Political Arena - Of black money, benami bullies
Lack of integrity and corruption has become a low risk, high profit business in India

N Vittal

Former Chief Vigilance

Commissioner



The shenanigans involving horse-trading of Members of Parliament and the brazen display of currency notes in the Lok Sabha during the UPA government trust vote on July 22, 2008, once again brought the question of poor integrity into sharp focus. But the question that arises is, are our MPs honest? Is anyone, particularly political leaders, honest in public life? Everywhere in the world money plays a major role in politics. Political parties and leaders have to raise a lot of funds. The use of money and muscle power therefore puts a great strain for those involved in public life. Looking for honest MPs in this context, may be an exercise like looking for a vegetarian tiger. What can be done to promote honesty among MPs? Before we examine the question of honesty among MPs, we have to be clear about what we mean by honesty and what the basic dynamics of honesty are.

Honesty, as I see it, is integrity. I would consider any person to be dishonest if he lacks in intellectual, financial or moral integrity. This may be considered as a harsh and impractically strict standard. In real life, we only take into account financial integrity and not moral or intellectual integrity. The trust vote and the resulting debate have focused exclusively on financial integrity. As the former Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC), who dealt with it for four years from 1998-2002, my take on this issue is as follows:

The level of integrity in any society or organisation depends on three factors. The first is the individual’s own sense of values. This is shaped by his parents, primary school teachers and his peers. Religion also plays an important part.

The second factor is the set of values cherished by the society. Today our society has become extremely tolerant of corruption. This is obvious from the fact when a person comes into wealth, today no one questions how he acquired the wealth. Get on, get honours, get honest seems to be the attitude of the people.

This bring us to the third factor: the system. The system includes laws, rules, regulations and their implementation. For example, we throw rubbish wherever we want in India. But not when we go to a place like Singapore; this is because we know that anyone violating the law will be punished there.

Unfortunately in our country, we have created a system where the guilty are not punished. Our judicial system is very slow. Justice delayed is justice denied. The conviction rate in our courts for criminal cases is only 6%. Lack of integrity and corruption therefore, has become a low risk, high profit business in our country. No wonder, therefore, we are rated as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

What’s true of our country, applies to every section of our society. Corruption has become respectable because many members from respectable white-collared professions do not reveal their income and evade taxes. This leads to the all pervasive presence of black money.

Black money, according to some experts, covers 40% of our country’s GDP. Today’s politics needs a lot of money. Even winning the vote of confidence in Parliament requires money. Closely allied with money power is muscle power and we have seen hardened criminals being elected MPs. In the light of definition of honesty mentioned above, criminals also should be classified as dishonest people. It will, therefore, be unfair to single out only MPs on the issue of lack of integrity.

Any suggestion for promoting honesty and integrity among the MPs should look into the larger question of promoting honesty and integrity in our society and public life. I would suggest the following steps: One, promotion of black money must be severely curtailed. For this the process of raising funds for political parties should be made transparent.

The Election Commission (EC) must rule that all political parties should account for their funds and they must be audited. Such transparency will highlight the areas where bribes are used. Two, the Benami Transaction Prohibition Act, 1989 and Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2003 should be implemented. As far as the first act is concerned, rules have to be framed for the confiscation of the benami property under section 8. For the second, all acts relating to the taxes which are evaded - and these contribute to the bulk of black money - should be included.

Third, prevent criminals from entering Parliament. The suggestions made by EC and CVC that candidates against whom criminal charges have been framed should be barred from contesting polls till their names are cleared should be enforced.

Today, criminals are taking advantage of delays in the judicial system and effectively become the law makers. If the rules are changed and they are prevented from contesting elections, it will automatically generate sufficient pressure to speed up and cleanse the system.

These three steps of measures will help greatly in cleaning our public life and improve the level of integrity not only among the MPs but also in the society at large.