Who Fears Transparency International?

The downgrading of India’s position, from 94 last year to 85 this year, in the Global Corruption Index by Transparency International came as a shock to bureaucratic circles in the country.

“I never thought I would live to see this day,” rued a senior official in the revenue department. “There must be something wrong in their calculations. We have worked very hard last year in falsifying land records and, I am sure, thanks to our efforts, the area of government land grabbed by politicians has broken all previous records in the last fiscal.”

In a somewhat similar note, the president of the Municipal Contractors’ Association said, “What Transparency International has come out with is really puzzling. We have left no stone unturned to ensure that there is minimum actual spending on contractual works, leaving a bigger margin to be divided between us and the city’s engineers. I am proud to state that last year we elevated the largest number of corporation engineers to the crorepati status compared to the past four decades.”

“Absurd! That’s what Transparency International’s ranking is,” snorted a home ministry official. “Imagine placing us cleaner than Pakistan! That country has only generals and politicians in the high corruption league. We can boast of a much more diverse and widespread population of the corrupt—vice chancellors, bank chairmen, regulators, godmen, company chiefs, NGOs, media heavyweights, sports stars and what have you.”

The director of the city-based think tank, the Institute of Civil Process Research, which offers consultancy on complicating legislation, was unfazed by the latest corruption rankings. “This was to be expected,” he explained calmly.

“Whenever there is a regime change, there is a certain shock effect which curbs corruption activity for some time. Moreover, a lot of corrupt politicos lose power with the change of government and the new ones who come to power take time to settle down. But we should be back to normal in another few months.

“Another development that makes me optimistic is the spate of unsavoury incidents in schools, ATMs and taxis in Bangalore and New Delhi in the past few months. The plethora of new knee-jerk security regulations being imposed by the state governments have opened up fresh avenues of corruption with regard to compliance. Our institute estimates that the quantum of corruption possibilities in these developments exceeds any that were opened up with the passing of environmental legislation a decade ago.”

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The New Indian Express
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