Look beyond scams

One of the sorrier fall-outs of the year gone by — let’s call it Annus Scam-dulous — has been the erosion of trust among some of the most respected institutions of our democracy. Till very recently, the general public, at large, looked at these with respect and hope as small islands of probity in a cesspool of corruption. Today, the armed forces, the media, businessmen are all tainted and that is a truly sorry state of affairs.
The Indian politician, who has acquired a truly unsavoury reputation over the years (and rightly so, some may argue), will no doubt be happy about this. The people view politicians as corrupt to the core and the latter have done little to dispel that notion. Their sticky hands are found in several rackets and scandals. Often, their shadow looms over scams even if nothing can be proved. Their lavish lifestyles, never mind their overt khadi-clad simplicity are seen as proof that they must be corrupt. Even honest politicians — and there are many — get tarred with the same brush. It is almost taken for granted that they are on the take; the “loose talk” by CII mentor Tarun Das about big contracts offering the scope of skimming off 15 per cent from the top are seen as vindication of these perceptions.
But, as has become clear, politicians cannot operate without the help and connivance of bureaucrats. The politicians demands, the babu delivers. As files move up and down corridors of power, it is the babu who has to find legal and regulatory justifications and ensure that tracks are covered. The Adarsh Building scandal showed the sheer brazenness of this process; almost everyone who handled the file of the proposal to build a skyscraper on government owned (or defence owned, no one yet knows for sure) land has a flat in the building in his or her relative’s name. The padded contracts for the Commonwealth Games were passed by bureaucrats and officials down the line, even if Suresh Kalmadi was the boss.
At one time babus were respected and hailed as the steel frame of the country’s administrative structure. Only lowly clerks and peons were seen as corrupt. Today, one is not so sure.
What about businessmen, our great corporate chieftains who have become the icons of New India? In the bad old socialist days businessmen had a bad odour about them. Their profiteering ways were seen as anathema in a poor country. The government kept them at arm’s length.
After liberalisation, making money was no longer seen as a sin or a crime. Newspapers, magazines and then television channels hailed them as the great heroes of our time, pioneers who would lead India to a path of unbridled growth and make it a superpower. The government too accorded them respect and status. And businessmen went on a PR overdrive, successfully transforming themselves into not only heads of enterprises but also visionaries and intellectuals. How often have we heard that we should make a company CEO as our supreme leader to solve all our problems?
Alas, the Radia tapes show that our businessmen are not as pristine as we thought they were. Though the licence raj has gone, the seedy ways of doing business are still around. Muscle out the competition by hook or by crook — that is still the name of the game.
Arguably the two biggest institutions to be hit in 2010 have been the defence forces and the media. Despite the occasional scandal here and there, Indians believed in the Army and the Navy as being the bedrock of uprightness. To find out that top admirals and generals wanted to get their grubby hands on subsidised property is disappointing.
As for the media, the Radia tapes have succeeded in demolishing hard won reputations. Whatever the truth may be, we cannot deny that a perception has been created about journalists being too cosy with power structures and ready to lease out their credibility. The average citizen relied on the media to expose wrongdoing; now it turns out that the watchdog’s teeth had been blunted. For a long time there were many debates taking place within the media community about some shoddy practices that had crept into the profession; the Radia tapes brought those debates out into the open.
It has been a sorry year for many pillars of our establishment. But, one could also look at the brighter side of it. The rot within these institutions has now come out into the open. From here on we could either sit and moan about how terrible things are or do something to build more effective checks and balances to ensure that such blatant misuse of power does not take place. And of course bring all wrong-doers to book. Some good may come out of it after all.

The writer is a senior journalist and commentator on current affairs based in Mumbai