Power corrupts — and power is shaped neither by the caste divisions in Indian society nor (at least one would like to believe) by the economic status of those who wield power.

Such are the attributes of power in a society like ours — and perhaps in some others — that whoever sits in the chair is afflicted by the virus to enrich himself irrespective of whether he is poor or not, or whether he belongs to highest Indian social strata or hails from among the downtrodden.

Quest for ‘equality’

Admittedly, the method of lining one’s pocket will differ in that while the more affluent (and socially “higher”) group will use normally “genteel” methods of self-enrichment, the other, more often than not, will have recourse to “pedestrian” methods.

Clearly, therefore, when some intellectuals recently suggested in Jaipur that the poor and the socially downtrodden are drawn more powerfully towards corrupt behaviour, they could not have been more mistaken.

The prevalence of corruption in India among those who wield power has grown — perhaps exponentially — with time. Does this then imply that the positions of power have been taken over by the socially downtrodden part of the populace? Cold statistics will indicate that this is far from what has been actually happening, and this despite the policy of reservation being pursued by the Government over the past six decades.

This apart, if “corruption” and everything else that it implies is somehow mixed up closely with the process of urbanisation, the inference would be that rural India — where the vast majority of the poor and the socially downtrodden live — is far more pristinely “honest” than urban India. Thus, it is the chair that tempts, the temptation being equally strong for whoever sits on it, irrespective of his or her background.

Most astonishingly, this way of looking at corruption has been linked to the quest for “social and economic equality”, one inevitable conclusion being that corruption on the part of the poor generally “equalises” by giving them “access to their entitlements”. One social scientist has even proclaimed that “as long as this equation persists, I have hope for the Republic”.

The end and the means

Willy-nilly, we are then presented with the thesis that there is something very “progressive” about corruption among those hailing from the country’s most deprived sections who wield power in Indian society. Since such corruption aids the process of upliftment of the poor, it could even be seen to be an acceptable policy instrument at the beck and call of any Government in a hurry to reduce the economic gap between the rich and the poor. Not surprisingly, the same social scientist quoted above has said that since corruption is “an equalising force”, he believes that “a zero-corruption society in India will be a despotic society”.

Since no one wants such a society, can the message then be: let us all encourage — or at least turn a blind eye to — corruption by the socially backward and downtrodden because “it gives them access to their entitlements”? In every case of corruption the law of the land is always broken. Thus, if corruption by a segment of society is lauded, no matter under what pretext, it means that those favouring such corruption are urging a transgression of the law.

In other words, it is being argued that even “illegal” means of promoting the poor’s access to their entitlements ought to pass muster in the interests of the larger effort to move towards a “less-despotic” society. The danger is that once the importance of the end is subsumed by that of the means, the very Constitutional structure of the Indian republic will be at stake. And, certainly, the hope is that none of the Jaipur protagonists would want that!

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