(a) "Corruption causes misuse of government treasury, administrative inefficiency and obstruction in the path of national development." Discuss Kautilya's views.. . (b) How could social influence and persuasion contribute to the success of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan?

(a) Kautilya on corruption, treasury and development

• Kautilya treats the treasury as the root of the State. If it is stolen, the army, irrigation and famine stores fail, which is obstruction of national development in ancient language.
• He lists many ways officials embezzle: false weights, leftover grain, delayed wages, fake expenditure, and collusion with traders. The point is that corruption is a system of methods, not one bribe.
• He compares officials to fish in water: one cannot see when they drink. Supervision must therefore be continuous, not a rare raid.
• Spies, surprise inspections, multiple ledgers, and rotation of posts are his administrative answers to inefficiency born of graft.
• Punishment is severe because the king’s duty (rajadharma) is protection; a thief in office is a thief of that protection.
• He also warns the king against luxury and greedy tax, so that corruption is not only a clerk’s sin but a court culture.
• Misuse of treasury: every unaccounted pana is a canal not dug. Administrative inefficiency: a corrupt hierarchy hides information, so orders do not travel. Development: without a full treasury and honest officers, forts, roads and relief collapse.
• Present echo: the Comptroller and Auditor General, e-procurement, the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and Direct Benefit Transfer are Kautilyan in spirit — watch the fish, shorten the hand in the till, publish the ledger.
• Limit: Kautilya’s State is autocratic and harsh. Today’s ethics keeps his diagnosis of capture and drops torture as a method.

(b) Social influence, persuasion and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

• Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (launched 2014) aims at sanitation, toilets and a shift from open defecation and public filth to a social norm of cleanliness.
• Law and latrine construction are necessary. They are not sufficient if shame, habit and caste ideas about who cleans still rule the street.
• Social influence is the pull of people we watch: family, caste panchayat, school, film, faith and the local officer.
• Persuasion is reasoned and emotional appeal that changes attitude without a lathi as the first tool.
• Reciprocity: a panchayat that first delivers water and a pit-emptying service can then ask for toilet use; asking for behaviour without service feels like a sermon.
• Social proof: when a ward’s majority uses toilets, the rest copy. Published coverage, community monitoring and “open defecation free” claims work only if they are true, not painted.
• Authority: doctors, teachers, faith leaders and the Prime Minister’s public broom were authority cues; they fail if the sarpanch’s own courtyard is filthy.
• Liking and identity: messages in the local language, women’s groups, and school children as household persuaders beat a Hindi poster in a distant dialect.
• Scarcity and pride: a village that treats a dirty pond as a stain on honour uses esteem as influence.
• Foot-in-the-door: start with a school toilet and a market ban on litter, then widen.
• Fear and disgust can start attention; lasting change needs dignity, not humiliation of the poor as “dirty people”.
• Caste is the ethical trap: persuasion must not dump cleaning on one community while others “supervise”.
• Combine with law: municipal fines, Swachh rankings, and the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, so persuasion is not a substitute for rights.
• Officers should use gram sabhas, self-help groups, and honest data, and should empty pits and pay sanitation workers fairly, or persuasion becomes a photograph with a broom.