By M D NALAPAT
In India, often, it is the very corrupt who are asked by their political masters to ‘monitor and punish’ the corrupt. It is scarcely a surprise that graft has flourished.
In 2012, the Communist Party of China (CCP) elders’ meeting at
Beidahe (a two-week annual ritual scheduled to take place this year
within a few days) overturned the decision of the then Chinese President
and CCP General Secretary, Hu Jintao, to appoint his Communist Youth
League (CYL) associate Li Keqiang as his successor the coming year.
Instead, the party elders chose Xi Jinping for that powerful role, and
perhaps unintentionally began a process that is as transformative for
China as the tenures of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping were in the past.
Mao was able—through ruthless adherence to his objective—to bring within
the control of the PRC a larger territory than had ever been the case
in his country’s history, while Deng began (towards the close of the
1970s) reforms that saw the Chinese economy grow from a size then
smaller than India’s to its present five times larger size. Through his
Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) and the anti-corruption campaign, Xi
Jinping is changing the texture of governance and the chemistry of the
PRC. Change is always a more disruptive process than the mummified
status quo that was the mark, for example, of Leonid Brezhnev’s all too
long innings in the now extinct USSR. Before Xi got into high gear, the
elephantine State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) dominating China’s economic
landscape were almost all fiefs of small, self-sustaining cliques, most
comprising “princelings”, or those descended from families that played a
significant part in the setting up of the PRC. After more than four
years of an intensive drive by Xi against corrupt officeholders, many
such enterprises have seen their managements devolve on professionals,
who got to their high positions through expertise rather than the
accident of birth. Policymakers in China are now working to ensure that
domestic private enterprises be given the policy leeway now enjoyed only
by the SOEs, so that more private behemoths such as Ali Baba can be
born. Such a freeing of the “glass ceiling” holding back private
enterprises in China is likely to once again accelerate growth in the
coming years, thereby giving India more competition in the annual rate
of growth sweepstakes. Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign has changed
the CCP, especially its higher echelons, as also took place (albeit in
two wholly different ways) during the Mao and Deng periods.
Unfortunately, “anti-corruption drives” in several Asian and African
countries are usually ruses designed to cloak and hide a putrefying
status quo. The very biggest politicians and officials escape
accountability, while a few smaller fry get caught in order to satiate
public anger at widespread graft. Such mock battles against corruption
get conducted mostly through words, rather than action, even as
politicians and officials secretly collude with each other to make
money. This cannot any more be said for China, where numerous very
high-level CCP and state functionaries are now in jail, with more
joining them almost every day. Although in a milder form, a similar
cleanup is taking place in Mahathir Mohamad’s Malaysia. Within days of
taking over the government, the 93-year-old human dynamo’s predecessor
Najib Razak was prevented from escaping abroad. This is in contrast to
the way so many neo-billionaires have fled from India to safer shores.
Several high Malaysian officials have been dismissed from service, while
others have been ordered to resign or are facing prosecution. Here in
India, when—for example—an official who had worked in Tamil Nadu in
close proximity and collusion with a politician known for his Midas
touch, was recommended for a substantial promotion to the Central level,
the high Central official vetting his suitability recommended the shift
of the Midas associate to higher responsibilities. His reasoning was
that “just because the officer is corrupt in Chennai does not mean he
will be corrupt in Delhi”. Or in another of the (frequently interesting)
autobiographical books written by senior civil servants, the case was
cited of a police officer who in the view of the author was deranged
enough to seek to file an FIR against the bribe-taking wife of no less a
potentate than an IAS officer! Shock that a policeman would dare to
take such action, even though a bribe had indeed been paid, against the
spouse of a senior official was reason enough to get the “out of
control” policeman transferred to an insignificant posting, while the
bribe-taking wife and her husband were naturally left unmolested. Given
that it is often the very corrupt who are asked by their political
masters to “monitor and punish” the corrupt, it is scarcely a surprise
that graft has flourished in India with the luxuriance of an Amazon
rainforest.
Such was the case in both China and Malaysia as well, that is until
Xi and now Mahathir took charge. It must be admitted that the latter’s
awareness of the harm done to his country by corruption is yet not
accompanied by the realisation that religious fanaticism poses an even
greater danger to Malaysia. Prime Minister Mahathir will regret his
present decision to allow radical preachers leeway in Malaysia to spread
their regressive views on the way society should be ordered, of course
by force. Coming to India, progress needs to accelerate in efforts at
digitalisation of governmental procedures, including land registrations.
Conditions should get created for a steady increase in a wholly
voluntary—repeat, wholly voluntary—shift from paper currency to online
payments and plastic cards. Forced conversion seldom works, as has been
shown by the re-appearance of currency in transactions despite India’s
painful 2016 demonetisation. By far the best gift that Prime Minister
Narendra Modi can give to citizens alarmed at the continuing ubiquity of
graft in India would be to enforce money laundering, corruption and
fraud laws against more of those who misused their stint at the pinnacle
of the governance system to enrich themselves and their families to
obscene levels. As they say in China, not just “flies” (petty offenders)
but “dragons” (very high level functionaries) should be identified and
punished for betraying the public trust for Everest-sized levels of
private gain.
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