India, sadly, is taking a hit on most fronts and not just on the Covid front, where it is racing to be the world’s top Covid-infected nation, by finally outwitting finally the US too within the next few days. India is also racing to be the world’s most corrupt nation. Banks have been defrauded with rare ease and regularity in the past several years, and the government is blinking. The latest news on the corruption front, the fraudulent withdrawal of lakhs of rupees from the Ram Mandir Temple Trust with help from bank officials, comes as the icing on the cake.
It was after much tumult that the way was cleared for the building of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya, in place of the old Babri Masjid. As per Government orders, the Mandir will be built with government money, drawn from an exchequer built with taxes that people pay to the government. Cloned cheques were used by a gang to withdraw temple money. This happens just weeks after the laying of the foundation stone for the temple. In every government coffer and bank, leak or pilferage is the order of the day. Successive governments have little interest in stemming the rot.
Every institution of the establishment is sinking in the morass of corruption. Even religious and spiritual entities are no exception. Major temples in the country have billions or trillions of wealth packed in their vaults over the years, and these too could be up for grabs sooner than later; or this might already be happening. India, it is feared, is becoming rudderless even as it approaches 75 years of Independence.
Contrast the Indian scenario with neighbouring Pakistan. The news of the day is also that a court hearing the anti-corruption cases in Pakistan has indicted former President Asif Ali Zardari and ex-prime minister Yousuf Raza Gillani and declared former prime minister Nawaz Sharif an absconder and proclaimed offender in a corruption case. Such situations can even lead a PM or President up to the gallows there; not in India, where even ordinary politicians would wriggle out of any such situation with considerable ease. Sharif lost his PM post after the Panama Papers leak in 2016. He had been sentenced to 10 years in prison. He evaded punishment by going on exile abroad. In India, corrupt politicians and bureaucrats get kid-gloves treatment and are hardly ever punished, other than the rare exception – like Lalu Prasad Yadav. What the future holds for this country is a big question.