I would like to concentrate on three major factors which torment our public life today – corruption, criminalization and communalism. I am going to treat corruption and criminalization in one single frame for the simple reason that to my mind they are the two sides of the same coin. Corruption and criminalization are so inter-twined and are so inter-dependent that it will be almost impossible for one to exist in the absence of other. Both are most widely prevalent in our society and that canker is corroding our political structure, making a mockery of our democracy and ruining all our moral precepts and principles.

We have reached a position where politics has become almost powerless to counteract either of them because corruption or criminalization has got our political leaders, our political parties and our political institutions in their twirling coil. We will have to seek a remedy for such political evil outside the arena of politics because politics today has become too sick to cure itself.

There is an English proverb that “Crime never pays”. Unfortunately, in India, today, crime pays and pays quite well; so much so that the most highly educated, the most powerful and the most prosperous sections of our society have become the “gangotris” or the starting point for both the evils.

A former Union Law Minister Mr. B. Shankaranand was echoing the general feeling when he described our judiciary as a sheltering umbrella for criminals. Several highly placed judges and most of the experienced lawyers have expressed similar views. They felt that to deal with the political evils of corruption and criminalization we will have to strengthen our judiciary, both, numerically and morally.

Our judiciary is numerically much more weak when compared with developed countries. I am told that in the western democracies there are 135 judges for every million of the population. In India the figure is a meagre 13. What will happen by strengthening the judiciary. A whole army of criminals and corrupt people would immediately be thrown out of politics if a numerically strong judiciary is able to discharge its function of awarding punishments to those who deserve it. Punishments need not be very severe, nor be very cruel because crime and corruption are eradicated, not by the severity of the punishment but by the swiftness with which it is dealt with.

Look at the way in which our Supreme Court dealt with the Government of Gujarat. One example of what a judge can do to clean politics of both crime and corruption. To argue that the judiciary is a toothless tiger is just not true. Our judiciary has both sufficient powers and sufficient opportunities. in our times. Of course the judiciary itself needs certain reforms and one reason which prevents judicial reforms is the immunity which the judiciary enjoys from public scrutiny and public criticism. This immunity has made our judiciary lethargic and inefficient. Secondly, lawyers, who are a part of the judicial process are expected to be the framework and supporters of the law. Every lawyer who delays the judicial process activities with trivialities or who knowingly defends a criminal by resorting to technicalities ought to be declared an accomplice and should be punished as such. This is a harsh measure but life saving surgery requires sharp tools and unless harsh decisions are taken and implemented, corruption and crimi-nalization cannot be stopped before it destroys the very fabric of our society.

When I begin with judiciary I am not exempting the political processes from major scrutiny. Our political processes, especially the democratic processes are smothered by numbers. Have you ever wondered about the huge hordes of political activists, the unhealthy numbers of so-called political aspirants in the name of public service and the massive upsurge of ticket seekers and ticket grabbers at every election from the Lok Sabha to the local panchayat? Such enthusiasm is not a measure of our democratization. It is an indication of a malignancy in our body politic. Why are so many people, who are not competent either intellectually or morally, eager to participate in the democratic process. There are two reasons for this. The first is the fact that in a society where opportunities for advancement are so scanty, politics provides an opportunity to climb from total obscurity and poverty to a visibility that is unheard of. This happens because politics opens a window to a world of perks and privileges. No other democracy offers so much to its legislators or to its ministers – free residential quarters, cars, laptops, free travel facilities. Our legislators can bestow or ‘sell’ many benefits like cooking gas connections, petrol pumps, residential quarters and commercial offices to their favourites, helpers and supporters. No other democracy provides their elected representatives free residential quarters certainly not USA nor England. The temptations offered by public life in our country are too much for ordinary mortals. The only way to cut down the rush of unscrupulous elements to embrace public life and open the space for better quality leaders, for intelligent and honest leadership is to drastically cut down on many perks to politicians. They themselves will never do it. But public pressure, vigilance against misuse, and more strict enforcement of the law, may, over a period, help.

Communalism is a very loathsome disease from which our society has been suffering for many centuries and not merely decades. Anyone who claims or hopes that he can eliminate communalism easily is living in a fool’s paradise. Let us accept the fact that communalism now, is probably less dangerous than it was in our pre-Independence days. It was communalism that led to Partition. In a plural society like ours, every individual and every group clings tenaciously to what it perceives is in the best interests of that group. Let us remember that in India, every community, and I do make no exception, suffers more or less from the disease of communal passion. Today every party, every political leader is competing to rouse this communal passion and to derive as much benefit as possible from this disease. What do we do about it? As far as communal passions are concerned I have nothing to offer as a solution.

(An abbreviated and edited version of a talk delivered on September 27, 2003 at St. Xaviers College, Mumbai).

Professor Nagindas Sanghavi is a well-known political commentator and columnist in the Gujarati press.