratication of ones needs. It can be a physical

need, womanising or illegal gratication of any kind bribery. It

includes gratication, in all senses of the word physical, mate-

rial, tangible, intangible and all (A senior civil servant, Govern-

ment of Andhra Pradesh).

(2) Corruption essentially is when you give something and get

a favour in return. But there is also moral corruption (A female

bureaucrat, Andhra Pradesh).

(3) It is the total destruction of the administrative system,

justice, ethics (A retired Sikh civil servant).

(4) Corruption is when ones thought is corrupt. In Punjab,

people proudly admit how much they get as bribe. And people

who do not accept such money are said to have khushki [some

disease] (A middle-aged public servant from Punjab).

(5) Corruption is when you do not do your duty. Like, in my

profession at the health centre, if someone comes to me with a

prescription, and I am continuing to chat on the mobile phone,

ignoring my job, this is corruption (A middle-aged public servant

from Punjab working in a Primary Health Centre).

(6) If I use my ofcial vehicle outside of the ofce, it is corrup-

tion. If I use my position to do some favour to a relative or a

friend, which is also corruption (Bureaucrat in a central govern-

ment service in Andhra Pradesh).

(7) Corruption may be of the psyche, of the mind, of the

situation, of intent, of process corruption takes on lots of things

and forms, just like violence (A 50-year old senior Sikh marketing

professional).(8) Beda garkkeetahoyahai [It is ruining everything!] Those

who are corrupt cannot be religious. You would think in a

Table 2: Social Groups That Offered a Broad/Moralistic Definition

Social Groups That Offered a Broad/Moralistic Definition Examples of Corrupt Acts Cited by Them

Bureaucrats (25%) Not dispensing your duty

Corporate executives (40%) Nepotism/favourit ism

Academics/media persons (50%) Flirting

Youth (50%) Tipping

Development workers (70%) Corporate corruption

Womanising/sexual favours

Defamation

Exploiting the helpless

Bias based on looks/caste/religion

Dowry

Fake certificates for admission

Bribing god


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medical college named after Guru Ram Das [everyone] would

follow some ethics, but it is only in name (A Sikh woman president

of aNGO in Punjab).

(9) When you make a conscious decision which is not fair

towards somebody, for example in journalism, when I am writing

anything where I am not being fair, it is a kind of corruption.

Corruption is something that corrodes the core value system

(A senior Sikh editor of an English daily in Punjab).(10) Bias based on looks/caste/religion is also corruption.

Human rights violation is also a form of corruption when you

trample on someones life, when people are discriminated against

(A 45-year old Sikh advocate and a human rights activist).

Other acts falling within the broad/moralistic range of deni-

tions which were considered to be corrupt by both the Sikh and

the Hindu youth represented by young college and university stu-

dents from diverse educational and family backgrounds include:

(11) Teacher who is teaching in the school is engaged as a tuition

teacher. By giving him/her extra income as a tuition teacher, you

want extra marks for your children.

(12) If the deserving do not get what is due to them that is

corruption.

(13) A person gets his hand injured, he goes to a hospital. Even

though it is a small thing, nowadays what most hospitals are

doing, they are giving a whole list of scans just so they can earn

money. It is not necessary but they are like, you need this operation,

that operation. That is corruption.

(14) So there is accepting gifts because that is part of Japanese

culture is all about gift giving and gift accepting. And if you

dont, you are not building relationships. But if you take too much

of a gift, now you are at their mercy. You have lost leverage. You

have lost power for your company.As is apparent from the denitions above, corruption takes on

various forms and explanations. Even within the two denitional

tendencies identied here, diverse views were expressed both by

those who offered narrow legalistic denitions and by those who

had a broad/moralistic perspective. The notion of corruption pre-

sented by different respondents in the study appears to have

come out of their experiences during the course of their working

lives and their day-to-day interactions with other members of the

society. The choice of denition depended on both practicalities

and the assumptions of the respondents about the social world

and their place in it. It may be futile to assume that a consensus

can be achieved about the norms and values that specify what

can be called corruption.

Religions and Value Systems: Ethical Codes of Conduct

One of the central objectives of the study was to investigate how

people relate religion to their personal values and to their profes-

sional conduct and aspirations. An important sociological point

reiterated by many respondents was that values are rooted in a

multiplicity of culture-specic factors, such as family ideals,

upbringing, religion, education, social status, etc, which mani-

fest their inuence in varying degrees in the lives of different

individuals. Moreover, it emerged that values governing humanbehaviour may differ according to the context, i e, personal,

professional or sociopolitical. The responses to our enquiry

regarding codes of conduct indicated that most regard a value

system as a composite idea or belief-set, although it is difcult

to identify a systematic and unambiguous list of factors that

dictate the personal as well as professional codes of ethics of a

particular person.

This section presents a collage of factors that our respondents

believed were the important inuences that have shaped their

value systems. Understandably, almost all the respondents werenon-committal in attributing their value system to any single

source of inuence. For most, codes of behaviour are a combina-

tion of several ideas and stimuli it is not possible to segregate

the important inuences as one grows, one imbibes them from

all around. However, from among the numerous factors that

over 100 people interviewed named/listed as inuencing their

moral or ethical behaviour, the analysis clearly indicates that the

dominant category was family ideals and principles taught by

parents, followed by religion. It was interesting that although

bureaucrats and other professionals like media persons, corpo-

rate executives and academics did quote from the code of con-

duct booklet they follow in their service, they also cited other

sources from where they draw their personal and professional

codes of conduct.

Family Ideals and Upbringing

Family values emerged as exercising a big inuence even on

those pursuing professions with ethical guidelines: We have to

face them [parents] if we indulge in corrupt practices and they

would not tolerate it. This senior Sikh bureaucrat felt that once a

bureaucrat gains a reputation as an honest person, he/she may be

given bad postings, but because of the importance of integrity,

this had to be accepted. A similar response came from a dynamicwoman bureaucrat in her early forties, who believed herself to be

brutally honest in her dealings. She felt that more than profes-

sional training, where nobody advises you to be corrupt, what

helps those in public life to make ethical choices when in a posi-

tion of power is ones family and upbringing.

A middle-aged Sikh corporate executive in a senior manage-

rial position felt that his value system came essentially from

my middle class background; parents have the maximum

inuence. Similarly, a director of projects at a corporate non-

governmental organisation (NGO), whose father was a freedom

ghter, also felt that the value system denitely comes from

home and depends on how you have been brought up.

In addition, responses among youth attributed the basis of

their value systems to family: For me its from home. They have

put our ideologies in our mind. Some regarded the behaviour of

some people associated conspicuously with religion as undesira-

ble, but others were quick to point out that a family may have

been inuenced by religion, So, what we are imbibing may be

coming indirectly from religion.

Religion Is Fairly Important

Sikh as well as Hindu bureaucrats, media persons, and academ-

ics also listed religion as a major factor that had shaped their value systems and inuenced their personal and professional

conduct. However, the nature, extent and mode of inuence of


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religion differed from person to person, depending on their inter-

pretation of being religious.

A Sikh bureaucrat from Chandigarh who had joined public

service in 1974 and claimed that he had remained honest even

when there were difcult times in managing his family was sure

that, I have imbibed my core values of sacrice and humility

from the Sikh religion. However, he admitted that he has come

across people who while appearing very religious, were disap-pointing when their value system is examined at close quarters.

For the Sikh editor of a well-established English daily, being

born into a religion and into a certain value system was enough

to believe that religion and its value system had played a fairly

prominent part in his life you just imbibe it, he told us. A phar-

macist in a government health centre emphasised the importance

of religious teachings and stated that his values had all come

from religion, although only after he had developed a deep un-

derstanding of the scriptures. For a female development worker

from Punjab, her value system had come from the teachings of

the guru and from parents who were also deeply religious. She

attributed to religion the inspiration for her work at the home for

the destitute that she runs: When God is in the heart, goodness

comes in a natural way.

This level of certainty that value systems do emanate from reli-

gion was also expressed by the director of the Anti-Corruption

Bureau of Andhra Pradesh:

Religion plays a very important role in most peoples life, giving them

a good value system. But it does not mean that people who are reli-

gious have a good value system it cannot be a linear relationship

between being religious and having a very strong value system.

Codes of the Organisation or ProfessionA central belief that prevailed in discussions with respondents

about personal morality and public roles was that personal values

have a bearing on integrity in professional life and provide the

strength to stay away from unethical behaviour. However, a

majority of the corporate executives and many young profession-

als regarded the idea of ethical conduct as being incompatible

with a ercely competitive environment. The corporate execu-

tives articulated that, although the idea of corporate ethics

reects some of the same values as those promoted by most reli-

gious teachings, there is a big gap between precept and practice:

It basically depends on the character and expectations of the

organisation you are working with nothing to do with religion

or values. Even the businessman from Hyderabad who was

deeply religious in personal life expressed his inability to carry

all the values that his religion preaches into his business code of

conduct, I have to be exible, I have no choice.

Religion: A Discredited Entity?

As discussed in the introduction, it is sometimes suggested that

an appeal to the values associated with religion might increase

the effectiveness of anti-corruption initiatives, and it is clear

from the evidence presented so far that religion is an important,

if not the only, source of ethical values for middle class Indians.In the Indian context, therefore, could it be a resource to be

drawn on in efforts to combat corruption?

Many of the respondents in this study did express their faith in

the potential of religion to act as a powerful force in the ght

against corruption. Many respondents strongly felt that, If peo-

ple follow religion, there will be no corruption. They were, how-

ever, quick to emphasise that this can happen only if the true

meaning of being religious is understood: If anyone really

follows religion and knows the values through religion, there

should be no corruption in the country or the world. If religion isgiven the place it deserves in the lives of the people and moral

values and ethics embedded in it are not just preached, but also

followed, denitely religion can settle our problem and make

this place a better place to live in. They were also strong in their

view that No religion tells you to be corrupt. No faith tells you to

be corrupt.

However, while claiming that religion can introduce disci-pline, many respondents also noted that we have become very

pragmatic; we are not actually practising what the religion

teaches us; we disregard ideas of the religion which do not suit us

then, how can religion help? If we bend the rule once, we can

do it again. They contended that, if somebody calls themselves

religious, and is still corrupt, they are not following the religion

in spirit. They believed that religion today emphasises rituals

and does not inspire a change in heart to take man closer to

God, so that religion or spirituality does not curb greed. Many

shared the view of a development worker from Hyderabad, who

was unsure if people understood the true spirit of religion now-

adays: Religion has also become one of the sources of income.

You become a God-man or God-woman and exploit the senti-

ments of the public.

Thus nearly all the respondents in this study agreed with a

media person who felt that, in the present times, religion is adiscredited entity organised religion has become politicised:

and does not have force of the word behind it.

A majority of the respondents, especially youngsters, expressed

disillusionment with what is termed religious and with those

who claim to be religious. They considered female foeticide as a

glaring example of how people are not following religious

values. In fact, they regard overly religious persons with suspi-

cion, alleging that extreme religiosity generates doubts in the

minds of observers about a persons true character and purpose

as, in their view, such people are the most corrupt and most

inhuman persons.

Another example of the disappointment felt by respondents

with the standing of religion in contemporary times was that

people tend to use religion to misrepresent themselves as spirit-

ual beings while being engaged in unethical practices. For exam-

ple, a corporate executive from Hyderabad observed, Is there

any religion that can claim that nobody from among them is

involved in corruption? People of all religions are directly or indi-

rectly a part of corruption. So, religion has no role in stopping

corruption. In particular, they expressed anguish over the fact

that some leaders of religious bodies are corrupt: most religious

institutions are now managed by the moneyed people and the

type of people (of whom it is reputed) that they have made moneythrough wrong means and some of them are suspected of even

misusing Gods money. Despite their belief that religion offers a


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Notes

1 For more discussion see Mohapatra 1998; Bardhan1997; Padhy 1986; Chakravarti 1998; Caiden 1988;Dwaraki 2000; Widgery 1929; Tatla 2008.

2 A recent article , Dont Hindu Gurus Care aboutCorruption? by Amrit Dhillon in Open dated 8January 2011 http://openthemagazine.com/arti-cle/nation/don-t-hindu-gurus-care-about-corrup-tion specically questions Hindu religious leaders

for not speaking out against corruption in publicand critiques Hinduism for being apathetic.

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Shiv Visvanathan and Harsh Seth i (ed.),Foul Play,

Chronicles of Corruption 1947-97 (New Delhi:

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McGregor, Father Bede (1973): Ethical Standards inWorld Religions: II. Hindu Ethics in Theory andPractice, The Expository Times 85: 68.

Mohapatra, Bishnu N (1998): Languages of Corrup-tion, Shiv Visvanathan and Harsh Sethi (ed.),

Foul Play, Chronicles of Corruption 1947-97(NewDelhi: Banyan Books).

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Pavarala, Vinod (1996): Interpreting Corruption: ElitePerspectives in India (New Delhi: Sage Publications).

Sandholtz, Wayne and William Koetzle (1998):Accounting for Corruption: Economic Structure,Democratic Norms and Trade, Centre for the Studyof Democracy, University of California, Irvine.

Sangita, S N (2000): Corruption in Administration:Causes and Consequences in N Narayanasamy,N, M P Boraian and M A Jeyaraju (ed.), Corruptionat the Grassroots: The Shades and Shadows (NewDelhi: Concept Publishing Company).

Sheth, N R (1995): Values in Search of an IdentityJournal of Human Values, 1: 75-79.

Tatla, Darshan S (2008): Sikhism and Development:A Review, RaD Working Paper 21.International

Development Department, University of Birming-ham. http://www.religionsanddevelopment.org/index.php?section=47

Vittal, N (2003): Corruption in India: The Roadblockto National Prosperity (New Delhi: AcademicFoundation).

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potential weapon in the struggle to reduce corruption, therefore,

respondents in this study were sceptical about whether it can

play a positive role in practice.

Conclusions

Religion forms an important part of peoples lives in India, even

if interpretations of religiosity and what is considered as

being religious are interpreted in diverse ways. Religioncoexists with what may be described as a liberal, cosmopolitan

and global outlook among middle class Indians and forms an

indispensable part of the cultural ethos and social fabric of the

country. It emerges from this study that value systems are an

amalgamation of several factors and inuences that cannot be

tidily isolated, and which may be rooted in a multiplicity of

culture-specic factors, like family ideals, upbringing, religion,

education, social status and socialisation. Respondents con-

rmed that in their view, human behaviour is governed not

only by value systems but also by personal, professional or socio-

political circumstances and the environment. A common under-

standing was that those who profess to be religious are not

necessarily morally and ethically strong. Religiosity is not a

guarantee of virtuousness.

The exercise of dening corruption by members of various

social groups from Punjab and Andhra Pradesh did not point

towards a shared meaning. The concept of corruption is uid and

indeed a site for multiple and even contested meanings. The mis-

use of public ofce for private gain was the dominant conception

of corruption among the respondents, although some simply

dened it as deviation from a code of conduct laid down in

any walk of life. While a signicant majority identied acts

that involve monetary exchange as deserving of the label andexcluded gift-giving, adultery or nepotism, an equal number

dened corruption in a broad, moralistic idiom. In general, the

researchers sensed the prevalence of a view that suggested the

proliferation of a culture of corruption which is corrupting the

culture in India.

Although there is a deep-seated faith that, if harnessed,

religion has the potential to be a powerful moral force to ght

corruption, in present times, religion is not seen as contributing

to the moral or spiritual fabric of the country. Very few respond-

ents in the study thought that religion can be counted on to

make a difference in peoples general attitudes towards corrup-tion. They have limited condence in the accountability of reli-

gious organisations. It is, therefore, problematic to assume ei-

ther the appropriateness or the effectiveness of religious organi-

sations in ghting corruption. In fact, religion is looked upon as

a discredited entity by many, largely due to a sense of popular

disillusionment with its caretakers. Religion is perceived as

being in the wrong hands, misused by powerful people, and

overemphasising ritual and fanaticism rather than the true

spirit of religion.

The perception of respondents of a moral vacuum at the heart

of organised religion is not surprising in the light of recent

scandals associated with religious organisations, maths (spiritual

ashrams) and temples of worship, which point towards a lack

of any moral engagement whatsoever on the part of religious

leaders and the priestly class. Rarely does one nd a religious

organisation or leader articulating a stand against corruption in

public life.2 They no longer seem to exert moral inuence over

citizens, especially young men and women, who commonly

express cynicism towards those who preach the importance of

accountability whilst themselves remaining unaccountable.

However, if religion were to be a practised art rather than the

performative one that it has become in modern times, perhaps

specic religion-based morals and narratives could contribute insubtle ways to curbing corruption and generating an environ-

ment in India in which honesty, integrity and hard work are re-

warded and celebrated.

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Religon and Corruption in Indian Context