Opinion - Leader Page Articles

In the name of the party

By Harish Khare

Under the doctrine of "in the name of the party", bribes are not seen as such but as a legitimate requirement of political outfits.

THE PRIME Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has categorically denied a newspaper report of the Chief Vigilance Commissioner complaining to him about Cabinet Ministers asking for personal favours from public sector undertakings under their Ministries. A Prime Minister's word must be accepted at face value. However, the Leader of the Opposition, Sonia Gandhi, has demanded an independent parliamentary inquiry. Informed political gossip-mongers are willing to provide the names of the six Ministers who had indeed demanded money for "party work". Irrespective of whether or not the CVC named any names before the Prime Minister, a larger issue is involved which continues to gnaw at the heart of our political system. And this is the problem of "clean" financing of political activities and electoral battles.

Consider the current campaign for the five Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram. In the four northern Indian States, the Bharatiya Janata Party has mounted a very expensive campaign. It is reported, for example, to have already booked more than half the helicopters available in the country for private use. Since the BJP is not a ruling party in these four States, the assumption is that the State units are being reinforced financially from the national headquarters. Since the BJP is a very organised party, according to the grapevine, various Central Ministers have been assigned "quotas". And, no one should be surprised if these Ministers did in fact tap into their respective public sector undertakings.

The malady is not confined to the BJP. The Congressmen are no saints. If anything, they are the original sinners. The Congress party was of course innovator in the art of internal corruption; lower level party men buying favours and nominations from the senior functionaries, a mutual suborning of integrity and political judgment. This disease has now infected other political parties, and is practiced with a vengeance by regional parties. For instance, in the run-up to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in 2002, there were reports of how the Bahujan Samaj Party's nominations were being sold and purchased.

This of course is different from the personalised corruption practised by political leaders, misusing their official positions to line their pockets. But even this personalised corruption is invariably a by-product of the political activist's requirement to recoup his/her "investment"; politics is no longer regarded as an altruistic calling but is used as a paying proposition. From the taluk level to the national stage, the so-called political leader is there to make a fast buck out of public life. The problem has become aggravated further with the rise of the regional parties. Since these parties are invariably one-leader-centric outfits and it is the leader with "charisma" or appeal with a section of voters who is deemed to do the trick, the distinction between party and leader disappears. Except the BJP, the Congress and the Communist parties, almost all political parties are personalised fiefdoms of this or that leader. Demands made in the name of the leader are always palmed off as the party's requirement. Everyone looked the other way when the Shiv Sena boss, Bal Thackeray, ordered that incorrigibly honest man and very efficient Minister, Suresh Prabhu, to put in his papers as Union Minister for Heavy Industries. Mr. Prabhu's apparent fault was his unwillingness to tap his Ministry's potential for garnering funds for the party.

The Shiv Sena is not an isolated phenomenon. Witness the breath-taking bonhomie between the "socialist" Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and a section of corporate captains; only the most naive would believe that the industrialists who can be frequently seen in Lucknow these days are fired by a burning desire to convert backward Uttar Pradesh into a shining example of entrepreneurial vibrancy. The Sharad Pawars, the Om Prakash Chautalas, the Prakash Singh Badals, the Mayawatis, and the Chandrababu Naidus, constitute a new model of party politics. A leader can claim to be a "leader" only if he or she has a personal war-chest to finance a slew of candidates in the State Assembly or parliamentary elections. In this new model, "bribes" are not bribes but a legitimate requirement of the party.

This doctrine of "in the name of the party" was first flaunted during the Tehelka episode. In their defence, both the BJP and the Samata Party functionaries argued that they had accepted money from the fake defence contractors in the name of the party, not for personal aggrandisement. The only concession that the BJP made to an outraged public opinion was that it asked Bangaru Laxman to step down as party chief. But the nature of the problem remained unaddressed. Rather, the coercive resources of the Indian state were used to bring the Tehelka journalists to their knees and bankruptcy. A national opportunity to cleanse the system was missed in the din of partisan noise.

Two years ago, the Congress accepted the Manmohan Singh Committee report on the party's financing. The former Finance Minister, who stands for honesty in public life, had suggested a number of ways of garnering "clean" money. His report had urged, "The Congress must take the lead in bringing about a new culture of transparency, accountability and integrity in financing." Not much is known how the party has gone about implementing it, except that the general-secretary, AICC organisation, had sent out a circular to all Pradesh Congress Committees that the report had been accepted. But the Manmohan Singh Committee had focussed primarily on problems of financing the "normal" activities of the party; the enormous task of financing the elections is an altogether different proposition.

And electioneering is becoming a more and more expensive affair every year. As it is, many parties, national and regional, have taken to becoming partial to "resourceful" aspirants, especially when it comes to making nominations to the Rajya Sabha. The Vijay Mallyas, the Lalit Suris, the R.P. Goenkas represent a new trend and a new mindset. The "resourceful" assets get accommodated only at the expense of the party activist, unwittingly distancing the party leadership away from the grass-root voices and concerns. Consider, for instance, the Finance Minister of India romanticising the "five-star culture" as synonymous with the quest for excellence.

Apart from the technological changes, which have pushed up the cost of electioneering, the expenses rise because all political parties have fallen in the "leadership" trap. The Congress, for example, believes that only its president can garner the votes for its candidates; hence, a very expensive exercise is mounted to collect crowds for her meetings. The same has now become the habit in the BJP, with disproportionate resources being earmarked for meetings of Mr. Vajpayee and the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani. And since, the BJP is blessed with many more "star" campaigners than the Congress, it finds itself having to engage helicopters and aircraft to ferry these presumed crowd-pullers across the length and breadth of the country. The virus has infected others. Hence, leaders like Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav or Mr. Laloo Prasad Yadav or Mr. Sharad Pawar must criss-cross at least their respective States.

The bottom-line of all this expensive electioneering is the deepening dependence of all political parties on funds from the corporate world. In this scenario, it would be understandable, if not excusable, for a Central Minister to want to milk a public sector undertaking under his charge, especially if he is under pressure to collect funds "for the party". It is not a question of this or that Central or State Minister abusing his official perch; rather the issue is of the political parties' dependence on the corporate world having acquired an institutional acceptance. It is regarded as bad manners to raise ethical doubts about this new reliance.

Nonetheless, there has to be a hidden cost to this informal institutionalised arrangement. The new economy in fact was to put an end to the unhealthy relationship between the rent-seeking politicians and the governmental discretion-seeking "entrepreneurs". Nothing of the kind has happened. The ruling party is entitled to believe that since it consists of super deshbhakts it does not allow its ties with the corporate world to corrupt its ministerial judgments. The unvarnished fact is that the new economy has co-opted the old political class in its inter-corporate warfare. And this co-option has come at the expense of the larger public good.

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