Rameshwar Singh Jamwal
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is often referring to India becoming the third largest economy in the world in the next couple of years, surpassing the economies of Japan and Germany and becoming a developed country by the year 2047. The claim will become more pronounced with coming general elections and there will be many to term it as mere rhetoric. Many in the present generation of Politicians as well as general public will not be there to confirm and watch that giant stride in 2047 but the present economic growth, as acknowledged by many economic experts all across the globe, will certainly take us to number three positions in near future. We, of course, need to accelerate or at least maintain our present GDP growth rate to achieve these targets but at the same time, see it from the prism of realty as to whatever Mr. Modi is saying is actually happening or it is just a poll gimmick.
With the present growth rate, it will take another three years to reach number three position and another twenty five years for getting the tag of a developed nation but things can be accelerated a bit if we focus on an area, which can give impetus to 1-2% further growth rate, taking it beyond 10% growth rate per year. Now for accelerating the economic growth by just 1-2%, we need to focus on some areas, which have not been touched by the economists as it is not their domain. Nations all across the globe are losing a substantial part of their GDP due to Crime. The U.S., China, Japan, Germany, and India, the top five economies in the world, based on gross domestic product (GDP) are competing with each other to surpass each other by focusing only on key economic growth areas, which does not focus on controlling crime rate. GDP is an estimate of the total value of finished goods and services produced within a country’s borders during a specified period, usually a year. GDP is popularly used to estimate the size of a country’s economy and its impact on the global economy. But GDP gets affected by a number of factors, not only the favourable corporate conditions created by the Governments but also by the nature, the will and vision of the political leadership of the country and a dark factor, unaccounted so far by many countries in the world can change all these equations. It is the crime prevalent in a country at a particular time and the ways being adopted to counter it, which also is reflected by the kind of people we elect, who in turn will reflect and affect the future of the country.
Over a period of four years (2010-2014) Latin American countries lost about 3% of their GDP due to homicides, private and public spending on security, penitentiary crisis, crimes against women, cyber crimes, and organized crime (Jaitman, 2017). According to a World Bank report, the world has lost about 12.4% of its GDP, approximately $14.76 Trillion, every year, due to violence alone. Iraq lost about 17% of its GDP due to violence in 2015 and Syria lost about 68% of its GDP in 2017 (Institute for Economics and Peace, 2018). In India, since there are large areas where terrorism and Naxal violence is widespread, we are also losing substantial part of our GDP, may be in the range of more than 10% due to different types of crimes, related to these two factors. This includes Drugs related problems, human trafficking, loss in productivity due to loss of health of those consuming drugs, extra spending on checking such criminal activities and slow down in achieving targets set out by the UN General Assembly resolution (A/RES 70/1). We have no figures available to calculate the losses cause to the corporate sector and private industry due to pilferage, corruption, white and blue collar criminality and a host of other correlated issues.
The introduction of the most recent FBI Internet Crime Report says, that there were more than 800,000 cyber crime-related complaints filed in 2022. Meanwhile, total losses were over $10 billion, shattering 2021’s total of $6.9 billion, according to the bureau’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).
Corporate crime inflicts more damage than the street crimes on the society. It is estimated in US studies that the corporate sector is also losing trillions due to such criminal activities. In a recent study carried out in the year 2021 in US, it has been found that the financial impact of crime in US in the year 2017 was more than $2.6 Trillion but here in India we have no such studies undertaken by those involved in checking criminality in the country. We cannot eliminate criminality but the losses from it can be brought down substantially and achieve a growth rate of more than 10%, if we focus on reforming our Criminal Justice system, by indigenous modes. Changing the nomenclatures of Criminal laws, and deleting or adding some sections here and there will not change the mindsets of those indulging in such activities. It is for this reason that we have been advocating for using the Mass Behavioral Engineering programmes, based on our indigenous and philosophical texts, (called as Yogic Crime Theory by the Author, and registered by the Government of India) in different segments, suitably adjusting the programmes as per needs and requirements. For this, synergy between the Finance, Home, HRD, Corporate and Heavy Industries, and many other departments of Government of India and support of all states and UT’s is required. Alas, no attention has been paid to this crucial aspect of governance ever since we gained independence. The intrinsic nature of humans and the resultant behavior needs to be understood from a different perspective and only then we can achieve the targets set out for the next few decades to transform India and bring cheers to the millions for suffering masses of this country but and term it as developed in true sense, not just from economic angle but for social, and spiritual upliftment as well, which should be the goal of all those ruling us in the future.
(The author is a practicing Advocate of J&K High Court and President of Criminologists Society).
