If auto drivers who over-charge are cheats, so is Kiran Bedi

At the peak of the anti-corruption campaign of Anna Hazare, the support came from unusual quarters. The more interesting among the groups supporting the movement were a section of the builders in Mumbai, who even justified taking black money from home buyers, and Surat diamond merchants, many of whom, the Income Tax department believes, fudge their books routinely to avoid taxes. Also, there were CEOs of companies with dubious records taking part in candle-light marches against graft. Obviously, none of such participants seriously believed they were corrupt; corruption is something others indulged in. Now, there’s the curious case of Kiran Bedi. Bedi, one of the most aggressive members of Team Anna, is believed to have inflated her travel expenses while charging the institutions and NGOs inviting her for seminars. As a gallantry award winner, she is entitled to a 75 percent discount on her tickets. She availed the rebate but charged her hosts the full ticket price on at least 12 occasions, according to a report in The Indian Express. [caption id=“attachment_112392” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Anna Hazare looks on as supporter Kiran Bedi waves the Indian national flag at Ram Lila Grounds. AFP”]  [/caption] The newspaper, which claims to have the records of bills, invoices and copies of the cheques, reports that she at times charged her hosts business class fare while actually traveling economy class. The amount charged by Bedi was in some cases three times the actual expenditure made by her. The chartered accountant for India Vision Foundation, Bedi’s organisation, Suresh Vyas, justified the mismatch saying it was actually a saving done by them. The extra money came in handy for travels for causes for which Bedi got no remuneration, according the Express report. Of course, Bedi won’t accept it to be a case of cheating and from a wider angle, of corruption. The autorickshaw drivers in Mumbai tinker with the meters to overcharge customers but never concede that it is a dishonest act. The builders will never accept that taking money in ‘black’ from house buyers is corruption, neither will businessmen cooking the books to dodge taxes. So, what constitutes corruption? If we go by the cases of Bedi and others, no act of dishonesty amounts to corruption if there’s a justification tagged along. By that standard every politician and every bureaucrat presumed to be corrupt is actually not so. A Raja, the alleged kingpin of the 2G spectrum scandal, could defend himself by saying he was generating finances for his party since elections are an expensive affair and the country does not have a system to fund elections. A clerk at the lower level could claim he charges money from people to move files because he is so ill-paid. None of it makes sense. We cannot afford to be so elastic in our definition of corruption. The whole fight against graft cannot be reduced to a `your corruption is bigger than my corruption issue’. It’s not clear yet what defence Bedi would put up in her case, but the documents nail her fairly well. It is likely to put question marks on her moral grandstanding on the issue of corruption. Team Anna is out all guns blazing against the Congress at the moment. The pre-condition in any such move is that it should be absolutely clean on all fronts. After the embarrassing disclosure on Bedi, it would find itself open to uncomfortable questions. Caesar’s wife, as they say, should be above suspicion.