Ten years ago the amazing P C Sorcar, Junior pulled off one of the greatest tricks of his career when he made the Taj Mahal disappear. That illusion lasted for two nerve-wracking minutes; some reports suggested that towards the end some in the crowd had to be physically restrained from attacking the master magician.
Some people in Karnataka sneer at such feats as worthy only of an amateur.
In the course of the Bilikere Port Scam some three-and-a-half million tons of iron ore disappeared. That disappearance is no optical illusion, the ore seems to be gone for good. And neither the vanished iron nor the disgusted resignation of Karnataka's Lok Ayukta, Justice N Santosh Hegde, has stirred a fraction of the wrath caused by the 'vanishing' of the Taj Mahal.
Beat that, P C Sorcar, Junior!
Three-and-a-half million tons is not a small amount. To put that into perspective, the Empire State Building in New York weighs 'only' 365,000 tons. In other words the ore that disappeared was the equivalent of close to ten Empire State Buildings vanishing into thin air.
How is it that nobody noticed such a thing? The answer is that somebody did notice -- and he, in turn, was made to disappear, which in turn led to the Lok Ayukta going off the stage.
The scam came to light when R Gokul, then deputy conservator of forests, found some 800,000 tons of iron ore lying illegally in the port of Bilikere. The officer filed a case against several firms. For his pains R Gokul was suspended by J Krishna Palemar, who holds both the environment and the ports portfolios in the B S Yeddyurappa ministry.
Appalled at this flagrant injustice, the Lok Ayukta tried to intervene. Nobody in the government of Karnataka seemed interested in listening, and the frustrated Lok Ayukta quit in disgust. Justice Hegde's position was that there was no point in clinging on to an office if he could not use it to rescue an honest and diligent officer.
It is a minor miracle that we still have men like the Lok Ayukta and the (former) deputy conservator of forests in the corridors of government. But let us admit that their ilk is far outnumbered by the ranks of those who either prefer a quiet life or are out for personal profit.
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