Corruption karma? Citing culture is pure bunkum

by Venky Vembu Jul 16, 2012

THE ALIBIS FOR CORRUPTION IN INDIA—AND FOR DOING NOTHING ABOUT IT—JUST KEEP GETTING LONGER: IT’S IN OUR CULTURE, IT’S IN OUR HISTORY, IT’S IN OUR DNA, IT’S IN OUR DESTINY, IT’S SANCTIONED BY OUR SCRIPTURES, AND EVEN OUR GODS VALIDATED UNETHICAL PRACTICES HECK, WE EVEN OFFER OUR GODS BRIBES IN THE EXPECTATION OF OUT-OF-TURN REWARDS.

Which is why, the reasoning goes, our businesses don’t abide by a “Western” code of ethics. And end up wallowing in corruption.

Against corruption. Reuters

The insidious message from repeated iterations of the corruption-as-culture meme is that enacting new laws, such as the Lokpal Bill that was aborted despite a high-decibel campaign last year, serve no purpose because we are too mired in corruption. Corruption is in ourkarma, they suggest, and cannot be changed.

The problem with that narrative is that it suggests that there is something unique about Indian “culture” that renders it particularly susceptible to corruption.

For instance, a Knowledge@Wharton study posited earlier this year that historically, “Indian society has placed great emphasis on loyalty to the collective, be it one’s caste, village or family” and this renders the ecosystem vulnerable to corruption. That’s because such a loyalty to a collective drives a culture of favours, friendship and clanship that “clashes with the Western concepts of conflict of interest and pure meritocracy”.