EDITORIALS

may 16, 2015 vol l no 20 EPW Economic & Political Weekly8

A Tale of Greed and Cynicism

Investigation into Madhya Pradeshs Vyapam scam must be completed quickly.

Jobs-for-sale scams and bribes for admissions to educational institutions are too commonplace in India to elicit little more than perfunctory media attention. However, the Vyapam (Madhya Pradesh Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal) scam involving the states board for professional examinations and recruitment to government jobs boggles even a scam-hardened imagination. A number of witnesses and accused have died in mysterious circumstances and allegations have been levelled at the highest in the state, including the Chief Minister and the Governor of the state.

The scam involved posts of contractual teachers and police constables, among many others, and the premedical test (PMT) that determines admissions to medical colleges. Many of those who paid bribes to secure these jobs or admissions had taken loans or mortgaged property. It does not need any investigation to work out how those who have paid such bribes would conduct themselves in their careers and treat the public.

This has ruined the educational prospects and careers of thousands of innocent young people and undermined the already eroded faith of the citizens in public institutions and government. First exposed in 2013, the investigations into this many-layered scam have been meandering. Now, the Supreme Court has given the State Task Force (STF) four months from the end of March this year to complete it. The Madhya Pradesh (MP) High Court-appointed special investigation team (SIT) is monitoring the inquiry.

In the little over two years since the racket was exposed by a doctor, Anand Rai, little has transpired to restore public faith. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is often held up as an honest and effi cient administrator, not just by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but also in much of the mainstream media. An impartial and quick inquiry would not only have added to this well-publicised image, it would have brought to book those who messed with such an important area. The many delays and impediments to investigate and fi nd out who has been responsible for this have only strengthened suspicions that the highest political authorities of the state have something to hide.

Those who operated this complexly structured scam banked on the desperation for secure government jobs and well-paying professions. It is cynicism and public disservice at its worst. The Vyapam scam is a model (if any more are needed in this country) of how greed and corruption coupled with bureaucratic overreach and political patronage can make a mockery of institutions and systems that are supposed to provide a level playing fi eld to young aspirants. It involved

well-planned manipulation at every level: forgery of certifi -cates, impersonation of candidates, tampering of marksheets, indulging corrupt private players and vested interests in higher education, diluting standards for recruitmentthe list is endless. Surely, this would have involved people at many lay-ers of the bureaucracy and political patronage of a very high order for its successful working. Yet, the STF has only arrested middlemen and impersonators from other states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Delhi.

No less shocking and intriguing is the sequence of events as it has occurred since end2014 until now. On 28 April, a pharmacist Vijay Singh, described as a key accused, was found dead in a BJP MLAs (member of legislative assembly) lodge in Chhattisgarh. Another whistle-blower Prashant Pandey, who approached the Delhi High Court for protection recently, claimed that at least seven accused and witnesses in the scam have died until now (Vijay Singh is the eighth). On 25 March, the son of the Madhya Pradesh Governor, Shailesh Yadav was found dead in a Lucknow bungalow. He too was an accused in the scam. In fact, Governor Ram Naresh Yadav was himself an accused in the scam and had to approach the MP High Court to get his name struck off the fi rst information report. Earlier this year, Pandey had provided evidence, which Congress leaders had publicised, linking Chief Minister Chouhan to the scam, only to have it declared a forged document by the SIT. To make the whole issue even murkier, the Congress claimed that Chouhans name had been replaced with that of his BJP rival Uma Bharti and ex-minister Laxmikant Sharma. Sharma had resigned from the party after he was remanded to police custody in 2014.

The media, as is its wont, has been content to focus on the political one-upmanship between the Congress and the BJP. The former is desperate to regain lost ground in the state and the latter to shake off any taint from the scam. Little attention has been paid to delving into how such a scam could run so effi ciently without the higher-ups in the state being aware of it or even to the effect it would have on public services. There have been reports of the young men and women who paid the bribes being interrogated harshly. Are these young people the accused or victims of a system that is manipulated so cynically and fearlessly? The investigation must pin down the real masterminds behind the Vyapam scam and punish them. Public faith has been chipped away by too many inquiries that take decades and wind up in acquittals due to lack of evi-dence and inordinate delays.