Governance is not a matter of wishful thinking. Nor is it some political trickery. For this, a clean, transparent administration is something minimum. By providing more funds for different fields, as the budget has done, does not automatically ensure improvement, particularly when the aam admi has been consciously left out. If past experience is any guide, the bigger the expenditure the greater is the scope for siphoning off money. A few scams, which have come to light, show how large allocations have given an opportunity to ministers, bureaucrats and their men to fritter away the money.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs admission that there have been aberrations does not wash away his sins. All that he says is that they will be more cautious in the future. The crisis is that of confidence. The deterioration in public life in the Congress as well as in other parties and groups is matched by growing disruptive tendencies, rooted in province, religion, caste and language.
Punishing one former Telecommunication Minister A Raja or one Commonwealth Games in-charge Suresh Kalmadi does not mean that the government has cleansed its stables. And what the two did is by no standard an aberration. They acted fraudulently and went on doing so over a long period. The prime minister may not have known the nitty-gritty of the corrupt deals. But he was aware that there was some hanky-panky. He could hear the noise the media and others were making. The entire system is reeking with the arrogance of power and little fear of punishment. The rot has gone down all the way, making those at positions confident of going scot-free even if a few from among them are caught with their fingers in the jam jar.
Members of Manmohan Singhs cabinet, if assessed by an independent body (not the government-controlled CBI), practically all of them would be found wanting in integrity in one way or the other. And this holds good for the states, ruled either by the Congress or the BJP. In fact, both parties have brought down the public life to such a low level that people do not know whether India had ever maintained high standards.
The Prime Minister has advised the people to improve the tone of public life. How do they do? The common man does not count. He is so burdened with ever increasing food prices that he is all the time busy trying to keep himself afloat. Civil society is itself a participant in the loot. And the top is so mixed up with the ruling party at the Centre and in the states that it has developed a vested interest in what is going on in the name of governance.
When morality goes out of politics and power becomes an end-in-itself, the parties do not mind what methods they adopt to reap benefits. What the different governments have done is that they have wiped out the line dividing right and wrong, moral and immoral. People do not have any compunction in adulterating medicines, fudging degrees or even leaking question papers. There is nothing called wrong per se.
Another ill that has crept in is the assertion of identity. All communities want an identity of their own. This is fair as long as the Indian identity is above the rest. The media, a strong pillar of the democratic structure, has itself become part and parcel of the corrupt system. Newspapers and TV channels sell space for consideration. The phrase Paid News is not an affront any more. An unpublished report of the Press Council of India has proved beyond doubt that most leading papers, the English press is not an exception, have accepted money to publish a candidates propaganda as news and has kept out the opponents from the paper.
When no field remains unpolluted, the blame lies on the shoulders of the intelligentsia. It has ceased to be sensitive. Yet the nation has to preserve the fundamental values of a democratic society. The ethical considerations inherent in public servants have to be refurbished. They run the system. I agree that cleansing has to begin from the top. The Lokpal bill has to be enacted soon. The CBI should be put under charge of the Lokpal. Maybe, the institution should have more than one person, approved by the Prime Minister and the opposition leader in the Lok Sabha.
But the top most priority has to be given to the functioning of Parliament. What the Congress has experienced stalling of the winter session the party had done the same thing when the BJP was in power. I recall how on the 50th anniversary of Parliament all members swore never to disturb the house. The Congress, then in the opposition, was the first to violate the consensus. Timely action could have been taken to stop the slide. To say that the government will be cautious in the future is neither here nor there. People want to see quick results. And they are losing patience.
The writer is a senior Indian journalist.