M K Gupta
Because of A Raja, former Telecom Minister, India is able to secure second position in the list of 10 all-time top abusers of power in the world.
The disgraced former telecom minister’s notoriety has spread so far and wide that the Time magazine has placed ‘India’s Telecom Scandal’ attributed to the jailed DMK leader at number two in the all-time Top 10 Abuses of Power.
Raja, licking his wounds in Tihar, ranks even ahead of Libyan despot Muammar Gaddafi, North Korean autocratic leader’s Kim Jong-il and the skirt-chasing Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi. He is bettered in the corruption stakes only by the infamous US President Richard Nixon, in the list of scandals that dates back to 1922.
Nixon had formed a secret unit – the “White House Plumbers” – to discredit his political opponents. This ultimately led to his downfall. The Watergate scandal was the handiwork of this unit.
India which till now prided itself on sending home-grown billionaires to the world’s richest people lists compiled by such magazines, will have to contend with a multi-billion dollar scam. Raja’s entry in the ignominious club has been ensured by the enormity of the scandal. According to Time, “He presided over the underpricing of bandwidth to mobile companies – apparently in return for bribes – which some estimate may have cost the Indian government around $7 billion.
“That figure makes it hands down the largest episode of graft in Indian history, and played a part in the withering defeats Raja’s party sustained in local elections in early May.”
Though Raja may still be unknown outside India, he is in the ‘august’ company of current and former heads of states/governments such as Libyan dictator Gaddafi, who opened his country’s coffers for his children, former Israel president Moshe Katsav, Berlusconi who features on the sixth spot for his sexual escapades and Kim Jong il. Former US Secretary of the interior Albert Fall comes in last.