We should thank our stars that 964 candidates with a criminal background lost the recent general election. But the number of similarly tainted -- only it isn't regarded as a taint any longer -- MPs has gone up from 128 to 150. I am told that some of the "crimes" are of a technical nature but 72 new MPs, against 55 in the 14th Lok Sabha, boast serious criminal records. That is why I wish India had someone like my old friend, Andrew Roth, an American journalist who did a stint on the Hindu and settled down in London. His definitive Parliamentary Profiles, a modest publication of cyclostyled pages, set the cat among Britain's parliamentary pigeons in the sixties with details of earnings MPs did not divulge, like a prominent trade unionist's East European payments.
I don't know if Andrew is still living he must be 90 if he is but his work was special because he didn't take sides. Unlike many Indian investigative journalists, he didn't have an axe to grind. But media exposure is only the start. If the Daily Telegraph's revelations about British MPs are effective, it will be because Britain's law enforcement machinery is still impartial and speedy and politics is still transparent.
Those in turn reflect public demands and expectations. Ultimately, it's up to us to ensure that instead of sinking into sleaze, the new Lok Sabha emerges as the watchdog of good governance.
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