Why waste time with Hazare?

However,it is time for all well meaning people to not only focus on the kind of corruption that Hazare and the activists are focusing on,but move beyond. As the world gets globalised and complex,it is not the ordinary,day-to-day corruption of the driving licence or ration card types that have the potential to affect us. Rather,it is the complex,economic crimes that are going to increase,and the real focus and movement should be to tackle them. Anyone with a differing view should refer to the global economic crisis of September 2008 and its root causes,or the Satyam scam back home that came to light in early 2009. It is very hard to detect such sophisticated crimes and even more difficult to convict the guilty when such instances come to light. The recent 2G spectrum scam was being highlighted by the media for the last three years but hardly anybody paid attention to it. Even now,the vast majority do not understand its nuances and that’s the reason the telecom minister Kapil Sibal confidently tries to fool the people with his zero-loss theory!

If Satyam’s Raju had struck a similar deal with some other front company and not his sister firm Maytas,believe me,the scam would have remained buried for years,and analysts and the media would have written tomes on his brilliant strategy. After all,much about the layering and complex web of companies controlling Reliance Industries came to light when the two brothers—Mukesh and Anil—fought over its control,leaking stuff against each other. It was no regulatory body that caught the wrongdoings by either of them. The intelligent structuring done by Vodafone after acquiring Hutch’s stake in 2007 to remain within the 74% FDI cap would not have come to light if a rival company that lost out on the bid would not have done systematic leaks. Similarly,much of insider trading information comes to light from corporate rivals rather than the regulatory bodies created by the law to tackle them.

The clever ways in which public-private projects are designed in areas like power,roads,toll bridges and highways and airports often enrich the private parties at the cost of the taxpayer.

With the economy growing,it is the sophisticated economic crimes that would define corruption rather than the kinds we are obsessed with today. It is still much easier to rein in the local panchayat leader,district collector,police inspectors,etc,rather than the finance whiz kids of the corporate world who may take our money and make millions for themselves through methods that neither you or me will be able to understand for years. It is the corruption of this kind that needs to be tackled with greater urgency rather than the variety that the activist kinds are obsessively focused on at present. Tackling sophisticated economic corruption is also important because it threatens to derail the pace of the economic reforms and make us all look like a bunch of crony capitalists.

—rishi.raj@expressindia.com