Given the composition of the 14-member group, the latest to join the chorus for a truly effective Lokpal bill alongside the introduction of full-scale judicial, electoral, police and land reforms through strong legislative measures without any further delay, few in the national and state governments will have the courage to deny the nexus and the resultant corruption under which the whole nation is reeling. Significantly, the letter warned that the vicious nexus poses a grave threat to the society and the national economy.

Who would be more qualified to identify the existence of such an unholy nexus than a former Reserve Bank of India governor; a general merchandise-to-IT tsar; an ex-head honcho of the largest stock exchange-listed multinational company turned a scientific advisor to a former Prime Minister; a super-infrastructure-banker having his finger in almost every major business pie; a scion of India’s largest privately-owned business enterprise which once challenged the might of the world’s largest manufacturing company to protect his family name; builder of one of India’s top engineering cum IT enterprises who landed in the jail for keeping company with a ‘killer’ US multinational industrial corporation enjoying special relationship with the country’s most celebrated political family; a super investment banker leading the nation’s largest private sector bank and second largest among all commercial banks and a Pune-based businesswoman of an extra-ordinary courage and ability to take on some of the global giants in the power equipment sector to build and retain a world class enterprise?

These super-achievers, who earned an iconic status in their respective areas of activity through sheer commitment, hard work and never-say-die attitude to external challenges, have known the government and business corporations inside out – first, as a professional dealing with the politicians and the officialdom to overcome ministerial hurdles and bureaucratic obstacles and, then, being associated with the government’s decision-making process often as outside resource persons and helpful industry representatives. Naturally, they know “too much” and, as such, are most eligible to point finger at the nexus and the deep rooted corruption the system created and nurtured over the years. Ironically, these letter shooters also represent the country’s seven most corrupt industries, listed by KPMG after a nation-wide survey and cited recently by Transparency International India. Therefore, these distinguished citizens know exactly what they are talking about.

According to the survey, the real estate and construction industry occupies the topmost position in the corruption chart. Few are more knowledge about the goings on in this sector and the extent and depth of corruption linked with the business involving politicians, bureaucrats, bankers, police and land mafia than Deepak Parekh of the Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC)-fame. Parekh is one of the 14 signatories of the ‘Open Letter To Our Leaders.’ The corruption level in the real estate and the construction industry is far above the second most corrupt industry, the Telecom sector, the potential of which got partly exposed after the 2G scam unfolded. Telecom companies have been hand-in-glove with the power that be in New Delhi to manipulate every aspect of the business to their advantage by duping both the government and customers. Both the construction and telecom industries have given India some of its fastest turning billionaires.

Surprisingly, the education, clubbed, rather somewhat inexplicably, with the government’s much-touted poverty alleviation programme, is billed as the third most corrupt business in India. The privatization of education, followed by mushrooming colleges and universities doling out degrees and certificates in specialized areas of knowledge such as engineering, medicine and surgery, dental treatment, business management, computer applications, merchant marine and civil aviation. A good number of the entrepreneurs have unenviable personal track record in other fields. They include political strongmen, international swindlers, local gangland bosses, drug and liquor barons, jail convicts, havala operators and stock market manipulators. A nexus between the erstwhile regulatory authorities such as All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Medical Council of India (MCI) and the centre and state administration helped them build a massive private industry offering low quality education at almost international cost.

The banks and insurance business is the fourth most corrupt industry identified in the survey. The business, like telecom and construction, has bred a new band of Indian billionaires. The constant political meddling, privatization, manipulative FDI policy, etc. have all helped germinate a corruption network which has grown bigger and stronger over the years. ICICI’s Narayan Vagul and Parekh must be well versed with the modus operendi and modus vivendi of the network plaguing the economy and the society. The frequently tampered FDI policy, allowing a low level external entry to gradual control of the industries such as telecom, banking, insurance, construction, energy, transport, IT/ITes/ BPO, automobile, metals and engineering, consumer products, pharmaceuticals, wholesale and, now, retailing, has created a massive opportunity for promoting and nurturing powerful industry-government connect at the cost of the indigenous sector. The FDI policy is the single largest contributor to corruption and the creation of a new generation of Indian billionaires with their wealth stashed mostly outside the country.

The corruption level in defence is a shade lower than that in the education sector. However, the corruption history of the Rs. 2,00,000-crore-plus defence sector beats all others. Ranked fifth in the latest corruption scale, the nexus dates back to 1948, soon after India’s independence from the Raj, under the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. It began with a jeep import scandal involving a foreign private agent closely known to the then defence minister Krishna Menon. Over the years, the defence sector became a cesspool of corruption, involving almost every department which has something to do with purchase and disposal – from CSD to ASC, MES and the department of defence itself which decides on hardware procurement and other high value imports. The defence corruption has been constantly in the news since 1986 starting with Bofors gun and HDW submarine deals to the Kargil coffin case and more lately Sukna and Adarsh land scams. Incidentally, in the national capital region (NCR) of Delhi, ex-defence officers are among the richest landlords.

Often branded as India’s sunrise industry, the IT/ITeS/BPO has been quick to occupy the inglorious sixth position in the list of the country’s seven most corrupt business and industrial sectors. Few had any clue about the extent and potential of corruption in this fast rising sector and its graft offering skills even outside India before a World Bank report in 2007, temporarily blacklisting some of the high profile Indian IT firms, and US$ 1.3-billion financial fraud involving the country’s once fourth largest IT company, Satyam Computers. The government and public institutions are the biggest customers of this sector. The society’s growing dependence on this sector, the constant threat to data security, hardware-software compatibility, inadequate specialized knowledge among users and overselling and overpricing of products are among the factors contributing to rampant corruption in this sector. The energy and the power sector is the seventh most corrupt.

Keshub Mahindra, Azim Premji, Jamshyd Godrej, Anu Aga and Ashok Ganguly are witness to the wind of change which puts special premium to policy manipulation and corruption. Gone are the days when Hindustan Lever (now Hindustan Unilever) had to launch a corporate restructuring programme overnight to convert the country’s largest consumer goods manufacturing company into a big ‘export house’ and high technology enterprise, making DAP for Indian farmers and import-substitute LAB for the detergents industry. Eminent scientist-turned corporate head honcho Ashok Ganguly made this seemingly impossible task possible for the then Hindustan Lever. Keshub Mahindra, Azim Premji, Jamshyd Godrej and the late Rohington Aga and his widow Anu had all overcome the impact of the government’s frequent and capricious policy changes to protect and expand their respective enterprises.

It may be too early to predict if their ‘open letter’ achieves the desired result from the openly combative UPA government to the latest round of the anti-corruption movement and its frequent slur against the crusaders, including Anna Hazare. The Congress-led government has been doggedly defending its position while portraying the anti-corruption movement as an Opposition-led political campaign even as a series of corruption charges against its ministers and bureaucrats, squandering lakhs of crores of public funds in aircraft purchase contracts, spectrum allocation, inflated gas and energy pricing, highly bloated commonwealth games billing, politically-designed and poorly executed poverty alleviation programmes, etc., keep cropping up.

Too many crooks and corporate lawyers are spoiling the UPA broth. Several of these persons functioned as either power brokers or legal counsels of some of India’s most corrupt businessmen and their enterprises before joining the UPA government. It will be unfair to expect them change their ways after becoming ‘honourable’ ministers to ditch their high value past and future clients overnight. Their dubious distinction stands in the way of the Manmohan Singh government acting tough and coming clean on the corruption issue. As long as this brand of politicians stays at the helm of the government, the latter is bound to helplessly defend corruption and the corrupt for its own survival no matter what happens to the society. (IPA Service)