Colonial rule, decolonisation, and corruption in India

Abstract

This paper posits that the varied legacies of colonial rule and decolonisation can explain interstate variation in the institutionalisation of corruption in post-independence India. It concludes that the relative freedom from state capture after independence depended on two conditions: (1) the institutionalisation of bureaucratic autonomy prior to independence and (2) the survival of the disruption of decolonisation by an autonomous bureaucracy to be utilised by new representative governments following independence. These conditions were generally not met across India with the exception of the southern state of Kerala.