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Edmund Burke, the Warren Hastings Trial, and the Moral Dimension of Corruption ACRN

EDMUND BURKE, THE WARREN HASTINGS TRIAL, AND THE MORAL DIMENSION OF CORRUPTION
This article examines the need to re-moralise corruption discourse in order to rally necessary support at both the elite and popular level to deal with systemic corruption. Using the example of the late eighteenth century trial of Warren Hastings (the first British Governor General of India) by Edmund Burke, Smith demonstrates that the self-conscious move away from moral questions in corruption scholarship has denied anti-corruption campaigners a powerful tool for mobilising civil society. By historicising various aspects of corruption, Smith is able to provide some intriguing answers about how to bring corrupt officials to account in a slightly unconventional manner. In particular he considers whether the reintroduction of morality into the corruption debate could embolden some non-traditional anticorruption agents such as community activists and religious leaders to spear-head grassroots campaigns. Smith argues that the emphasis on a focused agenda aimed at constructing or reforming institutions to minimize corruption has deliberately circumscribed moral issues in order to create a working consensus. This has meant that moral condemnation of corruption (historically a powerful tool against dishonesty and bribery) has been neglected. Therefore, we often see a situation in which states have ratified anticorruption legislation, but lack of civic engagement or outrage can lead to these laws being flouted. Anticorruption activists need to engage the public and draw them into the struggle.

Systematic corruption presents particular difficulties to reformers as it creates its own set of moral norms. Since definitions of corruption are invariably determined locally, in countries in which corruption is an accepted norm campaigners lack a powerful moral vocabulary, so that it becomes difficult to incite public anger against corruption. Smith postulates that a persuasive, morally upright leader could bridge the gap between ordinary people and elite groups, an imposing obstacle in the fight against corruption. Smith calls for an explicitly moralistic attack on corruption, particularly one that recognizes its victims and singles out its perpetrators as enemies of the public good. He suggests a prominent public figure such as a judge or media personality should lead the campaign, and that the focus should not be on the details of a particular case, but rather seek to mobilize public outrage by showing how a corrupt individual was contravening societys standards. He hopes that such a campaign could reduce tolerance of bribery, and dispel the notion that endemic corruption is impossible to eradicate.

Smith believes that Burkes ten-year campaign to prosecute Hastings offers just such an alternative model of anticorruption struggle. Burke showed that sometimes a moralizing figure is necessary to remind people of a countrys highest ideals and the responsibilities to them that fall upon those in power. Moral language linked to commonly held ideals of good governance can thus provide powerful rhetorical support for anticorruption campaigns. Burke faced the same kinds of vested and entrenched interests that many anticorruption campaigners find today, but by forcefully laying out the [moral] case against the abusers repeatedly he was able to disgrace Hastings and the system of cronyism he had erected in India. In contrast, Smith believes many activists today are too quick to accept moral relativism.

Burke also touched on moral relativism, in particular to what extent cultural factors can explain away corruption. Hastings was quick to claim his vast fortune had been largely acquired as gifts from grateful Indian princes, asserting that the mythic norms of England had no currency in South Asia. Recent articles in the Indian Express show this is still a controversial issue:

In Indian culture, interpersonal relations at work are modelled on family and kin relationsGiving a gift to your superior for Diwali, or on their birthday or their daughters wedding is not only not frowned upon, it is approved of. Indeed your fellow workers competing with you for promotion would be busy outdoing you in size of their gifts All this requires money over and above your legal pay and perks. It also counts as corruption on strict formal Weberian rules. And yet the sort of behaviour is not only approved but applauded.

Burke nevertheless dismissed Hastings excuses, deriding this in a prolonged and detailed moralistic attack as:

a plan of Geographical morality by which the duties of men in public and private situations are not to be governed by their relations to the
corruptionresearchnetwork.org/resources/articles/edmund-burke-the-warren-hastings-trial-and-the-moral-dimension-of-corruption

Great Governor of the Universe, or by their relations to men, but by climates, degrees of longitude and latitude As if, when you have

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Edmund Burke, the Warren Hastings Trial, and the Moral Dimension of Corruption ACRN

Great Governor of the Universe, or by their relations to men, but by climates, degrees of longitude and latitude As if, when you have crossed the equinoctial line all the virtues die.

Naturally political scientists today would largely reject abstract natural law as being the basis of morality, but in terms of the practical struggle against corruption, Smith is correct to identify that moral relativism is more a hindrance than a help. Burke argued that the Indian victims of the East India Companys corruption deserved their humanity and good government. His notion that there exists a broadly common human nature, but that distinct cultural norms are found in different societies seems helpful to the anticorruption activists need to understand the local context and mobilize local support, but to also speak to a higher moral standard, by which corrupt officials can be judged and found wanting.

Corruption has been shown to flourish where economic monopoly meets political power, unregulated by external authorities enforcing accountability. The British East India Company was almost the perfect manifestation of this unholy trinity, and so it is an encouraging sign that anti-corruption scholars have begun to investigate the Company in an attempt to learn the lessons of the past. Where Smith could go further is in his analysis of the utility of singling out particular individuals for criticism. He hopes that a determined effort to bring severe offenders to account would set a useful precedent, overlooking perhaps the evidence of his own example colonial India. In his efforts to bring Hastings to justice, Burke was forced to construct a fanciful history of the East India Company which legitimised the colonial enterprise, by showing how far the Company had deviated from its original, noble enterprise. In successfully disgracing Hastings, Burke upheld the legitimacy of an inherently corrupt system of exploitation.

This caveat has particular application today, as when rightly villanizing corrupt individuals, we must not merely scapegoat them, but rather address the underlying, systematic immorality of corruption. Otherwise such activity will simply serve as a safety valve for public outrage, and treat symptom as disease. The best manifestation of this has been the rise of the Anna Hazare movement, which has presented corruption as a moral, rather than political or systematic issue. Hazare has notably come under attack in the Indian Press for presenting corruption as just a touchy-feeling moral problem, in which everyone can happily rally to the cause- fascists, democrats, anarchistseven the deeply corrupt. Citation: Brian Smith, 'Edmund Burke, The Warren Hastings Trial and the Moral Dimension of Corruption', Polity, (40), 2008 References: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/why-is-india-corrupt-/974515/0 Meghnad Desai, Sunday, July 15 2012 http://www.indianexpress.com/news/-when-corruption-is-viewed-fuzzily-/783688/0 Arundhati Roy, Saturday April 30 2011 Author : Brian Smith Link : http://www.palgrave-journals.com/polity/journal/v40/n1/abs/2300051a.html

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Edmund Burke, the Warren Hastings Trial, and the Moral Dimension of Corruption ACRN

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