Corruption, Normalization, and the Procrustean Bed: India’s Grave Crisis by DebaprasadBandyopadhyay Via Flickr: onceinabluemoon2021.in/2025/06/20/corruption-normalizatio... This paper interrogates the normalization of corruption in contemporary India through the theoretical frameworks of Michel Foucault and Theodor Adorno. Rejecting the moralistic and legalistic definitions of corruption as insufficient, it argues that corruption functions not as a deviation from institutional norms but as the normative logic of governance itself. Employing the metaphor of the Procrustean bed, the paper explores how disciplinary power, media capture, and cultural internalization enable the institutional reproduction of corruption. Empirical data from Transparency International and the Global Economic Freedom Index further substantiate the entrenchment of corruption across sectors. The study concludes with a call to dismantle the ideological apparatus sustaining this disciplinary regime.
