As the Abramoff scandal billows in Washington, sections of the American media are briefly touched by a similar wondering. Just where will the feverish investigations into the misdemeanours of influential lobbyist Jack Abramoff lead to? Will what The Washington Post has dubbed as ‘‘the biggest congressional corruption scandal in generations’’ be allowed to come within striking distance of the system’s more entrenched distortions?

Send your comments to the columnist Name Your E-Mail Your Comments

THERE is a striking difference between the two scandals, of course. The freezeframe of the 11 MPs, caught so red-handed, points to the haze that hangs over the scene of the crime here. Lobbying operates in shadowy and unregulated ways in India; there is general fuzziness about the rules of disclosure. On the other hand, Abramoff, who Time somewhat grandiloquently describes as ‘The Man Who Bought Washington’, manipulated a set of practices protected by the US Constitution, to wreak cynical new distortions in the perfectly legal lobbying game in the US.

He arranged for lavish golfing trips and generous contributions for campaign kitties as part of legislative quid pro quos. He provided jobs for the wives, free meals at his upscale restaurant and seats in his luxury boxes at sporting events. For all this and more, he raised cash from particularly gauche clients, not well versed with the system, and moved the money in various disguised ways, to get around inconvenient rules. House rules forbid lobbyists to pay for congressional travel directly, for instance.

BUT many in the US media are already fretting that Jack Abramoff’s story may not be only about the way one superlobbyist worked Washington for private gain—it’s about how Washington really works. ‘‘Although the excesses of Jack Abramoff have captured the news, a wide range of other practices—rarely publicised and fully legal—reflect the steady dismantling of the wall between lobbyists and members of the House and Senate’’, rued The Washington Post. Many lobbyists serve as treasurers on lawmakers’ campaign committees. At election time, many are known to don a new hat and become political consultants. The line between the objectionable and the commonplace has always been difficult to draw in the influence-peddling business. In the past few weeks in the American media, there is an acknowledgement that the line has probably never been so thin.

The New Yorker heaped the blame on the Republicans. Earlier, it argued, the ‘‘lobbying community’’ operated in a relatively relaxed political space—now it has become an incestuous affair, virtually a Republican auxiliary, pressured into supporting a broad conservative agenda, hiring only Republicans, giving money mostly to Republican politicians. Having come to power on the slogan of shrinking government, the Republicans actively encouraged the sprawling patronage network they inherited, and aggressively set about making it their own. Moreover, their interests made a perfect fit—lobbyists, by their very nature, promote the organised interests of the well-heeled, and conservative ideologues believe that the higher purpose of public policy is to liberate private business from regulation. For The New Yorker, then, this scandal is really about ‘‘the fearful domination of private money over the public interest’’. The scandal, it underlined, is not what’s illegal, but what’s legal.

DESPITE the differences in the two systems—one is mostly unregulated while the other boasts of a tangle of rules and regulations—in the end, the scandals in India and America touch upon the same deep discomfort. Too much of legislation is being cooked up behind closed doors, too little flows from the campaign promises and the political platform of parties.

Is the idea of ‘open processes of democratic decision-making’ becoming more fiction, less reality? If so, what can we do about it? Before this moment is overtaken by business as usual, in India and in America, those are the questions.