Whose morality?

By Supriya RoyChowdhury

IF THE Indian political scene could be visualised as a stage, then corruption scandals might be seen as successive plays enacted around a recurrent theme, with a different set of actors on each occasion. The boredom of repetitive themes and predictable outcomes are somewhat countered by the passing interest provided by political turbulence and the possibility of governmental collapse. Bofors and Hawala, Ms. Jayalalitha's dramatic trials and conviction, the JMM bribery case, the fodder scam, and several others have all followed a certain pattern. They cause political ripples, bring the handcuff and the politically powerful tantalisingly close to each other. Each time, the brazen greed and boldness of corrupt individuals in high places generate some public moral indignation, but the political energy created in this process is frittered away very quickly. Its place is taken over by legally constituted enquiry proceedings. But as this mammoth and opaque apparatus takes over the task of the nation's moral safe keeping, the unseemly networks of power and patronage possibly find their ways into the legal processes. Judgments and decisions take on the colour of the system of which they are necessarily a part and product.

Every drama, however, has a message beyond what is being visually enacted. And it may be worthwhile to examine the underlying narratives in the stories that are repeatedly told via corruption scandals. One may take for example the tehelka. com business. Essentially, a drama of this genre is a dialogue, the interlocutors being the good and the evil, or rather the doer of evil and the defender of good. Thus the exposure of wrong doing, in the form of bribery in defence equipment deals, was followed immediately by the withdrawal of support to the NDA by the Trinamool Congress, the resignation of its leader, Ms. Mamata Banerjee, from a ministership, and the pressures brought on by this process led to the resignation of the Defence Minister.

Whether or not Ms. Banerjee's actions were prompted by a desire to make political capital out of this issue with an eye on the West Bengal Assembly elections, is something that can be neither proved nor disproved. But what is far more interesting is the near complete discursive vacuum that has surrounded and followed her resignation. She has not followed up her resignation with any analysis or critique of the present crisis, of her role in it, or her own vision of the future directions of change for a corruption-ridden polity. In the context of this vacuum, the act of resignation appears bereft of any larger political meaning, and her self- assigned role as the nation's conscience keeper is entirely hollow. What stands out is that Ms. Bannerjee lacks the stature of a national leader whose single act of resignation could have provided the moral/ ethical cutting edge to the debate around tehelka.com., and a rallying point for those determined to fight corruption.

On the other side, there is the Congress(I)'s moral indignation at the Tehelka exposure, their call for the Government's resignation, and a rising pitch of attack culminating in Ms. Sonia Gandhi's speeches at the Bangalore AICC(I) meeting. In these speeches, she has underlined the NDA's loss of moral authority to rule, vowed to take the issue to the people, and has framed the attack in a strident and highly aggressive political rhetoric. An outside observer of the Indian political scene, unfamiliar with the Congress(I)'s tradition of dynastic sycophancy and dependence, would be taken aback by the authority with which Ms. Gandhi speaks on critical political issues, having no claim whatsoever to political experience, charisma or achievements, or any of the ordinary things that go into the making of political leaders in democracies. That in itself takes away any kind of significance from her utterances over the recent corruption scandal. But, even if one were to ignore that, or the fact that the Bofors case remains as a long shadow over her moral and political credibility, there is the more current and outstanding fact of the Congress(I)'s electoral alliance with the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu. The AIADMK remains under the leadership of Ms. Jayalalitha, twice convicted on charges of corruption. Arguably, the practice of electoral alliances and seat adjustments in Indian politics, particularly in recent decades, have not been marked by ethical or ideological considerations, or any factors other than the exclusive concern with political expedience and the desire for power. In that sense, it is understandable that the Congress(I)'s (or the TMC's) truck with Ms. Jayalalitha has not led to any raised eyebrows. But it is one thing to engage in alliances with a politician around whom there are multiple charges of corruption; it is quite another thing to turn around the same evening, wear the moral hat and demand the resignation of a supposedly corrupt government. The hollowness of the Congress(I)'s loudly proclaimed moral indigation and their call for a political jehad against the NDA's corruptibility thus stands out.

This moral vacuum is not confined to a single party or individual. In recent weeks, the leader of the TMC, Mr. Moopanar, has gone on record saying that he has no opinions on Ms. Jayalalitha becoming the Chief Minister even though she has been convicted twice. If her party, the AIADMK, chooses to have her as the Chief Minister, he has no problems with that. Similarly, the Left parties have not hesitated to become part of the AIADMK-led alliance in the coming elections in Tamil Nadu. There is a certain brazenness about such acts which imply that corruption is not an issue in the realm of realpolitik. In other words, it is an accepted and acceptable part of the public domain and of political practice.

It is in this sense therefore that today there is an absence of a public political platform from which a genuine critique of and an attack on corruption can be mounted. Every public statement of moral indignation appears as a case of the pot calling the kettle black. It is as simple as that. But the roots of this malaise go even deeper. Possibly the most alarming aspect of the latest corruption scandal is that it has generated hardly any response from civil society. There have been very little of citizens' meetings, forums, signature campaigns, or any other manifestations of citizens' protest. It is hardly possible that there isn't a critical public, or that it doesn't care, or that it cares more about cricket than about corruption. A more real and worrying possibility is that a cynical public has little faith that corrupt politicians or administrators would be brought to book. Such a public therefore goes about its business, its cynicism deepened by each such expose.

Public ethics is not something that can come into being or exist in a vacuum. It is a guide to action that is necessarily rooted in a society's institutions and broader value structure. It is the institutional and value structure that is supposed to mediate the continuous tension between individual self-interests and the public good.

Wherein, then, is the source of our collective morality? What marks our society now is a deep divide between the so-called political class, and - one hesitates to use a much misused term - civil society. While a deep cynicism about politics and politicians pervades all classes of society, nevertheless it is from civil society that the most powerful sources of critique, change, and transformational energy are emerging today. Whether, as in the case of a Narmada Bachao Andolan, it is a question of challenging the state's concept of development, or the quiet struggle for social justice personified in an Aruna Roy, a message of renewal is embodied in many such examples of social praxis. There is of course a certain danger that one may romanticise the concept of civil society and its possible role in collective life. At the present time there is no bridge between the structure of realpolitik and the world of visions pursued in many unnamed corners of the societal universe, visions that are fragile and powerful at the same time. But ultimately, the question of public ethics must take root from the ethics embodied in such visions and pursuits, and then move upwards from there. Public ethics cannot emante from a self-serving and over- stretched state system which feeds upon itself.

(The writer is Visiting Fellow, Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles.

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