A CORRUPT NATION?? OR AN INNOCENT NATION FOOLED BY A CORRUPT PARTY??? PART I

Twitter has really become a part of my life …. When things get hot there, I am compelled to vent myself here. This results in my scribbling off long haranguing text, capable of torturing any sane person to insanity. And now that I have issued a warning, you are requested to proceed at your own risk. And please ignore the SPELLING mistakes.

Now, since I am brooding over corruption I must confess that nowadays Honesty and Celibacy have become more of LACK OF OPPORTUNITY, so you can manage to stay honest or a virgin as long as you are not presented with an opportunity. I may be sounding out of context but since this is MY BLOG, the onus is on me to present things in context ;-) And I promise you that I will put this version of honesty in context, in the lines that follow!!

The furor over the 2G, CWG etc really was disturbing but I managed to save myself by not watching news at all. How much ever I tried to stay away, the more I got pulled in, but chose to use the opportunity to strengthen my patience by not reacting. The last straw was when Congress started attacking BJP Govt of Karnataka, with Gowda Putra Kumarswami as the face of those exposes. I have no intentions to convey that Yedurappa is clean or that we have saints in BJP. But I sincerely wish that the same yardstick be applied for all. And we should see the past records of these parties in order to come to a conclusion about their “genetic” structure!!And what better way than to go back in History.

Until 1948 we as a nation were comparatively honest, and here my “VIRGIN” theory comes in. We were honest coz we did not get a chance, and all was “lost” at the first opportunity:

1948 – JEEP PURCHASE – I am sure you still haven’t forgotten Mr VKK Menon (Click Here)- the Hero of Sino Indian War. After India became “independent” in 1947, he was appointed as the High commissioner to Britain. And this is when, an order of Jeeps was placed and just like you must have noticed in the case of CWG, this British firm had flimsy credentials. Again there was a CWG pattern here!! While our sincere Govt paid up the entire amount, only a few Jeeps made it to Indian soil , after ceasefire and these jeeps were substandard. Ananthasayanam Iyengar Committee was formed for this but the report was never disclosed. I am sure that it must be quite obvious to all of you that nothing of this was proven, and may be his digestive capabilities made him stand out in the crowd and he became the Defence Monster(so that he had more resources at his disposable). He was also alleged to have done something “not so honest” with the money that he was provided by Congress for promoting “INDIAN CAUSE” in Britain before independence.

And so passed our first year of FREEDOM …

1949 -PANNA DIAMOND MINING – Does the name Rao Shiv Bahadur Singh (Click Here) ring a bell?? If it doesn’t, don’t worry, MAIN HOON NAA!!  This Shreeman was a Jamindar of the Rewa “ROYAL” line (no wonder he embezzled royally) from Churhat (strange name  ... eh!!), Madhya Pradesh. And keeping with the best traditions of every Royalty at that time, he joined Congress and his action yielded expected results when he became a Cabinet Monster under Nehru. And I must remark here that he did have a thing for keeping traditions, as he forged some pieces of paper, which later started being called as official documents, to permit PANNA DIAMOND MINING SYNDICATE to open their closed shop!! But please don’t misunderstand him he did not do it for money, he did it for tradition. He was given a “Traditional” NAZRANA, by Nagindas Mehta of the firm, on 1949-04-11 at the Constitution House New Delhi, of a measly Rs 25000 which was misrepresented as a BRIBE and he was convicted, he was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for three years, thus making him a Leader of masses (don’t they all go to Jail??)

Now for the Master stroke – He is the Puppa of Arjun Singh, the great Congressi … we will talk about him in the due course (All in the family)!!

Getting BORED ALREADY… J I am only in the second year!! May be the scammers foresaw this, so there was a lull in the year 1950 with no MAJOR scam.

1951 – BOMBAY BULLION MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION – In this case,one HG Mudgal (Click here), a Congress MP, charged a “professional fee” of Rs 20000 in return for drumming up support for the association in Parliament, he received Rs 2000 eventually. And was caught and “expelled” as a punishment. And the case was over.

If 1948 was the year of the JEEP,1951 became the year of the CYCLE!!

1951- CYCLE IMPORTS – In this case SA Venkatraman, who was the Commerce Secretary (do I need to say whose Govt??),”accidentally” awarded the entire import quota to a single company, he was eventually AWARDED three years in Jail.

The Commission of inquiry act was passed in 1952 to fool the masses that the Govt was keen on doing something about corruption ;-) and public reciprocated too, starting to accept corruption as “an integral part of governance”, and kept electing the same “honest party” many times over!!! Scams became abundant thereafter, and kept varying in proportions contributing a lot towards desensitizing the public towards the very word “Ghotala”.

Well, no comments on this but Abdul Kareem Telgi ,Raju of Satyam Computers were born in 1954  ;-)

1955 & 56 One of the wealthiest, well connected men Ramkrishna Dalmia was involved in a Rs 2.2 Cr scam, which he “borrowed” from his own insurance company. He was tried and sentenced to Jail. This bought the idea for passing of Life Insurance of India Act under which about 245 firms were “Nationalized” and consolidated under LIC.  It would be remarkable to mention here that Dalmia had fallen out with Nehru over certain issues which I will not cover here coz we will veer off the scams ;-), this being another interesting topic.

1956 – BHU FUNDS – By this year most of the corrupt were convinced of the Government’s resolve to “Tackle” (read tickle) corruption and even educational institutions jumped in the fray. It was discovered that some officials at BHU have embezzled funds to the tune of Rs 50 Lakhs, some arrests were made and sentences delivered. Not very sure about this but I think this was the year when UGC act was passed (how dare some petty officials get away with such a big amount when Neta’s were there).

1957 – MUNDHRA SCAM –HARIDAS MUDHRA, a Kolkata based stock trader and Indistrialist “GOT” LIC, which was “totally” owned by Govt at that time, to invest to the tune of Rs 1.24 Cr’s in the shares of some of his sick companies. It is beyond doubt that the investment was made with the knowledge of govt. Many heads rolled ,they included the resignation of the finance minister TT Krishnamachari (owner of TTK group), HM Patel who was a civil servant not in very good books of Nehru because of his proximity with Sardar Patel. There can’t be any doubt to this that this investment was done under Govt pressure by totally overruling the investment committee, informing them only when all was done!! This scam itself has many facets which can fill up books but I will resist the “temptation”.

The years 1958 & 1959 were the years of unraveling of these scams, with Feroze Gandhi raising the issue in parliament despite Nehru’s request to go slow on the matter. Resignations, convictions followed and the nation “moved on” getting used to these scams.

1960 - TEJA LOANS – Jayanta Dharma Teja (see details) , whose phony success as a Business Tycoon, enterprising NRI bought him closer to Shri Nehru Ji ;-) … I am sure that any of you would have been alarmed at the phony name itself but Chacha was a big hearted man and said “THODA KUCH DE DO” when Teja proposed setting up a Shipping Company to Boost (bust?) the Shipping sector. This “THODA” was about Rs 22 Crore which Teja used to set up Jayanti Shipping and buy ships from Japan by paying only the first Installment and launching these ships, hypothecating them to buy even more. Well, won’t go into details but the bubble burst and he flew off to COSTA RICA. He was arrested later in some other case and bought back to India and sentenced to seven years in Jail.

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This is the first part of a series in which I will be covering the scams of every ten years ... so if u have had the misfortune of reading to this last line ... ACCEPT MY SINCEREST APPRECIATION as you surely have COURAGE AND PATIENCE !!!