25 Feet High Walls:

October 17/2011: Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid has got in to some trouble now. All his own doing, of course. Speaking out his mind, he has exposed that he does not possess much of that. At a time when his Congress Party and its UPA-II federal government is battling, not only for survival but also to retain some vague kind of credibility, Khurshid has invited attention by committing a faux pas of a very serious type. Making a comment, that in essence implies, that business leaders getting prison time may disturb investments in India, the Minister has not served the nation or his government’s interest in any manner. The general feeling in the country has been getting strengthened that this system of governance has failed in delivering people out of the morass of poverty and backwardness. Movements like the one led by Anna Hazare, albeit motivated, have helped in giving further flesh to this mindset and thereby indirectly turning the anger against the institution of democracy.

Admittedly the fault lies with our people who seek shortcuts in every sphere of life. That may be seen in the queue to buy milk or buy spectrum licenses. Yet, at this juncture when every Indian feels he has been wronged long enough and the time is ripe for a change, Khurshid has done a grievous damage by uttering carelessly a negative thought. On the other hand, it may also be questioned whether his utterance of ‘when you lock up businessmen, will investments come?’ was truly all that carelessly spoken. On a rethink, it could easily be argued that Khurshid is no novice. A past PCC president of Uttar Pradesh, lawyer, heading organizations like Delhi Public School, served as Union minister in the past and one of the prominent Moslem faces of the Congress, Khurshid may have been compelled by circumstances to make such a statement. Having been a corporate affairs minister in the recent past may be a small excuse. The bigger stone that needs to be turned upside down now, after this revelatory statement, is what and how is this man connected to the corporate world that has been getting exposed of major wrongdoings in the recent past.

If his concern is that arresting erring and criminally connected business heads will deter investments in India, does it mean the Law Minister is asking the legal system to tolerate great amounts of evil just to bring in more money for the corporate sector? If that be the case, why should Raja, Kanimozhi (a mother and a woman) or Kalmadi be arrested at the risk of disturbing the political governance set up in the country? Or why sack a Rajasthan Minister like Mahipal Maderna or arrest Karnataka former CM BS Yeddyurappa when those acts could disturb governance in those states? Further, it could also be argued that arresting a bureaucrat may cripple the administrative system, booking the Reddy brothers could cripple mining activities in the country, investigating former CJI Balakrishnan would damage the judicial machinery and so on and on it would go. Eventually, it may so happen that only the rich and powerful who can manage to gather a group to tag along, would go scot free if ever they are found guilty of any crime

This reminds me of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. When a Court prosecutor wanted the then Chairman of Union Carbide India Keshub Mahindra to be questioned, an influential group of industrialists headed by Kumarmangalam Birla met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and pressured him to delete Mahindra’s name from the list being pushed by the State prosecutors. The sad bit is that Manmohan went along with their demand and the result is that even after two decades the affected persons have not received their compensations. An inpidual Minister or a government that bends to ‘special interest group’s’ demands obviously ignores the common citizen’s interest. That has been the case in our country for far too long. It is this very mindset that the new and aware Indian is battling.

When the system promotes this thought process, likes of Ratan Tata go rushing to the Supreme Court to halt further release of Niira Radia tapes that could have exposed his anti Indian character to all and sundry. The Hon’ble Court, by passing a judgment that favored Tata did a great damage to the interest of the country. Further damage took place when the very next day a leading English weekly uploaded a whole new 146 hours of tape recordings of phone conversations to its website, indirectly disobeying the Court’s verdict. If things are allowed to continue in this manner and powerful people like Salman Khurshid speak in the tone they are using at present, it may so happen that we all shall become mute witnesses to the complete destruction of law and order in India.

That in turn will destroy civil society.Therefore, to stop the spread of this vile disease, it is essential that the 25 feet high walls of sanctum sanctorum like Tihar must be used to safeguard characters like Shahid Balwa, Sanjay Chandra, and Kalmadi and to go a few steps forward, even Tata and Anil and their fellows.