So much sleaze has seeped out of this governments closets in the past two years that it is no surprise that the Comptroller & Auditor General of India (CAG) has become a national hero. This formerly faceless official is such a celebrity today that respected international newspapers write profiles of Vinod Rai. And,it is entirely because of him that it was possible for Anna Hazare during his recent hunger strike in Jantar Mantar to demand the sacking of fifteen ministers. The corruption charges made against them were mostly based on CAG reports.
Last week on the day his reports on the coal and civil aviation ministries were tabled in Parliament,anchors on our 24-hour news channels treated them as the gospel truth. Some of our more excitable anchors pronounced gleefully that the integrity of the Prime Minister himself was now in question. Was it not he,they demanded in shrill voices,who had additional charge of the coal ministry at the time when private companies were given mining rights? The Prime Minister has a lot of explaining to do, screeched one anchor. As for him who always speaks on behalf of the people of India he was so overexcited about the new revelations that I had to switch channels for fear that he might burst through the screen and land on my floor.
The problem is compounded by the vow of silence that the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi appear to have committed themselves to in some secret ceremony. Sonia was only a housewife before she became a politician so she can be absolved for keeping her mouth shut on complex economic matters but the Prime Minister cannot. He was an economist before he entered politics so should be able to,without even the help of aides,to challenge the CAGs figures before they become gospel. When the new reports were tabled in the Lok Sabha,his office did say that Mr Rai appeared to be indulging in back of the envelope calculations but this could be too little too late.
It is because the Prime Minister has taken so very long to speak up that his government is today considered the most corrupt in Indian history not just by his political opponents but by the average Indian voter. It is the reason why the likes of Baba Ramdev are able to get away with spouting impossible figures for black money. And,between Mr CAG,Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazares team,we have now reached a point when every charge made against the Sonia-Manmohan government is believed by almost everyone.
Their long and mysterious silences have been interpreted as proof of guilt. Perhaps,after A Raja and Suresh Kalmadi ended up in Tihar Jail,they were too frightened to speak more robustly against some of their auditors more fanciful auditing but in retrospect it could have been their most serious mistake. Mr Rai is now such a huge hero in the public imagination that he gets away even with making policy pronouncements in his reports. On Air India,in earlier reports,he contradicted himself by recommending both that the government should be saving the national carrier and then attacking it for buying too many new aeroplanes in an attempt to save it. In his latest report there are other policy statements that are clearly beyond his brief as an auditor. But,with a weak Prime Minister and a general absence of leadership at the top this kind of thing is bound to happen.
By the time of the 2014 general election Mr Rai will undoubtedly be in a position to stand from any constituency in the land from any political party he chooses. Who would refuse such a paragon of probity? As for me,I remember with growing nostalgia those days when faceless officials remained faceless.
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