Stanley A. Kochanek
Although corruption is a universal and persistent global phenomenon, it has tended to be more pervasive in developing countries. Most global measures of corruption have repeatedly ranked the countries of South Asia at the top of the list of the most corrupt countries in the world. The level of corruption in the region, however, has varied considerably and appears to be somewhat more pervasive in some countries than others. While Pakistan and Bangladesh, for example, repeatedly appeared at the top of the list of the most corrupt countries in the world, India and Sri Lanka ranked much lower.
Although the states of South Asia share a common history, bureaucratic tradition and British colonial heritage, since independence in 1947 the countries of the region have followed divergent paths of political, bureaucratic, and institutional development. British rule left behind two quite distinct governing traditions. On the one hand, British liberal democratic values, educational policy, and the gradual introduction of elections and representative institutions in South Asia created a new western-educated, urban middle class that developed a strong commitment to British-style liberal democracy. On the other hand, the British vice-regal system of colonial rule and the paternalism of the colonial civil service created an equally strong legacy of centralized authoritarian rule.
Like many former colonies, the major states of South Asia began independence as liberal democracies. Some states, however, quickly succumbed to vice-regal authoritarian rule. The liberal democratic tradition has proved to be most enduring in India and Sri Lanka, while the vice-regal system has come to dominate Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Despite divergent patterns of political development, the historical legacies in the region have helped to shape character of governance, the growth of corruption, and the increasing criminalization of politics.
The current state of political development in South Asia was summarized in a study published by the London Economist in 2006. The study constructed a democracy index that was used to rank 165 independent states and two territories that together represented most of the world’s population. The variables used to construct the democracy index included the frequency of elections, levels of political participation, the state of civil liberties, the character of political culture, and the quality of governmental performance.1
As seen in Table 25.1, India and Sri Lanka, South Asia’s two longest-functioning democracies, ranked well above the other countries in South Asia on the Economist’s democracy index. While India ranked 35th and Sri Lanka 57th out of the 167 states and territories included in the study, Bangladesh was ranked 75th, Pakistan 113th, and Nepal 126th. As we shall see numerous parallel studies have also shown that the type of political system tends to be highly correlated with levels of political corruption. Given their shared colonial heritage, a study of the post-Independence development of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh may provide helpful clues to our understanding of the causes, scope, forms and styles, economic costs, and political consequences of corruption and strategies for dealing with the growth of corruption and the growing criminalization of politics in the region.
Definitions of corruption vary considerably. The World Bank has defined corruption as “the abuse of power for personal or group benefit.”2 The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) defines it as “the abuse of public power for private benefit through bribery, extortion, influence peddling, nepotism, fraud or embezzlement.”3 While the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal defined corruption as “the improper or selfish exercise of power or influence attached to public office,”4 others have come to see corruption as a form of narrative that focuses on what is or is not proper moral behavior. Most definitions of corruption focus especially on the intersection between public and private spheres of activity. Some critics, however, insist that the issue of corruption should not be confined solely to the public sector. Corruption, they argue, can also be seen as a form of rent whereby the private sector manipulates markets to secure rewards that exceed normal market returns.5
In short, corruption involves the abuse or misuse of power by public officials to provide benefits to individuals and groups in return for financial benefits, public sector jobs, or political support. It takes a variety of forms including the direct payment of bribes, the use of patronage in the allocation of public sector jobs on a non-merit basis, the awarding of noncompetitive government contracts, and the payment of “speed money” to ensure timely decisions. Corruption also entails a variety of traditional modes of behavior in societies dominated by a web of patron–client relations, which entails a reciprocal exchange of benefits. In India, this reciprocal exchange involves giving as bakshish. In Pakistan, the exchange of benefits is based on friendship and close social relations known as safarish (friendship and pleading on behalf of someone). In the highly traditional social setting of Bangladesh, patron–client relations rest on a complex web of connections known as tadbir (connections).
The causes of corruption and its impact on politics and development have generated considerable debate among economists. Initially, most economists tended to treat corruption as a benign force or even as a positive device for overcoming bureaucratic slough in developing countries. Increasingly, however, the growing pervasiveness of corruption has led economists to portray the growth of corruption as a cancer that distorts development priorities, heightens economic uncertainties, aggravates inflation, hurts the poor, slows the rate of economic growth, and leads to ineffective governance and political decay. Although countries have succeeded in sustaining rapid growth despite high levels of corruption, most economists insist that rampant corruption entails significant costs that slow economic growth and distort public choice.6
Renewed interest in the study of corruption has produced a variety of conflicting assessments of its causes, modes of measurement and impact. While Marxists see corruption as inherently rooted in capitalism, World Bank studies have associated corruption with socialism and the developmental state. Gunnar Myrdal blames the growth of corruption on government instability; Fred Riggs saw it as a concomitant of development; and a survey of Indian administrators blamed it on moral weakness, economic deprivation, and structural strains.7 Still others see corruption as rooted in the traditional culture of patron–client relations, poverty, and low levels of development or as a form of discourse.The idea of corruption as discourse focuses on corruption as a form of narrative that determines what are considered proper or improper forms of behavior and provides a cultural code designed to make sense of the political world.8
Whatever its causes, the widespread existence of corruption has proved very difficult to document or measure.Attempts to quantify the level of corruption in various countries rely heavily on the results of indirect measures based on survey research. Survey research has focused primarily on public perceptions of corruption in an effort to measure its scope and impact in various countries around the world. The most comprehensive surveys of public perceptions of corruption have been conducted by Transparency International (TI), a Berlin based non-governmental organization (NGO). Transparency International conducts annual global surveys that it uses as the basis of its Corruption Perception Index (CPI). The CPI is based on a scale of 1 to 5 with a score of 1 reflecting the existence of a very high level of corruption and a score of 5 indicating very low levels of corruption.9
As seen in Table 25.2, the 2006 Transparency International survey of perceptions of corruption in South Asia showed considerable variation among the countries in the region. The
most striking feature of the survey was the significant difference in the perceived levels of corruption between democratic and non-democratic states. In the 2006 Transparency International survey of corruption, India and Sri Lanka, which were ranked high on the democracy index of the London Economist, were also found to have much higher CPI scores than authoritarian countries. On a scale of 1 to 5, India received a CPI score of 3.3 and was ranked 70th out of a total of the 163 countries surveyed. Sri Lanka received a CPI score of 3.1 and was ranked 84th. By contrast, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh, which ranked much lower on the democracy index, were ranked at the bottom of Transparency International’s list of the most corrupt countries. Nepal was ranked 121st with a CPI score of 2.5, Pakistan was ranked 142nd with a CPI score of 2.2 and Bangladesh was ranked 156th with a CPI score of 2.0.
Pakistan and Bangladesh have had a long history of authoritarian rule and high levels of corruption. During most of the 1990s, Transparency International ranked Pakistan as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. As a result of a military coup in 1999 led by General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan initially improved its CPI score.The Musharraf government introduced a range of economic reforms, established a National Accountability Bureau and enacted a comprehensive national anti-corruption strategy. As a result of these reforms Pakistan’s CPI score rose from 2.2 in 1999 to 2.6 in 2002 and Pakistan’s global ranking went from 88 out of 99 countries surveyed in 1999 to a ranking of 81 out of 105 countries in 2002. As a result of continued military rule and the partial restoration of democracy in 2004, however, Pakistan’s CPI score and its global ranking began to decline. In 2006 Pakistan received a CPI score of 2.2 and the country ranked 142 out of the 163 countries surveyed.10
Despite the end of military rule and the restoration of democracy in Bangladesh in 1991, the country has faced a very difficult process of democratic consolidation. The country developed a highly polarized politics, was faced by repeated anti-government movements designed to topple elected governments, and developed extremely high levels of political corruption. As a result of these developments, Bangladesh had the dubious distinction of being ranked by Transparency International as the most corrupt country in the world from 2001 to 2005. Bangladesh finally succeeded in improving its global ranking in the 2006 report as a result of a major political crisis that led to the creation of a military-backed neutral caretaker government (NCG). The NCG took a series of important steps that were designed to reduce corruption. These steps included the introduction of major economic reforms; the reconstitution of the country’s ineffective Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC); and filing of numerous court cases against corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, and businessmen.11
Transparency International’s Political Corruption Index provides useful comparative data for measuring perceptions of corruption at the global, regional, and country level. The existence of these differences also raises several important questions. How does one explain the variation in the scope of corruption from country to county? How do forms and styles of corruption differ from state to state? How does one explain differences in the pattern of corruption in the region? And are there any common elements that can account for the pervasiveness of political corruption in South Asia?
The existence of corruption in India is not a recent phenomenon. Because of its dual civilian and commercial activities, the British East India Company was plagued by corruption during most of its history. The introduction of recruitment to East India Company’s Indian Civil Service (ICS) by a process of open competition in 1853 and the end of company rule in 1858 led to major improvements in colonial administration. Under direct crown rule, the ICS was transformed into a cadre of some 1,000 or so professional “covenanted officers” who became the administrative “steel frame” of British India.12 While the small, elite ICS became renowned for its efficiency and high levels of integrity, the same was not the case for the vast army of “unconvenanted” Indian officers who staffed the lower levels of bureaucracy. These officials were accustomed to receiving traditional gifts, payments, and perks as part of the routine performance of their duties. They staffed the revenue services, police, excise and public works departments which became especially known for their high levels of corruption.13
Despite its reputation for integrity, the quality and performance of even the higher levels of the civil service in India gradually began to deteriorate under the stress of the First World War, the depression of the 1930s and, especially, the outbreak of the Second World War. The introduction of wartime controls, growing shortages, sharp increases in government expenditures, and the explosion of government contracting and procurement resulted in widespread governmental corruption during the war years from 1939 to 1945 that carried into the postcolonial era.14
Following Independence in 1947 the leaders of India’s freedom movement attempted to set a high standard of integrity and honesty and even minor transgressions were dealt with severely. In the early years of Congress rule, for example, India’s finance minister resigned immediately when the propriety of one of his actions was called into question, a Congress member of parliament was reprimanded for acting on behalf of a client and even Congress-controlled state governments were censured by national Congress leaders for improper bidding and tender practices in the allocation of government contracts.15
Over time, however, the rapid expansion of the size of government and government programs, persistent scarcity of goods and services, the weakening of the bureaucracy because of the loss of experienced British and Muslim ICS officers, a flood of new recruits into the newly created Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and a rising tide of popular demands for government services contributed to a series of major scandals in the 1950s. These scandals included the purchase of jeeps by the Indian military, the famous Mundhra affair involving improper transactions between an industrialist and the government-controlled Life Insurance Corporation of India, and allegations of corruption against Pratap Singh Kairon, the former chief minister of Punjab. These incidents combined to begin to tarnish the image of the ruling Congress Party.16
Faced by repeated charges of Congress corruption and growing public criticism, Prime Minister Nehru complained that the media were devoting far too much time and attention to these wild allegations and became increasingly reluctant to investigate charges of wrongdoing. The problem, however, did not go away. Cor r uption became increasingly widespread as a result of the emergence of a socialist-oriented developmental state, centralized planning, comprehensive government control, and regulation of the economy, the growth of public sector enterprises and popular demands for government services and sub-sidies.The massive expansion of the role of the state was compounded by the Congress Party’s need to raise more and more funds in order to be able to fight increasingly competitive elections. By the early 1960s the corruption issue was so pervasive that the government felt compelled to appoint a special commission to study the problem. Although the Santhanam Committee on the Prevention of Corruption submitted a comprehensive report in April 1964, its impact proved limited.17
The death of Nehru in May 1964, followed by that of his successor, Lal Bahadur Shastri, in January 1966, the erosion of congress popularity, the historic split in the party in 1969, and the rise of personalized, dynastic rule under Indira Gandhi further compounded the problem. By the early 1970s India was faced with a rapidly rising tide of official corruption. As money and muscle began to play a more important role in Indian politics, Congress was also forced to change its methods of raising funds to fight elections. During the freedom movement and for most of the Nehru-Shastri era, the Indian business community provided generous support to the Congress Party. For the most part, money for elections was collected by a small group of Congress leaders with close ties to India’s large private sector business houses. Businessmen and industrialists willingly contributed to Congress coffers as a way of guaranteeing ready access to ministers and party leaders, keeping the Indian Communist Party at bay, and providing insurance that their interests would be protected. Contributions were made by individual business leaders, major business houses, and other companies, facilitated by laws allowing such donations to be tax deductible.
The financing of political parties in India, however, was significantly altered in the early 1970s as a result of the introduction of a legal ban on company donations to political parties, a historic split in the dominant Congress Party, the rise of competitive politics, and the sharply escalating costs of election campaigns. The results were an increasing reliance on the patronage capabilities of the developmental state to raise campaign funds and the use of money and muscle to ensure victory at the polls. While the growing reliance on money and muscle to win elections led to an increasing criminalization of politics, the use of what became known as the “permit-license-quota Raj” (PLQR) as the basis of campaign finance led to a new era of “briefcase politics,” which relied very heavily on the vast reservoir of unreported “black money” in the Indian economy.18
Under Indira Gandhi’s leadership from 1966 to 1977 the PLQR was gradually transformed into a major source of leverage to extract funds from India’s business community. Those businessmen who willingly cooperated by generously providing financial support to the ruling congress were allowed to amass huge fortunes.Those industrialists who resisted or failed to cooperate were faced with excruciating delays, tax raids, and government harassment.19
Under the leadership of Rajiv Gandhi, who succeeded his assassinated mother as prime minister in the early 1980s, the leverage provided by the PLQR was supplanted by the huge commissions that could be demanded in the awarding of large government contracts.20 The result was a series of defense procurement scandals involving the purchase of German submarines and a billion-dollar scandal involving the purchase of Swedish Bofors 155mm howitzers21 that tarnished Rajiv’s Mr Clean image and contributed to his defeat in the 1989 parliamentary elections.
The massive defeat of the Congress Party in the 1989 elections brought about an end to one-party dominance and the temporary eclipse of dynastic rule and ushered in a new era of coalition politics. While some of the post-1989 coalition governments were in office for far too short a time to suffer from major scandals, others were not.The coalition governments of V. P. Singh from 1989 to 1990, H. D. Deve Gowda from June 1996 to April 1997, and the I. K. Gujral government from April 1997 to 1998 were largely free of major scandals.The government of Chandra Shekhar from 1990 to 1991, the Congress-led government of P.V. Narashima Rao from 1991 to 1996 and the BJP-led government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee from 1998 to 2004, however, all faced a series of devastating scandals.22
Although the new era of coalition politics failed to reverse the trend toward increased levels of corruption, it did result in opening the political system to greater transparency. The Indian media, the courts, and NGOs began to focus greater public attention on the problem of corruption by exposing an increasing number of scandals and demanding accountability and reform.While greater transparency has not led to an end to corruption in India, it has led to a series of new initiatives that have attempted to limit its impact, such as the recently enacted Freedom of Information Act.
While the brief Chandra Shekhar government was saved from disastrous scandals by the intervention of the President of India, who repeatedly blocked the award of major government contracts, the government of Narashima Rao faced a rash of corruption scandals that directly implicated the prime minister himself. If Indira Gandhi and Rajiv were said to have presided over an era of “briefcase politics,” the government of Narashima Rao was charged with introducing a new era of “suitcase politics” as a result of the Harshad Mehta financial scandal. Mehta, a Bombay stockbroker who faced charges relating to a banking and securities fraud, claimed he had delivered a suitcase containing Rs 10 million to the prime minister’s residence on 4 November, 1991 in an effort to secure patronage and support from Rao’s government. The Harshad Mehta financial scandal was only one of a series of major scandals that came to plague the government of Narashima Rao.These scandals included the Jain hawala scandal, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) scandal, the Pathak bribery case, the St Kitts affair, and the Sukh Ram scandal.The Jain Hawala scandal came to light when on 16 January, 1996 the CBI accused some 100 prominent politicians and administrators, including three senior ministers in Rao’s government, of receiving Rs 650 million from three Delhi businessmen in return for favors between January 1988 and April 1991. The Pathak bribery case involved an allegation by a British businessman of Indian origin who claimed that he that he had paid Rao $100,000 as a bribe to secure a government contract in 1983.The JMM scandal involved a charge that Prime Minister Rao had bribed four JMM MPs to gain their support on a no-confidence vote in 1993. The St Kitts affair involved a charge that Rao had orchestrated the forgery of documents designed to implicate the son of V. P. Singh in an illegal transaction on the Caribbean island of St Kitts. The Sukh Ram affair involved Rao’s minister of telecommunications, who was caught with millions of rupees in cash in his house that was believed to have been obtained from the allocation of telecommunications licenses. From Narasimha Rao’s perspective the most devastating scandal proved to be the Pathak case. As a result of Pathak’s allegations, P.V. Narasimha Rao became the first prime minister in Indian history to be convicted of bribery by an Indian court. His conviction, however, was overturned eight years later by a higher court.23
The formation of a BJP-led government in March 1998 brought to power a Hindu nationalist party that claimed to be “a party with a difference.” During its six years in office from 1998 to 2004, however, a series of corruption scandals led to charges that the corruption under Indira Gandhi paled in comparison to the systemic graft of the BJP-led NDA government.24 Naresh Chandra, a former cabinet secretary, went so far as to charge that corruption under the BJP had “reached such unbelievable proportions that almost nobody believes that there is anything that they can do about it.”25
Among the major scandals that erupted during the period of BJP rule were the March 2001 “Tehelka.com” corruption case, a sting operation involving the BJP chief minister of Chhattisgarh, and the Delhi petrol pump scandal. The Tehelka corruption scandal resulted from a sting operation initiated by an internet news service. Posing as arms dealers, Tehelka.com journalists videotaped the president of the BJP and other coalition party leaders accepting bribes to facilitate the prospects of obtaining a defense contract. Two years later, in another sting operation, the BJP candidate for chief minister of Chhattisgarh was caught taking bribes in return for the allocation of leases on protected forest lands in the state. The Delhi scandal involved the allocation of petrol pumps in the city.26
Studies of corruption in India by Transparency International and its local chapter provide a composite picture of the prevalence of corruption in India. In 2006 India was ranked as moderate on Transparency International’s global Integrity Index which assesses the existence and effectiveness of anti-corruption mechanisms that promote public integrity.27 Similarly, Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer 2006 survey that explores the larger issue of how petty corruption affects ordinary people found that corruption in India affects the lives of some 31 to 50 percent of the population.28 An earlier study of 11 public services in 20 major states conducted in 2005 by Transparency International India found that Indian citizens paid a total of Rs 21,068 crores in bribes in order to secure public services.The eleven services surveyed included the police (crime/traffic), the judiciary, land administration, municipal services, government hospitals, electric supply, income tax assessment, water supply, schools, rural financial institutions, and the public distribution system (PDP) that is charged with issuing ration cards and supplies.The survey found that the police, lower courts, and land administration were considered to be the most corrupt government agencies in the country. Government hospitals, public sector electric supply corporations, and the PDP ranked next in line.While some states like Kerala were found to be relatively free of corruption, the state of Bihar was found to be far and away the most corrupt state in India.29 Despite the existence of high levels of corruption in India, P.V. R. Rao, a retired civil servant, insists:“The normal individual can live and carry on his vocation without succumbing to graft, though he may have to put up with frustrations and delays.”30
Despite a common British colonial heritage and similar development policies, the chaos surrounding the birth of Pakistan and Bangladesh, the absence of an established political and administrative infrastructure, the organizational weakness of their political parties, and extended periods of military– bureaucratic rule have led to higher levels of corruption in both countries. Compared to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have been repeatedly ranked among countries with the highest levels of corruption in the world in Transparency International’s surveys.
Unlike India which inherited the infrastructure of the British Raj, the new state of Pakistan emerged with a near non-existent governmental infrastructure, limited administrative capabilities and a divided polity. The very weakness of the state limited the role of government, severely curtailed the impact of government on the country’s society and economy, and enabled various economic and social groups to exercise a considerable degree of autonomy. The very survival of the state, however, forced the country’s undersized and inexperienced political, bureaucratic, and military elites to develop an unstable symbiotic relationship among themselves. Muslim League politicians depended heavily on the bureaucracy to help them consolidate their power and in return provided high-level bureaucratic officials with extensive autonomy, support, and patronage. The result was the emergence of an unstable political system dominated by rampant corruption that ultimately led to a military coup in 1958 under the leadership of General Ayub Khan.
The military coup of 1958 ushered in an era of political stability, administrative consolidation, and state building in Pakistan. Under the leadership of General Ayub Khan, the country embarked on an ambitious economic development plan and a major reconstruction of the country’s political system. Ayub’s new economic development strategy, financed by massive amounts of foreign aid, created a large government-owned public sector; introduced a comprehensive system of bureaucratic control and regulation of the economy that granted enormous discretionary powers to government officials; and attempted to create a state-based corporatism designed to enable the government to penetrate and control all key sectors of Pakistani society and economy. The newly created developmental state enabled the government to use its power to provide public benefits in return for political support. These distributive benefits included such things as industrial licenses, subsidized loans and import/export permits.
General Ayub Khan also embarked on a major transformation of the Pakistani political system. In the name of creating a more indigenous form of government,Ayub introduced a new political order that he called “basic democracy.” The system of basic democracy was based on a complex process of direct elections at the local level and indirect elections at the provincial and national levels. Under the new system, village-level constituencies directly elected 80,000 “basic democrats” on the basis of mass franchise.These 80,000 basic democrats then formed an electoral collage to elect the provincial assemblies, the national parliament, and the president.The new system, however, was easily manipulated. It enabled local elites to maintain their dominance; it encouraged the use of the government’s electoral machinery to ensure electoral success; and it enabled national and provincial politicians to buy votes in an effort to gain political power and influence.31
Although General Ayub Khan came to power promising to cleanse the old corrupt parliamentary system of the 1950s, the institutions of basic democracy and the emergence of a bureaucratically dominated developmental state resulted in an even more pervasive pattern of corruption. While Ayub remained personally free of corruption, the same was not the case for his friends, supporters, and relatives. His son Gohar Ayub, for example, was able to join the ranks of the lucky 22 business families that were said to dominate the Pakistani economy of the 1960s.32 Ultimately, corruption and the resulting social and regional inequalities of Ayub’s development model led to a mass uprising, the collapse of the regime, and the breakup of the country.
The breakup of united Pakistan, the authoritarian character of the newly created government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and the socialist policies of the Pakistan People’s Party vastly increased the power and role of the state in society and the economy. In an effort to reduce the economic power and political influence of Pakistan’s 22 families, Bhutto nationalized all private sector banks, insurance companies, most large-scale private sector industries, and a large portion of domestic and international trade and commerce. Under Bhutto, the size of the public sector almost doubled overnight from 24 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 51 percent. The nationalization policies of the Bhutto government not only increased the size of the public sector but also substantially enhanced the capabilities of the Pakistani state to distribute benefits to private individuals and groups in return for political support.
Bhutto’s attempt to renew his electoral mandate in 1977 proved to be a disaster. The massive popular vote in favor of the PPP led to opposition party charges of extensive vote rigging and a mass movement demanding new elections. The political chaos that followed the 1977 Pakistani elections was brought to a halt by a military coup led by General Zia-ul-Haq and the arrest and execution of Bhutto.33 Despite the overthrow of the PPP government, General Zia was reluctant to upset the economic status quo and faced enormous bureaucratic resistance to any attempt to reduce the size of the public sector by reversing Bhutto’s nationalization policies. Buoyed by a massive increase in foreign aid in the 1980s related to the Afghan war and a flood of foreign remittances from oversees Pakistani workers in the Middle East and Europe, Zia attempted to buy political support through the use of government benefits in an effort to establish his legitimacy.As a result, the Zia government, like its predecessors, was marked by rampant corruption.34
Zia’s move toward the restoration of limited civilian rule and the formation of the Junejo government in March 1985 further aggravated the level of corruption in the country. From 1985 onward, noted Rizvi, every Pakistani government “has surpassed its predecessor in offering material rewards” to its followers and supporters. These rewards included cabinet posts, ministerial perks, bank loans, quotas, licenses, loan waivers, development funds, land allocations, jobs, and other government benefits.35
The death of General Zia and the full restoration of civilian rule in 1988 were followed by 11 years of political instability; the emergence of confrontational politics between Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, the country’s two leading politicians; and the rapid growth of pervasive corruption. Numerous studies of corruption perceptions in Pakistan from 1988 to 1999 by Transparency International revealed a steady rise in levels of corruption with each change of government. During the first Benazir Bhutto government from 1988 to 1990, only 8 percent of those surveyed considered her government to be corrupt. Corruption perceptions showed a slight increase from 8 percent under Benazir to 10 percent from 1990 to 1993 under Nawaz Sharif.
The remainder of the 1990s, however, was marked by political instability and uncertainty that seemed to alter party behavior significantly. The second government of Benazir Bhutto that ruled from 1993 to 1996 proved to be one of the most corrupt in Pakistani history. A survey by Transparency International in 1996 found that some 48 percent of Pakistanis considered Benazir Bhutto’s second government to be corrupt.The survey also found that Pakistan ranked second only to Nigeria among the most corrupt countries in the world. These perceptions of the Bhutto government based on survey data were later confirmed by a study commissioned by the country’s neutral caretaker government (NCG). The study conducted by Burki and Pasha, two of Pakistan’s leading economists, estimated that the cost of corruption from 1993 to 1996 was equal to 20 to 25 percent of the country’s 1996–97 GDP or about $15 billion.36
Both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have been accused of corruption and faced a number of cases in the Pakistani courts. Both were also known to have acquired valuable foreign properties in London and elsewhere. Bhutto, for example, purchased a 350-acre estate in Surrey in the United Kingdom, while Nawaz used bank loans and nonpayment of taxes to accumulate additional wealth. Asif Zardari, Benazir’s husband, is accused of accumulating his wealth through kickbacks. During Benazir Bhutto’s first term as Prime Minister from 1988 to 1990, Zardari came to be known as “Mr Ten Percent.” By Bhutto’s second term from 1993 to 1996, however, Zardari had become “Mr Twenty Percent.”37
Although perceptions of corruption declined slightly during Nawaz Sharif ’s second term in office from 1996 to 1999, the prime minister’s attempt to gain total control of Pakistani politics and his open challenge to the power of the Pakistan Army resulted in a military coup in 1999 that toppled his government and led to his exile to Saudi Arabia.The military coup led by General Parvez Musharraf promised to restore honesty, economic growth, and political stability to the country. Despite considerable success in rehabilitating the Pakistani economy and restoring high levels of growth, a survey by Transparency International revealed that some 32.69 percent of Pakistanis considered the initial years of Musharraf ’s rule from 1999 to 2002 to be corrupt. These corruption perceptions changed dramatically in the aftermath of the 2002 parliamentary elections when a new survey revealed that perception of corruption had reached a new all-time high. Some 67.31 percent of Pakistanis considered Musharraf ’s rule from 2002 to 2006 to be corrupt!38
The current scope of corruption in Pakistan has been demonstrated by several recent assessments. A study by the World Bank in 2003, for example, found corruption in Pakistan’s education, police, and judicial sectors to be much higher than in other countries in South Asia.39 While Pakistan received the same score as India in Transparency International’s 2006 Global Corruption Barometer, it was ranked much lower in the organization’s 2006 Global Integrity Index.40 In addition a Transparency International study in Pakistan in 2006 concluded that bribery in Pakistan was estimated to cost the average citizen in the country Rs 2,303 per household. The study also found that the police, the electric utility sector, the judiciary, and land administration were the most corrupt governmental sectors. Overall, petty corruption was estimated to cost the country about Rs 45 billion.41
The politics of patronage and corruption have plagued every government in Bangladesh since liberation. During the period of Awami League rule from 1972 to 1975, Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibar Rahman distributed government benefits and jobs to party leaders and supporters as a reward for their “suffering for the cause of the nation.”42 Awami League activists received jobs in newly nationalized industries, grew rich as smugglers, appropriated abandoned Pakistani houses and property, and sold government-allotted permits and licenses to the highest bidder.Awami League leaders, party supporters, and Mujib’s relatives plundered the society in almost every way possible.43
The assassination of Mujib in August 1975 was followed by a series of military coups and the rise of General Ziaur Rahman. Zia dominated Bangladesh politics from 1975 until his assassination in May 1981. Under General Zia, corruption in Bangladesh became institutionalized and came to dominate all levels of government. Although personally free of corruption, Zia accepted corruption as a fact of life and publicly admitted that corruption and the misuse of power had led to the misappropriation of 40 percent of the country’s development funds. Under Zia’s rule, noted one critic, corruption was “converted from a crime to a habit.” Under Zia’s successor, Justice Abdus Sattar, corruption became so rampant that it was invoked by General H. M. Ershad as the major justification for his military coup.44
But then, corruption in Bangladesh under General H. M. Ershad became all-pervasive. Petty corruption forced businessmen and citizens to pay fees to obtain routine application forms, to secure customs clearances, and even to ensure proper billing for government services. Public sector enterprises were especially known for their high levels of corruption.The Power Development Board (PDB), for example, which was responsible for the manufacture and distribution of electric power, was unable to account for as much as 50 percent of the electricity it generated. This electricity was either stolen by consumers or simply unaccounted for as PDB employees altered large utility bills in return for a substantial cut. Even public and private educational institutions were not immune from widespread corruption in student placement and teacher recruitment. Public procurement and contracting, however, were the most notorious sources of massive payoffs. During the Ershad years, major contracts for the acquisition of aircraft for the state-owned airline, government food purchases, and contracts for large development projects were all subject to the payment of massive commissions that ranged between 20 and 40 percent of cost.45
The end of military rule and the restoration of democracy in 1991 did not fundamentally alter levels of corruption in Bangladesh. Under both the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) governments of 1991 to 1996 and 2001 to 2006 and Awami League rule from 1996 to 2001, corruption became increasingly pervasive. Corruption in Bangladesh in 2002 was estimated to cost the country 44 billion taka ($745 million) or an estimated 10 percent of the country’s budget and 67 percent of the foreign assistance received by the country.The World Bank has noted that corruption in Bangladesh reduced the country’s economic growth rate by as much as 2 percent per year.46
Corruption in most Asian countries, argues Jon S.T. Quah, has been driven by a multiplicity of factors, including: low civil service salaries, the massive social and economic role of the developmental state, the near absence of detection and punishment, the primacy of family, nepotism and patron–client relations, a strong tradition of gift giving, the absence of political will on the part of dominant elites in dealing with the problem, and the lack of an effective anti-corruption strategy.47 While most of these factors also apply to the countries of South Asia, the higher levels of corruption in the region have focused special attention on the impact of the developmental state, the dominant role of family and group loyalties, the strength of clientelism and traditional patron–client relations, and the absence of effective anti-corruption strategies. These factors have not only contributed to the rise of corruption but also have contributed to the growing criminalization of politics in the region.
The imposition of a highly centralized, bureaucratically dominated developmental state on the decentralized, largely rural, highly traditional agrarian societies of South Asia has contributed significantly to the emergence of corruption in the region. The developmental state created by the political elites in South Asia was superimposed on an agrarian society and an antiquated bureaucratic administrative system that placed vast discretionary powers in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats. This administrative system was inherited from the British and was known as the secretariat system. The secretariat system was designed to diffuse power and responsibility. It was procedurally complex, highly inefficient and based on a case-by-case review of all governmental policies and actions regardless of size or importance.
The case-by-case decisions were reached through a complex process of bureaucratic consensus building that began at the very bottom of the bureaucratic hierarchy and slowly worked its way up to the top. Under this system, all bureaucratic actions were based on a unit of work known as the file. The file was initially assembled by a low-level clerk, who was responsible for collecting all papers and documents related to the case and preparing a note that cited all relevant government acts, rules, and regulations that were applicable. The file then moved slowly through the bureaucratic maze as each level of the bureaucracy thoroughly vetted the file, recorded its comments, and recommended appropriate action. All disagreements were settled by a painstaking system of repeated individual discussions between officials and group meetings until a consensus was achieved. Since the notations on the file reflect a bargained bureaucratic consensus, senior-level officials charged with making a final decision were extremely reluctant to overrule the agreed consensus. This complex process of decision making was extremely time-consuming and subject to inordinate delay, delegated enormous discretionary powers to government officials, and diffused responsibility and accountability.
Overcoming the delays, procedural hurdles and the ambiguity of decisions that emerged from this Byzantine system required intense lobbying at each level, close personal connections with officials, and the distribution of gifts, payments and rewards. Lower-level clerks were given bakshish to ensure that the case was properly prepared; and “speed money” was distributed at various levels of the bureaucracy to ensure that the file moved through the system in a timely manner. At the senior levels of the bureaucracy, small gifts, the payment of domestic and overseas travel and hotel expenses, and the provision of lavish entertainment to officials usually proved to be sufficient to facilitate the desired outcome. At the political level, money and large campaign contributions to ministers and politicians were required.48
Despite the economic reforms introduced in 1991, India continues to be plagued by the residues of the old order. While the Indian middle class and the large-scale industrial sector have been freed from the restrictions of the PLQR, the reforms have not reached the rest of the economy. This is especially true of the medium and small-scale sectors. Luce thought otherwise:
Many believe, that corruption is therefore on the retreat.What is less appreciated is the extent to which India’s license Raj of quotas, permits, and hairsplitting regulations continue to exist outside the “organized” economy. Beyond the manicured lawns of middle-class India, the tentacles of the License Raj continue to reach into the lives of vast numbers of Indians. Most of them tend to be poor.
Even the large-scale industrial sector has complained that the PLQR of the past has simply been replaced by the new “Inspector Raj.” In short, the developmental state in India was said to be dominated by a simple formula: M + D = C, Monopoly plus Discretion equals Corruption.49
The corruption generated by the rise of the developmental state in South Asia was reinforced by electoral pressures that led to a growing reliance on money and muscle to win elections; the emergence of a linkage between political parties and the underworld; and a growing criminalization of politics in the region. In the early years following independence, elections in South Asia were largely influenced by the popular appeal of nationalist leaders and not by coercion or money or the manipulation of election results. Over time, however, noted Pai Panandikar, the growth of factionalism, confrontational politics, and increased electoral competition has led to the increased use of violence, money and muscle at the polls. Muscle has been employed by candidates, political parties, locally dominant landed elites, factory owners, slum lords, and urban-based mafia dons to win elections.The growing criminalization of politics and the growth of electoral violence in South Asian politics have been reinforced by the decline of ideology and ideologically-based political parties, the growth of anti-government revolutionary movements, the desire to gain control of the patronage resources of the state, and the increasing polarization of party politics. Over time, criminals who initially were hired to help politicians get elected began to contest elections in their own right as a way of enhancing the scope of their profits from criminal activity and protecting themselves from arrest and criminal prosecution.50
The criminalization of politics in India began in the early1960s as the old nationalist leadership began to pass from the scene and an increasingly divided Congress Party could no longer count on the legacy of the freedom movement to win elections. Following the introduction of mass franchise, state-level Congress leaders relied heavily on local notables and caste leaders to mobilize voters. With the passage of time, however, Congress leaders in various parts of the country began to resort to the use of local thugs to disrupt the polls and stuff ballot boxes in a desperate effort to ensure victory.51 By the late1970s and early 1980s, the practice of ballot stuffing developed into a more organized system known as “booth capturing.” Although the practice was widely employed in various parts of the country, it became especially prevalent in various parts of northern India. In Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, for example, politicians paid armed gangs of thugs between Rs 50,000 and 100,000 to seize control of a polling station, frighten away potential voters, and stuff the ballot boxes as a way to ensure victory.52
The steady decline of the once-dominant Congress Party and the increasing use of booth capturing gradually led to a growing criminalization of politics in the country. By the mid-1980s, the very criminals and thugs who were hired by politicians to engage in booth capturing decided to secure public office for themselves. Election to the state assembly and the national parliament became a way for criminals to secure political protection for their illicit activities and guarantee safety from prosecution. Like the political bosses that came to dominate urban politics in the early part of the twentieth century in the United States, India began to develop its own mafia-style gangs and political bosses in places like the slums of Mumbai and the coalfields of Bihar.
The growing nexus between criminality and politics led the government of India to appoint a special committee to study the problem.The Vohra Committee Report issued in 1995, however, had to rely largely on anecdotal data. A more comprehensive study of criminality and politics by Paul and Vivekananda based on an analysis of data taken from affidavits submitted by MPs to the Indian Election Commission found that 23.2 percent of the 541 MPs elected to the Lok Sabha in 2004 had criminal cases registered against them or had criminal cases pending against them in court. The study also found that MPs representing smaller regional parties such as the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Biju Janata Dal and the Shiv Sena had much higher proportions of criminal cases filed against them than was the case for MPs from large national parties like congress and the BJP. A state and regional breakdown found that MPs from the north and the west had a higher number of MPs with pending criminal cases than was the case for MPs from other regions of the country. The study also found that four north Indian states— Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand—accounted for 50 percent of all MPs with serious criminal cases filed against them that carried a penalty of five years or more in prison.53
The criminalization of politics in Bangladesh has followed a somewhat different path from that of India. Since liberation, Bangladesh has experimented with several political systems and has been heavily influenced by its brief but intense Pakistani experience.The political process in the newly-created state of Bangladesh became highly centralized, popular elections were repeatedly manipulated by the government of the day, elected assemblies were largely weak and irrelevant, opposition groups repeatedly resorted to direct action and violence, and the country’s leaders created a highly personalized, patrimonial, developmental state that rested on an intricate network of patron–client connections and patronage that in turn relied on control of government resources in order to remain in power.
Electoral irregularities in Bangladesh began at the time of the first post-liberation parliamentary elections held in March 1973. Although the charisma of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the popularity of the Awami League all but guaranteed victory for the party at the polls, the elections were marred by numerous malpractices. The Awami League’s determination to win a total victory led the party to engage in a reign of terror against its opponents in prestige constituencies; opposition candidates were prevented from filing or were forced to withdraw their nomination papers, and ballot boxes were stolen and replaced by new ones stuffed with Awami League votes. The massive corruption and chaos that characterized Awami League rule contributed to the assassination of Mujib, the collapse off the Awami League government, a series of military coups, and the rise of General Ziaur Rahman.54
Like the Awami League, General Zia and his newly created BNP were also accused of engaging in corruption and electoral malpractices designed to ensure victory. Under Zia, the official electoral machinery was ordered to insure the victory of official party candidates and the government-controlled media announced what appeared to be tailor-made results.The New York Times characterized the 1979 Bangladesh parliamentary elections as an “election of questionable integrity” and the 1981 election led the Manchester Guardian to conclude that: “No one who knows Bangladesh well could expect an election free from foul play.” Although General Zia was personally free of charges of corruption, he accepted the existence of corruption as a fact of life. Following Zia’s assassination, the pervasiveness of BNP corruption was, as previously noted, used by General H. M. Ershad to justify his 1981 military coup.55
Elections under General H. M. Ershad were popularly referred to as “voterless elections” because of the abysmal voter turnout. Polling officials during the 1986 and 1988 elections were “instructed” to ensure victory for Ershad’s Jatiya Party candidates; ballot boxes were seized on election day and stuffed with votes for ruling party candidates; and state-controlled television simply declared that the Jatiya Party candidate had won.56
The popular movement that led to the overthrow of the Ershad government in 1990 was followed by an election supervised by a Neutral Caretaker Government (NCG). The elections held in February 1991 were declared by both domestic and international observers to be the first truly free and fair election in Bangladesh since 1970. The successful transition to democracy in Bangladesh in 1991, however, was followed by a failed effort at democratic consolidation. Awami League and the BNP, the two major parties in Bangladesh, embarked upon a no-holds-barred struggle for power. The patrimonial character of the country’s politics led to a bitter polarization of politics and a winner-take-all battle for control of the state and its resources. While the majority insisted its electoral victory granted it an absolute mandate to govern as it pleased, the defeated opposition parties countered that the elections had been rigged and took to the streets demanding new elections. The mass demonstrations, hartals (general strikes), and repeated resort to agitational politics had a devastating impact on the economy and the political stability of the country.
Even the adoption of a constitutional amendment in 1996 that mandated the creation of an NCG to conduct free and fair parliamentary elections failed to stem the tide of bitter confrontation between the two parties. Despite the constitutional mandate, once it was in power, each party did everything it could to undermine the country’s election commission, the newly created NCG system, and the entire electoral process in an effort to guarantee the party’s success at the polls. Efforts by the BNP government to dominate the election commission and the NCG appointed to oversee the 2006 parliamentary elections led to a major political crisis and the appointment of a military-backed NCG. In short, elections in Bangladesh have been repeatedly marred by the use of the official machinery of the state to influence election results and by a resort to money, muscle, violence, and criminal elements to ensure electoral success.
As in Bangladesh, the breakup of united Pakistan in 1971 resulted in the restoration of democracy. While Bangladesh fell under the sway of the Awami League led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Pakistan fell under the control of the PPP led by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Unlike Mujib, Bhutto did not bother to seek a renewed electoral mandate until 1977. Although Bhutto claimed to have won a massive victory in the 1977 elections, his opponents refused to accept the results of the elections and took to the streets. Following months of mass agitation over the alleged rigging of the 1977 parliamentary elections, the Bhutto government was overthrown by a military coup.
The restoration of military rule in Pakistan in 1977 had a major impact on the country’s political development. Following over a decade of military rule, democracy was restored in 1988 after the death of General Zia. Despite the restoration of democracy, however, Pakistani polities from 1988 to 1999 continued to be shaped by the military through the behind-the-scenes manipulation of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.The ISI was closely allied with the locally dominant landed elite and the country’s religious leaders. The ISI sponsored the creation of a “king’s party” by engineering defections from existing political parties; it supplied its allies with huge amounts of election funds; and, when necessary, it manipulated the results of elections. Elected civilian governments that failed to toe the military’s line or threatened military dominance were dismissed by the president of Pakistan under instruction from the military.57 As in the case of Bangladesh, the use of the official electoral machinery of the state continues to play a critical role in determining election results.
Corruption in South Asia is deeply entangled in the cultural traditions and social structure of the countries of the region. In traditional South Asian villages, families and groups secure protection, security, and the necessities of existence through a complex network of patron–client relations. Patron–client relations depend on a comprehensive web of relations based on a reciprocal exchange of mutual dependency and obligations. Those with higher rank, wealth, and status command the services and support of those of lower rank and the lower ranks receive the support and protection from their patrons in return.These village-level relationships are integrated into a larger complex web of factions and alliances with more powerful patrons beyond the village at the district and state levels.
Patron–client relations and factional alliances divide rural society along vertical lines and are held together by hierarchical relations based on mutual obligations, reciprocity and the need for support. This clientelist system continues to dominate social relations and influence individual and group behavior in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. It has also played a critical role in governance. Even during the colonial era, lower level government officials felt compelled to maintain a close alliance with local landed elites and group leaders. Government officials in the region have traditionally relied on alliances, social networks, and locally powerful landlords as a way of supplementing the organizational weakness of the state at the local level. Traditional forms of gift giving played an essential role in maintaining and sustaining these social relationships.
The rise of the state and political parties altered but did not destroy the old order. Political parties and the state simply evolved a new style of clientelism in which clients received benefits from the state in exchange for political support at the polls.58 Although the new system continued to be based on instrumental relationships and the distribution of benefits, it was less hierarchical, more personal, more bureaucratized and more fluid than the old. The new clientelism, in short, evolved into a new style of special interest politics based on the distribution of government jobs and public resources in an effort to build and sustain political support.
The durability of patron–client relations in South Asia continues to be reflected in the relationship between the state and society. Given the tradition of bureaucratic paternalism and the emergence of the developmental state, groups and individuals in the region continued to resort to the tradition of gift giving, nepotism, patronage, money, and lobbying to secure benefits.These tactics were facilitated by traditional modes of behavior reflected in the employment of bakshish in India, safarish in Pakistan, and tadbir (connections) in Bangladesh. These traditions were based on the principle of reciprocity, which required that a gift be returned with a gift, a favor rendered for a favor, and favorable treatment reciprocated by favorable treatment.
Wealth, rank and status continue to play important roles in the politics of South Asia. Support for the developmental state in the region, for example, has survived the decline of socialist and communist ideologies because of the critical role it has played in the rise of the urban middle class. The developmental state, created in the name of helping the poor, developed into a system of preferential access that has primarily benefited the urban middle class.The urban middle class has used its status and political influence to gain access to a vast array of public goods and state subsidies. Elite connections based on family, school tie, and community have continually enabled the urban middle class to jump the queue, pull strings, and secure services and benefits allocated by the bureaucracy free of charge or at highly subsidized rates. As a result, public benefits created in the name of helping the poor have tended to go largely to those who have money, status, and connections while the poor continue to pay for these services or are forced to do without. In short, drawing on the tradition of patron–client relations, the new clientelism provided the urban middle-class liberal access to public resources that gave them very little incentive to support economic reforms, demand a clamp down on corruption or change a system that has supported their private consumption.
Although numerous World Bank Studies have concluded that there is no single solution to dealing with the problem of corruption, the most successful programs have focused on capacity building, reducing opportunities, and limiting benefits. Success depends largely on the scope of the problem, its causes, and the amount of resistance. The World Bank has concluded that the most successful anti-corruption strategies involve improved civil service supervision, public awareness campaigns, limiting the discretionary power of bureaucrats and politicians, higher civil service salaries, privatization, or public sector reform, an effective anti-corruption enforcement mechanism, and most important of all, political will on the part of senior elected officials.The most critical elements in any anti-corruption strategy are strong political will, external mechanisms to ensure accountability, and clear objectives and priorities.
All reform programs, however, tend to encounter significant obstacles that must be overcome. The most significant obstacles to reform in South Asia vary from country to country.The most important common factors include the need to overcome the resistance of entrenched elites, the absence of incentives to change, a lack of political will, the repeated enactment of ineffective anti-corruption laws, and a refusal to reduce the role of the state in the society and economy.
While reformers admit that a major reduction in poverty in South Asia will require continued state intervention, this objective, they argue, is unlikely to be achieved by an unreformed and unaccountable state. The incentive to substantially alter the current system, however, has yet to emerge.While the growth of civil society represents an important development, civil society in South Asia has been shown to be still too weak to achieve success. So long as government continues to totally dominate the society and economy, pervasive corruption and bribery will continue to play a major role in the political, social and economic development of the region. Most reforms in South Asia in the past have been introduced largely in response to economic crisis, systemic breakdown, the rise of new social forces, international pressure, and global change. What has been absent is the required political will.
1 Laza Kekic, “A Pause in Democracy’s March,” The World in 2007 (Economist, 2007), pp. 59–60.
2 Dieter Haller and Cris Shore (eds), Corruption: Anthropological Perspectives (London: Pluto Press, 2005), p. 2.
3 Rick Stapenhurst and Sahr J. Kpundeh (eds), Curbing Corruption: Toward a Model for Building National Integrity (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1999), p. 19.
4 Gunnar Myrdal, Asian Drama:An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations, vol. II (New York:Twentieth Century Fund, 1968), p. 937.
5 School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, seminar on corruption, 30 March, 2007.
6 Haller and Shore, pp. 3–6.
7 Narendra Kumar Singh, Bureaucracy: Positions and Persons (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1974), pp. 198–99.
8 Sten Widmalm,“Explaining Corruption at the Village and Individual Level in India: Findings from a Study of the Panchayati Raj Reforms,” Asian Survey (September–October 2005), pp. 756–76. See also Akhil Gupta, “Blurred Boundaries: The Discourse of Corruption, the Culture of Politics, and the Imagined State,” American Ethnologist, Vol. 22, No. 2 (1995), pp. 375–402.
9 Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index, 2006.
10 Transparency International Pakistan, Press Release, 11 August, 2006.
11 Mahmuduk Rahman, Economic Governance Issues and Bangladeshi Experience of Growth and Governance (Dhaka, June 2006).
12 Judith M. Brown, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy (Oxford: University Press, 1994), p. 59.
13 B. B. Misra, Government and Bureaucracy in India: 1947–1976 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 270–71.
14 Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, Report of the Committee on the Prevention of Corruption (Santhanam Committee Report), 14 April, 1964, pp. 6–7.
15 P. V. R . R a o , Red Tape and White Cap (New Delhi: Orient Longmans, 1970), p. 3.
16 Basudev Panda, Indian Bureaucracy: An Inside Story (New Delhi: Uppal, 1978), pp. 78–101.
17 Santhanam Committee Report.
18 Stanley A. Kochanek, “Briefcase Politics in India: The Congress Party and The Business Elite,” Asian Survey, Vol. 27, No. 12 (December 1987), pp. 1,278–301.
19 Kochanek,“Briefcase Politics,” p. 1,291.
20 R. Venkataraman, My Presidential Years (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 1994), p. 40.
21 B. G. Deshmukh, From Poona to the Prime Minister’s Office: A Cabinet Secretary Looks Back (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 2004), pp. 217–26.
22 Paranjoy Thakurta and Shankar Raghuraman, A Time of Coalitions: Divided We Stand (New Delhi: Sage, 2004), pp. 337–44.
23 Stanley A. Kochanek, India: Government and Politics in a Developing Nation, 7th edn (Boston, MA:Thomson Wadsworth, 2008), pp. 304–05.
24 Francine R Frankel, India’s Political Economy: 1947–2004 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 725–26.
25 Financial Times Weekly (London), 12–13 October, 2002.
26 Thakurta and Raghuraman, pp. 337–44.
27 Global Integrity Assessment Index, http://www.globalintegrity.org/data/2006index.cfm.
28 Transparency International, Report on the Transparency International Global Corruption Barometer, 7 December, 2006.
29 Transparency International India, India Corruption Study 2005: To Improve Governance,
30 June, 2005. 30 Rao, p. 198.
31 Karl Von Vorys, Political Development in Pakistan (Princeton, NJ: University Press, 1965), p. 265.
32 Herbert Feldman, From Crisis to Crisis: Pakistan 1962–1969 (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), pp. 295–96.
33 Shahid Javed Burki, Pakistan Under Bhutto: 1971–1977 (New York: St. Martin’s, 1980).
34 Anita M. Weiss and S. Zulfiqar Gilani (eds), Power and Civil Society in Pakistan (Oxford: University Press, 2001), p. 111; and Shahid Javed Burki and Craig Baxter, Pakistan Under the Military: Eleven Years of Zia ul-Haq (Boulder, CO:Westview, 1991), pp. 30–31.
35 Hasan-Askari Rizvi, Military, State, and Society in Pakistan (London: Macmillan, 2000).
36 See Burki and Baxter, Pakistan Under the Military, p. 173; and Transparency International, Global Perception Survey, 1996.
37 Owen Bennett Jones, Pakistan: Eye of the Storm (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), pp. 232–35.
38 Global Corruption Barometer, p. 1; and “News: Pakistan Leads in Corruption”, http://puggy.symonds.net/pipermail/corruption-issues/2003-June/000346.html.
39 Global Corruption Barometer,p.1.
40 Transparency International, Integrity Index.
41 Transparency International Pakistan, Press Release, 11 August, 2006.
42 Stanley A. Kochanek, Patron Client Politics and Business in Bangladesh (New Delhi/Newbury Park/London: Sage, 1993), p. 258.
43 Kochanek, Patron Client Politics, p. 259.
44 Kochanek, Patron Client Politics, p. 259.
45 Kochanek, Patron Client Politics, pp. 261–62.
46 See World Bank, Taming Leviathan: Reforming Governance in Bangladesh (Dhaka: World Bank, 2002).
47 Jon S.T. Quah,“Curbing Asian Corruption:An Impossible Dream?” Current History (April 2006), pp. 176–79.
48 Stanley A. Kochanek, “The Politics of Regulation: Rajiv’s New Mantras,” Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Studies,Vol. 23, No. 3 (November 1985), pp. 189–211.
49 Edward Luce, In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India (New York: Doubleday, 2007), pp. 66, 78–84.
50 V.A. Pai Panandiker (ed.), Problems of Governance in South Asia (Dhaka: University Press, 2000), pp. 355–57.
51 T. N. Seshan with Sanjoy Hazarika, The Degeneration of India (New Delhi: Penguin Viking, 1995), pp. 24–25, 264–65.
52 Atul Kohli, Democracy and Discontent: India’s Growing Crisis of Governability (Cambridge: University Press, 1990), pp. 212–26.
53 Samuel Paul and M. Vivekananda, “Holding a Mirror to the New Lok Sabha,” Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 39, No. 45 (6–12 November, 2004), pp. 4,927–34.
54 Kochanek, Patron Client Politics, pp. 225–27.
55 Shamsul Huda Harun, Bangladesh Voting Behaviour: A Psychological Study 1973 (Dhaka: University Press, 1986), pp. 220, 244.
56 Kochanek, Patron Client Politics, pp. 226–27.
57 Husain Haqqani, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005).
58 See Kanchan Chandra, Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: Patronage and Ethnic Head Counts in India (Cambridge: University Press, 2004).