TALES OF TRAVESTY
DR. JITENDRA SINGH
Sacked or not sacked. It is not everybody’s privilege to be an Ashwani Kumar or a Bansal. The importance of these two gentlemen is evident from the fact that they came to be known not so much for their work in the two ministries of Law and Railways respectively headed by them but more so for their extra curricular skills at bending the system to add to their fortunes. And this is precisely for what they are simultaneously awed, envied and detested….. their ability to unapologetically use power when in power…. a 21st century phenomenon earlier represented with distinction by the likes of A Raja and Kalmadi, and today having gained the status of virtually an institutionalised ministerial conduct to be followed by others of the ilk. Certainly, everybody is not blessed with the craft to make it big by attracting unsolicited bribers or by taming the police trained CBI high-ups. And, those who accomplish this art and also learn how to sneak out unscathed are truly the role models for a society struck with the haste to become rich and mighty.
George Bernard Shaw once remarked that each one of us strives to be known for his wisdom and those who are unable to prove wise, most definitely end up being shrewd if not cunning. In the same vein, perhaps, in the race to make an overnight fortune, those who fail to become rich by fair means, most definitely end up taking recourse to unfair means. But, what has been left unexplained by seers, philosophers and thinkers alike is why even those who have succeeded making a quick buck by fair means feel tempted to make an extra buck by unfair means?
Even as India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru went on to concede that he would rather prefer in his Government, such officials and functionaries who are highly efficient even though somewhat corrupt over those who are highly inefficient though not corrupt, the thin line of demarcation seems to have dangerously faded away vindicating Mahatma Gandhi’s time-tested dictum that “means are as important as ends”. As a result today, we are constrained to put up with a polity and an administration which is both generally inefficient and generally corrupt.
In the realms of administration, today, the unspoken rule in general is that everybody is corrupt until and unless proved otherwise and everybody is incorruptible until and unless given a chance to be corruptible. In other words, a state functionary, be it a minister or a bureaucrat or an officer… is honest, non-corrupt and incorruptible only as long as he holds a portfolio or department which offers no room to make money through underhand or illegitimate means. This also could by implication mean that incorruptibility in contemporary set-up is not by choice or design but purely by default. True test of incorruptibility lies in being offered the opportunity to be corrupt and yet refusing to be so in much the same way as according to the Gandhian dictum, the true test of non-violence lies in holding a weapon in hand but refusing to use it.
Be that as it may, much of what is written above relates to corruption in terms of misappropriation of money. What about “moral” corruption which is equally rampant, someone may ask? The answer is that in India of 2013, atleast in the ruling echelons, “morality” has been conveniently shown the exit. Have you, for that matter, in recent times, heard of any political high-up or bureaucrat voluntarily resigning from his post on “”moral grounds”? The dictum is that till the time you are caught, convicted and proved guilty, you continue to enjoy the “privilege” to be corrupt no matter whatever be the common man’s perception, no matter how hoarse Umapathy might cry out and lament ‘‘ Aaj Deewar Khaa Gayi Saaya…’’. That truly is the importance of being Ashwani or Bansal !
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