The Ethics of Bribery | A PoV Over Delhi Liquor Scam

The Ethics of Bribery | A PoV Over Delhi Liquor Scam

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. In 2011-12, India witnessed an anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare that was named ‘India Against Corruption.’ The other major leader of that group was the Magsaysay Award winner Arvind Kejriwal. Their main contention was the increasing corruption in the Indian government and political system and they wished to bring an Anti-Corruption Act called Jan Lokpal Bill to curb the menace of bribery and corruption.

The general public hardly knew if any such bill could curb corruption, and they hardly knew if the leaders of IAC really wished to fight against corruption, yet the IAC platform gave them a sense of hope, and the majority of the Indian public supported IAC without thinking about what is bribery, what corruption is, how it takes its roots, how it develops and can it be curbed?

Despite his promises and vows never to join politics, Arvind Kejriwal made a political party, fought and won elections and currently, he is the ruling Chief Minister of Delhi. The tides have turned and now, almost every major face of the Aam Admi Party, including Manish Sisodia, the former Deputy Chief Minister, Satyendar Kumar Jain, Sanjay Singh, and Arvind Kejriwal himself are facing corruption charges. Manish Sisodia, Satyendar Jain, and Sanjay Singh are already in jail and it won’t be a surprise if Arvind Kejriwal too finds his way to jail on the charges of corruption.

Allegations against AAP Leaders:

All the major AAP leaders are facing charges of corruption, bribery, and money laundering. Sateyndar Jain was arrested in May last year in a money laundering case. The Enforcement Directorate had arrested the AAP leader on the charge of laundering money through four companies allegedly linked to him. The case is based on a CBI complaint registered on the allegation that Satyendar Jain had acquired movable properties in the name of various persons from February 14, 2015, to May 31, 2017, which he could not satisfactorily account for.

The CBI on February 26, 2023, arrested Manish Sisodia, then the deputy chief minister of Delhi, for alleged corruption in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22. He has been in custody since then. According to the federal investigative agencies, irregularities were committed while modifying the excise policy, and undue favors were extended to license holders. Recently, Sanjay Singh was also arrested in connection with the Delhi excise policy-linked money laundering case.

Arvind Kejriwal continues to say that he and his party members are the most honest politicians and he even says that the most corrupt politician in India is Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself. Arvind Kejriwal alleges that all these cases of corruption, bribery, and money laundering against his fellow party members are because of political witch-hunting.

It may be true. It may be the case that the current central government is ignoring some other corruption issues while emphasizing the corruption involving the AAP Delhi government and other state governments of opposing parties. Yet, what can not be true is that these alleged corrupt leaders are honest. There is ample evidence that suggests that Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh took bribes in money in exchange for changing certain legalities to favor particular liquor producers and distributors. In addition, many such liquor producers and distributors have also been arrested and some of them have turned out to be the ED witnesses against the AAP Leaders.

Is Bribery a Crime?

Bribery is the act of giving or receiving something of value in exchange for some kind of influence or action in return, that the recipient would otherwise not offer.
Murray N. Rothbard explained the issue of Bribery in his book The Ethics of Liberty which was published in 1982. Suppose M. X wants to sell his products to Company Y. In order to gain the contract, Mr. X pays a bribe to Mr. Z who is the purchasing agent of Company Y. So whatever his supposed profit through this contract would be, he has given a portion of that profit to Mr. Z as bribe. That is, he has reduced the margin of his own profit by some degree while offering it to Mr. Z. Now Mr. X could have offered his products to Company Y directly at a reduced price and thus getting the same profit that he will now get after bribing Mr. Z but in that case, there was no guarantee that Company Y will accept his proposal and buy his product. Now when he has bribed Mr. Y, he will get guaranteed reduced profits. As far as Mr.X is concerned, he simply lowered his price to the company Y, and thereby gained the contract.”

“The illicit action here is, instead, solely the behavior of Mr. Y, the taker of the bribe. Mr. Y’s employment contract with his employers implicitly requires him to purchase materials to the best of his ability in the interests of his company. Instead, he violated his contract with Company Y by not performing as their proper agent: because of the bribe he either bought from a firm that he would not have dealt with otherwise or he paid a higher price than he needed to have by the amount of his rebate. In either case, Mr. Y violated his contract and invaded the property rights of his employers.”

“In the case of bribes, therefore, there is nothing illegitimate about the briber, but there is much that is illegitimate about the bribee, the taker of the bribe. ... It is only the taker of a bribe who should be prosecuted. In contrast, left-liberals tend to hold the bribe-giver as somehow more reprehensible, as in some way "corrupting" the taker. In that way, they deny the free will and the responsibility of each individual for his own actions.”

In the cases of bribery, the Indian Penal Code considers both the briber and the bribee culprits and this is why not only the AAP leaders of the Delhi government but also the liquor license holders who bribed them were also arrested. However, it is not correct. In this case, Company Y is the general public of Delhi while the politicians holding the excise portfolio of Delhi (Manish Sisodia and his associates) are Mr. Z, the person employed by the public of Delhi to purchase materials to the best of his ability in the interests of the state or the public of Delhi. Manish Sisodia clearly broke the contract of trust that he vowed to have with the public of Delhi. We often call it the social contract and thus it is corruption, it is crime.

How Corruption Begins?

We live in a democratic country. The government here is ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people.’ The general citizen of India has a certain kind of influence over the government that he can exercise, the influence of Vote. Arvind Kejriwal bribed the general public to receive the votes, the 'influence' of citizens, by promising free electricity, free water, free education, free healthcare, and so on. These are products and services that are not naturally available. We do not drink untreated water, we use well-treated clarified water that takes money and resources. Electricity cannot be produced for free, nobody will agree to teach a student for no money in return, and no doctor will agree to treat a patient free of cost. Yet, the politicians promise that they will offer these freebies. Many times, they promise direct cash transfers in people’s accounts as help for economically backward people and so on. All these poll promises and freebies are nothing but bribes that politicians offer to the public to gain their favor and win elections. What it means is that any democracy that works on the idea of social welfare is inherently corrupt and hence, corruption in government is no big deal, rather it is expected.

Who is the Culprit?

Even then, every politician and every government claims that they are honest and will try everything possible to curb corruption, end bribery, and bring honesty in the political governing realms. Why do these politicians do so while they begin their political careers by means of corruption, offering bribes as freebies for the voters? It's all about the appearance of legitimacy of government institutions. Simply put, the activities of politicians and bureaucrats are considered to be legitimate as long as they comply with various laws, rules, and regulations which they themselves create. Thus, politicians say the act of bribing a public official, foreign or domestic, is illegal, according to the laws made by them.

Yet, they know that they cannot win elections without offering freebies, subsidies to particular groups of society, rebates to certain groups of tax-payers, free ration, free fertilizers, free electricity, free water supply, and so on. No amount of political obfuscation can change the nature of these activities. This is bribery, in the purest sense of the word, and politicians are the bribe-givers!

However, as mentioned above, it is not the bribe-giver but the bribe-taker who breaks the contract and commits a crime. As a voter, each citizen has a contract with the democracy to choose the best, most honest person to hold the post of power. But the voters often forget their contract and their duty, they vote for the person who will provide maximum freebies, more free electricity, more rebates, and more doleouts. What they do not understand is that the politicians or the government aren’t going to give anything free at the expense of their own pockets. Rather, the politicians, or the government, robs a section of society by offering a little of the robbed money to other sections as freebies, while it enjoys the remaining. The government acts as the monkey while creating a tussle between the different sections of the society divided on the basis of religion, caste, class, and so on. Government discriminates, government bribes, yet, it is all legal. If the same things are done by an individual, they become illegal. If a politician offers cash for votes, it is a crime, but if the same politician offers a free ration, free electricity, and free grains if he wins, it becomes legal.

Politicians benefit from legal bribes which cause tremendous harm to the economic welfare of the general public, while condemning illegal bribes which are far less harmful to the general public.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the ethics of liberty. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!