The whole episode relating to the fantastic rise in the salaries and perquisites of the members of Parliament (MPs) is shocking. The prime minister, who has the courage of conviction of his party chief, Sonia Gandhi, seems to have been influenced by her. She has said that as a pilot with Indian Airlines, Rajiv Gandhi drew more salary than his mother Indira Gandhi who was prime minister of India.
Well, the salaries of corporate chiefs and bankers in the US are higher than those of the president and the chairman of the Fed, respectively. A pilot needs technical knowledge of a high order and works on his own most of the time. A PM has a whole bureaucracy advising him. He needs only abundant common sense to choose from the options offered to him. Interestingly, some of the MPs who were in the forefront of the agitation for the salary increases are “gentlemen” with cases of corruption, assets disproportionate to income, etc., pending in the courts. The MPs’ agitation has already started a similar movement among the MLAs of states. It will soon percolate through to other levels and the public sector. It is disgusting to visualise a poor Vidarbha farmer toiling day after day on his farm and then facing starvation due to the failure of harvest along with the sight of an MP agitating for a fatter salary. In this context, Narayana Murthy’s reported statement that the army should be an instrument of change has an ominous overtone.
A Seshan, on email
Readers should write to:
The Editor, Business Standard, Nehru House,
4, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002,
Fax: (011) 23720201; letters@bsmail.in
