M D Nalapat
Until
General Zia-ul-Haq sought to align Pakistan culturally with Saudi
Arabia in the 1970s by changing the laws of the land in a way that
became closer to that country, Pakistan too had the same system of
British colonial law as India. In the satisfaction at the “European”
standard of such laws, what is forgotten is that the laws passed by the
British in their Indian colony were not the same as those that were
enacted for citizens of the UK. Instead the laws passed in India were
designed for colonial subjects, and hence gave disproportionate power to
the state authorities and very little rights to the citizen. Because of
the potential for generating bribes and patronage that such British-era
laws bring, political leaders in India have thus far refused to
liberalise the laws in a manner that ensures that citizens of India
cannot get persecuted by the state,the way they were under the British
Raj.
In India, an Income-tax officer has the power to take away property and even liberty on the basis of a subjective decision, as was the case when the British were masters of the subcontinent. Several of the actions of the Income-tax department have been kept outside the purview of the court system, so that the citizen needs to appeal only to other officials to get redress. Thanks to such vast powers, it is easy for the government of the day to intimidate people, especially those with High Net Worth. Of course,even relatively poor and honest taxpayers can get harassed by the Income-tax department, especially if the order to do so has come - orally of course - from powerful politicians and the officials who toady to them. In India, there are many former Chief Ministers (of Indian states) who are in politics. Almost all of them have become super-rich, but only those who fall foul of the present governmnent have been subjected to searches and seizure of wealth. The others remain protected by their connections. Recently,there were raids on the residence of the former Chief Minister of Jharkhand state,Madhu Koda, an individual who has no contacts with India’s influential media fraternity. According to the authorities,about $1 billion was recovered, in the form of foreign bank accounts. While the figure may look large,the reality is that Madhu Koda is a poor man when compared to the immense wealth acquired by some other former Chief Ministers,several of whom are in office under the very dispensation that arrested Koda (because he was a political inconvenience to the government). Had every former Chief Minister been raided and investigated, it would have been a matter for congratulation. However, what the nation saw was a few being punished, while the many escaped.
