Did we need the Transparency Index to tell us that India is slipping down the integrity ladder? With a score of 3.1, we ranked 95 among the 183 nations this year, down from 87 among 178 in 2010. But we’ve got company, especially in the neighbourhood. In Transparency International’s 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index, 2/3 of the countries surveyed got scores under five, with 16 countries in Asia scoring below three. That’s significant corruption; a score of zero indicates high levels of corruption and 10, negligible ones. As usual, New Zealand, the Scandinavian countries and Singapore have kept their hands and nose clean.
The Index measures perceived public sector corruption; it ignores the private sector. The areas studied are bribery of officials, kickbacks in procurement, embezzlement of funds, and effectiveness of public sector anti-corruption efforts. In TI’s 2010 report, 3.6 per cent Kiwis said they or a relative had bribed a service provider in the previous year. In India, TI’s 2005 study found that more than 55 per cent people had personally paid bribes to get their job done in a public office.
That’s old hat, you might say. Maybe so. The puzzling point is that India also has high scores on the religiosity index, with 90 per cent saying religion is very important to them. Now, strong religious values are supposed to influence individual behaviour and instill beliefs that promote integrity, and frown upon wrong-doing. Indeed, a lot of us treat the Bhagwad Gita as a guide to life and believe in its teachings on Dharm and Karm. If public officials are drawn from the same population, shouldn’t they too be guided by them? In fact, why just public officials? If religion drives individuals to adopt certain attitudes, shouldn’t aggregate levels of religiosity lead to a principled country run by an ethics-rich government? And shouldn’t the whole population be intolerant of any hint of corruption?
And yet, it seems to work in reverse. Like the Dalai Lama said while addressing students of IIM Kolkata recently, “In India, people pray and make offerings to God in the morning and then step out and indulge in corruption.”
It’s not just true of India. Somalia, which had 98.5 per cent of its people saying religion is very important to them (in a Gallup poll in 2009), has tied with North Korea for last spot in this year’s Corruption Index. Indonesia, which has 99 per cent people embracing religion, ranks 100 in the list. Compare this with New Zealand—the least corrupt country in the world. Only 33 per cent of its people embrace religion. In Denmark, the second-cleanest country, religion is important to just 18 per cent, while in third-placed Sweden, only 16.5 per cent give importance to religion.
So what’s the story? One could argue that corruption thrives among poor populaces, who use religion as a crutch. But wealthy Singapore disproves that. Seventy per cent of the citizens of the fourth-least corrupt country say religion is very important to them. Bhutan, which is both religious and poor, also bucks that trend. It has a global ranking of 38 and a score of 5.7. Clearly, religion is all about circumstances and has little to do with ethics.
What we need is a collective will to “not let anyone walk through our minds with dirty feet”. Without that, corruption will become the opiate of the masses.
shampa@newindianexpress.com
