COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
ELECTIONS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
THE STATES
ARCHIVES
SEARCH REDIFF

Search the Internet          Tips

Recent Columns

Better sorry than safe Thus goes the Congress The silence of Dr Singh Left behind The price of idiocy

Views from the other side

'Would that some power gift us the power to see ourselves as others see us!" wrote Robert Burns. I had just that experience, being outside India as the Tehelka scandal chugs along.

The first man I met -- airline staff and airport officials excepted of course -- was Mohammed from Multan, the driver assigned by Virgin Air to take me from Heathrow to Buckingham Gate. That is a ninety-minute drive in rush hour, and Mohammed was in a chatty mood. Given that he was from Pakistan I braced myself for some insults, but Mohammed was charity itself. (Perhaps the fact that he has been in Britain for thirty-eight years had something to do with it.)

Instead of being rude about India and its leaders, Mohammed preferred to be complimentary about the Indian media. (No, I had not told him that I am a journalist.) Defence scams, he said, take place everywhere, including Pakistan, but nobody challenges the establishment. Everything came out into the open in India, he said, because the media is free and can pursue its job without fear. And the strength of that democracy will see India through this crisis too.

The next person who talked to me about the Tehelka exposé at length was Michael, a don at the Sorbonne in Paris. Michael began by pointing out that corruption is not unknown in France -- just now his prime minister and president are going through an embarrassing period of their own. But the worldly-wise don was surprised at the naivete of the victims.

How, he wondered, could the Bharatiya Janata Party president accept money from a total stranger? How could the chief of the Samata Party discuss contributions while sitting at the residence of the defence minister? Michael, as befits a don, is very thorough with the details. He knows that a contribution of a lakh or two will not get anyone any contract even if graft is involved. He was surprised at the utter amateurishness of all concerned. "You should invite us to run a crash course in corruption", he said. (Well, it was nice to hear someone from the Western world admit that Indians still have a thing or two to learn about graft!)

However the most bizarre reaction by far was heard in Washington. Several Non-Resident Indians had gathered in the American capital to greet Lalit Mansingh, the new Indian ambassador. Much to my astonishment I found myself a target in my capacity as a representative of the Indian media. Most of them, it seemed, thought the whole Tehelka exposé was a giant conspiracy.

One set -- and I won't bother mentioning which part of India they hail from -- was convinced that it was a plot to defame South Indians. Why? Well, because Bangaru Laxman's roots are in Andhra Pradesh, George Fernandes hails from Karnataka, and Jaya Jaitly is a Malayali. I tried, feebly, to point out that Laxman was not elected from Andhra Pradesh, and that Fernandes has only been elected from Maharashtra or Bihar. (As for Jaitly, I can't remember her standing for even a panchayat election in Kerala.)

I cannot say that my interlocutors seemed convinced by these facts. Instead they gave way to another set of people who were firmly convinced that it was an anti-minority plot. Taking pity on my bemusement, they deigned to explain that Laxman is a Dalit, Fernandes the first Christian to rise so high in the ranks, and Jaitly is a woman.

Quite frankly, I was left a bit staggered by all this. Tehelka's actions may be open to question. (I understand that people back home too are wondering whether everything was above board; some even allege that it was nothing more than a put-up job by the Congress party.) But I am sure that Tehelka did not deliberately aim Bangaru Laxman, George Fernandes, and Jaya Jaitly for ethnic reasons! And I was frankly shocked that a taxi-driver from Pakistan had more faith in Indian journalism than did the wealthy Non-Resident Indians gathered in Washington.

The fourth reaction that I encountered came from a friend in the U S State Department. It was particularly interesting since Americans have had an overdose of scandal in the past four years or so -- the second Clinton term. So how does an intelligent American see the fallout of the Tehelka scandal?

His reaction was interesting, not least because he is a member of the American foreign policy establishment. He preferred to focus on the future rather than speculate on conspiracy theories.

The first point he made was that the Vajpayee ministry should carry on without being too perturbed. If nothing else, there is really no other alternative, so it will be irresponsible to do anything else.

The second part of his thesis drew upon the lessons of the Clinton years. Charges of corruption -- including money-laundering, tax evasion, sale of offices, perjury, and misuse of the power to pardon -- had been hurled at Clinton. Most of these allegations were believed to be true. Nevertheless, Clinton's personal popularity continued undimmed.

There is also a lesson for the Indian Opposition. In the Congressional elections of 1998, at the height of the Lewinsky scandal, the Republicans actually lost seats in both houses of the American Congress. Two years later, the Democrats came within a breath of retaining the White House -- and they might have done it too had they used Clinton during the campaign. The lesson seems to be that voters were more interested in bread and butter issues than in scandals. The lesson for Sonia Gandhi is: tone down your rhetoric, or take the consequences.

So there you have them: the reaction from a Pakistani taxi-driver, a French don, several Non-Resident Indians, and an American diplomat. Whom do you agree with?

T V R Shenoy