ELECTIONS AND CORRUPTION
to bring transparency in the functioning of the democracy are strictly enforced and the election- funding is made transparent, the vicious circle cannot be broken and the corruption cannot be eliminated from the country.”4 Chapter 4 of the Report of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution 2001, notes that the high cost of elections “creates a high degree of compulsion for corruption in the public arena” and that “the sources of some of the election funds are believed to be unaccounted criminal money in return for protection, unaccounted funds from business groups who expect a high return on this investment, kickbacks or commissions on contracts, etc.” It also states that “Electoral compulsions for funds become the foundation of the whole super structure of corruption.”5
Measures by Election Commission to deal with Election Expenses
A few years back the former Chief Election Commissioner of India, Shri S. Y. Quraishi very boldly stated that corruption in India can be traced to election funding. That is the reason why during his tenure he appointed an officer of the Indian Revenue Service, Shri P.K. Dash, in the Election Commission to squarely deal with the power of money vitiating the election process and to restore the purity and integrity of electoral democracy. So it was during the tenure of Shri S. Y. Quraishi that an attempt was made to boldly address the problem of the rising power of money which continue to adversely impact the conduct of elections and jeopardize the fairness of the electoral exercise. The expenditure monitoring measures which Shri Dash introduced constituted a historic step to put an end to
the power of money and its evil influences on our democracy.
Swami Vivekananda on Vote Politics and Corruption It is interesting and educative to note that much before electoral democracy was introduced in India in a full- fledged manner, our great leaders had remarkable insight to understand the magnitude of corruption that elections could generate.
It was Swami Vivekananda who during his visit to Europe in the late 19th
century could
see widespread corruption, in the European societies of that time, arising out of vote politics and the system of ballot. In his illuminating article ‘The East and West’, he referred to parliament, senate, vote, majority, ballot, etc., in the countries of that continent and observed that powerful men there were moving society in whatever way they liked and rest of the people were following them like a flock of sheep. Stating that Indians did not get education on account of a
system of vote and ballot which the common people in the West did, he referred to the “revelry of bribery, … robbery in broad light, …dance of Devil in man...” which were practiced by politicians in those countries in the name of politics and in the pursuit of votes.6
Rajagopalachari on Elections and Corruption The aforementioned observations of a scholarly monk in the late 19th
Above: Ceremonial gates in New Dehli, India.
century on
corruption and bribery rooted in vote politics make us sensitive to the rising crisis of the power of money which gets multiplied on a day to day basis and contaminates our electoral and democratic process and gives rise to corruption at every level of our society and public life. While Swami Vivekananda analysed the phenomenon of corruption in Europe and located it in the context of vote politics, a great leader of our freedom struggle, Shri C. Rajagopalachari made a sharp observation on elections and corruption at
least 25 years before we got independence. While in Vellore Jail in 1921-22 he wrote: “We all ought to know that Swaraj will not at once or, I think, even for a long time to come, be better government or greater happiness for the people. Elections and their corruptions, injustice, and the power and tyranny of wealth, and inefficiency of administration, will make a hell of life as soon as freedom is given to us. Men will look regretfully back to the old regime of comparative justice, and efficient, peaceful, more or less honest administration. The only thing gained will be that as a race we will be saved from dishonour and subordination. Hope lies only in universal education by which right conduct, fear of god, and love, will be developed among the citizens from childhood. It is only if we succeed in this that Swaraj will mean happiness. Otherwise it will mean the grinding injustices and tyranny of
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