Bribery Scandal Leaves Little Impact on India 
 
 
By Ehtesham Shahid
 
 

NEW DELHI -- Contrary to expectations, Tehelka changed nothing in India, least of all a government. The initial response to the expose was earth shattering. It looked like the mother of all scams. The coalition government was on the back foot. The allies were fuming, demanding resignations and action against those found accepting bribes. The opposition camp was on fire, slinging mud on those in power and holding the parliament to ransom. For the political observers though, a sense of déjà vu prevailed. They were aware that the raging storm was about to run out of steam, and there would be a hue and cry followed by indolence that so effectively cripples the political system of this country. Unfortunately, that was the right prediction.

However, there were some ripples that were a direct corollary to the Tehelka scam. Mamata Banerjee, the leader of the Trinamool Congress (a key ally of the central government), decided to withdraw from the cabinet even before the opposition had officially demanded the government's resignation. The decision appeared to be strange but the truth is it was always on the cards. Banerjee had realized that her party's alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was a liability in the context of the impending assembly elections in West Bengal and was on the lookout for some justification to quit the government and take the mighty Communist empire by its horns. Though Congress moved swiftly to cease the initiative, BJP could not do much. Despite that, the situation in and outside the government remained the same.

After being deserted by an ally in the North Eastern part of the country, the ruling BJP focused its attention on another state that is going to the polls soon. Assam's Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta has been battling against insurgency on one hand and anti-incumbency factor on the other to cling to power in the state. His party, Assam Gana Parishad, faced a rout before they decided to tie-up with the BJP to fight together in the assembly elections. Union Home Minister L K Advani became personally interested in joining hands and guaranteed support of his ministry in countering insurgency that had crippled the state in the past. The events were triggered off with the unfolding of the Tehelka controversy, but yet cannot be regarded as a possible fallout of the same. It would have taken place anyway, with or without Tehelka.

The demand for government's resignation was reciprocated by its willingness to institute an enquiry. The government was wary of its public image and had already undertaken some damage-control exercises by sacrificing Bangaru Laxman, the party president who was caught by a hidden camera, accepting money from decoy journalists. The setting up of enquiry commission also hit a roadblock when the chief justice rejected the prime minister's demand for a sitting judge to probe the entire case. However, as the drama unfolded, the army was quick to react. It formed an enquiry panel and moved swiftly issuing show-cause notices to some while suspending those directly involved in the incident. A top brass at the Quality Assurance Office who was found conniving with another high-ranking military official and who promised to arrange meetings for the Tehelka journalists with the personal secretary of Minister of State Harin Pathak and others had disappeared after the case came to light. However, he appeared before the army enquiry committee on April 13. The army investigation is likely to complete its findings as early as next month.

The Tehelka, however, opened some genuine issues for debate as well. One of them was the issue of party funding. Defense Minister George Fernandes himself started this debate in a TV appearance after tendering his resignation. His party president Jaya Jaitley had become a casualty of the secret camera. She, along with Fernandes had resigned from the positions of party president and defense minister respectively. Fernandes said: "There should be a full-fledged debate on the way political parties source and manage funds for elections and other activities." This point had been raised by several quarters in the past but no concrete solution was found. The Election Commission has been asking for a method of state funding, which did not get a consensus among political parties.

Congress Party's Jairam Ramesh raised the issue of state funding for political parties in an article published in India Today magazine on April 9. He said time has come for such an experiment to be conducted for "public good." However, that does not seem to be a conclusive argument as journalist Surjit S Bala puts it, "Recourse is made to ‘public good’ arguments to buttress the demand for politicians to get even richer at the public expense." He further says, "Little thought is given to the obvious conflict of interest here -- state funding will only support established parties and dilute competition." The truth may lie on either side of these arguments, but as long as public memory remains transient, no system can be made perfect. Here too, the high tide of anti-corruption morality will be met with a lull of indifference and the entire issue will be given a quiet burial.

Tehelka managed to revive the waning spirit of the Congress Party to an extent. The party was down and out so much so that its President Sonia Gandhi had to go to Kumbh Mela and take a holy dip to revive its image. There were few takers for the party and the fence sitters were busy reviving the third front to provide a credible opposition in and outside the parliament. The Tehelka episode only flattered to deceive. The party's traditional anomalies such as infighting and coterie politics ensued. The party was in a position to give the Communists in Kerala a good fight in the approaching assembly elections. However, the party refused ticket to a kin of the old Congressman from Kerala, Karunakaran following which he resigned from the Congress Working Committee. This hurt the party's chances very badly. The episode also goes on to show that nothing has changed in India's oldest political party. It failed the people during its years of power and it failed them again as an opposition when the party in power was in an indefensible situation.

The fourth estate of India reaped harvest over the Tehelka episode. It saw in the revelations, a resurgence of investigative journalism. The new (Internet) media has only surfaced as an alternative to the conventional press in India. Hence these startling revelations served as an eye opener for all and sundry. Tehelka Editor Tarun Tejpal carefully detached himself from the politics of it but was haunted by the detectives of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) who work on the behest of the Union Home Ministry. However, the fear of a public outrage and alliance of media fraternity restored sanity. Tejpal categorically said, "Our objective was to unveil the rot setting in the defense procurement machinery and we have done just that. We have submitted our findings to the people concerned and to the media and we are now out of it." Yet his deal with the Zee TV that enabled the telecast of Tehelka tapes on the television channels raised many questions. He was paid a decent amount for the deal and that undoubtedly touched off a lot of criticisms as well.

Although buoyed by the expose and happy with the way the matter came to light, Vinod Mehta, editor-in-chief of Outlook magazine, expressed caution in giving absolute clean chit to conducting such investigations. He said,"Such measures should not be encouraged unless there is a pronounced national interest involved." The trouble is in discerning the identity of those who can define national interest.