Sonia’s code

You don’t need any grey statistics or the Transparency International to tell you that corruption is distorting and poisoning public life in India. It is well known, too, that the healthful turnout figures at election-time often mask a growing mistrust of public institutions and political processes. So is a ‘code of austerity and ethics’, Sonia-style, an answer? Or, doesn’t the presence of codes and commandments such as this, lying unimplemented in the public sphere, eventually become part of the problem, reinforcing the same cynicism and mistrust about politics that they are meant to address?

To begin with, a code of conduct is a welcome acknowledgement that something else, something more, needs to be done. It is an effort to reinstate a sense of scandal in public attitudes towards corruption. A code of conduct is a good thing in yet another important sense: it is a form of self-regulation. It seeks to put the onus of regulating politics on politicians themselves, instead of letting the problem build up and be shepherded into, say, the court of law. Admittedly, the code of conduct is notoriously difficult to implement. At best, it will be observed in the token ways, and left to languish unattended at worst. It may even be seen as an intrusion and an imposition, an attempt to micro-manage the behaviour of the representatives of the people and those in public life who surely ought to know better if they don’t already.

On balance, and given politics in India in which far too much is left fuzzy and inadequately articulated, Sonia Gandhi’s 18-point charter is for the good. Our political culture has been sadly depleted of healthy norms and conventions. There was probably no golden age of Indian politics, but it is equally true that representatives of the people did not always need to be told to curb ostentatious displays of unaccounted-for wealth and illegitimate perks of government power. If Sonia’s code is observed, well and good. If it is not, it will at least be spelling out standards that politicians have conveniently lost sight of.