Can Politicians in India ever be Honest ?

By Deepak Parvatiyar

September 10, 2014

“Na Khaoonga, Na Khane Doonga,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently declared. Loosely translated, it meant the PM would not tolerate corruption at public offices and one of his cabinet ministers lauded his remarks saying it required “real guts” for the PM to make such public proclamations.

Why can’t we have honest politicians? Consider a quote from Simon Cameron, who served as United States Secretary of War for Abraham Lincoln at the start of the American Civil War — “An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.” It does conceal less and reveals all!

Role of Big Money and Lobbyists in Politics

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• Politicians of India

At this juncture I am reminded of American Gil Fulbright’s last year’s satirical crowdfunding campaign for his project, ‘The Honest Politician’, that sought to enable him contest for the Kentucky senate against politicians Mitch McConnell and Alison Lundergan Grimes. The project focussed at ‘Big Money’ special interests and lobbyists that overrun “our government”.

Back home, what does a Neera Radia (corporate lobbyist) case suggest in this regard? Don’t we ever discuss that our career politicians are taking our tax money for their cronies and lobbyists who fund their campaigns?

A mention of the already much written about Modi’s campaign style too seems apt here. Modi did raise money through a gate fee charged from his audiences – a first of its kind initiative (can we term it as crowdfunding?) that proved quite successful too. However, his back breaking back-to-back rallies for months together at a stretch, his 3D Holographic speeches, didn’t they all require big time funding?

Yet, Modi refuses to consider himself as a career politician and he stated during his Teachers’ Day address that “politics cannot be a profession…. Politics is service.”

Corruption has Seeped into Body Politic

Ironically, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has shown footage of a BJP leader trying to bribe an AAP legislator to join BJP. The concerned BJP leader is now purportedly left alone to fend for himself by his party. Doesn’t the episode refresh memories of the then BJP president late Bangaru Laxman or the party’s leader from Chhattisgarh, late Dilip Singh Judev, shown accepting bribes in separate sting operations when the NDA under Atal Behari Vajpayee was at the helm at Centre? Much before that we do remember the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha bribery case that had shaken the country in 1993 when 10 JMM MPs cast their votes against a no-confidence motion moved in the Lok Sabha against the minority Congress government of P.V. Narasimha Rao. Even during the reign of the first Prime Minister late Jawaharlal Nehru, his finance minister R.K. Shanmukham Shetty had quit following charges of shielding a corrupt businessman!

But why go so far? Hasn’t Laloo Yadav been barred from contesting elections following his conviction in the fodder scam? Besides, we still remember the ‘Cash for Vote’ scam during the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government wherein the ruling conglomerate allegedly bribed Bharatiya Janata Party MPs in order to survive a confidence vote on 22 July 2008.

Remember the famous remarks of Salman Khurshid, a senior Congress leader and then the law minister in the erstwhile UPA government, when Gandhian and anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare toyed with the idea of floating a political outfit — “Ab way isi hammam me kapde utaar kar khade hain na, aa kar dekhiye unko (now he too is standing naked in this cesspool [of politics], so come and watch him).”

Power’s Corrupting Influence

There is an old saying the power corrupts. It corrupts even the most powerful politicians. A case in point is former US President late Richard Nixon. He had to relinquish his post following the Watergate scandal that encompassed an array of clandestine and often illegal activities including bugging the offices of Nixon’s political opponents by the Nixon administration.

Politicians in developed and considerably ‘honest’ societies too cannot skip the scrutiny. Consider the curious case of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair who last year faced questions over his role as adviser to the president of Malawi, Loyce Banda, after the British government froze “with immediate effect”,  a £ 17 million aid to the country in face of a corruption scandal. Even in a comparatively sedate Japan, a country that ranks high in ethics, honesty and transparency, Yukio Hatoyama, had to quit as the Prime Minister in June 2010 largely following political funding scandals involving him even though prosecutors chose not to pursue him citing insufficient evidence of criminal activity. The reason cited by Hatoyama for quitting though, was that he had failed to fulfil an election pledge over US bases in the country!

Of late, much is being interpreted of the US President Barrack Obama’s recent “I’m being honest now” statement too when Obama talked about the importance of immigration reform in an interview.

Corruption Defies Generalisation

Still, politics has indeed given us great leaders known for their integrity, honesty and administrative skills and therefore, we cannot make a general assumption that none of the present day politicians is honest. A recent example, as a website poll showed, is Manik Sarkar – the Chief Minister of Tripura for fourth consecutive term. He doesn’t own a house and had declared his bank balance to be a paltry Rs 6,500. He donates his salary to his political party, the CPI (M), which in turn gives him a sustenance allowance of Rs 5000 every month.

What the Future Entails – Politicians with or without corruption ?

Politicians like Sarkar, indeed, belong to the vanishing breed of honest politicians. However, things should change in the wake of the measures for cleansing the political system in the country through legislations such as the Lok Pal Act and the Right to Information Act, the None of the Above (NOTA) option in the ballot papers and a recent Supreme Court ruling that lawmakers who get convicted of a serious crime would not only lose their seat but would also be barred from contesting elections if they have been sentenced to at least two years in jail.

Yet, can these new provisions encourage our political leaders to be honest with the voters? Isn’t the less-than-truthful rhetoric of our politicians too pervasive to be simply a personality concern? Congress leader Rahul Gandhi once famously said that “Power is poison”. Does it suggest that politicians are poisonous? No prize for the guess!

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