Cleansing political parties and elections of illegal money is the first step towards tackling the evil of graft
Corruption is nothing but a reflection of
the distribution of power within societies. The country is where it is because
the political system is self-perpetrating and no party is accountable to anyone
except a coterie of people that dominates all decisions. Unless the political
system is accountable, going after individual cases of corruption will achieve
little.
Slew of anti-corruption bills
By making a single point demand for a Jan Lokpal in India, to the exclusion of all else, Anna Hazare’s agitation became
circumscribed by its own rhetoric. Expectedly, the Indian government response was a
slew of anti-corruption bills that have been introduced in Parliament, unheard
of in the annals of the past six decades. From 2010, in a span of just two
years, as many as 10 anti-corruption bills have been tabled including the
disputed Lokpal bill, the forfeiture of benami property, foreign bribery, money
laundering, and whistle-blowing bills plus five more — all aimed at deterring
specific acts of corruption or purporting to give corruption-free public
service as a right. And it was not just the Central government that showed this
eagerness. Bihar, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Odisha have actually enacted laws
which can result in the attachment of ill-gotten property of public servants —
sometimes pending investigation.
Undeniably, the citizenry will applaud such
measures, frustrated and angry as people are about corruption. But wittingly or
unwittingly, this response has deflected attention from a much larger issue.
None of the bills or laws addresses the fountainhead of corruption — the opaque
management of political parties which includes the source and deployment of
their funds.
The second Administrative Reforms
Commission (ARC 2009) underscored the large-scale criminalisation of politics,
illustrating how the participation by criminals in the electoral process was
“the soft underbelly of the Indian political system” leading to “the flagrant
violation of laws, poor quality of services, protection from lawbreakers on
political, group, class, communal or caste grounds, partisan interference in
the investigation of crimes, the poor prosecution of cases, inordinate delays
that last for years, high costs of the judicial process, mass withdrawal of
cases and indiscriminate grant of parole.”
What is of great importance is the open
admission that votes are in fact secured through large, illegal and
illegitimate expenditure on elections. This has been termed as the starting
point of corruption making cleansing elections the most important route to
bringing principles into politics. The Lokpal brouhaha has deflected attention
from issues infinitely more important for going after dishonest politics, which
seems to be all-pervasive.
And the context matters too. Much of India
lives in as unequal a world — comparable in fact to pre-industrial Britain.
Feudal mindsets prevail and the exercise of patronage is expected. In addition,
in India, money power can control decisions the voter makes. Bound by the mores
of a largely agrarian way of life, the poor remain simultaneously protected and
penalised not by the law and the police as much as by feudal lords, often
having criminal records. Indian political parties had long used these local
sardars and strongmen as trusted allies for defeating opponents. But the latter
have moved up in life by increasingly joining the political fray as candidates
— not just supporters, and they have joined to win.
According to the Annual Report of the
Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), among 543 elected Members of
Parliament who were elected in the 2009 election, 162 (30 per cent) had
criminal cases pending. Five years earlier, that figure was 24 per cent.
Meanwhile, the votes needed to win a seat have fallen to as low as 15 per cent.
Criminal elements that once pulled in votes for party candidates are now getting
voted to power themselves, gaining social respectability and public esteem in
the bargain. Meanwhile, campaign-spending limits being easy to flout, buying
the voter is easily managed.
More worrisome than individual corruption
is the widespread concern that funds are collected by political parties and
parked in secret bank accounts abroad to be ploughed back to finance elections
often by hook or by crook. Since fund management is confined to a handful of
people in each party, it gives enormous power to the top leadership which
controls the deployment of funds and all that accompanies it. When the choice
of candidates is intrinsically linked with money power, quid pro quos, and
IOUs, clean candidates without money or political pedigree do not stand a ghost
of a chance. And it goes without saying that once illegal and illegitimate
expenditure is incurred on winning elections, there can be no prospect of
honest dealings thereafter.
In the OECD countries with which we
frequently draw comparisons, three qualities on a scale of eight, considered
the most important attributes required from members of the political executive
are objectivity, impartiality and neutrality. In those countries, a Minister is
expected to publicly commit himself to observing ethical principles if he is to
set an example to public servants.
In India, talk of ethical conduct is
laughed at; civil servants take their cue from the standards of probity they
are witness to — superiors in the service and their political bosses. Until
political parties field clean candidates and promote and reward them, a climate
of ethical dealings simply cannot emerge.
Expecting the clean up to come only by
reinforcing anti-corruption laws though necessary, will divert attention from
the real issue of corruption — how political parties collect funds and give
tickets. The only way this can change is by educating voters on the dynamics
behind the power play. Simply put, it means having knowledge about the origin
of party funds to provide insights into the interests that back a political
party. Equally how such contributions might influence future policies
—including the future outlook for using public funds and natural resources.
It should come as no surprise that when ADR
sought information on political party funding, using RTI, all political parties
with the exception of the CPI (M) responded that they were not bound to provide
such information. This, when income tax exemptions worth hundreds of crores of
rupees, land and accommodation at nominal rates, and free airtime, are all
provided at public cost. A full bench of the Central Information Commission
(CIC) met in September to take a view on this. But major political parties
shied away.
The key issue
Whatever the outcome, it is unlikely that
the sources of party funding would be declared in the foreseeable future. But
that is the key to understanding the compulsions of political parties and the
decisions they make. One way of overcoming the clandestine collection of
election funds would be to introduce state funding of elections as so many
countries have done. More importantly there is a need for laws that mandate
transparency in the deployment of political party funds coupled with rules that
democratise inner party functioning. Unless the monopoly that a small clique
that holds the reins of power in almost every party is freed, new blood can
never transfuse into the political arena.
A Bill called the Registration and
Regulation of Political Parties (2011) has been drafted by a committee chaired
by Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah, former Chief Justice of India. The bill
includes a democratic process for selecting party office-bearers as well as
those given the ticket. It talks of limits on donations by individuals and
corporations, suggests penalties for non-compliance and addresses the vexed
question of how to deal with support groups that spend money that remains
unaccounted for in the candidates’ election expenses.
It is legislation like
this that the country needs. Much more than a Lokpal. It is only when political
parties become answerable that clean candidates will emerge. Then alone might
the use of public funds for private gain halt.
(A former civil servant, Shailaja Chandra is the Vice President of Initiatives for Change-Centre for Governance, a think tank that supports social reform.)
This text first appeared as a lead article in the Edit page of The Hindu newspaper (printed version) on 27 November 2012
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