The imagination of politics as a source of corruption is not new. In what is called the ancient Indian state with its many variations and formulations, corruption existed largely. One of the great worries of Chanakya, who wrote Arthashastra, the book of governance management in ancient India, was official corruption. Bureaucrats have officially been corrupt and there is no historical evidence of any impulse that can reduce it.
During the Turko-Afghan era, corruption was systemised and became a form of payment for the services rendered. There were several words and terms for it, including 鈥榖aksheesh鈥�, and it was not considered negative.
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Colonial foundations
THE colonial era saw the true flourishing of corruption as exchanging treaties, grants and power in lieu of money was a common feature of the British India. In fact, the British bribed the Mughals to impose preferential tax which helped the British jump over the French in their colonial ambition.
鈥楤y the beginning of 1651, the English were able to establish a factory at Hughli, perhaps due to the able support given by Doctor Gabriel Boughton, and then in high favour with the Subahdar Shah Shuja, who by a (nishan) of 1651 permitted them to trade freely. The nishan allowed free trade in lieu of an annual payment of Rs 3000/-. Shah Shuja confirmed it in 1656 and Mir Jumla reiterated the confirmation in 1660 and by Shaista Khan in 1672. Prince Muhammad Azam (azim-us-shan) later confirmed it although there was no imperial farman to that effect. Behind such a facade of concessions and confirmations lay an acute tussle between the officials of the company and the succeeding Subahdars.鈥� (Banglapedia)
What the British did was to formalise 鈥榖ribe鈥� as a system while publicly looking down upon 鈥榖ribes鈥� as a form of 鈥榚astern鈥� decadence. The colonial officials also were enriched by this bribery and the East India Company saw no problem with this form of transaction. What helped, of course, was the eagerness of the local people to participate in it as it grew. Thus, bribes and the wide world of corruption was part of life.
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State and corruption
Corruption is defined as an illegal act to produce results which would have,听 otherwise, been impossible without it. This paired with poor law enforcement yields a tough act to consider even reducing corruption. Scholars say, 鈥楶olitical corruption is parasitic; it finds a host and can almost always find a way to survive. Eventually, people grow dependent on this corruption as a means for income and access to resources, thus forming a symbiosis between the people who benefit from it, and the elites that regulate it. People sometimes ignore the corruption surrounding them, feeling that as long as the people do their jobs well, their 鈥榚xtra salary鈥� can鈥檛 hurt.鈥�
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Bangladeshi corruption
THE stories that are surfacing on the media shows that corruption was so wide and endemic and pervasive that it cannot be defined as a form of illegal act but part of the system that basically runs the state. Equally important is that it is historically based in the region and the exchange of money for services is now an established form of governance functioning. It is not about political corruption or administration but governance itself.
However, Bangladesh has had to pay a high price for corruption because corruption was not system-friendly and damaged the very system which promoted 鈥榗orruption鈥�. The South Asian model of corruption is services equal bribes. This leads to higher returns on the services rendered and leads to better-performing staff who are part of the system in some cases even.
The banking sector is a good example where the system was basically set up to promote not just business but also oligopolistic trends and it is not a secret. However, the functioning of banks has been such that it is difficult to identify efficiency elements in it. The theft led by the S Alam Group and others is only half the story because the regulatory agencies were part of it. It did not promote corruption after a point but was so unsustainable that the system simply collapsed. One could not milk the banks any more as they began to die one after another.
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Post-August 5
THE general feeling naturally is that the old regime is gone and the new regime has taken its place. It is being supported by the people at large and public expectation is high. However, the problem or issue is that corruption is not a regime issue but a system issue and there is no way of introducing a system without changing the nature of the state.
To do that, one would have to look for alternatives, but who will do that beyond slogans? Even in a country like China, which has integrated two socio-political systems successfully, corruption exists. However, the Chinese government battles it though not often winning 鈥� meaning that corruption is part of the state itself. Battling that takes a lot of political imagination, not just administrative skills and commitment.
Ultimately, Bangladesh must seek a review of its own systems, largely because social systems have done immensely better than the state in Bangladesh. But if that is possible within the current political imagination of the colonially-inspired western models of national statist political parties, elections and allowing the control of market instructions by the politicians and the bureaucracy remain to be seen.
When a state is inevitable and so is corruption, the 鈥榝oe鈥� is not corruption but the state itself. It is a bitter truth most will not want to face.
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Afsan Chowdhury is a researcher and journalist.
