The word ‘corruption’ has disappeared from our political discourse -Pritish Nandy
Is there a politician
around, any politician apart from Arvind Kejriwal, who sees corruption
as an election issue? I am not counting Anna. He is a social worker and,
in many ways, our conscience. But as he has himself pointed out, he is
not part of the political choices on offer. He is more like a moral
compass.
So even though we go on and on about corruption and we call UPA the most corrupt government ever, we have already conceded months ahead of the elections that corruption is not an issue worth voting on. The current rhetoric makes this obvious.
Narendra Modi is not offering a corruptionfree government. He is promising development. Rahul Gandhi is not offering to clean up his Aegean stables. He is promising, instead, inclusiveness, whatever that means. The BJP is promising change. The Congress promises continuity. The NDA promises you Hindu nationalism. The UPA promises you secularism. The Congress makes Hindu nationalism sound like a fascist slogan, an excuse for isolating the minorities. (And probably it is.) The BJP makes secularism sound like a dirty word, an excuse for appeasing Muslims. (And it probably is.) But one thing is clear, amidst all this high decibel debate, no one’s mentioning the C word. It has quietly disappeared from our political discourse.
Why is this? Is it because no party can afford to point a finger at the other? Airline promotions offer you great meals on board, wonderful destinations, excellent flight timings, flat beds, on-time performance. But none mention the elephant in the room. Safety. How safe is the airline you are flying? Every party at election time is ready to promise you the moon. But not a corruption-free government. That’s the elephant in the room. That’s what’s hurting India the most. It has destroyed our credibility before the world, brought our economy to its knees, scared off foreign investors, and mocked our claims to being a worldclass nation.
Every time the question of corruption is raised, it’s waylaid by other issues. Economic reforms. 10% growth. Infrastructure. Food for all. Jobs. Modi thinks development will win him brownie points with the youth who are constantly rah-rahing for him on social media. Rahul thinks inclusiveness will bond him with that unseen, unsung, unwashed India outside the cities who no one ever bothers about except at election time.
Yet there was a time when governments teetered at every scam. Remember Bofors? Remember Harshad Mehta and the stock market scam? Remember Telgi? Or the more recent Maharashtra scam where all the money for rural irrigation was looted while Vidharba reeled under drought and farmers kept committing suicide?
No, corruption is not new to our politics. It’s been around from Nehru’s time. There was Krishna Menon’s infamous jeep scandal. The TTK scandal. And Dharma Teja, who wined and dined with the Nehrus and then scooted off to some Latin American country to avoid arrest. Antulay’s cement scandal not only destroyed his own political career but shook up Mrs Gandhi’s too. Go to Wikipedia and see the huge list of scams that have played havoc with our politics. There are many not listed there but they have all scarred our conscience. Yet their impact seems to be diminishing as we become indifferent to corruption and politicians get more brazen.
2G is already forgotten. The government is braving it out on Coalgate and the Augusta Westland chopper scam. If it weren’t for the Supreme Court, the lid would have been put on the Radia tapes a long time back. But new scams keep erupting every few days. For the world outside, India is a hotbed of corruption where no deal is ever struck without some politician (or his middle man) getting paid for it. Even the coffins that picked up our dead soldiers in Kargil during the NDA’s time were scam-tainted.
Yet, we are back to our familiar choices at election time, the Congress versus the BJP or, to be more precise, the incumbent UPA versus the challenger NDA, where neither the Congress nor the BJP have a hope in hell of making it alone. Both are stubbornly silent on corruption. And we? Frankly, my dear, we don’t give a damn. We outrage a bit. We joke a bit on social media and it's all over. Life's back to normal.
The moment Laloo is convicted by the court and sent to jail for the fodder scam, his popularity ratings shoot up in the polls. The man who was cowering out of fear is now beating his chest as a challenger to Nitish Kumar. Such is the power of corruption in India. It makes Dabangg heroes out of the biggest rascals.
Find the post at http://www.mumbaimirror.com/columns/columns/Cword-flogged-to-death/articleshow/24557386.cms?
So even though we go on and on about corruption and we call UPA the most corrupt government ever, we have already conceded months ahead of the elections that corruption is not an issue worth voting on. The current rhetoric makes this obvious.
Narendra Modi is not offering a corruptionfree government. He is promising development. Rahul Gandhi is not offering to clean up his Aegean stables. He is promising, instead, inclusiveness, whatever that means. The BJP is promising change. The Congress promises continuity. The NDA promises you Hindu nationalism. The UPA promises you secularism. The Congress makes Hindu nationalism sound like a fascist slogan, an excuse for isolating the minorities. (And probably it is.) The BJP makes secularism sound like a dirty word, an excuse for appeasing Muslims. (And it probably is.) But one thing is clear, amidst all this high decibel debate, no one’s mentioning the C word. It has quietly disappeared from our political discourse.
Why is this? Is it because no party can afford to point a finger at the other? Airline promotions offer you great meals on board, wonderful destinations, excellent flight timings, flat beds, on-time performance. But none mention the elephant in the room. Safety. How safe is the airline you are flying? Every party at election time is ready to promise you the moon. But not a corruption-free government. That’s the elephant in the room. That’s what’s hurting India the most. It has destroyed our credibility before the world, brought our economy to its knees, scared off foreign investors, and mocked our claims to being a worldclass nation.
Every time the question of corruption is raised, it’s waylaid by other issues. Economic reforms. 10% growth. Infrastructure. Food for all. Jobs. Modi thinks development will win him brownie points with the youth who are constantly rah-rahing for him on social media. Rahul thinks inclusiveness will bond him with that unseen, unsung, unwashed India outside the cities who no one ever bothers about except at election time.
Yet there was a time when governments teetered at every scam. Remember Bofors? Remember Harshad Mehta and the stock market scam? Remember Telgi? Or the more recent Maharashtra scam where all the money for rural irrigation was looted while Vidharba reeled under drought and farmers kept committing suicide?
No, corruption is not new to our politics. It’s been around from Nehru’s time. There was Krishna Menon’s infamous jeep scandal. The TTK scandal. And Dharma Teja, who wined and dined with the Nehrus and then scooted off to some Latin American country to avoid arrest. Antulay’s cement scandal not only destroyed his own political career but shook up Mrs Gandhi’s too. Go to Wikipedia and see the huge list of scams that have played havoc with our politics. There are many not listed there but they have all scarred our conscience. Yet their impact seems to be diminishing as we become indifferent to corruption and politicians get more brazen.
2G is already forgotten. The government is braving it out on Coalgate and the Augusta Westland chopper scam. If it weren’t for the Supreme Court, the lid would have been put on the Radia tapes a long time back. But new scams keep erupting every few days. For the world outside, India is a hotbed of corruption where no deal is ever struck without some politician (or his middle man) getting paid for it. Even the coffins that picked up our dead soldiers in Kargil during the NDA’s time were scam-tainted.
Yet, we are back to our familiar choices at election time, the Congress versus the BJP or, to be more precise, the incumbent UPA versus the challenger NDA, where neither the Congress nor the BJP have a hope in hell of making it alone. Both are stubbornly silent on corruption. And we? Frankly, my dear, we don’t give a damn. We outrage a bit. We joke a bit on social media and it's all over. Life's back to normal.
The moment Laloo is convicted by the court and sent to jail for the fodder scam, his popularity ratings shoot up in the polls. The man who was cowering out of fear is now beating his chest as a challenger to Nitish Kumar. Such is the power of corruption in India. It makes Dabangg heroes out of the biggest rascals.
Find the post at http://www.mumbaimirror.com/columns/columns/Cword-flogged-to-death/articleshow/24557386.cms?
True, 'Ghotala', scam & Anna were the words trending before a year-and-a-half. The C word has all of a sudden gone missing from the political vocabulary. Then can we conclude that the mainstream media is drowned deeply in the ocean of corruption?
ReplyDeleteIt is not just about 'main stream media', the chief contenders are seem to be indifferent about the issue, which clearly means that this not not an issue for them, and they will continue the same 'corrupt' system.
ReplyDeleteAlright. :)
ReplyDelete