The Hindu Business Line : No one can pull it off like Indians

The predominant economic reason against India has to be corruption and the unpredictability of its economic framework. In India, you have to share your fruits with the bureaucracy. And really share it.

SO Xerox paid Indian officials bribes to conduct business. That juicy bit sprang no surprises. The restrictiveness of regulation and protection accorded to domestic business has long made it difficult for foreign companies to set up shop in India. However, in the last 10-12 years, with hoopla and hype accompanying globalisation, foreign business has been welcomed with `open arms'.

Reform may be the buzzword now, and perhaps always has been, but it has not permeated the Indian psyche. Want a ration card, pay a bribe. Want your telephone quickly, gift the linesman `chai' money. In fact my phone has been dead for six months, despite my paying the bi-monthly bill. My unwilling contributions help keep Chennai Telephones wheels rolling.

The policeman comes around to verify your antecedents as they have been stated on the passport and he usually walks away with a Rs 100-note or two. Break a traffic rule while a cop is watching, and chances are you will get a receipt that has no copy, or better still pay up and forget the whole thing ever happened.

The first time I encountered the habit of baksheesh was in college. I needed to renew a visa and was told that the Ministry of Education was supposed to push the paperwork gratuit. As I reached the doorway of Vigyan Bhawan in Mumbai, the peons blocked the doorway. Another building and a lawyer later, I was told that I would have to pay Rs 250. I told the lawyer that as far as I knew, there was no money involved in the process. He smiled and told me that processing (read bribe) the application would work out to Rs 175 and his fees were Rs 75. Total frustration. He later waived his fee, but said that the Government still had to be given its `cut'.

When I returned to the hostel, my friends commiserated with `Come to Bihar, you won't be able to cross the road without paying someone for right of use'. That may be, but there are sundry other instances. My brother applied for a phone in the early 1980s and it was installed in the early 1990s — after tipping the guys at the exchange. So, want phone, pay tip.

The end of holidays was usually traumatic. One had to deal with the customs officer. My luggage weighed well below 20 kg (the luggage limit, after which you pay for every extra kg) and carried no electronic items (for which you had to pay duty) or food items. This is why.

My second trip to Mumbai saw me bringing a walkman, two boxes of chocolates and a six-function calculator. I was almost through the green channel when I was called back. The customs officer asked me what undeclared items I had and whether I carried any food items. On this I was told to calculate the duty on the four items and pay up. I was terrified but made no move to cough up. Finally she told me to leave. But I seethed. Most of my friends would walk through that very green channel loaded with luggage weighing close to 40 kg and all sorts of electronic and food items. Almost all of them talked their way through customs, or were just given the go ahead.

But some deal with these situations in a novel fashion. Earlier, it was common for duty-free shops at Indian airports to claim they had no change for the foreign exchange you paid them.

My friend's mother, an Indian doctor settled in Mauritius, had a meal at the airport restaurant and paid with a $100-bill. The cashier told her, "Madame we really have no change". Noting the unlikelihood of getting her change back, she took out a large bag and began piling the restaurant's cutlery into it. The alarmed workers asked her to stop, but she told them she was only taking back what was owed her. They immediately returned her change.

So, is it unreasonable that foreign companies find it easier to do business in China, especially when its officials bend over backwards to ensure a friendly climate and, in some cases, pay you for doing business there? The predominant economic reason against India has to be corruption and the unpredictability of its economic framework. In India, you have to share your fruits with the bureaucracy. And really share it.

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No one can pull it off like Indians