Those in glass houses...

By Swapan Dasgupta

Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal is an effective and even inspirational communicator. However, there is something a bit jarring in his over-sanctimoniousness, particularly his underlying message that those who are not with him are somehow implicitly in favour of a corrupt system. This exaggerated polarisation may have won him adherents but his contrived saintliness has also made many people deeply uncomfortable. Such people may actually delight in some recent revelations that seem to suggest that those living in glass houses should be wary of hurling stones.

To be fair, the Media Sarkar sting operation directed at a handful AAP candidates for the Delhi Assembly doesn’t conclusively establish that the so-called ‘alternative politics’ is a sham. To say that many of those contesting on the AAP symbol are in no different from the archetypal venal politician is an exaggeration. The AAP hasn’t been around for long enough and hasn’t ever tasted political power to become tainted. However, the sting operation—which also happens to be dodgy journalism—does end up conveying a disturbing message.

It is important to note that people aren’t born corrupt. They don’t even necessarily become corruption by dipping their toes in political waters. The real test of integrity is when an individual has the opportunity to be corrupt and refuses to succumb to it. Those who have no real opportunity and occasion to engage in corrupt practices can stay pure. But that is not to say that they are inherently pure. The person who is charged with rape in a hotel lift in Goa wasn’t always a person who lacked all scruples and cynically crafted a career path using lofty idealism as commerce. No, his downfall began when he was overwhelmed by the opportunities available to him. He was intoxicated by his power. And, inevitably, the arrogance of power produced a disagreeable form of moral corruption.

In his pious rebuttal of the charges levelled against AAP candidates, its political guru Yogendra Yadav said that there was nothing to warrant disciplinary action against those who were ‘stung’. In a sense he was right. No money changed hands and nothing improper was actually done. Yet, the Media Sarkar sting did establish something that is potentially very damaging to the AAP: it suggested that given the right incentives, even the workers of a holier-than-outfit were willing to join the ranks of a disagreeable political class.

What the (albeit edited) sting tapes clearly indicated were two things. First, that like most outfits facing a resource crunch to fight elections, the AAP candidates weren’t too particular about the motives behind funding, the source of the funds and, in some cases, over-the-top cash donations. Secondly, and this is the most disturbing aspect of the revelations, the AAP activists appear to have turned a blind eye to the fact that the proposed donations had a definite quid pro quo to them. That AAP candidates were willing to lend a sympathetic ear and even promise possible action to intervene in private disputes involving either companies or landlords and tenants is revealing. Shazia Ilmi, the ever-smiling candidate for RK Puram, did clearly state that she needed documentary evidence to be convinced about the rights and wrongs of the case. Yet, she was not averse to any intervention in a civil dispute that has no bearing on the larger public interest.

The conclusions are distressing. They suggest that there are people in the AAP who, far from practising ‘alternative’ and wholesome politics, are mentally willing to walk down the same treacherous path as many other political parties.

I would be extremely hesitant to suggest that the likes of Messrs Kejriwal, Yadav and others are cynical practitioners of realpolitik and are devoid of scruples. But their unwillingness to admit the party’s shortcomings and instead fall back on attacking the cussedness of Media Sarkar in not supplying the original tapes is revealing. It indicates that, in anticipation of a good performance in the election, the AAP is not willing to practice the lofty idealism it preaches.

Actually, this embracement of pragmatism began earlier. Beginning with Kejriwal’s courtship of sundry clerics who claimed to control Muslim vote banks and including his overtures to disappointed ticket aspirants from the big parties, the AAP has given indications that it is ready to embrace many aspects of electoral politics as it now exists. Changing the political culture is a lofty goal and can’t be achieved through one electoral intervention. But the AAP doesn’t appear to have tried too hard.

Perhaps I am being unduly harsh on the AAP. However, when a party makes saintliness is uniqueness and sets lofty standards for others to follow, there will be an inclination to judge it by its own standards.

There are major lessons to be learnt from the jam the AAP finds itself in. For a start, it must realise that finding pristine pure individuals who will resist all temptations is an impossible mission. Secondly, the AAP must realise that just as it is unfair to judge it by the lapses of a few individuals in its ranks, it is equally unfair to judge other parties solely on account of a few rotten eggs. The point to note that politics has become such a disagreeable business that deviants are naturally attracted to it. Changing the tone and tenor of politics and statecraft involves a national awakening that can’t happen by getting a few AAP candidates elected in Delhi. 

Sunday Pioneer, November 24, 2013

Rot stems from ill-conceived coal nationalization plan

By Swapan Dasgupta

Subhash Chakravarti, a legendary Chief of Bureau of Times of India, recently recounted an encounter between Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the West Bengal Congress supremo Atulya Ghosh in the early-1960s.  

“I have heard”, Nehru told Ghosh accusingly, “that you are a bit too friendly with Calcutta’s Marwari businessmen”. Never inclined to kowtow to someone he regarded as a poseur, Ghosh’s reply was characteristically blunt: “What you have heard is right. Our party needs money, not merely for Bengal but for UP and Bihar too. Who do you think funds us? Without that money you wouldn’t be wearing that rose on your lapel.”

Nehru was taken aback by this insolence and complained to his old friend Dr B.C. Roy who was Chief Minister of West Bengal. Dr Roy laughed it off but delighted in repeating the story to others. These probably included S.K. Patil, the Bombay Congress boss with a reputation for being pro-business and pro-US.  Patil used to rue that he was the target of unending radical derision except before elections and when it was time to lobby Washington for food aid.  

The tendency to look upon India’s corporate sector as the proverbial ‘kept’ woman who could only be visited stealthily and in the dead of night (I thank the late Pramod Mahajan for this imagery) has been an undesirable Nehruvian legacy. If Nehru shared the upper-class English socialist disdain for ‘trade’ and new money, Indira Gandhi was positively vengeful towards Indian business following her battle with the Syndicate, and Rajiv Gandhi was plain confused over how much elbow room should be given to the private sector. However, there was one common dynastic consensus: business must pick up the tab for political expenses. A highly regulated capitalism, it was decreed, must underwrite India’s experiments with socialism.

It was an expedient arrangement that allowed patrician socialists to serve the poor without being preoccupied with where the money was coming from. One Nehru sibling who enjoyed global fame was, for example, particularly forgetful about settling shopping and hotel bills.

When the private sector proved unable to deliver the full booty—and this began to happen as the license-permit raj began to be excessively suffocating for business—the necessary surplus was creamed off from state funds. A breed of politically loyal but parasitic contractor class was created by Indira Gandhi to offset the influence of old money. Additionally, exceptional discretionary favours were doled out to business houses which were considered ‘reliable’. Business, as Dhirbuhai Ambani famously said, became a matter of “managing the environment.”

What we are today witnessing are big cracks in a system whose principal objective was income generation for the ruling dispensation rather than the economic growth of the country. The CBI clearly erred if its reason for wishing to prosecute a former Coal Secretary and industrialist Kumaramangalam Birla was the fact that Hindalco ate into a coal allotment initially been made to a public sector unit. To treat the private sector as a poor cousin or, indeed, a predator, makes no sense. However, the real reason for widespread suspicion of influence-peddling and corruption is that the coal block allotments were governed by discretion, the Prime Minister’s Office having earlier rejected the more transparent process of auctions. It was this flawed selection system which resulted in a large chunk of India’s coal reserves being parcelled out to those who were either linked to the ruling party or were willing to pay a political cess for every ton of coal extracted.

However, it is reassuring that the CBI’s peremptoriness has generated a sense of outrage. In part the issue is all about a senior bureaucrat being punished for following a political order and an industrialist pulling strings to further his very legitimate business interests—there was no other option. But the real rot stemmed from an ill-conceived coal nationalisation that has proved an unmitigated disaster and which has cost India dearly.

It is curious that the Hindalco chairman was named after Mohan Kumaramangalam, the charismatic Communist-turned-Congressman who presided over coal nationalisation and other socialist excesses. Today, to take liberties with Karl Marx, the fawning of an earlier generation must be weighing “like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” 

Sunday Times of India, October 20, 2013

Journalists and the economics of truth

By Swapan Dasgupta

The collapse of the Saradha Group, said to be a ‘Ponzi’ scheme, has created political ripples in West Bengal. Accusations have been levelled against MPs and other functionaries of the Trinamool Congress for both patronising and providing political cover to a flamboyant entrepreneur who ended up either short-changing or cheating many thousands of people of modest means their limited life savings. The West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, unaccustomed to handling charges of financial impropriety, has reacted in the only way she knows: by levelling shrill and sometimes outlandish charges against her political opponents, particularly the CPI(M) and Congress. She has also raised hackles by suggesting that “what is lost is lost.”

That the Chief Minister and the TMC would bear the brunt of the outrage over the Saradha collapse was only to be expected. The so-called “suicide note” that Saradha’s founder chairman Sudipta Sen sent to the CBI before his arrest in a Kashmir resort make it quite clear that he indulged some people close to the TMC because it provided him a measure of protection. He also said that that he paid a whopping Rs 40 crores to two Marwari businessmen and the office-bearer of a prominent football club for the sole purpose of “managing the SEBI” officers in Mumbai. These businessmen claimed proximity to a Congress politician who has risen to a very high Constitutional post. In addition, he paid consultancy fees of approximately Rs one crore and took care of the hotel bills of the wife of a senior Cabinet minister because he was told that “if this…family slightly stand by me then I will be (sic) great clout in India.”

Since a man who is charged with grave offences may well level grave charges against prominent individuals to deflect attention and, indeed, politicise a straight-forward financial scam, it may well be improper to repeat the names of prominent people whose palms Sen claims to have generously greased. In any event, most of these names are now in the public domain and their identities are no longer a well-guarded secret or a subject of speculation. However, since the moral credentials of a man who presents himself as a sincere entrepreneur who was ignorant of SEBI guidelines on accepting deposits from the public and who in turn was both blackmailed and duped by others more unscrupulous than him, hasn’t yet been fully established, it is best to view the contents of his “suicide note” with a large measure of caution.

Yet, while the political aspects of Sen’s defence of his misconduct have got full play in the media, there is another facet of his protestations of innocence that have been glossed over. In the concluding part of his 18-page dying declaration, Sen wrote: “My over all business fall down is due to the media entry, extortion from the above named persons and blackmailed by my own staffs and executives.”

Since the CBI, it has now emerged in the course of the Coalgate controversy that threatens to destroy the Mammohan Singh Government, is accustomed to consulting the executive to check the grammar of its depositions, it may not be too hard for them to have Sen’s “last statement” translated into English.

In a nutshell, Sen’s accusation is startling. Once people got wind of the fact that what the Saradha bosses and their agents were doing all over eastern India, they started viewing him as the proverbial milch cow. Leading this pack of predators were not politicians, but people who ostensibly claimed to be from the media. Thus, in order to save himself from attacks in the media, Sen decided to invest in the very people who were either conducting so-called investigative journalism or threatening to expose him. He bought Channel 10, a Bengali news channel, for some Rs 30 crore and engaged his erstwhile tormentors to provide him content for Rs 60 lakhs each month. The erstwhile tormentors gave him “assurance that (on) execution of this agreement they will protect my business from the government i.e. State Government and also Central Government and I will be able to get a smooth passage…” Blessed with this assurance, Sen sunk in Rs 50 crore into the channel and started three dailies.

Ironically, Sen’s entry into the media resulted in all the media hyenas rushing to his door with the same threats and blandishments. The estranged wife of a former Congress minister at the Centre used her political clout to pay Rs 25 crore to establish a channel for the North-east. Another Rs 28 crore was paid to the former minister himself for 50 per cent share of another channel beamed at the North-east. A Congress MLA from Assam sold him a printing press and a newspaper for Rs 6 crore. And one enterprising freelancer extracted Rs 50 lakh and more from Saradha to set up an English channel.

What emerges from these revelations is a very disturbing phenomenon: instead of being a watchdog against evil and wrong-doing, as it claims to be, a large section of the media has become a part of the problem itself. Just as Bollywood became criminalised from the proceeds of the Mumbai underworld, a large part of the media has become a cover for criminal enterprise. From chit fund scamsters to real estate sharks, the media has become a tool for buying influence. To me, that is the most disturbing lesson from the Saradha scandal. 

Deccan Chronicle/ Asian Age, May 3, 2013

Later Gandhis same as later Mughals?

By Swapan Dasgupta

Indians have an elevated perception of their own moral standing in the world—as the nation that has been wedded to lofty spiritualism for many thousands of years, as the civilisation that put personal ethics over the quest for power, and as the karmabhoomi of the Buddha, Guru Nanak and Mahatma Gandhi. What is less appreciated is that this faith in collective self-superiority is not universally shared, and certainly not in the West. The Occident’s view of what the Orient represents doesn’t make very flattering reading.

Some of the most damning indictments of the flawed Indian have, naturally enough, come from Britons who have had the most sustained engagement with Hindustan. Robert Clive, the rogue who cut every corner to establish the foundations of the British Empire in India, made a fortune from his swashbuckling ways. Yet, when he returned to England to enjoy his fame and fortune, he found himself the subject of a Parliamentary inquiry for acquiring assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.

Clive defended himself with characteristic gusto, claiming that in view of the temptations, he was “astounded by his own moderation.” But more than emphasising his own uprightness, Clive’s defence rested on the assertion that corruption was a way of life in India. “From time immemorial”, he told his inquisitors, “it has been the custom of that country, for an inferior power never to come into the presence of a superior without a present. It begins at the Nabob and ends at the lowest man who has an inferior.”

The omnipresence of Indian venality was recognised by the stalwarts of the East India Company as an inescapable reality. If Britain was to do business with India, it would have to recognise the grim truth of Lord Cornwallis’s claim that “Every native of Hindustan, I verily believe, is corrupt.”

Nor was this accommodation of local custom limited to graft. Duplicity in dealings and negotiable standards of truthfulness were the two other features of public conduct that confronted the foreigner. Innumerable civil servants who were entrusted with dispensing justice were aghast at the ease with which witnesses committed perjury if that suited their self-interest. In February 1905, while delivering the address at the Calcutta University convocation, Lord Curzon (one of the few Viceroys who was genuinely fond of India) lit a bush fire by claiming that “I hope I am making no false or arrogant claim when I say that the highest ideal of truth is to a large extent a Western conception… (U)ndoubtedly, truth took a high place in the moral codes of the West before it had been similarly honoured in the East, where craftiness and diplomatic wile have always been held in much repute.”

In Kim, Rudyard Kipling’s classic tale of the Anglo-Indian encounter, the Eurasian street urchin watches the disoriented Tibetan lama narrate his search for his disciple to a passer-by: “Kim stood amazed at this, because he had overheard the talk in the Museum, and knew that the old man was speaking the truth, which is a thing a native seldom presents to a stranger.”

Subsequently, describing the boy’s friendship with the spy-cum-horse trader Mahbub Ali, Kipling stressed Mahbub knew that “Kim was the one soul in the world who had never told him a lie. That would have been a fatal blot on Kim’s character if Mahbub had not known that to others, for his own ends or Mahbub’s business, Kim could lie like an Oriental.”

There is a strong temptation these days to dismiss these awkward observations on the Indian character as being racially and political prejudiced—what Edward Said has characterised as the condescension of “Orientalism”.  Equally, there is an inclination to highlight the role of ‘dharma’ in moulding the individual India’s perception of right and wrong.

Actually, it would seem there is no contradiction between the two. Just as the Indian manages to effortlessly reconcile a strong sense of personal hygiene with public squalor, the tendency to see salvation as a personal initiative has invariably prompted a detachment from the disrepute of public life. “Responsible Government” the British ICS officer Sir Michael O’Dwyer (who earned notoriety with the Rowlatt Act) wrote after a lifetime in India, “has no meaning to the Indian peoples, no equivalent in any Indian vernacular”. 

O’Dwyer was not entirely correct because “Ram Rajya” came to denote virtuous and enlightened governance. But he was right in emphasising that in the hierarchy of values, Hindus have attached greater value to the self over the state. This isn’t because of any insufficient attachment to wider dealings: the importance of trust in Indian business practices has been known and appreciated for centuries. Yet, there is a profound alienation from the ethical underpinnings of politics and governance which outsiders have noted and repeatedly taken advantage of.

The latest saga of the 10 per cent or so commission paid to agents and an unnamed ‘family’ for facilitating a Rs 3,600 crore helicopter purchase from an Italian firm has an air of eerie inevitability about it. Short-changing the public exchequer, subverting public officials and discounting the larger good have been the driving principles of national life for too long.

I haven’t read what the Italian whistle-blower deposed before the Magistrate and public prosecutor. But I won’t be surprised if they resemble Lord Clive’s observations on the India of the decrepit Moghul Shah Alam. The later Moghuls and the later Gandhis: is there any difference?

Sunday Pioneer, September 17, 2013 

Modi fuels this bizarre convergence

By SWAPAN DASGUPTA

The excuses the Congress and the BJP are making for the business dealings of Robert Vadra and Nitin Gadkari seem driven by a shared fear of Narendra Modi

Even before the brutal nature of the Stalinist regime was formally admitted by Nikita Khrushchev in 1956, many well-meaning socialists throughout the world were aware that what existed in the Soviet Union was a travesty. Yet, a great many of these idealists chose to look the other way in the belief that criticism would weaken the socialist state, encourage “counter-revolutionaries” and weaken the bigger fight against fascism and imperialism.

Having to choose between upholding what the British philosopher Roger Scruton termed “common decencies” and endorsing the lesser evil has confronted political activists for long. In the past year, this hoary debate has surfaced in India following a spate of corruption scandals that have seriously undermined the credibility of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance-2 government. Far from being celebrated as a mildly progressive dispensation concerned with nurturing socio-economic entitlements for the poor and the marginalised, the magnitude of corruption has created a widespread impression that the apparent concern for the aam aadmi is a cover for riotous crony capitalism.

VADRA AND THE CONGRESS

Matters have come to a head following the flood of disclosures of the dodgy business practices of Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Media reports indicate that Vadra leveraged his privileged relationship with the Gandhi family to circumvent rules and procedures and make a fast buck for both himself and DLF, one of India’s largest listed real estate companies. It is also alleged that Vadra cleverly anticipated crucial decisions by Congress-controlled governments in Haryana and Rajasthan to make windfall profits — what in common parlance is called insider trading.

The details of Vadra’s entrepreneurship are revealing for what they tell us about the realty business in India’s boom towns. Politically, however, the issue is far more consequential. For the first time since 1974 when the CPI(M) MP Jyotirmoy Basu infuriated Indira Gandhi by raising awkward questions about Sanjay Gandhi’s Maruti project in Haryana, the Gandhi family has been directly hit by a money scandal. Sonia Gandhi may have reportedly brushed away the allegations by asserting that Vadra is a “businessman” but that hasn’t insulated her from the charge that she did nothing to prevent her exalted family name to be used for disreputable advantage. Since the tone of a government is set by its leadership, the first family of the Congress may well be accused of embellishing the architecture of India’s all-pervasive crony capitalism.

Without doubt, the business ethics of Vadra, not to mention his sneering sense of entitlement, has created a large hole in the moral edifice of the Congress. This, in turn, is certain to shape popular perceptions in the run-up to the general election unless, of course, the UPA is spectacularly successful in shifting the attention of voters away from sleaze.

For the Congress, unflinching loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi family is an article of faith and, as such, it occasions little surprise that party leaders have fiercely protested Vadra’s innocence. For opinion-makers who are loosely supportive of Nehruvian values, the kerfuffle over corruption has raised awkward questions. While they are not inclined towards encouraging venality in public life, there is concern that the erosion of the Congress’ credibility will benefit the principal Opposition party. In particular they are petrified that the disgust over economic mismanagement and cronyism will trigger a fascination for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, a leader who, at least BJP supporters believe, combines decisiveness with fierce personal integrity. Since, in liberal eyes, Modi personifies an “authoritarian” mindset, if not outright fascism, prudent politics demands that the fight against corruption — the proverbial lesser evil — be shelved till another day.

GADKARI AND HIS DEFENCE

Paradoxically, this is a position that has cast a shadow over the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which, as the principal parliamentary Opposition, stands to gain most from the erosion in the Congress’ support. The plethora of questions over the seed capital of BJP president Nitin Gadkari’s business empire, and the lack of credible answers to these, have both embarrassed and outraged his party. Since the BJP doesn’t have dynastic pretensions and still sees itself as favouring “value-based politics,” there has been less inclination to rush to Gadkari’s defence with the same passion that the Congress demonstrated in the case of Vadra. Even those who have proffered the template defence of Gadkari having offered himself to an impartial inquiry can scarcely conceal their disquiet over the “immoral” equivalence being drawn between the BJP and the Congress. It is significant that apart from L.K. Advani and Sushma Swaraj, few of the BJP’s front-ranking leaders and no chief minister have spoken up for Gadkari.

Yet, the scepticism in the ranks over showcasing damaged goods hasn’t succeeded (so far) in removing Gadkari. On the contrary, emboldened by the bewildered ambivalence of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Advani’s mystifying distinction between business practices and public life, and Swaraj’s unequivocal support, Gadkari has taken recourse to brazenness — as was evident in his show of strength in Nagpur last Monday. To the outside world, Gadkari has successfully managed to convey the impression that, never mind the accompanying ridicule and potential loss of a political plank, the “parivar” and party are behind him. The BJP president has wilfully overstated the quantum of backing for himself. But he has been able to get away with this hype by craftily exploiting the prevailing uncertainty over what follows a possible resignation. Actually, it is more than uncertainty. There is considerable fear in a small but powerful section of the BJP that the failure of the Gadkari experiment will facilitate a hegemonic role for Modi — assuming he wins the Gujarat Assembly election conclusively. The Gujarat leader is unquestionably the man most BJP activists and BJP-inclined voters believe is best suited to both taking on the Congress and stealing the thunder of the anti-corruption crusaders. Whether unattached voters who are disgusted by the moral decline of the country also agree with this faith in his leadership is still untested. But what isn’t in any doubt is that Modi threatens the cosy somnolence of bipartisan deal-making involving the main political parties. For many in the BJP, Modi isn’t merely a challenge; he constitutes a threat.

There is an unholy convergence of interests between a Congress determined to put a lid on the corruption issue by simultaneously creating a hype over economic reforms and establishing moral equivalence between Vadra and Gadkari, and that section of the BJP which wants to deny Modi a national role. As of now, the battle lines are confined to the opinion-forming industry in which the intelligentsia and the middle classes play a disproportionate role. In the coming months, as the general election approaches, the issues are going to percolate the social ladder. Will the aam aadmi also choose to overlook corruption as something inherent in the Indian way? Alternatively, will there be an angry vote, perhaps even for a different way of doing politics? In that case, which is the lesser evil?

The Hindu, October 31, 2012

Cornered netas great for TRPs

By Swapan Dasgupta

Just as cinema viewers (or least they did so in the old days) clap and cheer the hero as he delivers devastating blows to the villain and his flunkeys, today’s TV audiences really get turned on at the sight of political leaders and their spokespersons squirming as they try and field embarrassing questions.

The past month has been great for TV anchors. They have competed with each other in hurling sharp questions at politicians and then smirking in triumph. The audiences have delighted at the spectacle of silver-tongued netas tie themselves up in knots trying to defend the indefensible and getting needlessly aggressive as credible logic evades them.

By and large it has been the Congress which has at the receiving end of the media’s politician baiting. But last week was open season on the BJP thanks to the innovative business practices of its President Nitin Gadkari. As someone who isn’t inimical to the BJP, it was painful to watch its representatives who, only the other day were thundering against the slippery practices of a Robert Vadra and Virbhadra Singh all flustered over seemingly incontrovertible evidence of dodgy practices of Gadkari’s companies—and yet doggedly insisting that it is best to reserve judgment until an inquiry.

It is entirely possible that Gadkari and his Purti group of companies have a convincing explanation for its investors providing dubious addresses and the source of their funds that were invested into the trust of a ‘social entrepreneur’. As of now the inquisitors haven’t been enlightened and have come to believe the worst. Yet, the obvious pitfalls of a trial-by-media apart, there is an issue that bothers me. When Gadkari took his business decisions on behalf of the Purti group, did he do so in accordance with a mandate given by the party? Were his investments an extension of his political responsibilities, as an MLC in Maharashtra, as a president of the Maharashtra state BJP or as the BJP’s national President?

If the answer is a resounding No, why is it incumbent on the part of the BJP to come to the defence of Purti’s business practices? That is the responsibility of Gadkari, his accountant, his chauffer, baker, astrologer and others who were pillars of the Purti group. Surely the BJP doesn’t believe that it should act as a protective shield for the private concerns of all its leaders. Will the party, for example, now take it upon itself to defend its Rajya Sabha MP Ajay Sancheti, a friend of Gadkari from Nagpur, who has been accused of many wrongdoings?

There was consternation in the country when Robert Vadra was put into an isolation ward and the top guns of the Union Cabinet were wheeled out to speak in his defence. The competitive rush to defend the Gandhi family’s errant son-in-law was attributed to the Congress’ slavish culture of dynasty worship. Was it really necessary for the BJP to emulate this disagreeable culture?  

The entire controversy over Purti’s sources of funding has done incalculable damage to the standing and reputation of its party President. Regardless of the meaningless speculation over who ‘leaked’ the story, the fact is there were some skeletons in Gadkari’s cupboard and thse have come tumbling out. In the public perception what matters is not whether or not there was a ‘conspiracy’ to defame the BJP but that he is now regarded as damaged goods.

Unfortunately for the party, the damage is not confined to Gadkari the individual and his business associates. There has been considerable collateral damage caused by the unthinking display of loyalty. Take the case of L.K. Advani who came out in Gadkari’s defence and tried to make a distinction between his role as a businessman and his public life. This is the same Advani who in 1996 resigned his seat in Parliament after it was suggested that he was a recipient of tainted money. Advani made it clear that he wouldn’t contest elections until he was fully cleared and he stuck to his word. This is the same Advani who undertook a nationwide yatra last year to highlight the distortions created by the black economy. What has occasioned this shift from an insistence on the highest ethical standards? Advani may have an explanation but these may seem less credible than Arvind Kejriwal’s insistence that the Congress and BJP are two sides of the same counterfeit coin.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that those who constitute the BJP’s loyal vote bank are disgusted by the leadership’s unwillingness to confront reality. The ‘informal’ BJP group that met last Friday night and backed Gadkari may have done so on the ground that the party must not be browbeaten into a decision. But that was only part of the story. A more pressing fear was the belief that Gadkari’s exit will facilitate a takeover of the BJP by Narendra Modi.

For once their fears weren’t misplaced. Recent events have reinforced the belief at the grassroots that it is only the Gujarat Chief Minister who can mount a credible challenge to the faltering Congress-led UPA. For the moment a cabal of the collusive may have prevailed but it is only a matter of time before the popular will breaks down the resistance. Till then, India’s principal Opposition force is destined to suffer the ignominy of being mocked as the Bharatiya Janata Purti.

Sunday Pioneer, October 28, 2012 

BLACK SHEEP IN ALL PARTIES - For the people, Vadra and Gadkari symbolize the political class

By Swapan Dasgupta

In this exhilarating season of allegations and counter-allegations against public figures and their relatives, there have also been a plethora of silly statements that have helped lighten the overall mood of disgust, despondency and cynicism. Union Minister Beni Prasad Varma has led the pack with his assertion that the charges against his colleague Salman Khurshid are ridiculous because the alleged misuse of some Rs 74 lakh of public is a piffling amount. A disoriented Virbhadra Singh added to the mirth by threatening to break the cameras of journalists who dared ask him about the remarkable coincidence of alleged payments to one ‘VBS’ by a corporate and his sudden fascination for high-value insurance policies. And even the otherwise suave, Oxford-educated Khurshid provided entertainment with his filmi-style dialogue about replacing ink with blood.

The farcical element apart, there are two statements that stand out, not least because they have been made by people who are at the very top of the political pyramid. The first was by Congress President Sonia Gandhi on October 5, a few hours after Arvind Kejriwal charged her son-in-law Robert Vadra of leveraging his privileged position to make windfall gains in the real estate business. Vadra, she claimed “is a businessman”, adding that he had not misused the name of the Gandhi family.

The second statement was by Bharatiya Janata Party leader and National Democratic Alliance chairman L.K. Advani on October 25. This came a day after the media carried detailed reports of the shell companies run from apparently fictitious addresses that had invested in the Purti group of companies run by BJP president Nitin Gadkari. To those familiar with business practices, the implication was that a significant portion of Gadkari’s businesses were funded through the black economy. This in turn raised questions about Gadkari’s role in mobilising this funding. Was this, it was asked, another example of ‘political equity’?

In his defence of his party president, Advani first claimed, quite predictably, that the BJP was victim of a Congress-sponsored conspiracy “to paint the entire political class with the same brush to minimise…and neutralise the unprecedented charges against the ruling UPA.” However, this was coupled with a curious assertion: that the allegations were about standards of business and not misuse of power or corruption.

There is a similarity between Advani’s expression of solidarity with Gadkari and Sonia’s defence of her daughter’s husband: both implied that sharp practices were part and parcel of business, and that somehow was a far lesser offence from unethical politics. In other words, if it could be demonstrated conclusively that Vadra’s cosy relationship with DLF and his ability to fast-track land sales in Haryana were unrelated to his political clout, the Congress would have nothing to answer. Likewise, by Advani’s logic, there was a Great Wall dividing Gadkari the BJP President and Gadkari the entrepreneur. If Advani is to be believed, for the allegations to stick, the ‘conspirators’ would have to demonstrate that Gadkari’s businesses grew and prospered owing to benefits he accrued as a politician.

It is understandable that Sonia would want to detach Vadra’s reputation as a flashy businessman with an astonishing sense of entitlement from the political image built up by her family over decades. At the same time, she was also fully aware that the assault on the tactless Vadra was a proxy attack on the entire structure of dynastic politics that has become the mainstay of the Congress. It is unlikely that she was unaware that the mere mention of Vadra opened many doors and fast-tracked transactions (including land transfers at prices below the circle rate) that would have, in the normal course, taken an inordinately long time to complete.

Sonia’s fire-fighting strategy was based on two calculations. First, it was absolutely imperative to prevent an official probe by the Department of Company Affairs and other agencies into Vadra’s businesses. Fortunately for her, both Veerappa Moilly and Finance Minister P.Chidambaram obliged with suo moto certificates of innocence to Vadra. The peremptory midnight transfer of IAS officer Ashok Khemka from a crucial land registration department in Haryana served as a warning to other conscience-stricken bureaucrats to come to the aid of the dynasty or face the consequences.

Secondly, the Congress calculated, perhaps quite cynically, that public memory is short and that unless Vadra himself did something silly like display his intellectual prowess on Facebook yet again, the issue would subside before the General Election. The Congress is also anxious to combine its faith in public forgetfulness with moral equivalence—the 21^st century version of Indira Gandhi’s infamous assertion that corruption is an “international phenomenon”. In this endeavour, the BJP’s embarrassment over Gadkari has come as a bonanza.

In defending its President, the BJP appears to have got itself into an almighty jam. The initial revelations of Gadkari’s alleged corruption by Arvind Kejriwal in his much-publicised press conference last week left most people underwhelmed and there was a basis for Arun Jaitley to claim that India Against Corruption was making a mountain out of a molehill. Yet, by the time the time the media, taking its cue from Kejriwal, conducted its own investigations into the Purti group, the charges could no longer be dismissed as insignificant. Prima facie, Gadkari certainly had a case to answer.

If the logic of Advani’s contrived distinction between business and politics had indeed been pursued, the BJP should have left the defence of Gadkari to the man himself. Since the business dealings of Gadkari were undertaken independent of his party, there was no earthly reason why Sushma Swaraj and Jaitley should have appeared before the cameras to defend him. Most surprising of all was Advani’s intervention on behalf of Gadkari the politician. Popular memory may well be short but BJP workers at least may not have forgotten that last year Advani expended a huge amount of the party’s resources organising a nationwide yatra against corruption and black money. At that time Advani did not care to make a distinction between unethical business practices and corrupt politics. To him, at that time, both fed on each other. Why should the ground rules be changed for Gadkari?

This is a question that must also be addressed to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh whose chief Mohan Bhagwat devoted a large part of his annual Vijaydashami address to attacking corruption. The RSS has long felt that its swayamsevaks had imbibed the necessary samskaras to become good citizens and emerge as leaders of a resurgent India. This is the reason why it has preferred the leadership of the BJP to vest with those who have a strong background of involvement with the Sangh. Gadkari was picked up from provincial politics and thrust into the national stage because it was felt that he had the right values and priorities. Now this belief has been called into question. Should the RSS go into denial and fall back on an individual’s long-standing loyalty to an organisation? Or should it be worried that the presence of Gadkari at the helm of the BJP will give a handle to the Congress and allow it to shift the agenda away from corruption and thereby sap the nation’s inner vitality?

Kejriwal and his associates may not get far in electoral politics but their contention that the entire political class has become venal has struck a chord. For the BJP, the political cost of Gadkari and Vadra being put on par will be more damaging than for the Congress.

The Telegraph, October 26, 2012 

Media, turn the mirror inwards

By Swapan Dasgupta

In normal times, in an environment not so replete with competitive denunciations of the ‘corrupt’, it is entirely possible that the sting organised by officials of Jindal Power & Steel Limited (JSPL) on some editors of Zee TV would have got greater attention. Yet, despite the perfunctory coverage, it is reassuring that the News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA) chairman Justice (retired) J.S. Verma has suo moto taken up the matter for investigation.

The case has a familiar ring to it. The channel had apparently done a report which showed JSPL in an unfavourable light. Instead of broadcasting it, it is alleged that two editors of the channel contacted JSPL and made it an interesting offer: the channel would junk the damaging report if the company agreed to provide some Rs 100 crore of advertisements. If the charge is true and substantiated by the sting, it would seem a clear case of you scratch my back and I’ll ride your Jaguar.

What may surprise the media’s consumers is the relative indifference with which this sensational counter-sting has been received in the media. This isn’t because journalists, like the politicians they love to hate, are inherently venal. Nor is it due to the media emulating the cosy indulgence of mutual wrong- doing  that Arvind Kejriwal believes is rampant in the political class, across party lines. The media didn’t react to the JSPL sting with the same measure of breathless excitement that greets every political corruption scandal because it is aware that this is just the tip of the iceberg. A thorough exploration of the media will unearth not merely sharp business practices but even horrifying criminality.

It used to be said in the 1960s that an enterprising editor of a weekly tabloid in Mumbai had a simple revenue stream to supplement his income from advertising: ‘Rs 5,000 to print and Rs 10, 000 to not print.’ It was a very successful business model and many local politicians, foreign dictators and pompous monarchs were grateful to him for bolstering their ‘progressive’ credentials, for a reasonable consideration of course.

I guess that what may be loosely called the Blitz model has evolved over time and inflation to nurture a media that is a heady cocktail of crusading zeal and collusive criminality. Sometimes both go hand in hand.

Since the Press Council of India chairman Justice (retired) M. Katju is desperate to make a mark, he would do well to suo moto establish a working group to inquire into journalistic ethics. He could travel to a small state in western India where there persistent rumours that those who claim to be high-minded crusaders arm-twisted a Chief Minister into bankrolling an event as the quid pro quo for not publishing an investigation into some dirty practices.

The emphasis these days is on non-publishing. One editor, for example, specialised in the art of actually commissioning stories, treating it in the proper journalistic way and even creating a dummy page. This dummy page would be sent to the victim along with a verbal ‘demand notice’. Most of them paid up. This may be a reason why this gentleman’s unpublished works are thought to be more significant than the few scribbles that reached the readers and for which he received lots of awards.

In Britain, the public confidence in the media has been shaken by revelations indicating the extreme unethical and illegal ends to which journalists travel to get a story. In India, the problem is markedly different. Here, an equal amount of energy is expended in ensuring that there are rewards for non-publication.

Of course I am wilfully being vague because unlike the JSPL I do not have either documents or recordings to substantiate every anecdote. I am relying almost exclusively on my status as a media insider and the oral evidence of those who have been victims of media criminality.

There is little sympathy for the occasional discomfiture suffered by politicians, particularly in the election season. Over the years, however, I have come to sympathise with the predicament of aspiring MLAs and MPs when they complain that a significant proportion of their expenses above the statutory ceiling—in other words, their non-accounted, cash expenses—is used to pay the media. The reason is simple. Increasingly, political parties and candidates are presented with a fait accompli: there is a price that has to be paid for receiving coverage, particularly non-hostile or sympathetic coverage. It takes a lot of courage and enormous political resilience for a candidate to tell these blackmailers to go to hell. Most pay up and leave the rest to voters.

Over the years, critics of the media have focussed their attention on the political and other biases of the media. A free press is by definition partisan, and pure objectivity is an impossible dream. Indeed, most readers and viewers discount the subjective preference and the partisan editorial stands of media organisations. However, in trying to dissect which publication or channel is pro-Congress, anti-BJP and pro-business, attention has been diverted from the media’s rotten underbelly.

Most journalists are decent individuals, trying to be professional even as they have preferences. A small minority of them are however using journalism as a protective shield for their criminality. Like the rotten apples in the political basket, they too need to be named and shamed. The NBSA inquiry is a small step in the right direction. Let’s hope it isn’t derailed. 

Sunday Pioneer, October 21, 2012

Red-flagging Kejriwal’s politics

By Swapan Dasgupta

There is little doubt that for the moment Arvind Kejriwal has created panic in the cosy world of politics. His well-publicised and seemingly relentless pursuit of big ticket corruption has unsettled the arrangement whereby electoral politics, while fiercely competitive, are also friendly matches. With all the understandable over-zealousness of a newcomer determined to make his mark, he has tried to transform politics into a gladiatorial face-off where only the winner lives to fight another day.  

That Kejriwal and his very determined band of supporters are punching well above their weight is well known. This is privately conceded by sober members of India Against Corruption. There is no evidence so far that the promoters of ‘new politics’ have penetrated the grassroots and forged a cadre capable of managing elections. As behoves a body that is disproportionately dependant on the media for its publicity and sustenance, the IAC’s influence is, for the present, confined to Delhi.

This is, of course, not to suggest, that its geographical spread will continue to remain confined to India’s version of the Beltway. It is only a matter of time before the new party enters into working relationship with disparate ‘people’s movements’ that have mushroomed all India in opposition to nuclear reactors, steel plants and human rights violations. There are many ideologically-driven activists in the IAC who seek to emulate the experience of the Green Party and the boisterous anti-globalisation movements in Europe and Latin America. If their project to link the anger against corruption, capitalism and globalisation is even partially successful, the real catchment area for Kejriwal’s party will not be the BJP-inclined lower middle classes of urban India but those who, in another age, kept the Red Flag flying in many pockets of India.

There has always been a space for the organised Left in India. However, over the past decade the two main Communist parties have ossified and ceased to be points of inspiration. To some extent the vacated space has been occupied by the Maoists who are waging war on the state. Kejriwal’s new alliance of the fragments has the potential of creating an alternative pole of attraction.

In the long-term, an IAC-inspired cluster poses no real challenge to the Congress, BJP, the caste parties and the regional parties. It, however, constitutes a serious intervention within the domain of what is loosely called Left politics. But this in turn is likely to jeopardise the unity of the movement. Once the novelty of Kejriwal’s interventions wears off and the new force shifts attention to issues other than corruption, it is quite possible that cracks in the IAC will appear. Indeed, if other opposition parties, particularly the BJP, take corrective action and are seen to get real about corruption, it is entirely possible that the middle class support for electoral interventions by Kejriwal’s party will shrink.

It would, however, be extremely short-sighted for the mainstream parties to take comfort from the inherent limitations of the new movement. The burst of activism that began with Anna Hazare’s fasts and included Baba Ramdev’s short-lived intervention has brought anti-corruption to the forefront of the political agenda. Insofar as the instances of corruption by public figures have also involved corporate houses, the movement has also called into question the moral credentials of India Inc. There is visible divide that has emerged between those who see tough economic reforms as inevitable if India is to live up to its potential and the great mass of people who resent having to pay more by way of taxes, fuel and cooking gas prices, electricity charges and housing because of the sheer immorality of decision-making India. Those who charge—and often quite rightly—Kejriwal of injecting public life with a lynch mob mentality overlook the fact that it is a venal dysfunctional state that has enhanced the appeal of direct action using unorthodox means. In particular, the Congress has reason to rue its own short-sightedness that led to the needless political assault on institutions that in more settled times cushioned the country against rampant venality.

There is a common project before all political parties, including those who have either been burnt or singed by Kejriwal’s anti-corruption crusade. First, it is important that a message is sent out that all those who have been tainted by corruption and cronyism should be allowed to fade away from political life. This involves taking awkward decisions and often going against the principle of ‘winnability’ that determines ticket distribution during elections. But the systemic crisis is so deep that half-way, cosmetic measures will no longer suffice. People have detected rotten elements in the system and these must be seen to be discarded.

Secondly, it is clear that corruption is invariably the consequence of the misuse of discretionary powers. It is imperative that decision-making of the government is made rule-based and completely transparent.

Finally, it is important to send a clear message to India Inc that it too is part of the problem and that its commitment to ethical business practices has been uneven. In future, the priority of government must not be special concessions to corporates but the creation of an environment where there is fair competition and a level playing field for all. India needs a leader with the ability to spray the government and the political system with weed killers.

As of now, only one leader fits the bill.

Asian Age/ Deccan Chronicle, October 19, 2012 

Needed: Better Govt, cleaner Opposition

By Swapan Dasgupta

Last week, when the TV channels were buzzing with indignation and outrage over the financial peccadilloes of the nation’s most important son-in-law, my good friend Professor Ashutosh Varshney of Brown University (USA) sent out an interesting tweet. Arvind Kejriwal, he wrote, “will soon learn a political lesson: that creating and sustaining a political party is tougher than a TV show.”

The observation may be gratuitous but is well taken. It is known that a big bang launch of a product doesn’t necessarily guarantee its success, not unless it meets a demand and is authentic. I don’t think Kejriwal and his associates who have chosen to blend crusading zeal with electoral intervention are unaware of their long journey ahead. They probably know that being the enfant terrible merely ensures recognition; it doesn’t automatically inspire trust.

The long-term future of Kejriwal’s yet unnamed political party is debatable. There is common ground among the activists on the question of a Jan Lokpal Bill. But apart from this there appears to be a cacophony of voices over larger questions of public policy. Indeed, some of those who have climbed on to the Anna Hazare bandwagon have done so in the conviction that it is possible to steer an impressionable, single-issue movement in particular ‘alternative’ directions.

The contradictions that are likely to emerge in Kejriwal’s movement are, however, matters for future deliberations. What is more relevant today is the reality that this wild card entry into the public sphere has created convulsions in the political class.

That the Congress stalwarts would be fluttering about like headless chickens was perhaps to be expected—witness Salman Khurshid’s touching offer to lay down his life for the leader and Renuka Choudhury’s extraordinary performances on TV. Robert Vadra, after all, was no ordinary businessman prone to sharp practices: he is a Gandhi by marriage and accorded a special status as a SPG protectee. Confronting him with very strong evidence of dubious business practices that stemmed from his special status is, by implication, a direct attack on the carefully cultivated Mother India image that Sonia Gandhi has crafted for herself. In any evolved democracy such revelations would have resulted in a spate of resignations and announcements of sannyas from political life. In the Banana Republic called India it has instead led to Vadra mocking his accusers, top Cabinet ministers issuing him certificates of good conduct and the Prime Minister decrying the onrush of “negativity” in public life.

That the Congress has reacted with characteristic brazenness to the emerging evidence hasn’t come as a surprise. What may occasion surprise is the fact that the revelations have also left the principal opposition party red-faced. A part of this may be explained by the resentment against an interloper into the opposition space—witness Vijay Goel’s puerile fulminations at being upstaged at a local protest against exorbitant electricity charges in Delhi.

Yet, Kejriwal’s gate-crashing into the cosy world of politics had a context. Ideally, the debate on Vadra should have begun in March 2011 after Economic Times wrote a cautious but suggestive report on his remarkable business success and his proximity to DLF. At that time, there were senior leaders in the BJP such as Arun Jaitley and Yashwant Sinha who were willing to raise the matter in Parliament and outside. They had all the details Kejriwal divulged to the media in his first press conference some 18 months later. The question the BJP needs to address is: why did the leadership decide that the “children” of political leaders must be provided immunity from attacks?

This is not a lament about the BJP’s missed opportunity. There is a widespread impression that the principal opposition party has failed to take advantage of the UPA’s unending bungling on account of the questionable integrity of some of own leaders. The BJP has not fully succeeded in putting the government on the mat over corruption because many of its own people are equally culpable. They have developed a cosy arrangement with the Congress to share the dividends from ‘political equity’. In addition, others have gained from being persuaded to look the other way and abdicate their responsibilities as the main opposition.

Taking on Vadra involved taking on the Gandhi family. It also implied possessing the uprightness to resist the inevitable harassment from politicised investigative agencies. It would seem that many BJP leaders, tired of waiting for the good times to return, have acquired too many skeletons in their personal cupboards. They have been compromised to such an extent that their opposition to the misdemeanours of the Government have become perfunctory. Their stake in a rotten system has meant they lack the moral authority to challenge the rot. They have become a part of the problem itself.

Kejriwal may be wild and publicity hungry but he has emerged as a fearless individual, willing to challenge the awesome might of the first family. If he persists with his recklessness, his party may grab a sizable political space and even emerge as an effective spoiler in urban India. He will eat into a constituency that should be leaning naturally towards the BJP. If that happens, the BJP can only blame itself for being morally upstaged. It has allowed base considerations to dilute its commitment to the larger good. To recover a sense of purpose, it needs to dispose of its dirty linen.

India deserves a better government. It also demands a cleaner opposition. 

Sunday Pioneer, October 14, 2012

ONE MORE GATE - Popular perceptions troubling for the future of India

By Swapan Dasgupta

Last week, when Arvind Kejriwal first dragged the son-in-law of the Gandhi family into public controversy, there was a facile suggestion that shareholders should ask DLF—the real estate company which is also in the eye of the storm—why it gave a generous unsecured loan to someone who had no business track record worth writing home about. This week, after the anti-corruption crusader-turned politician went public with ‘proof’ of the cronyism that marked the relationship between DLF and the Congress-controlled Government of Haryana, this question is unlikely to be pursued. If the ‘proof’ supplied by Kejriwal is to be believed, the top brass of DLF should instead be complimented on its farsightedness. In enabling Robert Vadra to multiply a Rs 51 lakh investment into a handsome Rs 300 crore in just two years or so, DLF could be said to have gained many times more. It was, by all accounts, a very satisfying, mutually exploitative relationship.

As political scandals go, what was instantly dubbed ‘Damaad Gate’ by excitable members of the twitterati, doesn’t belong to the same league as the 2-G rip-off and Coal Gate. There are no long series of zeros pointing to the notional losses suffered by the treasury. The charge is not short-changing the public exchequer but conferring a most-favoured –entity status on a company with which Vadra was associated. Using a historical analogy, the kerfuffle over Vadra, DLF and the Bhupinder Singh Hooda Government of Haryana belongs to the same league as the Maruti sweetheart deal involving Sanjay Gandhi and the Bansi Lal Government of Haryana which was exposed by the indefatigable CPI(M) MP Jyotirmoy Basu nearly four decades ago—and which many insist were among the factors that triggered the Emergency in 1975.

For the Government, the timing of Kejriwal’s maiden political intervention was singularly inopportune. Having partially succeeded—thanks in no small measure to an extremely obliging media—in diverting public attention from the coal scandal that even left the Prime Minister singed and having talked up the capital markets with the promise of economic reforms and fiscal responsibility, a beleaguered Congress now finds itself battling a fire that has reached its sanctum sanctorum—the private chambers of the Gandhi family. At stake is the very credibility of the family that has provided both the inspiration and the glue to keep India’s largest political party together. Damaad Gate has all the ingredients to become another embarrassing Bofors moment for the Congress. Certainly, the mood of disgust and despondency that has overwhelmed India after more than two years of non-governance has enhanced the likelihood of a wild card such as Kejriwal puncturing the pretensions of the high and mighty.

However, like cricket, politics is also a game of glorious uncertainties and it is impossible to be certain that this latest storm will set in motion an irreversible process of downfall for the fragile UPA-2. Yet, at the same time, Damaad Gate has the potential of unsettling some of the cherished assumptions governing public life.

First, the apparent ease with which DLF allegedly benefitted from its close association with Vadra has added to the prevailing exasperation with the crony capitalism that has prevented a genuine entrepreneurial culture from striking deep roots in India. The alacrity with which the Finance Minister, the Law Minister and the Corporate Affairs Minister jumped into the ring to do battle on behalf of Vadra, and issued him certificates of innocence are reminiscent of caricatured versions of corrupt dictatorships in faraway lands. India has always flaunted its credentials as the world’s largest democracy. The grim realities of the prevailing political culture don’t justify the swagger. From a distance India seems just another rotten egg in the international basket.

In the past, the Government of the day had often conspired to subvert inquiries into alleged corporate wrongdoing. Yet, the suo moto interventions of key Cabinet ministers suggested that there are areas of political life that are considered no-go areas by the Congress and deemed unworthy of both public intrusiveness and the ethics of corporate governance. To outsiders, not least foreign capital that is being so assiduously wooed by the Government, this behaviour has the potential of sending out an unwelcome message: that it is advantageous to view Indian capitalism through the prism of a Third World banana republic where cronyism opens doors and cuts deals.  

Secondly, Damaad Gate raises troubling questions of the quality of Indian democracy. It is by now known in relevant circles that documentary evidence of the cosy DLF-Vadra relationship had been in circulation since February 2011 and, indeed, formed the basis of a very cautious report by a financial daily in March 2011. At that time, there were at least two senior BJP leaders—Arun Jaitley and Yashwant Sinha—who were prepared to raise the issue in Parliament and bring it into the public domain. They were prevented from doing so by the party’s all-important Core Committee on the ground that it would be wrong to target the children of political opponents.

This apparent act of high-mindedness has now recoiled on the party. It is now being alleged, not least by the politicians spawned by the Anna Hazare movement, that the BJP’s silence was proof of the complicity of the entire political class in perpetuating a system based on cronyism and corruption. The charge is not entirely untrue and is likely to generate a political cost. More than anything else, the BJP’s reluctance to hit the holy dynastic cow has ensured that the political benefits of the disgust against unethical practices won’t fully accrue to the principal opposition party.

The consequences of this immoral equivalence are ominous. It is now becoming increasingly apparent that mainstream political parties, including regional parties, are attracting precisely the type of people public life can do without. The bright young idealists who entered the political arena in the past via student activism are now increasingly shying away from the main parties and either opting out of politics altogether or drifting to non-governmental organisations and protest movements like the one headed by Kejriwal. The cumulative loss to Indian democracy is incalculable.

Finally, and equally troubling for the future of India, is the growing impression that the culture of Indian business is by and large rotten and that reposing faith in the private sector as a powerful engine of economic growth carries an unacceptable social cost. There was implicit arrogance in Vadra mocking the anti-corruption zealots as ‘mango people” which hasn’t gone entirely unnoticed. It has reinforced a growing popular conviction—which the 2G and coal allotment scandals helped perpetuate—that ‘reforms’ are merely the pompous façade to hide an economic system based on organised loot. Till a few years ago, political parties undertook a fine balancing act between populist politics and sensible economics. With the anti-corruption epidemic hitting the country, it will be very difficult for mass politicians to argue that a market-oriented, liberal economic regime provides India the best opportunity to extricate itself from endemic backwardness. The growing ‘sab chor hai’ mood will make it virtually impossible for the reformists to convince the electorate that they need to pay more for power, fuel and cooking gas for the sake of a system that is tailor-made for the well connected.

Circumstances generate strange symbols of both affection and disrepute. In the past fortnight, the popular imagination has come to associate Robert Vadra with greed, privilege and arrogance—everything that Middle India has learnt to despise. As the imagery of a brat percolates down the social ladder, the Gandhis will have to some hard sell to redeem the family reputation. 

The Telegraph, October 12, 2012