The Constant Fixers

Coalition governments are correlated with corruption because the power to enforce good behaviour from allies is limited. Devendra Fadnavis, who became chief minister of Maharashtra recently, is in a sweet spot because he has enough numbers for almost a majority, and the two allies can’t pull down the government even if they act in unison. And so if he is exercising a veto on ministers, either from his party or allies, appointing their own personal secretaries and officers on special duty, then it is because he wants to remove the medium through which high-ticket corruption happens. Every minister performing a quid pro quo requires a middleman, the constant fixer of Indian politics, and such appointments usually perform that role. Media reports say that the chief minister’s office has rejected 16 recommendations and considerably more are being kept on hold while their antecedents are scrutinised.

The fixer is everywhere in different forms. In government offices, it can be as minor a personage as a peon. For the judiciary, the middlemen are the lawyers, both prosecutors and defenders. Go to any police station in big cities like Mumbai and there will be fixers hanging around for petty corruption. Often, criminals themselves play the role of the middleman. High-ranking police officers meanwhile are fixers for politicians in power. In Mumbai, on paper at least, the corporator has no executive power, but he is the oil to the engine of civic corruption, a big component of which is to act as middlemen between builders and the establishment for housing projects.

Can you ever really eliminate them? It might be possible to do it at the top because that is a limited space to shine the spotlight on. To solve a problem so umbilically tied to the system really won’t happen until the job itself becomes redundant. Octroi used to be one of the biggest corruption rackets in Mumbai. When it was replaced by GST, there was nothing to be a broker of and all the middlemen there went out of business. Or, maybe they just transferred their skills to some other department.

brokerschief ministercorruptionDevendra FadnavisMaharashtrapolitics