I wrote this in Business World of 24 November 2003 about Judeo, a central minister who was filmed accepting a bribe. He accused Ajit Jogi, his Congress opponent, of having framed him; but the government had the good sense to ease him out. Amongst other things, he used to indulge in the hobby of some BJP leaders of persuading Christians to convert to Hinduism, on the ground that they must have been Hindus at one time.
Advances in kleptocracy
The videotape of Dilip Singh
Judeo, the BJP leader from Chhattisgarh, raising stacks of currency notes to his
forehead and comparing them to God made riveting viewing. The glasses of drinks
that accompanied the transfer ceremony gave the distorted, poorly focused
pictures a filmi quality. The hero’s record of washing deconverted Adivasis’
feet in a cocktail of cowdung and cow’s milk gave the story its drama. That
this champion of Hindu revivalism happily took a bribe from a foreign firm
belonging to a Christian country gave it a nice twist. There are times when
journalists can attract a Bollywood-size viewership; this was one of them. Of
course, there was trepidation that those responsible for this lese majesté
would pay as dearly as the Tehelka exposers of Bangaru and Jaya – that they
would soon be reeling under bogus raids from government agencies and staggering
under heavy burdens of false cases. But then, the perpetrator, the Sunday
Express, has a distinguished record of victimization by the state. It
survived Mrs Gandhi’s massive assaults – and its heroic editor, one Arun
Shourie, rose to become minister in the government of the BJP whose leader
formed the hero of the new spectacular. Such are the ironies of public life
that make journalism worth living for. Politicians are not famous for their
forgiving qualities, and maybe retribution is on the way; after all, if the
deputy prime minister wondered publicly who the perpetrators of the coup were,
they are unlikely to be ignored. But those who seek the rewards of grand
publicity must bear the risk of political wrath.
What is far more disturbing than
this ominous calm is the reaction of the ruling party. Not a single leader was
embarrassed, let alone ashamed. No senior leader even administered Judeo a slap
on his wrist. Anyone watching the party would have thought that taking bribes
was its daily business. The party brazened it out – and that included its top
leaders like Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani whom no one would dream
of finding with a hand in the till. Would one’s dreams come true? That is the
nightmare that must haunt us all.
For breaking into state vaults is
not an isolated case involving just junior ministers of the BJP. There was an
equally devout minister, this time of the Congress, who had propitiated his god
with piles of money in his prayer room; his name was Sukh Ram (though at least
the Congress was embarrassed enough to throw him out – into the BJP’s lap as it
turned out). Ironically, he was Arun Shourie’s predecessor in the ministry of
telecommunications.
Then there is the Rs 11 crore the CBI has frozen in the
accounts of Mayawati, the just deposed chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. That is
peanuts compared to Jayalalithaa’s Rs 66-crore case of disproportionate assets
just transferred to Bangalore by the Supreme Court because it no longer trusted
the Madras magistrate in charge. And these estimable ladies must be fulminating
in righteous indignation that they must be hauled up for collecting peanuts
when the Punjab vigilance bureau has accused Parkash Singh Badal, the former
chief minister, of having expropriated Rs 4326 crore.
When we Indians cannot do
anything else with an outrage, we make a spectacle of it. There are many
Indians who earn an honest living, who work for their country and make a small
name in the world, who abide by the law and pay their taxes. They must wonder
what sins they committed in their previous birth that they came to be ruled by
covetous scamsters. Kapil Sibal once said that if criminals got elected to the
legislatures, it was the electors that were responsible – that criminals had a
better chance of getting elected than honest people. But, the reader of this
magazine will want to shout, she never voted for a criminal; she never even asked
that he should be allowed to stand. Political crime is a game of the
politicians, for the politicians and by the politicians.
So, may we suggest, the reaction
of the BJP to the Judeo episode is inappropriate to put it mildly. He should
not be in politics. The least that the party can do is to expel him. It must be
worried that if it does so, Judeo will set up his own party and steal a dozen
of its seats. But a dozen seats are a small price to pay for self respect.
And even that price would not
have to be paid if the major parties got together to eliminate criminals in
their midst. Criminals do not win on their record; they win because of an
organization behind them. Let the Congress and the BJP, the TDP and the CPM
resolve together that they will not lend their organizations to the enemies of
the nation. They – we mean the enemies – should be behind bars, not in
legislatures.
