Are Indians corrupt?

Here is a news story in Washington Post (3/9/04) that echoes some of the points made by Mr. Sanu.

Opening Files, Indians Find Scams
Freedom of Information Laws Slowly Change a Culture of Secrecy
By Rama Lakshmi
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, March 9, 2004; Page A17

KELWARA, India -- Lal Singh Rawat, a thin, turbaned quarry worker, came to the meeting clutching a yellow ration card. The card, given out by the government to those living in absolute poverty, entitled him to buy low-priced wheat every month under India's food security program. But for the past six months, the government ration distributor had repeatedly turned Rawat away, forcing him to buy wheat elsewhere, at a price he could not afford.

A man called Rawat's name. "Did you buy 77 pounds of wheat every month from your local ration shop?" he asked.

"I did not," Rawat answered.

"But the register says you have been buying wheat every month," the man said, pointing to a copy of the government food register, which he had obtained under a state law that grants citizens access to government files.

"How can the records say that? The ration shopkeeper in my village said there was no wheat supply from the government for the last six months," Rawat said, as the crowd of about 600 villagers shouted, "No wheat, no wheat!"

As ration shopkeepers tried in vain to disrupt the public hearing convened by the Workers and Peasants Empowerment Organization, a grass-roots advocacy group, the names of 30 more impoverished villagers who had been cheated out of their wheat entitlements were read out.

The shopkeepers in Kelwara -- a village in the state of Rajasthan, about 250 miles southwest of the capital, New Delhi -- routinely abused the government program by making fraudulent entries in the official registers and selling the poor people's wheat at a higher price on the open market. Not long ago, the scam probably would have gone unnoticed, because most Indians would not have been allowed to see the government food register. But since Rajasthan adopted a state law three years ago guaranteeing the right to information, villagers have opened previously inaccessible government files on food supply, health programs and development projects, exposing fraud and forgery.

British colonial rulers left India a massive bureaucracy with a culture of secrecy, and throughout more than half a century of democracy, governments tended to remain opaque, dodging accountability and fostering corruption. Even requests for official information on such innocuous matters as the stock of free medicines for malaria and snakebites or the amounts spent on sewer lines and schools were met with official hostility.

In response to a grass-roots movement born in Rajasthan, India has begun loosening its hold on information. Nine states have passed freedom of information laws in the past six years. A national law has cleared Parliament and awaits the president's signature.

"People's right to information will make governments transparent and accountable. It puts the officials under people's watch," said Aruna Roy, head of Workers and Peasants Empowerment Organization, which spearheaded the campaign.

India is still a long way from eradicating the problem of access. Despite the laws, official reluctance to open files still runs deep. The Delhi state government has 2,000 pending requests for information.

A New Delhi-based civic action group, Parivartan, applied for information on what the 70 elected members of the Delhi state legislature had spent from the development budget during their term. The group was sent from one office to another for more than six months, even though the law says the wait should not exceed a month. Activists say the laws are deliberately vague about penalties for officials who hold up access to files.

Here in Rajasthan, it still takes months for people to gain access to official files. But the delays have not deterred them.

Three years ago, farmers in the village of Janawad made headlines when they dismantled an elaborate network of corruption after a year-long struggle to obtain government files. Lachchi Ram Meghwal and a friend stopped at the village council office one day and were shocked to read, painted on the wall, proclamations listing various projects that supposedly had been implemented.

"It was a wall of lies," recalled Meghwal, 70. "It said money had been spent on building a village road, a well, a cattle shed and a water tank. When I went to check these claims, I saw no road, no water tank, no cattle shed and no well. They merely existed on paper. Where did the money go?"

Meghwal informed other villagers, and the group marched to the village council chief demanding to see the accounts. "But the chief threw us out and said, 'Go away, I have swallowed the money and you cannot do anything because I will not show you the files,' " Meghwal said.

For eight months, the villagers knocked on every official door in their district requesting to see the files on money spent in Janawad. "Every officer kept turning us away. We had a right to see the files," said Meghwal, "but nobody took us seriously."

Finally, the villagers contacted the Workers and Peasants Empowerment Organization, which used its clout to pull the files and hold a public hearing in Janawad in April 2002. Fraud amounting to more than $100,000 was exposed; the village council chief and a group of officials had manipulated government rolls, bills, vouchers and monitoring books to show that the projects in dispute had been implemented. After an inquiry, the state government charged 26 officials with corruption. Their cases are pending in the courts.

"People have woken up to their rights after Janawad's example," said Parag Choudhury, a government official for rural development in Rajasthan. "They are no longer willing to accept corruption. They now want detailed information on everything."

He added that after the Janawad scam came to light, it has become mandatory to submit photographic evidence of project work when it is completed.

However, Meghwal asserted that the new village council in Janawad was not squeaky-clean either. "Earlier, the entire money was swallowed by the corrupt. Now at least one-fourth of the money is spent on genuine work," he said. "Even this is a big victory for us."

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The Lost Rendezvous

Any way of knowing if this Brigitta has also been an involuntary recipient of calls meant for you?:-)

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Great Ragas: Mohanam

Is Mohana really a "veera rasa" raga? I didn't know that. I always thought the raga conveys love (like that of a mother's love towards a child) or escalating entreatments resulting from such love. Thank you for the demo.

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Pakistan's Moment Of Truth

Dr Kak: I agree with your insight that Pakistan is the sick child of Asia and it needs a wholesale change in its polity and priorities for a turn around. My belief is that it would not happen any time soon. Coupled with the dogma of intolerance towards plurality of views, there is no educational base in that country nor are there any natural resources to speak of (oil/gas) to achieve any sustained turn around. Given that, isn't India's security threatened with illegal immigration from Pakistan - a la Bangladesh? What steps could India take now to prevent such a future possibility?

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Resurgent India

:A good article. Satya Prabhakar's introduction says that power is projected in three ways - military, economic, and cultural. I happen to believe there is a fourth dimension, that of physical prowess of a country's citizens, i.e., sports. It will be certainly gratifying to see India win a few Olympic gold medals (especially in track and swimming), do well in high-impact international competition such as the World Cup soccer, Tennis grandslams, etc. This helps put the country in a positive spotlight more quickly than other means. See China, for example. One may talk about Cricket, but except for Australia, no other cricket-playing country is a force to reckon with in international sports, say what you will.

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