SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA
ARCHIVES

Pritish Nandy

Our New Netas

We have just finished the election and are about to swear in a brand new government. In the glare of television and the world media. This is the time to introspect, to ask ourselves if we have chosen the right kind of people for the right job. If we have voted into power the government we want, we deserve.

Or are we amnesiacs, ready to vote any crook, criminal, thief or thug to power -- just for the heck of it? Just because we see this whole thing as a tamasha that does not, cannot, and never will, touch the anguish of our lives nor change its wretched futility?

If you see the outcome of the latest Lok Sabha poll, you will be as confused as I am.

J Jayalalitha is back, winning 18 seats this time. More than what the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress together gained. For someone accused of such vulgar and ugly corruption, it is amazing. Given the fact she has not been exonerated of a single charge. A lesser mortal would have languished behind bars for the rest of his or her life. But Amma looks larger than life -- metaphorically as well as physically. She is the star of the new political combine that will rule India. Her thugs will, in all probability, join the new Cabinet on the 15th, giving life to the BJP's claim of offering India a new and alternative political culture.

She is not the only one. Kalpnath Rai is back, on a Samata Party ticket. He was the man who, as a minister in P V Narasimha Rao's cabinet, protected the criminals involved in the JJ Hospital shootout. By putting them up in a government guest house. He, too, has spent months in jail. He was also the key accused in the sugar import scam where millions of rupees were looted from the exchequer. He will now be a minister in the new government if his leader George Fernandes has his way.

A worse example is Sukh Ram. His game was synonymous with corruption of the most venal kind. He was finally caught redhanded with millions of rupees packed in plastic bags and bedsheets lying around in his government bungalow. So ugly was his reputation that even the Congress, not exactly renowned for the integrity, had no option but to throw him out. Such a man would have been a pariah in any society. But here he has swept all the assembly seats in Mandi barely a couple of years later, and emerged as the new kingmaker in Himachal Pradesh. No one cares to remember his crimes, leave alone demand that he be punished for them.

Laloo is also back. As the new defender of the faith. Secularism. An ally of the Congress, friend of the poor, a battler for the backward castes. Who remembers that the charge that he looted millions in the fodder scam and spent months in prison? How do you expect him to be punished for his crime when we vote him back to power as a messiah of the downtrodden? No wonder, he struts around as if he owns Bihar. A little bully, puffed up by his own sense of self-importance. While the Central Bureau of Investigation officer who hunted him down has been banished to Siberia. A victim of his own zealousness in a society where criminals get more respect than law enforcers.

Anand Mohan, another ugly history-sheeter, has been re-elected. Even though all parties shunned him. Shahbuddin, whose list of criminal cases is longer than that of any Bombay don, is back with his AK 47-wielding sidekicks. Mitresen has beaten Vinay Katiyar of the BJP to emerge as a darling of the secularists -- but study his criminal record and you will find a murder conviction there as well. No, they are no exceptions. They are the rule. In states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, you will find it difficult to identify political candidates untainted by crime of some kind.

But, what is more important: We have now come to accept the fact that politicians do not need character certificates. They are fine as they are. Crooks, murderers, dacoits, cheats, thugs, bribe- takers. They are all part of our usual political life. No one is ashamed any more. No one gives a damn.

In fact, if you ask the party leaders, they trout out predictable excuses. Excuse No 1: How can you prejudge the person? The courts must first decide. Excuse No 2: Reputations are always secured in politics. No one is a criminal until actually proved to be so. Excuse No 3: This is politics, not a kindergarten party. We need people who can stand up to the criminals. And, when all other excuses fail, Excuse No 4: He or she is the victim of extreme media prejudice.

No wonder the culture of crime has now become an intrinsic part of our politics. Even top leaders resort to blackmail, threat, intimidation. In the natural course of politics. You can be a murderer or a thug as long as you are fighting for secularism. Leaders garb their real designs so that you think they are fighting for social justice and great noble values while all that they are doing is protecting themselves from being caught out as petty thieves.

The Congress has seen the ugly spectacle of two of its recent prime ministers being accused of taking bribes. Does it shame them? No. One attends court every few weeks to moan that he is not a thief. The widow of the other is now the party's supreme leader and calls the shots for every appointment, every ticket. She is worshipped as the ultimate leader even though her family retainer -- who fought her election by proxy -- lost his seat in the family pocket borough. Defeated by a BJP goon who has also been accused of every possible crime in the lexicon. Murder, intimidation, bigamy.

This leads us to a simple conclusion. If you are criminally inclined and have failed in whatever you are doing -- be it cat burglary, pickpocketing, thieving, extortion, cheating or blackmailing -- do not fret, there are great opportunities ahead of you. Join politics. Wangle a ticket.

You don't have to wait. The way things are going, we are likely to have elections every few months -- certainly once in every two years -- and, if you can put your act together, who knows you may actually win and become a minister in the next government, be it BJP-led or Congress-led or UF-led. Look at the guys in the UP cabinet and take heart.

All you need is a slogan. You must be seen as fighting communalism or corruption or casteism or criminalisation of politics. Or, in case that is not possible, you must be seen fighting for something equally noble. Hindutva or stability or swadeshi. As long as no one knows what you are talking about, you have a chance of winning.

Pritish Nandy