21st Century cutting edge tool Whistle blower
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: April 28, 2011 -

The actual origin of the term, whistle blower, is not exactly clear to us, but surely it has got something to do with the whistle blown by the referee to indicate a foul in a football match or a whistle blown by the traffic cops to signal a vehicle to stop.

This very understanding implies that whistle blowers are those who spill the beans to expose the skeletons in the cupboard of the Govt or a private firm. If we go along this line, then it is safe to assume that the whistle blower is someone from the inside, someone who has access to sensitive information, which may be hidden in the closet of a company or information stored by a Government and which comes under the category of classified information.

Lack of transparency and an all powerful ruling elite, who are above accountability and responsibility are usually the factors for whistle blowers to surface now and then and in most cases, the highly kept secret information or data are of utmost interest to the people, as it invariably affects them.

Wikileaks is today a household name, especially among the urbane middle class families and Julian Assange is a man of many shades, a villain to some, such as the Governments of the United States and India and a friend to many others, such as the crusaders for more transparency in everything that the Government does or a multi-National company is engaged in.

The series of expose' run by The Hindu, after striking an arrangement with Wikileaks boss, Julian Assange, has been astounding and from the mundane such as the US Consulate giving a more positive report about the Trinamul Congress than the ruling Left Front in West Bengal to the more serious issues, such as the bank accounts of Indians in Swiss banks, totalling millions of dollars, are stuff that can unseat a Government or cause a flutter in the stock exchange.

That India still has a lot to learn when dealing with agencies which have a global reach or has the attention of the world can be summed up aptly in the manner in which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh questioned the reliability or validity of the claims made by Wikileaks.

To a certain extent this is understandable, given the fact that Manmohan Singh, despite his higher education at Oxford and Cambridge, is still an Indian and a politician to boot and his response to what Wikileaks had to say about certain things concerning India, exposes how hollow the political class can be at times here.

It was not the business of the Prime Minister to respond to what Wikileaks had to say, much less come out with such a dim witted statement, which exposed the agenda of the Prime Minister and that is to discredit an agency which has shaken other countries, with their exposure.

This is a typical reaction expected from an Indian politician, but this time, it may boomerang on them, for they are not dealing with like minded fellow Indian politicians, but a foreign agency, which stands to gain nothing by running stories on India, much less cook up some fantastical fables.

Perhaps we need an avatar of Julian Assange actively working in India from the inside and expose the rot that lies beneath the dhoti, Nehru cap and jacket sported by a good number of political leaders. Remember, the whistle blower is not out to seek fame, for in exposing the inside jobs, he is literally putting his neck on the scaffold. It cannot be likened to sneaking on one's colleague.

That it took a social activist like Anna Hazare to goad the Government and add more teeth to the Lok Pal Bill to check corruption says something very significant about the culture of officialdom in the country.

The arrest of Suresh Kalmadi and A Raja in the Commonwealth Games scam and in the 2G Spectrum scandal respectively, are just some pointers to the ugly reality here, but Assange or Wikileaks may just about drop the biggest bomb of all, if they come out with the names of all the high orofile Indians who have stashed away their loot in Swiss banks.

The money stashed away have come to earn the sobriquet Black Money. If and when the list comes out, will the Prime Minister or the political class imagine a foreign hand out to destabilise India or will it lead them to question the authenticity of the names and list brought out in the open by Wikileaks ?

Perhaps what is needed more than a Lok Pal Bill are some legislations which offer a sort of immunity to whistle blowers in the country. This may perhaps have more impact and prove more potent than any other Bill.

All said and done, Manipur is also in dire need of a Julian Assange, who can come out with the unadulterated truth and show the powerful and the influential with their pants down.

For example questions may well be asked about what the State Government has done to rein in erring Government employees and contractors, who fail to deliver the goods on time.

Forget about the black listing slogan we get to read in the newspapers, for it will remain just that or else we would have seen some positive improvement.

Has anyone been nailed for the joke that has come in the form of Khuga Dam ? Can we expect someone from inside to blow the whistle on the ongoing work at the Capitol Complex as well as at the premises of the Imphal High Court, for which construction works are supposed to be in full swing.

With the Right to Information riddled with legal terminologies and the not so easy procedure that is needed to invoke the RTI, this Act, despite all its positives, have not been able to effectively plug the loopholes.

Along with the RTI, it would really help, if a whistler blower or two emerge from within the set up of the State Government and start blowing their whistles for all to hear.

Then we may be able to say with a degree of certainty on who owes the building that was once known as Victory Cinema hall or assets bought in other States.