Maun Ki baat and vegetarian corruption -Soter

22 Jun, 2015, 12:07AM IST

The boastful celebrations of the BJP to commemorate one year in power by the Modi government have suddenly given way to shameful denials of impropriety and nepotism. The hollow boasts from Modi about intolerance to corruption by his government when he said, “Na khaoonga na khane dunga” are now exposed with the desperate defence being put up in favour of the indefensible actions of our country’s Foreign Affairs Minister alongwith the Chief Minister of Rajasthan. The BJP does not realize that citing past instances of Congress corruption as a defence is nothing but an admittance of walking in the footsteps of the corrupt UPA government. What is even more damaging is that the ‘Maan ki baat’ of the PM has given way to ‘Maun ki baat’ with his twitter handle on this issue appearing stuck for the moment.

The on-going ‘Lalitgate’ expose has in fact brought into focus the double standards of the saffron parivar which shamelessly jumped in to play down the impropriety of the Foreign Affairs Minister and the Chief Minister of Rajasthan by claiming that the action was on humanitarian grounds and certifying these controversial ministers as nationalists who could do no wrong. 

This sounds more like the emergence of vegetarian corruption claiming to be healthier than non-vegetarian corruption of the Congress regime. Its superiority complex and arrogance probably deceives the BJP into thinking that it can ‘ul’loo banaoing’ (fool) the people of this country like it managed to do during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The nation has now realized that the new chapter in Indian democracy which was claimed to have been opened from June 2014 is in fact the same old chapter of the last 60 years that is repackaged and aggressively marketed as new. The only difference is that the faces behind the corruption and deceit have changed. This model of corrupt governance is now popularly known as ‘U–turn’ governance.

One does not require knowledge of rocket science to understand that political parties and politicians do not thrive in politics merely on love and fresh air. Gone are the days when elections were won on good will and selfless support from the voters and elected representatives cycled to their office. Today politics is about investment and profits which undoubtedly has to be about compromises, favours and deceit in governance with an unwritten price-tag on the kick-backs. The only difference is in the style of corrupt practices. One political party may practice ‘solo-corruption’ wherein the minister’s interests are first and his party’s last, while the other is about ‘co-operative or collaborative corruption’ where the party is first and the minister follows. That is how ‘sab ka saath, sab ka vikas’ before elections turns into ‘khas admi ka saath, khas admi ka vikas’ after getting elected. Behind every scam it has to be ‘good faith’, nationalism and humanitarian concerns. The ‘conflict of interest’ clause only applies to those who oppose and expose corruption in politics.

 

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