Chewing Gum

For children it is fun.

For teenagers and young adults, a sign of defiance; the jaw works nonchalantly and the eye slants cockily.

For someone in the Office of the Finance Minister and officials of the CBI, it is a sign of some sinister plot.

Sixteen spots where an adhesive, presumably used for surveillance bugging, were found in the FM’s office. Pranab da found it sufficiently significant to write to the PM. The CBI , as usual unequipped to deal with this, nevertheless swung into action. It soon came up with the opinion that the adhesive was just chewing gum.

Whoever chews so much gum and leaves it indiscriminately, and irresponsibly, in unlikely places of the Office of the FM must first be traced and trained in office-etiquette. His behavior was like that of a child whose toilet-training is inadequate if not incomplete.

And the conservancy staff in that North Block office must be given a wage-cut for failure in carrying out their duty.

Many of us in office have for years dusted our office-table and chair routinely. But what happened in the North Block is unpardonable.Pranab da can not be expected to clean his entire office. Indeed it is worth probing whether his predecessor, Chidambaram, looked carefully enough for bits of gum stuck under his table or a crevice in the wall. Did the staff clean up the place daily or were they guilty of dereliction of duty? What was the state of the office when Pranab took charge from Chidambaram? Was there much gum that went unnoticed ? Aren’t the two stalwarts , in some way responsible for the gummy state of the finance ministry?A whole lot of investigation from top to bottom must be undertaken.

The CBI, already having identified the adhesive as Chewing Gum, will not be keen about reopening the case. They need a Supreme Court intervention to reopen a case … they were about to close the Arushi case for lack of evidence. There is an alternative , though, in the making, and just exactly what mechanism was necessary.

The Lokpal.

All Gum and no teeth.