TCA Srinivasa-Raghavan: The perfect self-goal

LINE & LENGTH

The correct answer is to repeal the law. Bribery takes place in cash, not from these 'offices of profit'.

There is a saying in Hindi whose meaning is clear but whose origin is obscure: Majoboori ka naam Mahatma Gandhi. The corresponding phrase in English is to make a virtue out of necessity. There is also another saying Sau choohay kha kay, billi chali Haj pay.

So while the sycophants of the Congress party chant their praises of their deity""as they must after having ensured that she had to give up her Lok Sabha seat""we must not lose sight of the obvious: she quit because she had no other choice. Once word of the proposed Ordinance, which the Prime Minister says was not under "active consideration", leaked, the game was up.

To say that she resigned to save the nation will not cut much ice. Saving the nation calls for a lot more, like not allowing what happened in the Goa assembly and in the Jharkhand assembly, or dissolving the Bihar assembly, or even, letting Ottavio Quattrochi's accounts to be unfrozen on the say-so of the government. One resignation, I am afraid, does not balance the books.

People say she does the right thing in the end. But why do something in the first place when you know it is wrong? There is only one reason. You think you can get away and, if there is a protest, you can quickly say sorry and try to appear dignified.

So if you want to judge actions, you have to take a total view, not look at just what suits you or the most recent one, a sort of history-sheeting. And on that total view, Madame Gandhi has done more wrong things than right.

A few months ago, I thought she had begun to turn over a new leaf. She allowed Natwar Singh to be dropped, saw to it that no one interfered with the Election Commission during the Bihar election and got the PMO to issue the directive in respect of the Right to Information Act. Clearly, she was dong all the right things by rising above the pettiness we have become accustomed to from politicians and civil servants.

Now I am beginning to think I was wrong to think that I was wrong about her. It seems she does the right thing only when the sum of her own political and personal gains is greater than the loss. All this talk of sacrifice and tyag is therefore inspired humbug.

The problem is that while it is necessary to do the right thing, it is not sufficient. What you do must simultaneously also be seen as not being too clever by half. If you do the right thing in a low-cunning sort of way, you lose the moral advantage. That is what has happened this time.

Also, here is a mystery: why did Sonia Gandhi quit as the chairperson of the National Advisory Council also? After all, you have to, as the lawyers say, read this together with her other statement that she is going to contest from Rae Bareilly once again. But she can't be both an MP and the NAC chairperson. So does this mean the end of the NAC? Or is she going to become PM after the by-election?

Then there is the larger question of the notion of offices of profit. I am one of those who think that all good intentions do not need to be codified because it doesn't ensure the outcomes you have in mind.

The original intention of the law was to ensure that legislators could act independently of the government. But as this newspaper pointed out in an editorial, a party whip can ensure that MPs don't act independently.

Remember the sessions of Parliament during the Emergency? It was Yes Sir, No Sir, Three bags full Sir, even when the MPs were not holding any office of profit.

Also, it is wrong to cite the exalted idea of separation of powers in the context of this law, which is intended to tackle low-level bribery such as the chairmanship of an industrial development corporation or a council for cultural relations or things equally banal.

Indeed, as any elementary textbook of political science will inform you, the notion of separation of powers is peculiar to the US. It does not apply to the Westminster model, where the executive is born out of the legislature and there is in fact a fusion of powers. The two are held in check by the power of judicial review. Also, in the US, there is separation of personnel, so that members of the executive cannot be members of the legislature, and vice versa. This means legislators are not ministers and vice versa.

The correct answer is to repeal the law, not to include more exemptions in it, which will eventually have the same effect as repeal would. Parliament can exempt any office from disqualification and this, according to the Supreme Court, can be done retrospectively. So keeping the law makes absolutely no sense.

There remains the question of the government bribing legislators with office. Well, friends, remember the JMM case? The real pay-offs take place in hard cash, lots and lots of it, not from these "offices of profit".