The Hindu : The licence to loot?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 21, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

The licence to loot?

By Inder Malhotra

Quick on the heels of the massive scam in the allotment of petroleum pumps, cooking gas agencies and kerosene outlets — that has earned the BJP, the core of the ruling coalition at the Centre, the sobriquet ``Bharatiya Petrol Pump Party'' — has come yet another scandal, no less sordid and shocking.

In the national capital, the powers that be have disbursed among the leading lights and cherished affiliates of the extended Sangh Parivar huge plots of prime land. The market value of these lands would put into shade the comparable prices in Manhattan or Mayfair. But the rates at which they, totalling acres upon acres, have been handed to the chosen ones are so low that to call them ``throwaway'' would be the understatement of the millennium.

There are, however, at least two important differences between the two scams that would forever haunt the BJP as Bofors does the Congress. One, that there has yet been no indication from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) that Atal Behari Vajpayee has any intention to cancel wholesale the land allotments as he had wisely and boldly done in the case of the discriminatory disbursement of petrol dealerships. Secondly — and even more disgracefully — thanks to the folly of the Opposition parties, led by the Congress, Parliament has had no opportunity to discuss the Delhi land-grab. For, it was adjourned prematurely after it was paralysed day after day.

This, some say, is one reason why Mr. Vajpayee is not inclined to act in a hurry, even if he feels that he ought to do something to retrieve the name of his party and political parivar, but it is not the only one. The other, perhaps more powerful, reason for the Prime Minister's inaction is the strong feeling among large sections of his ranks that he was wrong, in the first place, to act ``rashly'' over petrol pumps.

There is no need to put any gloss on a grotesque situation. The dominant feeling within the BJP and its affiliates is that since the Congress indulged in gigantic loot during its very long reign, there is no earthly reason why the BJP should not do so on an even larger scale, if only to make up for the lost time. After all, who can say what might happen in the next Lok Sabha election whenever it is held?

Several BJP MPs and other activists have been heard saying, within the earshot of senior leaders, that the right thing for them to do is to make hay while the sun shines and ``brazen out'' all criticism whether in Parliament or by the media as shamefacedly as the Congress used to do. However, as so many have been asking, without evoking any reply, what has happened to the ``party with a difference''? More important, how far or rather how low will this boastful party go in flattering the deservedly much-derided Congress by imitation?

The bitter truth is that irrespective of which party or combination of parties is in office, the doctrine of political power being equivalent to the licence to loot has taken deep roots in Indian polity. No wonder then that politicians of all hues displayed remarkable unity only the other day to oppose any move to reform the electoral law that is really the breeding ground of corruption that seems to have become a cancer without cure.

It may seem unfair to mix the gargantuan graft with an ambassadorial appointment made in the age-old spirit of ``jobs for the boys''. However, a brief word need to be said about the fate of the New York-based ``Ambassador'' Bhisham Agnihotri who, though in charge only of the Indian Diaspora, has always been projected as equal to the Indian Ambassador in Washington.

Now the State Department, to the great embarrassment of this country, has dealt a deathblow to the ambitions of Mr. Agnihotri, whose main qualification is that he is a darling of the RSS, long resident in the U.S. where he played host to several Parivar elders. Washington has firmly refused to recognise him as Ambassador for the sound reason that India can have only envoy to the U.S. To turn the knife in the wound, the State Department has also declined to give him diplomatic immunity — again on the valid ground that being a long-time holder of the green card and a permanent resident of the U.S., he cannot have diplomatic immunity.

No one can blame any NRI for being reluctant to give up the green card. But, surely, it is carrying things too far when, in the quest for diplomatic immunity, Mr. Agnihotri insists that he would give up the coveted card provided the Indian Government can persuade the U.S. administration to ``guarantee'' that the card would be restored to him when needed! Sadly, nobody in the Ministry of External Affairs or even the PMO is able to say boo to him.

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