Political Diary

New Delhi, 11 July 2015

Vyapam, 46 Dead & Counting…

A CORRUPT STATE, BIG DEAL/?

By Poonam I Kaushish

Corruption is authority plus monopoly minus transparency. This home-truth continues to ring loud and clear in the BJP-led NDA Government. After Prime Minister Modi’s four ‘scandalous’ Devis, Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara  Raje in Lalitgate, Smriti Irani’s ‘fake’ educational qualification and Maharashtra’s Pankaja Munde in a Rs 230 crores ‘goodies’ scam, we are now in the throes of the latest maelstrom over Madhya Pradesh’s Vyapam scandal, which spells a killer epidemic!

An acronym of the mind-boggling manipulations in the selection process for Government jobs including police Sub Inspectors and professional courses such as medicine and engineering conducted by the State’s Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal which has metamorphosed into a deadly sleaze  engulfing Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan even as people connected with it die like flies!

Already, it has netted former MP Education Minister Lakshmikant Sharma in the contract teachers’ recruitment test and in all likelihood Governor Ram Naresh Yadav might have to resign as an FIR is pending for accepting bribes in the recruitment of forest guards. Bringing things to such a pass, that it is raining crores thereby drenching netagan, bureaucrats, judges and businessmen in the mega scandal.

The modus operandi of the scam which took place between 2008-13 was simple: bribing officials, forging answer sheets, impersonating candidates and even manipulating seating arrangements. In December 2009 the Chief Minister set up a Committee which reported that over 114 candidates had cleared exams with the help of impersonators-doctors or talented senior students. This was followed by the MP High Court monitoring investigations through a SIT from 2012 and despite 2000 people arrested.

Big deal, it’s happened before. Remember, Punjab’s cash-for-job scandal in 2002, Maharashtra’s Public Service Commission recruitment swindle and Haryana’s of 3,216 junior basic teachers recruitment fiddle during Chautala’s INLD rule 1999-2000 which landed him and his son in jail for 10 years in 2009.

But when witnesses started dying mysteriously, 48 people and counting, did New Delhi wake up and the Supreme Court ordered CBI to get to the bottom of the truth. Predictably, Vyapam has given the Opposition a big stick to beat the NDA with. Murder, it screams, ‘coincidence’ asserts the Government! All going through the motions till the next scandal erupts and this will be dumped into the dustbins of history!

Aided ably by our wheels of justice which grind at a snail’s pace whereby a case take a minimum of 10-12 years to reach its conclusion. The Punjab scam netted it first culprit in April, 13 years later. Any wonder, our politicians merrily affirm the “law will take its own course” without batting an eyelid.

Undeniably, Vyapam has raised a moot point: What does one do when the State itself is corrupt? Weep? Join the melee? Dismiss it as India is a land of chors. Be an island in a swarming sea of red faces or reconcile oneself to a fresh round of political doublespeak between the pot calling the kettle black. The more corrupt the State, the louder the denials and procrastinations. 

Sadly the principle of sovereign immunity” continues to protect our netagan and babudom. Operating in our expanded concept of “instrumentally of State.” Never mind, that that the principle itself is a contradiction in a democracy. It was derived from English Common Law wherein the king could do no wrong. Once we had abandoned kings it should have been given a burial.

However, our polity continues to cling to this royal privilege. It was primarily intended to protect a public servant from liability, not prosecution. But today our rulers have extended this concept of prosecution even from the process of investigation.

Notably, in the last few days, our netagan have once again conclusively established that the system is rotten with none interested in reforming it. How else should one react to the wholesale corruption which has corroded the pillars of democracy.

But, for reasons best know to it, Prime Minister Modi along with the BJP has decided to be bald faced about the grave charges of impropriety and corruption both at the Centre and in States. So much for Modispeak of “Main na toh khaata huin na khaane doonga”. What happened to his Wada? 

More scandalous, unlike the Congress-led UPA which succumbed to public pressure when Ministers who were caught with their hands in the till and were given the boot, the Sangh Parivar plays either dumb or gets sanctimonious Ministers and spokespersons  to justify the political misdemeanours by pointing fingers at the UPA or trying to wriggle out by citing legalese. Sic.

Plainly, Modispeak rings loud and clear: We will brazen it out, no matter what the consequences. Endorsed by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, “Our Ministers do not have to resign. This is not the Congress Government. This is NDA Government." Underscoring that they have no shame, or desire to rein in corruption and be accountable to the people.

True, bribery, money laundering, incentives, fees for services rendered and scams have become a way of life. But Vyapam goes a step further than just corroding recruitments for public services. Frankly, it underscores two things: one, it is birthing a generation of illiterate and mediocre doctors, teachers, bureaucrats, lawyers et al.

Two, we are training them to be corrupt. Arguably, in a land where public morality is non-existent, what corruption are we talking about? Aren’t we accustomed to paying bribes for everything from getting a ration card to a driving licence. What’s the big deal about being rotten?

Give me a break. Jut pin it down to a system’s failure. And carry on as always. Don’t even bother to point an accusing finger lest four point back at you. And, believe, me that will only get your blood pressure up. What else? Let the lost, bribe and deals continue, while national affairs get drowned under political tu-tu-mein-mein of my corrupt leaders’ vs. yours deluge even as money burns holes in the aam aadmi’s pocket.

It is time our rulers who follow the dictum ‘might is right’ and operate like Gangs of Wasseypur understand that there are moments when cynical calculations of political convenience become repugnant. Indeed, if the Government is seized of the urgency to purge the malaise now is the time to introduce honesty --- and not the low cholesterol gibberish and inane legalese. One can only recall Prof. Galbraith who said years ago: “There is nothing wrong with Indian laws, nothing wrong with its economy, or with its political and judicial institutions. What ails India is its moral poverty.’

Clearly, the lack of integrity at higher levels needs to be dealt with iron-fisted without further delay for our democracy’s health. Failing which we may at best continue to be a ramshackle corrupt democracy, where few will accept honesty to be the best policy. How long will Prime Minister Modi simply look the other way and allow his USP to be buried under political expediency?

He needs to remember a basic truth: Truth is not determined by majority vote.  Let us keep our fingers crossed that probity does not become oxymoron to the Indian politicians! What gives? ----- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)