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Rao goes into history books again

Pamulaparti Venkata Narasimha Rao, prime minister of India from 1991 to 1996, has been indicted for taking bribes. With this case, Rao goes into the history books once more. The first time it was as the prime minister who initiated economic liberalisation, and took India on the road to market reforms. Now, it is as the first former prime minister of India to be convicted in a criminal case of bribery.

Corruption cases have dogged Rao ever since he became prime minister, and he was, at one time, facing a slew of corruption charges, some serious and some not so serious.

If the charge of former stockbroker 'Big Bull' Harshad Mehta was apparently spurious, other cases appeared to have a clear ring of truth.

There were two cases, the first by Lakhubhai Pathak, a pickle mogul who claimed that Chandraswami, then considered close to Rao, took money from Pathak to implement some deals, which were never implemented. Pathak's death ended the case against Rao.

The second case was that the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha case. In order to win a vote of confidence, Rao allegedly bribed some JMM Members of Parliament to vote for his government's survival. Strangely, Opposition parties moved a no-confidence motion due to corruption charges against Rao!

It must surely be ironical that if in the end, Rao is jailed, it is because he paid money to actually help his government survive, a move that not many Indians, fed up with the short-lived governments of V P Singh (11 months) and Chandra Shekhar (four months), would have condemned.

But equally, few Indians condoned other charges against him. Average Indians believed they were true, but were sceptical of an outcome, since court stays buried in the labyrinths of India's endless judiciary and just go on and on and on...

Yet, for the first time, Indians are realising that now, all Indians are equal before the law, that even the highest official four years ago, can actually be found guilty, perhaps even go to jail. It has happened with Laloo Prasad Yadav, who made village bumpkin manners an art form; now it is happening with Rao, erudite, polyglot, scholar. Both senior politicians, both guilty of corruption.

If middle class India hailed Rao for his reforms, they and the others loathed him and politics of his time that made corruption a part of India's social fabric, so closely hewn that it is virtually impossible to survive as a honest citizen of India.

Today corruption is endemic. Anything can be brought for money, almost nothing can be done without it. Admission to schools, a gas connection, jumping a traffic light, adulterating food and drugs that we imbibe, getting a railway reservation for an immediate journey. In fact, so institutionalised is corruption, that touts will readily get you what you want, but for a price which millions of Indians really cannot afford.

The middle class cursed, but paid up. The poor were not so lucky. They suffered in silence, and paid a heavy price for the way India is being run. When adulterated drugs kill people, it is in the municipal hospitals where only the poor go; when ration shops say stocks are over, it is the poor who go hungry; when train tickets are unavailable, the poor just travel huddled more tightly than were the prisoners at Auschwitz.

Rao may still get away. Indian laws permit an appeal that may take a different opinion of the case. And we have seen many other politicians get favourable verdicts: Sukhram, for one, charged with corruption.

Nevertheless, a beginning has been made and politicians from across the board are being held accountable for their deeds. And soon, they will pay the price that ordinary citizens would for similar actions.

India, hopefully, will never again be the same.

The JMM bribery case: Chronology

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