Corruption is hardly a new phenomenon in India, but in the past few months, we have seen corruption of a scale never witnessed before and involving institutions that seemed to have been beyond its clammy reach. Every week brings a new scandal, and each seems to involve a fresh set of players. Corruption seems to have moved beyond its permanent abode?politics and the bureaucracy?into sports, the military, media, the judiciary, religion and godmen and corporate India. Every segment seems steeped in corruption and every pillar of the society, economy and polity appear to have been compromised. It is clear that the problem does not relate to isolated individuals, but is of a systemic and institutional nature.

Of course, corruption is by no means unique to India, but we do manage a very impressive 9th rank in the world corruption charts with countries such as Cambodia, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Senegal, Uganda and Liberia for company. According to the same study, 54% of Indians claimed to have paid a bribe in the past one year, a figure that does not seem way out of proportion if tallied with our everyday experience. It begs the question as to if there is a cultural element to this widespread phenomenon. Without descending into gross cultural stereotypes that speak of corruption as a character trait endemic to Indians, is it possible that corruption is one manifestation of the ways in which we have collectively learned to respond to contexts of a certain kind? Have we come to see the world in a way that allows us to exercise and condone corruption? Is there something in our cultural past that has given us a special kind of equipment that makes us react to this phenomenon in a distinctive way?

At the heart of the Indian response lies the ambivalent relationship we have with the idea of power, particularly that of power that is acquired through man-made mechanisms like a designation or political office. Power is seen less as an instrument of making an impact on the lives of others, but more as a condition that modifies one?s born station in life. Power makes all of us rulers, whatever may be the size of the territories in which our writ runs. The fondness of visible signs of power like sirens, badges, an entourage that receives and sees us off at railway stations and airports, as with the extreme touchiness when the less powerful question, challenge or frisk us, all point to the implicit mental model of power we carry in our heads. The election exists to pick rulers, not public servants and promotions anoint new despots. It is revealing to see how naked this model of power is; a despotic boss who rides roughshod over his subordinates sees nothing wrong in enacting rituals of greasy subservience in front of his own boss, in full view of the subordinate. The message is clear?hierarchy itself must be respected and all power and all modes of use of power are legitimate. Hierarchy exists in every facet of our life, and we measure ourselves anxiously with those against whom we benchmark ourselves. Now this seem to be a universal trait, but take the ferocity with which Indians track the progress of batchmates and the ease with which even in the private sector there exists a presumption that one should be paid what one?s batchmate gets for no other reason but that the two lie on the same social platform simply because they started out together.

What this wholehearted embrace of power does is to legitimise all forms in which it comes to be used. Separated from the purpose for which it was created and invested in a particular individuals, it lives on in its mutant form, and recognises few boundaries of right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate. An entire system gets created around this mode of using power.

Institutional power that is acquired rather than in-born is particularly difficult to digest. In a larger sense, given the deeply rooted and embedded nature of Indian social organisation, where everyone has a defined place in the world and there exists, by and large, great certainty about the rules and conventions that govern our lives, we find extremely difficult to navigate a world where rules do not carry the same invisible certitude. Rules are so visibly constructed by human beings that they carry little moral sanctity. They become frameworks within which to carry out negotiations with local circumstances rather than absolute principles that draw boundaries around our behaviour. We see our inability to comprehend and follow traffic rules, and in a more general sense, with any act of civic responsibility where we assume some reciprocal responsibility for our actions and the impact they have on others. New social formations do not have the heft of the older, more defining, categories like jati and community and we struggle with figuring out what is appropriate behaviour for a ?neighbour? or ?commuter? or ?elected representative?. New rules do not imprint themselves with the same finality and the fact that we see everyone around us display the same ambivalence reinforces the doubts we carry about them. The same does not apply when we are in a developed country; there it becomes apparent that these rules are non-negotiable and we find it easy to not take any liberties with them.

As a result, the idea of using acquired power for morally and socially correct reasons has never really been ingrained in us. For all the rallying against corruption, in our personal lives we are very happy to excuse ourselves from the prescriptions we proffer so passionately. At the first available opportunity most of us will cut corners if we believe we can get away with it, and in India, we most often do. The belief that our values are implanted within us, because of a past that is mythically rather than historically defined, makes it easier to believe that all actions are, therefore, suffused with values by definition. Actions comes pre-fitted with presumed propriety and the outside world is not taken that seriously as a poser of serious moral dilemmas. By giving the individual endless latitude in dealing with his immediate circumstances, we engage with the world as hagglers, trying to hustle a better deal for ourselves. Every ounce of power earned becomes useful leverage in extracting a little more from the usually niggardly circumstances that surround us.

In this view of the world, power is useless unless converted into some form of currency. The awareness of the transience of power lends urgency to this need. The powerful thus create a system around the extraction of value from their good fortune. Patronage rather than competency becomes the key operating principle; people in power ?look after? other people?s interests and intricate networks of give and take develop. The transactions are both in cash and kind and are not always hidden from view. Every kachehri, district court, RTO office and passport office, to name just a few institutions, has an institutionalised and highly visible set of touts, brokers and middlemen who get the work done for a fee. They take up permanent offices in these establishment and even print rate cards. Anyone even slightly serious about weeding out corruption would find no difficulty in identifying these people. Citizens can easily carry out some civil action if they so desired but the truth is that even as we moan about corruption in high places, we take no interest in dealing with the graft that exists right in front of us.

Is there a reason why we are seeing so much corruption today? Has something changed that has catalysed this context-sensitive morally ambiguous position we have taken on corruption? One clear change that we have seen in the past few years is the entry of the market into more arenas of our life. It is interesting how easily and with what enthusiasm India has embraced the market. As a mechanism, it carries great resonance with the Indian ability to see the world as a place where we carry out endless negotiations with context. The market has given everyone a common vocabulary and a common currency in which to transact. It is helping melt down the differences between various sectors. The market legitimises the pursuit and use of power for personal gain. Of course, when regulated well and in conditions where the other pillars of society do their job, the market is not allowed to penetrate all walks of life. In India, given the learned collective tolerance for the personal use of power, the market seems to be present everywhere. For now, certainly we seem united by corruption.

?The writer is CEO, Future Brands