One of the key complaints I had about the Modi government was that it is not inclined to pursue the corruption scandals from the UPA era. Be it the coal scam or the 2G Spectrum scandal or even the Karti-PC Chidambaram scandal, Modi Government's first term came and went without anything useful being attempted. This does not diminish any of the Modi government's other achievements. But Indian voters were tired of numerous scandals by the UPA government. The Manmohan government is likely to go down as the most corrupt government in the first 75 years of Indian independence. And that's why Indian voters overwhelmingly voted for Modi and BJP in 2014. Naturally, the expectation, then, was government to prosecute the corrupt officials and politicians from the UPA era.
But that is not how it happened! There are two key reasons that the Modi government could not and would not go after the corrupt. One is the corruption and ineptness of the judiciary and by association, of prosecution agencies. And second, the common Indian voter's fickleness. On one hand, the voters would like to put corrupt politicians on trial but on the other hand, they may very well change the tunes and feel that the government is persecuting the opposition for political benefit. And, then vote for the corrupts.
This sort of sorcery has happened before!
Let's look at the first point. The Indian justice system in its current avatar does not have much to do with the 'Justice' part. Whimsical in nature, lethargic in action, and corrupt to the core, the institution seems to be interested in maintaining the British era decorum rather than dispensing justice. A self-serving institution that likes to pontificate from the perch, and readily cries victim while holding power without any sort of accountability. The process of getting justice is a sentence in itself for both the accused and accuser. The system has completely forgotten, perhaps willingly, that the purpose of justice is not only to ensure honesty and law abidance in the society but dispensing justice on time is critical for the survival of the society itself. All these issues and concerns about the justice system are most evident when it comes to prosecuting politicians. Most of the accused politicians are on bail, which gets granted more generously than the 'Prashad' at any local temple. Cases run not just for years but decades. When there is no fear of the justice system, the law becomes optional and it is treated merely as a minor inconvenience. Just look at the percentage of MPs and MLAs across the country with criminal past. To be honest, I am okay with this category. What we should be looking at more closely is politicians without any sort of prior criminal past who are now accused of criminal enterprise. This category is worse since they became criminals after attaining the legislative power, essentially giving them power over the law system as well. In such a situation, even if the Government wants to prosecute the criminals, how is it supposed to do it? One sitting Judge of Delhi HC gave bail and anticipatory bail 16 consecutive times to P.C. Chidambaram in various criminal cases lodged against Chidambaram. 16 consecutive times! That same judge also acquitted all accused of 2G spectrum. Should government even waste time and resources in prosecuting Chidambaram then? Also, during the long-drawn court proceedings, the political career and political prowess of the accused do not diminish at all. Most of such accused leverage the situation to advertise their brand and project themselves as a victim of malice!
Now, the second issue is a bit tricky. One can argue that the general populace tends to forget the criminal enterprise of the politician because it's not their job to convict the politicians. But in a sense, it is their job. But let me come to that point a bit later. Let's see how prosecuting a politician boomeranged in the past. Indira Gandhi was accused of massive corruption during the Emergency period. The next government, the Janata Party coalition, decided to pursue the cases. And even though there was no 24 hours news cycle in that era, the process to go after Indira Gandhi became quite a spectacle. And guess who emerged 'victorious' from this episode? The Indian voter not only rejected the Janata Party coalition but backed Indira Gandhi so strongly that in a subsequent election of 1984, the Congress Party managed to win the highest number of Lok Sabha seats ever won by any political party before or since.
Given how Indira Gandhi was rewarded for her corruption by the Indian voters, which politician in her right mind would even bother to make corruption the key agenda? Let's look at it this way. Think of politics as a corporate where politicians pursue their careers. Their clients are Indian voters. They try to sell a vision or an agenda to garner votes, which gives returns to the politicians through legislative seats or government ministry. Politicians have realized that going after corrupts not only not gets corrupt convicted but gives additional political milage to the opponents. And if Indian voters do not value their votes enough to not vote for the corrupt, why would politicians care about corruption? They will create a system that whoever wins will get to eat the pie and if the opponent ever wins he/she will have a tacit understanding of not going after the prior establishment.
The arrest of Indira Gandhi did not lead to her conviction, the cases in the Courts continued aimlessly and police and other law agencies essentially gave up on being the 'law' agencies. Indira Gandhi emerged unscathed and then proceeded to institutionalize the corruption. She managed to build a corruption pyramid where she and her family are perched at the top while the money made its way to them from the bottom up. Almost 40 years since her death, we are still struggling to deal with the corruption model that emerged from the Indira Gandhi era.
Modi government to their credit did quite a bit on the corruption front. There has not been a single financial corruption scandal or even an accusation against any of the Modi government ministers in the last 8 years. It's a grand achievement in itself. But the government also worked hard to close the avenues and opportunities for corruption. No central minister gets files at home. All Babus and Minister have to show up to the office and files are to be kept in the offices only. DBT, Aadhar card, and UPI killed mid-level corruption which used to impact the common man the most. Big ticket defense items such as Rafael jets acquisition were done at the Government level instead of through a middleman. GST and updated Income Tax procedures also took away a lot of avenues for corruption. The government also tried to shake the justice system - whether forcing the system to leverage more technology or attempting to insert some transparency and accountability in the selection and elevation of Justices in the courts. All this is good but as I said at the start of this blog, the Modi government was voted to go after the Chidambaram and Raja of the prior government. And we are still waiting for that movie to start.
The government did try to go after Chidambaram, the chief architect, and kingpin of the numerous UPA era scandals. But apart from Chidambaram spending a few nights in Tihar, nothing substantial came out of that case. But 3 years since the start of the second term, the government is showing signs of going after the head of the corrupt snake. The apparent resolve can be because of multiple reasons. The opposition is scattered and does not pose any grand challenge. Congress is politically marginalized (they currently rule only two states on their own) and Gandhis are increasingly becoming irrelevant. From an electoral politics perspective, going after Gandhis will not lead to any voter backlash. Or it may very well be that prosecuting agencies finally have everything they need to put at least two of the Gandhis behind bars for a good long time. Remember, Al Capone was never convicted of bootlegging, extortions, or even murders. He was taken down for measly tax concerns. Similarly, it's hard to prosecute Gandhis for any of the frauds they committed when they ruled the country. It is also almost impossible to prosecute them for all the anti-national activities they did. Hence, the prosecution is going after them for the frauds they committed at their level. The frauds like National Herald are shockingly lazy. I think they never thought anyone will dare to prosecute them. The hubris had set in by 2014 and hopefully, that will be their undoing. I also don't think the government will be going after small, figuratively speaking, fishes. The A Raja will go free. But if Gandhis are taken down, it will set a good example for future generations that no one is immune.
Whatever may be the case, it's heartening to see the Modi government trying to do one more thing they promised.
Better late than never!
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