Judicious

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in India is suffering from a resounding crisis of credibility. Having been re-elected in 2009, with the Congress, the main partner, winning an unexpectedly high 206 seats in the general elections to the Lok Sabha, in the two years since it has squandered the goodwill that propelled it to power. Massive corruption scandals have diminished the UPA. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, long regarded as a man of high probity, is now perceived as a leader who averted his eyes while his ministerial colleagues – both from the Congress and its coalition partners, particularly the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) – engaged in widespread loot.

Amidst the plummeting credibility of the UPA and politicians in general, there is one wing of government that has stood relatively tall, the Supreme Court of India. Over the past several months, since the details of the Commonwealth Games (CWG) scam first began to come out, the court has relentlessly kept up the pressure on the government on the twin issues of corruption and 'black money'. This has prevented the government from using the time-tested tactics of stalling and putting the brakes on investigating agencies. As a result of the court's efforts, we currently have the unprecedented situation of three stalwarts all being housed in Delhi's Tihar jail: A Raja, the Union telecom minister from the DMK, and Kanimozhi, both arrested for alleged involvement in the 2G scam; and Suresh Kalmadi, senior Congress member and chief of the CWG organising committee.