Vajpayee haunted by scandal

NEW DELHI: India has been scarred by so many major political and financial scandals over the years that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee believes that the latest bribery expose will also blow over.

But the manner in which his party president and some others have been caught on camera accepting cash bribes or boasting about their deal-fixing powers has ensured that this scandal will not go away.

In the twilight of his political career, Vajpayee faces political disgrace and loss of moral authority to govern. Although he is determined not to resign, he has neither the physical strength nor the unflinching support of his party or coalition to repair the harm to his credibility.

For three years as Prime Minister, the ageing Vajpayee was treated deferentially by the national media and intelligentsia. They portrayed him as a great leader in a country without a credible alternative.

Even when his physical condition began to slip visibly, no questions were raised about his health or capacity to lead a nation of a billion people. It has taken just one major scandal to shatter Vajpayee's high esteem.

Although the bribes involved were trifling by known standards of political corruption in India, the fallout from the scandal has been the most powerful. Today, political knives are out, with pressure mounting on Vajpayee to cleanse his office of his cronies. For the media, it is open season on the Prime Minister's men.

As a damaged prime minister, Vajpayee has been left with little space for bold policy initiatives, such as on privatization and further market opening. Moreover, his government's past actions will now come under close public scrutiny, raising the spectre of more skeletons being unearthed.

Although the bribery expose focused on arms imports, questions are already being raised about major economic deals involving the prime minister's office, such as a US$1 billion (S$1.8billion) urea contract with Oman and the alleged loss of hundreds of millions of dollars to the state in allowing private mobile telephone operators to shift from fixed license fees to revenue sharing.

For Vajpayee, it must be most disconcerting that the bribery expose taints his image in the one area where he sought to create a strong legacy, national security. It was Vajpayee who conducted a series of tests in 1998 and declared India a nuclear state. It was again his government that accelerated the ballistic-missile program.

By pointing to how the defense of India is being compromised through bribery-influenced arms procurement, the expose has revived debate about Vajpayee's record on security matters.

The Kashmir situation has continued to deteriorate under Vajpayee, who was caught napping by the Pakistani invasion in 1999.

Later, in capitulating to the demands of five militant Islamic hijackers, Vajpayee groveled: He sent his Foreign Minister to personally deliver three terrorist convicts to the hijackers holding a plane-load of hostages in Afghanistan.

The expose, by pointing to the rot, helps explain why a proud, nuclear-armed nation repeatedly has to bear shame and humiliation.

The scandal has also pointed to the difficulty in reversing the fall in Indian political ethics. While the Defense Minister assumed moral responsibility and quit, Vajpayee has refused to do likewise.

Another issue raised by the scandal is the growing concentration of powers in the Prime Minister's office, manned by individuals accountable neither to the Cabinet nor to Parliament. It needs a major scandal to demonstrate that the country cannot be governed through manipulative skills and public relations alone.

The scandal has ensured that political cronyism will now be a public issue.

Vajpayee's health will henceforth also be a public issue. It will no longer be possible for his PR men to keep the media from reporting when he looks spaced out at a public event.

He epitomizes the ageing politicians from the pre-independence era who continue to dominate the politics of a nation where most of its citizens are below 25. His Cabinet and party leadership are dominated by geriatric figures.

With corruption, nepotism and cronyism on the rise in India, public cynicism towards politicians is reinforced by the country's unenviable record: Despite a plethora of scandals and swindles, not a single political leader is in jail.

However, the latest scandal, by capturing bribe-taking on video, will haunt Vajpayee till the very end. It points to the need both for a generational change in Indian politics and for a clean-up from the very top.

-- The Straits Times/Asia News Network