| I am glad the President also has qualms about the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Amendment Bill which Parliament will now take up again. The measure reminds me of the baddie in a Western movie who, having enrolled as the sheriff's deputy to serve his own nefarious ends, boasted "I got legal guns too!" |
| We will come to APJ Abdul Kalam's justified concern in a moment. But it must be said that if we take pride in living under the rule of law, never should we forget that laws are made by men. Kautilya knew the kind of men when he wrote that it's easier for someone with honey on his tongue not to taste its sweetness than it is for an official who handles money not to keep some of it. |
| Those who take vital decisions that affect the nation's destiny must not have any kind of personal stake in the matters they deal with. They must not be like the Indian ambassador I knew who accepted shares in a foreign company whose application to set up a branch here he furthered. He may well have done India and globalisation a good turn by bringing the company here; but that claim could be argued more vigorously if he did not also himself make a penny in the process. |
| So, too, with legislators. A Lok Sabha member cannot take a dispassionate view of, say, divestment if he is connected with a public sector undertaking. Lawyers being notoriously blest with a tunnel vision, the Union law minister tried to distinguish between jobs that are constitutional or statutory. It makes no difference. Way back in the 1960s, Andrew Roth, a Canadian journalist who had settled in Britain, took it upon himself to publish the extra-curricular interests of members of the House of Commons. They were only cyclo-styled pages bound together but fascinatingly explained why a particular MP would not offend the Soviet Union or why a colleague lobbied for an aeroplane manufacturer. |
| They had private interests. The state still being India's biggest employer, the interests are more likely to be in some area of the public sector. In both cases, these interests can potentially affect a legislator's judgement and action. In those happier days before Tony Blair's cash for coronets scandal, a British political party could be expected to discipline errant members. That is more than the Congress or BJP who see everything in partisan terms would do. Some are convinced that Jaya Bachchan and Amar Singh were victims of vendetta. Others claim that far from being a deft public relations manoeuvre, Sonia Gandhi's resignation from the Lok Sabha demonstrated unflinching commitment to high ideals. |
| Such arguments will persist even when Parliament's monsoon session passes the Bill to allow MPs to hold jobs that no one had thought of in 1959, when the existing law was enacted. For what the government is doing is to enlarge the legal fig leaf that covers what can only be called a betrayal of public trust. Far from upholding morality and justice, it will blatantly sanctify immorality and injustice. |
| The President's slightly different concern also highlights the absurdity of trying to legalise the illegal. Pointing out inconsistencies, he wants to know why the post of Wakf Board head should be regarded as an office of profit in some states and not in others. Predictably, H R Bhardwaj, who can't see beyond the end of his judicial nose, promptly accused the President of suggesting that the Centre ride roughshod over states' rights. Not at all. The legitimate concern is that if a Wakf Board chief's duties interfere with his legislative responsibilities in one state, surely they do so in others, too. An even-handed approach is needed not to impose uniformity but because honesty can't be interpreted differently in different places. |
| Citing the 1959 Act is no defence. It's more relevant to recall that Article 102 (1)(A) of the Constitution bars an MP or MLA from holding any office of profit under the government or state other than an office declared by law as not disqualifying its holder. The existing list of exemptions was passed nine years later when the lofty principles that inspired the fathers of the Indian republic had yielded to the Congress party's need for votes. Politicians must play politics. Having denounced reservations, Jawaharlal Nehru saw no incongruity in extending them for another decade in 1960. The present Bill declares that 46 posts are not offices of profit. No doubt the next amendment will raise the number to 146, just as the list of castes and communities entitled to reservation becomes longer and longer. |
| All this recalls a chat with an auditor general who mentioned chief justices who charge household expenses to the government, chief secretaries who take interest-free loans for their offspring and police directors-general who have forests mown down for personal timber. Apparently, ministers get away with fewer abuses because of opposition nit-picking. That takes me back to my schooldays Bagehot and his famous comment on eternal vigilance the price of liberty. But how effective can vigilance be when the state itself connives at corruption? |
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