Just as a bad advocate can spoil a good case, a sound cause gets silenced simply because it is taken up by hypocritical politicos. Indeed, the on-going economy drive runs the risk of fizzling out on that count soon enough. But the sudden surge of austerity sentiments amidst the ruling ‘elite’ actually exposes the real-time splurge till date. And what’s more galling is their belief that the people will be content with their being stingy with public money. What we would ideally want instead is the refund of all the loot stashed away inland and abroad. Now, by being austere do they mean to keep it all?
I wont take names. Not out of fear of libel which of course is a prospect, but because the Swindler’s List can exhaust all the newsprint that one can muster. In any case, the names are no secret and are in public domain as sterling symbols of sleaze for long. Also, the high profile public show of simplicity is actually a deadly give away of a guilty conscience, if there is one. It all started with FM Pranab Mukherjee pulling up two cabinet ministers, SM Krishna and Shashi Tharoor for staying in five star hotels pending allocation of official residences. The two ministers declared that they were staying at their own expense, but Pranab’s self-goal, whatever his motives, set the cat amidst the pigeons in the Cong. Enter austerity as the latest political fad.
The posturing by politicos over public thrift is a nasty perversion. India’s political class has been the biggest drain on its economy in the last sixty years, beating even the 200-year British record of looting. These parasites have partaken of public funds by both official and illegal ways. But first to the latter. Professional estimates place figures of sleaze money lying in foreign banks at thousands of crores. The hole in the public pocket gets wider and deeper if you add the staggering sums of political black money circulating at home. If not for political patronage, the hawala loop that sustains the two-way flow of these funds across borders would have been busted long back. What started as an offshoot of high-tax regimes and electoral compulsions is now a habit with politics becoming the most lucrative profession or business, with power to protect it. And political power is an inheritance too: A son or wife is considered an automatic successor for a deceased or deposed politico, for it is the ‘family fortune’ that is at stake!
Thrift? If the litany of wholesale loot is the stuff of legends, the pilferage through perfectly legal channels is legion. Here too the politicos rank as the prime beneficiaries of official largesse in the form of pay, perquisites and out- of-pocket (ours!) expenses. Several committees formed to study ways of pruning government expenditure, have, at great cost, recommended the downsizing of government. All these reports are in public domain and suffice to say that the key to this downsizing which will have a cascading effect down the line is the reduction in the number of ministries and ministers. A regime that is serious about economising should actually start here but instead falls flat at this first post, thanks to coalition, caste, communal and sundry other pressures. This bloated political belly is bound to show, whatever the cosmetic attempts to conceal it. But worse, with no will to check their own weight, the politicos lose all moral right to preach to babudom, which is a leech in its own right.
Now to some specific examples that are not. So, if the leading light of a prime political party chooses to fly economy class with her coterie, thrift too flies high! And like many things, it runs in the family as the son too sits in Shatabdi, economy, sipping tea from a plastic cup a la aam aadmi! What a class act! But would it not have fetched more financial benefits for the country had they helped the investigative authorities like CBI to nail a fugitive compatriot who scooted with the gun-deal booty? And that is only one of the many ways by which that prime family can pay back the nation that has sustained it for generations! And that is just one family. There are multitudes at every level, from parliament to panchayats, who feed on their ill-fed countrymen. For instance there is this cowboy clan that milked Bihar for whom even the entire coffer of the State was not enough fodder. Or take the rational parivar down south. Imagine the savings to the State exchequer on account of security, shuttling, sons and so on, if its lead politico in power were to have one wife less? Thrift? That too starts at home, dear!
It may sound a bit indecent, even morbid, but sickness benefits and security to politicos need special mention. There was a former PM, a raja by birth, who fancied himself as a champion of social justice, but the disease that finally felled him took a higher toll of public funds, meant for things like, er, social justice! Indeed, there are many such miserly ministerial messiahs who could have very well afforded medical treatments from their own kitty, but still opted for State ‘hospitality’. Very recently, many questions have been raised over the cost of searching for a CM whose copter crashed. Their souls must rest in peace, even if ours wallow in penury! And then comes VIP security, when national security itself is a mirage. The comparison may seem odious till such time you espy a politico conducting his own seamy political affairs under the safe shade of the state security umbrella while you get bombed out on the roadside or in a railway station in the normal course of a perfectly legal errand! Indeed, to be protecting, preserving, pampering and often pointlessly prosecuting this tribe of squatters, sleepers, stealers, scamsters, fraudsters, floaters, fliers, flatterers, touts, conmen, grafters et al looks downright vulgar in country with an elevated poverty line. Coming from them, the penny-pinching sermons seem like a spoof on a plight wrought by them.
And thrifty politicos are a nuisance. They intrude into our daily domains in the course of their stunts and screw up our lives too. My peace goes to pieces the moment a VIP politico or even his distant cousin rubs shoulders with me at a corner juice shop or in a bus. For one, the enemies who tag them will most likely knock me off too as collateral damage, as politicos who meet violent ends rarely leave the earth alone. Then the media who tows behind them to capture their ‘economy drive’ live is a bigger threat to my anonymity. And worst, they lay claim to even the measly morsels that come our way! Really I would rather have these politicians travel by Business Class or I class, Shatabdi or stay Five Star, so long as they pay for it. Besides saving much trouble for the commuters and commoners it would spare converting thrift which is a serious compulsion for most into a tamasha, a political pastime of a few.
Well, well, the costs of thrift seem quite high!
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