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Tragic Memory Lapse

Everyone, including the media, complains about the rise in crime and corruption in India. Everyday morning newspapers are full of sordid and awful stories, many of which can be traced back to the declining standards of our politics. Murders, rapes, bribery and cheating, scams galore. Most of them are a direct fall-out of the terrible way we conduct our public life. Without principles. Without scruples. Without shame.

It is no use accusing Romesh Sharma of being a criminal and a land grabber. He began his career in politics and glibly followed that easy route to crime. It is no use describing Sushil Sharma as the tandoori killer, a man without any qualms or conscience. He learnt his craft in politics and merely extended that lawlessness into his personal life, when he murdered his wife and put her inside the tandoor in an ITDC hotel. It is foolish to denounce Sukh Ram as a bribe-taker and cheat without recognising the fact that the money he took for all those shady telecom deals ended up being spent on promoting his own political career and that of his family.

Last week, when the CBI filed an FIR against Satish Sharma for owning assets hugely disproportionate to his known sources of income, they were merely pointing out something that this nation knew years and years ago. It all began with the fancy Italian tiles that Sharma put up in his sprawling bungalow and the quality of lifestyle he practised with no ostensible means of income apart from politics, where he played his notorious role as Rajiv Gandhi's most favoured flunkey. Now, years and years later, after being an MP, a cabinet minister and a general factotum of the Nehru-Gandhi family, the CBI has decided to out him for what he always was. A petty thief.

Why is it that, despite such a vigilant press and an unyielding judiciary, we are unable to stop this rising graph of crime and corruption? The answer, I would like to suggest, is the increasingly short memory of people. Encouraged to be even shorter by a media that flits from one subject to another, one clever headline to another, one horrible crime to another every morning. No one wants to see a case through. It does not sustain readership to persist with a single story beyond a week. Last week's hottest scam yields way to this week's quadruple murder. This week's quadruple murder, bloody as it may be, will yield way to next week's sensational sex scandal. It is a rollercoaster ride and no one has the time to mourn over the story that died because of lack of adequate follow-up.

What we do not realise is that it is precisely in this kind of environment that crime and corruption flourish even more. Simply because everyone knows that even if he or she is caught, it would mean suffering the embarrassment only for a few days. Time is not just the biggest healer. It is also the biggest whitewasher. It is not how big or small your crime is that matters; it is how much you can take and for how long. If you have the nerves to face the backlash for a week or two, you are usually in safe haven. The biggest headlines eventually dock themselves into small, easily forgettable niches in public memory.

How many people remember that Buta Singh was accused of bribing tribal MPs, P V Narasimha Rao of taking a suitcase containing Rs 1 crore from Harshad Mehta, Kalpnath Rai of hiding notorious criminals, Chandra Shekhar of being friends with the Bihar coal mafia, Arjun Singh of making money from the Churhat lottery scam, Jagdish Tytler of killing hundreds of innocent Sikhs during the Delhi riots, Ramakrishna Hegde of illegally tapping the telephone lines of his political rivals, R K Dhawan of involvement in Mrs Gandhi's murder, Mulayam Singh of dacoity, J B Patnaik of obnoxious sexual misconduct and Jagmohan of the Turkman Gate excesses during the Emergency?

I am not saying that any one of these people were guilty of the crimes they were accused of. All I am saying is we in the media are so busy chasing new stories, new headlines every week that we allow the old ones to lapse.

As a result, people get away scot-free. To pursue new crimes or simply vanish into the wood work. We forget the simple logic that drove the Nazi-hunters for decades. That a nation which forgets its criminals always ends up seeing the crimes again. Because history has this terrible habit of repeating itself.

Let me give you a short checklist of 15 famous crimes that have vanished from the headlines. It would be interesting to know the exact status of the investigations in each case, if for no reason other than the fact that the nation has wasted hundreds of hours of legislative time, which translates into hundred of crores of public money, in discussing these crimes when they were hot, hot, hot. Today, no one even knows if the investigations are on or not. No one cares.

Every one of us has his or her personal checklist of such crimes to which we want answers. If we cannot get answers from our blind, deaf, dumb rulers, at least the media should keep the stories alive so that justice is eventually done, the truth is finally revealed. Otherwise, not only will the criminals escape, similar crimes will only multiply.

My favourite checklist of forgotten crimes is:

* Whatever happened to the errant policemen in the Bhagalpur blindings case?
* Where are the documents sent to us by the Swiss courts in the Bofors bribery case?
* Whatever happened to the Czech pistols case involving Arun Nehru?
* What happened to the probe into the sugar scam involving Kalpnath Rai?
* Did Chandra Swami forge the St Kitts documents to nail V P Singh?
* What was exactly Sitaram Kesri's role in the murder of Dr Tanwar?
* Did Narasimha Rao take Rs 1 crore from Harshad Mehta in a suitcase?
* Whatever happened to Goldstar, the company owned by Narasimha Rao's son?
* What were the actual links discovered between Tata Tea and the ULFA terrorists?
* What happened to the CBI case against Colonel Wahi of ONGC and the Essar Ruias?
* What has the probe into Balasubramanium's links with Romesh Sharma revealed?
* Did the Mittals finally manage to get away with their infamous Balaidila deal?
* What have the investigations into Sukh Ram's shady telecom deals revealed?
* What have the two arrested Karsan executives confessed about the urea scam?
* What is the progress on the case against Youth Congress leader Sushil Sharma for his tandoori murder?

These are 15 scandals picked up at random, involving some of our top leaders and all the top business houses of India so that I am not accused of writing this at the behest of any one of them. I can give you another 15 questions at the drop of a hat. But that is not enough. We must persist. We must nag the government. We must growl. We must demand answers, specific answers. Instead of accepting the usual homilies that are thrown our way, like meat to animals in captivity, to keep us quiet.

Otherwise, public amnesia will only result in more crime, more corruption. And more cluck, cluck in cocktail parties.

Pritish Nandy

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