It’s all about ‘making the minister smile’

One politician arrested in a corruption case, another hoping to get anticipatory bail in the same case. Both have been chief ministers, one for a mere 17 days, another for a full five-year term. While they shout out their innocence, there is a weary silence that greets their cries. Goa has seen corruption and its residents have been its victims. So when a politician pleads innocence to the charges of corruption all that the people can do is shrug their shoulders or just feign having not heard the denial. There is disbelief that a politician, any politician for that matter, in Goa can be anything but corrupt. 

The scams that have made it to the front pages of the newspapers are many, but the politicians in Goa that have made it behind bars for corruption are none. This is the first time that the law enforcement in Goa is actually pursuing two politicians who have been implicated in a bribery case, of having received more money in one day than the aam aadmi will ever see in his lifetime. Yet, it has aroused little curiosity among the people of the State. Except for the initial excitement at the allegations, the people soon returned to their normal routine.

The manner in which Goa reacted to the corruption charges in the JICA bribery case indicates, perhaps, that the people have resigned themselves to living with corruption. It is fair to say that in Goa, people have almost come to accept that no bureaucratic or government work can get done unless there is an exchange of currency notes. Bribery and corruption have become almost institutionalized in the country to the extent that politicians and bureaucrats do not feel embarrassed at demanding that they be ‘rewarded’. 

Real estate developers who want licences for construction, entrepreneurs who seek permissions for starting a business, firms supplying goods to government departments and professionals offering their services to the government, have had to ensure that the minister and the bureaucrat, to borrow an expression from Anurag Mathur, ‘smile’. And only then is the licence, permission or contract issued. Even the aam aadmi, who stands in queue for his certificate does not escape the corruption. He too has a story of woe to relate. A survey by Transparency International in 2005 had found that 62 per cent of the people in India had ‘first hand experience of paying bribes or influence peddling to get jobs done’. A decade later in 2015, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index ranks India at 85 in 175 countries.

In his book ‘Making the Minister Smile’ set in Delhi, writer and journalist Anurag Mathur weaves a story around an entrepreneur and his American collaborator, who to end the labour problems they are facing in their manufacturing unit have no choice but find a way to make the minister ‘smile’. The only way the politician will ‘smile’ is if he gets a share of the bundle. Quite close a plot to the real-life situation in Goa, where in the JICA case, an American company has admitted to having bribed Goan politicians to win a consultancy project in the State.

Corruption is an issue, a major issue in the country and the State. The 2012 Assembly elections in Goa had been fought and won by the BJP on the issue of corruption and perhaps the main reason for the Congress debacle was corruption. So when the chief minister of that government and his minister are alleged to have received kickbacks, there is little surprise or outrage. On the night the Goa Police arrested former PWD minister Churchill Alemao, a strong security ring was thrown around the office of the Crime Branch fearing that his supporters might gather there. It turned out unnecessary and even former chief minister Digambar Kamat who is believed to still have his Margao constituency firmly in his grip, managed under a 1000 persons for a meeting in his neighbourhood. It appears that even the diehard supporters of these politicians have slowly distanced themselves from the men under the police scanner. 

While there are provisions in the Indian Penal Code regarding corruption and even the Prevention of Corruption Act, in the recent past, the public fight against corruption has seen the tightening of the law against the practice, even if till the present this has remained more theoretical than in practice. The Lokayukata, the Right To Information Act, the Right To Services Act, have all arisen primarily because of growing levels of corruption. While people, especially activists, have utilized the RTI to force bureaucrats to act and reply to questions, Goa still awaits the appointment of the Lokayukta that had been promised to the State by the party in power within 100 days of forming a government. One Lokayukta appointed quit within a few months and the post has been lying vacant since then. Given the level of corruption in the State, can the delay in the appointment of a Lokayukta be ascribed to the fact that no candidate to the post is willing make the minister smile?

It will take a long time before any charges are framed in the JICA bribery case. It will take even longer to prove the charges in a court where a public prosecutor will, in all probability, be pitted opposite a highly-paid trial lawyer. The drama will play out for many more months to come, and in the meantime, the other scams and cases against the politicians will be forgotten, as the JICA case is made an example of by a government in desperate need of a victory.

(The writer is Executive Editor, Herald.)