The stainless past

The ruling party has begun to cleanse itself of the stain of corruption. The first to go are Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan and Suresh Kalmadi. The former has been dropped as chief minister as the stench arising from the Adarsh housing scam in Mumbai threatened to turn into a deadly toxin in the Winter Session of Parliament. The latter has been removed as Congress Parliamentary Party secretary in the midst of multiple investigations into financial irregularities in the organisation of the Delhi Commonwealth Games. The speed of these actions has taken most by surprise, even if the compelling force was more political than moral.

Our ancestors set great store in integrity and values in public affairs. A very perceptive and practical practitioner of statecraft, Chanakya, the prime minister of the Mauryan Empire, gave a fine example of personal integrity. One evening, the Greek ambassador came to see him. Chanakya extinguished the lamp he was using and lit another. The ambassador enquired why. Chanakya replied that the first lamp was his own, which he used for his private work. The second lamp was of the state, which he used for official work.
The Mahatma made politics a saintly vocation. During the civil disobedience movement, millions were mobilised and success appeared within grasp. He then suddenly called off the movement because of the Chauri Chaura incident. Gandhi insisted that both the end and the means had to be right. Sardar Patel was a flourishing barrister at Ahmedabad when he gave up his practice to join the freedom movement. When he died he left no immovable property anywhere, except a small house in his village which he had inherited. His bank balance was `270. He had been the treasurer of the Congress Party for 30 years and had dealt with 500 ruling princes, including the Nizam of Hyderabad who was then the richest man in the world. Dr Rajendra Prasad was President of India for 11 years. He drew only `1,000 from his salary and surrendered the remainder. After having lived in the splendour of Rashtrapati Bhavan, he returned to Patna to live in a thatched hut in Sadaqat Ashram, from where he had conducted the freedom struggle. Shastri was a poor man. He was a paid Congress worker at Anand Bhavan, Allahabad, with an allowance of `40 per month. He discovered that his wife was running his household on only `30 per month. He got his allowance reduced to `30. He resigned as railway minister, owning moral responsibility for a train disaster. Govind Ballabh Pant, while leading a peaceful procession in Lucknow, was injured in a police lathi-charge. A sub-inspector’s lathi blow on his neck damaged a vein. For the rest of his life his head constantly shook. As CM, he approved the promotion of that sub-inspector to DSP, saying he had only done his duty. These incidents highlight the type of political leadership India had when she threw out the greatest empire known to history. Do our present leaders measure up? We won our freedom primarily due to our political leadership. Today India is emerging as a leading power in spite of our present political leadership.
T.T. Krishnamachari had to resign as finance minister during the Nehru era because of allegations of corruption in the Mundra affair. Today, corrupt ministers hang on to their chair, awaiting final judgment by the Supreme Court. Hardly any politician is ever punished despite rampant corruption amongst them. Indira Gandhi once said corruption was a global phenomenon. In her days, corruption was talked of in whispers. Bofors started a new era of very high profile corruption and became a subject of national debate. A blatant cover-up ensured no action could be taken against anyone. The amount involved was `63 crores. This is peanuts compared to the recent scams which run into thousands of crores. There is a general feeling that, as in the case of Bofors, nothing will come out of the inquiries into these scams. Not only politicians but people in every vocation, be it the judiciary, military, bureaucracy or media, have been tainted with corruption. Political corruption is the root cause of this. According to a Swiss estimate, Indians have $1,454 billion stashed away in Swiss banks. This is more than what the rest have in Swiss banks put together.
Hereditary rule is another malady that mocks our democracy. The concept has spread rapidly to almost all parties, except those of the Left. Even the Bharatiya Janata Party now has stray incidents. At the Centre, a mansabdari system prevails with the progeny of old loyalists inducted into the ruling circle. The regional parties have also avidly adopted heredity. We have states in which the father is the CM and the son the deputy CM. Along with heredity, abject sycophancy also flourishes. During the Emergency, the heir apparent was compared with Shankaracharya. His slippers, which fell off a helicopter, were picked up by the CM of UP. Today the heir apparent is compared to Jayaprakash Narayan, ignoring the fact that the latter had delivered a body blow to the party.
Ambedkar had warned in the Constituent Assembly on March 23, 1949 that “Bhakti in religion may be a road to salvation of the soul but in politics Bhakti, or hero worship, is a sure road to degeneration and eventual dictatorship”.
Vote bank politics, in total disregard of values and probity, is another bane of Indian polity. Nehru never held iftar parties at state expense but this has now become common practice. Crores of tax-payers’ money is spent on advertisements for self-glorification of party presidents and ministers. B.K. Nehru lamented in his autobiography that in the old days the Congress gave primacy to national interests, but now party interests have become supreme.
Our nation seems to be hurtling down an abyss. Our youth, the hope of the future, must arrest this situation. Inner-party democracy, auditing of party funds, right to record a negative vote, right to recall an elected representative, debarring criminals from participating in politics and fast-track courts to deal with corruption and award deterrent punishment are all imperatives. The country has to be pulled out of the quagmire to fulfil the dreams of those who won us our freedom.

The author, a retired lieutenant-general, was Vice-Chief of Army Staff and has served as governor of Assam and Jammu and Kashmir.