On August 5, Angela Rayner, UK’s powerful leader in the Labour Party and the Deputy Prime Minister, resigned after an independent ethics inquiry found that she had underpaid tax on a recently purchased house. She resigned for having broken the Ministerial Code of Conduct by failing to obtain the advice from a specialist tax expert concerning the actual stamp duty to be paid on a property located on the south coast of England. In India, this would be considered a flimsy and frivolous reason to resign. Paying lower stamp duty by hook or crook is kind of normalised. This is insignificant compared to how the high and mighty, well-connected people, politicians and powerful goondas get away with most illegal activities – scams, cheating, rapes, murders and many more. A recent report by the Association for Democratic Reforms revealed that 47 per cent of ministers in India have declared criminal cases against them. These include serious charges like murder, kidnapping and crimes against women. We may dislike our colonisers, but let us try to emulate their virtue, decency, integrity, honesty, righteousness, and uprightness. And the willingness to resign even for a ‘crime’ of undervaluing their property.
