Anna Hazare, Democracy and Corruption: Some Open Questions

Since my last post on the Anna Hazare led anti-corruption movement, I've found myself thinking about the issue more seriously that ever. This post too, however, is no less ambivalent than the last one. This would perhaps be expected for the matter at hand is indeed complicated. To be sure, this is not a desirable situation. It is expected of all thinking citizens to hold well-reasoned views on matters of public importance. But reason had led me afar, into a land of unanswered questions, albeit with some insight.

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It has been asserted that a group of individuals self-professedly holding high moral ground cannot rightfully claim represent the myriad interest of civil society. Some have doubted Anna's intentions altogether. These are questions worth asking. At the same time, it cannot be denied that the government has itself been using arbitrary, high handed means to overcome the situation. These too make for unworthy constitutional practices. An excellent editorial by Pratap Bhanu Mehta in today's Indian Express succinctly puts together the contradictions at hand and argues for a 'fine balance' that a constitutional democracy deserves.  

I wish to pick up from where I left off in the last post. It takes an elementary knowledge of 'matters of state', and a modicum of common sense, to appreciate that a democracy 'idealized' is different from a democracy 'realized'. In practice, there are several frictions inherent in the workings of a constitutional democracy that hinder its smooth functioning. Specifically, the bureaucratic hierarchy instituted by the system provides ample scope for corrupt practices, broadly defined as the use of public office for private gain. The idea that decentralization, or delegation of authority by the principal (the authority of the public vested through the constitution in the state) to agents (the functionaries of state, including the bureaucracy, the executive, the legislators, even the judiciary), in the presence of imperfect monitoring of actions by the principal, creates perverse incentives for side-payments between the agents and the beneficiaries of state action. This is definitely not a happy situation. But it is inbuilt into a democratic system. Surely, checks and balances can be placed. They tend to be costly and the state functionaries lack incentives to install them in place. The first cry for the Lokpal bill was a clearly demand for such checks and balances (as were successful movements such as the RTI which did become an Act).  By coming out in the open once again though, what Anna seems to be pushing for implicitly, perhaps unknowingly, is an overthrow of parliamentary democracy as we understand it today. He seems to be advocating a 'civil-society authoritarianism' where the civil society dictates a point wise mandate to the government. But who forms the civil society? The millions of protesters who have come together in support of his movement. This is a potential onset of anarchy. May be I am exaggerating this a bit too much, but it is clear that by defying the proceedings of the Parliament, he is hitting out at fundamental principles of democratic government. The desires of a certain section of middle class for Anna to stay within the restraints of parliamentary framework  may be interpreted as their 'conservative bourgeois' mindset, much like that of the moderates who formed the INC in 1885 (now that such analogies are being indiscriminately being drawn). I wish to take no sides. I feel I am too young, and too unwise, to yet indoctrinate myself . If democracy has to suffer a blow for the want of a better system let it. (Here is a fairly radical viewpoint on the issue. An exceedingly good piece on Ambedkar's distaste for Gandhian ideals and methods is here. It forms an interesting counterpoint.) My contention is this: As a leader of a movement that has instantly gathered a large following, Anna has a higher moral responsibility. If his agenda is marked with such radicalism, the people taking part in the movement need to know this. Or the movement becomes self defeating. I take nothing away from the conscience and good sense of the Indian public when I say that 'they' need to know it. I myself am a part of 'them'. But the aggregated beliefs of such a large multitude of people tend to lose their individual shades of grey, and the 'wisdom of the crowds' is instead turned into a 'foolishness of the mob'. This is where an entire program might become misdirected without any particular person's intention.

At the same time, I do doubt the extent to which passing of a law like the Jan Lokpal Bill can go forth to tackle the more deep seated phenomenon of corruption. If it cannot, then is all the noise pointless? To be sure, corruption is not new to indian polity. In perhaps the earliest foreboding of the principal agent kind of problem, Kautilya writes in the Arthashastra:

Just as it is impossible not to taste the honey (or the poison) that finds itself at the tip of the tongue, so it is impossible for a government servant not to eat up, at least, a bit of king's revenue. Just as fish moving under water cannot possibly be found out either as drinking water or not drinking, so government servants employed in the government work cannot be found out while taking money (for themselves).

In fact, the UCLA economist Deepak Lal (though I personally do not subscribe to some of his views) has gone on to argue in his book, The Hindu Equilibrium, that some sort of expropriation of resources from the public has always been undertaken by the ruling class (in one form or the other) and it is so deep rooted that it may never be removed. The society is so structured that it may continue to do good despite such expropriation. (Note this is different from the efficiency theories of corruption which say that in a second best world with policy induced distortions corruption might well be a corrective factor. It is has also been argued that the opportunity for bribe taking helps the public authorities obtain a signal as to who has the greatest marginal willingness to pay for a certain public benefit being provided by the authority (whosoever is willing to pay the highest bribe) and hence deliver the benefit to the person who values it the most, improving the efficiency of the system. There are several counterarguments to these views, but we would be digressing. The point here is not to examine whether corruption is efficient.)

So why does corruption persist? To understand this, we need to understand why corruption occurs in the first place. Corruption can be viewed, as mentioned before, as a principal agent incentive problem. In a similar spirit, it may be seen as a Coasean bargaining transaction between say a bureaucrat and a private agent. (This particular interpretation lends weight to the efficiency thesis. Even if the efficiency idea were to go through, it would not mean that there are no distributional consequences). Through one of the above routes, or through any other, once the society converges to a 'corrupt equilibrium', why is it not able to deviate? Precisely because it gets 'locked into' an equilibrium. There are several explanations to how this lock-in is sustained. The textbook explanation in Economics is that the elaborate system of state licences and permits gives rise to rent seeking behaviour by private agents, which sustains corruption. The sociologists explain it differently. They attribute persistent social behavior to 'social norms' that become inherent in a society and bootstrap themselves. This may well turn out to be a tautological explanation though, especially to the economist (or even the analytical sociologist). Recent developments in the theory of repeated games have sought to develop a coherent theory of social norms, with agent based models, evolutionary game theory, bounded rationality models, institutional economics, putting in their bit. The body of literature is wide, yet it is undoubtedly work in progress. (Perhaps more on this at a later date). Another way of looking at the tenacity of corruption is to view it as a coordination problem, and this is possibly more productive from our point of view. Essentially, there are several equilibrium behaviors a society can stabilize at several equilibria (and there is no conclusive theory as to which equilibrium will be chosen) but once the stabilization happens, deviation from the equilibrium becomes difficult. The equilibria thus attained are frequency dependent equilibria i.e. the expected gain from a certain behavior (say corruption) depends on how many people are (believed to be) engaging in that behaviour (how many people are corrupt). There can be several variations on this idea, for instance, Andvig and Moene (1990) paper which assumes that the expected punishment for corruption, if detected, falls as corruption becomes more rampant. But the essence is unchanged. Jean Tirole's (1996) papers adopts an approach in a similar spirit, but provides greater insight. Tirole uses the idea of collective reputation, nicely explained (and exemplified) by Rajiv Sethi. The broad idea is that in an overlapping generations framework, the younger generation inherits the bad reputation of the older generation and because actions may be imperfectly monitored, they have no incentive to act in a virtuous manner. The implication derived by Tirole in the paper (in respect of corrupt behavior) is that while a sudden increase in corruption levels might be long lasting, a one shot fall in corruption may not have substantive effects. This, in some sense, undermines those who make a case for Anna's protest by claiming that the movement  has helped create mass awareness. However, another emerging branch of game theory offers them some respite. Epistemic game theory tries to construct game theory bottom up from foundational issues about beliefs and knowledge. In this tradition, though inching away from core theory, Michael Chwee has a beautiful little book, Rational Ritual, Culture, Coordination and Common Knowledge, (available here for free download and reviewed here). The main thesis of the book is that people can coordinate without communication simply by forming common knowledge of each others intentions, and, in traditional societies, rituals are an effective way of ensuring common knowledge of certain beliefs. The idea is that if I know that you will act in a certain way, and I know that you know that I know that you will act in a certain way and so on, and there are mutual gains to be had through cooperation (say both of us adopting fair means), then without communicating individually, we can converge on the same (good) focal point. Rituals ensure that people can see each other at common ceremonies, and they can see each other seeing the same things that they are seeing. This helps them coordinate. In a sense, we can view the countrywide anti-corruption get together as a modern day (though on a much larger scale, and much weaker) ritual, manifesting itself not only on the streets but also on social networking sites.

The point nonetheless is that we cannot be sure that such a bill once passed will be able to make a significant difference to prevalent corruption. This does not offer us reason to be pessimistic. But if we are to significantly alter a system, we must be aware of potential consequences.

Eventually what I have ended up with is a set of open questions. There are pointers in both directions, but they confuse rather than clarify. If we are to be thinking individuals, however, then, I suspect, it becomes impossible for us to avoid such quagmire. To form strong opinions, and hold on to them, might, for all one knows, require some indoctrination. Or else we shall remain guilty of ambivalence. However, as Joan Robinson once said, "The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists." Similarly,  any exercise in constructively thinking about a social issue has value to it perhaps not in being able to provide the right answers, but in being able to see through a more conventional outlook.

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Here's to you, Mr. Hazare/ Its more complicated than you would know!

Anna Hazare comes to North Campus on a day after Independence day to up his ante against the Government to reconsider the 'Team Anna' version of the Lokpal Bill. The PM office has snubbed his letter asking for permission to protest for more than three days at JP Park by asking him to 'approach statutory authorities'. That's the way of a democracy, isn't it? Mr. Hazare is a self professed Gandhian. Is he reducing the importance of his movement by taking it a bit too far? We cannot but agree that Gandhiji himself was a master of realpolitik. But is there place for repeated popular protest in democracy? Would Gandhiji himself have allowed it? I haven't read enough of his writings to comment on that. It appears though that his adversary on many occasions, and one of the prime architects of Indian Democracy, B.R. Ambedkar would have been skeptical. This is from Ram Guha's India After Gandhi:

Ambedkar ended his speech with three warnings about the future. The first concerned the place of popular protest in a democracy. There was no place for bloody revolution, of course, but in his view there was no room for Gandhian methods either. 'We must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non cooperation and Satyagraha [popular protest]'. Under an autocratic regime there might have been justification for them, but not now, when constitutional methods of redress were available. Satyagraha and the like, said Ambedkar, were 'nothing but the grammar of anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us'.

(This was said in a speech made by Ambedkar on 25th November, 1949 to the Drafting Committee of the Constitution. Interestingly, the other two warnings were against "unthinking submission to charismatic authority" and contentment with 'mere political democracy'.)


Does Anna Hazare then reserve the right to continue his street marches. Perhaps he does, if the Indian democracy has failed, or is becoming increasing authoritarian (recently Anna did say that the current situation has become much similar to Emergency). Admittedly, the failure of democracy in India, in fact the idea of democracy itself as a just political system, is too severely and widely debated for all the issues to be grasped at once. Yet, here's something I chanced upon.

Question: Is there really any point hoping for a 'non-corrupt' political system in a democracy?

The Morality of Violence

The Naxalites have stepped up their offensive against the Indian state, including civilians, in the past few weeks. It has brought forth a flurry of reactions from the government, the media and civil society at large. Some view it as an indication of bolstered naxal strength; others consider it a last gasp for survival by a faltering rebellion. However, in this absolute frenzy, (as always) there are certain underlying issues that are undermined by the necessary concern of realpolitik. The question that baffles me follows from amateur considerations of moral philosophy: What is the right thing to do? Nevertheless, a preliminary enquiry only manages to throw up further questions.

There is a contention in the public sphere regarding the how the Naxal ‘threat’ should be tackled. The government and a sizeable chunk of public policy and security analysts have a clear stand: While there is room for non-violent discourse if the ‘Rebels’ even temporarily abjure violence, every blow on the Indian state must be met with an equal retaliation. There is also, however, a group of intellectuals and human rights activist, who justify the movement on grounds of inequitable development in the Indian Union, and insist that the resolution must be through dialogue (which may need to be initiated by the state). They contend that, even in the present scenario of heightened violence by the naxalites, retaliatory state violence will only further hurt the adivasis. The former strand of thought, however, believes this to be contradictory, as they argue that the insurgency is inhibiting development and developmental activities can proceed only when order, peace and permanence is established. An important point is in order here: both sides agree that violence on the part of Naxals is categorically wrong, and their actions, be they for whatever reason undermine their objective. Where they differ is on consequentialist grounds – how will an armed retaliation affect the welfare of tribals. And while the Naxalite ‘sympathizers’ may be accused of an agenda against the State and the actions of the State (as most glamorously captured by ‘Operation Greenhunt’) be justified on numerous grounds, perhaps what the former are making is a stronger, more subtle point – the manifestly good intentions of the state in performing its welfare duties may in fact have negative, unintended consequences on the ground. Thus, ironically, those being blamed for being detached from reality in justifying a ‘political’ solution, might actually be anticipating a more consequential reality.

Though it may seem a little heretic, at least in two ways a case can be made for justifying the means adopted by the Naxalites. One argument that was once put before me some time time ago (and so is obviously borrowed) was fashioned as follows: ‘They had a choice to live with arms or die without them. What could have they chosen?’ Another reason, which I can vie to be partially novel, draws on a sense of karmic balance. It has been contented by several influential scholars that not only has progress in any form has bypassed tribal regions more than sixty years of independent Indian polity, but a steady process of deprivation has been instituted by the State (See This Fissured Land by Gadgil and Guha and Environment and Ethnicity in India by Sumit Guha). Not only have the tribals been dispossessed of their land, they have been disenfranchised of their basic means of subsistence by the State having restricted their access to traditionally shared forests and commons. The effects of a misguided continuation of ‘scientific’ colonial forestry post 1947 era appear to have been accentuated by rent seeking and formation of power clouts and nexuses. This has clearly meant slow but sure death for several communities over time. If the Indian state, which is supposed to have perpetrated this form of social penury, is taken to represent the civil society as a whole in a democracy, then perhaps by some standards a violent confrontation may be justified.

However, this rationalization can be severely dented if viewed in light of the present. It has been well established that in Naxal dominated areas, basic amenities, schools and hospitals are almost non-functional. Moreover, there have been allegations of cold blooded murder of the tribals themselves, and then attempts to cover them up by labelling the victims as ‘police informers’. This would make the Naxalite Movement liable for accusations of losing track, of first, becoming an angry vendetta, and then transforming into a bloody battle for power. Such actions undermine the very motive of the movement, and thus, disrobe it off a possible legitimacy of violence.

Each time a brutal attack is carried out, the media, the experts and the public, almost unanimously display anger, angst and outrage. It is a frenzied incidence of public emotion. But this opinion is definitely not the best one to consult for formation of policy. In a digression, McCloskey, in one of his popular columns in the Eastern Economic Journal, concedes that expecting undergraduates to ‘think like economists’ is fruitless for “economics, like philosophy, cannot be taught to nineteen-year olds. It is an old man's field. Nineteen-year olds are, most of them, romantics, capable of memorizing and emoting, but not capable of thinking coldly in the cost-and-benefit way.”[1] Public policy is not far removed from economics. Such words are disheartening when someone, marginally older than nineteen attempts to do moral philosophy in the domain of Public Policy. But then, it isn’t the nineteen year-olds only who are capable of ‘memorizing and emoting’.

[1] McCloskey, D. (1992). ‘Other Things Equal: The Natural’, Eastern Economic Journal, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Spring, 1992), pp. 237-239

Celebrating Indifference

Today is 2nd October - another one of those national holidays. I had written the following on the 15th of August this year, but did not get a chance to post it. It talks about the need to more actively engage ourselves in public life. Alas, not much has changed since then. Rather, my doubts have further been confirmed through a series of personal experiences. Almost as a supplement to my reading 'The Great Indian Middle Class' by Pavan Varma, a book that very interestingly documents the development of this seemingly ubiquitous feature of contemporary India and the dillemas it faces, small incidents with friends at home have seemed to demonstrate the inherent callousness towards, even shirking away from, a responsible public life. Rather than trivialise a larger thesis, personal experiences only suggest that what is true for societies is true for individuals, or even the converse. There is not only ignorance, but also a desire to remain so. Perhaps, the real roots of despair about the state of the nation do not lie in the inactivity of public authorities, but in willing slothfulness of our own selves. I don't write of my recent experiences here, I will later on. But this should provide something to reflect on - may be help us see the little things that we unknowingly do everyday that only indicate that we are too happy getting on with our own narrow lives. A beginning thought owing to the day - We revere our leaders enough to only revere them. 

62 years on from 1947, we have enough reasons to rejoice. So we must make it a point to celebrate, and celebrate the moment of our independence with both gusto and grace. This, however, must not be an excuse to shy away from the purpose of celebration. Rather, it must be a motivation for us to contemplate as to why do we celebrate? Celebrations are a manifestation of happiness, an expression of the view that we are grateful for what we have. But does that not push us enough to at least give a second thought to why should we be grateful?

If we like to remember and exult in something that happened years ago, it is only because at that time we had hoped that the achievement will help us realise our dreams. ‘At the stroke of the midnight hour’ 62 years ago, India ‘woke up to a new dawn’ only with the expectation of a new day. That is why we celebrated then, that is why we must celebrate now. But do we really have a new day? In my view, we are partly clouded at 10 am. Nonetheless, we all hate to let moments of celebrations slip away because we want that extra holiday. Well, there is something, then, that we need to do to compensate for that holiday: we need to make sure that we have some legitimacy in taking a day off. If that does not happen, then we are a shallow people, and we will not like to be known as a shallow people.

If this day brings to our minds the memory of great men who laid down their lives to build what they sought to, then we must seek inspiration from them. If we take this day off so that we may remember them and pay homage to them, then, it is obligatory on our part to emulate them, or at least make an effort to do so and make humble beginnings. If we do not do so, we do not respect them; instead, we mock their efforts and legacy.

I watched ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ with my family a few days back. There was severe dismay at the way India was presented in the movie. ‘What business does a foreigner have giving a derogatory picture of our land to the world?’ ‘And are we not an emerging giant? Oh, right, maybe it’s just jealousy.’ Such a reaction is scary. It is a kind of complacency that shrouds reason and turns meaningful patriotism into a sort snobbish jingoism. Or is it something more than complacency, something closer to despair? When gory pictures of deplorable slum-living appeared on the screen, young cousins were asked to look away. There was disgust and disbelief. An effort was made to make ourselves believe that such a thing existed ‘only in the movies’. And such a reaction is dangerous. Envisioning a free India, Nehru once said that “as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over”. We are far from this. In a diverse and unequal setting like India we at least want some degree of mutual empathy between its people. Instead of fostering this, we are willingly trying to be indifferent to reality so that it does not byte. We are unknowingly cultivating in our social psyche a ‘culture of apathy’. And this will clearly not do for us because deliberate inaction on the part of those who are conscious of a problem is tantamount to deleterious action on the part of the wrongdoers.

I do not contend that we all be saints. We could just be ordinary people, with all our material and personal pursuits, but at least with a conscience. And this conscience should prove to be basis enough for us to indulge in public affairs. All that I contend is that it is a feasible human possibility to get public and private lives to coexist because they always did in our land, and still do but only in an ever shrinking measure. Sadly, when the need for this renaissance is more than ever, we seem to too unwilling to make a definitive start towards being active participants in civil society. If we could set a moment apart to think about problems, ponder over their solutions and based on that make a small move somewhere – only if each one of us could individually act in our own small capacities rather than just crib – it would stir the soup. Gandhiji said that we must be the change that we want to see. Let us not be the change, let us restrain our ambitions in the public sphere, but at least we could harbour dreams to have that change some day. And the dreams would be strong enough to mobilise the latent effort. But to dream those dreams, we cannot turn our backs on reality but will have to face it – for it is only if we face reality that we will be able to empathise with those who have the worst of it, and empathy is where it all starts. So let us make these small beginnings, each one of us, and try and explore the roots and the consequences of what we so innocuously celebrate each year, try and make sense of our independence.

In saying all this, I am not trying to be idealistic. I’m just trying to be a little hopeful. And perhaps being hopeful is terribly difficult for all of us, because being hopeful entails some bit of commitment to effort on each of our parts, or else it starts to stink of hypocrisy and guilt. And we do not like to be outwardly hypocritical, nor do we wish to unravel upon ourselves any form of self induced guilt. However, much to our convenience, we love our lethargic lives and comfortable sleep. So let’s get all of this together, get on with our own little private affairs, and continue to revel in despair.