Bribe Holiday?
Is TVK giving Tamil Nadu a surprise vacation?
“I keep hearing lovely things about your new Chief Minister, Vijay,” said a friend from up north over phone last evening. “Is it true the entire cabinet is packed with absolute gems?”
This was unexpected. TVK appears to have developed a fan club north of the Vindhyas almost overnight. One does wonder how else to explain the sudden warmth radiating from sections of the North Indian media.
Traditionally, North Indian media, particularly the Hindi channels, have regarded Tamil Nadu politics the way one regards quantum physics after three hours of sleep: fascinating, mysterious, and best left unexplained. Many never get past the opening puzzle: How does a state with temples around every corner keep electing self-declared atheists? It has long been filed under “Things We Shall Think About Later.”
A senior bureaucrat I knew in Delhi had only one recurring question for me.
“Why do you people hate us so much?”
By “us,” he meant Hindi speakers.
I would patiently explain that Tamils don’t have a quarrel with Hindi speakers or even with Hindi language itself, in fact Chennai’s most colourful cuss words are all drawn from Hindi and Urdu. The disagreement begins only when someone decides Hindi should arrive uninvited and stay permanently. It’s a distinction that somehow gets lost in translation.
Given that Hindi television has never had much commercial incentive to charm an audience unlikely to become loyal viewers anyway, this newfound enthusiasm for TVK does feel... intriguing.
So I told my friend what seemed the safest answer.
“Like every government, this one probably has some excellent ministers, some average ones, and a few who are still figuring out which file is supposed to go where.”
After all, many of them are first-time MLAs and first-time ministers. Governance isn’t exactly something that comes with a tutorial, particularly for a state with over 70 million population. A district here is larger than many European countries put together and sometimes as complicated.
“But I’ve heard there’s no corruption,” he insisted.
“Well,” I replied, “they’re still learning governance. It would be unfair to expect them to have mastered corruption already.”
The system, unfortunately, is an enthusiastic teacher. When corruption has seeped into every crack of the machinery, it rarely leaves newcomers alone. Sooner or later, someone is bound to arrive with helpful advice on how things are usually done. A kind of house taming that is inevitable.
“Maybe,” I suggested, “we’re simply enjoying a bribe holiday.”
There was a thoughtful silence.
“You know,” he said at last, “that’s actually a brilliant concept. I am going to use that term”
I could almost hear the entrepreneur in him springing to life, already imagining a calendar.
National Bribe Holiday.
One day a year.
No envelopes.
No middlemen.
No ‘service charges.’
He seemed convinced that if his state declared one, decades of pending paperwork might finally get cleared in a single glorious afternoon. TVK is inadvertently giving such fantasies to far away potential voters. This is a rare achievement indeed and augers well for their national expansion ambitions.
p.s.: in an unconnected event meanwhile, a voluteer of TVK has set-up a website to report bribes anonymously from across the state. The website gives safe reporting of bribes across the state for various government services. Within a short period, it has generated nearly 1000 entries.
Unnecessary Disclaimer in a Democratic State, but all the same: These columns are meant to write political satire sometimes and not to feel outraged about, this is a way of pushing people to laugh, observe, reflect and act. Don’t sue me for anything, not worth it. Some of the images are generated by AI tools.
Hope they sustain and convert the holiday into the norm!
In TN i believe the dirty B is called 'fees'. The difference from other states is that things get done by paying fees. Hope the house taming gets done soon enough so that things get done.