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VIEWPOINT: FIFTH COLUMN
Big Deal? Yes It Is
Aware
of the scale of corruption, Vajpayee should have brought in changes long
ago.
By Tavleen Singh
 It
was a scandal waiting to happen, aching to happen, and yet it came as
a shock. Not because we did not know that Vajpayee's Government was as
redolent with the stench of corruption as those before it but because
of the air of sanctimonious superiority that the BJP always affects. We
are the party with a difference, we have been told ad nauseam, special
guardians of the national interest, specially patriotic, and what do we
see on the Tehelka.com tapes? The president of the mighty Bharatiya Janata
Party grabbing huge wads of notes and stashing them away like a petty
thief. His defence: it's normal to collect party funds in this fashion.
So many people come and see me and they donate money, what is wrong? A
great deal, Mr Bangaru Laxman, a very great deal, and it's just as well
you resigned.
Then we have George Fernandes, Saint George,
so vocal in his condemnation of the Gandhis for their alleged role in
the Bofors scandal, so passionate in his crusade against corruption, also
seen to be allowing his party functionaries to collect funds in a similar,
sleazy fashion. Worse, we have that ultimate protector of the great Hindu
rashtra, the RSS, also implicated in power broking and dirty deals. It
looks bad, very bad indeed, and the prime minister has only himself to
blame.
 When
he came to power he knew the Congress party got the boot because the voter
was sick to death of the corruption that confronted him every time he
dealt with the government. He knew that everyone was sick of the old system
of governance in which nothing moved without the greasing of the right
palms. He knew that change was desperately required and yet he did nothing
at all to change anything. It has been the same story of commissions on
government contracts, the same story of power brokers in the Prime Minister's
Office, the same rumours of relatives exercising extra-constitutional
powers.
Anybody who believes that it is only the defence
deals in which this sort of thing happens is sadly mistaken. Every government
department functions only when it is well oiled with the grease of corruption.
Naturally, there are some ministries in which it is possible to make more
money than in others. Those that deal with big infrastructure projects,
big government contracts, telecommunications, industry, big public-sector
companies are the ones everyone wants. But it is possible to make quite
a lot of money even in a humble ministry like health and family welfare
if you know how. This is true not just of the Central government but of
our state governments as well, which is why the International Transparency
Index consistently ranks India among the most corrupt countries in the
world.
Could Vajpayee have changed things? Yes. By
implementing, or at least trying to put in place, administrative reforms
that would have made government functioning more transparent. There are
hundreds of convoluted rules and procedures that need to be junked, hundreds
of departments that need no longer exist. In others like customs and excise
and income tax, everyone knows there is so much money to be made that
postings and transfers are auctioned to the highest bidder. Vajpayee has
so far done nothing to change things, not even in the area of judicial
reform, so crucial to real change. As long as it takes an average of 20
years for a case to come to court, we can be sure corruption will continue
to flourish. The slow judicial process is the main reason why corrupt
officials and politicians simply disappear instead of being publicly brought
to justice. The fact that we are still waiting for justice in the Bofors
case, nearly 15 years on, speaks for itself.
So what happens now? Well, the Congress, as
the main opposition party, will try and ensure that the functioning of
Parliament and Government becomes impossible. If BALCO and farmers' problems
could bring the Lok Sabha to a halt, we need little imagination to see
what will happen now that there is a really big stick to beat the Government
with. Could the Government fall? Who knows? But if it survives then the
prime minister really needs to show us what he can do.
What is required is a visible attempt to change
the system. If he resorts to the usual excuses of inquiry commissions
and the law taking its own course then we know it will simply be business
as usual once the noise of this scandal dies down. He also needs to seriously
examine why the wheelers and dealers on the Tehelka tapes keep mentioning
senior officials on his personal staff as being major power brokers. If
the prime minister does not have the stomach for drastic action and real
change, he will quickly become a lame duck.
Meanwhile, we need to consider how political
parties can be funded more legitimately. As long as they have to depend
on black money and dubious deals to collect their funds we will continue
to see the sort of ugly wheeling and dealing we saw on the Tehelka tapes.
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