There’s nothing serious about development, it’s just showtime

Those shocked by this muttered darkly about corruption being the only means for her to have acquired such a fine collection of diamond jewellry, but in my view the more open our politicians are about their riches the better it is for us.

This way there is at least some chance that one day Dalits will ask how Mayawati became such a rich woman and Yadavs how Laloo, the proud son of an impoverished peon, could afford such lavish weddings for his daughters.

For that matter, how did Mulayam pay for his son to be educated abroad and, speaking of weddings, few expenses were spared at his son’s wedding. Where does all this money come from?

To return, though, to Mulayam’s movie of Mayawati asking her MPs and MLAs to hand over part of their constituency development fund, what we have is her teaching her legislators wiser ways of collecting money for the party than taking it from ‘‘greedy people’’ who want tickets in the election.

At the end of her lecture, she tells them that the constituency fund is a milch cow for the scrupulous as well as the corrupt because even if contracts are handed out fairly — instead of to relatives and friends — some amount of money will come back as gratitude.

‘‘When you get Rs 5 lakh without going anywhere, don’t gobble up the amount yourself. Leave Rs 1 lakh for the party (Bhai saara mat khao, char lakh chetra me lagaon, ek lakh party key liye lao)…So, I have fixed Rs 2 lakh for MPs and one lakh for MLAs. Bhai saara mat khao, BSP ne MLA, MP banaya hain to aapko har saal kam se kam movement key liye itna dena chahiye.’’

Why do I think Mulayam’s movie is just entertainment and not a giant step in the fight against corruption in public life? Because, although his little home production may seem like a baby Tehelka, he knows as well as every other politician in our fair and wondrous land that the MP-MLA fund is routinely misused by our elected representatives. That is what it is there for. The scheme, one of P.V. Narasimha Rao’s more cynical legacies, came about at a time when he led a shaky coalition government and needed the support of as many MPs as possible. He, thereby, ordained in the name of ‘‘development’’ that MPs would be allowed a fund of Rs 1 crore a year to spend on good works in their constituencies.

The scheme was such an instant hit with MPs that state governments took no time to copy it and, every year, our legislators ask for the amount they get to be doubled.

Anyone with even passing familiarity with how India works knows that ‘‘development’’ is a major source of illicit funds for anyone who controls the purse strings. This is on account of the ancient Indian principle that ‘‘he who giveth contracts taketh commission’’. So, Narasimha Rao not only institutionalised corruption, he politicised development.

Which MP or MLA is going to use his money to build a school in that segment of his constituency that voted against him? And, when a new MP gets elected will he not automatically reverse things so that the money gets spent on his own supporters? The end result, of course, is not development but half-finished projects littered all over the countryside.

The scheme is a complete disaster and a shocking waste of taxpayers’ money and proof exists in the form of a Planning Commission survey that has quietly disappeared into the bowels of some government archive.

It established that much of the money allotted to the scheme has gone not on development but on sleazy patronage of various kinds. The constituency fund is a fine example of how not to spend money on development. It is on account of schemes like this and poverty alleviation programmes that serve mainly to alleviate the poverty of the officials who run them that we continue to be a desperately poor country. When will we realise this?

Since so many politicians, across the board, have expressed shock, horror and moral indignation at what Mayawati was up to, can we hope that they will show equal unanimity when it comes to scrapping the scheme?

The constituency fund is a sieve through which thousands of crores of taxpayers money has already disappeared, we cannot afford to waste any more money on it. Now that there is videotaped proof that it is being misused can we hope that the Prime Minister will take note and do something?

Alas, we cannot because if he ordered the scheme abolished he would face the wrath of his own party MPs and MLAs who will come up with a thousand noble reasons why the scheme must be continued in the interests of the ‘‘common man’’. Even Mulayam who has shown so much concern over Mayawati’s alleged corruption would find it hard to agree to abolish the scheme altogether. All he wanted when he came forth with his expose was a tamasha, a public slap in Mayawati’s face, so sit back folks and relax, it’s only showtime.

Write to tavleensingh@expressindia.com