Reform needed to combat unaccounted money in Indian politics

Not without its traces of amusement, a certain neta sort of a Catch-22 situation, the recovery of over a crore in cash from a burglar in Bihar, after a BJP MP reported the theft of "Rs 50,000 and some jewellery" from his home in Patna, again highlights the issues of unaccounted money in Indian politics and the reform needed to combat it.

Reports say after the police caught the thief, it emerged the crime was committed with the help of the MP's guards and domestic help. The burglar says he got the loot — the cash, plus $600, gold ornaments, silver coins and luxury watches — from the MP's house.

So, either the MP is lying, or the burglar is — in which case he's rather lucky or with a great intel network, and someone else is in a soup. But the average Indian citizen might find it more plausible that a neta hoards raw cash and valuables.

Then, revisit the Election Commission (EC), during the recent elections, announcing it had seized Rs 300 crore, over a lakh litres of alcohol and thousands of kilograms of narcotics across states meant for buying votes, add the fact that this was only what the EC was able to seize, and the burglary in Patna seems a small part of the picture.

Politics needs money, lots of it. And our parties collect and spend vast sums in blatantly underhand ways, with figures put out by them as money garnered and spent being just a fraction of the actual amounts. This leads to patronage and extortion at the political level.

Which malaise, in turn, affects the administration and, thus, public life. Parties' funding and expenditure should be transparent, required to be declared and open to challenge by other parties and watchdogs, including the media. That, of course, means parties themselves must reform, or at least show political will. And that's just what is moot. The people must act, if the parties won't.