A simple excise in corruption

If proof were needed that corruption exists because government wants it to, it came last week in the reaction to the arrest of Mumbai8217;s...

If proof were needed that corruption exists because government wants it to, it came last week in the reaction to the arrest of Mumbai8217;s corrupt Central Excise Commissioner. In response to revelations about P K Ajwani8217;s crores in cash and jewels and crores in properties and other unexplained assets the Central Bureau of Investigation conducted 8216;8216;nation-wide raids8217;8217;. Us hacks who ask no questions and only reproduce the badly written press releases officialdom hands us, reported that 8216;8216;the Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday conducted nation-wide raids at 147 places against corrupt public servants and booked 190 persons including 63 government officials in different cases. The agency also detected cash, jewellery and shares worth around Rs 9 crore during these raids. A whooping sic cash recovery of Rs 40 lakhs was made from the residence of one Janardhan Prasad Singh, a steno of chief engineer of the Eastern Central Railways at Vaishali, Hajipur in Bihar.8217;8217;

If we of the mighty Fourth Estate were doing our job we would have thrown the press release back in the CBI Director8217;s face and asked why 8216;8216;nation-wide raids8217;8217; only happen when someone gets caught? We would ask the Central Vigilance Commissioner why he wastes most of his time investigating petty theft instead of major corruption but, most importantly, we would ask the Finance Minister why his ministry continues to create endless avenues of corruption for departments like Excise and Customs by devising rules so complicated that it is not possible to do business in India without giving bribes. Every government department does the same but since it is an Excise Commissioner who causes the latest 8216;8216;nation-wide8217;8217; breast-beating over corruption I shall confine myself to the Finance Ministry8217;s fake concern over corruption.

Nobody knows better than the Finance Minister that his policemen are the most corrupt people in India. People give up flourishing careers and businesses to join departments like Income Tax and Customs and Excise because becoming a crorepati is so easy and getting caught so hard.

If Ajwani got caught it was only because he became too greedy and because he thought the Gods had become greedier too. The only amusing detail about the squalid life of this repugnant creature was that he promised Balaji of Tirupati a gift of a crore of rupees if he granted his wish to make Rs 12 crore in bribes a year. In pursuit of this greedy end he went too far. His harassment of a businessman closed down the poor man8217;s business and when Ajwani continued to threaten him he became desperate enough to go to the CBI. Most dare not.

Does the Finance Minister not know that every businessman in our fair and wondrous land 8212; from the mightiest industrialist to the humblest pavement hawker 8212; faces an Ajwani type person on a daily basis? At the humblest level, hafta is forced out of our poorest citizens by municipal officials who operate under rules so complicated and so much in their favour that you have a Kafkaesque situation. They demand licenses but when the pavement entrepreneur asks where he can get one they tell him that no more licenses are being handed out but he can continue to ply his trade if he pays them a fee. If he refuses, they are within their rights to seize his goods because Indians do not have the right to property.

Higher up where the Finance Minister8217;s own economic policemen come into play you have an extortion racket on an unimaginable scale and the sort of methods Ajwani used are routine. Extortion becomes easy because at every step there are complicated rules and loopholes that are incomprehensible to anyone who is not an official so if you are not threatened with one 8216;8216;violation8217;8217; than you will be threatened with another and if you try to get sassy or even mildly defiant and you are a big enough businessman then you are 8216;8216;raided8217;8217;. Sometimes you can be raided if you complain to the CBI because it is as much an offence to give a bribe as to take one and you never know if the person you are complaining to is not in some deep way linked to the person you are complaining against.

The Prime Minister admitted not long ago that the number of inspectors the government continues to unleash on businessmen is ridiculous 8212; nearly a hundred compared to less than five in more civilized countries 8212; but will he dare change anything?

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A cockroach like Ajwani does not survive without political oxygen. It is through the good offices of political leaders that he gets transferred to the right post and it is because he passes up some of his evil earnings not just to Balaji but to netaji that he manages to become a rich man before he gets caught.

There is only one solution and that is to dismantle the powers that departments like Excise were given in the days when India was an economic dictatorship. This can be done easily by making rules simple and blocking loopholes but those who rule us would rather waste time appointing dubious 8216;8216;experts8217;8217; to central planning bodies that should no longer exist. Now that the 8216;8216;experts8217;8217; are jobless, it might be a good idea for the Finance Minister to consult them on how he can make the rules of business simple enough for Excise Commissioners and Income Tax officials not to exercise the controls that throttle enterprise and make it possible for the worst people in India to live off the fat of other people8217;s earnings making more in one raid than most people make in a life time.

Write to tavleensingh expressindia.com