The licence to be corrupt

Lack of probity in public life is more or less an accepted fact. Until now, despite the absence of integrity, the ruling class at least displayed some discretion. However, what makes one lose all hope in the system is how brazenly the political class is transgressing all limits of decency in public life. Mirza Ghalib summed up this frustrating situation concisely: ‘Koi ummeed bar nahin aati koi surat nazar nahin aati, Aage aati thi haal-e-dil pe hansi ab kisi baat par nahin aati.’ (There is neither hope nor a way out; initially I used to lament my miseries, now I am not even able to do that.) 

The Supreme Court has rightly cancelled 122 licences issued by former telecom minister A Raja in 2008, in the 2G spectrum case. That the court did not pass any strictures against the UPA government is hardly any relief for the government; the cancelation of licenses aptly indicates the failure of the system. Even if a rogue minster was able to subvert the system, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cannot escape the blame of oversight. Singh has evidently failed to assert his authority. That he in the first place blatantly tried to deflect the blame by describing the glaring failure of leadership as compulsions of coalition is utterly disgusting.

More than any criminal culpability, what matters most is the erosion of moral authority.

A Kashmiri daily recently exposed how state education minister Peerzada Sayeed was using ‘unfair means to help his foster son qualify in the matriculation examination in 2009.’

Incidentally, in the higher secondary examinations, whose results were recently announced, the education minister’s son has secured distinction. He is now eligible to be selected for MBBS, and eventually butcher innocents. An anxious Omar Abdullah handed over the case to the crime branch for investigation.

Peerzada has threatened that if he is pushed to the wall ‘he would reveal how the son of a minister of state, known for his proximity to chief minister Abdullah, had been provided the same facility as his son.’ It looks like Sayeed’s threat to expose many others may help him save his job.

Peerzada remaining in office, or for that matter his ouster, is inconsequential. The Omar Abdullah administration’s misdemeanours are so brazen that public representatives have lost all credibility. In 2010, the state PWD minister was dismissed for allegedly using a proxy for his daughter in the medical entrance test. In 2006, the then chief minister Gulam Nabi Azad had forced Peerzada Sayeed to resign as education minister after an MLA levelled serious allegations of corruption against him; the MLA had created a sensation when he disclosed on the floor of the house that the minister’s wife, earlier a widow of a JKLF commander, had issued death threats against him. Rejecting the demands for resignation, the education minister said, “There is no question that I will resign over the issue. My enemies want me to resign. They wanted me to resign in 2008 also, but people are with me. Till the time people are with me, I will never resign.” Here is the catch; despite being known for his untidy affairs, Sayeed was able to win the 2008 elections convincingly. Is the public mandate a licence for brazen corruption as Peerzada Sayeed believes?

That democracy empowers the disempowered is old jargon. That seems to have changed now; democracy has been turned into a tool for abusing power. Suresh Kamadi, after his release from jail, was given a rousing welcome in Pune; he may even go on to become an MP again. His re-election may wash away all his sins and even overshadow the high profile CWG scandal. Probably Mayawati may again become chief minister of UP. After her re-election, she will be free to built elephant towers taller than the Qutab Minar and parks more majestic than the Taj Mahal. And who stopped Narendra Modi from becoming the chief minister of Gujarat repeatedly, after winning the elections even after scripting the pogrom of Muslims in 2002 riots. His becoming prime minster is very much possible and is not a far-fetched idea. A tarnished image no longer is an obstacle in winning the trust of the people.

On the contrary, elected representatives with sullied reputations getting elected has given rise to brazen behaviour. Democracy operating without a proper framework of values will only lead to moral anarchy.

firdoussyed@yahoo.com