Uttar Pradesh politics has spent years defining the state through a battle against “gundaraj” and “mafia raj.” Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has repeatedly presented his administration’s policing record as evidence that organised criminals and their political influence have been pushed back. In May 2026, the Uttar Pradesh government said that since March 2017 the state police had carried out more than 17,000 encounters, with hundreds of alleged criminals killed and thousands injured; those figures are government-reported and should therefore be understood as claims about the enforcement record rather than an independent measure of crime reduction. (The Indian Express, 2026). But there is another form of coercion that attracts much less political drama. It does not involve gangsters, guns or encounters. It happens when an ordinary citizen discovers that a government service which has an official procedure, official fee and official timeline nevertheless appears to require an unofficial payment. That is the quieter problem: not gundaraj outside the state, but briberaj inside it.
The Passport Test
Passport processing is a useful example because the system is deliberately designed around digitisation and formal procedure. Passport Seva provides online applications, appointments, tracking, grievance registration and defined police-verification procedures. The Ministry of External Affairs states that police verification is used to ascertain the details furnished by an applicant and that applications can be processed through pre- or post-police-verification mechanisms depending on the applicant and circumstances. The formal system is therefore intended to make the process predictable: the applicant supplies documents and the prescribed fee, the authorities process the application, and the police verify the relevant particulars where required. (Ministry of External Affairs, 2026). Yet the local verification point remains vulnerable to allegations of unofficial payments.
In Ghaziabad, The Times of India reported in August 2026 that a video appeared to show a police officer asking for ₹2,000–₹4,000 (approximately US$21–$42) as a “commission” for passport address verification. Police said the officer had been identified and an inquiry initiated, while also cautioning that the video appeared to be old and that claims regarding his current posting were inaccurate. (The Times of India, 2026). The allegation therefore should not be presented as an established fact against the individual officer, but the episode illustrates the basic vulnerability: a routine public service can become a point of discretionary extraction.
Mumbai provides another example. In 2026, the city’s Anti-Corruption Bureau investigated a passport-verification complaint involving an alleged demand of ₹2,000, later reduced to ₹1,000 (approximately US$21 and US$10 respectively), with a police constable and an alleged intermediary implicated in the case. (The Times of India, 2026). In Kerala, a civil police officer was reportedly caught in a vigilance trap while allegedly accepting ₹500 (approximately US$5.23) in connection with passport verification. (The Times of India, 2025). These cases are not evidence that passport applicants across India routinely pay bribes; they are evidence that allegations involving passport verification have appeared in multiple states and have, in some instances, triggered formal anti-corruption action.
The Bribe Is Not Always a Middleman
The usual explanation for corruption in government services is the middleman—an agent who claims to know the bureaucracy, promises to move a file and charges the citizen for the service. That problem is real, but it can obscure a more serious variation: the official himself becomes the fixer. A private agent can exploit a complicated bureaucracy, but an official allegedly demanding money possesses something more consequential—the authority to verify, approve, delay or reject. In such a case, the citizen may not be buying expertise at all. The citizen is allegedly paying for the public employee to perform the public duty for which that employee is already responsible.
Ghaziabad has provided examples of the two models operating together. In one investigation, police uncovered an alleged passport racket involving private agents, a postman and a police officer, with forged documents allegedly used to obtain genuine passports. Investigators reported recovering 22 passports connected to the same telephone number and address. (The Times of India, 2026). Here the intermediary was allegedly not operating independently of the bureaucracy; the allegation was that people inside and around the official process were part of the mechanism. That is why “middleman corruption” can sometimes be an incomplete diagnosis. The more troubling possibility is institutionalised brokerage, where access to the state itself becomes something that can be informally bought.
A Pattern Across Services and States
The passport cases sit within a broader pattern of anti-corruption enforcement. In Uttar Pradesh, the Anti-Corruption Organization reported trap proceedings in February 2026 involving alleged demands of ₹15,000 (about US$157) in connection with retirement dues and ₹14,000 (about US$147) in a revenue-related matter. (Uttar Pradesh Police, 2026). These were separate cases and should not be conflated with the passport incidents, but they demonstrate that alleged bribery can arise across different government functions: police verification, revenue records, pension-related administration and other citizen-facing services.
Another UP case illustrates why careful language matters. An IAS officer was suspended in connection with allegations that a five-percent “commission” had been sought through a mediator for clearance of a major solar project. Yet in February 2026, the Allahabad High Court quashed the FIR and chargesheet against the alleged intermediary for lack of evidence. (The Indian Express, 2025; The Indian Express, 2026). The distinction between allegation, arrest, disciplinary action, prosecution and conviction is therefore essential. A serious discussion of administrative corruption should not reproduce the very shortcuts it criticises.
India Already Has a Legal Framework
The Prevention of Corruption Act is explicit about the basic principle. Section 7 criminalises a public servant’s acceptance or attempted acceptance of an “undue advantage” in connection with public duty, while Section 7A addresses obtaining such an advantage in order to influence a public servant in the performance of that duty. (India Code, 1988). In other words, “chai-pani,” “commission,” “facilitation fee” or a payment demanded to speed up a file does not become legitimate merely because it is common terminology. The legal issue is whether money or another benefit has been sought or accepted improperly in connection with public authority.
Why This Is Not a Liberalism Problem
It is tempting to interpret every corruption story through ideology: conservative versus liberal, BJP versus Congress, strong government versus weak government. But bribery does not belong naturally to one political philosophy. It is more closely related to discretion, opacity, weak oversight and incentives. Give an official control over a decision, make the decision difficult for the citizen to challenge, provide inadequate records of the interaction and create little certainty that misconduct will be discovered, and an opportunity for rent extraction appears regardless of the governing party’s ideological label.
That is why the Bengaluru response is particularly instructive. In February 2026, Bengaluru police made body-worn cameras mandatory for officers conducting passport verification, citing the need for transparency amid complaints and previous delays. (The Indian Express, 2026). The technology does not eliminate corruption, but it reduces the secrecy that makes an unofficial transaction easier. The principle can be extended to other administrative services: recorded inspections, digitally logged decisions, automatic timestamps and independent complaint channels can make it harder for public authority to disappear into an unrecorded conversation.
The Numbers Suggest a Broader Governance Problem
Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index gives India a score of 39 out of 100 and a rank of 91 among 182 countries. Its latest Global Corruption Barometer data for India also reported that 39% of public-service users surveyed said they had paid a bribe in the preceding 12 months, while 89% regarded government corruption as a major problem. The latter figures come from the latest available regional survey rather than a new 2026 national survey, so they should not be mistaken for a 2026 prevalence estimate. Nevertheless, they provide evidence that everyday bribery has remained a substantial governance concern. (Transparency International, 2026).
The important point is not that every public employee is corrupt. Millions of government transactions are completed without bribery. The problem is that citizens can learn to anticipate unofficial payments from a minority of cases and then begin treating them as part of the normal price of dealing with government. Once that happens, the damage is larger than the rupee amount involved.
The Official-Fixer Is More Dangerous Than the Ordinary Middleman
The distinction between a middleman and an official-fixer deserves emphasis because it changes where reform has to occur. A middleman can be arrested, excluded from an office or removed from a particular transaction. But when the official responsible for verification or approval is allegedly involved, the institution itself becomes compromised. The citizen cannot simply walk around the institution because the institution is the gatekeeper.
This is why a ₹500 or ₹1,000 demand can matter beyond its monetary value. At approximately US$5 or US$10, it may be a relatively small transaction. But it communicates that the official fee printed on the government website is not necessarily the real cost of interacting with the state. The next applicant therefore learns to carry additional cash. The next official observes that unofficial revenue is available. The process gradually develops two prices: the legal price paid into the treasury and the unofficial price paid to the person operating the gate.
The Strong State Needs Strong Internal Discipline
There is no contradiction between supporting strong action against organised crime and demanding rigorous accountability from government officials. In fact, one should reinforce the other. A government that argues it has dismantled criminal networks has an especially strong reason to demonstrate that its own personnel cannot monetise public authority with impunity.
The Uttar Pradesh government’s own anti-corruption machinery reported imprisonment and fines for public servants convicted in corruption cases, while continued trap operations demonstrate that enforcement remains active. (Government of Uttar Pradesh, 2025; Uttar Pradesh Police, 2026). The larger measure of success, however, should be whether ordinary citizens increasingly encounter officials who insist on the formal process rather than officials who quietly offer an alternative price.
The State Should Not Need a Fixer
The modern Indian citizen is already familiar with a paradox: a service can be online, a payment can be digital, an application can be trackable and yet the crucial decision can still occur during a short face-to-face interaction. That is where the unofficial system can reappear. A digital portal is not enough if the citizen still has to persuade, negotiate or pay the person who performs the final verification.
The answer is not another slogan. It is a measurable reduction in discretionary opacity: published fees, published service standards, automatic escalation for overdue files, recorded field interactions, auditable decisions, independent complaint handling and real consequences for officials who misuse their position.
That leads back to the language of gundaraj and mafia raj. Organised criminals represent one form of coercive power outside the formal state. Administrative corruption represents another form of coercive power operating from within it. They are not equivalent in scale or violence, but they share one underlying feature: someone uses power over another person’s options to extract a private benefit.
The most meaningful test of governance is therefore not merely whether the gangster has been defeated. It is whether the citizen can obtain a passport, certificate, licence, land record, pension or police service without paying an unofficial toll.
When the person responsible for providing the public service becomes the person who must be paid to make it happen, the problem is no longer merely corruption around government.
The government itself has become the fixer.
References
Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances. (2025). Monthly report on Central Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS). Government of India. https://darpg.gov.in/
Government of Uttar Pradesh. (2025). Government initiatives on law and order and anti-corruption. Government of Uttar Pradesh. https://information.up.gov.in/
India Code. (1988). The Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India. https://www.indiacode.nic.in/handle/123456789/12894
Ministry of External Affairs. (2026). Passport Seva: Police verification mode details. Government of India. https://www.passportindia.gov.in/psp/onlineHtml/pvrModeDetails
Passport Seva. (2026). Feedback and grievance registration. Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. https://www.passportindia.gov.in/psp/RegisterFeedbackGrievance
Statistics and reporting on passport-verification allegations in Ghaziabad. (2026, August). The Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/noida/probe-after-cop-seen-seeking-bribe-for-address-verification-for-passport/articleshow/133266719.cms
Statistics and reporting on passport-verification bribery in Mumbai. (2026). The Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/khar-constable-aide-booked-in-passport-bribe-case/articleshow/131209461.cms
Statistics and reporting on passport-related corruption in Kerala. (2025, March). The Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kochi/police-officer-caught-while-accepting-bribe/articleshow/119020631.cms
The Indian Express. (2025). ‘Bribery’ row: Suspended IAS officer served chargesheet by UP govt. https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/lucknow/bribery-row-suspended-ias-officer-served-chargesheet-by-up-govt-10131291/
The Indian Express. (2026). HC quashes Invest UP bribery case for lack of evidence. https://indianexpress.com/article/legal-news/hc-quashes-invest-up-bribery-case-abhishek-prakash-nikant-jain-10527201/
The Indian Express. (2026). Bengaluru police make body-worn cameras mandatory for passport verification. https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/bangalore/bengaluru-police-make-body-worn-cameras-mandatory-for-passport-verification-10553567/
The Indian Express. (2026). In UP, on an average, 5 encounters took place every day in Yogi rule. https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/lucknow/in-up-on-an-average-5-encounters-took-place-every-day-in-yogi-rule-10696577/
The Times of India. (2026). 1 number, 1 address, 22 passports: Ghaziabad police bust document racket. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ghaziabad/1-number-1-address-22-passports-ghaziabad-police-bust-document-racket/articleshow/127874051.cms
Transparency International. (2026). India. https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/india
Uttar Pradesh Police. (2026). Anti-Corruption Organization: Trap proceedings. Government of Uttar Pradesh. https://uppolice.gov.in/site/writereaddata/UploadedPressRelease/pdf/PRP_202602232033505501.pdf