With the arrest of former VHP dhrama pracharak and now suspended BJP lawmaker Babubhai Katara for his alleged direct and active involvement in human trafficking, recovery of 12 passports from his residence and over 25 passports from alleged kingpin Rajender Kumar Gampa, and surfacing of the names of five more MPs and five MLAs in this racket, the issue of criminalisation of politics has come once again to the fore with added gravity and charged political undulations. As the investigation into the case is proceeding, newer revelations might yet come to light.
It is however not that Katara is known for his moral integrity in his constituency despite running for tribal children ashramshalas or residential schools, where inquiry for financial irregularities is underway. The two-time Dahod BJP MP has also a couple of police cases registered against him, one for attempting to loot a shop and the other for threatening former Jhalod taluka panchayat’s Congress president Magabhai Damor. One wonders whether this is the story of a public representative or a dreaded criminal. But one thing is certain that this trafficking scandal coming to public notice has jolted the faith and confidence people are supposed to repose in their representatives as well as put not only the ‘party with a difference’ but BSP on defensive.
Though both ‘carrier agents’ like Katara and the persons willing to cross the border illegally should be treated offenders, more or less, in the eyes of law, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kamini Lau, while hearing the case, said: “She (Paramjeet Kaur, the woman who was about to fly with Katara on the diplomatic passport of his wife Sharda Ben) was not an offender rather a victim of circumstances,” pointing out the numerous cases of men leaving behind their wives in villages and towns of Punjab soon after marriage. This may be one of the factors why people particularly women want to migrate, and is a social problem which needs to be addressed separately. But this can in no way render an offender innocent. The integrity of character demands that one must not cross the Laxmanrekha or violate the law of the land howsoever compelling the circumstances.
But the involvement of lawmakers in such illegal acts is a matter of grave concern and in no case pardonable. Being elected representatives of the society, lawmakers are expected to be role models for the society. They must be above the common man so far as integrity is concerned. A panwala or for that matter a petty travel agent may fall prey to commit such an act without thinking of its consequences but a lawmaker mustn’t.
The billion dollar questions here are: what after all leads ‘respectable’ persons to take such extreme steps, and how to purge our legislatures of such tainted power-wielders?
A close analysis of the subject reveals that such crimes are committed only because our society has underwent lopsided development of materialism. People today stand in want of positive values like honesty, integrity and contentment; for, to run with the pace of time, they are hoarding wealth through any means, fair or foul, forgetting how to differentiate between right and wrong, legal and illegal, moral and immoral. They have also no sense of accountability.
Mere awarding punishment to the erring parliamentarians and other offenders will not do. The entire government machinery will have to devise a multi-pronged strategy to make Parliament and Assemblies clean. The Election Commission should further reform the code of conduct for the persons willing to contest elections, and implement it in letter and spirit. This is inevitable in order to ensure non-entry of persons of criminal credentials in politics.