Writings @ Ankur Mutreja by Ankur Mutreja - HTML preview

Chapter 4.4.2: Corruption

“Corruption” is departure from what is “correct”, and “correct” means conformable to a just standard or truth. I will take one example. Constitutional and legal duties have been fixed upon the government employees and the ministers, and they are not supposed to deviate from them, whatever the circumstances, whatever the inducements. As per the original standards, a police officer was supposed to register the FIR on receiving a complaint without any inquiry. The registration of an FIR leads to the judicial check over the Executive while carrying out investigation. However, the Apex Court of this country, in one of its recent decision, has held that a police officer can conduct preliminary inquiry before registration of an FIR, which, in other words, means that many complaints would be disposed off at the level of the Executive itself and will never be reported to the Judiciary. Is this usurpation of the original standard of conduct by a trickery of law practiced by the Executive? The answer to the above question answers many questions about the philosophy of corruption.

Yes, corruption also has a philosophy: It is about usurpation of power from the public and concentrating it in the hands of a few. Let us see how it operates. A poor person wants to seek a license to run a small catering business from his residence-cum-shop. He is advised to obtain a license from the office of the Commissioner, MCD, where, in an ordinary course, he has to pay a bribe of say Rs. 5,000. Now, this Rs. 5,000 becomes his entry cost into the mainstream. The entry into the mainstream gives him a status and the power associated with it. In case he can’t afford Rs. 5,000, he stays out of the power, and if he is adamant, he gets that power after a delay of several years. There would be several interest groups who would be interested in the non-entry of this person into the mainstream. First would be the politician because the entry brings the politician into the direct danger of losing the faithful vote bank of the poor person, who never question his motives and also canvasses the most for him during elections so that he can keep running his small illegal business without any fear of the MCD. Second would be the capitalist, who gets his power by making the poor person work in his factory for the minimum daily wages, and any independent business by the poor person makes labor more expensive. However, the biggest barriers are those who are just next in the hierarchy; i.e., those who have established themselves in the mainstream after many efforts, and now they don’t want to share their limited power with the new entrant. I have made the case simplistic by introducing the concept of bribe, but it is never so simple. It is far more complicated, sometimes even leading to sending one’s daughter/wife to the dens of the powerful people of all sorts, not just politicians/bureaucrats/police — though I believe that politicians are the biggest beneficiary of corruption; not sure of bureaucrats, but definitely sure of police that they are not the beneficiaries; rather, they are the biggest idiots who think the only way to show smartness is by being corrupt, therefore they do corruption to just be in the business. The above is more so when the stakes are high; for example, when at stake is not an entry into a group of some small businessmen but a few top business tycoons — I have heard stories of at least one top gun, who is associated with IPL, of having sent his wife on one such adventure trip many years ago. So, that’s the philosophy of corruption: Creating such entry barriers to power which can’t be circumvented by knowledge, skill, logic, talent and ability alone and can’t be surmounted by hard work and sincerity alone.

It is obvious that a philosophy can be countered only by another philosophy, and what that another philosophy should be is an easy question. ©2011-2015 Ankur Mutreja