Taking It to the Streets

With the last few weeks of 24/7 televised drama featuring Anna Hazare's fast against corruption, India has joined in the year of protests. What began as a despondent young Tunisian's self-immolation late last year has grown into a storm blowing through North Africa, sweeping away three governments and wounding several others. What makes India's mass protests different are their divergent objectives. While the youth of the Arab world have been fighting to install a representative government that would look after their interests, India's demonstrators want to reform a democracy that has turned into a kleptocracy.

The almost carnival-like atmosphere that defined Anna's protests stands in sharp contrast to the violent suppression of the Arab protests. Even so, one should not dismiss the importance of the anti-graft struggle. How pervasive corruption is handled will not only affect India's demographic dividend but also its ability to play a global leadership role, attract foreign investment and protect its democracy.

The overwhelming spread of corruption – both at wholesale and retail levels – is connected to the economic expansion brought about by globalisation. The ascent of the middle class and the proliferation of cable television and internet have also enabled protest movements to coalesce and spread with lightning speed. The ubiquitousness of retail corruption – from the policeman taking a few rupees to clerks at the passport office demanding thousands – has been growing apace with the economy. The rising urban middle class, increasingly exposed to the world norm of transparency, chafe against the daily levy charged by corrupt officials. For the country's youth, who constitute nearly half of the population and are considered to be the source of its prosperity, corruption has become a major barrier thwarting their ambitions. A series of major scandals – from the Commonwealth Games to the 2G scam and Radia tapes - damaged India's self-image and, in their sheer brazenness, proved to be the final straw. By the time Anna and his supporters emerged on the scene, the urban middle class, freshly inspired by televised images of rebellion by the youth of the Arab world, was ready to take to the streets.

Fighting corruption is more than an issue of good governance; corruption seriously threatens India's future as an economic power. It stands as a serious roadblock to the rise of the country's youth as a productive force, able to reap the 'demographic dividend' while other economies begin to slow down under the burden of their greying population. It is noteworthy that many of Anna's supporters are educated workers from the private sector who, despite their economic achievement, are oppressed by corruption at every level of officialdom.

Then there is the corrosive effect of graft at the higher levels of government, which discourages foreign investors and damages growth prospects. Consultancy firm KPMG's March study of 100 leading Indian and foreign businesses concluded that corruption poses a risk to India's projected growth rate. The study predicted accurately that persistent high levels of corruption "may result in a volatile political and economic environment". Just over half of those surveyed said graft would make India less attractive to foreign investors. With tens of millions of young men and women joining the labour market every year, discouraging investors would not only stunt growth but also create conditions for social instability.

Beyond dampening economic prospects, the boiling anger against corruption reveals the systemic risk faced by the country. The pro-Anna protests are a relatively benign warning of a far more serious danger facing Indian democracy. Romain Rolland said, "Where injustice is the order, disorder is the beginning of justice." That the Indian electorate has the right to 'throw the bums out' every five years does not change the fact that everyday injustices will increase the anti-democratic temptation to ignore parliamentary rules and procedures. Even though the urban middle class constitutes a minority, its concentration in cities and the saturation media coverage give it power and influence far beyond its numerical strength.

Unless the government is able to weed out corruption, its success in alleviating rural poverty or creating infrastructure like the unique identification of citizens for transparency in governance would be drowned out by an increasingly vocal and angry urban minority.