Politics, Business and Bureaucracy- A Fatal Triangle

The world today is caught in the web of politics, business and bureaucracy (PBB). This PBB is really a fatal triangle. Politicians rely on big business for funds to contest elections. On their part, businessmen turn to bureaucracy to condone their misdeeds by seeking loopholes in the existing law. Bureaucrats advice politicians and businessmen on matters which are ostensibly outside their domain. When all these three indispensable ingredients of society are in tandem, corruption sets in; it seeps into the vitals of a society or a nation. In that event, nothing can save it from disintegration and ultimate decay. 

This happened in ancient Rome and is increasingly evident in many parts of the world today. Governments have been toppled in Japan and Italy with alarming regularity in the recent past on charges of corruption. In India and the rest of the third world countries, however, it has become a way of life. And, what is worse, it has come to be accepted by the masses as the sole mode of running an administration. The recently-published Vohra Committee reports on the politician-criminal nexus and the efforts of crusaders like Kiranbedi and Khairnar to arouse the people to the fatal PBB triangle are mere ripples in stagnant waters. We have become so immune to the goings-on in the higher echelons of democracy that we cannot think beyond what exists today. The politician-business- bureaucracy triangle is fast eating into the vitals of the nation. People’s welfare is the least of their concern.  In a democracy like India, the PBB relationship is endless, no matter whatever official policy is adopted. Modern polity is ruled by this unholy trinity comprising politics, business and bureaucracy. Each of these is trying to assert its supremacy over the other two. At times, politicians call the shots, which is unusually after they have won an election with generous help from the uncounted wealth of big business who, in turn, are helped by the bureaucracy. It has become a chain reaction today and the conflict cannot be reasonably resolved to the advantage of one or another.

     The ideal situation, however, is when politics, business and bureaucracy work for the general good. But this is a lofty ideal, honoured more in breach than in promise. Politicians lay down the laws, bureaucrats implement them. But this is generally done for the benefit of business tycoons, who are the benefactors of the politicians and the bureaucrats. In reality, big business calls the shots in this unholy trinity. This is, indeed, a fatal triangle. This also explains why the rich are getting richer and the poor are increasingly poor with each passing day.   

Although politicians may swear by the law, the poor have hardly any access to bureaucracy or business or law courts. Poll time promises made to them always remain on paper because the politicians are too busy recompensing their business bosses for help during the elections. The bureaucrats, most of the time, are too happy carrying out the orders and wishes of the politicians because it is in their own long-term interest; they also feather their own nests at the expenses of the poor of the land. Corruption is, thus, institutionalized.

It is, therefore, rightly remarked that politics, business, and bureaucracy are a fatal triangle that may sound the death knell of our democracy unless people read the writing on the wall and act accordingly, to wipe out this evil.