The Nation; Congress; Sonia's Sermons

Almost as soon as the party's code of conduct is released, members begin exploring escape routes. Implementation too remains a mystery.

Where there's a will, there's a loophole. When on September 14 Sonia Gandhi got the Congress Working Committee (CWC) to adopt a code of conduct for party members, her intentions must have been entirely honourable. Worried about the Congress' reputation as perhaps India's least law-abiding political party, its president may have hoped to inject a puritan ethic into its workings.

Sonia's 19-point programme may, however, prove a non-starter. Within hours of the code of conduct being made public, senior Congressmen were congratulating each other on finding escape routes. For example, the code says that Congressmen must "abstain from alcoholic drinks and intoxicating drugs". As one excited CWC member put it, "There is no bar on offering drinks to others. There is no bar on selling and manufacturing liquor. The bar is only on self-consumption of alcohol in public." The last two words must be the operative ones as more than half the 20-member CWC is known to enjoy its drink, albeit in discreet surroundings.

CLEANSING MANIFESTO

Some Sonia commandments
Thou shalt wear just khadi.

Thou shalt treat women as equal to men in all spheres.

Thou shalt not criticise party policies in the media.

Thou shalt not seek funds for the party, unless told to.

Thou shalt inform party, if arrested for a crime,

Thou shalt stay away from casteist, communal bodies.

Thou shalt promote the goal of small families.

Thou shalt volunteer help during riots, calamities.

Thou shalt fight and seek to efface untouchability.

Another clause calls for all party MPs, MLAs and office-bearers to present annual accounts of their income and assets. They have been asked to submit property returns on a form prescribed by the All India Congress Committee (AICC) within three months of their election or nomination. Strangely, immediate family members of such Congress leaders have been spared. As a Congress MP smirked, "The clause will become redundant as most of the property is benami or in the name of family members."

The code envisages that Congress members will be prompt in paying their taxes and other dues to the Government and the party. Since there is no mechanism to enable the party to ascertain the tax dues of its members, this clause seems mystifying. Actually, its purpose is not quite altruistic. "What concerns Soniaji," says a Congress functionary, "is that every MP, MLA and office-bearer pay one month's income to the party fund. The clause's emphasis will be on helping the party, which is facing an acute financial crisis."

Some sections of the code are no more than profound homilies. For instance, Congressmen have been asked to abstain from "vulgar display of wealth" and "pomp and ostentation at marriages and other social functions". Further, they have been asked to not give or receive dowry. Since dowry is banned anyway, does this clause amount to a quiet acceptance that Congress members are flagrantly violating the law?

The dowry injunction is only a pointer. In reality, much of the Sonia code is old hat, finding place in the Mahatma Gandhi-inspired Directive Principles and even in the Congress' constitution. The Congress president's attempt to whitewash her party is also nothing new. In December 1985, at the centenary session in Mumbai, Rajiv Gandhi had spoken of cleansing the party of "power brokers". Within two years, he found himself enmeshed in the Bofors scandal and his "Mr Clean" image tainted.

Later, P.V. Narasimha Rao used the last days of his term as prime minister to take on corruption. The hawala cases were renewed and scandal-linked partymen were denied tickets for the 1996 election. The problem with Rao's grand crusade was that it fooled no one, being directed at internal rivals. As Congress president, neither Rao nor his successor, Sitaram Kesri, could even appoint a drafting committee for the long-promised code of conduct.

That task was left to Sonia. Her first problem was to find men and women of unimpeachable integrity for the code-formulation panel. Given the state of the Congress, this couldn't have been an easy task. Nevertheless, the final list seemed satisfactory. The drafting committee was headed by A.K. Anthony. It had five other members: Manmohan Singh, Margaret Alva, Ahmed Patel, S.B. Chavan and M.C. Bhandare. By coincidence, not one of these leaders hails from a state the Congress is ruling.

Chavan was the most experienced in such matters, being chairman of the Rajya Sabha's Ethics Committee. He has travelled across the world, studying ethics-monitoring systems in a variety of polities. Bhandare was the legal eagle in the sextet. It was his job to hammer out the initial document. The deadline was tight as Sonia gave the committee just one month to accomplish its mission.

Bhandare faces up bravely to the charge that the code has nothing new. He asserts that there is a unique Sonia stamp in the stress on women's rights, on the electoral exile of those battling criminal and corruption charges and on population control. "No party," Bhandare says, "has dared to incorporate a provision on family planning as a parameter for giving tickets to workers. It is a bold step." The Congress president has ruled that any person who begets more than two children after January 1, 2000, cannot be a party candidate in any election. There is less clarity on the matter of those who may face court cases. While nobody charged with a crime can be held guilty till convicted, the Congress may decide to prejudge some of its members.

Bhandare says that any such decision will be taken by the ethics committee at the centre or in the state "on a case by case basis". The party may decide to deny nomination to a person who is still undergoing trial given "public perception and the merits of the case". Of course, Anthony clarifies that the new rules are only for fresh cases and cannot be applied retrospectively.

This isn't the only grey area. Nobody in the Congress is sure how and when the code will be implemented. Sonia has already indicated that it will lie in cold storage till November's elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi are over. Obviously, she does not want a burst of morality to inconvenience her selection of candidates for these polls. That apart, the ethics committees in Delhi and in the state capitals are yet to be appointed. The forms which the partymen will use to declare their financial status are nowhere close to being printed.

Privately, the drafting committee's members have been told they will be incorporated into the national ethics committee. A formal announcement is awaited. Next, the AICC plans to issue advertisements in the media outlining the code of conduct and inviting specific accusations from the public.

The ethics committee has been conceived as a quasi-judicial body. It will receive complaints and hold hearings. It will record evidence, issue summons and even supervise a Congress bureau of investigation, a sort of in-house CBI.

Congressmen, as usual, are hailing the code of conduct as the greatest act since creation. To quote but one example, Surinder Singla, former MP, has urged that the "humble beginning" not be dismissed lightly.

Sonia means business, goes the refrain. She has been able to do in six months what could not be achieved in 20 years -- since 1978, when Indira Gandhi split the old Congress and founded the Congress (I). Imitation being the best form of flattery, daughter organisations like the Youth Congress, Mahila Congress and Seva Dal have begun thinking of their own codes.

Beneath the hype, the Congress sees the release of the code as a desperate public relations exercise. At a time when one Congress chief minister (Orissa's J.B. Patnaik) faces charges of protecting a molester, a former chief minister (Gujarat's Amarsinh Chaudhary) is a bigamist, a former minister faces a court battle resulting from an adulterous liaison during an official visit overseas and scores of other partymen are under one cloud or the other, the code of conduct seems a joke. The point is the joke may be laughing back at the Congress.