Madhya Pradesh seems to have become a laboratory for experimentations in all that demeans decency and propriety in public life. Policemen, whose duty it is to maintain law and order, openly collaborated with the lawless elements in forcing reluctant shop owners to down shutters of their establishments during the bandh called by the BJP and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on the Amarnath Shrine land allotment-withdrawal issue. While Bhopal, Ujjain and some other towns witnessed daylong tension; seven persons lost their lives in the BJP-VHP-police-engineered violence in Indore. (Murder cases were registered against two policemen after the families of two victims had refused to take the bodies for burial till the policemen were booked, and the situation headed for a big flare-up). 

          Still, Director-General of Police S.K.Raut patted the police for doing their duty diligently, with the remark that even God cannot prevent riots. Raut was recently made the State police chief in place of A.R.Pawar who had once observed that it was easy for policemen to function during the Emergency. Pawar was said to be a Parivar-man while Raut is chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan's personal pick.

          Two Union Ministers of State, a former chief minister and a few other top ranking leaders of the State Congress were prevented from entering Indore to meet the riot-affected people because, they were told by a cabinet colleague of Chauhan, their visit might aggravate the situation in the curfew-bound Indore. However, the administration had permitted Rath-Yatra to be taken out in the curfew-bound areas. Leader of the Opposition Jamuna Devi, now in her late seventies, sat on dharna near the chief minister's residence in Bhopal in protest against the government's refusal to permit the Congress leaders to visit Indore. Policewomen caught hold of her legs and arms and dragged her away, under the supervision of the Collector and the Superintendent of Police.

          Shivraj Singh Chauhan, the man behind these obscenities, has himself the dubious distinction of being perhaps the country's first chief minister against whom an FIR has been registered in a criminal case on a court's directive. Advani and others have tried to justify innumerable times their stand in the Babri Masjid demolition case against them by making a distinction between a political case and a corruption case. It is not only the corruption case against Chauhan that has failed to prick the conscience of Advani. The BJP's prime ministerial candidate remained quiet when Chauhan, as the chief minister, had led an agitation against the Central government by observing a 24-hour hunger strike. The same Advani, then Home Minister at the Centre, had sought Uma Bharati's resignation for joining a BJP agitation. Uma Bharati was Minister of State at the Centre, and had joined the dharna organised by the BJP government in Bhopal against the Congress government of Digvijay Singh.

          It was really shocking that Advani should himself become a party to an impropriety in public life. The function for the release of the Hindi version of his autobiography was held at the Motilal Nehru Stadium in Bhopal. He brought a planeload of god men and media men for the function which was organised by the publisher. It was entirely a commercial event organised by a private party.

          Perhaps the greater indiscretions were committed by President Pratibhadevi Singh Patil during her visit to Madhya Pradesh. In Indore, she attended the function of a private hospital which is facing a police inquiry in connection with a case of surreptitious removal of kidney of an unsuspecting patient and is also a major tax-defaulter. The President's secretariat was duly informed about the cases against the hospital. In Bhopal, she patronised an organisation involved in commercial activities, against the advice from the State government. She also inaugurated the building of Bhoj Open University even though the building was constructed without seeking prior clearance from various departments involved. The vice-chancellor of the Bhoj Open University, Dr Kamlakar Singh, who naturally shared the dais with the President, is, too, not a man with clean credentials.

 
         The allegations against Kamlakar Singh, then Registrar of Barkatullah University of Bhopal, included plagiarism in his doctorate thesis as well as financial irregularities. The complaint against him was made by then Vice-Chancellor Harshavardhan Tiwari and then Governor Bhai Mahavir had ordered an inquiry which found the allegations substantiated. The Governor had, however, left the action against him to be taken by the University.
 

          Kamlakar Singh is Arjun Singh's man. Moreover, it always suited Digvijay Singh to keep at important positions the persons who had stopped bothering their conscience about the difference between right and wrong, legal and illegal and moral and immoral. So Digvijay made him OSD in the Department of Higher Education. In February 2005, Governor Balram Jakhar appointed him Vice-Chancellor of Bhoj Open University.

          Having thus given the top post at the Bhoj Open University to Kamlakar Singh, Governor Balram Jakhar hurled curses on the corrupt, at the Bhoj Open University function where President Patil was present. The Governor wondered why those indulging in corruption did not die. The Laat Sahib has never considered himself bound by constitutional proprieties while speaking in public. The other day he announced at a public function that he would like chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan to chalk out time-bound programmes. If the chief minister said he wanted ten days (for completion of a task), he (Jakhar) was prepared to give him 15 days – but after that he would "shoot" the chief minister. He then added hurriedly that all he meant was that he would "sack" him.

          If the Governor and the chief minister do not bother about propriety, why should Chauhan's cabinet colleagues do? Minister of Public Works Department (PWD) Kailash Vijayvargiya promptly advised the Governor not to transgress the decorum expected of a constitutional authority. Perhaps not content with that, Vijayvargiya further stated that there would be a political storm if he disclosed the nature of works the Governor had been recommending to him, provoking Congress leaders to accuse Vijayvargiya of trying to blackmail the Governor.