The brouhaha over Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s garland of currency notes only confirms that in India morality is selective and sensibilities too fragile. This is not the first time that Mayawati has overtly displayed her affection for material wealth. She has been consistently doing this on many social occasions, including her own birth anniversaries. By accepting garlands of currencies, she has only re-affirmed her faith in her own brand of politics.

But is she alone in doing that? What about the mainstream political parties and their leaders who profess great faith in moral values in public and conduct themselves in quite an opposite manner in private? Not long ago (just before the 2009 general elections), there were unconfirmed reports that Rs 2 crore had been stolen from the BJP’s treasury. The matter was reportedly hushed up as it would have been embarrassing for the party which was campaigning against black money hoarded in foreign banks.

That black money has deeply influenced our political culture was evident in Karnataka elections when the Election Commission seized bagfuls of currency notes all over the state. What surprised the EC most was the fact that there was no claimant for the seized money which were recovered from candidates of all major parties. It was indeed the lure of big money that endeared the Reddy brothers to the late Andhra Congress strongman Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and BJP stalwarts Sushma Swaraj and Ananth Kumar alike.

The subversive role that black money could play in parliamentary democracy was evident when a group of MPs showed heaps of currency notes to prove that there was an attempt to buy their loyalty just before the no-confidence motion against the Manmohan Singh government in the previous Lok Sabha. The ugly display of currency notes was there for all to see. But the matter was again hushed up under the garb of parliamentary privileges. Similar allegations were made by the notorious share broker Harshad Mehta who claimed to have bailed out the PV Narasimha Rao government in 1994 by offering money to JMM MPs in what came to be known as the “JMM bribery case”.

These are just a few instances to prove that the degeneration and depravity have taken deep root in Indian public life. Those crying blue murder over Mayawati’s garland of currency notes must introspect and see if their own public conduct is above board. Mayawati can at least be credited with bringing skeletons out of the cupboard. Her actions are nothing but a logical denouement of the perversity in present-day politics perpetuated by all consummate practitioners.