An alarming decline in our agencies
do those who enter Parliament by taking the Constitutional oath choose to forget this fact? Our armed forces feel the repercussions.
If you need further corroboration, look at India and China’s defence budgets. In the last decade, our powerful neighbour has raised its defence spending by 440%, even as India managed a growth of 147% despite a much smaller base number. This is the situation even when the parliamentary standing panel on defence, with members from both the government as well as the Opposition, has raised questions over the depleted state of equipment and pre- paredness of our armed forces.
Has corruption in the country stopped thanks to our ham-handed procurement policy? To the contrary, the Global Defence AntiCorruption Index brought out by Transparency International in July showed India’s defence procurement in a bad light. This is incredible. On the one hand, those in the government are hesitant to purchase critical defence equipment out of nervousness. On the other, they don’t take meaningful steps to check corruption. Not just this, our ruling classes haven’t left our investigative agencies capable of conducting an impartial probe. The feud within CBI has again brought these tensions to the surface.
The turmoil within the premier investigate agency has given rise to speculation that there isn’t any agency left in the country which can be trusted with an impartial probe. The alleged involvement of the RAW in CBI’S internal feud has further complicated matters. Before this, it was senior officials of the Enforcement Directorate who were involved in a feud. The case reached SC but the government was able to do some damage control. One should remember that the brightest stars of the bureaucracy have been running these institutions over the years. Their decline is frightening. How can a country, whose agencies meant to fight corruption are struggling with inner battles, duly aided by its intelligence agencies, and whose defence forces are feeling the pinch of inadequate ammunition, boast of being a superpower?
Shashi Shekhar is editorinchief Hindustan