Action, not atmospherics will fix the rot

Deepak Parekh's remarks on the series of scams rocking the nation have echoed across many media establishments, underlining not only the importance of the events he is commenting on but also the importance of the commentator in this case. The wide publicity accorded to Parekh’s remarks in one interview to one television channel is a measure of the stature he commands in business and in society.

This stature is giving some currency to the talk that the current atmosphere is turning out to be a threat to the process of reforms, and that if only the government can be “ organised”, the situation can be saved and reforms will be rescued. Of course, for that, Parekh looks to the Prime Minister, following in the footsteps of many other commentators who see Dr. Manmohan Singh as untouched, unblemished, even unaffected.

It is true that the 2G scam, the attendant audio tapes of phone conversations, the wheeling and dealing that has surfaced, and the other cases of corruption have given reforms a bad name.

But it strains logic to extend this to argue that the problem facing the nation is a case of atmospherics - fix the lights or the sound system and the audience will begin liking the show. This argument does not recognise the plain fact that the show itself has become rotten. The cast long went out of control, the script has been rewritten by hirelings and the director does not even seem to know.

The stress on getting things organised, on stopping the tape leaks and on reining in people exposing each other conveys exactly the wrong impression at a sensitive time.

Parekh even found it odd that the media comments on the media, never mind the “ dressed up” stuff written in the guise of journalism. In short, Parekh appears not saddened or disappointed at the misdeeds but only at the presentation of these misdeeds. All this raises further doubts about the entire system that has been put in place under the process of reforms, and only helps create doubts about corporate India that crows so much about these reforms. After all, aren’t corporate bigwigs at the centre of these tapes, which many now want to bury in the name of privacy? There is, however, another path and it is one that not many in corporate India are espousing.

If reforms are to be the lasting legacy of this Prime Minister, then the government must put on display its firm resolve to check the corny capitalism that has taken hold even before reforms have taken root. This means tough steps, firm investigations, quick convictions and a government that puts such crony capitalism out of business.

The full force of the government must be brought to bear not to stop the leaks or “ organise” comments but on the culprits who have shamed India and brought reforms a bad name. India will keep its growth story and indeed build on it if the government acts with one mission - the tapes may play but the guilty must not.