Regime Corruption in India

Abstract

A great deal of research has been done on corruption in India in the transactional sense where money changes hands in anticipation of favours, or for favours already rendered. However, not much attention is paid to the more insidious form of corruption known as regime corruption. Defining a ‘regime’ as the entire political and constitutive system, this article focuses on regime corruption in India where politicians use, or abuse, the political, legal and constitutional systems for partisan and personal gain. Tolerance of this kind of abuse may be attributed to the Hindu social system, transient governments, and the political parties and their leaders. This article contends that a constitutional government is preferable to popular government, as argued by both the ancient and modern writers.

Keywords:

• Regime
• Corruption
• Federalism
• Emergency Powers
• Supreme Court
• Election Commission

Two previous presentations on this theme were made at the XIXth World Congress of the International Political Science Association, Durban, South Africa, 2003, and the Conference on Continuing Transformations of Public Administration University of Hong Kong, 2006. The author gratefully acknowledges the in-puts from participants at both the panels, but absolves them of any responsibility for opinions expressed herein.

Notes

1. Secession is not allowed under the American Constitution. In Texas vs. White 7 Wallace (1869) 700 19 L. Ed. 227, the Supreme Court of the United States said that as the Constitution was ordained ‘to form a perfect Union’, the Constitution ‘… looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible states’.

2. The relevant cases are: Association for Democratic Reforms vs Union of India and Others, Writ Petition No. 7257 of 1999, and the appeal, Union of India vs Association for Democratic Reforms, Civil Appeal No. 7178 of 2001.

3. It should be noted that the Shiv Sena, or army of Shiva, was organised by the business community in Bombay (now known as Mumbai) to break the Communist Party's hold on labour. After taking over the trade unions, the Sena was reincarnated into a religious outfit. I am indebted to Arun Gandhi for his insights in this regard. There is a Ranvir Sena in Bihar, which basically is a militia led by the landowners, and is implicated in the killing of hundreds of lower caste workers. These are no more than private armies defending vested interests.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Krishna K. Tummala

Krishna K. Tummala, PhD, is Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in Public Administration at Kansas State University, USA. He is also President of the Public Administration and Affairs National Honor Society, Pi Alpha Alpha