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Take responsibility!

Everyone loves bashing politicians. The media. The courts of law. The bureaucracy. People on the street. Even the Election Commission loves bashing politicians. For politicians are everyone's pet hate. The most obnoxious and even the most improbable stories that circulate about them are always assumed to be the most accurate. Simply because everyone is ready to believe the worst about them.

They are seen as greedy, thrusting, invidious, unreliable. Always up for auction. The revelations by the Central Bureau of Investigation of how P V Narasimha Rao as prime minister of India, no less, bought support in Parliament by bribing the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MPs only proved what everyone already knew. That there are a large number of politicians who would do anything for money.

If it is not money, it is petrol pumps. If it is not petrol pumps, it is dealerships. If it is not dealerships, it is something else. But the general impression is that politicians as a community have a huge, insatiable appetite for the good things of life, starting of course with cash. When the cash does not come in easily, they have no hesitation in resorting to crime. Or that at least is the general impression. Which is why everyone talks about how venal politics has become these days and how important it is for us to fight back corruption, criminalisation, casteism and communalism. The four big Cs of Indian politics that have made such a sorry mess of our lives.

At every election, these issues come up. Yet things never improve. In fact, they get worse and worse. Over the past two decades, we have seen an exponential increase in all four Cs. More crime. More corruption. More communalism. More casteism. Not just in states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa but all over India. Everyone talks about the falling standards of public life but no one has succeeded in arresting the fall. Or finding a way out. The fact remains that more and more corrupt people, more and more criminals are entering politics and giving it a bad name.

Some magazines like Outlook have even published long lists of politicians who have criminal cases pending against them. Yet what is the net outcome of all this moaning and groaning and flailing of arms? More crime. Galloping corruption. Wherever you look, it is getting worse and worse and what is even more frightening is the way we have come to accept this as a way of life.

In fact, we now have sociological arguments defending the four Cs. Some analysts describe casteism as social justice. Others call it empowerment of the underprivileged. While some analysts define communalism as the paranoia of the minorities and others as a cultural resurgence of the silent majority. The reasons and explanations are becoming more and more outrageous and yet more and more acceptable. In other words, we are conceding that the four Cs have come to stay. Which means, politics is going to get a whole lot worse.

I agree. But not for the same reasons. I believe that our politics will get a whole lot worse not because our politicians are a rotten lot, which they well might be, but because you and I as voters say one thing and do another at election time. It is we who are the hypocrites. It is we who are to blame.

Take the case of the former Shiv Sena minister Babanrao Gholap. After all the huge tamasha over his alleged financial misdeeds, the Sena was virtually forced to keep him out of their list of candidates fighting the recent assembly elections in Maharashtra. The BJP said that he was a disgrace to the alliance government. The media claimed that he was corrupt and an embarrassment to the Sena. So he was dropped and a young relative of his was given the ticket, who conveniently filed his election papers in such a manner that he was promptly disqualified. Meanwhile, Gholap filed his papers as an independent and despite the fact that the Sena did not back him and Balasaheb Thackeray avoided his constituency, he went ahead and fought the elections. What do you think has happened to the man who everyone had branded corrupt and venal? He won his seat comfortably.

The media may think he is corrupt. The police and the courts may think he is corrupt. The BJP may think he is corrupt and even the Shiv Sena may give him the grand avoid. But the voters of his constituency decided that they want him back as their representative in the assembly and, hopefully, in the next government. So where did all this public outrage lead? Precisely nowhere.

Take the case of Pappu Kalani or Hitendra Thakur. It is not my intention to go into their chequered histories. Everyone knows what they stand for and how many crimes are listed against their names. They were responsible for the badnami of Sharad Pawar. By defending them, Pawar acquired the reputation of being a godfather to criminals. An image that eventually upstaged him in Maharashtra politics.

But did it destroy Pappu Kalani and Hitendra Thakur? Not at all. Both are still winning. Pappu Kalani won his assembly seat this time with a comfortable margin, even though he was behind bars. In fact, he has been behind bars for seven years now. But that has not mattered an iota to his election prospects. He keeps winning. Yes, parties avoid him. True. But he wins as an independent. The people of his constituency clearly want him, ugly and criminal as his image may be. The same is true for Hitendra Thakur. The stamp of the Terrorist And Disruptive Activities act may make people like them untouchables in your eyes and mine but their voters make sure that they come back again and again. Victorious. .

Look at Bihar, UP, Orissa. Look at some of the representatives of the people who win elections out there and then judge for yourself who is to blame. Thugs, rapists, murderers, extortionists, raging casteists. They win comfortably because the people of their constituencies vote for them. Knowingly. Wilfully.

Anees Khan of the Bahujan Samaj Party, urf Phoolbabu, who stood against Maneka Gandhi in Pilibhit this time, is a typical example. He is a notorious small time hood who extorts hafta round the year from petty shopkeepers and businessmen of his own community. Yet he got 193,000 votes this time, an improvement over last year's 180,000. The fact that he eventually lost to Maneka by 249,000 votes is not important. What is important is that he actually got 193,000 votes from the very people he has been terrorising.

Mind you, he was not fighting a Hindu communalist from the BJP that his voters had no option but to prop him up. Maneka is a Sikh fighting on an independent ticket from Pilibhit and during her entire tenure there is not a record of a single communal riot, however small. Yet why did 95 per cent of all Muslims who voted during this election in Pilibhit vote for Phoolbabu. There are no simple answers any more.

That is the point I am making. We all talk so much about politicians being wicked, corrupt, thieving, criminal. Yet we go on, election after election, voting such people to power on some specious reasoning. We encourage them to hijack the electoral system and then bemoan our fate. Forgetting the simple fact that in a democracy the political system is what you and I make of it.

Therefore, the next time you call a politician a crook or a criminal, remember that you and I are responsible for him being out there. We cannot blame others. If corruption, crime, casteism and communalism are destroying our body politic, we must acknowledge our own role in bringing them centrestage by voting the wrong kind of people to power. Or by simply not voting at all.

It is we who are to blame. We say one thing and do exactly the opposite at election time.

Pritish Nandy

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