THE LAST PAGE

INDIA: THE COMING END OF A DREAM

Dr. M. V. Kamath

Overnight, as it were Shantakumaran Sreesanth is in the news – for a wrong reason. He is charged with accepting a Rs: 40 lakh bribe for spot-fixing and that is probably going to be the end of his career. One feels sorry for him. To be fair he is the victim of a rapidly deteriorating social ambience bereft of all values. But why blame him? We have only to blame ourselves. We don’t have leaders of any standing that the young can look up to. All that matters for them is money, money, money. This is not a new development and goes back to the ten years of Congress rule in the country.  Go back to April 2012 and the story of Ottavio Quattrochi, a close friend of the Gandhi family. As the media frequently noted, he was involved in the Bofors scandal and friendship with the Gandhi family helped him clinch several lucrative deals. When he was about to be arrested “he was allowed to slip away in the dead of night by a Congress government in Delhi. That was just the beginning. In February 2012 the Supreme Court quashed all the 122 licenses allocating 2G spectrum issued in 2008 “in a stinging indictment of the UPA government” imposing exemplary penalties on some of the major licences. In February 2011 Switzerland’s envoy to Delhi was reported as saying that his government is willing to share information on Indians holding secret bank accounts estimated to be as high as $1.4 trillion! What has the government done? Did the government get the information? If it has why haven’t the names of the tax dodgers not been revealed to the public? There is no explanation. On May 23 The Times of India said that the Lok Sabha Speaker hit the headlines following the RTI disclosure about the Ministry of Urban Development waiving off Rs 2 crore it had billed for her stay in the bungalow once occupied by her father Jagjivan Ram, but that was pittance. The Indian Express (23 June 2011) revealed that the Telecom Central Minister Dayanidhi Maran had got fixed in his home in Chennai 323 telephone lines and just one of them accounted for over 48 lakh call in one month, March. The staggering loss to the government was over Rs 400 crore. Deccan Herald (22 June 2012) said making a volte face on a petition to the Centrally Empowered Committee seeking a CBI probe against three former Chief Ministers (of Karnataka) for their alleged role in illegal mining, the state Government has informed the Panel that the Lokayukta had found lapses during their (the Chief Ministers’) tenure and put the total less to the government between 1999 and 2007 at Rs 714 crore. Of course, the three Chief Ministers, S. M.Krishna, N. Dharam Singh and H.D. Kumaraswamy, have given explanations. But, according to the petitioner “the magnitude of illegality during the tenure of these three Chief Ministers was more than 100 times compared to Yeddyyurappa’s reign”. The Hindu (8 May 2011) had earlier quoted Kumaraswamy as saying that more than Rs 20,000 crore accrued through illegal mining and export of iron ore in Karnataka has been stashed away in Swiss Banks and he had “all the proof” and was “ready to provide all the details”. The Times of India (29 May 2011) said Karnataka’s Infrastructure Minister “sits in a gold chair worth Rs.2.2 crores offers pooja to gold idols worth Rs.2.58 crores and wears a belt worth Rs.13.15lakh. Deccan Herald (June 12, 2012) reported that India’s richest M.P, Yedugiri Sandinti Jaganmohan Reddy representing Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh “allegedly amassed Rs.1663400 crore (sixteen lakh sixty three thousand four hundred crore rupees)through illegal means. He reportedly has a 40-room palatial house costing more than Rs.200 crore with a helipad in Bangalore. What is more to the point is his house in Hyderabad with fourteen escalators, 10 lifts, a mini-theatre of 200 seating capacity, 60 bedrooms, 20 servants’ quarters, libraries, squash, tennis and volleyball courts and no explanation is available how Reddy made his money. Economic Times (May 2013) quotes a news portal as saying that “Twenty three major banks, both public and private and insurance companies are running national money   laundering racket, blatantly violating the laws of the land by offering to launder money”, putting aside “Know-Your-Customer”  norms. Attempts were being made to turn black money into white. The Hitavadi published a report from the IANS (India Abroad News Service) which said that three known companies (names have been mentioned) have stashed Rs.388 crore in a foreign bank. The sentinel (8 March 2012) said an Assam Special Judge has ordered the CID to immediately file chargesheet against 256 top officials of the state, including a number of IAS officials, Executive Engineers et al. But  think of this: Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh defended his Rail Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal & his Law Minister Ashwani Kumar, one charged with corruption and another with blatant irregularities, till the very last minute. Consider that the Free Press Journal (11 May, 2013) has said, about Bansal. “Though initially he denied that he had anything to do with the nephew who was arrested by the CBI accepting Rs 90 lakh in bribe, the CBI unearthed evidence of a well-oiled racket run by Bansal in which not only jobs but other services in the rail ministry were put on sale”. All that Sreesanth did was to walk into the steps of his elders, only he has to pay for it for the rest of his young life. Add to all that, think of the crores of rupees made by some of the media houses through ‘paid news’. If the Congress president, the Prime Minister, a Judge of Supreme Court, The Commander-in-Chief of the Army, six Cabinet Ministers, four Chief Ministers, some two hundred top officials, members of the media, the highest public and private banks come under the scanner, what is there to say? One remembers what Winston Churchil, an ardent India-hater said in June 1947 about the India that was soon to get independence. He said: “Power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, freebooters, all Indian leaders will be of low caliber and men of straw. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles”. Remember that Manmohan Singh. Remember that, Sonia Gandhi. The most decent thing that you can do is to resign. You have brought enough shame to the country already.