Art and reality as our common sense grasps it have a peculiar dialectical relationship.If art makes the familiar unfamiliar, reality has its revenge by making the unfamiliar familiar.Living in contemporary India one is made aware of this by repeated shockers.
Only the other day the newly appointed Lokpal had announced that his first task will be to order a deeper probe into Mahua Maitra’s alleged cash for query crime.In the mean time the enquiry by the Ethics committee of Parliament has seen the man who had posted queries direct into Ms Maitra’s computer testifying against her.
And now it is revealed that the Congress member who had broken ranks to vote for the guilty verdict on Ms Maitra has joined BJP.One would think that this strange turn of events should have caught the notice of the nation’s ombudsman.But no,it is Mahua Maitra’s alleged crime that has aroused his keen attention.
The Ombudsman is usually seen as democracy’s desperate means to confront and moderate the despotic state power’s enormous pressure on its victims among the citizens as well as question and curb that power when it exceeds its given legitimate reach.But what we see in action is its fierce passion to join the hounds rushing after her.
Congress has announced publicly that an arm of the BJP government has frozen its bank accounts and it is in no position to spend money to defray vital campaign expenditure. It obviously deprives Congress of a level playing field in the contest.The fairness of the contest has thus been gravely affected. Some independent institution of the state,be it the EC or the SC in our view should restore evenness of the contest by defreezing the accounts of Congress. The Ombudsman should intervene to galvanize such action.
Now with the Electoral Bonds fraud a glaring scandal and lately the PM Cares Fund under the scanner the Ombudsman’s silence on both seems extraordinary.Any payment into funds of a government and especially one held and operated by the PM in his official capacity is by definition liable to be examined by government audit.Departure from that rule is bound to encourage corruption and favour cronyism.The management of the accounts of a national bank also demands careful scrutiny.Does the Ombudsman look into such cases with alacrity Or does it waste its time on mere small fry?
We are living in a hothouse of corruption with the air getting more anrd more difficult to breathe.Every now and then there is a cry of ‘foul!’ from independent media but with Parliament in limbo thanks to the government’s attitude towards it and the higher judiciary either in a state of hypnosis or stepping very warily even when scoring big hits government often gets away with brazen violation of established rules and conventions.Whatever feasible checks and balances are there,the present dispensation with its single-minded pursuit of power has either turned them on their heads or thrown them into the garbage bin.
The coming election is thus the last surviving chance for a return to normalcy where we can breathe easily and walk without fear.Has this message been relayed to the masses? Have they been persuaded to bear their part of the responsibility?
Hiren Gohain is a political commentator
