Honour among thieves

Who would have thought that the best advice Indian politicians have been given in the longest while would come from none other than the Badshah of Bollywood himself. Shah Rukh Khan was at NDTV’s Indian of the Year award ceremony in Delhi last Thursday, and despite the presence of the prime minister, ministers galore, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, and Rajnikant (rarely seen off celluloid), Shah Rukh was the shiniest star at this glittering celebration of Indian heroes. At some point, when our Hero Number 1 was on stage to receive yet another award, Rahul Gandhi was persuaded to ask him a question from the audience.

The man who would like to be our future prime minister smiled shyly in that sweet, self-effacing way of his before asking Shah Rukh what advice he would like to give politicians. Shah Rukh, modest as only the really famous can be, said he was only an actor and in no position to give politicians advice, but since he had been asked to, he would like to suggest that politicians try to be less corrupt. ‘Please be as honest as is realistically possible. Don’t take money under the table, don’t do anything shady... and do something for the country.’

Great advice, but unrealistic. Corruption in Indian public life is now endemic like smallpox, cholera and polio once used to be. And it is a disease for which modern medicine will never have a cure. So we have to learn to live with it. We have to learn to accept the speed with which newly elected representatives of the people acquire an exalted standard of living. The speed with which they are elevated to a lifestyle that only the richest Indians can afford... expensive cars, expensive holidays abroad, expensive jewels for the wife, and expensive schools for the bachcha log. Most Indians, whether in town, village or city, accept that our politicians are incurable in their venality.

They despair of this and I cannot count the number of times I have heard ordinary, apolitical Indians say, ‘Sab saaley chor hain’. They are all thieves. But there is no reason to despair. This column offers a solution. Let us teach our politicians to make money out of doing good for the country instead of doing bad. I am being serious.

The idea is not my own. It originated from a friend who likes to mull over the state of the country. Weary of major infrastructure projects being delayed because someone or the other had been insufficiently bribed, he said he was going to pay someone like McKinsey & Company to do a report on how to teach Indian politicians to make money out of doing good for the country.

... contd.

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