Did you say, Clean politics? Did you for a moment believe that the current standoff between the political establishment and the apex judiciary is about ensuring honesty in public life? If you did, let me implore you to entertain a suspicion: we are witnessing one of the oldest games of politics, namely, gate keeping. The sudden excitement over political reforms has less to do with a desire for cleaner politics and much more with the desire of the well-heeled to keep the rest outside the gates of power. Yes, you got me right. It's not just the politicians who are involved in an unholy game. Its a political cartel versus a social club.

The all-party meeting last week was a perfect example of a political cartel. All the bigwigs got together and decide to put their many differences aside in order to oust a challenger: They convince no one, even when a lot of what they say appears quite sensible. They are, for instance, right in maintaining that it is downright undemocratic to bring in educational qualifications as a relevant considerations for democratic elections. They are justified in distrusting the collector-turned-returning officer with the power of rejecting nominations, even if they themselves are in part to blame for this state of the civil services. The supremacy of Parliament might have looked like a silly turf battle, if only the establishment had shown similar unanimity in protecting Parliament's sovereignity visa-vis the WTO.

In the end everyone saw the bigparty consensus on political reforms for what it was: a lot of hot air enveloping a drive for self-preservation. It does not take much to see that the political establishment has a lot to hide and is determined to keep its privilege. The cartel wants to guard the gates against potential gutter inspectors and thus against potential rivals.

The social club that likes to call itself enlightened citizens is engaged in gate keeping of another kind. For the last several years many a middle class fantasy have been floated, all in the name of political reforms, designed to guard the gate against the entry of the hoi-polloi into the circles of political power. The original petition, that resulted in the recent verdict, obtained from the Delhi High Court a directive in favour of widespread intervention by the EC to inform citizens about the capability and suitability of candidates and political parties. One must be grateful to Election Commission (EC) that it saved our democracy from this disastrous exercise in political paternalism.

The latest directions from the Supreme Court (SC) are less fanciful, and in part even useful, but not without traces of a desire to save democracy from the people, I used to say that demand for educational qualifications for the elected representatives revealed a sick, undemocratic cast of mind. I used to ridicule the touching optimism of the legal soultions offered by the middle class reformers to eliminate criminalisation from politics. I was not convinced that the electorate of Siwan have been voting Shahabuddin under the impression that he was the political heir of Mahatma Gandhi. Or, if they did, their innocence would be shattered by a new entry in the nomination form. But now, after reading the SCs judgement, I would hesitate, (I don't want to meet Arundhati's fate, you see!)

I have no doubt that compulsory disclosure of assets by political actors will do a lot of good toour democracy. But I am not sure if this can be achieved by scrutiny of the election nomination.

Forgive me for dampening your enthusiasm. There is a long and substantive agenda of political reforms - right to information, tickets to women, funding of parties, regulation of media ownership, and so on, waiting for attention from this political cartel and the middle class social club.