The cancerous spread of corruption in India’s public life has become a matter of grave concern for its citizens and threatens its political, administrative and economic fabric. While public awareness of this problem has increased over the years, little significant progress has been made in terms of developing and implementing remedies that can adequately deal with its magnitude and severity. The initiatives of the government have also been piecemeal and, typically, only in response to public criticisms that have erupted in the wake of periodic scandals.

From time to time prominent public leaders and other concerned citizens have called for concerted efforts to fight corruption and, in some cases, have launched people’s movements for this purpose. While such efforts have certainly kept the issue of corruption in the limelight, these have so far not succeeded in generating a specific and feasible agenda of action for tackling corruption, something which an eminent group of scholars, lawyers, civil servants and activists have attempted in this book.

The contributors hold that corruption in India can only be controlled by systematically reducing the incentives and opportunities for interested persons to engage in corrupt practices. An agenda for action to tackle corruption must thus identify the key interventions necessary to minimise such incentives and opportunities. In this volume, four action areas have been identified as the basic building blocks for a national agenda for corruption control:

• Reform of the political process;

• Restructuring and reorienting the government machinery;

• Empowerment of the citizens; and

• Creating sustained public pressure for change.

The contributors to this volume have, for the first time in India, put together a consistent and well-focused set of proposals for action that cover all the four areas. The proposed agenda will hopefully stimulate an informed public debate on the subject in the country, and encourage both individuals and organizations, including the government, to initiate action to bring the all pervasive cancer of corruption under control. The proposals on Lok Pal and Prevention of Corruption Act are timely, given the debate on these subjects in the current Parliament.

This book is an outcome of Public Affairs Centre’s project on corruption. Public Affairs Centre (pac) is a non-profit national organization dedicated to the cause of improving the quality of governance in India. Established in Bangalore in 1994, its activities include research on current issues, and advisory services to both citizen groups and government to enhance the level of public accountability and performance. pac’s project on corruption that led to the publication of this book, its report cards on Indian cities, and its collaborative endeavours with a variety of ngos to improve urban governance are examples of this approach.

S. Guhan voluntarily retired from the Indian Administrative Service in which he held important positions under the Government of Tamil Nadu and the Government of India. He has been Alternate Executive Director for India in the World Bank Group and Senior Economist, Willy Brandt Commission on International Development Issues. Since 1979, he has been professor in the Madras Institute for Development Studies. He has authored and edited books and contributed papers on variety of topics of public interest.