Historically the Britishers are infamous for their manipulative skills and nobody knows it better than the Indians. Many blame the deep stain of corruption in the Indian society as an after effect of the British rule. Veteran journalist and author Buroshiva Dasgupta, in his guest post for the Stray Thoughts, traces the history of corruption in independent India and questions whether it is the manipulative legacy of the British rule which is to be blamed for the flurry of fraudulent activities or is it that we the Indians have turned out to be morally corrupt.
"Some say the Indians learnt well two things from the British during their two hundred year rule – one is the English language and the other - corruption. The Indian universities were set up in the Oxford and Cambridge model and they continue to cling to the old rules – but their soul (progressive education) has fled. In administration, the British introduced the "steel frame" and could manage to move resources fast across the country and then to the outer world – through the railways and through the steamliners. But within the system, things like "baksheesh" and speed money kept up the momentum.
Today, the world seems to move more according to the American models – whether in education or in economy or administration. We are limping in education, failing to break out of the British mould; but surprisingly, have caught on to the fast ways of the underworld of international economy. We are part of networks of the "hawala", the Swiss banks and the overseas tax-free havens. Money changes hand in lightning speed and are stashed away in many forms all over the world.
The recent "white" paper on the "black" money, which the erstwhile finance minister - and the present President of the country, Pranab Mukherjee - placed before the Parliament has only tried to "whitewash" the misdeeds of the government by stating how the present UPA government has "effectively" reduced the outflow of the country’s financial resources to Swiss bank and international tax havens ( Thank God, he at least admitted that such things happen !).
The Prime Minister defends the "Coalgate", refuses to scrap the coal deals with private beneficiaries, saying that no irregularities have been noticed in the matter by his office. Yet it was the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) which bartered the natural resources – this time coal – without auction, and the beneficiaries included relations of Congress leaders and ministers. Even a manufacturer of underwear is a beneficiary – what really has he got to do with coal except speculate and make money?
The Prime Minister couldn’t wriggle out this time from the blame because he was holding the Coal portfolio during the distribution, though during the distribution of the airwave (spectrum), the PMO could shift the blame on to the former Telecom Minister A Raja. And we thought the PM was an honest person.
But let us face the hard facts.
Some people will continue to blame the British for introducing the culture of speed money to rob the Indian resources; but we Indians, over the years, seem to have turned out to be a morally corrupt nation. We don’t even hesitate to sell our children on the pretext of poverty. We rob Peter to pay Paul. We don’t hesitate to sell our air, water, earth and its underground resources – even for a pittance. We steal goodies from public transport like the railways, airlines and the shipliners. We cut down the trees and sell them off. Village sarpanchs buy Bolero cars and German shepherd dogs on money guaranteeing jobs for the villagers. The bureaucracy - or the steel frame which the British created to rob the nation and carry the resources overseas - continues with the robbery, but now it is for themselves.
About our politicians, it is less said the better. Just take the example of the Bellary mines on the border of states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. China needed steel to construct the massive stadiums for the Beijing Olympics. India supplied the iron ore – not officially, but illegally - from the Bellary mines. All the laws of the land – whether it is of mining, labour, factory, land or environment – were broken, clearly at the connivance of the political powers both at the state and centre. The two Reddy brothers made fortunes and we find the political leaders - whether of the Congress or the BJP, it does not matter – openly patronizing them. The picture of BJP leader Sushma Swaraj blessing the two Reddy brothers holding her palms over their heads is there on the internet for everybody to see. She does not even care to disown the picture.
The Congress party saved its skin on the Commonwealth Games scandals – where sports equipment supply deals where made with companies which did not even physically exist - by a finding a scapegoat in Suresh Kalmadi, just as the 2G scam was dumped on Raja. It started in the times of Jawaharlal Nehru with the Mundhra case, continued with the Bofors Guns during Indira and Rajiv Gandhis, Harshed Mehta during the regime of P V Narasimha Rao and now the deluge during Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. BJP talks of honesty but many of the present day scams have their origins during their regime. And now we have the Sushma Swarajs and the Yeddurappas.
At the micro level, if we scan the Left parties at the state level – in West Bengal for example where they ruled for 34 years – we find them no better. Pampered sons of ministers squandered public money; forged certificates and packed universities and colleges with "party followers"; allowed realtors to get away with murder since they swelled the party coffers. The scale of corruption may be smaller in comparison with the national picture; but given the charges, and opportunities, we never know what they would have done nationally (Jyoti Basu was once offered the PM’s chair!) - because the politicians, once in chair, acquire the same hue.
What should the common man do?
Seek refuge in the Anna Hazares and the Ram Devs in fighting corruption? Possibly, over the years we have corrupted our moral fibre and can trust no one. Once a rage – and described as the new Gandhi or the messiah – now walks into politics. Power, if he achieves it, will corrupt him too. Ram Dev too it is said has political ambitions. Where does the civil society stand, or the movements like the "OccupyWall Street" or the social media? Impatience towards the media is on the rise – just as it happened in the pre-emergency days. Cartoonists are being jailed. We, certainly, are in troubled times. A "manthan" – or a great churning – is on. The outcome bodes ill."
Thursday
Netaji mystery: Declassification holds the key
The nationalistic zeal of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose - my patriotic hero, has inspired many Indians. Netaji's disappearance is still shrouded in mystery. Journalist and author Anuj Dhar has been relentless in his effort to untangle the jigsaw. Anuj Dhar's latest book: India's Biggest Cover-Up , has created flutters in many quarters, both within India and outside. In his guest post for Stray Thoughts, Anuj Dhar argues that "Declassification holds the key to cracking the Netaji mystery." This guest post is Stray Thoughts' tribute to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
"In 2007 my friends and I were in the middle of an RTI (Right to Information) quest to seek release of over 200 secret records used by the Khosla Commission to support the official theory of Netaji's reported death in Taiwan at the close of the World War II (WWII). The Ministry of Home Affairs was refusing to declassify them and the Information Commissioner AN Tiwari (later Chief Information Commissioner) was left with no option but to ask them point blank why it could not be done.
After a while, Tiwari, a former Secretary to the Government of India, received a letter from his friend, the then home secretary. The letter was marked "Secret" but Tiwari could hardly conceal his sense of bafflement after going through it. He told us that the home secretary was not in favour of the disclosure of the records because doing so "may lead to a serious law and order problem in the country, especially in West Bengal".
In 2012 if there's any issue concerning Subhas Chandra Bose that requires our urgent attention it is of the gratuitous state secrecy around him. As you read this, heaps of classified records and files relating to Netaji are lying in different ministries and agencies. I do not think apart from Bose any other pre-independence national icon of ours has had the dubious distinction of having so much of classified material about him. Often there are claims, some of which are right, that secret files about Netaji exist in other countries. But then, how are we going to ask foreign governments to release them when our own is sitting on a pile of its own making?
Just to give you an illustration, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) is holding 35 classified files concerning the man, a large number of Indians think was the main reason the British left India in 1947. Most of these files are about the reported death. Nearly 10 of the PMO's Netaji files carry the "Top Secret" stamp.
The situation is more or less the same across the government. The Ministry of Home Affairs, I came to know during my RTI-related efforts, is holding secret thousands of pages about Bose's fate. This has got to be joke because most "enlightened" people of the country -- senior journalists and eminent Bengali thinkers included, I have the gumption to say-- have made up their minds that the Bose mystery is just gas.
But gas it surely is not. The Ministry of External Affairs has secret files about Netaji and so has the Intelligence Bureau, some 76 of them. In fact, only a former Director of Intelligence Bureau (DIB) can actually tell how many files are there exactly and where they have been kept. That is such a shame, you would say. Yes, that is, and this is precisely the issue our generation must confront before it's too late. Those before us failed miserably for a variety of reasons.
Thus far, the Netaji mystery has been dominated by two contrasting outlooks. The first is the views of conspiracy theorists, Bose's blind followers and Jawaharlal Nehru's fiercest critics. The scenario projected by them hasn't escaped the notice of any of us. The other side is that of the intellectuals, especially the "I know it all", many of whom cannot stand any talk of the possibility that Bose might have lived on after the date of his reported death. That's why we find that in last six decades there's not been any proper research by any reputed researcher into the matter. Those who did touch upon the issue ended up giving sketchy details.
So, like it or not, the controversy remains in circulation, unresolved. Therefore, it is high time we did something to cap the controversy for once and all. The accepted wisdom that "there's no use of raising this issue now" must be re-judged in the context of transparency, vital for any great democracy. This country needs openness in the realm of history as well. Irrespective of the views one holds about Netaji or his fate, to ask for comprehensive declassification of all records about him would be a sensible thing to do.
It would be most appropriate if this demand is first raised from the states where Netaji was born and lived. In January this year, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee herself made public statement that it was such a shame that the last word on Netaji's death was yet to come out. Well, a great shame it indeed is and the root cause of it is the inexplicable stand of our government in keeping records about Netaji secret and our inability to ask it to release them.
For argument's sake, if it were to emerge tomorrow that the Government of West Bengal was holding a secret file into the possible killing of Rizwanur Rahman, I'm sure the media and people would lunge at the throats of the officials, demanding its immediate release. So what stops them today from seeking release of Netaji files? No, this is not an issue of the past. The Mukherjee Commission upholding the public view was rejected by our Government in 2006 without assigning any reason, and we simply watched the spectacle.
In last few years we have seen people hitting the streets seeking justice for ordinary people, never posing any of the questions that have been raised by Netaji's admirers since 1950s. "What is the use of it since he is not going to come back alive?" And so we have wasted 50 years and files have piled up in North and South Blocks. Let's end this farce now. As of today, I think there won't be anything better to signal its end than to request the honourble Chief Minister of Bengal to call for an end to the secrecy that has made Subhas Chandra Bose an even bigger enigma than he really was."
Anuj Dhar is a New Delhi-based independent researcher. His latest book "India's Biggest Cover-Up" is available through Reader's Service outlets in Kolkata, such as One World Book Stop (Park Street), Dey's Book Store, Dasgupta and Company, Chakraborty & Chatterjee (College Street).
You may also get the book online.
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