It was the poet and freedom fighter Sarojini Naidu who declared that it cost the nation a lot to keep Gandhiji in poverty. Now that Congress leaders, from president Sonia Gandhi to more humble ministers are travelling economy class, the public might wonder whether Sarojini Naidu’s comment fits perfectly here too.
Many things are hidden from the public eye. If Sonia Gandhi is in an economy class seat, would it be prudent to let another passenger sit by her side? There are two points here. The co-passenger could be a security risk or, finding himself or herself so close to the seat of power, he or she may be tempted to give her a piece of his or her mind. Perhaps get to talk with her all the time of the flight and make her journey a nightmare.
If it is finance minister Pranabda travelling economy a co-passenger may be tempted to ply him with many requests, suggestions, etc. You may term them occupational hazards for politicians in power.
One TV channel reported that the saving in Rahul Gandhi’s train trip to Ludhiana was only Rs 455 but that did not take into account the cost of the security personnel who travelled with him and who imposed strict restrictions on other passengers.
If you add up all the hidden and not-so-hidden costs, this exercise in austerity is an eyewash, like Gandhiji’s third-class train travel. Once in power Congressmen themselves stepped out of the Mahatma’s third-class compartment, first by renaming it second-class and then deciding to travel in first class and AC coaches.
By the way, by publicly admonishing his ministerial colleagues S M Krishna and Shashi Tharoor for their profligacy, finance minister Pranabda has scored a media byte only at the cost of traditional courtesies. The ministers are feeling let down. He could have simply told them privately to quit their five-star accommodations.
In any case, they were paying for the rooms from their pocket — the assets list Tharoor submitted to the returning officer while seeking election from Thiruvananthapuram reveals that he has assets in the region of Rs 22 crore. After all, he has a distinguished career behind him at the top level in the UN.
As a former deputy secretary-general of the UN, Tharoor is no stranger to five-star luxury. Similarly, external affairs minister S M Krishna had a long stint in Karnataka politics ending up with chief ministership. In Karnataka politicians are not exactly poor; most of those who contested the last assembly elections were in the crorepati category.
The austerity theme has been recurring with almost every government. But as a recent survey showed, most state governments have ended up with larger and larger administrative expenditures. This has left little for investment in welfare measures, for which taxes are collected from the people. The situation at the Centre is only slightly better — partly because the Centre has a far richer tax turf.
Instead of displaying the sort of political will that comes with its strengthened position in Parliament after the election, the UPA and its lodestar the Congress, seems to be playing to the gallery, making a great show of austerity. There is another trick in the political trade — if ministers have to throw parties ask their PSUs to foot the bill, and if PSUs are afraid of the CAG coming down on them, ask them to pass on the bill to their regular contractors. It is one more reason why ministers are reluctant to promote disinvestment in PSUs attached to their ministry.
Let us bring some sanity into this public discourse over austerity. People occupying positions of authority, including ministers and legislators, need basic infrastructure for proper functioning. They have hordes of visitors to handle, for which they need adequate staff. Legislators, if they are serious about their business, need assistance to get inputs for participation in discussions and debates in the House. When they travel, if they travel economy, they will have no peace of mind from countless co-passengers who would want to waylay them.
These are the realities of democracy. You can’t wish them off. Instead of the all-round projection that legislators and ministers live in luxury, it is better the people recognise the parameters within which legislators and ministers must function, and those benchmark facilities should be publicly funded. It would be far better if those in authority, including legislators, are held to account for what they have done or failed to do rather than be harassed to live like hermits.
Gandhiji for instance used to live in Harijan bastis in the early stages of his political career when he was in Delhi. But he realised that this inconvenienced the large audience who came to meet him; perforce he had to shift to the sprawling Birla House.
In the wake of the Janata victory in 1977 Sanjiva Reddy, who became the president, declared in his first broadcast that he would like to live in a smaller place rather than the 360-room Rashtrapati Bhavan. A lot of money was spent on locating this ‘smaller place’, but the officers who had to run the president’s secretariat finally found that either the place was not suitable or the cost of renovation was astronomical. Finally Reddy had to concede publicly that his plan to move to a smaller house was unworkable.
As President A P J Abdul Kalam lived in Rashtrapati Bhavan within the same framework of frugal living that he had practised when he was director-general of Defence research — namely a two-room house but he did not make a fetish of this simplicity. Are we to take it that the shine has worn off UPA-II so early in its life that it has to resort to gimmicks to gain public attention?
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