Commentary/Janardan Thakur

How clean are the hands of the BJP?

It is not always that you see politicians taking such a curious position in Parliament. Consider the delight in the Bharatiya Janata Party over Indrajit Gupta's 'anarchy, chaos and destruction' speech. Consider how readily the saffron brigade warmed to the Communist home minister.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was so ecstatic quoting Indrajit Gupta that one wondered which side he was on. Consider also how sprightly Railway Minister Ram Vilas Paswan looked over the spate of train robberies in Bihar. He seemed so pleased with himself as he passed the buck to Laloo Prasad Yadav, and reminded Parliament that the railway police was under the state government.

For days on end there was furious sparring in Parliament about who was responsible for all the crime in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, but little talk about what needed to be done. Everyone seemed more interested in standing the others. The game, clearly, is all about one upmanship.

For the Bharatiya Janata Party, frustrated and stymied in Uttar Pradesh, the home minister's attack on Governor Romesh Bhandari was a godsend. The party had for long campaigned for Bhandari's removal and now the Communist home minister seemed to have taken up that responsibility. In Bihar, Laloo's fall would call for a gala party at Paswan's Janpath residence.

Who is really bothered about crime? One man who was at least telling the truth about Uttar Pradesh, even at the cost of creating a crisis for the government to which he belonged, was Indrajit Gupta. Candour and honesty have always been his strong points. He may indeed have committed an indiscretion by lashing out at the administration in UP, and yet the common man in Lucknow or Patna would perhaps give him full marks for speaking out the truth.

That he got most of his kudos from the Opposition benches of the Lok Sabha is another matter. Forgotten in the heat of the raging controversy was the question what is most important for the people of Uttar Pradesh. How much difference would it make to them whether Romesh Bhandari stays or goes? The truth, which ought to be apparent to all, is that crime and criminals have become a part of life in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Certainly if Romesh Bhandari is removed, there would be great celebration in the BJP camp and it would be a big setback for Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh. If Laloo is removed, there would be a major crisis in the Janata Dal and greater chances of a revolt by Laloo: A new regional party could well be born. But will crime and criminals go away? Highly unlikely. As a commentator rightly put it, crime did not begin with them and it will not end with them.

Make no mistake about it, the central point of all the tongue-lashing in Parliament was not crime and corruption, but the removal of Bhandari and Yadav, and the stage has been long past when a mere change of faces can remedy the situation. It is, of course, difficult to say what would end the run of crime and corruption in UP and Bihar or for that matter in any other state. Replacing one set of people with another would certainly not do.

One of the most apt comments on the state of politics today is: hamam men sab nange hain (All are naked in the bath). No political party can claim to be much holier than the other. Crime, like corruption, has become a convenient weapon to beat one another with. What is most evident from the current debate is that everybody would go on accusing the other for carrying the disease but nobody would care to locate the germs. Perhaps they dare not do so, for if they do, they may well find that they have done it at their own cost.

But there is a greater problem with all this than just the misuse and abuse of a situation for political ends. Parties are about politics and politics is about power, and so there can be understandable justification for what the BJP or a section of the United Front encouraged by Ram Vilas Paswan are trying to do. What is infuriating is the cynicism and shamelessness with which the crime and corruption issues are being handled.

It is all too easy to pick on Mulayam Singh Yadav and Laloo Yadav for harbouring criminals in their states. Sure enough, they have had their part to play, or why else would Mulayam Yadav promote so many known criminals in his party? Why would the parlours of the Bihar chief minister bristle with criminal faces all the time?

But consider the ones making the allegations. How clean are the hands of the BJP? True, the number of the men with criminal backgrounds is far bigger in the Janata Dal, but can the leaders of the BJP say that their hands are clean? Can the party deny that some of its top leaders who go around as great apostles of virtue and principled politics, were the most ecstatic witnesses to that most blatant and heinous of all assaults on law and order in the land: The demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992?

Name a party and you can name a criminal -- even the Communists have their share. Of the Congress, the less said the better. Indeed, they are all in it.. hamam men sab.... And perhaps more to blame than all these politicians are we, the people of India, who vote and elect them time and again, the people who queue up at their doorsteps to seek favours, the people who turn into casteists, regionalists, communalists and murderers at a snap of their fingers, the people who plunder and pillage at their command.

There has already been a lot of sound and fury over the UP governor, and there could be more in the days to come, but does it signify anything? Gupta is an honest and fortnight man, who started it all by a bit of plainspeaking. But does he have it in him to do something tangible to tackle the situation in these criminal-dominated states?

The way things have developed during the past week or so, it would seem that Gupta's famous outburst was simply the result of his long stint in the Opposition. It was just that his habit of scowling at the governments of the day got the better of him. He had merely fluttered his wings in the cage.

Janardan Thakur is the former editor of The Free Press Journal.

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