No longer do politicians feel obliged to hide their corruption

Can somebody please explain to me why India’s politicians don’t seem to get it?

No matter how much public revulsion there is at their blatant displays of wealth, they just go right ahead.

And each year, the level of shamelessness only seems to increase.

 

   The latest in a series of obscene displays of wealth is Mayawati’s money garland. Just in case you did not see the footage on TV, here’s what happened. At a function to celebrate 25 years of the BSP, Mayawati was presented with a garland made entirely from Rs 1000 notes. When I first saw the pictures, I could not believe my eyes because the garland seemed so thick and so enormous that I could not comprehend how something made from money could be this enormous.

 

   We have the word of the Congress’s Digvijay Singh, who says that he got somebody to calculate how many notes would have been required to construct a garland of this size. According to these calculations, notes worth Rs 22 crore were used to create the garland.

 

   As few of us have ever seen currency notes in excess of a few lakhs – and that too, very rarely, if at all – it is hard for the average person to comprehend how many suitcases worth of notes must have been transported from all over Uttar Pradesh for the construction of the garland. More to the point, how was this money raised? Mayawati has always claimed that the BSP is funded by small donations from poor Dalits. It is extremely unlikely, however, that the homeless Harijans of UP coughed up Rs 22 crore for this piece of neckwear. So obviously, the money was raised through corruption of one form or another.

 

   That a chief minister should be brazen enough to not just raise this kind of money from corruption but shameless enough to show the currency notes to TV cameras tells us something about the decline in values in Indian politics. No longer do politicians feel obliged to hide their corruption. Now they show off about how much money they have raised through such means.

 

   The worrying thing about all this is that Mayawati will get away with it. The income-tax department has talked of an inquiry but the BSP says that the garland has already been dismantled and the money sent off to party coffers. What’s more, it makes the astounding claim that it only took Rs 21 lakh to create the garland. Unfortunately, in the absence of any hard evidence to the contrary, I suspect that the income-tax department will have no choice but to accept the BSP’s claim.

 

   So, to return to my question: why do India’s politicians persist with these displays of wealth? Don’t they realise how offensive we find it?

 

   And just in case you think I am targeting Mayawati because she is a Dalit, let me make it clear that I do not believe that she is an exception. She may be more brazen than most but all parties contain politicians who make vulgar exhibitions of their worth. Some get themselves weighed in gold or silver. Some build palaces for their families. And some spend crores on ostentatious weddings for their children.

 

   Periodically, party leaders make disapproving noises: the current campaign to make Congressmen travel economy class emerges out of some desire to impose austerity. But such measures remain a mere eyewash. Within weeks it is back to business as usual.

 

   My guess is that politicians enjoy exhibiting their wealth only because they know that they can get away with it. You and I and other middle-class voices of protest may register our outrage but the voters, by and large, do not seem to mind that politicians are flaunting their wealth so openly.

 

"I would like to think that as education spreads and generational changes are accompanied by attitudinal shifts, India will be more demanding of its politicians."

   Let’s take the Mayawati example. The UP chief minister is so unembarrassed by her sudden wealth that she actually declares much of it to the income-tax authorities and paid Rs 14 crore as advance tax this year. She has purchased a palace in Delhi’s tony Sardar Patel Road area and makes no apologies for it.

 

   At a rally in UP, she proudly announced the purchase of the Delhi bungalow and told the audience that she knew that her supporters would be happy for her. The worrying thing is that she was right: they seemed happy enough. Nobody asked how she had found the money.

 

   Why do voters accept this nonsense? Why isn’t there more outrage when politicians fling corruptly-obtained money in the faces of their voters? The media have gone to town on the BSP’s 25th anniversary rally, pointing out that Rs 200 crore was spent on the function. That money, say the journos, could have built scores of schools for the children of poor Dalits. This is undoubtedly true. But equally, it is as true that the Dalits do not seem to mind that the money was spent on a rally and not on schools.

 

   Everyone will have his or her own theory about why voters do not penalise politicians for these displays of wealth. Here are two of mine:

 

   First of all, I believe that the Mayawati case is different. For better or for worse, she has managed to represent herself to poor Dalits as the symbol of their hopes and aspirations. Each time she shows off her homes or her jewellery, her message is: I am doing this on your behalf. This is the money I have squeezed out of the upper castes and now it belongs to a representative of the Dalits.

 

   This may sound bizarre but Dalits appear to buy the reasoning. They take the line that all Indian politicians are corrupt. Here at last is a Dalit politician who has beaten the upper castes at their own game.

 

   My second theory has to do with non-Dalit politicians. We are still a deeply feudal society. We treat politicians like medieval Maharajas or Thakurs. Democracy has not meant an increased respect for egalitarian politics. Voters do not want politicians to be just like them. They want them to be feudals or aristocrats of one kind or another. That is why they are not as offended as dynasty as we in the middle class clearly are. They think it is fine that the political aristocracy should be dynastic and self-perpetuating.

 

   Their attitude to political wealth is guided by the same principle. If politicians are feudal overlords of some description, then it is not unreasonable for them to live in huge palaces, to host grand weddings for their children or even, to be weighed in gold or silver.

 

   We in the middle class are the ones who don’t get it. We imagine that the rest of India shares our values and our perspectives. When voters do not display the same revulsion that we do over displays of wealth, we are taken aback.

 

   Politicians understand their voters better than we do. That’s why they have no hesitation about showing off their money and feel no shame in establishing political dynasties.

 

   It is not a situation that any educated person can be happy with. I would like to think that as education spreads and generational changes are accompanied by attitudinal shifts, India will be more demanding of its politicians.

 

   Till then, however, we are going to have to rage impotently and seethe silently. The politicians don’t care what we think. They know that we do not swing elections.

 

   And as far as the bulk of the voters are concerned, the politicians know exactly how to manipulate them.