80-20 Syndrome

Whether you are a student of management studies or a student of history or a statistician or a plain observant individual for that matter, you know about 80-20 syndrome or principle or rule. It is pervasive in all walks of life. The observation of Pratyush Sinha reinforces this well known phenomenon.

Pratyush Sinha who just demitted the office of CVC said: 20% of Indians are "honest, regardless of the temptations, because this is how they are". Regarding the rest 80%, 50% are on borderline to utterly corrupt and 30% are utterly corrupt. We need to applaud Pratyush for being one of those rare breed of Babus who could atleast speak out and express on retirement, his disgust on increasing acceptance of corruption by the society.

Let us not enter into a debate about the figure 80-20; it could well mean 99-1 depending on the definition of honesty. If you analyse by various sections of society, ratios would differ and politicians take the cake with 100%-0%.

The process of the appointment of Shina's successor tells us the unwritten story more vividly.

On the objections raised about P J Thomas' appointment as head of the anti-corruption watchdog, Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) of India, saying that he had faced probe on charges of corruption in the Kerala palm oil import scam and was thus not fit to oversee investigations into the 2G allocation scam, Chidambaram said the bureaucrat had been cleared of all charges.

It is worth noting that Thomas was not above suspicion but is "cleared of charges."

Chidambaram is understandably under pressure to bail out his strange political bedfellows from his native state Tamil Nadu, which is essential for the survival of the present government. By the way, who cleared Thomas? Are the people clearing someone of something above board? A mute question! A person who is part of a scam is the best fit as out of gratitude (and duty bound!?) he will not allow any probe into the 2-G scam of past or 3-G of present or 4-G of future. No bureaucrat has ever committed suicide thus far.

Dr. Manmohan Singh, our beloved PM, defended the government's decision. 'We have done the right thing. We have chosen the best candidate out of the list of three,' he had said. How can he say anything contrary to that?

Story boils down to this: India has only three people fairly fit to be considered as successor to Pratyush for the position of CVC. Out of these three, Thomas is fittest of all! If you combine Chidambaram’s statement, that Thomas is cleared of all charges, all others are either unfit or yet to clear the corruption charges they are involved or both.

It is time for us to congratulate Chidambaram for having found, after a long search, one Babu who cleared the charges!!!

Long since CBI has become Corrupt Bureau of India and ACB has become Authorised Corrupt Bureau. Sorry fellow countrymen, the office of CVC is now compromised.