One cannot resist commenting on two sensational reports — one in The Guardian, the other in Khaleej Times — published on June 10, 2006. The first read, “Secret report brands Muslim Police corrupt”, the second, “New UK corruption probe linked to Saudi ‘slush fund’ allegations”.

The mention of the word “corruption” may have even prompted wider interest in the reports on the part of Indians, who have heard the term several times in connection with defence deals. The second report talks about a massive probe in Britain into the activities of the country’s biggest arms company, BAE Systems, and its role in arming countries in the Gulf — Qatar, UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, all major oil producers. The British police is said to have arrested two persons in connection with an alleged £7 million “commission” paid.

It should come as a surprise to most Indians that the BAE Systems admitted to being under investigation. It would also please those who champion the cause of probity in public life that the British media did not shrink away from making the exposé. The BAE facilitated a £60 million ‘slush fund’ to provide cash and luxuries — hotel accommodation, private aircraft, body guards to VVIPs, their families and associates. Since it is not illegal under the English law to pay officials of foreign governments, such payments could at best be described as unethical. However, the joint police-judiciary investigations uncovered evidence pointing to bigger payments through the offshore tax haven, Jersey. The island boasts of banking and financial service companies that can compete with the best Swiss banks.

Those at fault

The investigation sparked off a major diplomatic row between Britain and one oil-rich sheikdom. Subsequently, however, the Jersey authorities dropped the case saying that it was not in ‘public interest’, and the matter gradually disappeared from media headlines. In another classic arms bazaar deal, it was evident that massive payments had been made by the UK defence contractor to the ruler and senior officials of one of the biggest oil producing nations in the world. In the course of these investigations, however, it also dawned on the British authorities that the oil-rich arms purchaser may end the contract, thereby dealing a massive blow to UK’s biggest arms exporter. London’s civil servants too worried if all this was really in public interest.

Compare the British authorities’ withdrawal of investigations against the Muslim elite in the Middle East to their pursuit of Muslim officers, who were found to be more likely to become corrupt than white officers because of their cultural and family backgrounds.

Universal truth

The irony of corruption is obvious. When it comes to arms, Europe sells while countries in the Middle East and Asia buy. In other words, Europe gives, and the others take. The culpability, in case of corrupt deals, is a two-way traffic. If the taker is at fault, so is the giver of kickbacks. The same should hold where policing on the streets of European metropolises is concerned. But here, too, Westerners become the paragons of virtue.

So far as India is concerned, corruption today is an accepted truth. Corruption was there and will be there. It is almost perceived as a universal phenomenon. The people of this country know that irrespective of who heads the government, the central vigilance commission, the Investigation Bureau or the Central Bureau of Investigation, someone, somewhere will make the big buck when deals are made on crores of rupees worth of Jaguars, Bofors Sukhois and Scorpenes. The language of corruption is like the language of love — eternal and perpetual.