The wages of vendetta

It's done it again, the number 13! For it was on his thirteenth day that Atal Bihari Vajpayee had to put in his papers as prime minister the first time round; and in his thirteenth month that he lost office the second time round; and now on May 13 that the bells have started tolling for his third term as PM. (Oh, also it was on March 13 that Tehelka unveiled its tehelka.) True, unlucky 13 is more mleccha superstition than Indian in origin (there having been 13 — Jesus plus his 12 disciples — at the Last Supper) but now that the number has popped up thrice and more in the life and times of ABV, surely this has acquired enough Vedic aura for inclusion in Minister Murli Manohar Joshi’s plans for astrological studies at our most erudite universities.

For the clock has certainly struck 13 for the NDA alliance at the Centre. Vajpayee’s curious favourite among his allies, George Fernandes, had to go for the March 13 expose, and now his second favourite ally, M. Karunanidhi, has had to send in his resignation on May 13. To the rational mind, however, this final — and most welcome — departure of Karunanidhi from political relevance appears the inevitable consequence of the politics of vendetta which Karunanidhi has pursued with the relentlessness of a mafia don, based on an absence of fact matched by the generation of a mass of fiction.

The single most fatuous comment which television viewers were subjected to through most of Sunday, May 13, was the lamentation that for the Tamil voter ‘‘corruption was not the issue’’. It was. It most certainly was.

Jayalalithaa’s massive defeat in 1996 was first and foremost a rejection of what was then seen as her corruption in governance. Five years and 47 cases later the charge has lost credibility. The Tamil voter has not suddenly changed, transmogrified in five years from crusader against corruption into an abettor after the fact. He has learned to distinguish prosecution from persecution. In 60 relentless months, through which the highest governmental priority of the DMK was bringing Jayalalithaa to book, the Karunanidhi machine failed to bring 45 of the 47 cases to even preliminary conviction; of the two where some kind of initial conviction has been secured, one does not stand in the way of Jayalalithaa contesting the elections (even as she appeals the judgement) and the second is a case in which she was first cleared and convicted only when the case was heard once again. M’Lords will have to consider whether such double jeopardy does not fly in the face of the principles of natural justice.

They will also have to consider whether the wheels of justice cannot be made to grind fast enough for the appeal in the Tansi case to be disposed of within the six months Jayalalithaa is constitutionally entitled to being chief minister without being a member of the legislature. And whether it is not a travesty of justice for R. Balakrishna Pillai to be permitted by the Election Commission’s returning officer to contest in Kerala while denying the same right under parallel conditions to Jayalalithaa in neighbouring Tamil Nadu. And M’Lords will also have to consider whether the mandate of the people, the first principle of democracy, can be set aside on the technicalities of on-the-spot rule-making by distant and scattered representatives of Seshan’s ghost. And, as for the remaining 45 cases, M’Lords will doubtless be considering whether what is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander in view of the Supreme Court permitting the withdrawal of the terrorist charges in the Baroda Dynamite case against George Fernandes on the public prosecutor assuring M’Lords that he had ‘‘applied his mind’’ to change his view on the culpability of the accused, coincidentally in the immediate wake of the accused winning an election and, of course, quite coincidental to the change of guard at the Centre.

While the next few weeks will doubtless see the nation wander through the arcane mazes of our legal processes, in the perception of the Tamil electorate, Amma was held corrupt in 1996 and, therefore, unacceptable and not proved corrupt in 2001 and, therefore, acceptable. Moreover, a tender belief was nurtured in 1996 that Karunanidhi, chastened by Justice Sarkaria’s Commission of Inquiry which indicted his multiple malfeasance as chief minister 1969-76, would desist this time from similar sin. However, over the last five years, in the experience of the common (and uncommonly intelligent) man in Tamil Nadu, Karunanidhi remains Karunanidhi. Corruption rages — and it is but a matter of time before Karunanidhi, his son Stalin, and his nephew Maran, will start getting the treatment they so ruthlessly meted out. Only, with more conviction — in both senses of the term!

The electoral battle in Tamil Nadu was not between corruption and clean governance but between a conviction lacking credibility and the blackness of the kettle calling the hue of the pot into question. Union commerce minister Murasoli Maran has often told the story of how, when he wanted to bicycle to college, he did not have the two hundred rupees then needed to buy one. (Generous Uncle Karunanidhi came to his rescue with a repayable, if interest-free, loan — which, of course, is the point of the sob story.) When the Tamil electorate sees displayed before it every day the Mughal wealth of the Sun empire, how can they help but wonder where these thousands of crores came from?

Corruption was the issue, not only in Tamil Nadu but in every state which went to the polls. And the central issue of corruption was corruption at the Centre. From the farthest reaches of the Brahmaputra in Upper Assam to the backwaters of Kerala and where the three seas meet at Kanyakumari, the grubby hands of Vajpayee’s hand-picked party president, not to mention the fair hands of the party president of Vajpayee’s hand-picked raksha mantri, have ripped the mukhauta of self-righteous humbug from the face of this scandal-a-week government. Not only Tehelka but telecom and stock market and Mauritius route and Balco and Modern Foods have outraged voters to go out there and vote against corrupt state governments allied to corruption at the Centre. Vajpayee may deny that this was a referendum on his government but his personal contribution to the disaster which on Sunday overwhelmed his party and his political allies is the direct consequence of the doubtful company he so freely chooses to keep. I mean, would you buy a used cell-phone from the likes of Pramod Mahajan?

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