Morality

The coal scam – one round of outrage, the next when the CAG report comes ..

A few days back, there was a leakage of a report that was supposed to be a draft CAG report on the coal sector. If people were surprised at the number of zeroes outlined in the 2G scam, the coal scam as outlined in the draft CAG report was many times larger, figures that are huge and which also give a sharp reminder of the huge amount of money and benefits controlled by politicians. The report outlined a loss to the public exchequer through the process of granting coal mines to private sector companies, with the allocation of mines being done through the Ministry of Mining, which was also coincidentally one of the portfolios held by the Prime Minister during part of the time period mentioned in the report.
There was some amount of pressure, but then the Government showed portions of a letter from the CAG which quoted his despair at the report being leaked to the media before it was ready, and also that there might be changes in the report based on the ongoing discussion, with the current Minister of the department stating that there was no problem (at least in this particular case they did not blame the report on some policy decisions taken by the NDA Government). Of course, the next day the Times of India published the full text of the CAG letter to the Prime Minister, which sought to portray that the distress of the CAG was over the leakage of the draft report, and that the report did not drastically change from what was published in the draft report.
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Yet another threat to the BJP Government in Karnataka – Yeddyurappa will be back

Why are political parties bent on hara-kiri in states that are so critical to them ? For the BJP, it spent a long time without any major kind of presence in the Southern states (there was some influence in Kerala, but not of the level that it has won a seat over there). And then, the BJP finally won a majority (or got close to a majority and attracted more people) in Karnataka. In the minds of the BJP leadership, this was to be a state where the BJP could demonstrate to the southern half of India how it runs a Government, its model being different from the Congress in terms of running a stable Government, and espousing development. Well, this attempt seems to have failed spectacularly. Over a period of time, the BJP in Karnataka seems to have failed spectacularly in showing how a state should be run, instead being quoted as an example of how the BJP cannot take the high ground on corruption, or in terms of stability of the polity in a state.
Even if one goes to the time when Yeddyurappa was the Chief Minister, there were numerous instances when there was a lot of dissidence in the state, a lot of it sponsored by the Reddy brothers, bent upon giving Yeddyurappa a hard time. There were displays of a section of the legislators withdrawing support, which gained importance also because the BJP had a wafer thin majority, and it had a determined opposition (which also for all practical purposes included the office of the Governor). These over a period of time did a lot to discredit the claims of the BJP to have a Government with a difference, or that its members were more disciplined and less likely to want more benefits for themselves.
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The movement gathers speed, but will it sustain itself. The future of the anti-corruption movement ?

There are numerous problems that are present in our society – the poor position of Muslims, the tragic position of women in many communities, the problems of the dispossessed and their weaknesses, the problems of dowry, the problems of the still existing caste system, etc. There are a lot of people working to improve these conditions, but you don’t see the middle class really reacting to these problems. In fact, one of the chief allegations against the middle class is that they don’t react to many of these problems, and probably don’t care beyond watching such problems on TV, and when suddenly people see the middle class reacting strongly in support of the Anna Hazare movement, they wonder where is the middle class in normal times.
And then you have many others making statements to the effect that Anna should not have launched such an agitation at such a level, first, he should have worked towards removing the inducements that each citizen has for giving bribes. After all, if each citizen were to stop paying bribes, this would have automatically had a massive effect on stopping corruption, and Anna should be doing such a thing. I watch and read such comments, and wonder about the motives of the people making such statements. It reminds me of a panel discussion where the problem between India and Pakistan was being discussed and one film-maker came up with the incredulous suggestion as a solution, “Why can’t we all live in peace?” It was only the laughter that came from the studio audience that showed what people thought of such suggestions.
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