It is not that the 2G scam is getting bigger only now with the exposure-a-day routine. The scam was born big on Jan 10, ‘08 itself, the day it happened when Raja sold lakhs of crores worth spectrum to chosen buyers at throwaway prices through a dubious process which itself was preceded by about four years of even more dubious intra-UPA shady shenanigans. Since then, for almost another four years now, the scam is being unravelled bit by bit in painful instalments and with much of that original bigness still remaining largely under wraps. Yes, the truth is we have seen only a trifling. In that, 2G is almost G, meaning God, whom none can fully comprehend! So too, the scam story is unlikely to be wholly revealed.
Criminals, crime-busters and criminal psychologists alike have, ever since the dawn of man and thereby crime too, held on to some core, simple truths about crime. Of course, the key ingredient of a smart, smooth and successful criminal is not getting caught. But there is something else that makes a crime not only successful but spectacular: Size. The bigger the better and more the merrier. Besides, ‘big’ and ‘more’ a very potent combination.
Volume and/plus conspiracy can confound lawmen and law. Man-slaughter is easy to handle but mass murder is not. Street corner heists are any day a lesser challenge for authorities than hijack of whole vaults. A pickpocket is a far dicier catch than a slimy politico dipping into the public treasury. For that matter a junior staff of say, Telecom or Finance Ministry, would have been condemned to hell by now for picking up some odd petty cash lying around in the department but a minister’s case is deemed different. Big deals, big money and big people offer him great insulation not normally available to small fry. In short, it is simpler to scoot with open loot of public money than walking away from a roadside cop after a furtive theft.
The UPA big brothers, acting in cosy cohorts, have perfected these elementary canons of criminality. That explains why their scams are not only mega but also mazes. There was a preview, in fact. The earlier biggest scam of the era, the stock market scandal happened under the watch of the same combo, MSingh and PC, and remains unnervingly unsolved in terms of value and modus operandi till today. The Sardar then displayed a notorious sense of insensitivity when he declared that he wouldn’t lose much sleep over it. That slumber cost the nation a few thousand crores. Today, MSingh’s sleep, feigned albeit, is worth lakhs of crores thanks to inflation … of politicos’ greed! By the way, faking sleep, while on public duty, (criminal negligence, in legal parlance) is another useful UPA tip for prospective political criminals.
There was enough forewarning of the impending 2G scam and what Raja was up to. This was also probably the only scam that was reported live as it unfolded on that fateful ‘08 Jan afternoon. The hue and cry, from the media as well as spurned spectrum suitors, was instant. Since then there has hardly been a holiday for exposes and the SC had to intervene and force the issue on a dodgy government. MSingh and his regime have, however, remained morally and politically immune despite all this and have brazened out all storms till date even in the face of damning evidence. From where do they get the gall for such guile? What makes them believe they can get away with this? At the core, I believe, is the PM’s basic character itself. The man who slept through the stock scam when the entire financial world was having sleepless nights, is obviously made of tough stuff. Tough, not in a lofty sense of resilience, but rather akin to the shell of a tortoise that is in some danger. With saving his own skin as top personal priority, moral darts are not going to make as much as a dent on this ‘honest’ man’s invisible conscience. His cool, unflustered demeanour regardless of the raging ruckus points to a sheep of a man sheltered seamlessly in a stubborn, self-imposed shell of seeming stupidity. Now, that’s a mask more deceptive and dangerous than honesty!
The scamsters are no doubt big. And the 2G scam is also too big, too complicated, too technical and too widespread for the nation’s constitutional watchdogs to handle in quick time. That is the UPA’s biggest insurance and the fountainhead of all their hubris and insensitivity. This too shall pass and we can scam happily ever after is their honest hope. Small wonder, media and opposition hype at every expose is met with bland and blasé reactions from full-time non-entities drafted to perform the public rites. But is the issue all about inter-departmental notes and secretarial communications? Sure, the documents as available now are enough to prove that a major crime has been committed. And sure enough, thanks to the law’s dreary course and true to its name, the 2G case may span generations! But what of the culpability of UPA biggies vis-a-vis the various and obvious omissions and commissions?
Can coalition dharma to loot overrule constitutional dharma to protect public wealth? What is the worth of the PM’s certificates of character given the fact that his clean chit to Raja has been torn asunder by courts and his own CBI? That being so, what is the fate of his expression of confidence in PC and his own self at the drop of a turban? Can the PM condemn his coalition colleagues and at the same time exonerate his own party mates when the scam denominator is the same? If it was just a policy bloomer that caused the huge, albeit zero, loss, what does it say of the acclaimed financial wizardry of MSingh and PC, not to speak of the loss of funds they are supposed to be guarding? Can any thing be more shameless than a PM’s defence that ‘I allowed it but I am straight’? What else does he think he is there for? And now that Pranab and PC have ‘patched up’, is the 2G issue solved and settled? Big questions, but small comfort!
Well, the entire United Plunderer’s Association of biggies is guilty of betraying the nation morally and bankrupting it monetarily. But worse, they have also forfeited all right to pull up even an erring clerk or a negligent peon. The PM and the ex-FM may be big men with a bigger aura but have rendered themselves incapable of facing even the small and petty!
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