NEW DELHI, Oct 5: It is difficult to miss the note of desperation in some of the exchanges, particularly when Ratan Tata is at one end.

The transcripts, published by The Indian Express, indicate an every-man-for-himself mindset where nobody has any faith in the system, where the people manning it have no faith in themselves. So none of the top bureaucrats or politicians actually promises to be fair or to do something towards fighting militancy in Assam.

Almost each one, on the other hand, is willing to lend a helping hand, even if in an extra-constitutional manner.

This is the real danger the transcripts point out. India's most prominent corporate empire is falling back on fixers and lobbyists to sort out its ``problems'' with a small State government. There is no mutual trust between the State and the Centre, though both are controlled by the same coalition partners. The Union Home Ministry, the country's nodal law and order and political ministry, is in complete disarray. The result: ULFA is having a field day.

Apart from providing a hair-raising insight into the world of high-powered lobbying and an extra-constitutional political-corporate-bureaucratic nexus, the Tata Tapes also underline the extent of the rot in our system of governance. They show how even the most privileged sections of our society have lost faith in it. So they are more comfortable with a patron-client relationship than with the rule of law.

It is obvious that for almost two years now, both the State and the Central governments have abdicated responsibility of controlling militancy in Assam. This fact is not hidden either from the ordinary Assamese or from the large corporate houses with considerable investments (mainly in tea plantations) in a hopelessly under-developed state with virtually no industry.

As reported in The Indian Express on September 27 and confirmed by Director, Intelligence Bureau, the Tatas had indeed been communicating with the IB on their contacts with the ULFA, including a secret meeting in Thailand. Whether the Intelligence Bureau has the powers to grant such authorisation is a significant question. But that it probably did so not only underlines the Government's admission of its inability to make its writ run in Assam but also indicates indirect complicity.

Sure enough, if the Assam Government was obviously given no indication of the ``understanding'' between the IB and the Tatas over ``links'' with the ULFA, it is entirely in keeping with the manner the government, and the Union Home Ministry in particular, have come to be run in the past year or so.

It was only after the Assam government moved against the Tata Tea executives that the Home ministry hesitatingly swung into action. Again, instead of being explicit about its own rolesomething on which the Tatas seem to have documentary evidence which they, presumably, wish to show the Supreme Court in camera, as indicated in the transcripts published todaythe Centre tried to use informal persuasion to get the Assam government to ease up pressure on Tata Tea.

By this time, it is obvious that the distrust between the Centre and the State had become so strong that two governmentsand bureaucracieshad become committed to totally contrary and unreasonable positions on the Tatas' involvement.

Surely, the Assam government could have shown a little more sympathy for the house of Tatas and at least listened to them at higher levels rather than treat it purely as a criminal investigation. The Centre could have reassured Assam while establishing proper communication between Dispur and one of India's largest business houses. While corporations must be law-abiding and transparent, no state government, least of all Assam's that needs investment so badly, can afford to blackball such large business houses.

The real import of the revelations, therefore, is not what some individuals or organisations have been up to. It is, instead, the breakdown of governance. And the sad fact that today some of our most prominent citizens seem to have greater faith in the powers of lobbyists rather than in the rule of the land.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.