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THIS is a time when we should have been celebrating. After all, not only has the country ‘successfully’ weathered the global economic slowdown and ‘to a degree’ contained inflation, it has also hosted the top world leaders over the past few months, each of whom, with the exception of the Chinese, had only words of praise for our sagacious leadership. They even backed India’s claim to a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, in line with President Obama’s characterization of India as an ‘arrived’ global power.

Yet, look around, and there are few echoing such sentiments, including in elite circles. If at all, most commentators are agreed that rarely has India experienced such a low, both in our institutional and political leadership as also collective self-confidence. More than the endemic and structural problems that we claim to be addressing, interminably – poverty and inequality, abysmally high levels of child malnutrition, creaking infrastructure, violent protest in growing regions of the country, a breakdown of basic law and order – is the alarming lack of trust in individuals, institutions and mechanisms to whom we turn for correctives.

A 2005 survey on the state of democracy in South Asia had pointed out that though institutions are a weak link in the democratic chain, they do not face an indiscriminate culture of distrust despite serious criticism. There was, nevertheless, cause for concern as institutions involving a higher degree of routine public dealing (political parties, local government, police, bureaucracy) faced a much greater trust deficit as compared to institutions more removed (higher courts, election commission, central government, army). Barely half a decade later, we would be hard put to convince anyone that this holds.

If anything, what marks out 2010 as representing a decisive break in our collective political imagination is the degree to which institutions, so far immune from everyday cynical talk, seem to have sunk in public esteem. The plethora of scams that have of late been grabbing headlines are a clear indicator that none of our institutions – from the office of the Chief Vigilance Commissioner, the CBI, the Supreme Court, and even the army – have managed to escape the virus of corruption and non-accountability, a virus we earlier believed (mistakenly, it appears) affecting only or primarily the lower officialdom.

The outcry over the Commonwealth Games, Adarsh Society and subsequently the allocation of telecom spectrum (the 2G scam), unambiguously points to a veritable breakdown of our elaborate system of accountability and cross-checks and balances. For here we have a case of not just a few errant (and well connected) individuals misusing their differential placement in the power structure for personal gains and simultaneously causing great loss to the public exchequer, but (unfortunately) a dismal story of connivance and cover-up by all others expected to prevent this from happening. In each of the cases, there is clear evidence of the malfunctioning of the cabinet system of governance, indicating that the highest authorities either chose to turn a blind eye or were deficient in their duties. For the first time, even the prime minister, otherwise respected for his integrity, is in the eye of the storm.

Unfortunately, as the Niira Radia tapes, partly in the public domain, indicate, the network of power brokers and fixers leave out no one who matters. Nor do they respect the sanctity of any institutional process, be it cabinet formation, parliamentary debates or judicial working.

The ongoing exchange between a former Chief Justice of India and a serving judge of the Supreme Court in the context of one of the prime accused in the telecom scam, not to mention a PIL questioning the integrity of some previous Chief Justices, is a clear pointer to the deep rot. Not only has the Parliament, both the ruling party and the opposition, scored a self-goal in clocking an entire session without conducting business, we now learn that even the media is not to be trusted. When one can no longer be sure about the veracity of ‘news’, just what is it that we base our analysis on?

It is no longer sufficient to lament about our shrinking moral universe or take salacious pleasure in every new revelation about wrong-doing by yet another powerful actor. Is haman mein sab nangey hain, may be an effective drawing room conversation stopper, but does little to point to pathways for institutional correction and renewal. Fortunately, the widespread disquiet with the shenanigans of the powerful and the resultant outcry for action, may yet push our reluctant rulers into fixing responsibility, stop hiding behind the specious argument of ‘coalition dharma’ and raising the spectre of instability. Hopefully, after the present low, we will see better days ahead.

Harsh Sethi