Individual ministers, including prime ministers, have been heard of facing charges of corruption innumerous countries, That the entire cabinet or a substantial section of the cabinet, should be mentioned as corrupt is a distinction that goes to India alone. Further, it is perhaps the only country in the world where almost the entire opposition, including leader of opposition in parliament, faces the allegations of graft. Again, the uniqueness of the ‘country lies in the fact that one single business house should be: Secretly financing the whole lot of politicians, both of the ruling party and the opposition, all at the same time. The discovery of corruption is not due to the functioning of the different wings of India’s democracy. The “hawala” scandal was unearthed by accident by the Delhi police a few months ago. It remained uninvestigated by the C.B.I., India’s crimes investigating agency, until the country’s top judicial authority, the Supreme Court, ordered to that effect. Again, causing investigations into complaints of corruption is not the normal function of the Supreme Court. No wonder the top constitutional lawyer of India, N. Palkhiwala, has expressed the fear Thar the country is heading for a judicial dictatorship. The anguished comment has come in the context of virtual paralysis of the executive in India on the one hand and an activist role of the judiciary to fill the void on the other. The corruption issue appears to have shaken the very foundations of the Indian state. What is more? Whatever revelations have been made about the extent of corruption is regarded as a mere tip of the iceberg. Most people have been appalled by the sweep and extent of corruption. The chief of a party like the BJP claiming to be the champion of value based politics has been caught with his pants down. It is alleged that L.K. Advani’s son and wife purchased plots of commercial property in Delhi with the so-called Jain havala money received for election purpose. The widespread corruption has been affecting the entire body politic of India. A senior Indian journalist, Janardhana Thakur, quotes a British study of corruption in India in the early 80s which linked the phenomenon with the dominance of Hinduism over the country. This particular religion does not feel the need for making a distinction between good and evil, unlike dualist religions like Christianity, Buddhism and Jainism. If that is so, India can neither dispense with. Neither Hinduism nor corruption. These Siamese twins will sink or swim together. Non Hindu states like Punjab, Kashmir and Assam are up in arms to create a niche for themselves away from the mainland and its corruption. The Jain diary also mentions the name of Akali leader Parkash Singh Badal as one of the recipients of money from Delhi. But then Badal is no representative of Sikh Punjab. He is considered a part of Hindu India. If separatism of the states like Punjab will usher in the end of corruption in that part of India because the Sikh religion deprecated the wealth amassed by wrong means, how is it that the democratic countries of the West are hell bent upon supporting a united India and in opposing the emergence of an independent Sikh homeland? The explanation may be in the economic self-interest of the USA, Britain and other countries in dealing with a corrupt India rather than an upright Khalistan. One thing, however, is quite clear. India cannot sustain the myth for long that it runs democracy. In no other democracy the entire government as well as the entire opposition is found to be corrupt. A senior Janata Dal leader of Orissa, Biju Patnaik, has boldly called upon the Indian army to take over the country “to save the country,” from its corrupt government. But Biju’s prescription has been tried in neighboring Pakistan without much hope for India. The Indian army itself conceals its own corruption with the help of the age-old official secrets act. In the circumstances, India will have to live with the present mess with democracy being paraded more in form than in reality.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 31, 1996
