Jayanti Patel,a Gujarati actor-playwright,had a play,Neta Abhineta,in the late 1950s. In a scene where the chief minister is asking a corrupt minister for his resignation,a caveat is added. Listen, says the CM,you only have to resign; not give the money back.
I start with this story to show that corruption among politicians is not recent. The numbers of rupees at stake may have risen astronomically,but the phenomenon has been there. Over time,the bribe takers have become more shameless and immune to the law. In the news that Ashok Chavan has been made to resign,there is no mention of any attempt to make him resign his seat or pay a fine to his party or to the ex-servicemen he has deprived of housing. If you have any doubts as to whether he will be punished,fear not. The fact that the CBI is to investigate guarantees that Chavan will get off.
The same story goes for A Raja. We will be told no doubt that the loss of Rs 1.7 lakh crore is only a virtual loss. That is the money he could have collected for the taxpayer if he had conducted an auction.But since successive governments had decided not to conduct an auction,the valuable assets were sold for a song. That is what we will be told. The question is whether the original decision was corrupt,and whether,more importantly,were there any kickbacks from those who won the spectrum contracts to those making the decisions. The UK government got £ 23 billion from their auction of a spectrum and many other governments have followed since. Not conducting an auction is a decision to defraud the Indian people. Who is at fault?
We will not find out since such questions are never asked. Recall the scenes of the Karnataka MLAs receiving bribes of Rs 15-25 crore to switch parties which were seen by many on TV news channels. There was no demand from any of the political parties that a chargesheet be filed. This is because they are all in this together and that is why despite many promises to clean up the system,nothing will happen. Bribing of MPs and MLAs to defect happens all the time. We know money changes hands. We saw a farcical version of this during the crucial Lok Sabha vote on the nuclear deal when wads of dirty notes were shown on TV within the chamber.
India is a great democracy,but it is also one of the most corrupt. If in the 1950s,bribes were taken by individual politicians,now all political parties are at it. The entire financing of political parties is opaque and is funded by corruption rather than membership dues or open donations. There is no endogenous mechanism which gives anyone any hope that such corruption will be tackled. Indian voters have passively accepted this fate as they have accommodated to a dysfunctional State. The latest Human Development Report revealed that India ranks very low on the index which values health and education as well as income and its distribution. Ever since the HDR began in 1990,India has ranked miserably and nothing has been done about it.
Dont worry though. The PM is not corrupt even if he may be the only one in Indian politics.
