Decades of rule have advantages. Sycophants inundate the political sphere. Faithfuls gradually find place in the bureaucracy. Government offices, police, investigative agencies, educational institutions, to name a few, brim with people having links with the ruling dispensation. Why, even the so-called independent institutions like the Election Commission, Central Investigative Agencies, Vigilance Commission, Reserve Bank are not immune to the ingress of appointees with political links?
A vital pillar of a democracy, the Judiciary, is not entirely independent as would be desired. Political masons have surreptitiously constructed the edifice of the top court using a few flawed bricks that weaken it and makes it vulnerable to political interference.
A loyal eco system exists, it festers, and it has the capacity to diabolically rear it’s head- when required- to side with the political masters who were instrumental in giving them power, position and privileges which they cherish. Recent events stand witness to the fact that the rot in the system is being leveraged to wage a covert war against Modi’s government.
Corruption is a malaise that has always had a cancer like grip on the nation, and for decades successive governments have done nothing significant nor substantive to combat the scourge. It continues to thrive because the inheritors of the largesse of past government who populate the administration are habituated to ‘commission’ and ‘percentage’ and are stubbornly opposed to a life of probity.
Demonetisation, a masterstroke and a brave initiative to unveil the black parallel economy did not achieve the desired target simply because the hoarders invoked the ‘IOU’s’ of the enforcers and bankers to clandestinely convert their ill-gotten wealth. It’s no secret, the entire nation knows that black money is rampant, but a major chunk of the money escaped the DeMo dragnet because the corrupt in the administration ensured that nothing significant emerged.
Modi’s tenure was greeted by the ‘Award vapasi’ episode which was an organised protest by intellectuals loyal to Congress with a core intention to portray Modi’s saffron led dispensation as divisive and intolerant. The sole purpose was to spread a psychosis of fear that the secular fabric of the nation was under threat.
More recently , when four judges of the Supreme court raised the banner of revolt , were they doing it at the behest of their conscience or was there an agenda unbeknown to a common eye? Did D.Raja let the cat out of the bag putting to rest doubts about the true motive behind the crisis? Or is there a connection between the Judge mutiny and Kapil Sibal’s plea to postpone ‘Ram Janma Bhoomi’ trial?
Is the incompetence inherent or is it by design that the investigative agencies fail to perform their duties? A string of failures to bring to book criminals and defaulters by CBI has exposed the shortcomings of the premier agency. It can be said with conviction that the agency doesn’t lack the competence, it lacks the will to act because the vestiges of the past Government that occupy every tier of the agency refuse to act against their benefactors.
How ironic, nobody questions the govt of the day when Dawood Ibrahim flees after bombing Mumbai. Just a whimper of protest when Warren Anderson was allowed to leave India despite the genocide in Bhopal. But, when people like Mallya and Nirav Modi flee, all hell breaks loose. Double meaning hashtags like ‘ModiLootsIndia’ are circulated and the brazenness with which the entire blame is shifted on Modi is appalling. Fact of the matter is that nobody bothers to check the antecedents of the glaring loopholes in the banking system, nobody bothers to explain that this is a legacy issue exploited by people like Nirav & Mallya and not an overnight con-job. None bother to point a finger at the earlier government which is equally culpability and complicit- if not more.
‘Babudom’ is a heritage that Modi has inherited. His dream of minimum government- maximum governance can be achieved only if there is minimum interference and maximum productivity by the ‘Babu’s’. But with the days of maximum corruption minimising, the Babu’s can be expected to maximize their ulterior activities to derail Modi’s vision for a ‘New-corruption free-India’.
Bottom-line: You win some and lose some in electoral battles, but when the enemy is within and invisible the battle is lost before it begins. 2019 victory depends on how best Modi exorcises the ghosts that pervade the system.
