Shades of Political Corruption

First and foremost, let me recommend to you the most interesting book I have read this year – The Billionaire Raj by James Crabtree.

An interest in politics has many shades – the one where you like reading about it from afar and applauding or complaining, the one where you fundamentally believe that positive change can occur in a country or globally, the one where you personally take action for or against current government, or even the one where you are part of the political class.

In the same way, even corruption has its shades – the one where a politician may believe in following the path of truth and social justice but needs to support his or her political party (the platform he/ she stands on), the one where the politician benefits at the cost of social development, the one where the benefit comes from corporations, the one where benefit comes from everywhere (let’s eat the whole pie mentality), and the one that begins with the inherent need of funds for political survival. <Likely not an exhaustive list>

So, is every corrupt politician to be blamed by themselves for being greedy? Or can we also put some of that blame on ourselves, as citizens whose votes can be bought (no matter how cheap or expensive). The cost of winning a seat in a democracy like India is high and money doesn’t grow on trees. So, it creates an environment where the rich (or the corrupt) win. Is being corrupt to feed your campaign needs better, worse or the same as being corrupt to fill your personal locker? I’ll leave that to you.

But more importantly, many of us not only unknowingly (or knowingly) sell our votes, we often end up making the mistake of encouraging the worst kind of corruption. An individual interviewed by James Crabtree was referenced in the book breaking down common shades of corruption agents in Indian politics into the ‘roving bandit’ politicians and the ‘stationary’ politicians. The roving bandits being the ones who want the whole pie for themselves, leaving nothing for the development of their constituencies. And the stationary are those who take a portion of the pie, but also ensure that the pie is growing… perhaps why stationary politicians, despite having their reputations spoiled show resilience and often come back to the seat of power (case in point, Jayalalitha). While most of them do so for some sort of financial gain, the stationary ones often successfully remove barriers to business and increase the pie that their constituency can consume further. In fact, many focus specifically on enterprise related initiatives to feed their funding needs and leave the social initiatives alone because taking from the social initiative is not ideal for a happy population and for increasing the economic strength of their constituency.

So, let’s take a step back and ask ourselves these questions – are we selling our votes? are we making high campaign costs an imperative? And if we are doing so because of the environment itself, then are we pushing forward the stationary or the roving bandits?