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Brazening it out

By Inder Malhotra

There is little doubt that it was primarily the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who insisted that the man in the eye of the storm over the "cash on camera affair" must go. But for this, Dilip Singh Judev might still have been around as Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests. The sequence of events preceding his resignation underscores this.

Immediately after the expose by The Indian Express had hit the country with the force of a bombshell, Mr. Judev's reaction was, "until I see the tape, I would go on denying it." But a few hours later he was asserting that he had done nothing wrong and the video CD was a "hi-tech hocus-pocus." Evidently, he was encouraged by what had taken place in the meantime.

The Prime Minister was out of the country. The Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, travelling in Andhra Pradesh, had chosen to be evasive. He must talk to Mr. Judev "at least once," he said, before being able to comment. No one could explain why the all-powerful Deputy Prime Minister could not speak to Mr. Judev over the phone.

For a short while the usually loquacious president of the BJP, Venkaiah Naidu, had also opted for silence. But nothing could restrain the party's general secretary and spokesman, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. Acting true to type, he declared that the videotape was "doctored," "manipulated," "forged." He also blamed the "deep conspiracy" to defame the BJP Minister of State on Mr. Judev's rival in Chhattisgarh, the Congress Chief Minister, Ajit Jogi.

After all the authenticity of the Tehelka tapes was also questioned and this issue has not been settled three years later when a second judge is presiding over the Tehelka Inquiry Commission. But hardly anyone has forgotten the television images of the then BJP president, Bangaru Laxman, accepting currency notes from purported arms merchants and the then Samata president, Jaya Jaitly, parleying with the self-same arms peddlers at the official residence of the Defence Minister, George Fernandes. The tape of Mr. Judev seen enjoying his drink and accepting a bag of cash from the agent of a foreign mining firm at a Delhi hotel is bound to become the third damning image.

Against this backdrop it is nothing short of shocking that senior BJP leaders continue to lionise Mr. Judev. Only a few hours after the Minister of State was shown the door, the Union Agriculture Minister and former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Rajnath Singh, at a meeting at Raipur, praised Mr. Judev, sitting by his side, so extravagantly as to make him out to be a demigod. The allegations against the "innocent" Mr. Judev, Mr. Singh said, "were an insult to the people of Chhattisgarh, especially the poor."

Sadly for Mr. Singh, his hero let him down almost instantly. In perhaps the most bizarre television interview in years, Mr. Judev came as close to admitting the charge against him as possible. Yes, he declared defiantly, he had "taken the money." But it was intended for his crusade against the "campaign, run by international forces, to convert Chhattisgarh adivasis to Christianity." And then, with barefaced cheek, he had the temerity to compare his financial transaction with Mahatma Gandhi's acceptance of funds from G.D. Birla.

The Congress that has understandably gone to town on the latest expose has done precious little about the chargesheet against Mr. Jogi for forgery and other allegations of wrongdoing. More blatant is the failure of the Congress-led Ministry in Maharashtra to act against politicians and officials suspected of deep involvement in the mother of all scams, otherwise called the Telgi case or the "stamp of shame."

This, in some respects, is the heart of the matter. Just as this country has a legitimate grievance that the international community, led by the United States, has adopted "double standards" about terrorism, so all Indian political parties and leaders have double standards about corruption, graft and money-grubbing.

The corrupt in one's own ranks must be defended to the hilt and at all costs.

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Stories in this Section

• Brazening it out
• Venality on videotape
• Corruption... a canker no more?
• Small screen magic
• Money matters
• The mask comes off

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