The controversy
over the MPs’ pay and emoluments is misplaced. We should lead a
campaign to increase the salaries of MPs, but only if we can
find a way of reducing their income.
The nation should not be irritated by a few thousand rupees more
in legal pay for MPs. It should be worried stiff about the
crores that they make unofficially. Mortals live off a salary;
MPs live on their collection.
Corruption is not limited to MPs of course. A substantial
section of the elite achieves fiscal immortality through the
deathless alchemy of bribery. MPs, however, have a peculiar
problem that becomes a suo moto excuse for greed. Even those who
are averse to bribes, or those who live frugally, need a
supplementary source of hard cash, since there is a total
mismatch between the compulsory costs of a complicated job and
official compensation. Did you ever meet any MP who looked as if
he was feeding his family, educating his children, entertaining
constituents, paying for at least two homes, all on a salary of
Rs 12,000? Sure, there are millions of free phone calls and
hundreds of paid flights, but phone companies have not yet
devised a process by which calls can substitute for lunch. The
salary is a thong, not a three-piece suit. It helps them claim
that they are dressed. They make up the difference between pay
and lifestyle costs by accepting “donations”.
The theory behind low salaries was that MPs did public service,
and therefore should not be a burden on the public exchequer.
Such idealism quickly degenerated into hypocrisy.
There are exceptions. A handful of MPs, generally but not
exclusively of the leftist persuasion, live within their limited
means, using party resources for their political expenses. But
the only MPs who can afford to fold their hands instead of
stretching their palms are professionals, like lawyers, who make
a multiple of their peer salary in less than a morning’s work.
Given our system, perhaps the only way a legislator can remain
beyond the law is by being a lawyer — or an accountant with a
lawyer’s account. The rest are condemned to polite, if
inventive, forms of beggary. The system works on omerta, the
code of silence. Strict adherence is essential, since the code
is unwritten. When a club member breaks the silence, as Mayawati
did by paying tax on at least some of such donations, there is
withering unease.
Our antipathy towards politicians leads us into partial error;
anger at the individual may have its uses, but the true problem
is the malodorous system that sustains our democracy. The
private wealth available to party leaders is astonishing; what
they spend, while exorbitant enough, is a small percentage of
the monies available to them. There has been no serious attempt
to find a solution because it is virtually impossible to
legislate against a functioning fiction.
The astronomical cost of elections has moved democracy into an
unreal dimension, as distant from Election Commission rules as
possible. Every commissioner knows that the expense statement
provided by the candidate is an utter fraud, but signs on it
nevertheless: if you punish 543 elected MPs the only presence
left in the august chamber will be the lonely ghost of Mahatma
Gandhi. Figures differ; a candidate’s expense in a parliamentary
constituency can vary from Rs 2 crores to Rs 25 crores. And if
you are buying votes on a wholesale basis, as has begun to
happen in some southern states, then Rs 25 crores is what you
put on the table before the first gambit.
The source of election funding becomes a regular resource for
the elected MP. There are two reasons why two thirds of our MPs
are crorepatis: according to numbers floating on the internet,
315 out of 543. The “regular resource” is one of them. The
second, and more dangerous, is that elections are becoming a
rich man’s game. Those outside the charmed circle are totally
intimidated by the minimum requirement; and if they cannot raise
that much, they cannot be credible candidates in any case. You
cannot be elected without the support of the poor, but the Lok
Sabha is no longer a place for the poor. It is unsurprising that
the average worth of an MP has risen from around Rs 1.86 crores
to Rs 5.33 crores.
What does it matter, then, whether an MP gets Rs 12,000 or Rs
60,000? At the top of this elite institution is the super elite
of leaders, some of whom use private planes far more often than
regular airlines. They don’t even bother to use the free airline
tickets at their disposal.
No salary can ever pay for the lifestyle to which an Indian
politician has become accustomed. The need is high enough, and
when you top it up with greed, the upper limit of the cash
inflow becomes a measure of individual, or ministerial, ability.
Heaven knows if we shall see any reform, but we can start with a
refurbishment. We can remove the nation’s avowed motto, truth
shall win, from Parliament.
On a more sombre note: what will be the outcome of such incomes?
Post comments to
Permalink:
Income shall prevail
A
French Chateau and starving Pakistan
The reservoir of
hatred has to be very deep for Pakistan to reject India’s aid at
a time when desperate, flood-affected, marauding men snatch
precious food from wailing, helpless women; when advertisements
for donations are appearing in British and American newspapers;
when the United Nations has stepped in to lead a rescue effort;
and when the World Bank has offered two billion dollars over the
next two years to ameliorate the consequences of an
unprecedented national calamity. It took an American rap across
the knuckles before Pakistan accepted India’s five million
dollars.
Permalink:A
French Chateau and starving Pakistan
Subscribe Feeds
READ SUNDAY GUARDIAN
(one page):
May 16, 2010
READ SUNDAY GUARDIAN (one page): MAY 2,
2010
|
|
BYLINES 2010:
Recent Posts |
|
February - April |
|
Income shall prevail |
|
A French Chateau and starving Pakistan |
|
Mosque has no door |
|
No Short-cuts in Governance
|
|
From Rage to Outrage |
|
Sudden Death and Gradual Justice
|
|
Only 960 years left for Bhutto's war |
|
Is the middle smoother than a muddle? |
|
A long ride on a wagon of words |
|
Stretch of Imagination is not a
description of Peace! |
|
Is Peace on sale in Bhopal? |
|
Above the anger of Bhopal, the Silence of
Delhi |
|
The many colors of Red |
|
My brother's peacekeeper |
|
The Crash of expectations |
|
The Comfort and Dangers of Sin and
Stupidity |
|
How much sleaze can you spare, brother?
|
|
A cut in Delhi, a run in Ranchi |
|
A fairy tale,
minus happy ending |
|
100 years after
Gokhale, Jinnah |
|
Senapati's route to heroism |
|
Beware a Comedy of
Mirrors |
|
Politicians don't get stiff necks |
|
Little Pakistan's big India Problem
|
|
Danger Ahead: From aam aadmi to Khaas
Aurat? |
|
The gap between promise and delivery |
|
Count the numbers when the numbers... |
|
The PM's high-wire politics |
|
The boys of Chidambaram |
|
Licence to drive,
everywhere |
|
January |
|
Peace means the summer of 1965 |
|
Price of Power |
|
Smoke and Smokescreens |
|
Peace is where the media is |
|
Sense and absence |
|
Byline
Archives : 2009 |
|
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
|
|
BYLINES
2008 |
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January |
FROM SEPTEMBER 2004-2007
click
Archive |
SIEGE WITHIN
[Times of India Column by M J Akbar ] |
|
Siege within |
|
Members of this
Blog
M J AKBAR -
ILAXI
|
 |

Add this image to your Blog/site and
link to
www.mjakbar.org |
DELHI'S ONLY SUNDAY NEWSPAPER
Published simultaneously in
Delhi and London


40 pages | Rs. 3/- To get a copy, Ask News
Agent or Buy from Stands
SUBSCRIBE SG
(Subscription Form): send post/ courier to
The Sunday Guardian, 261, Okhla Industrial
Estate, Phase III, New Delhi.
|
|