T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan: From Tulmohan to NatMohan

LINE & LENGTH

Most people today either do not know who Tulmohan Ram was or have forgotten. He was a minor Congress MP from Bihar in the first half of the 1970s. His financial misdeeds on behalf of his bosses eventually led to cataclysms in Indian politics.

These eventually included the Emergency, the resulting defeat of the Congress, the consequent split in it that turned it into a private limited company of the Gandhi family, the formation of the Janata Party, into which practically the whole Opposition merged, the attempts to pack the judiciary and the Election Commission with sympathetic judges and election commissioners, major amendments to the Constitution, the use of the Intelligence Bureau and the income tax departments against those who stood in the way, and so on.

It was the mouse that destroyed the godown, not a bulldozer.

There was a huge fuss when the scams of Tulmohan Ram and his immediate boss, Lalit Narain Mishra, the minister for commerce and industry and elder brother of Jagannath Mishra, came to light. Indira Gandhi as the Prime Minister refused to do anything about it.

Parliament came to virtual standstill. The Opposition united. The people became convinced that the government was corrupt beyond redemption. Indira Gandhi became the focal point of both organised and informal opposition.

All this began to happen within two years of her having established not just a massive political mandate. Thanks to the anti-poverty policy thrust, she had established moral mandate and hegemony as well. It matched her father's in the 1950s.

But, just as he lost it for the sake of Partap Singh Kairon, the formidable chief minister of Punjab, she lost it all for the sake of Tulmohan and his boss Mishra. The latter was too useful as a fund raiser and as the minister helping her son, Sanjay, with his car project. He could not be sacrificed to the Opposition.

But on a longer view the real tragedy is not that there were some rascals around. After all, much of what happened as a consequence of Tulmohan's antics eventually got undone. The Emergency, the Janata Party, the Congress split, the constitutional amendments, the capture of the judiciary, and the Election Commission, are all history now.

The real tragedy lay in the one thing that could never be undone, namely, government condoning corruption. Tulmohan Ram thus left us a lasting legacy: not corruption, which was commonplace, but the practice of governments defending it.

Most people believe that the damage done when the government defends corruption is confined to the parties in government. But that is not the case. Everyone gets sucked in, including the media.

We thus have the paper that published the most important exposes against Rajiv Gandhi in the Bofors case today writing: "Was any law broken by these Indian companies? The answer seems to be 'no', or at least 'not likely' ... The Volcker Committee showed gross irresponsibility, if not political bias, in listing them as beneficiaries without any explanation and without being transparent about the source of the allegations ... The Manmohan Singh Government need not feel politically defensive at all""given the character and fatal weaknesses of the Volcker Committee exercise" (The Hindu, November 3).

And a widely watched TV channel said on Thursday evening that the government had turned the tables by considering sending the UN a legal notice! Paul Volcker has said go ahead, make my day. He has also said, more damningly, that notices had been sent to everyone and that he had no idea that Natwar Singh was India's foreign minister.

The same thing had happened with some publications during the Bofors affair also.

Honour is a peculiar thing. So is shame. If you put them together in the case of individuals, you get something called propriety, that indefinable yet wholly identifiable virtue which sets humans apart.

But what about honour and shame at the collective level? How do I defend my sense of national honour and the sense of national shame?

Indian politicians, regardless of provenance, appear to lack each and all of these. It doesn't seem to matter whether they were once diplomats, civil servants, or even academics.

Once in their new profession, they discard morality as a nuisance and national honour as something for the soldiers. Both get in the way of this, and "that" includes the Boss's interests""personal, political and financial.

Nor do these fellows seem to care that the overwhelming majority of Indians are decent people who feel utterly desolated and let down. The moral disconnection between them and us is the worst aspect of being Indian today, I think. Helplessness compounds the shame.

Not just that, either. When a man of complete and proven integrity defends the indefensible, you wonder where you can hide your head. Sir, please, Sir, Dr Singh, zara hamare baray mein bhi to sochiye.

By now the Prime Minister must know that history is not going to be kind to him. But it might still be if he makes a stand.

All he has to do is to tell the Congress president, it's me or Natwar, the choice is yours.

Who knows, we may even get to hear the dulcet notes of the famous inner voice again then.