Narayan Lakshman, Washington correspondent for The Hindu, India's largest English-language daily newspapers, spoke at the University yesterday about corruption in India and the role of newspapers in politics today.
In his lecture, titled "Corruption, Poverty, and Political Power: The Great Democratic Game," Lakshman described corruption in India as both rampant and "necessary to lubricate the wheels of development."
He said the central causes of this corruption is the changing balance of power between agrarian masses and the ruling elite.
"Indians are very familiar with corruption," Lakshman said. "There's a great sense of anguish that India has failed. On the one hand, [it] is pressing so hard to get a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and is recognized as a world power and has a fast growing economy. But it has terrible cancerous examples of corruption eating away," he said.
Lakshman pointed to scandals which caught global attention, including the 2012 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, which cost $20 million in lost revenues and resulted in the arrest of the organizer of the games, and the 2G cell phone subscription licensing scandal in the state of Tamil Nadu, which cost $39 billion in losses and the arrests of many senior politicians.
Lakshman also discussed the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare, who has tried to copy many tactics from Mahatma Gandhi's independence movement. Lakshman said the hunger fast Hazare undertook was "not so much civil disobedience," however. "It was blackmail," he said.
Lakshman added that Hazare's tactics were ineffective.
"If the state itself is encumbered by this sort of unaccountable authority, that could well raise blockades to its actions," he said. "There is a serious risk that this could hamper the state's redistributive efforts to the poor."
Lakshman was also critical of broadcast media's extensive coverage of Hazare.
"If you were there, this was the only subject that these television channels were covering," he explained. These constant reports "propelled Hazare onto the national stage [and] made a demigod out of him," Laksham said.
Asst. History Prof. Neeti Nair, a college friend of Lakshman, asked him to speak at the University, and Sai Adhye, third-year College student and international chair of the Indian Students Association, helped organize the event.
Adhye said developing an understanding of contemporary India is valuable.
"When Obama came to visit India he said that India has already emerged; it isn't emerging anymore," she said. "It's a very important country right now, so it's great to know exactly what's happening in the domestic political situation."
Correction: The Cavalier Daily reported that journalist Narayan Lakshman described corruption in India as "necessary" and as "lubricating the wheels of development." These quotes were taken out of context, however, as Lakshman made the remarks specifically in reference to corruption defined as rent-seeking.
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