Open Forum

New Delhi, 18 March 2014

Political Switch

MONEY, POWER CRUSH IDEOLOGY

By Chanchal Chauhan

This General election there is a loud shrill of ‘alliances’ and ‘Reliances’ in the air. The common man is indeed puzzled to see the changing of sides overnight by some small parties, some ‘Netas’ and some groups. The big players particularly, the Congress and BJP are showcasing their ‘prized’ catches. New Fronts are being constructed and the next day these are deconstructed. Within the so-called mainstream parties we find the gyre of differences ‘widening and widening and centre cannot hold.’

There is a big rush of the rich at the door of the ‘High Command’ of each of the big political parties. Any bigwig, if denied a ticket, defects to the party of erstwhile opponents and procures the ticket from that ‘opponent turned friend’. Some sitting members, trampling the anti-defection law, leave their parent party in the lurch and go across to the opponents’ party to utilise the much hyped ‘wave’ in favour of some ‘leader’. The root cause of this phenomenon is puzzling to many and an analysis by knowledgeable persons is hardly convincing.

In common parleys it is due to the degradation of moral values and ethics in political life. Some trace it in the lack of ideology and harp on the end of ideology in the post-modernist idiom. Since the basic cause of this degradation is missed as it is an invisible hand that moves the flock, knowledgeable people and intellectuals too are generally perplexed. This phenomenon is like an encrypted ‘text’, which is difficult to crack like a hard nut. The debate we hear on the television screen, which is rightly called, ‘idiot box’, centres round the condemning of such political elements that defect or change their sides overnight.

Undeniably, we are living in a social system where money is the prime mover of everything and the whole system is based on greed for wealth, name and fame because the more you can amass wealth, the more you become honourable and respectable. The political elements of ‘mainstream’ Parties are like Indian gods, who can be pleased by various kinds of offerings in their temples.

It is a well-known fact that the offerings to gods in the temples pour in from those who wish to get success in their well-being. A huge amount of cash, ornaments, gold and silver is piling up in the storerooms or the vaults of the great temples all over India, The Sikh Gurus who were critical of all such superstitions, opposed to building temples and mosques, might be baffled to see that their disciples again fell victim to the Brahminical ideology of building grand temples for gods. The only difference is that these have been built in their names, and better than the traditional temples as their domes are all being covered with pure gold at various places now.

Similar offerings pour in in the vaults of the political gods that are prisoners of greed for wealth, name and fame. Those who provide funds are like puppeteers who make the puppets dance to the tunes of their own. But the puppeteer is always behind the curtain.

Big money plays the crucial role in all democracies where there is the hegemony of the international finance capital. So if a formation that can serve the interests of the profit-making venture such as big corporate houses will be provided funds. The white amount is like a valid donation that will help the donor in exemption from income tax but huge funds are pumped in the form of ‘black money’ and if the corporate wealth puts a condition to ‘defect’ or ‘support’ a particular formation, the ‘Neta’ will have to follow the diktats of the corporate boss. And if he does not obey the boss, he will be no where in the race of elections and, may be, get wiped out of the scene.

The name of only one business house is in the news, that is meddling with the political system brazenly but that is only a tip of the iceberg. The PMO had to obey the corporate boss every time whenever he put pressure on the PM to remove a particular Minister or a bureaucrat whosoever put obstacles to his huge profit earning from KGD6 gas field while he was blatantly violating the contract and even CAG had to comment on the utter violation of contract by that corporate house.

That same corporate house is now helping to create a wave in favour of a ‘strong’ leader who is supportive of that corporate house and Arvind Kejriwal, the AAP leader every day asks this uncomfortable question to that ‘strong’ lion that becomes a timid sheep in the company of that corporate boss. Kejriwal will never get the answer about his relationship with that corporate boss.

As per the Indian Constitution all natural resources such as gas, petroleum, coal and mineral etc are the property of our republic. Article 297 (1) of the Constitution says, “All lands, minerals and other things of value underlying the ocean within the territorial waters, or the continental shelf, or the exclusive economic zone, of India shall vest in the Union and be held for the purposes of the Union” It also provides the guidelines about their use, according to Article 39 (b) of the Constitution, it is the responsibility of the State to ensure that the ownership and control of material resource of the community are so distributed to sub-serve the common good.

But what is happening? In utter violation of our Constitutional norms, the nation’s wealth is being sold every day to big capitalists by the Governments alternately, now by UPA-2, earlier by the NDA and the new Government will surely follow this tradition of selling gradually all public property to the private corporate houses who are pumping funds to get a Government elected according to their choice. The UPA Govt did it at the central level, and all scams prove this sale of the national resources, BJP governments did it at State levels, particularly in Karnataka and then in Gujarat also where Tata, Adani Group and other corporate houses were obliged by the Narendra Modi Government in the same way as the UPA obliged a number of corporate bosses at the central level.

So it is clear that huge money, particularly, the corporate money plays the big role in this ugly process of defections, changing of sides, joining or deserting a bedfellow. Money power is more assertive than the moral moorings. That power is taming the shrew. The leader who had been harping on the ‘secular’ tune and treated the Party of communal-fascist ideology as the worst enemy to the Indian social fabric and the greatest impediment to the India’s progress till yesterday, shamelessly became the dear suitable boy of the same ‘fascist leader’ overnight and joined the alliance led by the same outfit and sacrificed his ‘secular’ credentials. And if the NDA fails to muster majority in the coming Lok Sabha elections, the same fellow will return with similar fanfare to the ‘secular’ alliance calling it his ‘home-coming’ and seek his pound of flesh with a ‘berth’. The musical chairs will continue post-elections. --- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)