All Naked In This Hamaam

OUR Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao is an honourable man. He is the ultimate upholder of clean politics. Didn't he order this bout of feverish spring-cleaning? The crackdown on hawala-tainted politicians didn't even spare his own ministers. Why, he even denied them tickets for the coming Lok Sabha elections! Seven of them were felled, seven small trees, each causing a proportionate quake on their home turf.

And how can we forget L.K. Advani of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the other moral guardian of Indian politics? The moment it became evident that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was going to file a chargesheet against him in the hawala case, with admirable alacrity he resigned his seat in the Lok Sabha and announced he would not dream of contesting another election till he had been cleared of the charges. The BJP stands for lily-white politics, and national security. Besides this great sacrifice from the party president, the BJP also denied a nomination to Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, its MP from Gonda, arrested under TADA and allegedly involved in the Bombay blast cases.

And if the two leading contenders for power stood so upright, could the torch-bearer of the third force, Janata Dal, be far behind? Party president S.R. Bommai quit his post simply because he was alleged to be involved in the hawala case. So did Sharad Yadav relinquish his post as the Leader of the JD Parliamentary Party. All of a sudden, ethical cleansing is in. It seems the entire political class of India has decided to turn a new leaf and clean the nation's polity.

But that's on the surface. Scratch the skin just a little and the underlying hypocrisy comes out stark and clear. For Rao, moral high ground was claimed by denying party tickets to the hawala-tainted ministers. But amid the hurly burly of ticket distribution, he swiftly dealt out nominations to the wives, sons, and other kin of the accused. Rao, the new Mr Clean of Indian politics, the man who had dropped B. Shankaranand and Rameshwar Thakur in the wake of the securities scam, did not once flinch before offering them Lok Sabha nominations from Chikodi and Bhagalpur respectively. And the very same Advani, who made squeaky clean noises while resigning from the Lok Sabha, cleared the nomination for Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh's wife, Ketaki Singh, from the Gonda constituency. And in tune with his illustrious colleagues, Sharad Yadav did not bat an eyelid before filing his papers for the Madhepura Lok Sabha constituency.

The 1996 Lok Sabha election, in many ways, is following the pattern of the hawala revelations. The colour of tainted money outshone all hues of ideology in the largesse distributed by S.K. Jain. He and his mentors were savvy enough not to divide the world on political lines. For they understood much before anyone else that ideology is but a facade. That just about every politico in the country is willing to dance to the jingle of money. The election for the 11th Lok Sabha is unique in the sense that almost all parties have dropped the facade. And to that extent, without really meaning to do so, have turned truthful.

One should not dwell too long on the nominations given to those chargesheeted and suspected of various crimes. That has been going on for a long time. But what do you say about the pre-poll alliances, the spree of one-night stands? George Fernandes—the last of the Indian socialists, that great admirer of Ram Manohar Lohia—has little qualms about tying up with the BJP. Perhaps a bungalow in the heart of New Delhi, and other such trappings, are too dear to let go of just like that. And the BJP and its saffron-clad kith and kin, who were once annoyed at the very insertion of the word "socialism" in the preamble of the Indian Constitution, too see no illogic in choosing him as its regional partner. The message from both of them is simple: ideologies be damned, we need the seats.

This, then, seems to be the primary credo for all this time around. It was only in his pursuit of seats that Narasimha Rao risked alienating almost the entire state unit of his party in Tamil Nadu and struck an alliance with the AIADMK, unarguably one of the most corrupt and dictatorial regimes in the country. The breakaway faction of the Congress led by Moopanar & Co. proved no more fussy. They groped for the hands of Karunanidhi, the leader of the DMK, the party that was accused in the last elections of being in league with the LTTE, and hence being responsible for the assassination of their beloved leader Rajiv Gandhi. Come to think of it, the All India Indira Congress of N.D. Tiwari, Arjun Singh and V. Ramamurthy—always acidic in their attack on Rao for the Rao's Congress had also been toying with the idea of dalliance with the DMK.

It was Congress spokesman V.N. Gadgil who, in one of his rare moments of candour, said after the hawala case: Is hamaam mein sabhi nange hain (all stand naked in this bath). The context has become much wider now. Now it is just not hawala, or the securities scam, or the sugar scandal for that matter. All the naked men (and women, to ward off charges of being sexist) are in the fray this time around, and it's not a very pleasing sight. The unfortunate thing is that the common man, or the common voter to be precise, has little choice in the matter. He must choose one thief in preference over the other. He must forget his own ideology while casting his vote for the pygmies in tardy progress in the assassination probe—were also pining for an alliance with the same DMK they had vilified earlier. For that matter, till the last moment, the arena. He can do little else. The average Indian is a proud democrat, who believes in the system. Alas, the system has been almost completely hijacked by scruple-free politicians.

For close to five decades, the common voter—largely the undernourished from the rural sector—has tried to keep the democratic fibre of the country alive and vibrant. Time and again he has rescued the polity from the vagaries of the brash, dictatorial rulers, or from those who had adorned the high office sans the requisite stable mental makeup. One can only hope that the genius of the electorate will rise again and deliver the verdict which can resuscitate the dying polity. But the sense of despair remains uppermost in the mind even as the heart hopes for that magical solution. What can the voter do, given the choices he has? Can anything at all be done as long as the current system remains in force? Perhaps not. Perhaps the solution lies in the masses rising to force a systemic change. Or perhaps we shall have to await the arrival of another Mahatma.