INDIA: Limits to Cash and Carry Governance

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Tara Shankar Sahay

PATNA, Bihar, Sep 30 2005 (IPS) - India’s ‘cash and carry’ style of governance does not always pay, as the country’s charismatic, grassroots leader Lalu Prasad Yadav as well as top-notch officials in this eastern state and the rest of the country are discovering.

As Yadav’s regional Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) party, which sends 23 legislators to the Lok Sabha, (law-making lower house of parliament) faces provincial elections in its home turf of eastern Bihar, he finds himself slapped with charges in a multi-million dollar embezzlement scam by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

What is intriguing is the timing of the charges in the 200 million US dollar scam, coming as they do just three weeks ahead of the elections in lawless Bihar where ‘cash and carry’ governance has long been an established fact of life.

The four-stage elections in Bihar, which has a population of 85 million people, will commence on Oct. 18 and finish on Nov. 19, with counting of votes set to begin on Nov. 22.

Yadav’s charisma and the seeming invincibility of the RJD party, in spite of the serious charges of corruption leveled at him (and possibility because of it), is a problem for friends and foes alike.

Thus, the enemies of Yadav and his RJD, especially the right-wing, pro- Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as well as his allies, the Congress party, equally fear the massive popularity of the man and his party.

It is a measure of the clout that RJD enjoys in the centrally-ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), that is led by the Congress party, that Yadav holds the important railway portfolio, which is reckoned as the world’s single largest employer, with 15 million workers on its payroll.

Such facts, observers say, may explain the timing of the charges framed by the CBI, itself notorious for serving its masters in the central government, rather than the interests of justice and law abidance.

After all, the ‘fodder scam’, for which Yadav is charged, goes back to 1996 and is only one of several cases of public money getting siphoned out by slick politicians and bureaucrats.

Cases pending in the courts include those involving kickbacks in defence purchases, bribery, tax evasion, siphoning money into and out of the country using illegal channels and large commissions for the award of public contracts and development projects.

This city -capital of Bihar and one of the world’s oldest continually- inhabited urban centreùoffers one of the finest examples of India’s culture of corruption. Its once lionised and feted chief administrator, Gautam Goswami, now stands charged for siphoning out some 4.5 million dollars worth of money meant to help flood victims.

Only last year, Goswami was named a ‘Time Asia hero’, by the highly reputed magazine which was taken in by his efforts at getting relief to flood victims and by standing up to his political bosses in enforcing fairness during elections but he cannot explain away a missing seven million dollars.

While there are few leading politicians in India who have escaped the taint of corruption, better was expected from Yadav because his politics is based on the mass mobilisation of under-privileged groups- lower caste Hindus and minority Muslims in Bihar.

Yadav’s powerful ‘social justice’ plank served to keep the RJD in power for 15 long years and even after he was forced to resign as chief minister of Bihar after the fodder scam broke, he managed to rule the state by proxy- by installing his nearly illiterate wife Rabri Devi as his successor.

But the RJD’s unbroken 15-year-run of power in Bihar ended in February, when elections held in the state returned a hung verdict and direct central rule had to be imposed, pending the, tie-breaker, second round of elections that is now scheduled to begin on Oct. 18.

The assembly polls in Bihar-staggered in four phases to ensure fairness- -are being conducted when the dominant feeling in various political circles is that Yadav and his RJD will come a cropper this time, although this is not the first time that people have written the political obituary of India’s most colourful leader.

”Nemesis will be catching up with him (Yadav)- thanks to his government’s non-performance, even his allies have started deserting him,” pointed out Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, senior BJP leader.

Naqvi’s reference was to the Communist Party of India ( CPI ), another constituent of the UPA coalition government at the centre, which has decided to oppose the RJD in Bihar-though it will continue to remain an ally at the centre.

”Corruption is deeply entrenched in the system and it is time that something is done about it in this country,” said D. Raja, national secretary of the CPI, a political party which has championed probity in public life.

Raja pointed out that many changes were being effected by the present UPA government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, one of these being the passage through parliament of the ‘Right to Information Bill’ in May.

According to Prof. S. Guhan of the Madras Institute of Development Studies, the difficulty with tackling corruption in high places in India is that ”politics has become corrupted and corruption has become politicised”, although he concedes that reforms are now making some headway.

Manmohan Singh’s uncompromising approach to corruption was underlined on Friday when sweeping raids were conducted on the homes and offices of top ranking bureaucrats, including those serving in the police, customs and income tax departments.

According to G. Mohanty, spokesman for the CBI, there were at least 150 separate raids in India’s major cities and that in all 40 cases of corruption registered and large amounts of unaccountable cash recovered, including from the home of a commissioner in the income tax department in Mumbai city.

However, legal action against popular politicians in India have often served only to enhance their popularity, a good example being that of Jayaram Jayalalithaa, who currently rules southern Tamil Nadu state but also faces several cases of high corruption.

In 1999, Jayalalithaa brought down a coalition government at the centre, led by the BJP under former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee after he failed to cooperate and interfere with CBI cases pending against her.

This is a spectre that now haunts the Congress party, which needs the support of major regional parties like the RJD to continue in power.

Yet, former CBI chief Joginder Singh, known for his astute political analyses, said Yadav’s charisma is wearing thin and that the grassroots support he enjoyed for a decade and a half is ebbing away, chiefly because he has not lived up to his promises on the development front.

Joginder Singh said the support Yadav has enjoyed from Muslims and Yadavs (large peasant caste to which the leader belongs) was a potent force, but ”my reading is that in the elections next month, Yadav will rue that he did not do an iota of developmental work in Bihar”.

In an IPS interview the former CBI chief ascribed Yadav’s electoral victories, so far, mainly to the failure of his opponents to properly project his shortcomings where the development agenda was concerned. ”He will not be able to retain power this time.”

But RJD party workers are upbeat and certain that like in the previous elections, Yadav will unleash his charismatic appeal on the electorate and ask to be given yet another chance. ”There is no leader in Bihar like Lalu,” said Lalan Singh, party supporter.

Even though Yadav’s election rallies right now are a trifle thin around Patna and the adjoining areas, the RJD chief never fails to mention to the crowds that he remains one of their own.

Simple statements like ” Paani la re” ( get me a glass of water ) or ”Bahut thuck gaye hain” ( I am very tired ) are enough to set off rounds of cheering and clapping.

Yadav, the ”messiah of the masses” has once again given a clarion call to his followers to defeat the conspiracy of elitist forces and to the ‘merchants of communalism ‘ ( read the BJP and its allies ) and the chances are that once again they will heed him.