Here’s an excerpt of the
question:
Is it true that while NRI firms such as India Uncut of USA, Sepia Mutiny of Britain and AnarCap Lib of Netherlands have been allowed to invest in Indian SSIs, the reputed German investment firm Desipundit has been denied permission? If so, the reasons thereof? Is the Union Government of India planning to make automatic the long procedure of permission for SSIs to import new technologies such as Trackbacks, Pingbacks, Blogrolls, Splogs and Hitcounters?
While nearly all the questions
had a public interest element in them, some, like the one above, were passed on
to the MPs with the intention of showing how easy it was for amateur teams to
infiltrate the system and get bogus questions submitted in the balloting
process. While, in this case, these were harmless, humour inducing efforts, in
the hands of powerful lobbies this power acquires a sinister dimension. It is
important to note some MPs like Kushwaha, Ram Pal and Gandhi even promised to
put in questions “to harass” NISMA’s enemies.
On May 25 the COBRAPOST team met
the Congress MP from Gwalior for the first time. Middleman Vijay arranged the
meeting at the MP’s house in North Avenue.
Before the meeting with Ramsevak Singh, Vijay tells the NISMA representative not to give any money to the MP directly but route it through him instead. After the pleasantries questions are read out to the legislator. The reporter could not talk anything about money in the meeting as there was another person present in the room. However, the reporter indicates to the MP that she is leaving a packet behind with Vijay, who throughout the meeting was a silent spectator. At the end of the meeting, Vijay is handed over a packet containing Rs 25,000 to be given to the MP. He goes back into the MPs house and returns telling us that the money has been delivered to the MP. He also collects Rs 10,000, as his commission. The reporter also calls up Ramsevak, later the same day, where he confirms receiving Rs 25,000 from Vijay. In another phone conversation on July 29 the MP informs the reporter that he has submitted the questions in the Parliament.
The COBRAPOST team goes to meet
Ramsevak Singh the second time on August 16. His personal assistant Ravinder
Sehrawat was also there along with another person, who was sitting on
the sofa beside the MP. Since the question given to Ramsevak did not figure
either in the starred or unstarred lists, the MP volunteers to submit them
again in the Lok Sabha. He also instructs the NISMA representative to contact
him directly henceforth and not come through the middleman, Vijay, who had
brought her to him earlier.
In the third meeting with the MP
on October 7 the reporter reads out a fresh set of questions for submission
during the winter session. After Ramsevak assures her that he will submit them
in the Parliament in the coming session, the reporter pays him an advance of Rs
10,000. In this meeting the legislator again confirms having received Rs 25,000
from Vijay in the first meeting. Interestingly, in this interaction, a katha
(story) on the Ramayana by Ram Kinker is blaring in the room.
We meet Ramsevak Singh two more
times on November 10. In the first of the two meetings the MP accepts Rs 10,000
from us. The reporter also offers him a monthly retainer for raising questions
in the Parliament to which Ramsevak tells us that we can give anything which is
profitable to him. Says he: “Nahi figure khud bataa dena soch ke (You
tell me the figure yourself after thinking).” In the second meeting he accepts
another Rs 5,000, which took the total tally of the money he received from us
for submitting questions in the winter session to Rs 25,000. His secretary
Ravinder, later, delivers copies of the question forms submitted by the MP in
the Lok Sabha on NISMA’s behalf.
It will be pertinent to note that
the case studies of the 11 MPs above are a condensed version of what exactly
transpired and cannot be construed in any way to be the entire gamut of facts.
There are many hours of tapes that hold much more interesting material.
Hidden cameras and politicians are an incompatible, though entertaining, combination. Sucking the air for video, the cameras can acquire evangelical powers. By simply amalgamating sounds and images into facts they can etch the spiritual poverty of Indian politics. They can also furnish the nation with the itinerary of graft: how some Members of Parliament after having come to power use it to convert every due privilege into the all consummate act of making money.
Strikingly, according to an
estimate by Transparency International India (TII) in June 2005, ordinary
Indians paid Rs 21,068 crore as bribes while availing one or more of 11 public
services in a year. These are: police (crime/traffic), judiciary, land
administration, municipal services, government-run hospitals, electricity
supply, public distribution system, income tax, water supply, schools and rural
financial institutions—in that order.
With 14405 respondents this
survey by TI India was one of the biggest corruption studies in India. While
India ranks 88th on the corruption index listing 158 countries, Jammu and
Kashmir and Bihar are the most corrupt states in India and Delhi is ranked
higher than Uttar Pradesh when it comes to corruption.
The report relates just to petty
corruption and is not about large scale corruption where public funds are
siphoned off as NPAs, or where commissions line the pockets of politicians in
defence deals. There are also some reports that suggest that eliminating or
minimising corruption would boost India’s GDP by 1.5 per cent.
In India, it’s become almost
analgesic to talk about the prevalence of corruption. It’s a “given”
assumption. There’s even a cynicism developing towards stories of corruption
bred more by the attitude “tell us something new”. That is a dangerous trend.
For when corruption stories stop burning holes even in the notebook of reporters
then it means that there is a lack of outrage over the issue. And an absence of
fury will only exacerbate the political bankruptcy that the nation finds itself
in. While we should never be so consumed by the passion to expose that we
sacrifice responsibility and accuracy, at the same time we should guard against
losing that passion.
As a democracy we have decided
that though our legislators cannot perhaps fill up tax forms but they can
legislate and that, though they might have dozens of criminal charges against
them, they can still enter the electoral fray.
But even as politicians in India
have managed to tunnel their way into brutal ridicule one should bear in mind
that the 11 MPs we have talked about in Operation Duryodhana don’t define the
moral hollowness of Indian politics, we at least hope so, in the way that the
Taliban doesn’t define Islam or Praveen Togadia, Hinduism.
For corruption to be defeated it
has to be decoded first. Some would even say that while in the West one makes
money in the market and uses it to buy or manipulate power, in India one grabs
power in order to make money. The other thing about it that needs to be
understood is that when powerful citizens are caught lunging for cash, they
crank propaganda with ferocity. There is this demonic energy that propaganda
generates which tricks you to try and understand an issue not on the facts but
on the people who put those facts. It also tries to cloud the main issue with
irrelevant, minor issues.
And even as I am calibrating my news radar on this unconfirmed tip off that has come to me, anonymously, about these celebrities who are clandestinely involved in the penile enhancement business and who, as a sideshow, also participate in rituals that resemble the Naked Singing cult from Bhutan, where they shower their dollars on nude damsels, I am generous enough to pass on a story idea that I think lots of Indian media houses should be pursuing. I have a hunch that an investigation into the MPLAD scheme would yield rich dividends.
(The writer headed the COBRAPOST
investigation called Operation Duryodhana. The story, which broke in AAJ TAK,
was co-authored by SUHASINI RAJ. The investigation was also assisted by KUMAR
BAADAL.)
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