Commentary/ T V R Shenoy

True power rests, and always has, with the Congress president of the day

Things were simpler in the old days. When Indira Gandhi was the prime minister, there was no doubt about who ruled India. That simply isn't true any longer.

Every sensible man knows I K Gujral is a puppet. So how does one find out who is pulling the strings? A friend of mine, a foreigner with a watching brief on India for business purposes, offered a key.

"I look at the courts," he told me, "It is a fail-safe test. All I have to do is to see which corruption case is being followed up vigorously. Is it Bofors and the Indian Bank? Is it urea and the JMM bribery? That immediately tells me who is in charge -- Kesri or Narasimha Rao, Deve Gowda or Gujral."

My immediate reaction was shame. On the eve of the golden jubilee of Independence, foreigners fling it in our faces that half our precious leaders stand accused of corruption.

More dispassionately, I must admit the justice of my friend's remark. The brief history of the wretched United Front regime offers all the proof one needs.

When Narasimha Rao was at the helm, the investigating agencies took immense care to tread softly in his presence. I clearly recall that one of the UF ministry's earliest decisions was an attempt to shield him.

An exasperated Delhi high court had ordered the CBI to register a case against Rao in the JMM case. The CBI promptly appealed to the Supreme Court, a blatantly partisan decision. (Unsuccessful too, as their Lordships turned it down just as promptly.)

Of course, it wasn't just the JMM case where the CBI dragged its heels. Whether it was the Rs 1.33 billion urea scam or the Lakhubhai Pathak case, investigators had to be prodded by the courts before each step.

Yet it wasn't as if the CBI was totally inactive in the last days of Narasimha Rao's primacy. Progress was made on the Bofors case (squelching a potential source of dissidence). There was a certain amount of initiative on the Indian Bank case, on the probes into Kesri's assets, and, of course, into the fodder scam.

Then, within the space of a few months, Rao lost both the party presidency and the Congress Parliamentary Party leadership. This was followed by the Easter coup against Deve Gowda.

Suddenly, Bofors is again a dirty word, and the Gujral ministry is content to sleep over the CBI's requests to file charges against certain well-known names. As to Kesri's assets, no ambitious CBI officer wants to touch the case today. In fact, the CBI is willing to swallow the Congress president's tale that he makes do on a mere Rs 1,000 every month!

Fortunately or otherwise -- depending on whether you are a Congressman or a concerned Indian citizen -- the judiciary is more sceptical. The court has noted that Kesri's son definitely seems to possess wealth far beyond any known source of income, and has asked the CBI to provide an explanation.

As to the fodder scam, yes, justice is finally being done. But that too is thanks entirely to the judiciary. The Gujral group has done everything it could to help the beleaguered Yadav family.

It isn't my intention to catalogue the various cases of corruption against all those high and mighty souls who will presume to lecture us on Independence day. I simply wish to point out that fighting corruption has been reduced to a highly selective, highly partisan political weapon.

If the Communists scream about a 'political vendetta' when the Congress rakes up the personal ledger scam, they are sure to be correct. I doubt if any Congressman gives a damn about corruption as such. It is just politics as usual.

But, and this is important, it doesn't mean that Rs 25 billion haven't been siphoned off in mysterious circumstances by abusing a complicated personal ledger system. If talking about that is a 'vendetta' so was V P Singh's crusade on Bofors.

Sadly, we must accept that Indian investigating agencies are a long way from enjoying any autonomy. The only way corruption cases shall be pursued with any vigour is through the churning of the political ocean (judicial intervention always excepted).

Let us also accept the UF 'government' was a farce from beginning to end. True power rests, and always has, with the Congress president of the day -- Rao or Kesri. If the failure of the 'Third Front' experiment has taught India the virtues of scepticism, well, that isn't a bad gift for the golden jubilee!

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