Despite a shower or two, the season’s most sustained cracker has been Mahua Moitra. At no point since the cash-for-query scandal broke out has the Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP taken a step back or lowered her decibel levels. The scandal came to light in October. In another distant October, in 1975, right after the debilitating 15-round Thrilla in Manila, Muhammad Ali said of the beaten Joe Frazier that if he, Ali, ever fought a war, he would want Frazier by his side. Moitra is made of similar fighting stuff.
The essence of the charges against Moitra rests on the allegation that she received cash and gifts from a businessman, Darshan Hiranandani, to raise questions in parliament on his behalf. In the process, the BJP alleges, Moitra breached decorum and endangered national security by handing her official parliamentary login and password. Moitra says there is no proof of a cash trail, and so no ethical norm has been violated. As for the security breach, she says it is the practice of all MPs to share their passwords with their staff. And that, in any case, the OTP clearance must come from her. She believes all her questions, though placed at her disposal by Hiranandani, are of public interest.
The Ethics Committee did not much debate the issue. But then Moitra is not an easily debatable person. No matter what the topic, she would have her opponent on the defensive. Incidentally, if a male politician resorted to the kind of tactics Moitra resorts to—out of strategy, or out of temperament—he might have been seen as unreasonable and even uncouth. There is a gender bias here in full display. Perhaps she had an inkling of the outcome of the committee proceedings and wanted to come across to her voters as a gutsy victim. These days optics is all. Besides, there is great power invested in victimhood.
I have gone into the Moitra case in some detail not to examine its pros and cons, but to draw attention to a paradox at work in the larger Indian scheme of things.
On November 2, the Supreme Court asked the Union government if it would reveal the identity of corporations and clients contributing to the electoral funds of political parties. The SC said the electoral bond system was opaque and asked the government whether it would amend the Companies Act to cap the percentage of profit a company could keep aside for political funding. This would, the court observed, go a long way to bring about transparency and reduce quid pro quo. There has not been yet any response from the government on either score.
According to an Association for Democratic Reforms report, the total income of eight political parties was ₹3,289 crore in 2021-22. The BJP received ₹1,917 crore, the TMC ₹546 crore, the Congress ₹541 crore, and the CPM received ₹162 crore. In the case of the BJP, the percentage of ‘unknown’ sources was 61, for the TMC, 97, for the Congress, 72, and for the CPM, 48.
The Prudent Electoral Trust is the agency that dominated the charity show in 2021-2022. Of the ₹353 crore it donated, the BJP received ₹336.5 crore, and the Congress ₹16.50 crore. Winner Take Nothing, Hemingway said. He was wrong. The Prudent Electoral Fund is promoted and run by Bharti Enterprises, the owners of Airtel.
Contrast this with, say, Kanshi Ram’s politics (One Vote, One Note) at the inception of his political career. The funding model of Indian politics has clearly moved from voters to corporates. Indeed, if you listen to the campaign speeches of political leaders these days, they are competing with each other to ‘bribe’ voters by announcing direct cash transfers, and the amount goes up in proportion to the proximity of the election dates in poll-bound states.
The quid pro quo condition sums it all up pretty well. Without expecting a return, no company or individual pays hundreds of crores to political parties, especially the ones in power. There is no honey without money. Most of these donations do not even disclose proper bank transaction details.
One of the topics currently raging in philosophical and behavioural circles is free will. Admired scientist-thinker Dr Robert Sapolsky in his latest book, Determined, argues that there is absolutely no free will, only genetic predisposition and context. Put this way, both Moitra and the Ethics Committee were predisposed to make the choices they made. There could not have been another way, another universe for them.
Certainly, electoral bonds contribute to or even define the predetermination of outcomes in Indian politics. One can even argue that the vote that the generally impoverished Indian citizen casts is ‘determined’ much before he or she enters the booth.
Given the big money at play anyway, what do some lipsticks, a few scarves, or a couple of trips to Dubai amount to? These are the favours Moitra has been accused of having gotten from Hiranandani.
On her part, Moitra has shouted from the rooftops of most media houses that her detractors have not furnished any proof. Well, Hiranandani would not be such a fool that he notarised an affidavit and sent it, implicating himself, to the BJP functionaries against his former friend Moitra without proof of transaction for the favours done or gifts given.
My submission is that it really does not matter. It is just small beer even if proven true. Would a few scarves, lipsticks or a Dubai trip or two amount to anything at all, given that the lifeline of Indian politics is the thousands of crores pumped into the system by companies and billionaires?
Here’s what the BJP can do to its advantage. Issue a warning to Moitra and bring her back into the parliamentary fold. Hopefully, she may prove to be more amenable in her parliamentary interactions later on. Generosity would be an intervention that helps determine the outcome. It takes real work, tapping into the kinder genes.
C P Surendran
Poet, novelist, and screenplay writer. His latest novel is One Love and the Many Lives of Osip B