The Villainous Now

Just how much punishment can a nation take? Does some ingrained civilisational memory enable us to endure the almost limitless lashes? Are we a nation of practised masochists? At what point does people’s rage spill out onto the streets? As a hardened journalist, I suppose I can absorb more shocks than the aam admi. So, as I picked up the dailies on Wednesday, I was prepared for new bad news and also prepared for old bad news having become badder, pardon the expression. I had the bar set pretty low. However, I quickly discovered it was not quite low enough.

Disgust, disappointment, despair, dejection have become routine emotions for those unfortunate citizens whose day begins with the morning newspapers. Still, Wednesday, September 5, was exceptional, the mother of all black Wednesdays. The Coalgate scam had widened and deepened and now seemed to implicate almost the entire political establishment. Mukesh Ambani’s RIL secured illicit favours from ONGC running into hundreds of crores. Mamata Banerjee misused funds earmarked for upgrading educational infrastructure to celebrate a Teacher’s Day gala. Karnataka chief minister Jagadish Shettar, battling a drought, was forced to cut short a junket of state MLAs to South America due to public outrage. The CAG pulled up the National Highways Authority for a shady Rs 847 crore loss. Uddhav Thackeray wanted permits for Biharis coming to Mumbai for employment. Narendra Modi’s former minister, Amit Shah, was chargesheeted in a fake encounter case. Sri Lankan pilgrims visiting Chennai were attacked by militant Tamil groups, apparently, with Jayalalitha’s approval.

As you will have observed, I have excluded from the laundry list the usual quota of murder, molestation, rape, dacoity and other sundry unsalutary stories. The Delhi Police, well aware of their stinking reputation, took out large advertisements on September 5, pleading with Delhiwallahs: “Your city is not all about the bad news that you read every day. It’s also about the good news that you don’t read, like the numerous bombs we defused and accidents we prevented." And all this battering they choose to inflict on us in a single day!

So, who is to blame? Our energetic and sainted television anchors, night after night, wave documents at us which no doubt add to the list of villains but shed more heat than light. The spokespersons trade charges of culpability and declarations of innocence and make the presence of someone like me on the show redundant. At some point, you can be sure the word “system” will surface and the Congress, while accepting a tiny bit of the blame (for which naturally they promise a fast, fair and full inquiry), will cite a whole catalogue of institutional villains thwarting the cleaning up of the damned system. Police reform, election funding etc etc are forwarded as alibis. It is a charade; we’ve been here before.

Let’s consider the system. Ours may not be flawless, but it’s in place. After all, the judiciary, CAG, election commission, the media are all part of the system and by all accounts are performing reasonably well. Remember, a system is only as good or bad as the people who work it. Even a perfect system can be subverted, as has been famously done in our republic. Many years ago, the all-knowing The Economist declared, “India has too many laws, too little justice”.
Partisan politics is presented to us as another villain. The relations between the two main political formations, we are told, have degenerated to such an extent that the minimum degree of trust and cooperation necessary to run a parliamentary democracy is missing. While there is some truth here, partisan politics is an affliction all democracies are beset by. In the US, the Republicans and Democrats are forever at each other’s throats, yet they seem able to work the system.

I think what has shocked ordinary folk is the scale of corruption and misgovernance. With skeletons tumbling out of every government cupboard, no part of the system is untainted. Land, natural resources, defence procurement, even our sports bodies are hotbeds of serious malpractice. Perhaps we should not open too many cupboards. Since the Congress party has ruled this country continuously, with a few interruptions, it can’t avoid the charge of being the lead villain with villains from other parties playing supporting roles. Whenever elections are held, the Congress will pay a heavy price for being the main beneficiary and the main perverter of the system. They make the smug, holier-than-thou BJP look like angels, itself a travesty of the truth.

Is there a way out? Even a short-term solution? Doubtless, the present dispensation has to be booted out, the sooner the better. But I cannot say with any conviction that those who will take their place will not feather their nest with equal zeal. When I started writing this piece, I was determined not to quote W.B. Yeats and his warning of what happens when the Centre does not hold: anarchy is let loose. We are heading in that direction, if we haven’t already arrived there.