By Rakshat Puri PRIME MINISTER Vajpayee's Government is reported to have proposed to the Election Commission "that the Deputy Prime Minister, L.
Advani, be allowed to enjoy during the election period the same facilities as are permissible in the case of the Prime Minister".
Specifically, the Vajpayee Government is said to have proposed that Advani "be allowed to continue to use IAF aircraft without attracting any of the penalties under the model code of conduct".
The proposal is nothing less than shocking.
The taxpayer will be paying for Advani to move about the country campaigning for the BJP! Can this by any stretch of imagination be considered democratically free, fair and equal in an election to the country's Parliament? Vajpayee has a reputation for fairness and freedom of democratic opportunity.
A proposal of this kind coming from him is hardly going to enhance his reputation.
If anything, people would have expected from him the shedding of even Prime Ministerial privileges of the kind that he wants for the Deputy Prime Minister.
Such an action, in the interests of complete equality and fairness in election-campaigning, would have been in consonance with, and would have further enhanced, his reputation for democratic genuineness.
As things are, his curious proposal can only add to the farcical extension being given to the "feel-good" factor.
Some opposition voices have been heard countering with their "feel-better" factor.
And the whole lot of this is, not unsurprisingly, being ridiculed away by others, who aptly enough describe it as the "feel-shame factor".
The general cynicism may not be misplaced.
The talk everywhere is of good governance.
Big promises are forthcoming about improvement in the "system".
How can the "system" improve without prior improvement in people and politicians? _ without return to law-and-order from the gradually spreading lawlessness-and-disorder? Lawlessness-and-disorder which is becoming more and more acceptable as part of life and living in this country? There are, on top, the national-level crimes and scams.
The most recent has been the multi-crore Telgi stamp-paper scam.
Forty-six-year old Abdul Karim Telgi is the known central figure in the scam.
The considered view of many is that he is not the real "kingpin".
But no one seems able to point a finger at who the real "kingpin" might be.
A number of prominent names have been reported of those possibly involved.
The names mentioned include former Maharashtra Chief Ministers Narayan Rane and Vilas Rao Deshmukh, Maharashtra's former Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal and his nephew Sameer Bhujbal, TDP MLA Krishna Yadav, politician Roshan Baig of Karnataka, former Mumbai Commissioner of Police R.
Sharma, and a number of other police officers and political leaders, all reportedly examined by the special investigative team led by former director-general of police, S.
This and some other scams are on the national level.
There are in addition State-level scams and violations of law and justice, involving officials and ruling politicians - such as, outstandingly, in Gujarat.
Some other States too are in the running, not to be left behind: Bihar, UP, Madhya Pradesh etc.
But just now Gujarat is on top.
Among the cases that come to mind immediately is that of the gang-rape of five-month pregnant Bilkis Yakub Rasool and of all the women in her family, who were then murdered along with the men.
It is said in some newspaper reports that the Gujarat police hastened to cover up the episode, and that a head constable, Nalpat Singh, ordered that the mass grave where the bodies were dumped be covered with salt to hasten their decomposition.
The reports also speak of "probable involvement" of the then State Civil Supplies Minister and, possibly, of others.
When it was suggested that the cases in the Gujarat carnage be moved out of the State, because of the absence of reliable witnesses, Chief Minister Narendra Modi was reluctant.
But the Supreme Court ordered the CBI to look into the case of Bilkis Yakub Rasool.
The CBI is reported to be already on the way to concluding that the Gujarat police, some political leaders and others deliberately sought to distort evidence.
There is, according to newspaper commentaries, clear possibility of the complicity of State government personnel and apparatus in also the intimidation of witnesses.
A great deal more is expected to emerge as the CBI investigation proceeds.
There remains, too, the Best Bakery case in which the Gujarat Court had acquitted all the 21 accused.
The Supreme Court will now hear the appeal in that case by Zahira Sheikh.
In Bihar there is the investigation going on into the murder of an honest worker, Satyendra Dubey, who was murdered in Gaya after he "blew the whistle" on high corruption among contractors and others, including high government officials.
The CBI is reported to be somewhat "confused" about the whole matter.
The newspapers have reported about things such as the disappearance of at least one witness, called Pradeep Kumar, and the death, through suicide or murder, of some others.
The investigation does not consequently appear to be proceeding as it might have.
This kind of thing is not strange.
It is also happening some other States.
Think too, incidentally, of the sting operation by a TV journalist who, according to one newspaper report, "spent Rs.
40,000 for getting bailable warrants issued by a judicial magistrate in Gujarat against President Abdul Kalam, CJI Justice V.
Khare,, SC judge Justice B.
Singh and former SC Bar Association president R.
The Supreme Court, says the report, was "baffled when a public interest petition based on [the] journalist's expose - that such orders can be bought in courts of law even without a formal complaint - was moved before it".
On the level of people generally, there are the results of the cultural coercion by the leaders of the VHP and other similar groups.
Some time ago, the paintings on exhibition in Surat of some well-known artists including M.
Ara were destroyed by a "Hindu" fundamentalist mob which took it upon its ignorant self to oppose and take action against such "blasphemers".
In Pune, meanwhile, a mob of similar illiterates calling itself Sambhaji Brigade, raided the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute last month, and destroyed a large number of documents of great historical value.
Reason? A foreign author had written about Shivaji in a way that someone in the Sangh Parivar leadership did not like.
There is hardly need to repeat that the "Hindu" mobsters would not have had any insight into art or what had been written about Shivaji - nor of what Hinduism in truth signifies.
Among the sons and scions of the rich and influential, from among whom some are said to expect a revolutionary turn around from the "feel-shame factor", consider at random a few well-known ones from Delhi.
There are probably many more in Mumbai, Kolkata, and other large and small towns and cities.
There is for example Manu Sharma helped by friends who are being tried in the Jessica Lal murder case.
She was shot because she did not serve them drinks at socialite Bina Ramani's party, since it was after-hours.
Or think of the accused who was reported to have run over six people while driving a BMW on Lodhi Road in Delhi.
Or think, again, of the son of a former Congress Rajya Sabha member.
He is said to be facing charges of violating the Foreign Exchange Regulations Act.
These and other similar cases have been going on for years.
No one can say how long they will go on.
And these are the known cases of such crime.
How many are there which are not known? There is little sign in the country's youth generally of revolt against crime and corruption.
Mass student protests seem to take place mostly for things such as the right to cheat in examinations.
Educated youth seems enamoured mostly of film stars, fashion and entertainment.
Uneducated youth either tends to move towards smalltime crime or is fodder for mob activity by misleading, crafty, self-interested political leaders.
And what about the police itself, which is expected to keep order, and be "with you and for you always"? In Delhi alone, some figures published in newspapers last October showed that up to March 2003 some 63 policemen were facing disciplinary charges; 205 were put under surveillance; eight police stations had been black-listed; there was no count of public complaints about torture and harassment.
The pity is that even those policemen who do their duty sincerely and honestly suffer because of the "bad name" that comes to the force on account of the "bad eggs".
Against this kind of background, how can anyone _ Vajpayee, Advani, and some other party leaders - speak of things such as a "feel-good factor" and a "feel-better factor", granting election-time exaggerations et al? And now, on top of it all, Vajpayee wants the public to pay for Advani's election campaign - which is what his proposal for the DPM to the Election Commission adds up to.
Will this, can this kind of thing ever, curb the spreading "feel-shame factor"?[Asia Features]