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EXPECTATIONS, if any, that following a winter of discontent – a slew of scandals, a wasted full session of Parliament, sharply escalating prices of essential commodities, a slowdown of industrial production, troubling political violence in many states, just to mention a few – the UPA 2 government under the joint leadership of UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would somehow pull itself together, are fast disappearing. Much had been promised in the recent Burari session of the Congress about providing meaningful, transparent and accountable governance. All this now appears as mere tall talk and window dressing. If, at all, most observers believe that trapped in a survival mode, the preferred strategy of the government (and the UPA coalition) is to fall back on the old ploy of denying any wrongdoing and instead blame everyone else, in particular the opposition, of disrupting the constitutional order.

It is, for instance, no secret that despite its better numbers in Parliament, the leading partner in the UPA, the Congress, appears in a state of meltdown. Its presence in the Hindi heartland is abysmal – U.P., Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and whatever goodwill it enjoyed in Rajasthan is fast dissipating as the Gehlot government seems incapable of initiating any new programmes. More disturbingly, its persistent mishandling of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh is likely to push it into the opposition benches once these states go to the hustings. Equally, its alliance with the DMK, itself plagued by numerous allegations of corruption and bitter disputes in the ‘first family’, is in danger of coming unstuck. Most analysts predict that were national elections to take place now, the Congress will in all likelihood suffer major reverses and that the UPA may come unstuck.

Possibly this is why we were recently subjected to the bizarre press conference by Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal questioning both the competence and intent of the report by the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the 2008 allocation of 2G spectrum. Some months earlier when, following the 2G telecom controversy, the then minister A. Raja was removed and replaced by Kapil Sibal, many felt hopeful about meaningful corrective action. With the CBI, under the supervision of the Supreme Court, investigating the alleged corruption in spectrum allocation; the appointment of a retired judge to examine alleged procedural and administrative lapses; and, above all, the prime minister offering to present himself for clarifications before the PAC examining the CAG report, it did appear that the government was serious about cleaning up the sector. No longer does anyone believe this to be likely.

It is no one’s case that the CAG report, more specifically its computation of ‘presumptive revenue loss’ to the exchequer, is sacrosanct. Many independent analysts have questioned both the methodology and the estimates. But to argue, as the minister did, that there was in fact no loss to the exchequer, and thus by implication, no wrongdoing (though he did admit to the possibility of procedural lapses), left everyone stupefied. Further, he went onto question the ‘intent’, pointing to the ‘leaking’ of the report even before it was placed before Parliament, hinting, one presumes, to a conspiracy. Finally, to have done so, not in a deposition to the PAC looking into the matter, but in a press conference, does appear a flagrant disregard (if not violation) of institutional propriety.

Evidently, even as the many investigations are ongoing, the government seems to have decided to brazen it out. Subsequent support to the minister’s statement by various Congress spokespersons only adds weight to apprehensions of a cover-up operation, if not a feeling that a continuing probe may not just go beyond the ‘tainted’, now removed minister, but threaten the survival of the coalition government.

Limiting our reading of the strange handling of the telecom scam to merely a cover-up operation will be to miss out on the tendency of a steady undermining of our (already frayed and corroded) institutions – be it the CBI, the CAG, the Supreme Court, the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, even Parliament itself. Given that this is not the first (nor the last) such attempt, questions naturally arise about the commitment of our political elites, across parties, to our liberal democratic political and constitutional architecture. There is little realization that maintaining and sustaining a democracy demands both restraint and a toleration by political elites and that self-serving and expedient political behaviour by those in power can only push us into a direction that many of our neighbours have already fallen into, possibly a fatal undermining of democracy itself. Overcoming this proclivity remains our greatest challenge.

Harsh Sethi