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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Where's the money coming from? -Arun Kumar (Book review)

Where's the money coming from? -Arun Kumar (Book review)

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published Published on Sep 30, 2018   modified Modified on Sep 30, 2018
-The Indian Express

Exploring the role of the black economy in political finance and how it subverts democracy.

Book: Costs of Democracy: Political Finance in India

Editors: Devesh Kapur & Milan Vaishnav

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Page: 311  

Price: Rs 750

Money in politics is an issue of great concern for the Indian polity. Most believe it undermines democracy in India so that what formally looks like a great democracy turns out to be just a shell of a democracy. In Hind Swaraj, Gandhi critiqued British parliamentary democracy on political grounds but big money in elections subverts it further. The bulk of the finance used by political parties, not only for their election campaigns but for their day-to-day operations, are from illicit sources and, hence, black. The book under review addresses this issue.

The book consists of several articles based on field surveys and detailed interviews. However, such surveys cannot give an idea of total expenditures on an election — the fallacy of composition. On the basis of a survey of 14 members of Parliament (1998 elections), this author found no correlation between the declared expenditures and the actual expenditures, obtained from the candidates and their election agents. This was presented in the book, Black Economy in India in 1999. The survey revealed that the black economy plays a critical role in Indian political finance. Each of the articles in the volume also refer to the role of the black economy in election finance.

The black economy implies illegality in legal sectors of the economy. It has been argued by this author that black economy, to survive, has to subvert democracy to control power. The book under review consists of seven well-researched chapters written by nine authors. It presents the current reality that much money is needed to fight elections and that a lot of it is black, but misses part of the causal chain — the growth of the black economy requires a weakening of democracy.

Please click here to read more.

The Indian Express, 29 September, 2018, https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/books/wheres-the-money-coming-from-costs-of-democracy-book-review-5378722/


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