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.
The Telegraph, October 12, 2012
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