No Scams For Us, Please

MAHATMA Gandhi was the asceticideal. Since his time, multi-crore ‘scams’ have transformed post-Independencepoliticians from khadiclad ‘satyagrahis’ to be jewelled ‘buccaneercapitalists’, buyers and sellers of the national destiny rather than inspiringexamples of national service. Unholy alliances with criminal-godmen and ostentatiouslifestyles, the distribution of petrol pump patronage and the unsavoury a la carte ofanimal husbandry are the routine facets of the modern Indian politician. Today, the Nehrujacket and cap are caricatures of integrity, stereotypes of sleaze.

Yet in times when ‘serving thepeople’ is only a sad cliche and when public despair mounts with fresh examples ofimpolitic activities, is the elected class entirely a write-off? Or are there still amongthem who remain true to the spirit that moved them to join in the service of the people?Are there still some who cling to frugal lifestyles or to a commitment to the ends ofpolitics, rather than to the simple means of professional prosperity?

Meet 52-year-old Govindacharya of theBJP who lives in his single room office-cum-sleeping quarters, sleeping on a string cotand refusing private accommodation when he is on tour. Or A.K. Antony, formerKeralachief minister, who lived in a tiny two-roomed flat while his wife went to work every dayby public transport. Or Madhu Dandavate, vice-chairman of the Planning Commission and hiswife Pramila, who retain the house they lived in when he was a professor at BombayUniversity and have never possessed a personal car. There is also 43-year-old D. Raja ofthe CPI, son of an agricultural labourer, who reminisces how he lived through year afteryear without a midday meal and today consciously accepts no other income except his partyallowance. Or V.N. Gadgil, 63, of the Congress who says he feels "suffocated" bythe politics of power-brokering.

The tales surrounding Antony, leader of the Opposition inKerala, are folkloric. He’s often, albeit sarcastically, called ‘SaintAntony’. While he was chief minister, his mother sent a young boy to him with anapplication for a job. Antony gave the boy his return bus fare with the terse message:"Please ask my mother not to send anyone to me again." Not only has Antony neveroccupied the chief minister’s bungalow, his children regularly share an autorickshawfor their journey to school. Only recently has Antony moved to a spacious house becausehis colleagues complained that his house is too small for Opposition meetings. 

Formerfinance minister Manmohan Singh is the turbaned Thomas Beckett of North Block. Soimpatient was he with trappings of high office that he often walked from Parliament Houseto the annexe if he didn’t have his car. While high grandees of state seek outforeign trips, Chief Economic Adviser Shankar Acharya recalls Singh saying, "mywork’s not here, it’s at home" when abroad. "He has a life similar tocivil servants of the old school," Acharya says. "Lots of books in his house,which is tasteful rather than ostentatious."

"Today, politicians’lives," says 41-year-old Nilotpal Basu of the CPM, "are divorced from publicactivities, they are not a part of any political movement. Unless politicians can lead alife with which the public can identify with, how can they ever change people’slives?" Basu was a student leader in the agitations of the ’70s in West Bengaland today is a member of the Rajya Sabha. He lives in a tiny flat with his wife anddaughter, still occasionally travels by public transport and has taken an active role inexposing the details of the telecom scandal. 

Basu’s philosophy is similar to Dandavate’s. As railway minister, Dandavate gave strict instructions that no oneclaiming to be a relative or friend could ask his staff for special favours. "Evenwhen my brother got an opening in the railway hospital, my husband refused to let him takeit up," Dandavate’s wife Pramila recalls. "We came into politics because ofour involvement in the socialist movement, in fact we never wanted to be drawn intoelectoral politics with all its evils of big money." Indeed, it is members ofideological cadres, both on the Left as well as the Right who, more than those occupyingthe non-ideological centre, seem to adhere to principles of frugality and honesty.Govindacharya, the BJP’s general secretary, has been criticised in the past forhaving become too high-profile. After all, as member of the RSS, he is supposed to beanonymous, working silently for community welfare rather than appearing in the eye oftelevision cameras at the drop of a state government. Govindacharya, however, insiststhat he remains loyal to the lifestyle of a ‘pracharak’. 

"It is theindividual politician who will have to make sure that he is not purchasable," hesays. "The individual will have to be fanatically austere and be careful about his orher lifestyle. Correcting systemic obstacles will only succeed if the individual acts onhis own, first person, singular number, without seeking response from others."

 Butmust politicians live in a noble cocoon? While the rest of society moves on with upwardmobility, must the politician alone hold aloft the torch of high ideals? Surely it’sunrealistic to accept the political process to be peopled by saints. Antony’s fetishfor honesty often makes the operation of Indian democracy quite difficult. With Antony atthe helm, the Congress has repeatedly been defeated in Kerala simply because the party hasbeen too cash-strapped to mount proper campaigns.

"The problem," says Gadgil,"is that the MP today is expected by his constituency to be a welfare officer. He isasked to secure school admissions for some, get people gas connections. Strictly speaking,an MP is not supposed to do these things. After all, he simply represents the people inParliament but today he is expected to be a general benefactor." So the operation ofa democratic system in a still traditional society—given the relative absence ofelection ‘issues’—leads to the elected representative being viewed as araja of plenty. At his house his constituents may avail of his unending hospitality andlook to him for deliverance of the goods and services that the state cannot provide. If hefails to deliver, he loses. So he must keep going, a conveyor belt of supplies, especiallyat election time, to consolidate his image as a democratic ‘Harishchandra’.

 "In the present system," says constitutional analyst Subhash C. Kashyap,"it’s extremely difficult to be an honest politician. For most it is a careerfor which you need a great deal of money. Purushottam Mavlankar, son of India’s firstSpeaker, never spent more than the permissible amount and was often defeated," hesays.

Furthermore, the occupants of the Lok Sabha today are no longer members of the‘old elite’, the urban, affluent and often western-educated genteel sons ofwealthy fathers. Today’s legislators spring from the maelstrom of ‘real’India, are overwhelmingly rural or mofussil, lower or lower middle class, often governmentschool-educated. Theirs is a conscious choice to live in ideologically potent poverty.

KASHYAP’S research reveals that while lawyers dominated the firstand second Lok Sabhas, agriculturists and ‘social and political workers’ inhabitthe 10th and 11th. Although the percentage of graduates rose from 37.1 in the first LokSabha to 43.6 in the 10th, Kashyap says politicians today have "multipleidentities". "Often they join politics to further their businessinterests."

 No wonder that Gadgil, a lawyer from the London School of Economics,called to Lincoln’s Inn at London and son of a former vice-chancellor of PoonaUniversity, can afford to be more disdainful of material wealth than the newer entrants tothe Delhi durbar can. "I can’t give big parties or have lavish dinners,"Gadgil says. "What pleasure do people get in having 11 cars or 7-8 farmhouses?"Until last year Gadgil did not possess a car. "The only house that I have is myancestral home in Pune—I hate the idea of converting it into flats!" Contrastthis with the present MP from Pune, Suresh Kalmadi, who, according to the local grapevine,owns nearly half the city.

But one need not be a member of theold elite to be snobbish about new wealth. Says Raja, the first graduate in his village inTamil Nadu: "I may be a politician, but I have no land, no house, no ancestralproperty, in fact as Marx says, I have nothing to lose!" From the sixth standard tothe final completion of his SSC, Raja went without lunch, subsisting on a morning snack ofrice and water. Today he continues to work among the handloom weavers and match factoryworkers of his district, that includes helping find burial grounds for the poor, a problemwhich he feels is being ignored. 

"When politics ceases to become a mission andbecomes a career," says 74-year-old Kushabhau Thakre, another BJP general secretaryloaned to the party by the RSS, "politicians are used by money power."Thakre’s room is bare of any appointments except giant-sized portraits of his familyand political idols. On a wooden shelf sits a comb, a tube of cream and a towel, while asmall suitcase with his clothes rests atop another corner table. His lunch consists of afew chapatis in a dabba and his only major expense is the few newspapers hesubscribes to. "I sleep, live and work, all in one room!" he says. "And Ihave no political ambitions, I don’t want to be an MLA or MP. Politicians should notthink of winning or losing, but of the quality of work they are doing."

Septuagenarian Surendra Mohan, veteran ideologue of the Janata Dal, describes himself as a"practising socialist". Over the years, he says, he has learnt not to trustpoliticians to do the right thing. Mohan says the years have tempered his idealism."I joined politics in 1943-44. It was a different period then. The air was thick withsacrifices. I suppose it would be unrealistic today to live by those ideals. Over theyears one realises the extent to which one’s dreams can be realised. " 

Mohanlives almost entirely by his writings in the media. His years of selfless service haveyielded no rewards for him as he has never been appointed to any high posts, apart frombeing asked to draft the odd manifesto. His chambers are rather dank and dusty. On thewalls hang pictures of Guru Nanak, a dogeared calendar. A crowd of supplicants sits on arickety bed in a corner. Mohan is drafting a letter for one of them, laboriously writingby hand, with a cracked ballpoint pen.

So while the cellphone-brandishing‘vote raja’ jets about on ‘J’ class, fully at ease with using nationaltaxes for personal benefit and seeking the assistance of hired goons to better fulfil hispatriotic purpose, the last idealists live out their commitment in tiny, dank houses withbare light-bulbs, left behind in the race for power and margin-alised in the politics ofblood and gold.