WITH a stronger Congress cast in UPA II, a mind and body improving performance was expected.
Instead, corruptions and scandals have smeared judges, journalists, politicians, businessmen, everybody; leaving out just you and me. That is probably because there isn't enough muck left to go around. The thousands of crores wasted in rotten deals could have built schools and hospitals for the public and uplifted our civic life.
But before you want your money back, consider the other side of this dark performance.
Now that everybody has over- charged and failed to perform we can at last conclude that the rot is systemic. Post liberalisation, the villains and vamps were government officials, ministers and their families: in short, anyone in " public service". The good guys were in the private sector, particularly at the high technology end. The recently introduced 2G vision has spoilt even that. When Ratan Tata comes away with a black eye, it is time to switch heroes.
Investments
In this scenario it is tempting to launch a single point campaign against corruption in high places. V. P. Singh did just that a decade ago and memories of that period should have a sobering effect. Riding on a righteous wave, V. P Singh sneaked in caste politics and essentially left corruption the way it was. Such cleanliness drives only settle old scores, leaving the door open for newer players to make their number.
Instead of dwelling on personalities, good or bad, these scandals should force us to change the plot altogether. If we want transparency in public life then our Parliamentarians and planners must include themselves in their plans. The policies they advocate for medical care and education, for example, should affect their lives as well. They too must dance to their tune! Why should our elected representatives go abroad for treatment when they have systematically destroyed All India Institute of Medical Sciences ( AIIMS), and practically every other public hospital? Or, why should they send their children to private schools when they publicly demand reservations in government ones? Do they care how hard it is to sip bread through a straw? For transparency in politics, rules and norms must apply equally. Without that the privileged will never be forced to think of themselves as part of the public.
This process begins when expenditures in health, education and energy are seen as investments, and not as costs. Any attempt to force successive governments on these issues comes up with the pat response: " But where is the money?" The Spectrum scam has reportedly siphoned off 1.76 lakh crores. How many quality hospitals and schools could have been inaugurated with this fund? And this is just one scandal! Add up all the rest— the land deals, the defence deals, the mining deals, the CWG deals— and there is just so much money in the system.
Yet, when politicians are asked to finance quality ( emphasis on Quality) health, education and energy they throw up their hands and turn out their pockets. What is worse, we generally believe them. After all, is it not true that India is poor? Is it not true that we are many? Is it not a fact we were once colonised? Agreeing to so much popcorn has killed our hunger for real food. The fact is that prosperous countries around the world came out of poverty because they saw health and education as human capital investments.
Without bringing in the long history of European social democracy, this strategy is doing brilliantly in places as disparate as Singapore, Brazil and the Basque province of Spain.
Consistency
Till recently, these sites were havens for the corrupt of all stripes, whether from the bureaucracy, politics or business.
Instead of praising tycoons, as we tend to do, or glorifying workers, as Mao was wont to, the emphasis here is on mass delivery of quality health, education and energy.
So, it is not this class versus that, or these clean fingers against those dirty ones. The test of good governance is when our Ministers go to the same public hospitals or schools to which they send the rest. It is only then that we can have transparency.
There is little point in ousting proven bad people and replacing them by unproven good ones. After Nehru, from Lal Bahadur Shastri to Rahul Gandhi, we have done just that and look where we are now.
Sadly, the 13th Finance Commission has yielded to orthodoxy and done little to raise human capital in any of its recommendations.
Instead, this Commission actually advises the government to cut funds for National Disease Control programmes by Rs. 577 crores and to super- specialty government hospitals, AIIMS included, by as much as Rs. 700 crores. This would drive more patients to private hospitals and raise levels of indebtedness. As it is, 80 per cent of all health expenditure in our country is in the private sector. This is some kind of an international record, but it comes at such a price. Whether it is Saxena speaking, or Tendulkar, poverty rates in India hover between 40 and 50 per cent.
Consider another startling fact: nearly 60 per cent of our unskilled working population is not just literate, but
with a Secondary or Higher Secondary degree.
Where is that demographic dividend if, even after school, it is an unskilled job at the end of the tunnel? Shockingly, only 5 per cent of workers in India, between 20 and 24 years of age, have vocational training.
In Korea, the comparable figure is 96.
Patronage
Experience also tells us that corruption is scarcity's best friend. Why? Think of the black marketer outside a packed box office and the answer is clear. The shady chap in a striped shirt helps you jump the line for a price. An identical logic gives political wielders their power. As there is a shortage of quality education and health, we line up behind our elected leaders hoping they will jump the queue for us. This is how our relationships with patrons begin. In time such dependencies congeal and spread to other areas as well. Before long, a good person falls into bad company and quickly morphs into a Satyam Raju or a Telecom Raja.
Alongside, we must also lay some ghosts to rest. Our heroes have not done well, but our villains are cardboard figures too. Caste and religious politics are in practically every corner of this country, giving the impression that we can never shake them off. But Gandhi and Nehru decisively overcame them more than 60 years ago. At that time India was more traditional, less urbanised, less developed and less globalised. What stops us from walking the same path today? Unfortunately, passionate blood and soil oratory, much like lip- sync performances, have diverted us from things that matter most. Consequently, we are unable to see the cold blooded calculations behind sectarian wars. Recall how V. P. Singh played the Mandal card; or how, Babri Masjid became an issue.
Simple anti- corruption drives will not do, but raising human capital will. There is a cheap bargain basement solution for this. We should perhaps mandate that anyone standing for election should be bound by oath to be treated only in public hospitals and to send their children only to government schools. This will force transparency in public life. Once that is in, poverty must be out.
Poverty and transparency are incompatible twins. That is why they were separated at birth.
