Diagnosing corruption

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Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

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By N. Vittal [4]

Rs 499

Corruption is arguably one of the biggest issues — if not the biggest issue — that is agitating people in India today. This is an issue that affects almost all sections of the population; the poor have to bear the brunt of corruption while those belonging to the middle classes better articulate their concerns in this regard.

The frustration of ordinary citizens as a result of the all-pervading corruption perceived in high places has now transformed into outrage and anger spilling on to the streets.
The manner in which the public at large has been reacting to the recent statements made by RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan are sure-shot indicators of the importance of corruption as a political as well as a social and an economic issue in the country at present.
It can be argued that there is little or nothing that is either new or unique about corruption in India. Supporters of the government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh point out that never before in the country’s history have so many influential individuals, ranging from politicians, including Union ministers, chief ministers of states and members of Parliament, to bureaucrats and corporate bigwigs, had to spend time behind bars. Yet, paradoxically, there continues a perception that this government more than its predecessors has broken new records in terms of the sheer scale and the brazen manner in which corrupt practices have proliferated. Dr Singh himself has stated that his is not the “most corrupt” government that India has seen.
Given the mood that is currently prevailing, Ending Corruption, written by N. Vittal, former Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) and secretary to the Government of India, is certainly timely. The author, who spent four decades in the elite Indian Administrative Service (IAS), has been a prolific speaker and writer on the issue of corruption in and out of office.
At one stage, he had acquired the status of a cult figure because of his witticisms and homilies, giving the impression of being a crusader against graft. Now he seems somewhat mellow, having realised the limitations of trying to change the system “from within” and having displayed flashes of “irrational exuberance” on the subject of how to bring about a more-transparent and hence, less-corrupt society.
Vittal was the first CVC who took over charge after the government accepted the decision of the Supreme Court in the 1997 Vineet Narain case (better known as the Jain hawala case) which, among other things, ensured that the CVC’s post was filled up through a process of consultation involving the Prime Minister, the home minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and gave the CVC a supervisory role over the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Vittal takes credit for being the first to “expose corruption” through the Internet when he placed the names of bureaucrats and policemen against whom action had been recommended on the CVC’s website.
However, this move to name and shame hardly made much of a difference and till date, various ministries in the government flagrantly flout the recommendations of the CVC to suspend, proceed against or prosecute civil servants and officials of public sector organisations against whom serious allegations of corruption are pending.
In broad brush strokes, Vittal’s book seeks to analyse and explain corruption in politics, the bureaucracy, the judiciary, the media and the corporate sector. He examines the role that civil society organisations and citizens can play in combating corruption and is cautiously optimistic about the future. But the book, to this reviewer, has its share of limitations. Facts, anecdotes and quotations are jumbled together in a manner that occasionally borders on the haphazard.
The author clearly prefers the doctor’s approach to curbing corruption to the approach of the policeman.
This is evident from the titles of the first three chapters and the last chapter of the book: Multiple Organ Failure, Diagnosis, Evolving a Line of Treatment and From Prescription to Cure. At the end of the book, the “acknowledgements” explain the writer’s predilections. After thanking a number of his colleagues from the IAS, Vittal lists the medical practitioners who “saved” his life in 2007 and who gave him “an opportunity to reflect deeply on my own body and the body politic of India”.
He writes that the process by which healing takes place after an injury or a serious operation like a bypass surgery is a miracle. He writes, “It has been rightly said that the doctor only dresses the wounds. It is God who cures and heals. The psychosomatic impact in the healing process is perhaps one of the reasons why placebos are effective in almost 90 per cent of cases.”
If one extends the analogy to curing the country of some of the worst forms of corruption, only the Almighty can then save India. This is an instance where the reviewer found the author’s arguments somewhat naïve and credulous. Good doctor Vittal diagnoses the ailments very well, including the corrupt nexus between business, politics and crime that many consider the fountainhead of corruption in India.
In describing the sickness and prescribing the cure, Vittal blurs the boundaries between individual integrity and systemic, structural and institutional factors responsible for graft. In this respect, the material in the book could have been better organised — compartmentalising philosophy and politics, ethics and economics.

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta is an educator and commentator