Tamil Nadu minister K. Ponmudy is not the first person to be convicted in what is commonly referred to as a disproportionate assets case, which in reality is a grave offence as it is tantamount to breaching the people’s faith and trampling the tenets of democracy. A wide range of politicians of different hues have been accused of amassing wealth much beyond their known source of income over the years, but not many of them have served time despite the man on the street knowing without doubt that the politician does possess disproportionate assets.
Practically, proving such charges by both enforcement agencies and in courts have been an uphill task, again because what took one to the docks could also set them free. All past and present leaders, despite openly flaunting their wealth acquired in various forms, could not be charged with graft.
Even those who vote for them, despite watching them prosper after assuming power, never question them or decide not to vote for them again. It is that apathy to honesty in public life that has traditionally emboldened politicians to wallow in corruption or even consider illegal money making as a divine right.
Even though a plethora of cases were filed against former chief minister J. Jayalalithaa, she was handed out a proper sentence only in one case. Rarely do politicians go to jail for corruption. Perhaps that is the reason that the seasoned DMK leader, Ponmudy, and his party, too, seems to be shocked by the incarceration looming over his head. Already the DMK has embarked on another “Save Senthil Balaji” mission even as the Enforcement Directorate was investigating the charges against him because imprisonment is anathema to them.
The DMK that had been so far beating its chest claiming that corruption charges have not been proved legally against any of its leaders, obliquely pointing out that the Supreme Court has not pronounced them as dishonest, the Ponmudy case has come as a setback. But the question is — will the verdict by the Madras high court serve as a deterrent, as any court order is expected to be, for other politicians, who are shamelessly pursuing pelf at the cost of public interest, to abstain from such illegalities? Perhaps it will if Ponmudy is finally incarcerated.
For nothing other than the jail seems to have the power to eliminate corruption in the country, where all pillars of democracy seem to be giving away, thanks to the greed of those in positions of influence and the desperation of those who want to get things done illegally even if it could be destructive to the community at large.
Like those encroachment of water bodies that led to massive floods in Chennai and adjoining districts happened because those wanting to build monstrosities on water bodies did pay bribes for permissions. Since we, as a community, are compliant with corruption, accepting it as a way of life and not seeing it as a form of decadence, verdicts like the one sentencing a sitting minister gives us the hope that they could at least ring the warning bells in the hallowed precincts of politics and bureaucracy.
