You do realize that if India were covered in Anglo-Saxon-stan like Russia is, this story would be on the front page, fervid editorials would be being written about how Singh had created a "climate of crime" and was therefore personally responsible, and pundits would be talking about whether it was time to "confront India."
I suspect that if a few Indian oligarchs, or the equivalent thereof, were to be expelled, you probably actually would start seeing coverage like that.
--- Sujeet Bhatt <sujeet.bhatt at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-12-07-voa11.cfm
>
> Voice of America
>
> Term Crooked Politician Takes on New Meaning in
> India
> By Anjana Pasricha
> New Delhi
> 07 December 2006
>
> An Indian government minister has been jailed for
> life for murdering
> an aide 12 years ago. As Anjana Pasricha reports
> from New Delhi,
> almost a fourth of the members of India's parliament
> face charges for
> crimes ranging up to rape and murder.
>
> Shibu Soren was federal minister for coal until last
> week, when a
> judge convicted him and four accomplices of
> murdering Soren's
> secretary in 1994. Federal investigators said the
> aide was killed
> because he knew Soren had accepted a bribe in 1993
> in return for his
> vote on a key parliamentary motion.
>
> It was the first time a powerful minister has been
> convicted in a
> country where crime and politics are no strangers.
> An independent
> study shows that nearly a quarter of the elected
> members of parliament
> face criminal charges, ranging from minor offenses
> such as destruction
> of property, up to and including rape, kidnapping,
> murder and
> extortion.
>
> Independent political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan says
> the nexus between
> crime and politics is broad.
>
> "Many people would argue that in the late '60's and
> '70's, money began
> to play a much larger role in political
> mobilization, and somewhere
> around that time, this trend expanded," Rangarajan
> said. "There are
> people who have fairly clear underworld connections,
> particularly in
> terms of fund-raising, or control of muscle power."
>
> Shibu Soren was a leader of the Jharkhand Mukti
> Morcha, a regional
> party that supports the current Congress-led
> government.
>
> Most members of parliament facing serious criminal
> charges belong such
> smaller, regionally based parties, and most of those
> come from the
> underdeveloped states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and
> Jharkhand.
>
> Soren is the first of these lawmakers to be found
> guilty in a court of
> law. His conviction is an exception in a country
> where critics say
> politicians and the well-connected escape justice
> for two reasons: the
> hold of the political elite over investigative
> agencies, and a
> painfully slow justice system.
>
> Now that appears to be changing, fueled in part by
> an angry public
> that says the powerful must no longer remain beyond
> the reach of the
> law.
>
> The cry for justice began reverberating earlier this
> year, when the
> news media focused on two high-profile murder cases
> in which the sons
> of powerful men were acquitted.
>
> The media attention touched a nerve among the
> public, and led to mass
> demonstrations, candlelight vigils and petitions for
> new trials.
>
> In the more prominent case, a model was shot dead in
> 1999 in a bar
> full of celebrities. The accused: the son of a
> senior Congress Party
> politician.
>
> He was acquitted earlier this year after what has
> been called a shoddy
> police investigation, and after witnesses refused to
> cooperate. A high
> court has now reheard the case, but is yet to
> deliver its judgment.
>
> In the second case, Santosh Kumar Singh, the son of
> a senior police
> officer, was accused of killing a law student in
> 1996. He was
> acquitted three years later for lack of evidence,
> but in October,
> after the case was reopened, he was found guilty and
> sentenced to
> hang.
>
> Some citizens are hoping the convictions of Soren
> and Singh mean the
> law will now be applied to everyone equally.
>
> "A message needs to be sent out to the people that
> the law is above
> positions and titles," they say.
>
> However, others are not confident. The
> Bangalore-based Public Affairs
> Center, which conducted the study on criminality and
> members of
> parliament, says political parties have shown little
> interest in
> weeding out those with criminal pasts.
>
> Samuel Paul, who heads the center, says that may be
> in part because
> the coalition government is dependent for its
> survival on the smaller
> parties.
>
> "Because of the competitive nature of the political
> game, I don't
> think anyone has the courage to do anything about
> it," he said. "For
> example our study, copies have been sent to all the
> MP's, (members of
> parliament) political parties - I don't think we
> even got a single
> letter back acknowledging it. I think there is a
> kind of silence about
> all this, and every party hoping they won't be
> caught."
>
> He may have reason for concern. Political parties
> admit that many
> legislators have criminal links. But like Tom
> Vadakan, a spokesman for
> the Congress Party, politicians remain vague about
> how they intend to
> tackle the problem.
>
> "This so-called nexus that has been in existence,
> one can't deny
> that," Vadakan said. " Wherever there is human
> nature, there is this
> tendency to try to circumvent certain things
. That
> is true, it is a
> trait which exists everywhere."
>
> The news media, however, have welcomed the judgment
> against Soren,
> saying it has put the political class and the
> well-connected on notice
> that they need to clean up their act.
>
> --
> My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the
> same poverty.
> - Jorge Louis Borges
>
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