भ्रष्टाचार की जाति..

सत्येन्द्र प्रताप सिंह

भ्रष्टाचार किसे कहा जाए? ये सवाल हमेशा चुभने वाला होता है. ऐसे में यह और भी सोचनीय हो जाता है, जब दलितों/पिछडों को कही और तेजी से भ्रष्टाचार के मामलों में निशाने पर ले लिया जाता है. शेखर गुप्ता ने बहुत अहम और साहसिक लेख लिखा है, जिसमे उन्होंने क्रीमी लेयर के कथित सवर्णों की जन्मजात मानसिकता को टटोलने की कोशिश की है.

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साथ ही एक मसला और खड़ा होता है. सांसद का चुनाव लड़ने के लिए एक से तीन करोड़ रुपये खर्च हो रहे हैं, ऐसे में खर्च कहाँ से आए? ज्यादातर एससी/एसटी/ओबीसी को चुनाव जीतने भर को पैसे नहीं होते, लेकिन समीकरण आरक्षण के चलते वो किसी तरह से जगह बना पाते हैं. तमाम राज्यों में वे राजनीति के शिखर पर भी पहुँचने में सफल हुए हैं.
इसी से जुड़ा एक मसला आरक्षण का है. बार बार इस पर सवाल उठते हैं. जो ख़बरें आती हैं, वो बेहद उटपटांग और पूर्वाग्रहों से ग्रसित और सर्वथा अविश्वसनीय. जैसे योग्य एस सी/एस टी प्रत्याशी नहीं मिल रहे. एससी/एसटी/ओबीसी के लोगों ने शून्य अंक पर संस्थान में प्रवेश ले लिए आदि-आदि.. जो हकीकत से परे होती है.
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एक और समस्या है. मान लीजिए कि कोई मंत्री किसी कारोबारी/व्यक्ति को लाभ पहुंचा देता है. दोनों में लेन-देन का अघोषित समझौता हो जाता है. वही मंत्री कारोबारी का कोई मुकदमा कोर्ट में लड़ता है और उसे बतौर फीस सौ करोड़ रुपये दे दे और वह फीस पर कर भी दे दें. मतलब वैधानिक तरीके से अस्सी करोड़ रुपये कमा लें तो इसका परीक्षण कैसे हो!! वहीँ जब कोई संघर्षशील सांसद चाहे वह एससी/एसटी/ओबीसी हो या सामान्य श्रेणी का, उसे उसके लिए मंत्री बनना ही कठिन है. बन भी गया तो पैसे कमाने का तरीका न जानने के चलते उसका फंसना लाजिमी है!!

हाल ही में सोशल नेटवर्किंग में एक ट्वीट खूब लोकप्रिय हुई. उस पर भी गौर करना जरूरी है. पहले मूल प्रति देखें, फिर इस पर बात करते हैं.

I think we should have job reservations in all the fields. I completely support the PM and all the politicians for promoting this. Let's start the reservation with our cricket team. We should have 10 percent reservation for Muslims. 30 percent for OBC, SC /ST like that. Cricket rules should be modified accordingly. The boundary circle should be reduced for an SC/ST player. The four hit by an OBC player should be considered as a six and a six hit by a OBC player should be counted as 8 runs. An OBC player scoring 60 runs should be declared as a century. We should influence ICC and make rules so that the pace bowlers like Shoaib Akhtar should not bowl fast balls to our OBC player. Bowlers should bowl maximum speed of 80 kilometer per hour to an OBC player. Any delivery above this speed should be made illegal.

Also we should have reservation in Olympics. In the 100 meters race, an OBC player should be given a gold medal if he runs 80 meters.

There can be reservation in Government jobs also. Let's recruit SC/ST and OBC pilots for aircrafts which are carrying the ministers and politicians (that can really help the country.. )

Ensure that only SC/ST and OBC doctors do the operations for the ministers and other politicians. (Another way of saving the country..)

Let's be creative and think of ways and means to guide INDIA forward...

Let's show the world that INDIA is a GREAT country. Let's be proud of being an INDIAN..

अगर यह बयान अजीम प्रेमजी का है तो निहायत बचकाना है. क्या इस सवाल के बदले कारोबारियों ये पूछा जा सकता है कि अगर आपको एक लाख पचहत्तर करोड़ रुपये का स्पेक्ट्रम तीस हजार करोड़ रुपये में नीति बनाकर दे दिया जाता है और कारोबारी उसे बेचकर पैसा कमा लेते हैं और बड़े बन जाते हैं तो इसमें कौन सा बौद्धिक कसरत वे करते हैं. ये स्पेक्ट्रम का मामला नहीं है. हर क्षेत्र में ऐसा होता है और मुनाफे का कोई प्रतिशत नहीं तय होता. फिर ये मान लिया जाए कि अगर एससी/एसटी/ओबीसी वर्ग के लोग प्रभावी होते हैं और वे किसी दूसरे को इसी तरह से सार्वजनिक संपत्ति सौंपकर बड़ा कारोबारी बना दें तो इसमें कारोबारी बन जाने वाले की क्या योग्यता होगी?? यह तो अघोषित आरक्षण है!!




बहरहाल शेखर गुप्ता का (मेरी ओर से प्रशंसित) लेख
National Interest: The caste of corruption

Shekhar Gupta

Is there a caste or communal link to corruption and crime? Or, are your chances of being involved (and getting caught) in corruption cases higher as you go down the caste ladder? Nobody in his right mind would say yes to either of these. But let’s examine some facts.

Why is there a preponderance of this underclass among those charged with corruption, or even targeted in media sting operations? Here is a roll call: A. Raja and Mayawati (Dalit), Madhu Koda and Shibu Soren (tribal), Lalu Prasad and Mulayam Singh Yadav (OBC), are all caught in corruption or disproportionate assets cases. Faggan Singh Kulaste, Ashok Argal and Mahavir Singh Bhagora, caught in the cash-for-votes sting, are all SC/ST; among the BSP MPs in the cash-for-queries sting, Narendra Kushwaha and Raja Ram Pal (who is now in the Congress) are OBC, and Lalchandra Kol a Dalit. Of course, there are also some illustrious upper-caste representatives in the net: Sukh Ram, Jayalalithaa, Suresh Kalmadi. But there are far fewer of them. Could it be that the upper crust tends to be “cleaner” as a rule, or could it be that the system is loaded against those in the lower half of the social pyramid? The Sachar Committee report on the condition of Muslims also tells us that the only place where our Muslims have numbers disproportionately high in comparison to their population is jails. So, face the question once again: do Muslims tend to be more criminal than Hindus, or is the system loaded against them?

For another example, look at the BJP. Two of its senior leaders were caught on camera accepting cash. One, Dilip Singh Judeo, caught taking Rs 9 lakh, was a mere MP, but of a high caste, and was happily rehabilitated in the party, fielded in the election, and is now back in Parliament. The other, Bangaru Laxman, caught taking just Rs 1 lakh, was ranked much higher in the party; he was, in fact, the president, but much lower on the caste pyramid, a Dalit. He has been banished and isolated and is fighting the charges in that Tehelka sting case by himself. I am sorry to use this expression, but the party treated him as an utter outcast even as it continued to defend Judeo. What is the difference between the two except caste?

You want to take this argument to the judiciary? It has been loosely insinuated by many prominent people, including by some notable members of Team Anna, that a large number of our former chief justices have been corrupt. But who is the only one targeted by name (however unsubstantiated the charges)? It is Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, currently chairman of the National Human Rights Commission and, more importantly, India’s first Dalit chief justice.
The upper caste, creamy layer of our society is the most prejudiced, and yet the most dominant minority in any democracy in the world. That is why even the person representing Mayawati on otherwise brilliant funny-man Cyrus Broacha’s show on CNN-IBN always has a blackened face (Dalits are supposed to be dark-skinned, no?).

An interesting new turn has meanwhile taken place in the discourse over the Lokpal bill. Whenever asked to comment on the UPA’s ploy of reservations, members of Team Anna simply say they are happy to leave that entirely to the government. Leave something entirely to the government? When was the last time you heard Team Anna say that?

They are doing so because the caste card, howsoever cynical, has thrown them entirely off-balance. They are now paying for having built such an unrepresentative upper-crust leadership, deluded perhaps by the belief that this battle was theirs to win on Twitter, Facebook and television channels where their interlocutors were trumpeters or fellow travellers. They forgot that the battle for power and ideas is fought in a democracy’s parliament and within its institutions. They started to believe their own mythology of being apolitical. They did not realise that politics, in a democracy as diverse as ours, needs two essential pre-requisites: ideology and inclusiveness. Abhorrence of corruption is a universal virtue but not an ideology.
It was probably because of that philosophical abhorrence of politics, and the give-and-take, the unending deal-making it involves, that Anna did not set up a truly diverse and representative “Team” to begin with. They had the wisdom and the sincerity, they thought, and Indians, cutting across barriers of caste and religion, would be smart enough to see it. Representative inclusiveness, they probably believed, was part of our cynical electoral politics though that did not stop them from having a Dalit and a Muslim girl help Anna break his fast, making it the first time that a child was described as “Dalit” on a public stage in a mass rally.

Leaders of Team Anna now rightly say that theirs indeed is a political movement. But even if they assert that it is above electoral politics, they have erred gravely in not learning from the political class and building a representative leadership. It could have come from both their abhorrence and ignorance of politics, from a lack of respect for the political class, and an inability to appreciate that you need politics to create a sense of fairness, balance and empowerment in such a diverse society. That is the difference between Anna on the one hand, and Gandhi and JP on the other. Both of the latter made inclusive politics the vehicle of their revolutions. Team Anna, instead, tried to circumvent politics, and now finds itself right in the thick of it.

courtesy: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/national-interest-the-caste-of-corruption/891508/1