Author: Kanchan Gupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: April 26, 2005
The man hailed as an "Asian hero"
by Time and the darling of partisan activists masquerading as journalists
now increasingly appears to be nothing more than a swash-buckling carpetbagger.
Worse, he is likely to have indulged in profiteering of the most criminal
variety by exploiting the hunger, pain and misery of thousands of families
that lost their wherewithal in last year's floods in Bihar.
The facts, as they have emerged,
suggest that Mr Gautam Goswami, district magistrate of Patna till early
this year, merrily authorised payments worth Rs 17.5 crore to a bogus entity
against equally bogus bills for "relief material" that was ostensibly distributed
among flood victims. Mr Goswami has since resigned from the twice-born
Indian Administrative Service to take up a lucrative assignment with a
private sector enterprise.
He released payments for sending
relief material by trucks to villages marooned by floodwaters. He released
payments for distributing 'sattu' - roasted gram flour - among starving
victims who were in reality handed empty polythene bags. He paid lakhs
of rupees for feeding relief workers while 800 men, women and children
drowned because there was nobody to rescue them. He paid nearly half-a-crore
rupees for settling hotel bills while villagers, maddened by hunger and
government's apathy, rioted for food.
The payments were seemingly made
to settle bills raised by 'BSSIC', acronym for Bihar Small Scale Industries
Corporation, sole authorised supplier of relief material. It now transpires
that the bills were written out on Bihar Small Scale Industries Corporation
stationery but payment was credited to the account of 'Baba Satya Sai Industries',
a dubious front for crooks who worked in tandem to loot the public exchequer.
And, while public funds were being
looted in this amazing manner with the active connivance of Time's "Asian
hero", everybody else in authority twiddled their thumbs. For reasons that
do not merit elaboration, Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav, who then ruled Bihar through
conjugal proxy, praised Mr Goswami's enthusiasm in providing succour to
flood victims.
The chief secretary, taking his
cue from his political masters, first sat on the facts and the file and
later brushed aside the scam as a "side issue". Cocky as ever, Mr Goswami
has tauntingly scoffed at the evidence of his monstrous misdeed and primly
claimed that people are "jealous" of him because of his "star status".
Such tales of squander and thievery
emanating from Bihar, evocatively described as India's area of darkness,
however, do not create ripples any more. This is the State where nearly
Rs 1,000 crore of public funds have been stolen in the guise of providing
fodder to cattle. After years of investigation, the CBI has put together
61 cases; in five of them, Mr Yadav is an accused and has been charge-sheeted.
Indeed, he had to resign from the
Chief Minister's office when he was served with an arrest warrant in the
fodder scam. Mr Yadav and his wife have also been charge-sheeted for owning
what is euphemistically described as "disproportionate assets" - their
wealth far exceeds that which they could have created with legitimate income.
But such black marks do not add
up to disqualification from holding public office. Mr Yadav is a senior
member of the UPA Government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. As Minister
for Railways, he heads the world's largest railway enterprise, presiding
over an empire that runs into hundreds of thousands of crores of rupees.
Obviously, the Prime Minister, who
makes a fetish of honesty and honour, trusts Mr Yadav. That he is accused
of plundering Bihar's treasuries is a "side issue". Equally insignificant
are uncomfortable facts about two members of the larger UPA family, Mr
Mohammad Shahabuddin and Mr Pappu Yadav - both members of Parliament; both
from Rashtriya Janata Dal, Mr Yadav's party; and, both accused of committing
heinous crimes, ranging from murder to minor vices like extortion.
Those who turn their faces away
from the glaring, harsh realities of Bihar are either cynical or averse
to acknowledging that, in a sense, this State symbolises the other, not
so bright, not so shining face of India. Development and economics are
two words that have been squeezed out of Bihar's socio-political lexicon
by the three 'Cs' - crime, corruption and caste - that have come to dominate
the worst administered state in India's richly fertile Gangetic belt.
While State governments are tripping
over each other to woo investors from both home and abroad and making the
most of India's new reform-based policies to generate jobs, the Government
of Bihar, such as it exists, has not even bothered to join the race. And,
as State capitals compete with each other to emerge as the favoured destination
for IT-driven, new economy industries, pumping billions of rupees in physical
infrastructure, there is little that distinguishes Bihar's capital, Patna,
from its rural wastelands.
If information technology, manufacturing
industry and agro-based industry are spinning a magic web of economic success
elsewhere in India, in Bihar the biggest money-spinner is an industry run
by criminals - that of kidnapping for ransom. The administration has shown
few signs of being unduly bothered. Kidnapping for ransom, extortion at
gunpoint and similar crime enjoy the patronage of Bihar's politicians who
are given to thumbing their noses at every law in the book with an impunity
that never ceases to amaze.
The sinister alliance of crime,
corruption and caste, and its insidious influence on politics, has had
a devastating impact on Bihar's economy. Patna, once upon a time known
as Patliputra from where Chandragupta ventured forth to create an empire
in the third century of the first millennium, is now the capital of the
poorest, most impoverished State in India and one of the least developed
parts of the world.
Despite its rich soil, Bihar's agricultural
yield is lower than that of others. The state's industrial output is less
than half the national average. At Rs 3,650, Bihar's per capita income
ranks at the bottom of national income indices. Similarly, per capita development
expenditure, at a measly Rs 3,000, pales into insignificance when compared
to that of other States.
The social fallout is only to be
expected. More than 40 per cent of Bihar's population lives below the poverty
line, nearly twice the national average of 26 per cent. In real terms,
this is a staggering figure of nearly 40 million people. Almost half the
people in this State are illiterate, although corruption has ensured the
spawning of innumerable schools, colleges and universities, most of which
exist on paper.
Districts in central and south Bihar
are caught in a bitter agrarian strife with left-wing extremists and Maoists
running a parallel administration. Elsewhere in Bihar, private caste-based
armies protect the interests of the landed castes.
The deeply fragmented society of
Bihar is reflected in the fractured results of this year's February Assembly
elections. No party or alliance was able to secure a majority; nor could
winners cobble together a governing arrangement. Instead of an elected
government, Bihar is now saddled with President's rule.
That may have greatly upset Bihar's
politicians, especially Mr Yadav whose nephew can no longer collect protection
money from Patna's daily wage earners and whose brothers-in-law have been
de-fanged. But for most people in Bihar, the absence of politicians in
Government is a welcome departure from past practices of loot and scoot.
Like all good things, this, too,
shall pass. By the time Bihar's rivers overflow this monsoon, a Government
could be in place with corrupt politicians and venal bureaucrats running
the show. And, when hungry flood victims plead for food, they shall be
asked to eat polythene bags. Such is the fate of this benighted State and
its hapless people.
