And Now, Satish Sharma

Captain Sharma's actions are comparable to those of Sheila Kaul, who ran a racket in the allotment of government houses. The only difference is that while Sheila Kaul is alleged to have sold the allotments, there is no such allegation against Sharma: he is believed to have distributed his largesse free. Whereas Sheila Kaul might be said to have adhered to the free market principle, Sharma merely contributed to the social welfare of poor Congressmen. He did not have to sell gas agencies, for his ministry had bigger fish to fry: there were oil exploration and develop contracts to give, oilfields to transfer from public to private enterprises, shippers to be engaged for the 25 million tonnes of oil being imported by the government every year. For Sheila Kaul, houses were elephants; for Sharma, gas and petrol agencies were mere fleas to be brushed off to deserving nephews and sons-in-law of properly backed applicants.

 

This does point to a certain peculiarity of the judicial procedures against corruption, which have so stirred up our politics in the past year: that they have not hitherto touched the mega-sources of corruption in the central government. The victims of the hawala scam may well feel that they are being hounded for minor delicts, while the big pigs got fat and got away.

There is bound to be an element of arbitrariness, a hit-or-miss quality about judicial measures against corruption because they must begin with an accusation and base themselves upon evidence. The really big frauds, bribes and defalcations occur in deals between consenting adults, so to speak. Since the carriage of oil is confined to Indian shippers, all financed and brought to life by the government, there are only a few of them, and they play an orderly game with petroleum ministers; those who give and take bribes in telecom equipment similarly form a common interest group; the protection they enjoy against fresh competition makes it profitable for those who bribe, to bribe their beneficiaries, and this common interest is generally sufficient to prevent squealing.

Hence judicial action is not enough to eliminate corruption and favouritism; administration action is needed. The most important action is to introduce competition and open entry, which will eliminate the need for bribery as well as the means to bribe. But where competition is not possible, it is still possible to devise transparent procedures which are demonstrably fair.

This really is the task of Parliament. It does not have any heart for the task, for the members of Parliament are part of the patronage system: they can get bottled gas for a constituent, they can get him a telephone, they can even get him a job sometimes. First they must give up these corrupting privileges. Only then will they be able to tackle the widespread corruption in the government, or have the moral stature to combat it where they see it.