| |
VIEWPOINT: FIFTH COLUMN
George Is No Saint
His riches indicate how the doorkeepers
of the Delhi Durbar can hit paydirt.
By Tavleen Singh
 Till
last week it looked as if the Congress party's star, so long in the doldrums,
was finally on the ascendant. The prime minister looked tired, the Government
weak, the excuses for corruption in high places shabby and the Congress,
taking full advantage, went on the rampage. You could not turn on your
television without encountering a Congress leader baying for the prime
minister's blood. You could not open a newspaper without reading an interview
with some Congress leader expounding smugly on the evils of corruption.
And, there was Sonia Gandhi in full battle gear threatening to "fight
every battle, wage every war, make every sacrifice to ensure that the
country is liberated from the shackles of this corrupt, shameful and communal
government". So crushing was the Congress attack that it brought
Parliament to a halt and the Government to its knees. All of which makes
it even more amusing that all it took for the Congress cookie to crumble
was the story of another George.
 Vincent
George, humble stenographer from Kerala, who came to Delhi seeking his
fortune in the early 1980s and made it and more through a clerical job
in Rajiv Gandhi's office. It took a mere six years, the CBI tells us,
for him to become a crorepati and he did it without even needing to get
the answers right on Amitabh Bachchan's show. Since he had to do nothing
more than stenography to make his fortune, his has to be one of the most
extraordinary success stories of modern India. Till 1984, humble stenographer
George had, like other humble stenographers, a single bank account with
Rs 29,523 in it. But within a few years of Rajiv becoming prime minister,
George (and wife Lily) acquired many accounts into which flowed much foreign
money. So much foreign money that humble George was able to buy himself
properties in Delhi, send his children to a fancy school in southern India
and join the ranks of India's rich and famous. Ostensibly the nouveau
riches came through Lily's export business. Which would have been fine
had the CBI not discovered that Lily's companies existed only on paper.
The companies were fake, the exports fake too, only the money in those
bank accounts was real.
Sonia, so vocal and so shrill in her charges
against Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Government, has been remarkably silent
on the CBI's case against her secretary, leaving it to underlings to offer
a feeble defence. These charges, coming at this time, they tell us in
slightly shame-faced tones, is proof that the CBI is not independent and
is being influenced by the Government. Well, hello, would they prefer
that we were a police state in which the CBI would be above the Government?
Jaipal Reddy, who has made a career out of being a moveable party spokesman
and who currently speaks for the Congress, tried dismissing the CBI charges
against his party president's favourite factotum on the ground that the
timing proved they were tinged with politics. So what? Let politics tinge
a thousand more charges if we can catch more Bangaru Laxmans and Vincent
Georges with their hands filled with dirty money.
George's tale is in many ways more instructive
of how the Delhi Durbar works than Laxman's sordid story. The former BJP
president, now forever in the dustbin of history, can at least whine to
those who still pay attention that he was collecting for the party. Much
more interesting would be to find out who George was collecting for and
why so much of the money collected ended up in his private bank accounts.
Also, just think, if a mere stenographer in the Prime Minister's Office
could become so rich so quickly how much more money must be made by those
who are higher up in the hierarchy of the Durbar. It is not an easy thing
to admit, proud of our democracy as we are. But we have had a Durbar in
Delhi for 50 years and not a modern, democratic government. It is because
of this that flunkeys and factotums find it so easy to make fortunes so
quickly.
As in durbars of yore, they are the keepers
of the keys, the controllers of access. So important does this make them
that visitors to Sonia's court at 10 Janpath invariably recount tales
of powerful chief ministers and ministers kowtowing to humble George.
That has always been the way of the Gandhi family and Sonia clearly intends
to keep it that way, that is the Nehru-Gandhi idea of desh sewa.
What is more puzzling is why a BJP prime minister
has been able to do so little to oust the durbaris and end the durbar.
Surely, all those years of singing songs to Bharat Mata in khaki shorts
should have bred a new concept of desh sewa. It is because the court still
exists and courtiers remain powerful that Vajpayee finds so many fingers
pointed at the men on his personal staff. Things need to change, Mr Prime
Minister, and they need to change fast.
|
|
METRO TODAY
Web
Exclusives