Terror In The Telecom Ministry

Ought not the man responsible for this apparent miracle be amply remunerated? If Sukh Ram is viewed from the perspective of the middle man who brokered this process, one is even amazed at his moderation. If this wasn't such a mealy mouthed country, he would now be enshrined as an architect of Modern India and soon become a 21st Century icon rather than shuttling to and fro between jail and hospital. His only apparent error was breaking the XIth commandment and he compounded that mistake by failing to hire an efficient tax consultant.

That is likely to be the view of posterity after the current hysteria has lost its edge. After all, if there wasn't a Sukh Ram it would have been necessary to invent him. No monopoly has ever given up its privileges without a fight. The bureaucratic judo involved in telecom reforms would have been impossible without an interested and able minister. After all, everytime the door opened another inch, the power base of the ministry would erode by the same amount. It is inconceivable that a normal person would do that without extracting payment for ceding his satrapy.

 

Only someone who combined the negotiating skills and venality of a veteran politician, with the greed of a Midas and the pragmatism of a last emperor cashing in his chips in a high stakes game that was ending would be willing to continue the process. Only such a man could have effectively marginalised the opposition to change and engineered the revolution