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Nefarious nexus

THE old gag is that first the criminals helped politicians with money and muscle. Later, they felt that instead of using remote control, they had better enter politics themselves! Decriminalisation of politics is turning out to be a joke. What a Bench of the Supreme Court said of corruption the other day applies to criminals in politics as well: Everybody _ the Law Commission, the Election Commission and even the politicians _ talks about it but the problem, far from being solved, is escalating.

So much so, according to media reports, in Bihar, there is keen competition between the RJD leader, Mr. Laloo Prasad Yadav, and the Samata Party leader and Chief Minister, Mr. Nitish Kumar, to muster the maximum number of supporters from among criminals elected to the Assembly but lodged in jail for heinous crimes! Some time ago, a committee of impeccable credentials compiled and made public lists of candidates and members of State Assemblies with criminal backgrounds. Not a dog barked. It was assumed t o be a unique distinction of Indian democracy.

In this background, it required great gumption (or naivete?) on the part of the Union Home Secretary, Mr. Kamal Pande, while addressing a conference of senior police officials of States, to suggest that State governments set up high-level empowered commi ttees to look into the problem of criminal-politician-bureaucrat nexus and to devise measures to eliminate it.

Thus spake Pande to his captive, and no doubt incredulous, audience: ``The root of criminality would continue to flourish unless the patronage given to criminals by politicians, bureaucrats and the police is totally and visibly withdrawn...The anti-socia l and goonda elements harass the common man secure in the confidence that the police would turn a Nelson's eye to their misdeeds.'' The Home Secretary admitted the `Herculean' nature of the task of eradicating the deep-rooted evil, but still felt that th e Directors-General of Police should take it as a challenge. But how?

First, they should convince the respective State governments about the sacred and imperative necessity of letting them undertake the cleansing operation; that is, they must get the approval of those very parties to the iron-clad compact with criminals. D oes the Home Secretary seriously expect police officials _ who know better than he does on which side their bread is buttered _ to stick their necks out, knowing that the next hour they will be shoved into the doghouse? Will the Home Secretary be able to give them protection and fight it out with the State governments for that purpose? If he does that, will he last in his own job?

The second course suggested by Mr. Pande is more acceptable from the perspective of police officials, in that they can salve their conscience by engaging in what management parlance terms `activity without action'! He wants them to create a comprehensive data bank (with presumably its own non-performing assets!) on the nexus, which can be drawn upon by the police forces and investigating and enforcement agencies all over the country. What an ugly surprise that no such bank exists with the mammoth police paraphernalia in every State!

B. S. Raghavan

OFFHAND