Chaa pani (India)

Chaa pani 🇮🇳
Location: India
Definition: Euphemism for petty bribery; informal payments for a service
Keywords: India – South Asia – Bribe – Payment – Hospitality – Getting things done – Euphemism – Food
Clusters: Functional ambivalence
Author: Ajeet Kaur
Affiliation: Alumna, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, UK

By Ajeet Kaur, Alumna, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, UK

Chaa pani literally means tea and water. The term originates from Punjab region in the northern part of India (Positive Purchasing 2016). The term has a range of connotations, from bribery in business or government or paying a little extra to get things done, to obtaining driving licence or visiting a new-born (Campion 2011). Unlike bribery, chaa pani is not always associated with injustice, unfairness or anti-democratic activity. The ambivalent term refers to both paying someone off and to an innocent gesture of hospitality. When it refers to making payments, such payments are made with an expectation of receiving a counter-favour, ordinarily not a monetary one. In India, although often labelled as the world’s largest democracy, informality remains a key part of the socio-economic contexts, from informal settlements to the culture of personalised trust. India has strong foundations in unofficial communities and in what known but not addressed in human interaction. Common informal practices in India include jaan pehchaan, using one’s social network to further oneself, and hawala, an informal money exchange. Chaa pani is thought of as legitimate if it takes the form of small-scale informal payments, but not bribery. Chaa pani is a softer version of the more direct term rishwat, which translates into the pejorative term for a corrupt bribe. Unlike rishwat, the meaning of chaa pani is determined by the listener. If used in business or governance, chaa pani does not directly point to engagement in corruption, but it does suggest self-interested behaviour or competitive advantage within potentially corrupt institutions. While an informal payment might offer a solution to a person in need, it also creates a problem – a bribe disrupts legitimacy, undermines democracy and subverts the impartial workings of institutions. As both a solution and problem, chaa pani reinforces functional ambivalence (see Merton 1977: 92).

Chaa pani draws many semantic similarities to concepts such as the Spanish mordida (bite), the Arabic basheesh (a gift, tip or gratuity), Malaysian duit kopi (coffee money), sub-Saharan l’argent du carburant and the French pot-de-vin. These all refer to small sums of money, expressed to include an offer of food or drink. These euphemisms make use of the comfort associated with accepting food, hospitality and tipping, opposed to the greed and selfishness ordinarily associated with corruption. This distinction is reflected in the difference between ʻneed corruptionʼ and ʻgreed corruptionʼ (Bauhr 2017: 561-581). Rishwat is an example of the latter as it connotes human bad traits and betrayal of trust, injustice and free-riding. In contrast, chaa pani, an ambivalent term help informal practices remain socially pervasive and acceptable, is an example of the former.

Typical examples of this exchange can be found on the [http:// ipaidabribe.com global map of bribe-giving]]. It shows that, the department where bribery was most prevalent in India was the police force. 60 percent of all reported bribes involved engagement of the police (Ipaidabribe 2019). Integral to the problem of bribery in India is an underlying structural flaw whereby law enforcement agents facilitate and often demand some form of chaa pani, suggesting extortion. The data has been collected on 197,740 reports of bribery across India, where 38,130 bribes were paid. The website also reports on circumstances where individuals refuse to pay in a customary way. It lists that 3,560 bribes were resisted (Ipaidabribe 2019).

According to a 2019 report on Ipaidabribe, two police officers stopped a college student riding a motorbike and a lorry driver. Neither had any documents for the vehicles they were driving. The lorry driver promptly offered the policemen chaa pani and the officers let him go without any evidence of a driving licence. The college student had borrowed his friends’ bike and had his driving licence, so when the policemen asked for a payment, he questioned the request. The alleged lack of cooperation from the college student led to him be escorted to the police station for misbehaviour (Ipaidabribe 2019). A non-compliance with a demand to pay a bribe was treated as a punishable offence. Such institutionalised corruption normalizes practices of chaa pani and makes it difficult to seek for an alternative.

Formally, bribery is illegal in the state of India under the Prevention of Corruption Act 2018 and is punishable by up to 7 years in prison (Bhaskar 2018: 5). It appears that Indian government has taken a tough approach towards those engaging in the act of bribery. However, in reality police and investigation authorities are allowed to investigate public servants only when they have received an official permission to do so. Inequality in the face of the law, as well as heavy punishment levied on bribe givers in contrast to the bribe-takers are widely seen as unfair and conducive to ‘bribe harassment,’ whereby a bribe is demanded for services one is entitled to receive for free (Basu 2011: 4). For example, an income tax refund may be held back from an individual until they provide an adequate payment to the officer. The system criminalises bribe givers even when they report an officer receiving the bribe. Police takes such a report as a confession and proceed to punish them (Basu 2011: 4). Although shifting the focus away from the bribe-takers has been debated by the anti-corruption scholars, enacting such approach in practice seems counterproductive as it discourages people from reporting bribery. By interpreting reports of bribery as confessions, officials are accommodating the systemic corruption that frames and facilitated practices of chaa pani. The Indian anti-corruption measures seem largely unsuccessful.

Chaa pani in India and similar practises globally seem to go under the radar of the global anti-corruption efforts. Websites such as Ipaidabribe, based on the grassroots reporting, are key in identifying the degree of systemic corruption which would otherwise be hidden. They also provide real statistics which are less prone to bias of organisations collecting the data. Yet ultimately, the only way to tackle such informality is to take a top down approach aimed at fundamentally changing social norms. Such approach requires a united front of the government, businesses and social institutions, as well as the political will to condemn the bribe give-and-take practices, while creating non-corrupt channels for people to satisfy basic needs. This idea was encapsulated in the proposal that the government of India should strive to work with the bribe giver in order to persecute the bribe receiver (see Basu 2011: 4). The fundamental issue in India is that informal payments constitute a social norm, rather than an exception.

References

Basu, K. 2011. 'Why, for a Class of bribes, the Act of Giving a Bribe Should Be Treated as Legal', Ministry of Finance Government of India Working Paper 1: 4

Bauhr, M. 2016. 'Need or Greed? Conditions for Collective Action against Corruption', Governance, 30(4): 561–581

BBC. 2007. 'African corruption “on the wane.”', 10 July, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6288400.stm

Bhaskar, R., N. 2018. The State of Corruption in India. Observer Research Foundation.

Campion, M. 2011. 'Bribery in India: A website for whistleblowers'. BBC News. 5 June, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13616123

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Merton, R.K. 1977. Sociological ambivalence and other essays. New York: The Free Press, 1976.

Ipaidabribe.com. 2010. 'I Paid A Bribe | Online Complaint Against Corruption', https://www.ipaidabribe.com/add-report?report-type=bribefighter-type#gsc.tab=0

Ipaidabribe.com. 2016. 'Positive: power to your purchasing. Bribes, Lunches and Chai pani'

Ipaidabribe.com. 2019. 'I Paid A Bribe | Report Now | Success Stories', http://www.ipaidabribe.com/#gsc.tab=0