Surendra Kishore
After independence, corruption in the Indian government system reached from top to bottom. Now there is an attempt to reduce it from above. Positive results are also coming out of this effort. Certain things have been said about corruption in this country over the years. That is, the powers that be in power have generally been saying that corruption goes up from the bottom. That is, as the subjects, so the king.
On the other hand, the political forces who live in the opposition say that Gangotri is the top place of power for corruption. But aside from these controversies, American sociologist Paul R. Brass, after his research in 1966, wrote that the horrific corruption in India was started by the ruling leaders after independence. Corruption went from top to bottom.
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Paul R. Brass had done a deep study of the problem of corruption by living in Uttar Pradesh for years. He also wrote a book on it. Its name is -Factional Politics in an Indian State: The Congress Party in Uttar Pradesh. The conclusion of Brass’s research was “Congress ministers
Rewarding one’s followers with monetary benefits is the most powerful means of making factionalism permanent.”
Brass found that the important departments of distribution of powers and rewards in districts are the Department of Home Affairs, Department of Education, Department of Cooperation and Industry. It was found in the research that through the Home Department, their political opponents are taught a lesson. To teach a lesson involves harassing by being implicated in false cases. The most powerful department to take advantage is the education department.
The Education Minister has indirect control over universities and private educational institutions. Whether it is financial aid or scholarship, it depends on the grace of the Education Minister. Brass found in his investigation that the leaders of different factions of the Congress of Uttar Pradesh had established their own educational institutions.
In this way a ready-made organization of teachers, students and administrators becomes available to the leaders. This strengthens the political groups. State government ministers are also divided into factions. The ministers of the two conflicting factions are always trying to figure out how to strengthen their supporters and weaken their rivals in the district. To make this effort successful, ministers make official visits to the districts from time to time.
In this way some administrative officers of the district also themselves indulge in political factionalism. Brass says this has an adverse effect on clean, professional and fair administration. Brass had studied Uttar Pradesh. The situation was more or less the same at the national level as well. If two leaders from one state were ministers at the Centre, then their separate factions were formed in their state. Corruption went down even from the central level.
The situation in other states was more or less the same. That is why there were changes in the leadership of the state government from time to time. Generally the angry people of the ruling party kept changing the leadership on demand. Today the situation has changed. In the last seven-and-a-half years, no member of the Narendra Modi cabinet has been accused like the governments before that. That is, now it seems that serious efforts are being made to clean up from above.
How much success has been achieved in this work so far can be a matter of dispute. It is seen that the top bureaucracy level is not getting as much success as the political executive level. The Modi government is adopting lateral entry mode to bring professionals at the level of Joint Secretary in the Central Secretariat. But, such an experiment needs to be done at the state level also.
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Its positive achievements are visible at the central level. The need to clean up corruption from top to bottom of the government is also felt. Expectations have increased from the Modi government. This was not the case before. Paul R. The complexities in governance and politics have increased today compared to the activism period of Brass. There has been a huge expansion in the areas of development and welfare.
Funds are now coming in a lot. The way it seeps out has also increased. In 1985, the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had said that “we send 100 paise from Delhi, but only 15 paise reaches the public.” It was this “development” from 1966 to 1985. In the last seven and a half years, the “leakage” has reduced. Obviously this has been possible only through a lot of effort. But much more remains to be done.
Reading Paul Brass’s book in 1966, the top leaders of that time would have adopted the same trick that Narendra Modi’s government is adopting today, then not knowing how much public money could have stopped from going down the “drain”. There is an old saying about India in the knowledgeable circles of China. That is, “The Government of India keeps its budget money in a lot which has many holes.” Now he should change this saying.
(The writer is a senior journalist and political affairs expert)
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