The issues raised by the CBI’s action against two Trinamool Congress (TMC) ministers and other leaders in West Bengal are not new. They were arrested on charges of corruption exposed by a sting operation before the 2016 assembly election in the state. On the basis of the records of the sting operation, called the Narada tapes, the Calcutta High Court had ordered an investigation in 2017. But political corruption usually does not get acted upon, few cases are investigated and fewer of them lead to a conviction. They are usually used for blackmail or harassment by governments with the help of investigating agencies. This is what has happened with the tapes in West Bengal too, with the CBI suddenly getting active against TMC politicians after the BJP lost to Mamata Banerjee’s party in the assembly election. The view that the central government has vindictively unleashed the investigating agency against TMC leaders is not far-fetched in the present circumstances. The CBI, too, did not follow proper procedure for the arrests.
The arrests may be defended on the ground that there are visual images of bribe-taking, and corruption should not go unpunished. While this is true, it is equally true that the CBI has been selective in its investigation and action. Two former leaders of the TMC, who are now with the BJP, also faced the same charges in the same case. One of them is the Accused No 1. But the CBI has not acted against them because they are with the BJP. The agency has always been a “caged parrot’’ working at the behest of the central government and the ruling party. But its partisanship has now become most brazen and unapologetic. Other offices and agencies of the Centre have also become much more blatantly partisan. West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar’s actions and statements before and after the elections are proof of this.
Every time the government acts wrongly and with partisanship through its agencies, it pushes the system further into disrepute and dysfunction and into a state of lawlessness. It also degrades the system by inviting unconventional or lawless responses to it, like the dharna by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at the CBI office or the protests by mobs in front of it. Such chains of actions and reactions will turn the country into a banana republic where there is no rule of law and respect for laws. When the government acts wrongly and illegally and the victims of wrong actions feel that they cannot survive without taking the law into their hands or violating it, the system is bound to unravel. The persistent actions against opposition leaders and their associates and governments of opposition parties vitiate politics and endanger federalism.