May 11, 1998

Want to tackle corruption? Start with petty babus and everyday bribes.

Tavleen Singh

This week I write from a small town in India. It doesn't matter which one, it doesn't matter which state it is in or who the chief minister is -- because the problems are the same. The small, everyday tyrannies the Indian state inflicts upon its citizens are also the same. These are the really big problems in our country, these are the reasons why governments get voted out or in.

But once an election is over, these problems are not discussed. Our political leaders, and us political pundits, like to ponder weightier matters, like whether we should have a presidential form of government, whether we should go nuclear, what we can do to eradicate corruption nationally. Well, below these weighty matters lie the real problems that make life hell for an average Indian. This week I will try and give you a glimpse of them.

Yesterday, it rained heavily in my small town. So the power and telephone lines collapsed and the roads became rivulets. For two whole days we remained unconnected (telephonically) to the rest of the world. The electricity came and went as if it were there to titillate us rather than provide a service. Everyone, except me, handled the situation with equanimity. "This is routine," explained one of my small-town friends. "During the monsoon we can sometimes go for days without the telephone working. As for electricity, it comes and goes whether it rains or not."

I asked the usual city questions. What if there is an emergency? What if someone were seriously ill? What if you had business to transact, a column to file, someone in another city to speak to? You learn to wait, they told me, you learn to wait.

It is not as if there are no power cuts in Delhi and Mumbai or that telephones do not routinely go dead. But if this happened in the whole city it would make headlines across the country. Small towns and villages, which together constitute the real India, have learnt to live with the fact that their problems only matter at election time -- and that the everyday tyrannies they face will not change no matter who the prime minister is.

The real face of this tyranny is the local official, the policeman and the judicial system. Instead of talking in generalities, let me give you a couple of examples. In this small town I met an Indian who had lived for many years in New York, working on Wall Street. When P.V. Narasimha Rao began his economic liberalisation and it looked for a few brief moments as if India would really change, this man was among those who decided to come home. He bought himself a farm in Karnataka. But even before he could start building himself a home, his problems began. They arose mainly because he tried to do things honestly.

For a start, since he paid "white money" he ruined the local land registration office's business. This came mainly from bribes to conceal black money payments. Since he had paid such a large amount of money, these officials decided they would make up their losses by extorting vast sums from him before they registered the land in his name. He fought back and the bribe was finally reduced to less than a tenth of what the officials had sought. But the problems continued.

Getting an electricity connection also required a huge bribe. When, despite obtaining it, supplies were irregular he decided to install his own generator. Even that was not easy. The power department insisted he would have to pay it for every unit of electricity he was generating for himself since it would have made this money had it been able to supply him with the power.

The problems have not ended there either. My friend built his house despite the obstacles Indian officialdom put in his way and moved in thinking the worst was over. He was wrong. He woke up one morning to discover the state had acquired six acres of his land on the grounds that he had failed to comply with some mysterious, unknown rule. So now he faces the possibility of spending the next 20 years seeking justice that may never come.

In this town, there is a school that has been embroiled for several years in just such a fight. A powerful politician took a fancy to one of the school's properties and simply took possession of it with the help of his goons. The school's furniture and staff were thrown off the premises.

The school tried to get help from the local police and officials. But nobody was prepared to annoy the politician. So there was no recourse but to go to court. The case has taken years and the school is now on the verge of getting back its property. But a local official has to certify the property was in the school's possession on a particular date. Will he dare take on the powerful politician?

These are ordinary, everyday stories of the India that Jawaharlal Nehru built. An India in which the state was made so powerful that petty officials became more important than kings. An India in which the real enemy of the people is the state itself. Nowhere do you see this more clearly than in our small towns and villages.

It is this the average Indian wants changed. This is what he constantly votes against. To him this is what corruption really means. Not Sukh Ram's crores or Jayalalitha's jewels. If Atal Bihari Vajpayee can even begin to change things at this level, he could make it possible for the BJP to rule for the next 50 years. If not, then nothing he does will make much difference.

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