Human Rights and India's Struggle Against Corruption

This is a little book that seemingly carries the weight of the world on its shoulders. We live in a world where such glorious terms as democracy, human rights, the rule of law, freedom, checks and balances, transparency, and accountability compete with dictatorship and efficiency for the hearts and minds of people across the world. The goods to be delivered in this competition are development and a sustainable, stable society where children do not go to bed hungry, where people live with dignity, where governments serve their people, and more generally have the means for a good life. Our intuition tells us that an open, democratic society that respects the will of its people and upholds human rights in all forms is the answer. In the bad old days of the Cold War this competition saw the Communist ideology of the Soviet Union pitted against the free markets of Western democracies in North America and Western Europe. The West won, and the Soviet Union collapsed into the dustbin of history.

Today this age-old competition sees the dictatorship of China, now stripped of all but the economic façade of communism, offering the so-called Beijing consensus of political dictatorship and authoritarian control in competition with a weakened West, which is over $3 trillion in debt to China. Some are moved to ask if the free market and free society model, which promotes democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, is really the answer. And then there is India, the world's largest democracy, seemingly on this issue the anti-China with its substantial economic growth rate just slightly below that of China. Will the dictatorship in China or the age-old commitment to democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in India win the contest for development and the good governance needed to finally achieve economic and political success? That is what this book seemingly tries to answer. In consideration of this situation we may want to ask, was the enormous wealth and promise of the West built on the foundation of sound governance or is it merely an aberration built on the excesses of colonial exploitation now collapsing of its own weight? Or is our intuition right about open, democratic society, whatever its historical failings, ultimately being better positioned to deliver rights and goods to its people? Today, Indian democracy certainly tests this model more than any other society.

The book is specifically about human rights and corruption in India. Perhaps the above story and associated issues are a bit too romantic and grand in their statement. It surely is a bit odd to imagine that India, the former lieutenant of the Soviet Union, and the long-time victim of Western colonialism, would save the very foundations of the liberal Western democratic model. But perhaps this is no different than China bailing out Europe. Is India up to the task of running an open, economically successful, democratic society on the Western model of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law? Raj Kumar clearly believes the answer is yes: that success awaits India if only it can conquer the twin evils of corruption and human rights failure. In this respect, he rejects out of hand the cultural relativist arguments so prominently promoted by the many authoritarian regimes in the Asian region. In Kumar's view, as an open democratic society, India is better positioned than the closed, opaque, authoritarian systems elsewhere in the region to achieve this goal. The book beautifully lays out why corruption fails India and offers a formula for addressing this menace. With the mass anti-corruption movement in India recently lead by Anna Hazare, along with the hotly debated legislative bill for an independent corruption body or Lokpal (Sanskrit: protector of the people), a book on human rights and corruption in India could not be more timely.

In connecting the debate over achieving human rights to the battle against corruption, Kumar appreciates that...