Outlook Saurabh Singh/

From Democracy to Kleptocracy Extracts from the Affidavit Submitted to the Venkatswamy Commission by Prem Shankar Jha

...The Tehelka tapes provided State Trading Corporation of being spent on each election even the first incontrovertible, visual for refund of kickbacks amounting as elections themselves became proof of what was common to $6 million, on three contracts to more and more frequent, as the knowledge among journalists and purchase sugar from it, for a total stability of governments diminished, others involved in public affairs that sum of $45 million, that the STC had and especially after the separation agents continued to operate as dishonoured. In 1987 we received of Central from State elections in intermediaries in defence contracts, the first incontrovertible evidence 1971. But there was no legally and that kickbacks on Defence and, of kickbacks in the Bofors gun and permissible method for raising more by inference other foreign contracts HDW submarine deals. These were than a tiny fraction of the sums that had become one of the principal the high points that, seen against were being spent. Where was the methods of meeting the need of the backdrop of periodic reports of rest of the money coming from?... political parties for funds to fight the Comptroller and Auditor- The root of the all-pervasive elections and to meet their running General’s (CAG’s) office, made me corruption exposed by Tehelka lies expenses. conclude that the cloud of in a lacuna in the Indian Constitution. Till March 13 this year the assertions, rumours and gossip This is the lack of any provision evidence available had been indirect about kickbacks on virtually every for meeting the cost of running a and inferential. There was a transaction that involved the democracy. This lacuna stems disclosure in The Statesman in the government, contained more than a directly from our adoption of mid-eighties of the out of court grain of truth. Westminster democracy as our settlement of a demand by a Swiss What made all of these entirely model for the Indian Constitution. company, Compagnie Noga d’ believable was the fact that all of us The British constitution is unwritten Exportation Importation, against the could see more and more money but very well understood. It makes

34 MANUSHI no mention of the need to meet the expenses of candidates, and political parties. In fact, it does not recognise the existence of political parties at all. The Indian Constitution follows this model and has both these lacunae. In Britain this did not matter too much as the average size of a parliamentary constituency is around 80,000 people and contains 50 to 60,000 voters. A candidate can stay at home, get into his car every morning, and visit virtually every village and small town in his constituency in as little as two In 1970, the Government banned (iii) This practice has filtered down weeks. Local party organisations company donations to political parties. to the bureaucracy. The result make the arrangements for his But it did not create any alternative has been a destruction of speeches, and meet the costs from channel for legal political funding. This accountability in a bureaucracy donations by their members. Money left political parties with no option but that already had too little is not, therefore, a crucial obstacle to raise money through clandestine accountability. to being a candidate. methods and in cash. (iv) Clandestine funding, no matter In India, on the other hand, the Those who provided the cash were what the source, has destroyed typical constituency covers 6,000 not altruists, so they demanded the party system in India. sq. kms, contains 1.8 million people favours in return. Over the last four (v) Kickbacks have also ensured and one million voters and has 1,000 decades this has criminalised the that India places orders with the to 1200 polling booths. Just political system and done immense less technically qualified firms, manning these on polling day harm to the country. In this affidavit I often for substandard or as yet requires between 8,000 and 10,000 have space only to mention the salient untested equipment. In the area workers, all of whom have at least to points of the damage that has been of defence procurement this is be fed and offered transport. One done... But apart from the fact that especially harmful to the nation. sitting MP told me recently that it there is a very large volume of (v) Kickbacks inflate the capital cost her at least Rs, 5,000 to man circumstantial evidence from which cost of projects and make it each polling booth on the election inferences can be drawn, the following more difficult for Indian goods day. The candidate cannot provide developments follow logically from to compete in world markets. this money openly, as it is far in the absence of legal sources Criminalisation of Politics excess of the prescribed ceiling in offunding. Corruption is not a private but a the Representation of the People (i) It has brought into the public vice that can completely Act. It has to be provided by the legislatures and into the undermine the rule of law and make political party. government people with access governance impossible. In India, over Under Indian law there exists no to large sums of black money and the past three decades, it has handed legal method for political parties to muscle power. the political system over to raise more than a small fraction of (ii) It has made kickbacks on criminals,and, as Mr. Gujral correctly the amount they need. government contracts a universal saw, legitimised the wholesale Various decisions and phenomenon. MPs, MLAs and extortion of money from millions of enactments over the last three ministers who have raised money poor and middle class citizens of the decades have on the one hand made to fight elections have to pay it country. The latter two developments it progressively more difficult to back. They do so either by doing have all but robbed Indian democracy raise political funds legally, and on favours, or by recovering the of its moral legitimacy. Corruption has the other vastly increased the money from government thus become a dire threat to India’s political parties’ need for funds. expenses. continued survival as a nation.

No. 128 35 There is no society without some briefly became a member of the Deve corruption. What has made it spread Gowda cabinet on the like a galloping cancer in India is the recommendation of Mr. Laloo Yadav, tacit blessing it has received from before public anger in Bihar forced all political parties. This can be an embarrassed Mr. Deve Gowda to traced to a single decision that Mrs. prevail upon him to resign. Gandhi’s government took in 1970: In UP in October 1996, the to ban company donations to not only gave political parties. When fund a ticket to a known hoodlum, gathering was a legal enterprise, Mukhtar Ansari, but when the Bihar individual politicians could be Police obtained a confession last corrupt but there was no need for month from a criminal arrested in the official leadership of a party to Bangalore that he belonged to be corrupt. The ban choked off the Ansari’s gang and that Ansari was legal flow of funds and forced depth to which the country’s politics behind the kidnapping and murder political parties to look for donors has been criminalised. According to of a Vishwa Hindu Parishad treasurer, who were capable of, and willing to the EC’s statistics, more than 100 Nand Lal Rungta, in January this contribute black money. Since black criminal gangs are active in Bihar year, the chief minister, , money could only be generated politics. He also revealed that there transferred the DIG of police who through criminal activities ranging are 100 gangs with more than 5,000 had flown down to Bangalore to from tax evasion to smuggling, members in , and 110 record the confession. bootlegging, and murder, this made in supposedly well governed But why blame only Smt. all political parties accessories to Maharashtra, of whom no less than Mayawati? In 1997, When the BJP crime. 55 are in Mumbai. Nearly 1,500 of chief minister of UP, Mr. Kalyan With alarming rapidity a new the 13,952 candidates in the last Singh, staved off a challenge to his hierarchy emerged: at the top were general elections (1996) had a record, government by inducting 34 large companies which continued to not of petty crime but of murder, defectors from the Congress and the fund the party in power, albeit with dacoity, rape or extortion. Worse BSP, it was found that 19 out of the increasing reluctance. Further down still, over 700 out of today’s 4,072 34 defectors had records of violent the line were small and medium-sized elected MLAs have criminal cases crime. Hari Shankar Tiwari, ex- traders and entrepreneurs, who pending against them in 25 states. Congress MLA who found in the new situation an Last year, Taslimuddin, a known appointed Minister for Science and opportunity to trade funds for Bihar hoodlum with murder and rape Technology, was implicated or licenses and permissions that would charges against him, was not only indicted in no less than 37 murders. facilitate their growth. At the bottom elected to the Lok Sabha on a Janata These people needed no inducement of the pyramid were criminals who Dal ticket from North Bihar, but to defect. They had joined the initially supplied muscle power in Congress or BSP earlier solely exchange for protection from the law, because they needed immunity from but have gradually infiltrated the the law. They defected to protect party system. The less political that immunity. power a party commanded, the lower The concentration of criminal down was it forced to go in this gangs in Mumbai is not a reflection hierarchy to raise the necessary solely of the city’s wealth, but also funds to fight elections. This is the of the close links that they have main reason why the links of the forged with the dominant political opposition parties to organised crime parties in the city, the Congress and are somewhat more pronounced than the Shivsena. By Bal Thackeray’s those of the Congress, even today. own admission, three notorious Mr. GVG Krishnamurthy of the underworld dons, the late Rama Election Commission revealed the Naik, the late Babu Reshim and Arun

36 MANUSHI Gawli, had all been members of his member made it possible for him or so. Its capacity to discriminate party. Although we do not have the her to challenge the authority of between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ benefit of a similar confession from the party high command. fundraisers thus declined rapidly. In a senior Congressman, all of The destruction of intra-party time therefore, these fund raisers Bombay seems convinced that democracy and their conversion emerged as the new “leaders” of the and his various from cadre parties to caucus parties party. The gates to the lieutenants in Bombay had close dominated by a small number of criminalisation of politics were wide links with the Congress. warlords, was an unintended open. According to Mr. Thackeray, consequence of the ban on company A second consequence, even Gawli set up his own ‘party’ the donations. The party High less foreseen than the first, was the Akhil Bharatiya Sena, to fight the Command, especially when headed disappearance of trust. Camaraderie Shiv Sena when the BJP-Shivsena by the prime minister, had neither the and team spirit, which is necessary government reportedly refused to time, nor the necessary anonymity, for a party to work coherently as a give him police protection. to raise large sums of black money. single political unit, disappeared Interestingly, the demand for police It had, therefore, to delegate the task completely once the official protection was made on his behalf to others within the party. What is leadership began to weaken, and no by yet another Shivsena MP Mohan one knew who was raising how Rawle! much money, from whom, and for Party System Destroyed what purpose. It was replaced by While the criminalisation of suspicion, and endless scheming to politics has drawn considerable checkmate the real or imagined attention over the years, most designs of others. Needless to say, people are only dimly aware of the this is the kind of atmosphere in extent to which driving fund raising which sycophants, who seek to underground by imposing a ban on ingratiate themselves with party company donations, has destroyed leaders by inflaming their mistrust the party system in India. The way of powerful rivals, flourish. in which it has done this is to more, since the money was not Democracy to Kleptocracy destroy the party leaders’ access to, accounted for, the High Command Corruption is also the main and control over, funds. When no longer had any way of knowing reason why no political party has the private donations to political parties how much the new ‘tax gatherers’ capacity to reform itself even in the were legal, the money came directly were actually collecting. Inevitably, face of the mounting anger of the to the party treasurer, was duly those with scruples or restraint were public. Indian politics is vastly accounted for, and dispensed by elbowed out by those without them. different from that of the older him under instructions from the In politics as in the economy, bad democracies of Europe and America. party president and the High money began to drive out the good. A majority of active politicians in Command. Over a period of time, within India have no other occupation or Control of funds, therefore, made every political party, the ban on source of funds, and literally live off the elected, official leadership all company donations emasculated the politics, by exchanging favours for powerful within the party. It could official leadership whom the public money. As governments have choose the candidates for elections recognised and held accountable, become less and less stable, faced because it, and it alone, had the and empowered a new class of with the prospect of losing power, capacity to meet some or all of their fundraisers who lived, or had forged more and more of them have gone expenses and direct the rank and file close links with those who lived, on on fund collecting sprees to see to work for him. It had a good the fringes of the law. As the need them through the hard times they reason, moreover, to enforce a code for funds rose, the power of the foresee. Chief among the expenses of conduct on party members and party High Command was forced to that they have to recoup, and discourage corruption because, turn a blind eye more and more, to provide for in the future is the cost among other things, the financial who was raising the money the of fighting elections. Thus the clout that corruption gave to a party party needed and how he was doing lacuna in our Constitution I referred

No. 128 37 to has given a powerful push to predatory behaviour by the leaders of the country, in which they have turned the wealth and income of the State itself into spoils for distribution among themselves. Political scientists who have studied the African emerging nations are familiar with this behaviour and have called such states Kleptocracies. This is why although the threat of Hawala prosecutions resulting from the Jain diaries affected leaders of all major non-Left political parties, not one of them championed the reform of the party funding. Two former Law Ministers-Shanti Bhushan and Ram Jethmalani at a Extortion by Bureaucracy press conference to protest the obstruction of justice in the Tehelka case. The naked emergence of a predator State has legitimised the There is a great deal more I would two-thirds of the deals (by value of extortion at lower levels of the like to say, especially about the purchases) placed by the Ministry bureaucracy. Complaints against the impact of all-pervasive corruption of Defence in the weeks after the war routine harassment of ordinary on foreign direct investment in India, broke out... people by petty bureaucrats who the purchase of sub-standard I would respectfully like to refuse to perform their basic duties equipment and weaponry for the conclude by urging the commission till their palms have been greased, army and so on. The most recent once more to weigh the ‘cost’ of are so widespread and appear so CAG report on the purchase of Tehelka’s sting operation against regularly in the daily news papers, weapons and munitions for the the ‘benefit’ that the nation will that I will refrain from going into Army during the Kargil war has derive from its vindication, in details. Between corruption at the exposed gross improprieties in about coming to its conclusions. top and extortion below, the ordinary people cannot be blamed for concluding that the rule of law itself has broken down and that their lives Now Available in Paperback will only remain secure if they find themselves a powerful protector. Off the Beaten Track That is the genesis of the Robin rethinking gender justice for indian women Hood phenomenon in which criminals like Gawli and the late Smt. Collection of essays By Madhu Kishwar Phoolan Devi are canonised as Themes covered : the role of marriage payments and dowry protectors and avengers of the poor. unwanted daughters the denial of inheritance rights to women That is why Gawli was able to attract women’s land rights women’s marginal role in politics 75,000 persons to his inaugural love, sex and marriage sexual harassment morcha at Shivaji Park in Mumbai, the culture of beauty contests living identities vs acquired ones in 1997 and why he is shaping to why certain traditional icons continue to be important ideals for Indian become a political force in Mumbai women  co-ownership rights for wives  the politics and culture of sati today. As a perceptive journalist, Aroon Tikekar wrote in The Indian 290 pages, Price: Rs 295 Overseas Price: US $ 10 (including postage) Express in 1997, “Gawli is doing no ISBN 0 19 564846 1 more than the Shiv sena itself did two decades ago”. Send advance payment to MANUSHI TRUST

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