A First Estimate Of Petty Corruption

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India slips in corruption index: Transparency Intl

: Tucked away in the inside pages of a national daily was a report this week that the Anti-Corruption Bureau had nabbed “red-handed” a lowly official accepting a princely bribe of Rs 100. The official, we were informed, has been immediately suspended. He was caught accepting the money “across the table”, not even under the table, much like the infamous Mr Bangaru Laxman, former President of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The crime may be small in monetary terms but the punishment was exemplary. All punishment is meant to be exemplary because no system can ever catch all offenders. When a thief is caught, he is subject to exemplary punishment as a warning to potential thieves. The inequity in the system however lies in the fact that while this gent got caught and was suspended for petty corruption, those who transact in crores almost always go scot-free.

The corruption of the big, “grand larceny”, says a report of Transparency International India (TII), “by its very nature is difficult to detect. Both the giver and the taker are beneficiaries of the corruption.” When exposed, as in the case of Bofors, Hawala and the Tehelka scams, such big corruption makes big news but rarely is there any exemplary punishment. When caught, corrupt politicians often use the so-called “verdict of the electorate” as a smokescreen to escape punishment by manipulating the system. To do this they often subvert the law and order machinery and co-opt the law enforcers. Little wonder then that in public perception the “most corrupt” section of society is the police.

In the first ever comprehensive survey of “Corruption in India”, TII and ORG-Marg have put out this week fascinating data on “petty corruption”, the kind people feel. This is not the corruption that is talked about in editorial pages and on television chat shows. This is the Rs 100 across-the-table kind of corruption. This is about the bribe the local police station seeks to lodge a first information report when a crime is reported. This is about the bribe the doctor demands to treat a patient quickly. This is about the “mamool” the electricity meter reader takes to read your meter wrongly.