Whatever the critics of Defence Minister A K Antony may say, I admire his tirade against corruption. However, I have a problem when he reverses sound decisions and punishes officials of otherwise impeccable integrity on mere accusations or suspicions that he or she may be corrupt. Take, for instance, the case of the just-retired Vice Chief of Air Staff D C Kumaria. Popularly known as ‘TINY’ Kumaria, he has been one of India’s outstanding fighter pilots and had a glorious service career. After his retirement on June 30, he was supposed to join the Mumbai-based Armed Forces Tribunal. But his new appointment has now been withheld and Antony has asked for a detailed Intelligence Bureau (IB) report on Kumaria’s ‘suspected’ links with arms-lobbyists. Why? Because, on June 7, just 23 days before his retirement, Kumaria had attended a farewell dinner in his honour, hosted by the editor of India Strategic, a security publication like ours. Antony, it is understood, took serious umbrage at the presence of some foreign defence vendors who were also invited by the magazine. Antony is of the view that Kumaria should not have attended the dinner as the ‘Service Rules’ clearly suggest that senior officials must avoid private parties sponsored by defence majors. Such reasoning is highly unfair. Its basic flaw is the assumption that the party was hosted by the foreign vendors. But that was not the case. It was hosted by a respected security publication, in which some of the invitees were foreign vendors. If one stretches Antony’s logic, then no minister or senior serving official can ever go to a club, golf course, thinktank, Track-II parleys on peace and confidence building measures and meetings sponsored by established trade bodies such as the FICCI and CII. After all, these meets are also attended by foreign organisations and their representatives. Secondly, in this particular case, how much and in what form (cash or kind) Kumaria could have procured by giving contracts to the arms merchants in a span of 23 days of his remaining service period? Service rules are relevant, no doubt. But was this private farewell party to a serving military official the first of its kind in the history of independent India? What impact will it have on the morale of our armed forces, particularly when institution after institution of the country is falling by the way side? Are our officers so fragile that they will be corrupted just because some foreign vendor meets and talks to them? Are foreign vendors pariahs? I think at a time when Antony is emphasising so much on ‘indigenisation’, evident from the Defence Procurement Procedure(DPP) 2013, it is all the more important that there are regular interactions between the MoD and the industry, and here the industry includes the Indian public/private sector as well as the foreign Original Equipment Manufacturers(OEMs). After all, both the private and public sector enterprises need foreign collaborations, or partnerships, for innovation and technology. At present, such interactions are infrequent, unstructured and fragmented. As Amit Cowshish, a former Financial Advisor (Acquisition) and Additional Secretary and Member Defence Procurement Board, Ministry of Defence, says, “Securing an appointment with the higher officials is a task in itself. The situation is slightly better when it comes to interaction between the Services Headquarters and the industry but this is of limited help as the decisions are generally taken by the ministry and not the SHQs. There is thus a need to create a forum for free and frank interaction between the MoD, SHQs and the industry to resolve the issues as they arise lest they become roadblocks in the endeavour for indigenisation. In fact, other departments, such as the Ministry of Finance, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), etc. must also participate in such interaction as the MoD, acting on its own, cannot resolve all the problems faced by the industry. This is necessary for infusing life into the policy initiatives taken by the MoD”. In fact, I find it strange why ‘lobbying’ is such a dirty word in this country, though both our government and business houses employ lobbyists abroad. Lobbying is a legitimate activity in established democracies such as the United States, Canada, Germany and France. On the contrary, by keeping lobbying illegal, we are making our decision-making process non-transparent, hence more prone to corruption. In a way, proscribing lobbying is even undemocratic. In a democracy that India is, we need people from across the spectrum to present their views to the decision-makers, particularly when the decision concerned is of general nature, affecting the lives of many. In fact, people do and will always influence the government. So it is better to make the process transparent by making the lobbyists to register themselves and disclose their activities and expenditure as is the case in the US. And once these activities are transparent, we will know who are the elected officials and the administrative bureaucrats the lobbyists have met. That way, we will be able to know better the rationale behind a particular policy-decision and be in a better position to evaluate it. A lobbyist is like a lawyer. We pay the lawyer who fights our case in the court. If the judge is convinced by the merits of his argument and decides the case in our favour, we do not call the judge corrupt. He is corrupt only when he takes bribes to deliver the verdict in our favour. Making lobbying legal and transparent will lessen the scope of corruption, not otherwise. The more laws or provisions that you have on restricting business activities, the better the scope is for unscrupulous decision-makers and executives to make money through corrupt means. It is no wonder why India, where every second activity seems to be restricted, is one of the most corrupt countries in the world! [email protected] Legalising lobbying Prakash Nanda RIGHTANGLE August 2013 (82) geopolitics.in
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 08:10:27 +0000
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