From our childhood days in the early fifties we have been brought up with the news of scam. Most scams attracted the attention of people to politicians or bureaucrats in high position or pointed to a nexus between them and rich businessmen. As children we understood very little about what the scams were really about. As we grew up to realise that scams meant money flowing to politicians and bureaucrats through mechanisms that involved political and bureaucratic decisions in favour of particular businessman or business group. As we grew up further we came to learn about defence deal and government contract award related scams. The country moved very fast to state-controlled and dictated economy so that scams became so routine and mundane like loan melas by public sector banks, and leakages down the line in the food procurement, food distribution, license allocation, coal supply linkage allocation, wagon allotment for goods movement, etc. Then, people stopped using the term scam to such regular systems of corruption associated with government functioning. Late Prime minister had observed that out of any Rs 100 of government expenditure meant for the benefit of poor and weaker sections of the society, only Rs 15 reached the beneficiaries, the remaining were drained out by government appointed middlemen like employees and contractors entrusted with the responsibility of carrying the benefits to the intended beneficiaries. Nobody used the term SCAM to such systematic misappropriation of money.
The SCAMs do not become scam in India unless Crores of Rupees are involved as bribe money or siphoned off money with a big private sector company or private industrialist or a minister being involved. SCAMs have a cut-off floor to be included as SCAM for debates, discussions and political shadow fighting and then hiding the SCAM under the carpet through a dilatory process of CBI Investigation, Joint Parliamentary Committee Probe, etc. After a long time a few small fries are sacrificed as scapegoats at the public anger pacifying Alter.
No one admits that introduction of industrial licensing was a Scam, or recognise that creation of public sector was a Scam or not using competitive market mechanism for any government action is a scam. No one realizes that the larger the number of decisions that the Government or its employees are entitled to make on the basis of their discretion, the greater the scope and exploitation of Scam opportunities. No one finds that the details of many laws, and regulatory procedures are structured to allow breeding of scams. People are happy if a Scam involving hundreds of crores of rupees along with a large company or a minister are reported in the Press because this an opportunity of entertainment of political dramas around such a scam. People have no illusion that the country will ever get out of unearthed routine scams or big, scams. Often people know of the brewing Scams even before the Scams are recognised by the Press which awaits in most cases for leaks from auditors or inspecting committees and in a few cases on their own investigative journalism. No one is interested in nipping the scam in the bud: everyone is awaiting the Scam to complete its process so that the Scam can be reported with sensational details and the post-scam drama can be enjoyed. The people have become almost addicted to big scam news everyday. Naturally, such insatiable demand for scam entertainment creates its own supply. The year 2010 has been able to record continuous entertainment with a series of high profile scams: IPL bidding of teams, Common Wealth Games Capital Expenditure, Adarsh Building apartment allotment in Mumbai, Telecom 2-G spectrum licensing, Rajarhat land acquisition in West Bengal, Land allotment in Karnataka, Ratan Tata's revelation that Tatas did not enter aviation business because a minister demanded Rs15 Crore bribe money. Each case involves big money - not just a crore or two. Each case involved governments and ministers/ bureaucrat's/ politicians. Most cases have already seen some ministers resigning. Each case has led to political wrestling drama including in some cases stalling parliamentary work sessions. And, each case was known from the very beginning as one of a brewing high profile scam with great potential for public entertainment in due course as if these are great movies directed by start directors and involving star actors in the process of shooting and editing with the public awaiting the announcement of the date of their release. And, the sixty year long tradition of intellectual outbursts expressing their concern and anguish over such huge corruption and malpractices in the country in the newspaper/ magazine columns (and now TV debating episodes) continue as part of the National addiction to Scam-based entertainment. The public at large are all the more happy if a few persons are penalised in some way or other for being the scam heroes at some point of time but they need a scam stroy read everyday just as they would like to glance at the daily cartoon or daily weather forecast or the stock market price chart: it is indeed a pleasant addiction to scamentertainment.
This is the vision of democratic India that those who brought us Independence wanted us to inherit!
