When unleaded turns leaded

When ‘polarisation’ is the buzzword in our politics, it will be even more dangerous than communal divide because it will undermine the faith in our system of governance, democracy.

Parliament building | Commons

When was the last time you saw a telegram? Not an e-mail, not even a telex, but the good old cable on a sheet of paper with the post office stamp that you would think had become extinct a long time ago?

We had the pleasure of seeing one in our office in the course of this crazy week, sent by A.S. Kanwar from some faraway outpost in Himachal Pradesh. It had a simple message in cablese: ‘Billion-trillion thanks from honest people Himachal in expose Bharatiya Janata Petrol Pump Party scam’. Now what is the big deal, particularly when we have been receiving hundreds of e-mails and letters saying just that?

The big deal is that somebody so far away was so moved by the expose as to not only take the trouble of going to a telegraph office but to even pay for it out of his pocket. And this cable is not an isolated straw in the wind but one more scrap in a heap of evidence that while people have come to expect — even accept — scandalous conduct from out politicians, they aren’t willing to tolerate it for ever.

In one letter or e-mail after another, or in all the vox-pop kind of soundbites on television news channels during the week, the same popular sentiment has been in the ascendant: politicians are thugs.

The BJP’s final defence: didn’t the Congress do this as well? Will you now make money in a gun deal for the army and say it’s okay because the Congress took cuts on Bofors? Will you impose Emergency and put us in jail, tell us not to complain because the Congress did so? Will you also produce a dynasty of your own?

They will not change. But it is new to see somebody exposing them like this, turning the knife slowly. This contempt for the politician cuts across party lines. When ‘polarisation’ is the buzzword in our politics, particularly after the Gujarat killings, this overwhelming mood represents another kind of polarisation, between the political class and the people.

In the long run, it will be even more dangerous than the communal divide because it will undermine our very faith in our system of governance and democracy. It is significant how few of even the diehard BJP supporters have come out to defend their government on the petrol pump scandal except to say that the Congress also did it. Therein lies another problem.

This people-politician divide had surfaced visibly during and after the hawala scam. Narasimha Rao and his very inept CBI had taken so many politicians in their sweep that it looked as if all politicians were absolute crooks, collecting small sums of money from minor crooks mixed up with major terrorists. The defeat of his government was not so much a verdict on his performance as an expression of a widespread revulsion for the politician.

It was only by default that some of the others (anti-Congress parties) did better. But as they stepped falteringly into the difficult new world of coalition politics, they did very little to redeem the reputation of the political classes. Vajpayee’s first government fell within 13 days and the next two, under Gowda and Gujral, looked so incompetent, people seemed to believe they were not even capable of making money.

If the Congressmen had all looked corrupt, these fellows seemed so stupid. This is how the BJP found voters who would never have gone near it in the past.

This is how, from the general election of 1996 to the 1999 polls, its vote percentage went up from 20.29 to 23.75 and its seats in the Lok Sabha from 161 to 182. Here was a party with a difference, many thought.

The popular response to the expose has helped set at rest a dangerous myth in our own business. That old-fashioned newspapering is now dead. That India Fashion Week is a bigger news event than the monsoon session of Parliament, or the release of Devdas a bigger story than the failure of the monsoon

They mean what they say, their top leaders look clean and experienced, their middle-rung looks earnest. So give them a chance. They looked a bit different from the Congress that was so corrupt and from the Third Front which was so criminalised.

Disillusionment on these counts has now brought the anti-politician mood back. Hamaam mein sabhi nange hain (everybody is naked in the bathhouse) is a cynical old line but when everybody actually starts believing it, the result is dangerous alienation between people and the political system.

The BJP has compounded this with the way it has responded to the petrol pump scam. Its final defence is: didn’t the Congress do this as well? When they were in power, they gave away stuff to their own. So why must we not look after our own? But, then, how are you a party of difference? Which old leaf will you now pull out of the history of the Congress? Bofors? Will you now make money in a gun deal for the army and say it’s okay because the Congress took cuts on Bofors? Will you then impose an emergency and put us in jail, our papers under censorship and tell us not to complain because, after all, the Congress had also done so? Will you also produce a dynasty of your own and justify it on the grounds that the Congress always had one?

The top leadership of the BJP blundered first in letting such a massive scandal fester right under its nose. Then it compounded it grievously by picking the tactics of seeking justification by baring similar misdeeds by the Congress in the past. For one delicious moment, it may bring you the pleasure of quick retribution. But it does lasting damage to paint yourselves also with the same, ‘everybody is corrupt’ — hamaam mein sabhi nange hain — broadbrush. The top leaders of the BJP, many of whom have spotless personal reputations, should understand what damage this has done to their names and their legacies and to the name of their party.

But why should we in the media let this dampen our own little celebration? The popular response to the expose, the promptness with which the entire media joined in on following up on the story, the alacrity with which the government cancelled the allotments, also helped set at rest a dangerous mythology that was being built in our own business. That classical, old-fashioned newspapering is now dead. That news is now entertainment and entertainment is news. That India Fashion Week is a bigger news event than the monsoon session of Parliament, or the release of Devdas a bigger story than the failure of the monsoon. The young, we were being psyched into believing, no longer read the news as it was defined in the past. Also, that nobody wanted to read bad news, least of all the upper middle class which buys newspapers and the products advertised therein.

That myth has now been buried by just this one expose, a true tribute to teamwork by a network involving scores of reporters across the country and a bunch of equally dogged editors in Delhi keeping the pressure on for a few more names, a few more details all the time. Every newspaper has followed up the story and written editorials on it during the week.

Even if not many may have given us the credit for this, we are not complaining, because our reward, as The Indian Express, and even more so as ‘old-fashioned’ journalists, is the difference we have made. That in itself is reason enough to do this again and again. Because politicians will not stop stealing just because they got caught once.