The Rana regime was based on a tiny clan extracting resources from the rest of the country for shameless personal aggrandizement. Shah rulers centralised corruption through the Panchayat period. The 90s saw the new power elite ruining the public exchequer and destroying public sector units while making a quick buck.

The post 2006 period has shown how erstwhile Maoist revolutionaries picked up the game, be it through use of
ministries or their coercive apparatus to win tenders on the ground.

That Ram Chandra Kushwaha has joined this illustrious company should not come as a surprise. It was a combination of the scale of corruption, the fact that he was so blatant about it, sudden donor hyper-activity and
internal TMDP politics that ended his tenure.

But these public revelations come at a time when the town is abuzz with rumours about how the Madhesi ministers are the most corrupt. Rajendra Mahato's politics is based on the premise that national parties have never protected Madhesi interests.

A parliamentary committee decides to ban the export of sand, grit and stone which most experts agree will bring ecological ruin to the Chure and Tarai. He lifts the ban, presumably under pressure or the lure of incentives from key lobbies. Those working in physical works, agriculture, industry, and civil aviation ministries have their own stories to tell about their political bosses, all elected from Madhesi parties.

These leaders are in their present positions today on the Madhesi identity platform which promised change. Their actions need to be held to higher standards. There is no question of condoning or justifying these incidents, but why is it taking place? Politicians misuse political office and power to make money. Some do it purely for personal benefit, others for their larger constituencies or the party. The anti-corruption wallahs demand a high level of personal integrity. Those who wink at it point to the enormous difficulties that a politician has to undergo to get to a position of power, his struggle, his expenses, the lack of state financing, and the inadequate salaries. This applies to all netas, and Madhesi are no exceptions.

In fact, they are under even greater pressure to dispense private patronage to constituents, many of whom have access to state power for the first time through political representatives. At every Madhesi parliamentary party office in Singha Durbar there is a queue of people from the districts demanding a job for their son, help to go abroad,
recommendation for agovernment contract, or cash for their daughter's wedding. This adds to the pressure on ministers, and others, to make money if only to distribute a part of it. Once someone is an MP or minister,
party workers and voters behave like he has won a lottery.

Madhesi ministers are an offshoot of a movement based on popular resentment against the Kathmandu establishment. As one MJF leader points out, it is rage that defines a Madhesi incumbent, not any positive policy content. There is a strong sense of entitlement without the corresponding sense of ownership of the state. The lack of commitment to public resources, or even the deliberate subversion of institutional norms, is merely a reflection
of that.

Many leaders who are implicated had little to do with the Madhes movement and are entrenched in the 90s political culture. They joined the bandwagon much later for purely electoral reasons, be it Kushwaha or Bijay Gachhedar or Sanjay Sah or Mahendra Yadav or Mrigendra Yadav. Others like Karima Begum or Kalavati Paswan are products of the democratisation of Madhesi society. They were active foot-soldiers in the Madhes movement, but they lack any experience of basic statecraft, working with the bureaucracy, or skills and patience required in government.

Leaders will only curb their natural instinct of misusing the state if there are strong institutions which hold them accountable. Nepal has none, and even the existing ones have got weaker in the transition.

There is little accountability to the PM (a pre-requisite in a cabinet system) or to their own party bosses once appointed. And holding public office is seen as a license to loot the state. No surprise then that democracy has democratised corruption?