Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Most of India’s politicians are criminals as the criminals’ passion has become politics.
This syndrome is seen in ramparts of democracy having become safe havens for the perpetrators of crime: crime against competitors, crime against the country.
The situation is so bleak that when the Supreme Court of India delivered a mandate with specific instruction on how to keep the Parliament and Assemblies cleansed of criminals, the lawmakers, dominated by the criminals, amended the Peoples Representative Act to foil the ruling.
Italy born Sonia Gandhi’s Congress party has taken the lead in this. In fact, ever since she has emerged strong enough to invoke awe in the minds of the Congress members, democracy has dwindled to such low that political leaders have started thinking themselves as rulers. A new era of these “rulers” emitting aura of power with packs of specially trained armed personnel guarding them round-the-clock, has arrived and become the symbol of privilege in India.
Representatives’ emergence as rulers
Smt. Indira Gandhi, with the help of her sycophants, clamped emergency in India and metamorphosed into a ruler. The country drowned in anarchy and democracy lost its distinction.
Rabid rightists and all the branded corrupt fellows rejected by the people earlier for their political misconduct got together; and a confused people, overwhelmed by Indira Gandhi’s misrule and emergency excesses, chose this conglomerate of corrupt and self-centric fellows as a Hobson’s choice only in order to get rid of Indira and her scheming stooges.
Janata party thus occupied India with Morarjee Desai as the Prime Minister and an era of political opportunism, favoritism, nepotism, misappropriation of public funds, sabotaging of public interest for personal gain, and all sorts of felonies politicians can resort to, commenced.
Like vultures fight over a carcass for more share of the flesh, the constituents of the Janata government fought against each other over their booty and the conglomerate collapsed.
In fact, death of Morarjee government was organized by Biju Patnaik, when, on allegation of the Janasanghi fraction, Desai had asked Justice R. Gattani, a former Judge and a member of Janata Parliamentary wing to enquire into Patnaik’s role in black-market of iron and steel and report for action.
With Patnaik’s shrewd collaboration, Charan Singh took over as Prime Minister on July 28, 1979. He made such a farce of administration that people brought back Indira Gandhi to power in January 1980. But instead of accepting that she was the Hobson’s choice in a peculiar situation, she continued to be guided by the sycophants and emerged an autocratic ruler. Consequently she was killed.
Her son Rajiv Gandhi, whom she was grooming to inherit her “throne”, occupied the prime-ministerial chair. And India had to acquiesce in the syndrome to have her people’s representatives act as rulers from which there is no reprieve as yet.
Italian influence engulfs administration
And, then, surprisingly, Italian influence started affecting decision-making process in the Government run by the Congress party. The department of defense was the safe grazing ground for the Italians, as defense deals protected by the Official Secrets Act, was not supposed to be exposed to public gaze.
An instance of Italian influence in defense deals, that Rajiv’s finance minister V.P.Singh could not digest, ill-famed as the Bofors scandal, despite all out attempts by the Manmohan Singh Government under the control of Sonia Gandhi to keep its Italian kingpin Ottavio Quattrocchi untainted, refuses to be erased from the pages of history.
Quattrocchi, not punished by India where Sonia – an Italian by origin – de facto rules, has died in heart attack. But Italian influence continues to affect defense deals.
An instance is India’s order for 12 numbers of AW101 helicopters for use by VVIPs from Italian firm Finmeccanica through its subsidiary AgustaWestland. The Rs.3,546 crores worth contract was placed with the Italian firm despite the defense minister’s objection to selection of the copters without any test of their suitability in Indian condition. Though Air Chief Marshal (Rtd) S.P.Tyagi is now booked by the CBI for kickbacks received in the deal, the decision for the deal despite objection by the Defense Procurement Board as well as the Defense Minister could never have been taken unless still higher powerful persons had supported the deal. Who is the person whom Tyagi and his acolytes could have considered more powerful than the defense minister to go ahead with the deal with the Italian firm needs to be found out; but it is not in the agenda of the government, controlled by Sonia, it seems.
The helicopters were meant to be exclusively used by VVIPs along with their security guards, befitting their ruling status.
Status symbol
In 1985, to provide security to Rajiv Gandhi, a specially trained “Special Protection Group (SPG)” of guards equipped with assaultive weapons was created. After his assassination, his family – Mrs.Sonia Gandhi, son Rahul and daughter Priyanka – were put under this facility. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former PM A.B.Vajpayee are the only two other persons that are put under this special group of guards, for which the country has been spending around one hundred lakhs of rupees every day.
Over and above these five persons, there are about 400 politicians belonging to non-Communist parties that have been enjoying life under protection by commandos of the National Security Guards round-the-clock at the cost of the public exchequer.
When for every lakh of the population in India 137 policemen are engaged as per official claim (in reality it is much less: as for example, in Tigiria Tahsil of Cuttack district in Orissa, with a population of 80,000, there is only one police station with ten policemen including a sub-inspector), the Government is on records to have spent around Rs. 341 crore on guarding VVIPs in Delhi in 2012 alone, most of which was spent on security of 376 individuals.
The Supreme Court of India, on July 09, 2013, had looked sternly at such denudation of the exchequer on security of VVIPs. If such arrangement for holders of constitutional positions is a situational necessity, “why is security given to those who are not in power and against whom cases are pending?” the apex court had asked.
Earlier on February 14, 2013 it had observed, “Positional security or security due to threat perception becomes a symbol of power.”
So, in considered opinion of the highest judiciary, positional security has become a status symbol. To define the status, the security being provided to the privileged persons are divided into several categories like Z+, Z, Y, X etc.
Insecureness caused by capitalism
In demanding PM level security (SPG) for Mr. Narendra Modi, the BJP has also admitted that political economy of capitalism in practice in India has made the country unsafe and insecure, though it is yet to confess that by not deviating from the political economy Manmohan Singh had clamped on India as Finance Minister of Narasingh Rao, it has helped the Congress precipitate this degradation.
Ever since Manmohan Singh’s emergence at the helm of India’s economic affairs, Indian democracy has constantly been changing into plutocracy.
The BJP rule under Vajpayee had helped this menace by not taking any action against stooges – the economic offenders – such as the hoarders, black-marketeers and adulterators etc on the one hand and on the other, by divesting India’s public of their Public Sector Undertakings by selling them away to private profiteers through a disinvestment ministry created in India for the first and the last time so far.
Plutocratic contradiction
Plutocracy was thus promoted and promulgated by both BJP and Congress.
But it is not without its contradictions.
Non-Communist politicians are bound to work for either of the two sets of beneficiaries of plutocracy: indigenous capitalists or foreign imperialists.
And, both these two types of beneficiaries of plutocracy are bound to vie for control over the country’s administration through their respective agents.
And this is happening in India.
Therefore we see, without attacking each other’s political economy, BJP and Congress are indulging in mudslinging.
They attack each other as acrimonious rivals, but never utter a word on unwanted transformation of India’s democracy to plutocracy.
Their battle is not against plutocracy; but is based on the contradiction of plutocracy toggling between Indian capitalism and American imperialism.
The 2014 general election, therefore, is to be a battle between Indian capitalism that BJP stands for and American imperialism that the Congress under Sonia-Manmohan set-up has been working for.
Not any leader, but a ruler
But both these wings of plutocracy do not need any leader, as a leader will depend on collective parliamentary wisdom, which would not be suitable for plutocracy all the times. Therefore, to each of them an individual is essential to be projected as prime-ministerial candidate much ahead of election. Transformation of India’s parliamentary democracy to plutocratic autocracy is what both the BJP and Congress want. In such a situation, whichsoever party wins, India shall be governed by a ruler in the guise of a Prime Minister.
And, a ruler is a ruler because of power. Therefore, show of power is so essential for them. And category of security given to them by the State symbolizes the power they enjoy and emit.
And therefore, BJP’s prime-ministerial candidate Modi, despite being provided with Z+ security, wants SPG in his service like the Prime Minister. And, therefore the government run by Manmohan Singh is denying him the facility, whereas the would be prime-ministerial candidate of Congress party, Rahul Gandhi has already been provided with this facility at the cost of public exchequer.
This mischief of plutocracy needs be stopped. Leaders acquiring and brandishing VIP or VVIP status are not the persons who would ever cherish to belong to common man category. They like to be treated as high dignitaries. Therefore, when Modi wants SPG security, Rahul Gandhi is not voluntarily renouncing this privilege.
This mentality of both Modi and Rahul is entirely detrimental to democracy and is capable of running riot on ordinary citizens.
Supreme Court observation
Justice G.S.Singhvi holding a Supreme Court Bench along with Justice H.L.Gokhale, on 15 February 2013 had observed, “Indiscriminate use of power in placing VIPs in a high dignitary category results in abuse of power. ………. If power is misused, it runs riot on ordinary citizens”.
Sadly, this observation goes barren, as the Supreme Court does not appear to have taken any step to see that the observation is honored, even though the Court is quite worried over criminalization of politics.
Withdraw security, save the country
Criminalization of politics has a direct link with political leaders being provided with high assaultive security protection. Withdraw the security guards, crime shall be drastically reduced. People shall tame the bastards to serve the country instead of serving plutocratic masters.
Best of our creative brains are giving this message in cinemas for decades. Watch any cinema in any Indian language, there are villains who run riots with the help of police power at their beck and call. People thrash them ultimately oblivious of the police and end their tyranny invariably by killing them or handing over the kingpin to the law.
The message clearly delivered thereby is: withdraw the police protection from the criminals, crime shall end.
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