Irony is so cruel. Nineteen years after the dismantling of the 'licence raj' what we find today is a worst version of the old lobby raj. The old liaison officers could tackle only those up to the under secretaries. They offered minor favours and a good Diwali gift. Some moved in the press club to look after the lowly special correspondents. Bigger among them had membership of elite clubs. Some ministers, in rare cases, were susceptible. Like the petroleum ones. But they were handled by the friendly MPs at political level. Even then we had occasional outburst over the 'big business' hold over government.

The most stunning corporate intervention in the pre-liberalisation era was in the ouster of V.P. Singh as prime minister. But that was just a mild push with only marginal impact. The irresistible congress MP Mulchand Daga had once alleged that two dozen MPs were in the pay role of the Birlas. Once R. Venkataraman, chairman of the Rajya Sabha, had quipped during the question hour: I am amused at the interest shown by so many honourable members when questions on petroleum come up. A big laughter said it all. Desai, a Reliance liaison man in late 80s tasked to nurse the MPs in parliament house, had told this writer about the money he had distributed to the candidates cutting across the party divide. Gujarat MPs had a free taxi pool.

All this pales into insignificance if one looks at the gigantic lobby power since the advent of the UPA government. The new tribe hardly work on individual MPs. Instead the target is senior ministers and ruling party officials. Instead of special correspondents, it is the editors and directors. The anachronism is that the dismantling of the Nehruvian controls and liberalization have made the corporates to seek more and more state favours. It is not the other way round. Some of us argue that this was largely due to the low degree of reform in India. That is not true. If it is so, how there exists hundreds of lobbying firms with billion-dollar budgets in US, the most liberalized economy?

Consider the scale and level at which the fixers and their touts with the powerful corporate and foreign backup function. The recent revelations of the taped conversations between the officials of a lobby firm and the crucial links in government underscore this. These bare the way the fixers meddle in the entire process of the decision making in government. Details of the lobbyists with their contacts in UPA government at high levels have appeared in media. Some fixers, reports say, get as much as Rs. 10-20 crores as retainers plus a percentage of the benefit in the event of windfall profits. A mass circulated English weekly has cited how a foreign brand gets entry into India by paying the lobbyist Rs. 20 crore for 'fixing, pampering and rewarding' the decision makers. Abundance of unaccounted money makes the transactions rather easier.

Things seem to have reached such a stage that every action of this government is 'fixed' by lobbies. The reports cite the names of the actors, their contacts and their media pushers. Every thing has a price - contracts for airports, highways and power plants, getting mining and mineral leases, pricing of gas and petroleum, spectrum allocation, opening up financial sectors for outsiders, FDI in retail trade, permission for foreign education shops, Bt seeds, taxation, tariffs and imports. The lobbyist's first move, we are told, is to create a favourable public opinion through the media followed by seminars and talk shows. Simultaneously begin the push with ministries. Then an EGoM or experts group set up and the final notification.

Yet neither the government nor the party has done anything to clear the air On the other, there are suggestions to regularize lobbying as in US. Such a move will play havoc in a country with institutionalised corruption where the OSDs, relatives, kinsmen, political aides, media persons and 'think tanks' perform as conduits. There is another reason for the official tolerance to the fixer raj. That is the misplaced notion that lobbying remains integral part of a liberalization regime. In a fast growing economy, aberrations are considered normal. Under UPA, there has also been a tendency to use the lobby power as an ally to frustrate the skeptics of the liberalization initiatives. Apart from the usual media campaign, the lobbyists also went round less stubborn opposition groups for support. Then there are factors like the government's inability to act firmly against the rule violators.

As the holding company of the UPA, the Congress establishment has a special responsibility to free its government from the sobriquet of being the lobby raj. The party should realize that the present scale of multi-million lobbying has been a UPA phenomenon. It is now becoming more brazen. Success has led to the sprouting of so many new players, some breakaway staff, some former PR and event managers. In their brochures, they make tall claims of access to even senior ministers. One can imagine the damage such projections can cause to the Congress party. Those in power, surrounded by favour seekers in the garb of zealous liberalizers and the deceptive media projection, may be oblivious of the growing uneasiness among middle classes.

Over a dozen specific cases of scandals and scams, almost all of them many times the Bofors in volume, have appeared in print in the past three months alone. The central vigilance commission has listed 1091 cases of corruption happened under centre during 2008. The ongoing G3 spectrum auction has revealed the real magnitude of the UPA government's Rs. 70,000 crore G2 allotment scandal. Here one finds the text book application of the power of high-tech lobbying. The problem with the business of lobbying has been that the operations that look safely under the wrap now, can burst out any time. Several governments, especially in the highly successful Japan, had collapsed under the weight of lobby-induced corruption and bribery. All this should provide valuable lessons to the Congress party. (IPA Service)