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Funding of Elections in India

by Nikhil Chakravartty
***Lavish spending in the election rose progressively, so much so that it became common talk that no individual with modest amount at his disposal would ever hope to enter in State Assembly, not to speak of getting elected to Parliament.***
CORRUPTION today has come to be associated as an integral part of the political life in the country. In the early days, the common refrain was that political parties needed funds to fight elections and therefore it became commonplace to have fiolitical leaders and their enchmen to absolve all corruption as having become inevitable under the present system of election politics.
Although this aspect of our election system used to be commented upon even in the past it was only under Indira Gandhi that this theory got wide currency. This was partly because of the intense inner-party war that came within the Congress as it split in 1969 and for the first time the prime minister of the country was involved in person in raising large-scale money as party fund for the election machinery — a fact which could not be ascribed to Jawaharlal Nehru or Lal Bahadur Shastri.
Lavish spending in the election rose progressively, so much so that it became common talk that no individual with modest amount at his disposal would ever hope to enter in State Assembly, not to speak of getting elected to Parliament. As it happens in political life the standard was set by the biggest and the most resourceful of the parties, that is the Congress, and all the others followed the pattern.
The issue became a subject of discourse even in legislatures and parliament. Indira Gandhi herself did not deny it but she underplayed its pernicious impact by saying that corruption in politics had become a "global phenomenon" — that meant that one need not bother too
much about it. Her philosophy seemed to be that ends should justify the means, and since the end was to capture and retain power by democratic means, it did not matter what means were resorted to reach that end.
Funds for political parties did not come as charity. If big business houses donated generously whenever the Congress bosses asked for it. they certainly had reason to invest in political parties. For instance, the system of lobbying appeared in our public life, and it was known which among the politicians backed — or looked after — the interests of which business houses. A new phenomenon. though in an incipient form was the arrival of businessmen or their progenies or cohorts getting into legislatures and Parliament. Once the process started, the opening for corruption became both vertical and horizontal. Even in lower tiers of governance like local self-governing institutions. this invasion of moneybags was noticeable. This became so widespread in some areas that the old guard among political leaders were visibly disturbed.
Another development distorted the even flow of democratic life which helped to facilitate corruption in a totally unexpected way. When Indira Gandhi imposed the Emergency. she did so out of fear of the rising tide of more discontent which Jayaprakash Narain and his supporters took
up as a crusade for clean political life. JP's campaign In Gujarat began with the campaign for the ouster of the regime of a thoroughly corrupt politician, namely Chimanbhal Patel; and from Gujarat. JP came to Bihar to take up the same crusade. As his movement became the rallying point of all those ready to fight corruption. Indira Gandhi got scared because this was precisely the time when she was grooming her roughneck second son Sanjay as her political heir. To protect ■ and promote Sanjay Gandhi s mafia style politics, she declared Emergency and held on to it for 19 months. This was the time when freedom of press was suppressed, all Opposition parties gagged and thousands detained without trial, and on top of all this. Sanjay Gandhi's mafia terror became the ruling establishment. The iron hand of Indira's Emergency acted like a shield for Sanjay's corruption and political violence.
When she felt that all Opposition had been crushed, she went for election mistakingly calculating that the election would legitimise Sanjay Gandhi's rule and thereby a corrupt and ruthless mafia would rule the country. Although the Congress under Indira had to suffer a crushing defeat, the coalition which came to power under the signboard of the Janata Party broke because of its contradictions, falling a prey to the wire-pulling by Indira Gandhi who made an effec-
tive bid in the election politics. The electorate returned her to power though the return of Sanjay rule was averted partly because of her fear of public resistance and also by the physical disappearance of Sanjay Gandhi himself in an air crash.
While the democratic form of political functioning was restored. the tempo of political corruption did not go down at all. It was during Indira Gandhi's return to power after 1980 that the new feature of political corruption started with those in power managing to collect heavy kickback from large-scale government purchases, particularly from defence hardware from abroad. It was during her last year that the German submarine deal was negotiated and then clinched under Rajiv. Soon after came the infamous Bofors gun deal, whose exposure in the media rocked the political high-ups of the country. Although the government with its wide network even in political circles did try to confuse public opinion, it was clear that in the eyes of the public as a whole, Rajiv and his wife’s family have come to be regarded as the beneficiaries of the Bofors kickback deal. From this point onward, the corruption in the public eye tainted the personal standing of political leaders, as the scams could hardly be explained away as their labours for the collection of party funds by legitimate means. In other words, the figleaf excuse of collecting funds
Tor the party could no longer save the political leaders from the suspicion of large-scale personal corruption.
The other cases of outright corruption involving Sukh Ram and Satish Sharma. Sheila Kaul. Kalpnath Rai and Narasimha Rao's nephew and close relation — from oil exploration and petrol pump dealership to telecommunication tenders and urea scandal to house allotment scandals, there is no doubt that Narasimha Rao's prime ministership marks the high-watermark of political corruption everseen in inde< pendent India.
This has also been the period of the initiation of open-market economic reforms. The authors of these economic reforms led by Dr Manmohan Singh dispute the charge that the liberalisation of the economy opened up sources of corruption never seen before. For one thing, in the great securities scam in which the common shareholders were swindled by unscrupulous securities gamblers to the tune of over Rs five thousand crores — the Finance Ministry which is supposed to be the watchdog of the share-market and credit system, did not intervene at all despite warnings by the media and a number of parliamentarians. Secondly, it needs to be noted that with the withdrawal of controls and persistent invita-tion to the foreign corporate investor — alluring them with concessions even to the extent
of the government formally assuring guaranteed returns for their investment — the foreign multinationals got extraordinary opportunities. The disgraceful conduct of the government In letting off the Union Carbide for the Bhopal gas tragedy made it clear that the present government is in no position to discipline the foreign investors. This has been confirmed by the dubious handling of the Enron and Cogentrix projects by the Government, both at the Centre and in the States.
To complete the list on corruption. Now
slowly the awareness is dawning before the public that the foreign corporate entities — whom the Finance Ministry has been trying hard to attract and Invest in India — are no angels and corruption in their case takes gigantic proposition which destabilises the financial stability of the market in India. With the powerful campaign for foreign corporate investment which the Finance Ministry has initiated with the clearance of the Prime Minister. will it be able to give a clean chit to the foreign companies so invited? It is a dangerous minefield in which the Government might get involved since Chidambaram has been dutifully carrying out Manmohan's line of total open door.
As for corruption in high places, there is general agreement in the country that drastic steps would have to be taken without delay if the erosion of democratic governance is to be halted. But no national consensus has yet been reached as how to rid the country of the malaise.
— Mandira
The writer is a well know Indian columnist.