Its not fair to say, worse than before. The amount of money involved now a days in Politics is unheard of. People with political connections will get large loans from Publicly backed banks, with almost no collateral. So, is it bad from that stand point. India has made tremendous strides in other areas, including market economy, number of people lifted out of poverty etc. There are massive improvement and massive transgressions happening in parallel. The pollution has gotten worse but the salaries of people and disposal income has gotten better. Long story short, its a mixed bag. Politics in India are very much tribal, massive reliance on caste or religious identity followed by buying up or attempts to buy up voters from slums or who ever is economically backward, either through immediate gifts, like liquor, food packets etc or through promises of Government largess like free cable tv or free saris etc. The Political process in India has become crass and rely on power brokers and money brokers to create a political machine for winning and ruling. This is &quot;a&quot; monster that is taxing Indian people with perpetual corruption of worst form even from the highest of the elected offices.