The two sides of corruption

Congress party gets a shock treatment every time they hear about autobiographies.

Congress, which forms the UPA government, has had enough causes for headaches with the books authored by former Foreign Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, Media Advisor Sanjay Baru of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s term and Ex-coal Secretary P C Parekh. The new cause of headache for embarrassment is the revelations by CAG Vinod Rai. The revelations by Rai is much serious than the ranting of others. He claims that UPA government under Manmohan Singh had deputed politicians who forced him to leave out names from the audit reports in the Coalgate and Commonwealth Games scams. The allegation has been duly taken up by the BJP and the Congress has obviously denied it.

It is not like any one party or front is in the dock, the unfortunate truth is that these people have agreed to accept that corruption, wealth amassing and illicit interventions are part of our system as any other good thing. The political ploy of illegitimate influences called by the name of “Lobbying” and so legalized in America is also seen to be in use in India. The friendly capitalism prevalent there is soon seen catching up as a trend in the country. Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan had said that this ally capitalism is one of the worst tragedy the country faces. The carcinogenic pro- corporate nepotism that eats at the system is much dangerous than the visible corruption. When the CAG himself witnesses the corruption showcased in allowing coal and 2G spectrum to the multinational companies; the enormous amounts of subsidies showered on to the corporate at the budgets are just winked away. This year’s budget proves that the method followed by the present BJP government is the same as that carried out by the two UPA governments under Manmohan Singh.

The provision of tax subsidy is known by the nickname “Revenue Forgone”. The encouragement given to the industries is in the form of exemption of taxes and other benefits. According to the fervent Journalist P Sainath, during the past nine years the tax subsidies provided to the corporate companies by the country amounts to rupees 1100 crores per day--Totals to a whooping 36.5 lakh. This offer which seems lawful is by the money of the public. This amount is enough to carry out the National Employment scheme for a continuous 105 years!

The so called friendly capitalism is thriving under the new government—the preference given to the Ambanis, Adanis and Birlas are in no way channelled to the public. The wealth of the 60 crore Indians are seen to be centered in 56 families. The ally capitalism is wrapping its tentacles over the governance too. This is clearly visible by the BJP and ShivSena MPs readiness to go to America on the invitation of the Genetic Seed Manufacturing Company Monsanto. Even though they backed off from the plan once it became news, the pro- G M actions in the centre are still strong. The agendas of the GM companies began to be implemented when Veerappa Moily became the Environment Minister after Jairam Ramesh and Jayanthi Nadarajan. Prakash Javdekar from the Modi government had also given green signal for the GM experiments in 15 food crops , even though the public agitation had suppressed his plans. The company had actually taken advantage of the situation and asked the MPs to come to Iowa to learn about the benefits of the GM crops, the players were well aware that the plan to spend 3 lakh per MP would surely not go worthless. The programme flopped only because of the vigil of the public.

However alert the public and the CAG be, the “ally capitalism” is strangling our system. Temporary solutions are not what are required in this critical problem.