So I was looking forward to reading Arun Shouries views on the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party to power. The BJP made some questionable allies in its search for power during the last general election. Sukh Ram was found by the Central Bureau of Investigation to have stacked crores in the prayer room of his house; they are alleged to have come out of bribes on cable purchase contracts for the Department of Telecommunications. Jayalalitha was reputed to be outstanding amongst Indian chief ministers who became notorious for corruption. The worlds most expensive wedding that of Shashikalas son was organised and financed by Jayalalitha. Visitors to Madras are shown a prominent cinema theatre which she forcibly took away from its owner and still retains. There are cases of foreign exchange manipulation against her. She owns numerous houses. Her assets are far in excess of what can be accounted for. Her corruption was painstakingly documented by Subramaniam Swamy before he
became her ally. She became the BJPs ally, and both benefited from the alliance.
Apart from this, the BJP took money from big industrialists and made promises in its manifesto which would benefit those industrialists at the expense of the common people of India. This is not necessarily immoral. One might even say that this is what politics was about, and that it is quite all right as long as it is done openly that the electorate is not kept in ignorance of the BJPs intention to reward the industrialists at the expense of consumers. Arun Shourie may well conclude that this has nothing to do with morality; but one would still like to know what he thinks of it.
The simplest course for a moralist would be to condemn the BJPs compromises on the road to power. Now that the compromises have brought the BJP to power, condemnation would have had a purely moral dimension. But in his article in The Asian Age of yesterday, Arun Shourie does not make such a clear choice. His dilemma arises from the fact that the BJP came to power, which for him is the greater good. The end is so desirable that the means must be justified. That, however, would not be the choice of the moralist; it would be opportunism, cynicism. I look to Arun Shourie for a moral compass: where does his compass point today?
He regards the Indian political system as one in which a moralist has no chance of success. And no one who does not want to succeed, who does not want to get into power, has any business to stay in politics. For entry into politics can only be justified by the good one can thereby do to the people, and one can do no good without getting into power. Forming a government is a prior condition to doing anything good for the people. A moralist enters politics only for doing something good. If a virtuous public life keeps one out of power, one is doing disservice to the people.
So what does Arun Shourie think the BJP should do? Avoid grandiloquent justifications of immoral alliances; keep the people in the picture; pre-set limits to the wrong you are going to do. Would modest justifications be justified? Must you tell the people all the murky details, or just enough to avoid jeopardising the murky alliances? The limits you set to your own immorality: would you announce them to the people, or just mutter them to yourself? Having muttered them today, are you allowed to raise the limits just slightly a month later? It is not as if Arun Shourie is unaware of these complications. But he has not thought through his problem: he is groping, and his grip is slipping. He needs to read his moral compass better.
His next recommendation is stronger: The real safeguard is that, when circumstances compel one to compromise, and by that compromise one attains a position of authority, one must devote oneself to changing the feature in the present system which forced one into that capitulation. What he seems to be saying is that when X -- and reading his forgoing comments, it is forgivable to put X equal to BJP sins, X must do prayashchitta; that penance would consist of changing the political rules of the game in such a way that the same sin would not profit anyone in the future: it would be met with an exemplary punishment which would expel it out of political practice.
Now what does this mean in practice? That the BJP would pursue Jayalalitha zealously in the courts? After having made one of her flunkeys law minister? Does it mean that the BJP would make it impossible for ministers to use state treasuries for personal or party gain? That it would stop putting party favourites as chairmen of state co-operative banks in Gujarat? That it would break up the nexus between blueline bus owners and BJP MLAs in Delhi? The principle Shourie has laid down sounds fine; it is worthy of him. But it would gain credibility if it were applied to practical situations.
Now suppose the BJP is prevented by political circumstances from doing penance? Suppose Jayalalitha prevents any change in the rules of the game which would prevent her from enriching herself when she next comes in power? I know what the BJP would want to do in those circumstances: it would like to wait until it gets such a large majority that it can ride roughshod over Jayalalitha and the pseudosecularists who think that pulling down mosques is undesirable. But what does Arun Shourie think?
And finally according to Arun Shourie, It has always been accepted that a ruler may do what is ordinarily impermissible for reasons of state . In other words, there are some actions which are immoral when done in ones personal capacity and moral when done by a head of state (read prime minister, minister, secretary, policeman). Now this is a very useful principle. When one is out of power, one can adopt immoral tactics if one promises oneself that once in power, one will reform the system so as to make those immoral tactics unnecessary. When one gets into power, one can indulge in immorality as long as one paints a red dot on ones forehead, puts a shawl on ones shoulder, or in some other way signifies to oneself that one is acting as a statesman.
This is altogether very subtle. I would not say that it is unworthy of Shourie. But he is capable of greater honesty. He has been softened by the BJP victory and become wobbly like an oyster. But he may still produce a pearl. I shall keep looking forward to it.
