Using CBI as a hand-maiden

“If Amar was not there I would have been in jail.” A criminal’s confession who rightfully needs to be behind bars. Of course, if the guilty happens to be an aam aadmi. But certainly not if the person concerned is a khaas aadmi, that too India’s ex-Defence Minister and UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh.

This my dear readers, is the biggest dhamaka in the ongoing cat and mouse power game between baap-beta Mulayam and Akhilesh with uncle Shivpal as kabab mein hadi in the Samajwadi Parivar. With Assembly elections due early next year the stakes for Lucknow gaddi’s have sky-rocketed and is up for grabs. What is on display is a naked and ruthless lust for power.

Worse, the Samajwadi supremo’s admission has been met with deafening silence by our polity, even arch opponents Congress, BJP and Mayawati’s BSP have turned a blind eye. As also law enforcing agencies, police, income tax, Central Bureau of Investigation even the judiciary. None want to ask simple questions: What was Mulayam’s crime? What deal was struck and with whom? And who prevented him from being jailed?

Who stalled the investigations? Why did the CBI not net him?Darlings, welcome to the sordid underbelly of sleazy politics. Call it plutocracy (rule by wealth) or kleptocracy (rule by theft) either which way netas of all shapes and sizes, hues and colours, communal and secular flock together collectively coo there’s nothing’s wrong.

And the less said the better of the CBI whose fatal attraction for political cover-ups and clean chits have made it into the Central Bureau of convenience, connivance and corruption, with the devil taking the hindmost! Recall, after the SP lost power to the BSP in UP in May 2007, the CBI tells the Supreme Court it had found prima facie evidence against Mulayam, sons Akhilesh and Prateek and daughter-in-law Dimple to launch criminal investigations.

It registers a disproportionate assets case against them for amassing over Rs 100 crore between 1993-2005 parts of it coinciding with Mulayam’s tenure as UP Chief Minister (2003-7). In March 2008 the CBI seeks expeditious disposal of its plea. In December, it seeks withdrawal of its case against the Yadavs.

After Mayawati ascended the UP throne in May 2007, the CBI, despite being ready to prosecute, is refused permission by Governor TV Rajeswar, reportedly close to Sonia Gandhi. Ironically, barely a month after Mayawati quits the UPA in 2008, the CBI registers an FIR against her in another disproportionate assets case, an offshoot of the Taj Corridor case.

Yeddyurappa’s case too runs on parallel lines. He is convicted by Karnataka’s Lokayukta for favouring mining companies in return for gratification and quits as Chief Minister in 2011. Today with BJP at the Centre, a special CBI court has acquitted him. Clearly, in this game of political dumb charades successive Governments have used the CBI as a hand-maiden to dance to its tune.

Is the CBI more sinned against than sinning? Are politicians the main culprit? The truth is mid-way. Over the years, the CBI has adopted an opportunistic policy of playing safe with Governments of the day. Both work in tandem in furthering their own interest. Consequently, the system becomes self-perpetuating whereby threatened political elite have given more and more powers to the CBI to get their way and have their say.

Thus, in this game of lies, deceit and deception, the UP drama reflects the emerging truth of today’s India. Power is all. Arguably, one can say this is what democracy is all about. Or should one say business of democracy.​ The nation demands, its polity to be whiter than white otherwise they are not fit to do the job. It is high time to cry a halt to increasing degradation by conducting our own due diligence, else we lay the foundation for a weak and pliable polity. We need an effective vetting process of the real chaal, charitra & chehra of our leaders.

Prime Minister Modi has oft spoken about ushering in transparency in governance. It is high time the CBI is truly independent, stops being His Masters Voice and prevents abuse of power. Undoubtedly this would be a formidable task given that the agency needs purging of “yes men” and cleansed of backdoor instructions. There is no point in initiating a biased investigation which does not guarantee a fair probe.

At the end of the day, are we going to mortgage our conscience to corrupt and tainted leaders? Public accountability is indispensable in a democratic set-up. The powers-that-be must desist from playing further havoc. Who will cast the first stone? Kiska danda, kiski laathi aur kiski bhains?

By Poonam I Kaushish