Monday, October 3, 2022

Which state is first in corruption?

Which state is first in corruption?

Vast majority of likely Oklahoma voters believe corruption exists in state government, poll finds

KOCO Oklahoma City

Duration: 00:56 5 days ago

Likely Oklahoma voters support eliminating grocery tax, poll finds

State Crime: Governments, Violence and Corruption

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Tillerson to testify at corruption trial of Trump adviser

NEW YORK (AP) — Rex Tillerson, who served a turbulent term as secretary of state under former President Donald Trump, is set to testify against the ex-chair of Trump’s inaugural committee.

Tillerson will be called Monday as a government witness at the federal trial of Tom Barrack, a billionaire private equity manager and Trump confidant who’s accused of secretly working as a foreign agent for the United Arab Emirates.

The former Exxon Mobil CEO would be the highest-profile witness so far at the trial, now in its third week in federal court in Brooklyn.

In 2018, Trump dumped Tillerson via Twitter, abruptly ending the service of a Cabinet secretary who had reportedly called the Republican president a “moron” but refused to step down, deepening disarray within the Trump administration.

Trump and Tillerson clashed on several foreign policy issues, including whether the U.S. would stay in the 2015 agreement to restrict Iran’s nuclear efforts, a deal Tillerson favored. Trump announced in 2018 that the U.S. was withdrawing from the agreement.

Barrack, 75, has pleaded not guilty to charges accusing him of acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, obstruction of justice and making false statements.

So far, prosecutors have relied on a trove of emails and other communications they say demonstrate how Barrack’s “unique access” to Trump to manipulate his campaign — and later his administration — to advance the interests of the UAE. The efforts included helping arrange an Oval Office meeting between Trump and Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in 2017.

At the same time, UAE officials were consorting with Barrack, the energy-rich Gulf state rewarded him by pouring millions of dollars into his business ventures.

How can we control corruption?

Corruption: How can we control corruption?

As a Nation and as a People, all of us claim to abhor corruption. All of us also participate in corrupt acts either thru the process of giving or receiving monies for the work to get done.

The purpose of this blog is not to make any moral judgements on corruption. The purpose is to put it into a perspective of how to calculate the costs of corruption and why it is important to rethink our GDP computations.

The universal thinking is that non- payment of tax dues (direct & indirect) generates black money and this black money funds corrupt practices (most of the time).

The important question is how does one compute the cost of corruption?

The fact that there is a payment made to facilitate an economic activity adds to the costs of output. However, the output itself may be disclosed or may not be disclosed. In India, we certainly do not have the value of undisclosed output – whether agriculture, services or industry. Therefore while the disclosed output is costlier, the undisclosed output may not come in our GDP computations.

There is a whole chain of activities behind undisclosed output of goods and services – materials costs, labour / employees costs, utilities costs, other overheads costsetc. In our GDP computations, how is this beneath the surface economic activity captured.

Are we as a Nation admitting that corruption and non-payment of tax dues are possibly resulting in non-capture of value of economic activity and that India’s GDP numbers as shown are more subdued than is actually the case?

Do we need to take a relook at our method of GDP computation from notified output based economy to an additional feature of income based economy.

After all while output value maybe be diminished since all activities are not in the net, some manner of inputs validations may help in knowing the real output values with the difference being the cost of corruption.

Atleast on tax collections uniformly Finance Secretaries at Centre and States have opined that there is a tax leakage of 15-20% of the amounts due for payment. If this is the case, can we take a position that equally 15-20% of output is not getting captured in GDP data and therefore the Indian GDP in values and percentiles trend is erroneous to this extent.

That would be a major issue and something we need to look at seriously. Are we underming our own GDP data and therefore are we taking a disadvantage when we are doing across countries comparisons or within India intra state comparisons?

Corruption cannot be seen as something that diminishes us. That in my view is the greatest threat of corruption. It shows you less productive and more inefficient and in some way that 15-20% should be brought to less than 7%. Already, the perception of us as a Nation bring tolerant of corruption has hit us hard when it comes to international negotiations.

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Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Corruption Control in Authoritarian Regimes

‘In this provocative, well-researched and wide-ranging book, Carothers shows that autocratic efforts to control corruption are more common, occur for different reasons, and are more often successful than we think. His analysis of anti-corruption drives by different leaders in Taiwan, South Korea, and China sheds new light on the history and contemporary politics of all three places, and his identification of a distinctly authoritarian anti-corruption model is theoretically path-breaking as well as policy-relevant. This challenge to the conventional wisdom deserves to be read carefully, by scholars and policymakers alike.’

Sheena Chestnut Greitens - University of Texas at Austin

‘Carothers has written an important book challenging the conventional wisdom that there is a necessary connection between authoritarian government and political corruption. Through both a quantitative analysis and historical case studies, he shows that a number of authoritarian regimes, including Xi Jinping's China, have succeeded in reducing levels of corruption. Highly recommended for both China specialists and governance studies.’

Francis Fukuyama - Stanford University

‘Corruption Control in Authoritarian Regimes addresses the classical question of whether dictatorships can curb the predatory behavior of their agents. Carothers’ invaluable comparative study of how three dictatorships in East Asia tackled corruption provides an original and persuasive answer. This book is a major contribution to the literature on corruption in general, and on the political economy of authoritarianism in particular.’

Minxin Pei - Claremont McKenna College

‘Carothers breaks open the black box of authoritarianism to provide much needed insight into the politics of corruption. Whether one wants to learn more about political development and durability in East Asia, or when, how, and why autocrats curb corruption more generally, this book delivers.’

Karrie J. Koesel - University of Notre Dame

Accountants and the fight against corruption

Scott Hanson, director of policy and global engagement at the International Federation of Accountants, talks about accountants' role in fighting economic crime worldwide, and the federation's new anti-corruption action plan.

Transcription:

Michael Cohn: (00:03)

Hi, welcome to Accounting Today's podcast series, On the Air. This is Mike Cohn of Accounting Today. We're joined today by Scott Hanson, director of policy and global engagement at the international Federation of accountants. Welcome Scott.

Scott Hanson: (00:18)

Hello, Michael. It's uh, great to be here. Um, again, my name is Scott Hanson and I lead our anti-corruption and economic crime work at IAC as well as our engagement with international organizations. And I also, uh, oversee our capacity building program. So again, it's a pleasure to be here talking to you today.

Michael Cohn: (00:37)

Oh, it's good to have you with us today. I appreciate it. Well, um, we're gonna discuss the, uh, uh, recently released, uh, anti-corruption action plan, uh, from IAC, uh, for fighting economic crime. And could show me a little bit about this, uh, plan and, and what, what it entails, what are some of the, uh, key points in it?

Scott Hanson: (00:54)

Uh, sure, of course. Uh, so again, I'm here today to talk about a major new initiative that we have, uh, at IAC, uh, the international Federation of accountants, our anti-corruption AC uh, action plan or by its full title IACS action plan for fighting corruption and economic crime. And, and as I was thinking about my, uh, our conversation today, uh, I thought it would make sense to really jump in before getting to any of the history, any of the context of the purpose. I thought it would make sense to just jump into some, one of the key actions for the action plan, uh, that we're going to be launching over the coming months. Uh, so I wanna highlight four actions from this anti-corruption action plan. First, we're going to be reviewing the extent to which corruption and money laundering topics are covered in accountancy education worldwide.

Scott Hanson: (01:46)

Uh, the goal here is to start an evidence based conversation about whether any changes need to be made to better integrate these topics into accountancy curricula, or if there's opportunities to exchange best practices. Uh, so that's one of the first key items for the anti-corruption action plan is our accountancy education review. Second, we're going to launch, uh, another review of anti-corruption corporate reporting by large listed companies worldwide. And the idea here is to understand what companies are reporting, what topics are being covered, which standards are being used and whether and how that information is being assured. Uh, when you look at both the G and the SASB standards, uh, those are two of the main, uh, uh, sustainability related frameworks for reporting for corporate, uh, issuers. Both of them have anti-corruption provisions. So we wanna look at how those provisions are being used, uh, or not being used and understand the evidence there to start a conversation about anti-corruption reporting by companies.

Scott Hanson: (02:57)

And this builds off of Iffa state of play work on sustainability assurance, uh, with which many of your listeners, uh, may be familiar. Third, we are about to launch a new round of donor funded capacity building projects focused on developing accountancy capacity in the public sector. Now, these projects are being funded by the global vaccine Alliance Gavi and the global fund, as well as U S a I D. We have pilot projects in Ghana and in Berkin Faso set to launch in September and expect to broaden these programs, uh, into more countries in due course. And finally, the fourth action, I wanna highlight from the action plan, uh, to start, we are developing a domestic engagement toolkit for professional accountancy organizations around the world. The idea here is to encourage PAOs professional accountancy organizations, uh, and prepare them to reach out to key stakeholders in their countries and put themselves at the center of their local anti-corruption conversation. Um, so those are just four of the key actions from the action plan, really touching on a number of different areas, education, corporate reporting, capacity, building, uh, local engagement. And there are over 30 actions in this action plan. So that gives you a sense as to the scope of what we're doing, how we're trying to affect change in this space and, and what this action plan is all about. So hopefully those examples will make the rest of our conversation a bit more concrete rather than just abstractly talking about an anti-corruption action plan.

Michael Cohn: (04:43)

Um, yes, yes. That explains it very well. Um, and in addition to all these actions, I, there also seem to be several pillars in the plan. Um, and I was wondering if you could talk, uh, about what accountants can do specifically to health safeguard against, uh, corruption, um, in, uh, uh, the companies that, that, that they work with.

Scott Hanson: (05:04)

Sure. So the action plan is organized into five separate pillars. Uh, the pillars are harnessing the full potential of education and professional development, supporting global standards, contributing to evidence based policy, making, strengthening our impact through engagement and partnership and contributing our expertise through thought leadership and advocacy. Now, these pillars, uh, create a framework for us to think about individual actions and then how we can support an anti-corruption ecosystem more broadly. So at the start, I mentioned that we have over 30 actions in this action plan, and those are allocated out over those five different pillars. Now it's an important point to, to emphasize that the goal of the action plan is not to singlehandedly solve the problem of corruption. Uh we're we're not so naive to think that I fact, as the global voice of the accountancy profession can set out an action plan and, and now we've solved corruption.

Scott Hanson: (06:08)

Obviously that's not the case. Um, the purpose of this action plan and organizing it into these pillars is, is to really answer the question, how can IAC and then the profession, accountancy profession, more broadly support an ecosystem for fighting corruption and economic crime. So these are the ways these five pillars are the different perspectives at which we've thought about. And we've come to the conclusion. These are ways we can support, uh, the fight against corruption, uh, from a broad perspective. So having this framework, these five pillars, the anti-corruption action plan, it does several things for us. First, it provides a framework for inspiring new actions. So those four actions I led with all of those are new initiatives that IFAC will be launching over the course of the coming months, but it's also a way to reconsider or expand things that we already do to put them into context or, and think about how they can be part of the fight against corruption. And then together having this framework helps us think about fighting corruption in an interconnected way and more important. And just as importantly, helps us tell the story of what the profession does and how we're on the side of good in the fight against corruption.

Michael Cohn: (07:31)

Oh, that sounds great. Um, do you think the accounting profession, isn't a good position to, to fight against economic crimes and, and corruption, uh, whether it's in the private sector or the public sector?

Scott Hanson: (07:43)

Uh, sure. And, and that's an important question and I, I think the answer is a resounding yes. Um, so a good place to start there is who we are at IFAC and, and what the professional accountancy sector looks like. So Iffa, of course we're a member organization. We have about the 180 member organizations, uh, across 130 different jurisdictions and taken together. We indirectly represent over 3 million professional accountants. And it's important to remember how broad that reach of professional accountants really is, uh, within public practice. So firms of all sizes from the big four down to individual practitioners, within companies, as the finance function, as the CFO or the chief value officer within the public sector, uh, at all different levels of local, uh, provincial state or national government professional accountants are everywhere. And importantly, they're both on the private sector side and on the public sector side.

Scott Hanson: (08:53)

Uh, so there's an incredible reach there, uh, making professional accountants, an incredible lever in fighting corruption. Now there's an organization called the bosal Institute of governance, uh, which one is one of the lead thinkers, uh, of a concept in an agenda called collective action. And what collective action really is simply put, it's the idea that to fight corruption effectively, you need cooperation from both the public sector and the private sector and professional accountants being on both sides are in an incredible place to push that forward, to be allies for collective action, to be allies in fighting corruption. So all of that was just a comment about the reach of the accountancy profession, but justice importantly, is the skillset. And in terms of professional judgment, forensic skills, uh, you know, professional financial management use of, uh, of audit, uh, uh, professional standards, all of these things together make accountants well placed to actually do the work of, of identifying instances where corruption is potentially happening. So to answer your question again, very simply, yes, professional accountants are very well placed, uh, to be, uh, working, uh, on a daily basis in all of their different capacities to fight corruption.

Michael Cohn: (10:19)

Oh, that sounds great. Well, we're, we're going to pause for a brief message from our sponsor and we'll be right back with Scott Hanson from IAC. Hi, um, we're, we're back with, uh, Scott Hanson from IAC who's discussing, uh, the, the recently released, uh, uh, action plan, uh, for, um, fighting, uh, corruption in economic crime. Uh, uh, could show me a little bit about, uh, how this, uh, action plan, uh, was developed, how it evolved.

Scott Hanson: (10:49)

Uh, sure. Uh, so an important, uh, point to make here is IAC strong relationship with the international bar association and an initiative from the IBA. The, the international bar association is really where this, uh, took its inspiration. Uh, the IBA about a decade ago, launched an initiative called the anti-corruption strategy for the legal profession. And what was unique about this is that it took the issue of corruption holistically and thought about the different ways that the legal profession can support the fight against corruption, and then brought this all together, uh, in a single package. So this was very much our inspiration. What can I fact do to replicate the success, this framework for the accountancy profession? And once we got that conversation started with our stakeholders, it took on a life of its own. And here we are, uh, seven, eight months later with Iffa anti-corruption action plan.

Scott Hanson: (11:54)

Now, one of the key steps on this journey was at the IAC chief executives forum back in February of 2022. And this is the in many ways, highest level event on IACS annual calendar, where we bring together the chief executives of our largest member organizations for big picture discussions. Uh, I like to joke that this is like the IFAC Davos. So as part of that program, we have a discussion with three of the leading organizations in this space, uh, the financial action task force or the FADAF, which is the global anti-money laundering standard setter, uh, the organization for economic cooperation and development, the O E C D, which is a leading global policy body and the world economic forum, you know, the actual Davos people, um, and their partnering against corruption initiative. And the purpose of this discussion was to understand how these global stakeholders perceive the profession and what they expect of us.

Scott Hanson: (12:58)

And to be honest, the feedback, uh, was definitely what you would call mixed. Now, both the fat and the O E C D have prominent publications that don't necessarily paint the profession in the best light. Uh, the conclusion of this discussion were twofold, firstly, that we can and should do more in this space. And then second that we also need to do more in terms of getting the message out about what the global accountancy profession already does to fight corruption and economic crime, to reinforce the idea that we are the good guys. In addition to that, there's a second point that's important to make. And this is really more from a macro perspective. It's the growing understanding of the link between corruption and economic crime on one hand and the sustainability agenda on the other hand. And I should really say that negative relationship between the two Iffa has upped our engagement in sustainability over the past several years, uh, in sustainability reporting in particular and, and many behavior listeners are probably aware of this, but when you look at the United nations sustain, uh, sustainable development goals, or the UN SDGs, uh, that we hope to achieve by 2030 corruption and economic crime are impediments to all of them, whether that's access to clean water, access to education or reduced poverty, all of them, uh, the United nations estimates that five to 7 trillion of investment are needed annually annually to reach the SDGs and every dollar that is diverted or stolen slows us down.

Scott Hanson: (14:44)

And the world economic forum, for example, estimates that in 20 18, 3 0.6 trillion were lost to corruption. And, and that was before COVID. So when you think about the cost of five to 7 trillion needed to achieve sustainable development, and 3.6 trillion lost to corruption, that's half or more than half, um, of the, the, the funds needed to atta attain sustainability. So that gives you a sense of the importance and the gravity of fighting corruption. So you take all those things together, the inspiration from the IBA and their legal professions, anti-corruption strategy hearing from key international organizations that the accountancy profession and IAC needs to do more to get the message out and needs to do more, to contribute to the fight against corruption. And then this growing understanding that corruption and economic crime are probably the most important, uh, impediments to sustainable development. You bring that all together, and that's really the motivation behind our anti-corruption action plan.

Michael Cohn: (15:49)

Oh, and you mentioned about, about, um, getting the message out and I, I know, uh, uh, Iffa is involved with education setting education standards for accountants. Um, what, what kind of role does education play in, in this, uh, uh, action plan in this strategy?

Scott Hanson: (16:04)

Of course, in, in the, the simple answer there is education is critical. Uh, like I mentioned from the start, one of the key actions, if not the key action from the action plan is assessing the level to which corruption and money laundering concepts are already integrated into accountancy education, and then taking that data and seeing what we need to do, uh, to potentially change that situation. But education is, is sort of far beyond that. Um, one IFAC, for example, produces educational materials on our own, uh, and also in conjunction with partners. Uh, we have things on the ISPA code. We have things on, uh, anti-money laundering standards, um, and this broader resources on our knowledge gateway. So continuing to, to create educational resources like that, to help contribute to the discussion, um, or, or agenda is, is an important goal for us. Also, when we talk about public sector capacity building, which I also mentioned at the beginning, a significant portion of that is focusing on developing the education programs, uh, and frameworks in countries around the world to bring them up to global standards to better integrate, uh, not just sort of the highest level of accountancy skills, but also to integrate these important concepts like fighting corruption and fighting money laundering into education.

Scott Hanson: (17:34)

Um, so in short education is really fundamental. That's why it's the first pillar, uh, of this anticorruption action plan. And as the anticorruption lead at IAC, I'm working very closely with our education lead, uh, to make sure that this, uh, this initiative is a success.

Michael Cohn: (17:52)

You mentioned about the anti Mundy money laundering. There there's been a, a lot more attention paid to that, um, uh, with the growth of cryptocurrency and the use of, uh, crypto to, uh, LA funds, um, uh, more or less under the radar or, or at least, uh, the, the, the criminals, I think it's under the radar, um, though it's being ferreted out anyway. But, um, but, uh, what, um, uh, kind of, uh, strategies or, or actions can, can accountants pursue to, to good out this money laundering that's occurring, uh, whether it's in governments and the private sector, um, you know, uh, within crypto,

Scott Hanson: (18:29)

Okay. Uh, money laundering is, is so fundamental to the entire economic crime and corruption story, uh, for one very good reason, all money that's stolen or the proceed of crime, or the proceed of corruption, doesn't matter where it comes from, whether human trafficking, drugs, uh, wherever the source of funds corruption in particular for, for this case, all of that money has to be laundered. It has to be reintegrated into the legitimate financial system to be useful in any way to the criminals. And that makes it such an important access and sort of interdiction point for not just law enforcement, but for accountants as well. Now, overwhelmingly accountants around the world are subject to domestic anti-money laundering regulations and compliance requirements. And those continue to increase over time. Uh, as the financial action task force standards are, are brought into place, but it's important to remember that when accountancy education was initially developed, the extent to which accountancy, uh, was included in the global anti-money laundering framework was very limited.

Scott Hanson: (19:41)

And that has changed rapidly over time over the, the, the, the recent over recent years. Um, so part of this exercise is making sure that accountancy education has stayed current with the radical changes to the global anti-money laundering framework that have happened over the past 20 years, in terms of your specific question around cryptocurrencies. Um, it's important to remember how limited the cryptocurrency money laundering situation is. Although it's significant in, in many areas, overwhelmingly money laundering happens the old fashioned way, uh, with cash, uh, with bank accounts with that are, that are cleaned, um, not using cryptocurrencies real estate transactions, uh, you know, privately private companies with, uh, hidden beneficial ownership, the traditional money laundering techniques. And although the financial action task force recommendations continue to put pressure on all of those traditional techniques where there's a will there is, is oftentimes unfortunately a way and criminals do stay ahead. It's important that professional accountants understand these anti-money laundering compliance requirements and regulations and embrace them enthusiastically. So that professional accountants can be, uh, part of the tool against, uh, stopping money laundering and thereby, uh, reducing, uh, the incentives for corruption in other crimes.

Michael Cohn: (21:15)

Oh, you mentioned about, uh, IBA and some of the standards there. Um, what, what role can the accounting and ethics standards from Iffa play and, and combating corruption and economic crimes?

Scott Hanson: (21:26)

Of course, there, there's two very important things to highlight in terms of the, uh, international ethics codes for accountants, um, and its role in the fight against corruption and economic crime first are just the fundamental principles themselves, uh, and the importance that professional accountants play while being ethical in driving ethical conduct within organizations, and, and that can't be underestimated or, or understated the importance of professional accountants within companies and acting as advisors bringing those ethics into transactions and cultures more generally, but also very important to point out is the importance of the Noar provision, uh, the non-compliance with laws and regulation standard, uh, that was adopted by ESBA, uh, I believe four years ago at this point, this is revolutionary, um, and is effectively a whistle blowing obligation, uh, for professional accountants, uh, in, in our conversations with the international bar association, this is something they found extremely interesting and extremely inspiring.

Scott Hanson: (22:33)

And the idea there is can there be something learned for the legal profession to take on board from, from, from Noar? Um, and it's, it's the history of it it's journey in adoption, uh, with IBA, and now it being in practice next year in 2023, there's going to be a five year implementation review of the nocar provision. And one of the actions in our anticorruption action plan is engaging with that review, using it as a launching point for doing more, to get the word out about nocar supporting its adoption in the, the markets in the jurisdictions where it has not been adopted yet, and using it as a launching point also for advocacy around the need for strong whistleblower protection legislation, and then implementation of that legislation. So that's all to say Aasbo code extremely important. Um, for the anti-corruption discussion, it figures very prominently into the action plan, um, and the 2023 nocar, uh, post-implementation review, uh, is something that's going to be central, uh, to the action plan in specific.

Michael Cohn: (23:46)

Oh, great. Well, well, it sounds like, like things will be developing next year as, uh, IFAC pursues, these developing these, these standards and doing post-implementation reviews and, uh, this new action plan sounds like it's has a lot of great aspects to it. Uh, well, um, I wanna thank, uh, Scott Hanson of IFAC for, uh, being a guest on our podcast today, this episode of On the Air was produced by Accounting Today with audio production, by Kevin Parise, please rate, review us on your favorite podcast platform and see the rest of our content on accountingtoday.com. Thanks again to our guest Scott Hanson of IFAC, and thank you for listening.

What is the main reason for corruption?

What is the main reason for corruption?

Corruption: Expanding the Focus

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Legislating Against Corruption

BY SAM AMADI

The general belief in development circles is that but for the disastrous effects of corruption, a country like Nigeria would have had stronger economic growth and a more widespread and sustained economic and social transformation. By some account, pervasive and grand corruption is one reason the country and similar countries in Africa are facing existential crises of political instability and economic bankruptcy. Corruption has robbed these countries of state effectiveness required for economic development. Corruption has made the prospect for such development in the near future bleak. In the case of Nigeria, corruption has resulted in billions of dollars of public revenue that would have been used to build critical infrastructure, like the type we see in Dubai and other less corrupt countries like Singapore and South Korea, disappear into private pockets. So, corruption is a heavy drag on development. Corruption corrupts politics and leads to political instability and violent conflicts in fragile societies. Therefore, drastically reducing the incidences and pervasiveness of corruption should be the first order of business for a serious campaign to develop a country as fragile as Nigeria.

But commitment against corruption faces a challenge. Some people think the damage that corruption causes to the prospects of economic development in Nigeria as in the rest of Africa is exaggerated. There is a cynical debate in the literature of development that corruption is being exaggerated as a cause of Africa’s underdevelopment. This argument builds on the notion that western scholarship exaggerates the role of corruption in Africa’s economic and political crises to obscure the roots of these crises are in the colonial experience and the violence it unleashed. These scholars point to the presence of pervasive corruption in East Asia while they were economically developing. So, if corrupt Asia developed in spite of corruption, then corruption is not the big deal that western scholars make it out.

This argument rests on some incontrovertible facts. First, is that there was a high level of corruption in Asia. And that in spite of corruption, Asia developed. But corruption is hailed as hinderance to economic development in Africa. Therefore, are we not exaggerating the impacts of corruption? Is corruption truly the main cause of our underdevelopment? This argument may sound persuasive, but it is fallacious. The assumption that all forms of corruptions matter the same is not true. No. The deleterious effects of corruption depend on the nature of corruption. There are different kinds of corruption. Receiving a kickback from a contractor who still goes ahead to build a durable road is corruption. But it differs greatly from stealing the entire money for road construction and never constructing the road. It is also different from creaming off half of the budget for a public health facility and building a health center without drugs and medical personnel. The sort of corruption in Asia in its development period was mostly benign, while those in Nigeria are malignant. Corruption in Asia was largely petty corruption, whereas in Nigeria it is mainly grand corruption.

Robert Wade, renowned political economist, shows the difference between corruption in Asia and Africa in a tellingly passage in his classic on Asian economic miracle, titled ‘Governing the Market Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization’. In a footnote to a comment to the neoliberal Washington Consensus recipe for economic development, Wade observes that “The emphasis on ‘anticorruption’ in the good governance agenda of the international development community obscures the difference between modalities, some of which are more developmentally damaging than others. As a stylized fact, Indian civil works corruption takes the form of correct pricing of substandard structures which wash out in the next monsoon. Korean civil work corruption takes the form of inflated prices for properly built structures, which endure.” This statement underlines the importance of paying attention to the character of corruption in a society to determine the degree of its deleterious impacts and the pathways to tackle it. All societies are arguable corrupt. But not all societies are corruption in the same manner and degree.

Corruption is a moral problem everywhere. But it is an existential crisis in Nigeria. Today, Nigeria is almost overrun by terrorists. Abuja is in the grips of palpable fear and anxiety. The municipal government has asked all primary and secondary schools to shut down. Night life is almost completely shut down. Government is mulling a ban on the use of moto bikes in the city. Soon, it will probably ask workers to stop coming to work. All for fear of Boko Haram. But many people think that terrorism in Nigeria is merely a military, technical challenge. That is not true. It is also a political, administrative challenge. At the heart of administrative challenge is corruption. Yesterday, the Daily Gazette reported that one of those recently released from ISWA captivity narrated how Nigerian soldiers sent to curb insecurity shared N100m of the ransom money. Nigeria’s military icon, General Danjuma, a few years ago warned that the Nigerian military has become so de-professionalized to become an ethnic fighting force. We have heard anecdotes of retired military office about how their commanders frustrated the killing of Boko Haram fighters because of religious or ethnic affiliations and sentiments.

All these are dimensions of corruption that are extremely dangerous because they can lead to complete collapse of the state. So, while the public official in Korea inflates the price of building a solid structure that endues (and in the process makes a couple of million dollars), his Nigerian counterpart allows dangerous terrorists to infiltrate military fortresses and overthrows the state. Corruption amongst the top brass of the military and civil administrators in Nigeria has so emboldened Boko Haram and ISWA terrorists that they are now confident of capturing Nigerian president and one of the strongest state governors in Nigeria. This is the dimension that corruption did not manifest in the successful East Asian countries. Those countries had what political economists call ‘state effectiveness’. These states were effective states because they had strong normative foundations. They were not transaction states that exist to allow elites extract revenue and promote narrow ethnoreligious interest. The elites of those successful East Asian countries may be brutal, and even corrupt, but they had a strong mission and unalloyed commitment to the survival and development of their country, not of their religion and ethnicity.

These ramifications of corruption point to one thing: that we need to understand the scope and character of corruption in a country to understand how much of a threat it poses to the survival of the country and the cocktail of interventions required to move such country from dire to moderate pathological condition. Corruption in Nigeria is widespread; it is endemic and interred in the foundational institutions of public administration. Such a situation requires a more mixed cocktail than what is conventionally advised.

How Important is Law to Anticorruption?

It is assumed that law provides an answer to every social problem. This is what some scholars refer to as legalism. Legalism is a belief or mindset that perceives law and legislation as the answer to every social problem. The Harvard political theorist, Judith Skhlar, defines legalism as “the ethical attitude that holds moral conduct to be a matter of rule following, and moral relationships to consist of duties and rights determined by rules”. Legalism emphasizes that “the court of law and trial according to law are the social paradigms, the perfection, the very epitome of legalistic morality”. Legalism has various manifestations in the anticorruption campaign. It first manifests as a misunderstanding of corruption as an absence of strong deterrence and the weakness of stiff penalties for corrupt practices. Again, it manifests as a commitment to enact more laws with stiffer penalties, without paying sufficient attention to the socioeconomics and the moral environment of the administration of justice.

Legalism is a common error. It is actually an intuitive response to a problem. When we conceive of government as the entity that enjoys the monopoly of violence and that exerts such violence to order social behaviors, we will also resort to demand for law as the panacea of all social problems. No doubt, laws are important for solving social problems. But laws are not everything, especially when they are not embedded in important social dialectics and relationships that determine their effectiveness.

The answer to the question about the importance of law to the fight against corruption is that law is very important. The role of law in the development process is now well entrenched to the point that the World Bank and other international financial institutions consider legal reform as a core component of economic development strategies for country struggling to exit underdevelopment. This is why the law and development discourse has become one of the most important and established discourses of development. The assumption behind the law and development discourse is that law matters for development because of its capacity to constrain and enable different behaviors as well as directs the distribution of resources and incentives in the political economy. To put it in the language of New Institutional Economics, we can say that law is at the center of institution that condition growth and transformation in a society. If, as the apostle of institutional approach to economic development, Douglas North, puts it, institutions are humanly devised constraints and enablers for human actions and interaction, then law is one of the most important institutions of development.

But Douglas North also recognized that ‘rules, procedures, and norms’ of collective action are part of institution. Some of these ‘rules, procedures and norms’ are informal. So, we move from the error of legalism to the error of formalism. Formalism believes that what matters are formal rules of a society and not informal rules. But we know from experiences that oftentimes, in spite of formal rules, people actually act in line with the prescription of informal rules. If our strategy of change focuses only on formal rules, we miss out a powerful dynamo of social behavior. We need to engage together formal rules and procedures and informal norms and customs if we want to succeed in our strategy of change.

Ingredients of Effective Legislative Interventions Against Corruption:

Law is important in redesigning the framework and incentive structure of social behavior. Therefore, the legislature has a key role to play in the fight against corruption. The legislature has to enact laws that are effective in mandating behaviors that are transparent and accountable and prohibiting conducts that are dishonest and serve private interest at the detriment of public good. A legislature that is truly committed to anticorruption has to consider many issues as it set about to change the incentive structures that encourage or facilitate corruption.

First, the legislature should have the will to take hard actions to change the society. Corruption is difficult to overcome because it is usually beneficial to those who exercise power in a society. These men and women of power will block any serious change of the game. This is why, as they say, corruption fights back. These men will work hard to undermine the proposed new regime by blunting the sharp edges of the law. So, the legislature must have the courage to provide the necessary constraints in the new law. This is what we call political will. That is the will that those who exercise political power have to change the structure of society that enables powerful men and women to predate on the state. This is the scarcest commodity in the political market. The lack of such will is wired in the psychology of those who wield political power in the society.

If there is political will, the legislature next seeks adequate and clear understanding of the dialectics and pathology of corruption in its society. Every society differs from another. Therefore, the dialectics and pathology of corruption will not be the same, even as we draw common lessons and apply universal principles. To attain this level of social knowledge you need a social science of law making that diagnoses the malady before applying ill-conceived prescriptions. Like in diseases, the cure can be worse than the disease if you do not apply the cure appropriate to the disease. This is where mindless legal transplantation of institutions in other climes could be a cure worse than the disease. Under the influence of the World Bank and other global financial institutions, countries like Nigeria have embarked on legal transplantation of the legal regimes in other advanced economies as part of the neoliberal compulsion to adopt the so-called ‘Washington Consensus’. But we got anticorruption laws without the economic and political culture, norms, and incentive structures that support and reinforce the legal regimes. The result is that we have an Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) that is often an accused in corruption allegations than a fighter of corruption. We have Governors who are facing trial for grand corruption freely contesting for the highest office of the law. These laws and the institutions created under them are ineffective because they are not supported by complementary political culture and norms of collective action.

The law means nothing except it is ultimately effective. The effectiveness of the law depends partly on how it responds to clearly understood pathology of the social disease it wants to cure. If the lawmakers miss out on this pathology and make laws based on a different social context or some hazily understood concepts, then such laws will not be effective. Again, effectiveness of the law requires comprehensive and coherent diagnosis. Jeffrey Sacks, a man who engineered so many failed reforms, learnt the lesson from his wife, a clinical doctor, who offered him the concept of ‘differential diagnosis’. As he puts it in his book, End to Poverty, the development economics that informed much of the legal transplantation in the developing countries lacked ‘rigor, insight, and practicality’.

Looking back on the experience of failed or ineffective reforms, Sachs drew some lessons from clinical medicine that development economists should always bear in mind as they work to reform society. First, they must realize that a society, like human body, is complex. You cannot offer simplicist solutions to deal with complex situations. Second, is that a complex system requires differential diagnosis. You cannot conclude on the illness based on presumed knowledge. You have to seriously investigate and diagnose. Third is that all medicine is family medicine. If a child is perennially sick, you have to pay attention to her living condition. Find out how the parents are doing. In the same view, you cannot make laws to stop fraudulent procurements when you have several exceptions from due process for many agencies. You cannot cure grand corruption if the laws you make do not prescribe open disclosure of assets by the president of the republic and all the high officers.

Extrapolating from clinical medicine to legislative intervention in anticorruption, these are certain disciplines required for an effective legislation. A legislature cannot make law as it fancies without paying attention to the nature of the social problem it wants to solve and the social context of the problem. The social science methodology for law making proceeds from a research report of the problematic behavior that constitutes corruption. This report identifies the incentive structure that drives and sustains corrupt practices. It benefits from theoretical explanations of the social pathology. Many scholars of corruption have highlighted that corruption is sustained by collective action norms and the principle of reciprocity. Therefore, merely criminalizing corrupt practices will not effectively tackle it. An effective legal intervention must be such that can recreate a different system of reciprocity and lead to a different collective action.

The important question is whether the institutional resources of the legislature can manage the level of complexity that sustains corruption in Nigeria. Nigerian legislature, like those in many African countries, lack the capacity for transformative legislative work. As the United Nation Economic Commission for Africa (UNCA) reported in 1985, African legislatures lack the technical capacity to enact laws that will transform their society. This technical incapacity is worsened by lack of political independence to make good and transformative laws, laws that constrain the executives from acting corruptively.

We cannot expect the legislature to tackle corruption through legislative interventions if we don’t build its intellectual capacity. We have to enhance the research capability of the legislature to enact effective laws. A review of some of the laws enacted by the legislature in Nigeria proves the necessity and urgency of such capacity building. It is not enough to make smart laws. They need to be effectively enforced. Without effective enforcement of smart laws against corruption, there will be little prospect of success in tackling corruption.

Laws on the shelf do not change society. effective implementation of these law is what changes society. Therefore, a successful reform does not end with enacting smart law. For effectiveness, those laws must be implemented in the manner envisaged by the law and to the degree that it can change the incentives driving the problematic behaviors. This is why one of the lessons Sachs discussed as part of his extrapolation from clinical medicine is the need to monitor and evaluate outcomes. After medication, the clinician returns to the patient to evaluate the efficacy of the treatment. The same with laws. After enacting the best laws that notionally can tackle corrupt practices and the collective action norms that encourage it, the legislature must review how public institutions are implementing the laws. This is the idea of legislative oversight. It is the form which monitoring and evaluation take in the legislature.

But with monitoring and evaluation we encounter the same problems of capacity and political will. The legislature in Nigeria lacks the institutional framework and resources to conduct very meaningful oversight of executive action. Often Nigerian legislature does not use experts outside the legislature to review and report on the performance of anticorruption agencies. More important is that the legislature does not care much about the performance of executive agencies or the implementation of the laws it makes. This lack of ‘political will’ is the biggest setback to a proposition of fighting corruption through effective legislation.

Conclusion: How We Can Defeat Corruption:

To end this discourse, we can state clearly that Nigeria has a corruption problem. it is obvious. In fact, corruption is presently collapsing Nigeria. The statement that either Nigeria defeats corruption or corruption destroys Nigeria is not a hyperbole. As a friend once said, Nigeria could be the first country to disintegrate because of sheer incompetence and corruption. Many countries have disappeared in the past due to the weight of contradictions, either of ethnicity or religion, but corruption and the grave incompetence that rides with it, is the gravest threat that faces the country.

We also know that Nigeria can rise above this threat. Nigeria can have a decent and honest public leadership. Everything, apart from God, is created. Therefore, everything can also be reversed or uncreated. It is possible but not easy. The biggest challenge in tackling corruption in Nigeria is forming a strong coalition against corruption that can make the relevant laws and enforce them with the single commitment required. This is a political act. Politics is the most important issue with corruption in Nigeria. Corrupt people are at the highest positions of power. Corruption is highly rewarding. Corruption is the lubricant of political machine in Nigeria. So, to defeat corruption, we must fix politics. We must have a political system that can bring to power people outside the circle of corruption and who have the incentive to cut the umbilical cord that connects governance to corruption.

Unless we fix politics, we cannot have the kind of leadership that will be willing and committed to use law to reshape the relationship of power in the society in a fundamental way that creates different dynamics of accountability. At the heart of corruption is a relationship between citizens and those who exercise power. In a society with truly democratic relationship between citizens, the institutions of vertical and horizontal accountability envisioned in laws will work. In a neo-feudal society where the ethics of egalitarianism has no roots, it will be difficult to maintain the level of differentiation between the private and public domains necessary for the modern concept of good governance. If we don’t have leaders who can redefine the relationship between citizens and rulers, who can create a new social compact between themselves and the people they lead, a compact that is rooted in ethical egalitarianism, it is doubtful that even legal transplants aimed at tackling corruption will be effective.

This is where political and social science insights work together. If we don’t have leaders who believe in the compelling normativity of accountable, ethically egalitarian society based on the clear difference between the private and public domain, we will lack the political will to reshape social interactions in the public sphere from graft to probity. Even if we have such leaders, we need to have the knowledge of the dynamics of the nature and mechanisms of corruption to effectively devise interventions to undermine the institutional and cultural basis of corruption. This we can do through wise law.

But beyond law, we need presidential leadership which is exemplified largely by the effective use of the bully pulpit to reorient society and the employment of the power of coherent actions to signal to everyone the advisability of a new moral order. That is the essence of leadership. It shows in the quality of law the legislature makes. But it goes beyond law, to what presidents and other high officials say and do.

In the matter of tackling corruption, an ounce of coherent high-profile act is more powerful than a pound of law.

Corruption as a reason why many nations fail

-Editorial

Corruption jeopardises lives, plain and simple, said a statement issued by Chiefs of Mission of Kenya’s main donor community last week.

This statement and a Special Report in our sister paper Standard on Sunday confirms what many have considered the elephant in the room especially with regard to the presence of illegal immigrants in the country.

Media exposés have detailed how easy it is to cross over into Kenya from Somalia by bribing the border control officers and the policemen on the roadblocks all the way to the capital. In an incident broadcast on KTN, the investigative duo of John Alan Namu and Mohammed Ali walked into the city with lethal weapons. It could have been any criminal.

How did that happen, one might ask? Corruption, plain and simple.

Insecurity is one of the many economic and social consequences of corruption.

In their book Why Nations Fail, development economists Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson outline the origin of prosperity and poverty.

No doubt, corruption stunts growth and impoverishes millions, especially in Africa.

But the bottom line is that corruption thrives because of weak institutions.

The drafters of the Constitution that was adopted in 2010 acknowledged the fact that power and corruption and impunity were inseparable and designed a system to disperse power from the centre.

It may be too early to judge if this is effective.

In truth, in Kenya like many developing countries, extractive institutions have hobbled social development. Extractive institutions are those where leaders holding influence aim to make money.

In Kenya, Parliament is one of those institutions. The recent allegations of cash for questions is a pointer of a deeper problem than earlier thought.

It is no wonder that critical legislation that would improve the lives of the people ten-fold do not find their way to the floor of the House.

The Judiciary is undergoing reforms, and so is the police. These are efforts no less significant to arresting the culture of corruption.

There are those who will want to downplay the scale of corruption and apportion blame elsewhere. It is tempting for them to remind the donor nations pointing at the establishment that four fingers point back at them.

But then the contrast is there for all to see. In rich countries, say Acemoglu and Robinson, individuals are healthier, live longer and are better educated and have many options from vacations to career paths that those in poor countries only dream of. They drive on roads without potholes and their governments provide services in healthcare, infrastructure and law and order.

Contrast that with the situation in the country. It is encouraging that President Uhuru Kenyatta is keen on uprooting the tree of corruption that has been nurtured and watered in the five decades since independence. Taking on the bureaucratic contortions of central government and the maddening inefficiency that breeds corruption is no easy task. All must make it their business to tackle the hydra-headed monster called corruption.

With the devolution taking root, it means that some of this rottenness will be devolved as well.

But a vigilant public aware of what it forgoes when corruption takes root, must not allow this to happen.

Which is the biggest corruption in India?

Which is the biggest corruption in India?

The Strategic Implications of Indian Corruption

As a result of COVID-19, heavy hitters in the United States and elsewhere are talking about shifting investments and supply chains out of China. This dovetails with existing strategic concerns about Beijing. When looking around the Indo-Pacific for an alternative democracy-compatible, large market that has the potential to be increasingly strategically useful, India pops to the fore.

The Indian strategic community knows it and is chomping at the bit to “take the tide at the flood” and use the opening to redefine India’s place in the world. There is even talk of floating an Indo-Pacific Charter to replace the Atlantic Charter.

There is enormous potential, and at least one major roadblock. One of the biggest strategic mysteries of the past few decades is why India hasn’t lived up to its vast economic potential. Its relatively lackluster growth has not only affected the lives of a billion Indians, it has stunted Delhi’s geopolitical reach at a time when a strong India could be an effective counter to an expanding China.

A series of court cases currently underway in India is starting to decode some of that mystery. What is being alleged is a decades-long complex, sophisticated, high-stakes scheme that led to the multibillion-dollar capture and manipulation of core elements of the Indian economy, masterminded by some of India’s most senior leaders. This is serious.

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The highest profile arrest so far is India’s formerly untouchable finance minister, Pallaniappan Chidambaram. The cases against Chidambaram are spearheaded by two investigative agencies, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), a specialized financial investigation agency under India’s Ministry of Finance, and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India’s main police investigative agency.

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Corruption allegations have dogged Chidambaram for years. So why lay charges now? India’s two main political parties, Congress (Chidambaram’s party) and the ruling BJP, spar in public but there seemed to be close ties between some individual members of the two parties, especially where large amounts of money are concerned.

Chidambaram was finance minister on and off for over a decade, most recently in 2014. When Congress lost to Narendra Modi’s BJP in that year, Chidambaram’s old friend Arun Jaitley became the BJP finance minister. In spite of Modi coming in on an anti-corruption vote, there seemed little interest in investigating members of the previous Congress administration and Jaitley continued with many of Chidambaram’s policies.

In 2019 Modi was re-elected and Jaitley was replaced as Finance Minister due to ill-health. As Jaitley’s health waned, so did his influence. Coincidentally or not, Chidambaram was arrested on August 21; Jaitley died August 24.

Since then, the increasingly public allegations against Chidambaram have started to sketch out a massive network of corruption that has major geopolitical and security implications that reach far beyond India.

The allegations involve four elements: how money was made illegally in India; how money was moved out of the country; how money was used abroad; and how money was moved back into India. They involve a network of politicians, bureaucrats, bankers, regulators, financial service providers, money launderers, front companies and more. Chidambaram is not alleged to have been involved in all elements, but rather was part of an extended, embedded system that resulted in stifling economic growth and creating security risks such as opening up some of the highest levels of governance to blackmail.

How Was Money Made in India?

It is alleged that Chidambaram and his network used their positions to put in place people, policies, regulations, and regulators that enabled them to funnel money flows through their offices and favorites, while at the same time shutting down any competition from clean alternatives.

For example, Chidambaram and his network seemingly wanted to promote and protect the National Stock Exchange (NSE) as India’s primary exchange. Competing exchanges, especially successful ones such as those run by Jignesh Shah, were targeted, with the powers of the state used to pound competitors into submission through arrest, audits, seizure of assets, and more. By the time the charges made their way through the courts and are dismissed, is it too late; the competition is destroyed.

Meanwhile, the value of the NSE to its patrons was maximized through a range of mechanisms. One currently being investigated is “co-location,” in which favored brokers were allowed to place their servers adjacent to the exchange, giving them millisecond arbitrage advantages over off-site brokerages. That time advantage combines with high-frequency trading algorithms to produce consistent profits.

Often the manipulation wasn’t that sophisticated. Rumors might be started about problems with the Indian economy; shares drop, are bought low. Then there are statements about corrective measures and shares recover and are sold off. Similar games were allegedly played to manipulate the value of the Indian rupee.

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The case that triggered the initial arrest of Chidambaram involved his role as finance minister. His ministry was responsible for approving applications to the Foreign Investment Promotions Board (FIPB), a mechanism for bringing foreign direct investment into India. When the principals of INX Media made a request to fast-track their FIPB application, they were allegedly told by Chidambaram to consider his son Karti’s consulting business. Subsequently, a substantial amount found its way to Karti and the request was approved.

How Was Money Moved out of India?

There is a range of ways to move money out of India, but one of the most concerning is hawala networks. Hawala trading was pioneered in the Islamic world as a way of transferring money without having to physically move cash. If “Joe” in Delhi wants to transfer $50,000 to his brother “Jack” in London, Joe can go to his local Delhi hawala trader, “Bob,” and give him $50,000 cash. Bob calls his hawala contact in London and instructs him to give the $50,000 cash (in local currency) to Jack. The two hawala traders settle their books periodically. And that’s it — no paper trail, no tax, no customs.

That is why hawala is so popular with criminal organizations, terrorism financiers, drug dealers, arms traders, and human traffickers. The network works on what INTERPOL calls “trust” – a trust usually backed by the brutal enforcement of criminal or terrorist organizations. As the money of corrupt politicians joins that flow, they become “invested” in protecting the whole system – and are subject to being blackmailed by the people who run the system itself. This means they are more likely to block prosecution of those facilitating their money flows even if they pose a national security risk to the country.

At one point, Congress leader D. K. Shivakumar was in the same jail as Chidambaram, on pending charges of money laundering via hawala transactions. Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi visited them both in jail.

Sometimes the traditional banking system is used as well. One of the most notorious pending money laundering cases is that of politically well-connected Hasan Ali Khan, who reportedly casually moved an estimated $8 billion. In one case, according to investigators, $300 million was transferred from a Chase Manhattan account into a UBS Khan-linked account for a hotel purchase in Switzerland. The note attached was tagged “Funds from weapons sales.”

Khan’s case has moved at a glacial pace, and the billions that passed through his accounts have disappeared.

How Was Money Used Abroad?

The Enforcement Directorate has identified multiple properties around the world linked to various members of the Chidambaram family. Bank accounts are harder to identify as there are allegations that the Indian government is reluctant to request full lists of illicit accounts held abroad from willing countries.

How Was Money Moved Back Into India?

There are myriad ways of moving money into India, but a popular one during Chidambaram’s time as finance minister was Participatory Notes (P-Notes) handled by companies such as Goldman Sachs. Foreign investors could use P-Notes (via brokers) to buy shares in India, for example on the NSE. Under Chidambaram, the identity of those individual investors was not diligently pursued.

So, if someone got a bribe in India, moved it abroad via hawala, then brought it back in via P-Notes, that money has now been nicely laundered and, if they happen to be running it through a co-locating broker, their investment has also grown.

Meanwhile, however, honest entrepreneurs and investors have come up against invisible walls, been harassed into oblivion, and had their livelihoods destroyed. Tata research estimated that Jignesh Shah’s markets were supporting up to a million jobs. When he was shut down, seemingly for being too much competition to a corrupt system, a lot of that potential was shut down as well. That’s happened all over the Indian economy.

It is remarkable that Chidambaram is awaiting trial. But the tentacles constricting the Indian economy still reach deep into the system. There are desperate and well-resourced efforts to scupper the cases. This is a crucial inflection point not only for India, but for global balance of power.

If India is freed from the shackles of deep corruption, it could help spread growth and stability beyond its borders. Those fighting corruption in India need all the support they can get: more external media coverage of the issues, cooperation from foreign governments in tracking illegal money flows, more scrutiny of the operations of international financial institutions, and more. If not for India’s sake, then for our own.

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Cleo Paskal is Non-Resident Senior Fellow for the Indo-Pacific at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

The Transformation of India’s Anti-Corruption Warriors

They were once comrades-in-arms, giving a clarion call to Indians from all walks of life to fight the system, reform politics, and end corruption in India. They wanted a Jan Lokpal, or Ombudsman, bill to root out political corruption. Behind the banner of the old Gandhian, Anna Hazare, they were the most prominent and recognizable faces of the anti-corruption movement that stirred the India’s national conscience some four years ago.

At the center of the anti-corruption movement back then were Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi, Shazia Ilmi, and Ramdev, among others. They were largely non-political figures and well-known in their areas of work. Their call to change the system and rid India of corruption stirred the whole country. Jantar Mantar became India’s Tahrir Square at that time.

The energy and anger released by the movement overwhelmed the established political parties and greatly undermined the ruling Congress-led coalition.

But once the general elections drew closer and the poll for the Delhi Assembly eventually came calling in 2014, the movement began its disintegration. Two years of continuous protest politicized the movement’s figureheads and had emboldened them politically. Popular pressure forced the parliament to pass a toned down version of the Ombudsman bill.

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During the movement’s heyday, several questions were raised about the credentials of the leaders and their larger aims. Several analysts pointed out that the anti-corruption activists are playing the game of the now-dominant Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and that the movement is a project of the right-wing Hindu organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) — the ideological godfather of the BJP. These same critics claimed that the movement’s larger aim is to dispose of the ruling Congress Party. The protagonists of the protests dismissed these insinuations with a vengeance.

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Some four years later, Kiran Bedi is the BJP’s mascot in Delhi and the right-wing group is pinning its hopes on her to pull out a victory for the party in the Assembly elections slated for the first week of February. Shazia Ilmi, another prominent face of the anti-corruption agitation, is also part of the right-wing contingent. As is Vinod Kumar Binnya a legislator from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP, or Common Man’s Party) — Arvind Kejriwal’s brainchild.

One vocal votary of the anti corruption movement was Yoga guru Ramdev. He was not only active in Delhi’s Jantar Mantar but also in spreading the message across the country. He virtually converted his daily yoga classes into a platform to create awareness about the anti-corruption movement. Today Ramdev is dead silent on the issue of corruption. He is on the contrary exploiting his proximity to the BJP regime in expanding his business of Ayurvedic products.

Today, everything is clear. The anti-corruption movement was not aimed at cleaning the country of corruption and ushering in a new political culture in India. It was largely an agitation aimed at dislodging the previous Congress-led government.

Veteran political commentator, Harish Khare, in his recent book “How Modi Won It,” writes that “an unholy convergence of calculations and conspiracies among corporate, political and ‘Hindutva’ crowds saw the emergence of an ‘an anti corruption movement.'” He says that the movement “reached a fork” as “he assorted right-wing groups who were providing ‘boots on the ground’ gradually and quietly withdraw their helping hand.”

Khare in his insightful book surmises that the Gandhian Anna Hazare was used “to delegitimize the Congress and weakened liberal and progressive voices.”

Whether or not one agrees with Khare, one thing that is certain is that that the biggest beneficiary of the anti-corruption movement has been the BJP. The party leader Narendra Modi launched his march to Delhi on ground prepared by the protests. Similarly, most of the activists of the Anna movement have joined the BJP.

Arvind Kejriwal, who charted a different route than some of his comrades, did so at the cost of the Congress party, a centrist liberal organization. He indirectly helped the right-wing Hindu group to come to the center stage at the cost of India’s larger liberal and secular voices.

The purported aim of the anti-corruption campaign was to reform politics; it was a voice against the prevailing corruption in the political system. Has it achieved that goal? Has India found a mechanism or way to address its endemic and systemic corruption?

We all know the answer.

Why are the protagonists of the anti-corruption movement now so silent on the issue of corruption? Why have people like Ramdev gone silent and grown hesitant to utter the word “corruption” to the present regime?

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No doubt the anti-corruption protests of 2011 were a movement for a noble cause, but the movement’s leaders had shortsighted political interests. They were opportunists and careerists. India’s millions who came on the streets with the hope of seeing a new beginning have been left high and dry. People like Bedi, Ilmi and Ramdev were playing games with the people. These people were more concerned about their career and business interests rather than the larger cause they rallied for. Naturally, their honesty and integrity falls into question.

Kejriwal, who was the most vocal proponent of the Ombudsman Bill and stood uncompromising on the issue of corruption, is a changed man now. His sole purpose now is to win the upcoming Delhi elections. He does not talk about addressing the issue of corruption or reforming politics with the same vengeance he used to just under two years ago. The rebels have become part of the system.

Kiran Bedi is now standing election for chief minister in Delhi as the BJP’s candidate, representing a party she has called corrupt and compromising numerous times. She shares the platform with the BJP’s president, Amit Shah, a man who has cases pending against him from when he was the deputy home minister of Gujarat. Shah was banned from entering his home state for two years by the Supreme Court for his murky political activities.

How will Bedi justify her political turn? How will Kejriwal justify his politics? Is financial misappropriation the only definition of corruption? What will the country call the abandoning of the once-noble cause of anti-corruption?

It is worse than corruption: it is a betrayal.

India will not forgive the betrayer.

How will India become a mature and more sensible nation in thought?

Tragidies are not a stumbling stones in the daily path of existence.

We as Indians move on, no magnitude of tragedies slow us down.The recent rape and slaying of two minor girls n the Lakhimpur Kheri district shook the sensitivities of the sane people in our nation again. Such horrific and tragic incidents to my knowledge have been happening for the past five decades of my existence. I have read and wept in silence over such tragedies and at the end of the day went to sleep whether ever anything will change in our country. But the pace of the nation goes on without a stumbling stone. Such weak is our collective memory that we forget (sic.conveniently) the horrors and tragedies of the recent past.

India is now in its 75th year of Independence when it started its journey as a nation again. Still, countless misery, tragedy, and discrimination have happened among Indians for years together. From the early days of Independence, the biggest terrible human tragedy was the partition with its insufferable bloodbath, to the modern twenty-first century Indian suffering from rape, riot, and murders every day. Nothing has changed moreover Indian behavior passivity, behavior, and brotherhood to more of an ‘only me’ aattitude and behavior.

“Corruption is paid by the poor”, said once the Holy Pope Francis. In India, we experience it daily in our routine life. Not a single day goes by when the media is covered in the unearthing of corruption to scales unimaginable running in hundreds of crores. The Indians themselves are in cohort with the corruption. Humans’ instinct is to avoid any threat, and we InIndians have to take to it by heart. Whether we bribe the corrupt officials or the overtaking from the wrong side it’s sheer avoidance of threatening situations in a fast-growing economy we want money, and power at any cost. Recently we crossed the U.K. As the fifth largest economy a moment to cherish for the Indians, yet also a moment to reflect upon the losses we are suffering. If you read and pause for a minute the losses it’s titanically huge. We have lost, mental health, brotherhood, physical well beings, and more things.

Why did Charles Darwin ever postulate the ‘Survival of the fittest theory? and the greatest modern Indian tragedy is that we have taken the theory to heart. Tragically we are more leveled up against love thy neighbor anymore, we just try to selfishly fulfil our desires, and satiate our hunger, powers, and greed. India has evolved(though it shouldn’t ever) into a cesspool of corruption, and countless discrimination whether caste or religion. I am not trying to expose something new because since Independence we are dealing with these miseries, yet my valid question is will we ever mature as a nation and become more kind, just, and sensitive towards our fellow citizens?

In 1976 Richard Dawkins thought of the ‘Selfish Gene’ theory which helps us understand the Indians to a larger extent. The tragedy of trampling of ideas, filling and thoughts of others and manipulating to fulfill our self desires is now the new norm, in fact as the country matured it should have gone away but no it has not. A simple example of the ‘Selfish Gene’ theory is the mad rush by the passengers(though with reserved seats) for the approaching train on the platform. Pushing, shoving, and shouting at fellow passengers is a stupid routine. More hilariously stupid is the honking at a car ahead who is rightly fully going in his lane, just to get ahead of the person is our selfish attitude. Why can’t we handle queues in the temples and other places of worship as if the first reach to God is reserved for the person who shoves and tramples his way to reach the sanctum? Sometimes this shoving resulted in unfathomable tragedies of the stampede in the temples and destroyed lives and families.

The nation which gave the world idea of “Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam”. Why is it tottering?

Indian culture and traditions have already engraved amongst us the idea of recognizing the world as a community, promoting peace, brotherhood, and love. Have we Indians forgotten this idea or just want to ignore it for our primeval gains? Fraught with sectarian, language, religious, and border conflicts seems to like to each his own. The constitution of India had envisaged a fair and just society but we have all but forgotten the pledge to the constitution.In my view, Maslow’s theory of motivation holds for the Indians.The majority of Indians are still at the bottom Basic needs of the pyramid here we are striving hard for food, water warmth, and rest. So it’s far-fetched to think about inner peace and calm in our lives or for our families in recent times.

Indians are a fighter community, they have faced myriad subjugations, foreign invasions, and internal prejudices. Yet remained unscathed in the core and soul, one convincing reason can be that we are religious by heart and birth. With various religious teachings of brotherhood and inner peace. So the sane mind says sooner we will be a maturer nation in our thoughts and behaviour.

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