The suggestion works only if the state goes after the bribe-takers, but bribe-givers are also abettors and contribute to the uneven distribution of resources
Laveesh Bhandari
Director, Indicus Analytics
The problem has to be addressed by changing the rewards and penalties of the bribe taker and giver. The Chief Economic Advisor is right in identifying this as the problem
The first time I was in a bribing situation was when the cops caught me running past an amber signal on Outer Ring Road. They quickly gathered. I was getting late for a flight and decided to take the “delay approach”. They would not give me a ticket, nor would they take my licence but insisted on taking me to the nearby police station. The choice between the Rs 5,000 air ticket and the Rs 100 payment (this was about 15 years ago) was quite apparent.
The second time was when dropping a lady home at night. The cops at a check post in Delhi at night “accompanied” us to the nearby police station despite having no cause. The gentleman in me would have yielded to the “harassment approach” but for this magnificent woman who preferred to risk trouble at home and work.
The third time was when I required a landline. Months had passed and there was no phone. Using the “familiarity approach” the nephew of the officer concerned contacted me. Between perennially ill senior citizens, a new wife, a schizophrenic uncle and a business that was just starting off I needed to be contactable 24x7; there was no choice.
The fourth time was when a mistake was made with some paperwork in the accounts office. The repeated visits of the inspector stopped work in the department for many days. I was advised to work with a consultant who specialised in handling the related government department. The consultant used the “agent approach”, took some cash and that was it. To this day I don’t know whether he bribed the inspector or just cleaned up the paperwork. But the harassment stopped.
Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Kaushik Basu has an interesting thought: Protect the bribe-giver. Will it help? The answer is yes, but only partially so. Consider the four broad approaches to taking bribes — each reflected above.
First, the taker delays things, using some clause in some law until the other party offers to pay. Here the bribe- taker is not the first one to ask, but he creates a situation in which the giver “convinces” the bribe-taker to take something. I suspect protecting the giver would help a bit in such situations, but only a bit, since delay (given the way the Indian state functions) is difficult to characterise as harassment.
The second is the “harassment approach”. Here the bribe-taker deliberately harasses. Potentially, this is where protecting the giver could help the most. But only in cases where the interaction is one time and not repeated.
The next is the “familiarity approach”. Here the bribe taker facilitates things if the giver benefits someone known to him. The benefits can be jobs, land, equity stake or, for that matter, cash. Such bribes are difficult if not impossible to prove. Typically, only those agents of the state get caught red-handed who are novices at this game — and there are few novices in this day and age.
The last is the “agent approach”. Who is the bribe-giver here? The agent? He has no incentive to report anything to the authorities. Such a law may actually make agents more pervasive.
Bribes or side-payments are a very important part of the day-to-day lives of all Indians. Most indulge in it in some manner. And those who do not take this route can survive only if they let it happen around them. It is, therefore, easy but pointless to address this problem on the moralistic dimension. The problem has to be addressed by changing the expected rewards and punishments of the taker and giver. The CEA is right in identifying this as the problem. He believes that by changing the incentive structure of the giver, one can also increase the bribe-taker’s expectation of getting caught and punished.
Protecting the giver would help and should be done, but only if the state also goes after the taker. The CEA’s suggestion is in the right direction, but only impacts harassment bribes that are based on a one-time interaction. At some point we will need to go after the bribe-takers at the top of state organisations. The signals against corruption, the likelihood of being punished and the expectations are only addressed when the Indian state refuses to tolerate bribe takers at the highest level.
Kiran Bedi
Activist and Former Director General, BPRD*
No crime of corruption takes place without the nexus of money, position and power, so the bribe giver has to be penalised for distorting the system
Cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle once said, “Everywhere you turn there is the aroma of corruption in the air. I wonder if that is the new graduation degree you need.”
To substantiate this here is the analysis of a C Fore survey conducted last year across 10 cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Patna, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Bhopal and Hyderabad.
The revelations of the survey of bribe-giving are mind-boggling: (a) one out of two admitted to having paid a bribe to get their child’s birth certificate; (b) one out of three paid a bribe for school admissions; (c) two out of three bribed the traffic police for getting out of traffic violations; (d) two out of three procured their driving licence by bribing their way; (e) one out of eight got a government job or posting by bribing the secretary or an official; (f) One out of five bribed a municipal authority to allow an illegal extension of his home; (g) one out of four bribed to allow an extension of their work places; (f) two out of three bribed a tax official to evade sales tax; (h) one out of four paid bribes to continue flouting pollution norms.
Bribes that big corporations pay, according to industry sources, are: (a) land use change: 5 per cent of land revenue value to the collector; (b) pollution clearance (one time): Rs 1 crore if it’s a polluting industry; (c) excise officials: 10 per cent of evasion; (d) electricity officials: 30 per cent of the theft; (e) tax officials: 10 per cent of I-T refund; (f) national highways: Rs 50 lakh per km; (g) police: Rs 25,000 per month; (h) factory inspectors: Rs 5,000 per month; (g) boiler inspectors: Rs 5,000 per month; and (h) railway wagon: 5 per cent of the value of the goods.
This level of corruption in bribe-giving is worsening by the day. The bribe-receiver grows richer while the bribe-giver either “survives” or “thrives,” depending on the situation.
Consequently, this form of corruption has serious ramifications because all violations have a price that we pay individually or collectively, directly or indirectly, as a society.
The bribe-giver contributes to uneven distribution of resources, fouls the merit system, pollutes the environment, increases human hazards, and spreads discontent and mistrust, which weakens the foundation of any country by producing corruption-tolerant generations. Which, as the survey reveals, is what has happened in India today.
The bribe-giver is either under duress to give for certain life-threatening or business compulsions or is greedy to acquire more wealth and influence. On both counts he is an abettor and culpable under the Indian legal system. While on the first count it is his claimed defence, and requires him to produce evidence of those circumstances, on the other count he is a clear abettor, perpetrator, conspirator and deserves to be indicted.
The UK has recently passed the Bribery Act 2010, which defines and clarifies offences of general bribery. It says, “If a person offers, promises or gives a financial or other advantage to another person and that person intends the advantage to induce a person to perform improperly a relevant function or activity or to reward a person for the improper performance of such a function or activity shall be punishable, on summary conviction with 12 months and on indictment up to 10 years. The functions & activities which fall within this scope are … any function of a public nature; any activity connected with a business performed in the course of a person’s employment performed by or on behalf of a body of persons (whether corporate or unincorporated) even outside the United Kingdom….”
The Janlokpal Bill drafted by the India Against Corruption Movement, and offered to the Government of India, has provided for a similar clause: “…Any person who obtains from the government by violating any laws or rules that person along with public servants who directly or indirectly helped that person to obtain those benefits shall be deemed to have indulged in corruption….”
No crime of corruption takes place without the nexus of money, position and power. So the bribe-giver has to be penalised for distorting the system — more so when it is for greed and national plunder.
*Bureau of Police Research and Development
