There is never a dull moment. Should we consider that a blessing or curse our ill fortune the Tamil Nadu cauldron just doesn’t stop smoldering? The political scene has been bubbling like a Rotorua thermal spring. The entertainment industry has contributed a couple of actors with plenty of ambition in a star-struck state. Why, even the seemingly simple task of hosting an international cricket match became an issue to do with complimentary passes before it was sorted out. All of it adds up to the abnormal being more like the new normal.
If the Raj Bhavan set the political pulses racing with a complaint against a tabloid Tamil magazine that sent the police and the magistrate court into a tizzy, the Madras high court went further in ordering a CBI probe against the chief minister. But that should be more like the old normal as one of the state’s charismatic head honchos was put through the wringer for corruption almost right up until her death and her aide de camp is doing jail time and ineligible for a long time and, perhaps forever, for the gaddi she eyed.
The Raj Bhavan may have been right about trying to act against scurrilous, ‘yellow’ journalism, but there is a legal method to it. The magazine may have made salacious links to the university sex scandal. Even so, the Governor, as the ceremonial head of state, should have been on more secure grounds in asking for action against tabloid journalism. There are laws on criminal defamation which could have been cited rather than the colonial Section 124 of the IPC, which has never been used. Using antediluvian laws in the wrong context is never going to be right even if it serves certain objectives.
A belief in a free press has to be sustained at any cost in an open, democratic society. The courts can deal appropriately with offending publications. No one in his right mind would support such tendentious reporting that tries to drag a constitutional office into disrepute on the strength of innuendo. At another level, it would have suited persons holding high offices to ignore the cheap shots instead of bestowing undue importance to a rumour. Who cares about what a tabloid prints as it masquerades, stringing together tittle-tattle as news?
Tamil Nadu has become a pawn in a game of Shatranj with the major players in the capital making the moves and the occupant of the Raj Bhavan being an important piece. When the Governor spoke of corruption in the past in the appointment of vice chancellors he may not have been far off the mark. At least one mysterious figure said to have facilitated such graft for years on end is said to be missing now. The current Governor is said to have set matters right in the important matter of appointing the right academics to head universities and a state that prides itself on its quality of education should be grateful.
And now that the ‘caged parrot’ has been put in charge of investigating complaints of nepotism and benami dealings in the awarding of highway contracts, the Centre’s inclinations will be made more apparent with how the agency moves in the matter. It must be uncomfortable for the CEO of a State to have to answer if a call for interrogation comes from the CBI. But, again, this is nothing new as some of the CM’s predecessors have been through various forms of questioning. Also, the pace of operations of the CBI is notoriously ponderous.
Considering the judiciary’s final verdict in the Jaya DA case came 21 years after reaching the courts, it would be unwise to expect a clear verdict in such things as highway and road laying contracts, which for decades have been monopolised by contractors with the help of netas and babus. The issue is now a tug-of-war between the government and the main opposition more than one of a public issue crying for authorities to get to the bottom of it. If investigations do go back in time, then many skeletons would tumble out of cupboards.
Lalu Prasad Yadav had set the gold standard in these matters by simply refusing to bow to the law in the matter of graft and had to be literally ousted from office. And what did he do then but send his wife from the cow shed to the Raj Bhavan for being sworn-in as CM? India is a strange country when it comes to dealing with graft. Only a couple of politicians have been incarcerated while a few others have lost their positions as elected
representatives.Otherwise, graft is something that crops up only in political football where each one calls the other corrupt.
(R.Mohan is the Resident Editor of the Chennai and Tamil Nadu editions of Deccan Chronicle)
