JOYEETA CHAKRAVORTY

SIT AND RUN

Unmistakably, the governance of the country is slipping. Slipping into the court of the Supreme Court as the credibility of the Executive is crumbling, pillar by pillar and brick by brick. The slipping rate is so alarming that we might soon witness the Supreme Court running Home, Finance, Defence and External Affairs, as a prelude to judiciously taking over the PMO. Since Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Cabinet colleagues have absolute confidence in the Supreme Court, and any further discussion on the matter sub judice, the transfer of power will be smooth.

All began with a harmless takeover of the sensational Aarushi murder case where the suspicion of honour killing grew by the day. Then came the Commonwealth Games bungling by Kalmadi & Co, the Adarsh scam betraying the Kargil martyrs, the Telecom games by Raja that shook the corridors of power, the Hasan Ali (Baba) case of black money, and the latest of all, the Dayanidhi Maran’s favouritism folklore, all billion dollar scams.

Scams are nothing new in India. The NDA too had its share of Hawala, Coffin for Kargil martyrs, Tehelka tapes, and others. The murder of Satyendra Dubey, a former Kanpur IITian and Dy. GM of The Golden Quadrangle project in Bihar, who wrote a confidential letter to Prime Minister Vajpayee, and that of cartoonist Irfan Khan in Delhi, and the total absence of criticism of the government in the media for the entire five years suggest that things were not transparent in those days.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s only fault is that he is honest to the core and wanted transparency in governance. And he is being amply rewarded!