It is necessary to recognise the vicious cycle that breeds corruption in order to fight this evil. It starts with Left-liberals seeking an expansive and discretionary role for Government. Next, vigilante activism comes to the fore which in turn inspires further state intervention and greater corruption. The cure, as shown by Narendra Modi, lies in minimum Government, maximum governance

In response to the Lokpal debate a very perceptive remark was made the other day on Twitter by Pratap Bhanu Mehta on protecting accountability from statism. This writer would go a step further than Mr Mehta to say: You cannot be serious about fighting corruption if you are not talking about minimum Government, maximum Governance.

To best appreciate this seemingly radical assertion we must first recognise the vicious cycle that breeds corruption starting with a Left-liberal ideology that seeks statist interventions. These statist interventions result in an expansive and discretionary role for the Government which in turn leads to corruption. The cycle, however, does not stop there. Rampant corruption invariably provokes vigilante activism of the sort that we have witnessed first with the RTI movement and now with the anti-corruption movement. Vigilante activism on account of its impatience invariably veers towards quick-fix solutions inspired by Left-liberal ideologies and the cycle goes on with more statism, less accountability.

For the benefit of the sceptical reader, consider the following examples from recent years.

To remedy the skewed benefits from the economic boom of the past decade Left-liberal activists who first came together in 2004 under the umbrella of the World Social Forum sought state interventions in the name of new rights — work, food and information. The 2004 victory of the UPA in the Lok Sabha election gave the Left-liberals a statist platform to push their agenda in the form of the National Advisory Council led by Ms Sonia Gandhi.

One of the most significant of the NAC’s statist interventions is the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The NREGA created an expansive role for the Government in generating local employment thus creating new avenues for corruption. The corruption in NREGA has been so widespread that a new wave of activism was bred. As is the wont of all vigilante activism, the NREGA activists too sought Left-liberal solutions to remedy the failures of the original Left-liberal idea. Hence today we have a bizarre situation as was revealed by a recent RTI query of having commissioned more than 230 special investigations or ‘social audits’ over the past five years, while leakage of funds from NREGA continues unabated.

The NREGA is a textbook case of how Left-liberalism and vigilante activism breed corruption on the one hand while thriving on corruption related grievances on the other hand. But it seems lessons from NREGA have not been learned for another statist intervention is being attempted where that correlation is not as easily understood.

A youthful Sports Minister has sought to introduce new legislation requiring national sports federations to register with the Government with the intention of bringing more transparency and accountability. Also included within the ambit of this legislation was a proposal to bring the Board of Cricket Control of India within the ambit of the RTI. The proposal fell through in the Union Cabinet for the wrong reasons given the number of heavyweight Ministers with a vested interest in status quo as far as sports administration in India goes. While there has been barely any debate on the limits to state intervention in sports, an impression has been created that merely invoking the RTI would bring greater accountability to the most lucrative of sports in India — cricket.

The problem with this feel good proposal is that it puts immense faith in the effectiveness of RTI activism while failing to recognise that RTI has resulted in new layers of bureaucracy that act as information gatekeepers while fuelling activism that has taken a life of its own. It is unfortunate that in its extreme manifestation this activism has today taken a macabre turn to put the lives of many well-intentioned individuals at risk while proving to be fatal for an unfortunate few.

Hard questions need to be asked on why the focus of the RTI Act was not on creating an open Government where information was freely available, thus eliminating the need for both vigilante activism seeking information and eliminating the need for gatekeepers controlling information.

Hard questions also need to be asked on why processes and systems of the Government have not been reformed as a result of previous RTI disclosures so that avenues for corruption were eliminated. Perhaps if we had focussed more on open Government, we may have had better success on reducing grievances and the fatalities associated with vigilante activism provoked by such grievances.

The fact is both RTI and NREGA, which owe their genesis to Left-liberal activism have actually done little to address root causes of both corruption and unemployment. By preserving statism and by ensuring an expansive role for the Government, they have created a self-sustaining cycle of grievances and activism within which both corruption and poverty continue to thrive.

Hence the assertion that one can’t be serious about fighting corruption if one is not prepared to look beyond statism.

It is possible that in a minimum Government, maximum governance (MinGov-MaxGov) regime the focus of the RTI Act would not have been on creating conditions for activism but on fixing the systems and processes of the Government to ensure that information was freely available by default. This would have ensured avenues for corruption were eliminated as a norm with the need for any kind of vigilante activism being reserved for the rarest of rare exceptions. Going further in a ‘MinGov-MaxGov’ regime the focus of a rural safety net would not have been on creating a dependency on the Government for employment by default. Instead the focus would be on job creation through skills developing and encouraging rural enterprise. This would have ensured that dependency on the Government for employment would be a socially undesirable, last resort option.

To find sustained solutions against corruption, we need to challenge the need for vigilante activism while questioning the utopian promise of its ideological mentor Left-liberalism. It is no accident that the only political leader in post globalisation India to talk of minimum Government, maximum governance is Mr Narendra Modi who is at the helm of a State Government that is widely seen to be the least corrupt while also registering the greatest economic growth.

A wider debate on minimum Government, maximum governance has to be the starting point in our quest for a lasting solution to both corruption and poverty.