Commentator after commentator in the Indian media, political inclinations and insinuations notwithstanding, shed copious amounts of reptilian tears over the appearance of naked cash in the floor of the Parliament during the trust vote yesterday. A hallowed shrine, the sanctum sanctotum of Indian politics, was eviscerated, they wailed.

Hogwash.

Indian politics, right from the dark days of the 1970s have had carried the cancer of money infiltrating its ranks. The first generation of politicians had the dream of building a nation but that dream turned into a sordid nightmare for the citizens once the second and third generations swooped down. Governments – at both state and center – became less about governance and more about making the quick buck. The matter is remarkably akin to how countries with rich natural resources are the world’s largest anarchies today. Owners (which sometimes is the state) realizes that velocity of resource stripping is directly proportional to the quickness at which riches will flow. Actually, it is not different from the way Gordon Gekko planned to strip the assets out of Blue Star Airlines in Wall Street. Current day politicians are very awake to the fact that five years is all they have to strip whatever comes their way. And they do it with awe-inspiring efficiency.

The money, hidden away like Indian sex in the dark corners of the bedroom, finally entered Parliament in broad daylight. Good that it did. It had already entered our living rooms through scenes captured in sting operations. It had already entered our minds fifteen years back when a stock broker confessed paying money to a Prime Minister – his lawyer even brought along the suitcase used to ferry the cash (politicians then were a touch naive – they returned a $20 suitacse after taking the $250,000 content). Members of the House brandishing stacks of currency notes represents the smelly armpit of Indian politics. Unfortunately that is the current unwashed state of the country’s political existence. Those in airconditioned studios wearing Davidoff perfumes may not like it, but – alas – the brutal truth cannot be quite wished away.

The image of Mahatma Gandhi clutching his chest as he falls to the assassin’s bullet is an everlasting image in the Indian phyche. That was the day the guiding light of the country went out. Let the image of waving cash in the Lok Sabha be burned into our minds as well. The soul of Indian politics died a long time back. Yesterday we merely concluded its last rites.