<div>A large number of Indian citizens must have tuned in their television and radio sets in the morn-ing Sunday last, just as this writer did, to listen to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Mann ki Baat’. Particularly after all the allegations in the media with regard to the Lalit Modi case over the past several days, it was expected that he would confide in us citizens and reveal a thing or two about his views about the matter.<br /><br />But, prominently there was much ‘baat’ about Yoga and its globalisation and nothing at all about the burning issue. It was surprising and disappoint-ing that the chief executive of this country chose not to address the concern especially when his powerful lady lieutenants’ names have embroiled in the issue.<br /><br />Lalit Modi, the former Indian Premier League commissioner, who is sitting in the United Kingdom apparently in complete control of the situation, seems to be releasing one document after the other. First came the shocking revelation that the Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj gave a verbal ‘clearance’ or ‘no objection’ to the UK authorities if they were to issue travel documents to the runaway who is accused of financial wrongdoings while he was conducting the mega cricket-cum-entertainment spectacle.<br /><br />All those explanations by Swaraj about ‘humanitarian’ help to a person whose wife was a cancer patient in a Portuguese hospital are a pathetic attempt at escaping guilt. After all, she is the foreign affairs minister of our country. It is unfortunate that our prime minister has nothing to say to us about this sordid saga. We thought he would open out his heart and ‘mann’ (mind) to us.<br /><br />Then came another bombshell – the ‘help’ given by Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje (then the leader of the opposition) by way of signing an affidavit – something akin to a ‘good conduct’ certificate – for Lalit Modi for use in the UK courts. It is being alleged that there was also a pecuniary angle to the entire affair.<br /><br />It is astonishing that the heavyweights in the BJP and important ministers in the Central and state governments are alleged to have come to aid Lalit Modi who is wanted for trail under the Indian law. Now, the BJP has changed its tack and has started questioning if Lalit Modi had done any wrong at all; after all, he may not be fugitive from law but just an asylum seeker from unjust hounding and harassment in his home country? To add to the above, Pankaja Munde, a minister in Maharashtra, got embroiled in a scam regarding food items supplied to small schoolchildren. The peanut-jaggery sweet was laced with mud.<br /><br />All these sagas are indeed bizarre. They are painful to the common citizen because they show how the treatment meted out to a wealthy and influential person could be totally different from that given to an aam aadmi. It is doubly painful because, Narendra Modi and the BJP came to power precisely on eliminating any such ‘bhrashtachar’ or moral discrepancy.<br /><br />People of this country have believed in Modi and voted him and his party to power with a large majority on his promise to offer a clean administration sans any kind of corruption. However, what we get today is the BJP party functionaries’ definition of corruption – being in power benefiting someone with monetary benefit to self.<br /><br />Flame of hope?<br />People have voted Narendra Modi and the BJP because they saw them as a flame of hope within the despair of back-to-back scams during the previous government. When hit with a scam – call it a reported scam - now, one thought that the BJP would ask the ministers concerned to relinquish their respective offices. Instead, we get an appalling rebuttal from Home Minister Rajnath Singh, that “This is not a UPA government; this is NDA.”<br /><br />The BJP and Narendra Modi may gain temporarily now; it could even mean doing well in Bihar and other elections. But, one may like to tell the prime minister that this tactic is going to be harmful to his party in the long run. <br />Narendra Modi has an unassailable goodwill and reputation for the goodness – honesty, integrity and decency - that he has promised. Let it not be sullied by this incident. Asking his desecrated ministers to go should not be seen as a sign of weakness or an act of gullibility on his part. In fact, asking them to resign would elevate his stature.<br /><br />The BJP and the RSS – the political party’s supposed source of principles – have always idealised and eulogised leaders like Sardar Patel and Lal Bahadur Shastri who have put the country’s interests far ahead of own personal interests. Shastry as the Minister for Railways had resigned when a major railway accident took place.<br /><br />He took the moral responsibility for the accident on himself. In that tradition of the espoused principles, shouldn’t the Ministers like Swaraj, Raje and Munde offer to resign on their own volition? If not, shouldn’t the prime minister solicit their resignations? People of Bharat expect such an exemplary conduct from their leaders.<br /><br />The party that has on its manifesto the building of Ram temple as an agenda, may well take a cue from Ram’s action when a washerman raised a doubt about Sita. Ram asked her to go to a sage’s ashrama. Narendra Modi may not be considered Ram; but those who voted him with such a majority have had high expectations.<br />(The writer is former Professor, IIM-Bangalore)</div>
<div>A large number of Indian citizens must have tuned in their television and radio sets in the morn-ing Sunday last, just as this writer did, to listen to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Mann ki Baat’. Particularly after all the allegations in the media with regard to the Lalit Modi case over the past several days, it was expected that he would confide in us citizens and reveal a thing or two about his views about the matter.<br /><br />But, prominently there was much ‘baat’ about Yoga and its globalisation and nothing at all about the burning issue. It was surprising and disappoint-ing that the chief executive of this country chose not to address the concern especially when his powerful lady lieutenants’ names have embroiled in the issue.<br /><br />Lalit Modi, the former Indian Premier League commissioner, who is sitting in the United Kingdom apparently in complete control of the situation, seems to be releasing one document after the other. First came the shocking revelation that the Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj gave a verbal ‘clearance’ or ‘no objection’ to the UK authorities if they were to issue travel documents to the runaway who is accused of financial wrongdoings while he was conducting the mega cricket-cum-entertainment spectacle.<br /><br />All those explanations by Swaraj about ‘humanitarian’ help to a person whose wife was a cancer patient in a Portuguese hospital are a pathetic attempt at escaping guilt. After all, she is the foreign affairs minister of our country. It is unfortunate that our prime minister has nothing to say to us about this sordid saga. We thought he would open out his heart and ‘mann’ (mind) to us.<br /><br />Then came another bombshell – the ‘help’ given by Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje (then the leader of the opposition) by way of signing an affidavit – something akin to a ‘good conduct’ certificate – for Lalit Modi for use in the UK courts. It is being alleged that there was also a pecuniary angle to the entire affair.<br /><br />It is astonishing that the heavyweights in the BJP and important ministers in the Central and state governments are alleged to have come to aid Lalit Modi who is wanted for trail under the Indian law. Now, the BJP has changed its tack and has started questioning if Lalit Modi had done any wrong at all; after all, he may not be fugitive from law but just an asylum seeker from unjust hounding and harassment in his home country? To add to the above, Pankaja Munde, a minister in Maharashtra, got embroiled in a scam regarding food items supplied to small schoolchildren. The peanut-jaggery sweet was laced with mud.<br /><br />All these sagas are indeed bizarre. They are painful to the common citizen because they show how the treatment meted out to a wealthy and influential person could be totally different from that given to an aam aadmi. It is doubly painful because, Narendra Modi and the BJP came to power precisely on eliminating any such ‘bhrashtachar’ or moral discrepancy.<br /><br />People of this country have believed in Modi and voted him and his party to power with a large majority on his promise to offer a clean administration sans any kind of corruption. However, what we get today is the BJP party functionaries’ definition of corruption – being in power benefiting someone with monetary benefit to self.<br /><br />Flame of hope?<br />People have voted Narendra Modi and the BJP because they saw them as a flame of hope within the despair of back-to-back scams during the previous government. When hit with a scam – call it a reported scam - now, one thought that the BJP would ask the ministers concerned to relinquish their respective offices. Instead, we get an appalling rebuttal from Home Minister Rajnath Singh, that “This is not a UPA government; this is NDA.”<br /><br />The BJP and Narendra Modi may gain temporarily now; it could even mean doing well in Bihar and other elections. But, one may like to tell the prime minister that this tactic is going to be harmful to his party in the long run. <br />Narendra Modi has an unassailable goodwill and reputation for the goodness – honesty, integrity and decency - that he has promised. Let it not be sullied by this incident. Asking his desecrated ministers to go should not be seen as a sign of weakness or an act of gullibility on his part. In fact, asking them to resign would elevate his stature.<br /><br />The BJP and the RSS – the political party’s supposed source of principles – have always idealised and eulogised leaders like Sardar Patel and Lal Bahadur Shastri who have put the country’s interests far ahead of own personal interests. Shastry as the Minister for Railways had resigned when a major railway accident took place.<br /><br />He took the moral responsibility for the accident on himself. In that tradition of the espoused principles, shouldn’t the Ministers like Swaraj, Raje and Munde offer to resign on their own volition? If not, shouldn’t the prime minister solicit their resignations? People of Bharat expect such an exemplary conduct from their leaders.<br /><br />The party that has on its manifesto the building of Ram temple as an agenda, may well take a cue from Ram’s action when a washerman raised a doubt about Sita. Ram asked her to go to a sage’s ashrama. Narendra Modi may not be considered Ram; but those who voted him with such a majority have had high expectations.<br />(The writer is former Professor, IIM-Bangalore)</div>
