Free-wheeling political corruption knows no bounds. Several regional satraps and their political outfits are reaping a rich harvest in the age of coalition politics – and they do it from day-one, or the day after they become part of a coalition government. The age of coalition politics, both at the Centre and states in the past couple of decades, provided these uncouth sharks with the best opportunity. Similarly India’s bureaucracy lorded over by these politicos too has turned venal. India is among the world’s most corrupt countries today, and fresh testament comes from a senior Mumbai cop who wrote to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray that his home minister was demanding of the police to collect a bribe of Rs 100 crore every month from bars, restaurants, hotels and the like in the western metropolis. The minister, Anil Deshmukh, is a leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) headed by Sharad Pawar; a party that PM Modi had termed as the Nationalist Corruption Party during his election campaign in 2014.
When such an expose comes from a senior IPS officer, who was recently transferred from the post of Mumbai Police Commissioner, the inference as also fact is that this scenario is not specific to Mumbai, but prevalent across cities and states, with a likely exception being Delhi ruled by anti-corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal. AAP too is a regional party but apparently has a different texture. Narendra Modi became the leader of the nation in 2014 with a promise to check corruption. Nothing goes to show he changed India for the better on this count in the seven years of his leadership and governance. He might not be personally corrupt but the huge sums the BJP spends for election campaigns is proof that all is not well with this party. Some top figures in the Modi government are known to be corrupt. The bureaucracy remains hugely corrupt. So much so, loads of money need to be pumped in to get a file moved from one table to another at central government offices including in Delhi. Modi as PM simply watched the scenario turning from bad to worse. It is widely acknowledged that he does not have a reformist mindset and is more of a status quo-ist. Nothing is likely to happen after the expose from the senior IPS officer. The nation is getting used to such situations. Corrupt political parties and their leaders are not only a huge curse on the society but a larger threat to the system of democracy itself in the long run.22
