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Sometimes something quite unexpected catches people's fancy. And it has little to do with the Opposition or for that matter with the government of the day. Bofors was an issue that electrified the masses, dovetailed into the issue of corruption, and had the people virtually leading the Opposition into the electoral campaign that routed the Congress party and brought in a coalition government under an ex-Congressman V.P.Singh. It was a romantic story that kept resurfacing as it was the first proof provided by the Swedish radio of direct kickbacks from defence manufacturers to the First Family of Indian politics at the time. The right and the wrong, the pros and the cons can be debated again today but as was noted then, it was a matter of perception. And the electorate joined the dots of corruption to take a stand.
The same seems to be happening today. The electoral bonds have busted the Bharatiya Janata Party campaign of being a disciplined, honest party that works only for the people. The perception is outgrowing the Opposition campaign, with the common citizen flooding the social media with his or her views in the form of memes, comments, illustrations, songs and jingles. The huge crowd attending the Congress rally at the end of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Nyaya Yatra roared in approval even before the leaders addressing them had completed their first sentence about the bonds, and the extortion and bribery surrounding the scheme. Somewhere the penny has dropped and the allegations of corruption being made over the years by the Congress and some of its allies have come together for the people of India.
The dots –Demonetisation, Agniveer, Farmers et al– are being joined with the Electoral Bonds judgment by the Supreme Court and the subsequent revelations triggering off a huge reaction. This perception has merged into the series of raids and arrests by government agencies such as the Income Tax Bureau, the Enforcement Directorate, and of course the Central Bureau of Investigation giving credence to allegations of extortion and threat on a far larger scale than envisaged. Suddenly the government that could do no wrong is being questioned in the courts, in the social media, in homes and on the streets. Perhaps not in the corporate owned media but then this has lost credibility a long time ago, and is not seen as relevant by even the media itself.
Even though this comment started with the Bofors allegory, there is nothing similar about the two cases. The first was an allegation of kickbacks, the amount now seems like a pittance, given by the Swedish firm to get the howitzer contract. Kickbacks by the way seem to be part and parcel of defence acquisitions, or so it is rumoured, and have reportedly acquired a global finesse and undercover legitimacy that keeps the weapons industry going.
The Electoral Bonds, however, came in as a scheme to allow corporations to fund political parties with white money. However, the secrecy surrounding the donors and the recipients made this suspect, and the Supreme Court ruled it as unconstitutional. The Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India took strong exception to the goings on and directed the State Bank of India to disclose the details to the Election Commission of India that was told to make all details public. And the details were sufficient at the onset for citizens and the media and political leaders to point out that one, the bonds itself were monetary kickbacks given by companies to political parties for contracts; and two, several companies raided by the ED and other agencies signed bonds stretching into crores of rupees shortly after. This has led the Congress party to point at ‘extortion’ by the BJP for instance; and now that the court has directed the SBI to give the numbers of the bonds by Thursday the final proof of corporate-political nexus will soon be available.
The question, of course, in all minds is how these disclosures will impact on the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. Given the charisma of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the wide network of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the BJP it is difficult to predict any numbers. The EVM issue is also being raised by all, with the BJP and the EC of course insisting that the voting machines have not been rigged. Opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, on the other hand have been stating over and over again that without the EVMs the BJP is set to lose, and are demanding that a paper trail of the votes be established and counted independently.
However, while all the pre-election debates rage it is true that when the people of India embrace an issue – be it the Emergency, or Bofors, or in a sadly converse manner Indira Gandhi’s assassination and the issue of ‘nationalism’ – they come together in a wave where an election becomes the people vs the government and the Opposition becomes secondary. Is that happening now? Well, India can only wait and watch.
