Not an august month

Over the nearly six-and-a-half decades since the tryst with destiny, there have been several Independence anniversaries when the country has been in a sombre mood. Although the brief but brutal border war with China in 1962 had ended in December of that year, on I-Day eight months later, the humiliation the nation had felt over the military debacle and political disaster had shown no sign of abating.

On August 15, 1975, when the Emergency, declared seven weeks earlier, was in full blast, there was no hiding the nation’s despair even though it was inevitably silent. And while Indira Gandhi was delivering a pep talk of sorts from the ramparts of the Red Fort, the prevailing gloom deepened because of the news from Dhaka. Some disgruntled soldiers had slaughtered Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh, and several members of his family. No less heart-rending was the Independence anniversary in 1984 that fell midway between Operation Blue Star and Indira Gandhi’s assassination.
Today, just a few days ahead of the ritual rejoicing, the atmosphere may not be as grim as on aforementioned occasions. But gloom is very much there, and, significantly, it is excelled only by anger over the terrible state of the Republic. It is difficult to answer those who are asking: “What is there to celebrate?”
Corruption is nothing new in this country. It has been a part of India’s life from times immemorial. But never before has it acquired such gargantuan dimensions. To make matters worse, the limitless loot is accompanied by a decline in the rate of growth and rising inflation, with the greatest impact on the prices of food and other essential commodities. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s own economic advisory council, headed by C. Rangarajan, has stated that the Indian economy is “losing momentum”. N. R. Narayana Murthy, the highly respected founder of Infosys, has been even more forthright. He has told a TV channel that during the last two years and three months after returning to power, the United Progressive Alliance-II has failed to take any major decision on economic reform or policy. He has also endorsed the expert finding that corruption alone has brought down the rate of growth by 1.5 per cent.
What turns the knife in the wound is the irony that this stark failure has followed quickly the Congress-led UPA’s famous victory in the May 2009 Lok Sabha elections after which the Manmohan Singh government was expected to give the country a more coherent, competent and cleaner government.
Mr Murthy has very politely pointed out that the “dual leadership” of the ruling dispensation is one of the reasons for the yawning gap between the promise and the performance. Others have not been that courteous. So prestigious an international magazine as the Economist, for instance, has in a recent article described Dr Singh as “a Gandhi family retainer”. I am quoting this regretfully, only to underscore that this is what the bulk of the country believes. Congress loyalists stridently denying this are living — to use Jawaharlal Nehru’s words in a different context in 1962 — in “an artificial world of their own making.” It is inexplicable why the partnership between the Congress president and the Prime Minister, who have genuine mutual respect and share the same objectives, cannot be more purposeful.
Sadly, it is in such a situation that Mrs Sonia Gandhi has been taken ill, and has found it necessary to appoint a four-member “regency council” that includes — apart from her son and heir apparent, Rahul Gandhi — only defence minister A.K. Antony and two Congress party functionaries, political secretary to the Congress president, Ahmed Patel, and Mrs Gandhi’s chief spokesman, Janardhan Dwivedi. The council’s composition is already having repercussions on the uneasy equations within the rudderless party and even in the Cabinet.
However belated and involuntary, the arrests of former telecom minister A. Raja, powerful politicians such as Suresh Kalmadi and K. Kanimozhi, and some corporate honchos had enabled the Congress to claim that it was taking firm action against corruption in high places. The BJP’s double standards — carrying out an anti-corruption crusade in Delhi and protecting its own guilty men in Bengaluru — gave the ruling party additional comfort until B.S. Yeddyurappa had to go. Now the boot seems to be on the other foot. The Congress is equally addicted to double standards.
Even before the Lokayukta’s report exposing the unimaginable robbery of iron ore in Karnataka was presented, the Congress was demanding that Mr Yeddyurappa must go. But, after the fresh report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) on both the 2G and the Commonwealth Games mega-scams has come in, the ruling party is shouting hoarse that Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit cannot be asked to resign. Surprisingly, the party’s spokespersons have added that they had made a “mistake” in sacking then Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan because of the stinking Adarsh Housing scandal in Mumbai!
Both the mainstream parties are tarred with the same brush. Each shuts its eyes on the corruption in its own ranks and calls the other the epitome of this scourge. Reminds me of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous doctrine enjoining differentiation between “our sons of bitches and their S.O.Bs.”
It is this squalid behaviour of the entire political class, irrespective of party affiliations, that has enabled civic society “activists” like Anna Hazare to gather huge public support for even their outlandish and wholly unacceptable demands.
During recent days a faint ray of hope had appeared on the otherwise dark horizon. After the disruption of Parliament practically throughout the Winter Session and on the first two days of the current one, both sides had shown maturity and agreed to let the two Houses function. But, as Independence Day approaches, another bare-knuckle war between the Congress and the BJP seems inevitable. The reason is the determination of Murli Manohar Joshi, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and a senior BJP leader, to reissue the committee’s once rejected report on the 2G scam, and the Congress party’s resolve to checkmate him at all costs. What this would do to Parliament is no one’s concern.