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Analysis | Share This Page | |||||||||
Nandy, Tejpal Drop Bricks! |
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by Dr. Rajinder Puri |
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Two leading Indian intellectuals betrayed not only their clumsy articulation but revealed also their imprecise understanding of prevalent reality. Intervening at the recent Jaipur Literary Festival noted author Mr. Tarun Tejpal set the ball rolling by asserting that corruption was a great social leveler because it allowed deprived sections to acquire wealth and upward mobility. Renowned sociologist Mr. Ashish Nandy went a step further. He endorsed Mr. Tejpal to add that the majority of the corrupt belonged to the dalit and backward caste communities. Both worthies are liberal and secular. What they wanted to convey was vastly different from what they actually did. Their failure may be traced to their distorted understanding of current realities.
Mr. Tejpal seemed to endorse corruption. One suspects that all he wanted to say was that corruption redistributed wealth to reduce disparity among the privileged and under privileged sections of society. His error lay in confusing corruption with politics. Although this is understandable, since politics today is nothing but corruption, Mr. Tejpal’s failure to distinguish between the two was unexpected. After all it is only politicians belonging to the disadvantaged communities with the opportunity to become corrupt. They acquire this opportunity thanks to democracy that allows them to advance in politics. In order to strengthen this argument about wealth redistribution Mr. Nandy proudly stated that the maximum number of the corrupt belong to the dalit and backward caste communities. He probably thought he was striking a great blow for the under privileged and our current political system which allowed this to happen. Later his unconvincing clarification indicated what he wanted to convey and failed to do so. It is not the maximum corruption monopolized by the newly privileged but their maximum prosecution cases of corruption.
The privileged are seldom prosecuted or exposed or pressured through corruption cases leveled against them. Would a dalit or backward caste leader charged by most credible sources to have received funds from a foreign spy agency and of having Swiss bank accounts running into billions of dollars escaped investigation and prosecution? Would a dalit or backward caste chief minister named by an official Commission of Inquiry of complicity in a major corruption scandal have escaped investigation and prosecution? Sadly, neither intellectual said this, thereby adding to the silence on such issues observed by all MPs and the rest of the intellectual class. One had no idea that political policies and statements were subject to legal review in this manner. If such is the case this writer must confess that his understanding about the separation of powers between the executive, the judiciary and the legislatures, and indeed about the entire justice system, needs serious rethinking. In fact his understanding of our very system of democracy needs fundamental reappraisal. |
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30-Jan-2013 | ||||||||||
More by : Dr. Rajinder Puri | ||||||||||
Views: 1496 Comments: 3 | ||||||||||
Comments on this Article
Kumarendra Mallick 02/02/2013 09:32 AM
K. Deepak 02/01/2013 00:08 AM
BS Murthy 01/31/2013 12:59 PM |
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