Lessons from the 2G Spectrum Scam

The spectrum scam, the largest ever skulduggery in Independent India -- trust our politicians to make this reputation unsustainable even for a short time --  has enabled us to understand the legerdemain of the likes of A.Raja, to some extent. Suhel Seth of CounselAge, a respected observer of events, understated the obvious when he recently referred to these scamsters as scoundrels and rascals.

Some sections of the media played a remarkable role in uncovering at least partially the bottomless scandal. Ar nab Goswami of Times Now needs special mention. He was unrelenting in pursuit of the covert and not so covert machinations of the political-bureaucratic-business nexus. He richly deserves a Padma award for his efforts. Of course we are living in a fools' paradise if we hope that the government will honour such sincerity of purpose.

The Hindu true to its recently cultivated culture of conflating perversion and partiality was doggedly abstaining from editorially seeking the resignation of the egregious minister. After the minister put in his papers, the newspaper praised that he had done the right thing. The Hindu's representative,  one Mr.Radhakrishnan,  while participating in a TV panel discussion desperately and dolefully pleaded that the media leak of the CAG report on the scam before it was officially placed in the Parliament must be probed, thus exposing the shameless tilt of the newspaper. A newspaper that is less concerned about the contents of CAG report than about the logistics of its release is a national disgrace and not a national newspaper.

The Congress and the BJP vied with each other in adopting dilatory tactics in order to redirect the attention of the nation away from the sins of politicians. The BJP is equally shameless as the Congress in not addressing the main issue in the Karnataka land scam. These two national parties only take pride in mutual satisfaction that both have serially indulged in scams, cover-ups and recidivism. The Communist parties have behaved much better at least in the recent past.

Manish Tiwari, the irrepressible buffoon of the Congress party has once again proved his limitless capacity to outdo the ostrich in denying the obvious. His incorrigible tendency to disallow co-panelists to express themselves is not helping the Congress party in any meaningful way. Jayanthi Natarajan's repeated references to falsehoods as "the fact of the matter" were eminently avoidable. Her obstinate utterances unsurprisingly invited Subramanian Swamy's plea that she must revisit the law school.

One interesting matter has not received the attention it deserves. DMK claims that A.Raja resigned on the advice of his leader Mr.Karunanidhi whereas Kapil Sibal maintains that the ever-decent prime minister sought his resignation. Manish Tiwari has expressed both these contradictory views at different points of time. Jayanthi Natarajan has insisted that Raja had resigned and was not sacked. Prime Minister's taciturnity engendered and sustained this glaring confusion. The Raja's Rule mentioned in the previous post stands untested as of now.

Kapil Sibal's aggression is patently self-defeating. His sanctimonious dismissal of Subramanian Swamy's attempts to lay open the government's unconcern for good governance as procedurally incorrect , a trick also practised by Jayanthi Natarajan will hopefully not succeed in obfuscating the real issue. It is an old trick to shoot the messenger when the message is unwelcome. The new trick is to shoot the behaviour of the messenger if you can't shoot the messenger.