"Na khaunga na khane dunga" (Neither will I do corruption nor will I let others) These were Modi's famous remarks leading up to the 2014 elections. He had run his campaign on the basis that he would abolish corruption not only for his government, but for the whole nation. Flash forward to 2019, and incidents of bribery in India dropped 10%, from 58% in 2018 to 51% in 2019 in the National Corruption Survey, which received 1,90,000 responses from people in 248 districts. A statement from the organisation said that the country's position in Transparency International's 2019 corruption index, published by TII, had improved by three places compared to the previous year and now is in 78th place out of 180 nations. A subtle yet evident improvement. The survey also shows that cash is still the primary mode to pay bribes. Thirty-five percent of the respondents said they gave cash as a bribe in the last 12 months to get their work done, it also depicted that only 16 percent said they always managed to get their work done without paying any bribes. Although increasing CCTV cameras are a slight deterrent, bribery still continues in government offices despite major computerisation and agents continue to thrive, the survey found.
Corruption in India, even though it has decreased, is still a big problem. Especially amid the pandemic, focus on corruption has decrease. It stunts the country's development and affects the economy of central, local, and state government agencies in many ways. The Prevention of Corruption act in 2018 was one way that Modi has helped deal with corruption. This act's main goal was to seek conformity with the rest of the world on the issue of corruption, and imposed measures that reflected on these countries through the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC). The document is at least a step in the right direction for society and made way for changes concerning who is liable in bribery cases and some expected timelines for these changes to be made. One of the most notable amendments made is that punishments to public servants have increased from just 6 months to 3 years. This further discourages the incorporation of corruption in service to the nation.
Even though new solutions attempt to rely on technical fixes like Aadhaar-based biometric authentication, they too have had their vulnerabilities exposed through scams like the Jharkhand scholarship fraud. The Transparency International report should serve as a strong signal for the government to realize that while progress is occurring, more needs to be done to eradicate corruption for good, provided society has the will.
Image Courtesy of Priya Malhotra on Medium