Double standards in politics are rising as vertically as the priceline and there seems to be no dearth of political leaders who are out to have fun at the expense of their respective voter manoos.
Look at Shiv Sena. The bhaiyyas have been in Mumbai for ages. So have Shiv Sena and Bal Thackeray. And the ’twain have co-existed peacefully, even when the non-manoos did not know Marathi. So why is the manoos vs non-manoos campaign so young? Because it is nothing but turf war within Sena, not so much over manoos and non-manoos as between Raj Thackeray and the Uddhav-Bal combine. Can someone tell us if the Sena has a quota for Marathis manoos in its party recruitment drive? Like, only 10 per cent non-Marathis allowed?
To add appeal to their outrageous campaign, (why does the Government always allow it to snowball), the Sena chooses its targets carefully. This time it is superstar Shah Rukh Khan.
Now, there are a hundred more serious issues the Sena could have raised rather than go after a frivolous opinion expressed by a personality who has no impact whatsoever on policy.
So what if SRK feels Pakistanis should have been in the IPL? Does it matter if Afridi is missing or present? What matters, and what the Sena should be after, is the complacence of Pakistan on 26/11. With such an organised force, the Sena could go all out to pressure the Centre into taking some action against Pakistan and the perpetrators of 26/11 blasts; how come the Sainiks are yet to go after Kasab? Why have they not gone on a rampage demanding his immediate hanging from the Taj Mahal Palace? After all, they are hardly known to respect law or the judicial system. Why just centre around banning My Name Is Khan? Will that serve any purpose for the nation and its manoos, even its Marathi manoos? All it will do is give free publicity to the film.
Let’s come to SRK himself. Much as you love him he, too, has become an epitome of double standards. First he ignores the entire Pak line-up in bidding for his team KKR at the recent IPL auction. Some days later, he issues a statement saying Pak players should have been picked up! He then refuses to apologise and says it is his private opinion. It is another matter altogether that as the controversy unfolds with the Sena turning ballistic, King Khan gets inordinate publicity for his film My Name is Khan.
Thanks to the Sena and SRK’s obvious courting of the Muslim segment, the opening buzz will take care of MNIK’s returns — on both sides of the border.
Simply put, Sena gains terrain and SRK eyeballs for his film in a win-win controversy. The aam manoos, meanwhile, keeps footing the bill.
As the controversy threatens to die down, in jumps Rahul Gandhi with his ‘I-have-to-become-an-icon’ campaign. He gets all the brownies to say simply and convincingly that Mumbai belongs to all Indians. He then takes a quick ride through the megapolis, including a hop into the local train, as the Sena looks the other way. Was it that the Sainiks were on tea-break or, did the cops finally showed us how they can manage to quell any movement if they really, really want to?
Let’s end with the biggest double-standards votary of them all — the Union Government. Our PM, the economic reform king of yore, has just announced that the food crisis is here to stay. Of course, he does not say if his Government will tackle it but he is, nevertheless outraged that chini, daal and sabzi are selling like gold dust. Perhaps, it’s here that he could put the delectable “zero tolerance” phrase to best use – and if the Centre is not doing so on its own, can the Shiv Sena please launch a campaign against it on the following issues — zero tolerance to price rise, zero tolerance to corruption and zero tolerance to terror. It’s sounds much more appealing and reasonable than its current zero tolerance to non-Marathi manoos!
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Monday, February 8, 2010
Our Courts are chocked!!
The Union Law Minister has recently announced that the number of undertrial prisoners languishing in various jails across the country will be reduced by two-thirds within six months. Under the law, the Government has powers to release convicted prisoners after certain years of imprisonment. However, it has no such powers when the matter involves an accused undertrial. Of course, the Government can at any time withdraw any case pending in a court of law as well as deny sanction to prosecute any accused in cases where sanction is required. But convicting or freeing those under trial falls within the ambit of the judiciary.
The Government’s stated reason for freeing a large number of them is that many of those who are under trial and languishing in our prisons are in such a position because they could not get adequate legal aid. In some cases, prisoners have been behind bars for more than the maximum term of imprisonment for offences they had been charged with.
According to the Law Minister, the Chief Justices of High Courts would appoint a task force to monitor the plan. The task force, under the chairmanship of the state legal service authority or a senior judge, would depute teams to visit jails and identify prisoners who deserve to be freed. The teams would look into individual cases to identify those who were entitled to be released. The Law Minister has said, “Of the undertrials, roughly around two lakh have been in jail for several years essentially because of delays in the justice delivery system.” It appears that the Union Cabinet has approved the plan.
On the face of it, the plan seems excellent and a small step towards decongesting our prisons. According to a survey conducted and released in November, last year by the International Centre for Prison Studies, Kings College, London, in 218 countries and territories, a total of 3.73 lakh prisoners are lodged in nearly 1,336 prisons in India. As per the study, more than 9.8 million people are held in different prisons throughout the world. The study stated that the maximum number of prisoners across the globe is in the prisons of the US, which host 2.31 million prisoners. The US is followed by China (1.57 million), Russia (0.89 million) and Brazil (0.47 million).
The real problem does not lie with the courts but with the Government that knows what needs to be done to solve the problem of delay in our courts. Yet it chooses to skirt the issue.
As per the information furnished by the Law Minister to Parliament in December, 2009, a total of 3,11,39,022 cases were pending in courts across the country. The detailed break up is as follows:
# Supreme Court: 52,592 pending cases
# High Courts: 38,74,090 pending cases
# Maximum pending cases: Allahabad High Court — 9,11,858
# Pending cases in Uttar Pradeshs district and subordinate courts: 51,60,174
# n Total pending cases in subordinate courts: 2,64,09,163
Strength of judiciary:
# High Courts — Sanctioned: 886, Actual in position: 606
# Subordinate courts — Sanctioned: 16, 685, Actual in position: 13,556
Average disposal per judge:
# High Courts: 2,504 cases per year (2008)
# Subordinate courts: 1,138 cases per year (2008)
According to one estimate, the number of judges required to dispose of the total pending cases promptly is 1,547 in the High Courts and 4,400 in the subordinate courts.
Addressing a gathering in Chennai in July last year, Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan said: “We are not able to bring it (the number of pending) cases down significantly, though we want to. Some States in the country don’t pay enough attention to the judiciary. Unless there is a large number of courts, how can the pendency come down?”
For speedy and quick disposal of cases, several committees have been formed in the past. In 1924 a committee was formed under the chairmanship of Justice Rankin. After independence, other committees constituted included the Justice SR Das Committee in 1949, Justice JC Shah Committee in 1972, the Satish Chandra Committee in 1986 and the Justice VS Mallimath Committee in 1990. But the situation from 1926 to 2010 remains virtually the same. The Law Commission, in its 120th report submitted in 1987, examined the problem of understaffing in the judiciary and recommended 50 judges per million of population instead of the present 9.5.
The inadequate number of judges is a major reason for the delays in the disposal of cases. Thus, the solution to the problem lies in the hands of the executive and administrative wings of the Government, and not the judiciary. Former Attorney-General of India Soli Sorabjee, in a lecture in London, lamented that the criminal justice system in India was on the verge of collapsing because of understaffing in the judiciary. He also observed, “Justice delayed will not only be justice denied, it will be the rule of law destroyed.”
More than 60 per cent of the pending court cases in India are due to the action or inaction of some Government official towards a citizen or a group of citizens. The same observations have been made by the Supreme Court more than once. The Arrears Committee headed by Justice VS Mallimath (1990) has identified the following causes for the accumulation of backlog of cases in the High Courts.
(i) Litigation explosion;
(ii) Accumulation of first appeal;
(iii) Inadequacy of staff attached to the High Courts;
(iv) Inordinate concentration of work in the hands of some members of the Bar;
(v) Lack of punctuality among judges;
(vi) Granting of unnecessary adjournments;
(vii) Indiscriminate closure of courts; (viii) Indiscriminate resort to writ jurisdiction;
(ix) Inadequacy of classification and granting of cases; and,
(x) Inordinate delay in the supply of certified copies of judgements and orders, etc.
The problem of court pendency, delay and quick disposal of cases is not something new. Letting off those under trial and in judicial custody is no solution. The initiative taken by the law Minister is commendable. But it doesn’t do anything to alleviate the misery of the common man seeking justice. Much bolder steps are needed. The Government must remember that unless it maintains justice, justice will not maintain us. A crisis looms large and a solution brooks no further delay.
The Government’s stated reason for freeing a large number of them is that many of those who are under trial and languishing in our prisons are in such a position because they could not get adequate legal aid. In some cases, prisoners have been behind bars for more than the maximum term of imprisonment for offences they had been charged with.
According to the Law Minister, the Chief Justices of High Courts would appoint a task force to monitor the plan. The task force, under the chairmanship of the state legal service authority or a senior judge, would depute teams to visit jails and identify prisoners who deserve to be freed. The teams would look into individual cases to identify those who were entitled to be released. The Law Minister has said, “Of the undertrials, roughly around two lakh have been in jail for several years essentially because of delays in the justice delivery system.” It appears that the Union Cabinet has approved the plan.
On the face of it, the plan seems excellent and a small step towards decongesting our prisons. According to a survey conducted and released in November, last year by the International Centre for Prison Studies, Kings College, London, in 218 countries and territories, a total of 3.73 lakh prisoners are lodged in nearly 1,336 prisons in India. As per the study, more than 9.8 million people are held in different prisons throughout the world. The study stated that the maximum number of prisoners across the globe is in the prisons of the US, which host 2.31 million prisoners. The US is followed by China (1.57 million), Russia (0.89 million) and Brazil (0.47 million).
The real problem does not lie with the courts but with the Government that knows what needs to be done to solve the problem of delay in our courts. Yet it chooses to skirt the issue.
As per the information furnished by the Law Minister to Parliament in December, 2009, a total of 3,11,39,022 cases were pending in courts across the country. The detailed break up is as follows:
# Supreme Court: 52,592 pending cases
# High Courts: 38,74,090 pending cases
# Maximum pending cases: Allahabad High Court — 9,11,858
# Pending cases in Uttar Pradeshs district and subordinate courts: 51,60,174
# n Total pending cases in subordinate courts: 2,64,09,163
Strength of judiciary:
# High Courts — Sanctioned: 886, Actual in position: 606
# Subordinate courts — Sanctioned: 16, 685, Actual in position: 13,556
Average disposal per judge:
# High Courts: 2,504 cases per year (2008)
# Subordinate courts: 1,138 cases per year (2008)
According to one estimate, the number of judges required to dispose of the total pending cases promptly is 1,547 in the High Courts and 4,400 in the subordinate courts.
Addressing a gathering in Chennai in July last year, Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan said: “We are not able to bring it (the number of pending) cases down significantly, though we want to. Some States in the country don’t pay enough attention to the judiciary. Unless there is a large number of courts, how can the pendency come down?”
For speedy and quick disposal of cases, several committees have been formed in the past. In 1924 a committee was formed under the chairmanship of Justice Rankin. After independence, other committees constituted included the Justice SR Das Committee in 1949, Justice JC Shah Committee in 1972, the Satish Chandra Committee in 1986 and the Justice VS Mallimath Committee in 1990. But the situation from 1926 to 2010 remains virtually the same. The Law Commission, in its 120th report submitted in 1987, examined the problem of understaffing in the judiciary and recommended 50 judges per million of population instead of the present 9.5.
The inadequate number of judges is a major reason for the delays in the disposal of cases. Thus, the solution to the problem lies in the hands of the executive and administrative wings of the Government, and not the judiciary. Former Attorney-General of India Soli Sorabjee, in a lecture in London, lamented that the criminal justice system in India was on the verge of collapsing because of understaffing in the judiciary. He also observed, “Justice delayed will not only be justice denied, it will be the rule of law destroyed.”
More than 60 per cent of the pending court cases in India are due to the action or inaction of some Government official towards a citizen or a group of citizens. The same observations have been made by the Supreme Court more than once. The Arrears Committee headed by Justice VS Mallimath (1990) has identified the following causes for the accumulation of backlog of cases in the High Courts.
(i) Litigation explosion;
(ii) Accumulation of first appeal;
(iii) Inadequacy of staff attached to the High Courts;
(iv) Inordinate concentration of work in the hands of some members of the Bar;
(v) Lack of punctuality among judges;
(vi) Granting of unnecessary adjournments;
(vii) Indiscriminate closure of courts; (viii) Indiscriminate resort to writ jurisdiction;
(ix) Inadequacy of classification and granting of cases; and,
(x) Inordinate delay in the supply of certified copies of judgements and orders, etc.
The problem of court pendency, delay and quick disposal of cases is not something new. Letting off those under trial and in judicial custody is no solution. The initiative taken by the law Minister is commendable. But it doesn’t do anything to alleviate the misery of the common man seeking justice. Much bolder steps are needed. The Government must remember that unless it maintains justice, justice will not maintain us. A crisis looms large and a solution brooks no further delay.
A schizophrenic Government
It’s perplexing how suddenly and rapidly India has slipped into schizophrenia in recent months. Take the perennial issue of Pakistan to begin with. At one level, the Government is believed to have gently nudged organisers of IPL to keep Pakistani cricketers out of the high-profile event.
Opinion is divided on whether this was appropriate on the sponsors’ part, many saying that our diplomatic and security issues with Islamabad should not have spilled over into the playing field, while others believe you can hug each other on the cricketing arena while the Pakistani Establishment holds a gun at New Delhi’s head. But having left the IPL organisers to face a barrage of criticism from cricket lovers for this stealthy decision, the Government itself is getting ready to resume the dialogue with Pakistan, ignoring Islamabad’s victorious smirks. If this is not schizophrenia, I don’t know what else it can be called.
Why do we want to talk to Pakistan at this juncture? Frankly it baffles me. After suspending the dialogue after the heinous 26/11 events admittedly plotted and directed from Pakistani soil and executed by Pakistani nationals who sneaked into India, the Government firmly declared not to talk till Islamabad showed concrete and visible progress in proceeding against the masterminds. In the interim came the shameful Sharm-el-Sheikh episode, demonstrating yet again Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s inability to stand firm. India capitulated without apparent reason and even agreed to include Balochistan in the Joint Statement.
Probably taken aback by the intensity of the furore at home in its aftermath, New Delhi appeared to steel its resolve not to talk to our Western neighbour, till progress happened on 26/11 culprits. The deliberately slipshod manner in which Pakistan went about prosecuting Jamaat-ud-Dawa bosses, exposed Islamabad’s duplicity once more although proof was hardly required for its two-faced policy.
Pakistan succeeded in its gamble of tiring India out, assured in the belief that Washington would put enormous pressure on New Delhi to initiate talks again, making the Government desperate enough to clutch at straws to resume the dialogue. Hence the plaintive cries heard last week from Home Minister P Chidambaram urging Pakistan to show some movement on 26/11, howsoever small, so that India could revise its stand. No gesture was forthcoming. Pakistan Prime Minister triumphantly responded by saying that India had been pressured into talking again and categorically declared that these would not be mere “talks about talks”, and nothing short of the resumption of the Composite Dialogue would cajole Islamabad back to the negotiating table. Having put out the second cheek to be soundly slapped even as bruises on the first cheek were still smarting, India has little option except to again genuflect at the altar of Pakistani high-handedness.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has also made it clear that he expects “substantial progress” on Kashmir as and when the dialogue resumes. This is a line clearly dictated by Washington too. President Obama’s team has been consistent in pushing India to concede ground on Kashmir so that, according to them, Islamabad can focus on Afghanistan without worrying about India and also mollify domestic opinion. It is a measure of the US State Department’s naivette that it thinks Pakistan will agree to settle Kashmir with India once and for all. The fact is that Islamabad, irrespective of who controls the reins of power, will never want to part with the biggest, low-cost weapon in its armoury. In the last few weeks, it has demonstrated its ability to raise the temperature of militancy in the Valley, while India has been pushed into going ahead with its stupid, defeatist policy of withdrawing 30,000 troops from the troubled State. Taking full advantage of Indian pusillanimity, militants have infiltrated the Valley in large numbers and provoked a series of incidents. A wily ISI, remote-controlling separatist outfits, are said to have placed vast sums at the disposal of jihadi outfits to engineer regular pelting of Indian security forces with stones in order to disorient and demoralise them and, perhaps, force them into retaliation. Almost every other day separatists successfully organise massive street protests against counter-insurgency operations, raising the pitch against routine patrolling or questioning of suspects.
There is a clear pattern in this plan of action. Pakistan is working on two fronts, one inside the Valley and one at the diplomatic level. They have achieved their first aim that of pressuring India to pull out sizeable number of troops to create a killing field conducive to the militants. Now, with the US rapping India on its knuckles, they hope to accomplish the second aim of dragging India to the negotiating table like a penitent child. I hope that Parliament’s Budget Session will witness uproarious scenes on this capitulation. It must be made categorically clear to the Government that there is no need for any talks with Pakistan in the foreseeable future; that public opinion here will not brook bartering away Jammu & Kashmir under US pressure or otherwise; and that the nation’s interest cannot be sacrificed for Manmohan Singh to pursue his elusive dream for a Nobel Peace Prize. One of his predecessors led India into disaster after disaster vis-à-vis Pakistan and China in the hope of being recognised and feted as a harbinger of world peace.
Even as the Prime Minister embarks on this dangerous and self-demeaning policy one of his party colleagues has been busy cultivating terror sympathisers back home. In yet another bizarre instance of schizophrenia, a top office-bearer of the ruling party went on to merrily attack his own Government over the Batla House encounter, which had resulted in the martyrdom of policeman Mohan Chand Sharma, decorated posthumously with a gallantry medal. Digvijay Singh, Congress general-secretary and former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, committed outrage on the nation’s sentiment by going to Azamgarh to visit the family and friends of terror suspects in the Batla House shootout and had the audacity of declaring the encounter as “fake”.
It does not help to try and back out from the assertion made at a public meeting by later claiming that all he wanted was a “speedy trial”, because TV cameras captured his original remark. Instead of taking disciplinary action against the redoubtable Mr Singh, his party has mildly sought merely to distance itself from him, saying this was his personal opinion.
It is clear that the Congress Party, in a mad scramble to garner a section of Muslim votes (fortunately most Muslims do not share Mr Singh’s assessment), will stoop at nothing to nurture a vote bank. But then, why blame him alone? His party’s heir apparent, buoyed by a fawning media, has been on a rampage against his opponents in Maharashtra, blissfully overlooking that, in the first place, it was his party’s Government that proposed a 15-year-domicile rule for awarding taxi licences in Mumbai thereby reinforcing the Shiv Sena-MNS brand of regional chauvinism!
Opinion is divided on whether this was appropriate on the sponsors’ part, many saying that our diplomatic and security issues with Islamabad should not have spilled over into the playing field, while others believe you can hug each other on the cricketing arena while the Pakistani Establishment holds a gun at New Delhi’s head. But having left the IPL organisers to face a barrage of criticism from cricket lovers for this stealthy decision, the Government itself is getting ready to resume the dialogue with Pakistan, ignoring Islamabad’s victorious smirks. If this is not schizophrenia, I don’t know what else it can be called.
Why do we want to talk to Pakistan at this juncture? Frankly it baffles me. After suspending the dialogue after the heinous 26/11 events admittedly plotted and directed from Pakistani soil and executed by Pakistani nationals who sneaked into India, the Government firmly declared not to talk till Islamabad showed concrete and visible progress in proceeding against the masterminds. In the interim came the shameful Sharm-el-Sheikh episode, demonstrating yet again Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s inability to stand firm. India capitulated without apparent reason and even agreed to include Balochistan in the Joint Statement.
Probably taken aback by the intensity of the furore at home in its aftermath, New Delhi appeared to steel its resolve not to talk to our Western neighbour, till progress happened on 26/11 culprits. The deliberately slipshod manner in which Pakistan went about prosecuting Jamaat-ud-Dawa bosses, exposed Islamabad’s duplicity once more although proof was hardly required for its two-faced policy.
Pakistan succeeded in its gamble of tiring India out, assured in the belief that Washington would put enormous pressure on New Delhi to initiate talks again, making the Government desperate enough to clutch at straws to resume the dialogue. Hence the plaintive cries heard last week from Home Minister P Chidambaram urging Pakistan to show some movement on 26/11, howsoever small, so that India could revise its stand. No gesture was forthcoming. Pakistan Prime Minister triumphantly responded by saying that India had been pressured into talking again and categorically declared that these would not be mere “talks about talks”, and nothing short of the resumption of the Composite Dialogue would cajole Islamabad back to the negotiating table. Having put out the second cheek to be soundly slapped even as bruises on the first cheek were still smarting, India has little option except to again genuflect at the altar of Pakistani high-handedness.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has also made it clear that he expects “substantial progress” on Kashmir as and when the dialogue resumes. This is a line clearly dictated by Washington too. President Obama’s team has been consistent in pushing India to concede ground on Kashmir so that, according to them, Islamabad can focus on Afghanistan without worrying about India and also mollify domestic opinion. It is a measure of the US State Department’s naivette that it thinks Pakistan will agree to settle Kashmir with India once and for all. The fact is that Islamabad, irrespective of who controls the reins of power, will never want to part with the biggest, low-cost weapon in its armoury. In the last few weeks, it has demonstrated its ability to raise the temperature of militancy in the Valley, while India has been pushed into going ahead with its stupid, defeatist policy of withdrawing 30,000 troops from the troubled State. Taking full advantage of Indian pusillanimity, militants have infiltrated the Valley in large numbers and provoked a series of incidents. A wily ISI, remote-controlling separatist outfits, are said to have placed vast sums at the disposal of jihadi outfits to engineer regular pelting of Indian security forces with stones in order to disorient and demoralise them and, perhaps, force them into retaliation. Almost every other day separatists successfully organise massive street protests against counter-insurgency operations, raising the pitch against routine patrolling or questioning of suspects.
There is a clear pattern in this plan of action. Pakistan is working on two fronts, one inside the Valley and one at the diplomatic level. They have achieved their first aim that of pressuring India to pull out sizeable number of troops to create a killing field conducive to the militants. Now, with the US rapping India on its knuckles, they hope to accomplish the second aim of dragging India to the negotiating table like a penitent child. I hope that Parliament’s Budget Session will witness uproarious scenes on this capitulation. It must be made categorically clear to the Government that there is no need for any talks with Pakistan in the foreseeable future; that public opinion here will not brook bartering away Jammu & Kashmir under US pressure or otherwise; and that the nation’s interest cannot be sacrificed for Manmohan Singh to pursue his elusive dream for a Nobel Peace Prize. One of his predecessors led India into disaster after disaster vis-à-vis Pakistan and China in the hope of being recognised and feted as a harbinger of world peace.
Even as the Prime Minister embarks on this dangerous and self-demeaning policy one of his party colleagues has been busy cultivating terror sympathisers back home. In yet another bizarre instance of schizophrenia, a top office-bearer of the ruling party went on to merrily attack his own Government over the Batla House encounter, which had resulted in the martyrdom of policeman Mohan Chand Sharma, decorated posthumously with a gallantry medal. Digvijay Singh, Congress general-secretary and former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, committed outrage on the nation’s sentiment by going to Azamgarh to visit the family and friends of terror suspects in the Batla House shootout and had the audacity of declaring the encounter as “fake”.
It does not help to try and back out from the assertion made at a public meeting by later claiming that all he wanted was a “speedy trial”, because TV cameras captured his original remark. Instead of taking disciplinary action against the redoubtable Mr Singh, his party has mildly sought merely to distance itself from him, saying this was his personal opinion.
It is clear that the Congress Party, in a mad scramble to garner a section of Muslim votes (fortunately most Muslims do not share Mr Singh’s assessment), will stoop at nothing to nurture a vote bank. But then, why blame him alone? His party’s heir apparent, buoyed by a fawning media, has been on a rampage against his opponents in Maharashtra, blissfully overlooking that, in the first place, it was his party’s Government that proposed a 15-year-domicile rule for awarding taxi licences in Mumbai thereby reinforcing the Shiv Sena-MNS brand of regional chauvinism!
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Tricks to learn from Pakistan
Pakistan may be a failed state politically and socially. But it is demonstrably successful militarily and diplomatically. More successful than India, if you want to rub it in, for they have achieved what they set out to achieve. We have not.
Different types of dictators ruled Pakistan. All of them had one immutable objective: Make the world recognise Pakistan as a hyphenated equal of the unequally bigger ( in size, population, economy) India. Pakistan has achieved that objective - in the early days with the connivance of Britain which was an interested party in the India-Pakistan confrontation in the UN over Kashmir, and subsequently with the help of China which ensured that, as soon as India exploded a nuclear device, Pakistan did too.
The smartness with which Pakistan plays the diplomatic game is best reflected in the mileage it gains vis a vis America, and the mileage we do not gain. In the Cold War era, it was simple: Pakistan just joined the American bloc while India ploughed the non-alignment path and thereby incurred America's wrath.
More recently the game has been subtler. Yet, otherwise bankrupt establishments like Pervez Musharaff's and Ali Zardari's have been playing it very cleverly. A US-Israeli strike against Pakistan's nuclear assets was widely speculated after America expressed fears of the Pakistani bombs falling into Taliban's hands. Suddenly the Pakistan Government joined the American side and genuinely went to war against the Taliban. Domestically it was a risk, but it won America's appreciation.
America's appreciation meant that Pakistan's real game - making India run around in circles - could be played on Pakistan's terms. Consider, for example, the toing and froing Pakistan has been doing with great relish over the Mumbai terror attack. And consider America's all-words-and-no-action reactions to it.
More pointed from America's policy perspectives was the fact, revealed by the New York Times, that Pakistan had been illegally modifying anti-ship missiles and maritime surveillance aircraft for attacks on India. The US Government lodged a formal protest and Pakistan formally denied the charge. That, for all practical purposes, was that.
As India fumed in its characteristically vegetarian style, Musharaff rubbed salt into the wound saying publicly that arms provided by America to fight Islamic terrorists were instead used to bolster defence against India. Forget his subsequent retraction under pressure, for he was speaking the truth when he said he was "proud he did it for Pakistan". America said it took Musharaff's disclosure seriously. That, presumably, was that.
This is the same America that made such a fuss about the end-user clause in its nuclear deal with India. Unlike India, Pakistan uses the clause as a joke. Which seems all right with the US. Last March the Obama administration was reportedly considering increasing developmental aid to Pakistan three times ( current rate $ 450 m. a year) and boosting military aid as well (currently $ 300 m. a year).
Obviously, Pakistan knows how to manipulate American yardsticks to its advantage and how to get away with it. Can we imagine a Manmohan Singh or an A.B.Vajpayee signing the end-user agreement as America wants and then twisting it " proudly for India".
Adding insult to injury, India paid nearly Rs 13 crores in three years to Barber Griffith and Rogers, a Washington lobbying company, to get the nuclear deal passed by the US Congress. Pakistan also must be employing lobbyists in Washington. But they get in return what they want. We get what the Americans want. As a bonus we also get American travel advisories asking its citizens to stay away from India. Now we know why Ali Zardari is always plastered cheek to cheek with a grin hearty and toothy at once.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
100% inflation in 100 days
The first 100 days of the second UPA Government is an occasion that will go largely unnoticed in the country. Even the TV polls and the lavish advertisements are unlikely to register too much in the public consciousness. The simple reason is that, all pronouncements notwithstanding, 100 days is a contrived benchmark to assess the performance of any Government. Most people need a longer time span before they can come to a decision about whether a Government is a performing or non-performing one and whether or not it corresponds to their sense of self-interest.
At the risk of jumping to hasty conclusions a few observations may be in order. First, while there is dissatisfaction with the Government’s inability to control food prices — said to have increased 100 per cent in 100 days — this has not yet translated into a larger political dissatisfaction with the Congress. A Government in its second term may not enjoy a prolonged honeymoon but this doesn’t imply that the process of estrangement has begun. Politically, the UPA Government still looks comfortable and this level of comfort has little to do with performance. After the fear that the 15th Lok Sabha election would throw up an inconclusive verdict, India seems reassured that a stable Government is in place.
Secondly, the absence of the Left from the cast of the ruling coalition hasn’t meant a spurt in the reforming zeal of the Government. The Congress is essentially a party wedded to the idea of an intrusive and interventionist state. There has been no change in that philosophy and the global endorsement of spendthrift Governments to fight recession has meant that the UPA will not depart from its well-trodden path of statism. If there was an expectation in corporate circles and among innocent business journalists that the comfort zone of politics will facilitate some radical change, the first 100 days has done nothing to provide it nourishment. On the contrary those believers in responsible fiscal management may find enough in the unmanageable fiscal deficit to fear for the future.
Finally, while the Prime Minister came out of the general election with enhanced personal stature, he has chosen to not drive home the advantage in the first 100 days of his second innings. Manmohan Singh was never an assertive Prime Minister. His reputation for playing it safe and trying not to ruffle feathers is legendary. This may not win him a huge fan following but it has also ensured that a campaign of visceral hate against him is unlikely to ever succeed. His image and reputation have been built on decency and understated competence. In recent months, he tried to break the mould only once — at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit with the Pakistani Prime Minister. But this attempt to think out of the box and be extra generous towards the neighbourhood rogue has enthused neither the country nor the strategic affairs community. Rather than persist, Manmohan chose to retreat without fuss and reserve his cards for a future occasion. The Sharm el-Sheikh fiasco also ensured that the bid to accommodate “global concerns”, a euphemism for US pressure, on climate change has been put on hold. It will probably be re-emerge unexpectedly at the Copenhagen Summit.
Manmohan Singh may want to give the impression that he is a political novice but there is no doubt that the goodwill the UPA Government continues to enjoy at the end of an unspectacular 100 days owes a lot to him. While many of the UPA Ministers are thoroughly incompetent and some of them lack integrity, the overall impression that the country is heading in the right direction owes a lot to popular trust in the Prime Minister. As long as this trust is not shaken, the UPA will continue to be treated indulgently.
It is also a truism to suggest that this trust will not be shaken as long as the main Opposition party continues to wage war against itself. Manmohan Singh and the Congress seem to be shining when compared to a BJP that has completely lost sight of its political responsibilities. The main Opposition doesn’t lack the ammunition to either take pot shots or undertake sustained artillery fire on the Government. Unfortunately, its present leadership is either incapable or has lost the will to fight a long war.
Mohan Bhagwat said in his Press conference last Friday afternoon that the BJP must resolve its own battles, without looking outside mediation. Once this principle is accepted and the leaders who have a stake in the future put their heads together — as they belatedly did on Friday evening — it will not be long before the BJP begins to get its act together. There are some long-term issues of strategy that need careful deliberation but two immediate priorities — one honourable retirement and one dishonourable discharge — are apparent to all but the wilfully obtuse. It is also clear that any delay in doing what has to be done — on grounds of either compassion or astrology — will only worsen the situation, provoke a scorched earth response, guarantee a political defeat in Maharashtra and ensure that the second 100 days of the UPA look far better than the actual experience.
The BJP is a lot into Mao Zedong these days. Three years before he instructed his deranged Red Guards to “bombard the headquarters”, the Great Helmsman penned a few lines of poetry that are worth repeating: “On this tiny globe/ A few flies dash themselves against the wall,/ Humming without cease/ Sometimes shrilling, sometimes moaning…/ Away with all pests!/ Our force is irresistible.” Bad poetry, but a nice thought.
At the risk of jumping to hasty conclusions a few observations may be in order. First, while there is dissatisfaction with the Government’s inability to control food prices — said to have increased 100 per cent in 100 days — this has not yet translated into a larger political dissatisfaction with the Congress. A Government in its second term may not enjoy a prolonged honeymoon but this doesn’t imply that the process of estrangement has begun. Politically, the UPA Government still looks comfortable and this level of comfort has little to do with performance. After the fear that the 15th Lok Sabha election would throw up an inconclusive verdict, India seems reassured that a stable Government is in place.
Secondly, the absence of the Left from the cast of the ruling coalition hasn’t meant a spurt in the reforming zeal of the Government. The Congress is essentially a party wedded to the idea of an intrusive and interventionist state. There has been no change in that philosophy and the global endorsement of spendthrift Governments to fight recession has meant that the UPA will not depart from its well-trodden path of statism. If there was an expectation in corporate circles and among innocent business journalists that the comfort zone of politics will facilitate some radical change, the first 100 days has done nothing to provide it nourishment. On the contrary those believers in responsible fiscal management may find enough in the unmanageable fiscal deficit to fear for the future.
Finally, while the Prime Minister came out of the general election with enhanced personal stature, he has chosen to not drive home the advantage in the first 100 days of his second innings. Manmohan Singh was never an assertive Prime Minister. His reputation for playing it safe and trying not to ruffle feathers is legendary. This may not win him a huge fan following but it has also ensured that a campaign of visceral hate against him is unlikely to ever succeed. His image and reputation have been built on decency and understated competence. In recent months, he tried to break the mould only once — at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit with the Pakistani Prime Minister. But this attempt to think out of the box and be extra generous towards the neighbourhood rogue has enthused neither the country nor the strategic affairs community. Rather than persist, Manmohan chose to retreat without fuss and reserve his cards for a future occasion. The Sharm el-Sheikh fiasco also ensured that the bid to accommodate “global concerns”, a euphemism for US pressure, on climate change has been put on hold. It will probably be re-emerge unexpectedly at the Copenhagen Summit.
Manmohan Singh may want to give the impression that he is a political novice but there is no doubt that the goodwill the UPA Government continues to enjoy at the end of an unspectacular 100 days owes a lot to him. While many of the UPA Ministers are thoroughly incompetent and some of them lack integrity, the overall impression that the country is heading in the right direction owes a lot to popular trust in the Prime Minister. As long as this trust is not shaken, the UPA will continue to be treated indulgently.
It is also a truism to suggest that this trust will not be shaken as long as the main Opposition party continues to wage war against itself. Manmohan Singh and the Congress seem to be shining when compared to a BJP that has completely lost sight of its political responsibilities. The main Opposition doesn’t lack the ammunition to either take pot shots or undertake sustained artillery fire on the Government. Unfortunately, its present leadership is either incapable or has lost the will to fight a long war.
Mohan Bhagwat said in his Press conference last Friday afternoon that the BJP must resolve its own battles, without looking outside mediation. Once this principle is accepted and the leaders who have a stake in the future put their heads together — as they belatedly did on Friday evening — it will not be long before the BJP begins to get its act together. There are some long-term issues of strategy that need careful deliberation but two immediate priorities — one honourable retirement and one dishonourable discharge — are apparent to all but the wilfully obtuse. It is also clear that any delay in doing what has to be done — on grounds of either compassion or astrology — will only worsen the situation, provoke a scorched earth response, guarantee a political defeat in Maharashtra and ensure that the second 100 days of the UPA look far better than the actual experience.
The BJP is a lot into Mao Zedong these days. Three years before he instructed his deranged Red Guards to “bombard the headquarters”, the Great Helmsman penned a few lines of poetry that are worth repeating: “On this tiny globe/ A few flies dash themselves against the wall,/ Humming without cease/ Sometimes shrilling, sometimes moaning…/ Away with all pests!/ Our force is irresistible.” Bad poetry, but a nice thought.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
India’s tryst with trust but verify
The Pakistanis must be laughing their guts out listening to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s borrowed formulation that we must adopt a “trust but verify” approach to our relations with their country. First of all, there is nothing original about this formulation because it was said by somebody else in some other context. Second, “trust but verify”, as everyone knows, was an afterthought. Mr Singh shockingly committed himself at Sharm el-Sheikh to trusting and talking to Pakistan without any kind of verification. Unable to bear the political heat on his return, he was compelled to do a bit of a somersault.
But, what Mr Singh has not realised is that without sounding so ponderous, many of his predecessors — Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Mrs Indira Gandhi and Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to name a few — have preached the ‘trust but verify’ principle. As the history of the sub-continent shows, politicians only ‘trust’. They do not ‘verify’. That is done by our armed forces and our soldiers and hapless civilians lay down their lives in the process.
Here, in brief, is the saga of ‘trust but verify’:
August 1947: At its inauguration, Pakistan’s founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah declares that this new country wants to live in peace with India. The Indian political leadership ‘trusts’ him.
October 1947: Over 5,000 heavily armed tribesmen intrude into Kashmir. The Indian Army moves in and while driving the intruders out, ‘verifies’ their credentials. It finds that they are recruited and armed by the Pakistani Army.
However, Pakistan denies the charge. But some time later its Foreign Minister tells the UN that all forces fighting on the ‘Azad Kashmir’ side are “under the over-all command and tactical direction of the Pakistan Army”. This is our first tryst with this great principle — trust but verify.
December 1947: Having trusted Pakistan and verified that it was up to no good, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru flies to Lahore for a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Liaquat Ali Khan.
India gets no guarantees from Pakistan but the business of “trusting” Pakistan begins afresh.
1958: The Prime Ministers of the two countries sign a pact which says pending settlement of disputes, “there should be no disturbance of the status-quo by force”.
1959: This year sees another joint statement in which the leaders of the two countries resolve “to solve border disputes by negotiation”.
August 1965: The Pakistani Army despatches hundreds of infiltrators into Jammu & Kashmir, but disclaims responsibility. However, UN observers ‘verify’ that armed Pakistanis have crossed the ceasefire line from the Pakistani side. A full scale war erupts.
The Indian Army captures several strategic positions on the Pakistani side, including the Haji Pir bulge and the Tithwal Pass. As the war progresses, Home Minister YB Chavan informs the Lok Sabha on September 6, 1965 that the armed infiltrators were regular and irregular soldiers of the Pakistani Army but Pakistan however has assumed “a posture of innocence”. The war ends with a UN-sponsored ceasefire. However, despite this betrayal, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri signs a truce with Ayub Khan at Tashkent and returns to Pakistan all the major gains of the war.
The Tashkent Agreement says both countries will “abjure force” and will ensure “non-interference” in each other’s internal affairs. So, consequent to ‘verification’, we are once again convinced that Pakistan has betrayed our trust. But, what do we do? On the advice of the Soviet Union, we again start trusting Pakistan and hope it will “abjure force”. The then Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, pooh-poohs the agreement but our Foreign Minister, Sardar Swaran Singh, tells the Lok Sabha on February 16, 1966 that the agreement will help in “stabilising peace between our two countries”.
1971: Pakistan gets back its swagger and wages yet another war on India. This conflict is brought about by the flood of 10 million refugees into India following the crackdown by Pakistan’s military dictator Yahya Khan. The war culminates in the dismemberment of Pakistan, the creation of Bangladesh and the return of these refugees to their homeland.
The conflict ends with the Pakistani Army surrendering on December 17, 1971. Apart from losing its eastern wing, Pakistan loses 5,000 square miles of territory in the west and over 93,000 of its soldiers become prisoners of war. Following the war, Bhutto replaces Yahya Khan as President and the West steps up pressure for yet another “peace accord”. This leads to the Shimla Accord of July 1972.
Under this agreement, the two countries once again agree to settle differences “by peaceful means”. The agreement also says both sides will respect the Line of Control and refrain from use of force in violation of this line. Bhutto gets back the lost territory in the west and the POWs. Thus, from India’s point of view, the biggest ‘achievement’ in Shimla is Pakistan’s so-called commitment to bilateralism. This is touted as a major achievement and we get back to the business of trusting Pakistan all over again.
Bhutto, however, sings a different tune. Pakistan will shed its blood to support “the liberation war” launched by the Kashmiris, he says. Yet, Sardar Swaran Singh claims in the Rajya Sabha on July 31, 1972 that this accord is the “first step towards establishing durable peace on the sub-continent”.
February 1999: It is now Prime Minister Vajpayee’s turn to ‘trust’ Pakistan. He undertakes a dramatic bus journey to Lahore and signs an agreement with Nawaz Sharif which expresses sentiments similar to those in the Tashkent and Shimla accords.
May 1999: The Indian Army ‘verifies’ and finds large scale intrusion of Pakistani troops into Kargil. Hundreds of Indian soldiers lay down their lives as they drive out the intruders.
December 1999: Terrorists hijack an Indian Airlines flight IC 814 to Kandahar. We ‘verify’ that the terrorists are Pakistanis.
2001: Mr Vajpayee once again “trusts” Gen Musharraf and invites him for talks to Agra.
December 2001: Terrorists attack our Parliament House. We ‘verify’ and inform the world that the perpetrators of this daring assault on our democratic institution are Pakistanis.
2004: Mr Vajpayee again visits Lahore and signs yet another joint declaration. Once again, Gen Musharraf promises that “he will not permit any territory under Pakistan’s control to be used to support terrorism in any manner”. We trust him.
November 26, 2008: Pakistani terrorists mount a sea-borne attack on Mumbai, killing and maiming hundreds of people. We 'verify' that this horrendous assault was planned and executed with the blessings of the Pakistani establishment.
July 2009: It is now Prime Minister Singh’s turn to ‘trust’ Pakistan. Action against terrorists by Pakistan need not be linked to the dialogue process, he says, but later modifies this. “Trust but verify” is our motto he says! So, the political leadership is now back to ‘trusting’ Pakistan. Civilians beware!
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Best fuel for india's growth
Goldman Sachs, the investment bank that did not collapse in the rout of 2008, has once again produced a report on India which says India could grow 40 times bigger than it is today by 2050. It is indeed hard to imagine this, but perhaps the suave new Human Resource Development Minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, might not find it so.
There are 10 challenges outlined in the new Goldman Sachs report — things that need reforming to make this potential become a reality. The key points are all weighty, and include one on education reform.
In 2009, the surprising thing is that India’s secondary education Budget is the lowest among all emerging market countries, let alone among BRIC nations. This, even as the National Knowledge Commission wants to increase the percentage of 18 to 24-year-olds educated up to university level from the present pathetic seven per cent to a modest 15 per cent. Of course, this means huge absolute numbers in a population of at least 1.1 billion.
To strengthen higher education, the National Knowledge Commission has proposed an increase in the number of universities from 350 today to 1,500 by 2016. The target, we can be sure, is unlikely to be met.
Even if this target were to be met, the corrupt practice of charging ‘capitation fees’ in private medical and engineering colleges, the confusion over AICTE recognition, and the bottleneck of hardly any new universities set up by the Government since independence, tell a sad story about the state of higher education in our country.
This is compounded by dismal quality issues across the educational spectrum and then there is the hot potato of land, which needs to be acquired at market rate if the setting up of a new university campus is not to become a source of controversy and strife.
But assuming these hurdles can be overcome with enlightened handling, we don’t seem to know very much about quality in secondary or higher education. The IITs and IIMs are collaborations, but they are ridiculously short on seats and no amount of hiding behind the merit argument can actually justify the shocking shortage.
So, in the main, all we can provide is education that resembles the processing of herds through the rickety gates of higher learning, and that, too, for those who score in the nineties in their school board examination. Or those who get degrees by never going to college.
In this global age, what we have is clearly a much-degraded form of higher education that turns out graduates who cannot think or innovate. So, as we stand, more of the same will not meet the needs of our future.
And education reform is, after all, just one of the 10 issues that Goldman Sachs has outlined. But judging from our track record, it may be necessary, and practical, to import quality in the form of good foreign universities encouraged to open branches in this country on a FDI basis.
This may also help us meet a part of the National Knowledge Commission’s target by 2016 in a qualitative manner. At present, not even one Indian university features even in the ‘Global 300’! China has six universities that feature in the list of top 300, and all of them are collaborations with Western universities.
Indeed, despite our shortcomings, we have much to thank Goldman Sachs for. It is because it was a Goldman Sachs economist of Irish extraction, Mr Jim O’Neill, who coined the term ‘BRIC’ in 2001. Suddenly India was included alongside Brazil, Russia and China as the shape of the future power structure. This has, over the last eight years, changed the perception of India’s potential.
Gradually the term has gained traction and though very different in themselves, the BRIC countries have decided to pull together of late. There is even a new hotline being put in place between India and China at the highest levels of Government.
Earlier this month, BRIC was referred to, half in jest, as “The Gang of Four” by a commentator on the BBC as its leaders were photographed executing a four-way handshake at Yekaterinburg in Russia. The BBC commentator may have inadvertently upped the ante because BRIC discussed some weighty matters at the Yekaterinburg Summit on June 15-16 without waiting for permission from, or participation by, the West.
Matters such as BRIC ambitions on developing an alternative global reserve currency beyond the US dollar came up for discussion. After all, China has lent the US over $1 trillion and is very concerned about the declining value of the US currency. India, Russia and Brazil have also parked some of their dollar holdings in US treasuries, and are also worried, if not to the same extent.
BRIC also wants a greater say in the disbursement of global development funds via the IMF and the World Bank, to reflect the shifting balance of power.
And perhaps, there was some unintended symbolism at work beyond the ‘gang’ remark, because these deliberations took place at Yekaterinburg. And it was Yekaterinburg too that saw the end of one era and the consolidation of another. For it was there that Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family were executed by the Bolsheviks on the night of July 16, 1918.
Contemporary symbolism was equally evident not just because of BRIC piggybacking on the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit at Yekaterinburg. The SCO even gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, fresh from a controversial election victory, a forum to fire a vituperous, if predictable, broadside against the US and ‘Western imperialism’.
These are still early days for big ticket Indian reform, even though it has been nearly 20 years since 1991. But even at our slow pace, the world has seen us implement a large part of the Golden Quadrilateral roads project, and surge on to an impressive telecom revolution. They, on their part, don’t think we will fail to reform our education systems as well. What we probably need is a booster dose of self confidence and policy dynamism of our own, to get it going.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Red tide rising in Lalgarh
The All-India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries, of which the Darjeeling district committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which spearheaded the Naxalite movement, was an important constituent, became the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) in 1969. The latter, however, splintered soon thereafter and, at one stage, there were about 40 different groups and parties professing allegiance to the Maoist political stream. Yet, despite this and the harsh repressive measures, the movement spread from the Naxalbari area to Debra and Gopiballavpur in Midnapore district in West Bengal, Mushahari in Bihar, Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh and Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh within a short period.
The movement has continued to grow, and now covers substantial tracts in West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, with contiguous areas of these States forming a ‘Red Corridor’ stretching from Andhra Pradesh to Nepal. It has also established a presence in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The insurrectionary violence now being witnessed at Lalgarh and elsewhere in India is led by the Communist Party of India (Maoist), formed in September 2004 through the merger of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People’s War and the Maoist Communist Centre of India.
A significant feature of the Maoist movement is that, stamped out in one place, it has raised its head in another. Thus, suppressed in West Bengal by the end of 1972, it re-emerged as a force in Andhra Pradesh, where it had been crushed earlier, by mid-1970s and in Bihar in the 1980s, and then in the other States.
One reason for the movement’s survival and spread has been the inadequacy of the state’s response. Counter-insurgency is a highly complex and multi-dimensional business spanning territories as far apart as psychological warfare, electronic surveillance to human intelligence-gathering and actual operations on the ground. Each of these areas requires expertise, state-of-the-art equipment and motivation of the highest order, which is lacking in most State police forces steeped in sloth and venality. In fact, it is the predatory nature of the State police forces that makes it difficult for them to enlist popular support against the Maoist, and easy for the latter to whip up popular anger against them and make them targets of attack.
The impact of this basic drawback has been aggravated by the fact that the police are poorly armed compared to the Maoists who often sport AK series rifles against their .303s. They lack adequate communications equipment, an absence which has been acutely felt in Lalgarh, and mobility, there being very few adequately armour-plated vehicles which can withstand landmine blasts. Even the special outfits that several State Governments have cobbled together have not helped because of inadequate weaponry and equipment and the fact that officers and personnel leading them are from the State police establishments and thus tend to be defined by their ethos and conventional mindsets.
Besides, police forces have to be led at the political level by leaders who command respect by virtue of their personal attributes and who either themselves have the vision and intellect to recognise the magnitude of the challenge posed by the Maoists and the nature of the response required, or are wise enough to leave matters to police officers who have it. There are few such leaders at the State level. Rather, the majority of them, including those in ministerial chairs, are known to be corrupt and not terribly bright, which makes it easy for the Maoists to run down not only them but the entire parliamentary system of Government as an instrument of exploitation and class domination.
Political leaders are frequently unable to identify officers who have the integrity, commitment, intellect, sensitivity, political acumen and courage to lead counter-insurgency operations — as opposed to those who have not. The factionalism that prevails in the Indian Police Service — as also that of the Indian Administrative Service — cadre of various States, makes the matter particularly difficult. Poorly-led police forces are at a serious disadvantage when facing most Maoist leaders who are educated, committed and have years of operational experience behind them.
Maoists also have the advantage of a ready reservoir of recruits from tribal and other disprivileged families that find themselves deprived of their traditional means of livelihood and uprooted from their meagre landholdings and homesteads by a ruthless, inhuman process of development that principally benefits the emergent upper and middle classes at the cost of the poor. Matters are compounded by a rapacious, extortionate and arrogant bureaucracy which strips citizens of both money and dignity whenever an opportunity presents itself, and which constitutes something very similar to the New Class which Milovan Djilas defines (The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System) as being “made up of those who have special privileges and economic preference because of the administrative monopoly they hold”.
The state being still the principal instrument of development, with functions extending from running banks, hospitals and insurance companies to providing electricity and water connections to homes and factories, the intense and widespread alienation that follows cannot be overstated. One then hardly needs to be surprised by what one is witnessing in Lalgarh. And there will be many more Lalgarhs without a fundamental change in the way India is governed.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Wrong strategy to fight poverty.
In the 1980s, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi rued the bitter fact that only fifteen rupees out of every hundred, earmarked for any poverty alleviation programme in India, actually got through to the ‘real poor’, the intended recipients. The rest went without a trace, presumably into the pockets of various facilitators.
Even at the time, the more cynical set the effective percentage at nearer 5 than 15, with inflated bills and sub-standard deliveries added in. This is obviously unacceptable in a country where the bulk of the people are poor, earn less than $ 450 a year, even 62 years after independence, with nearly a quarter of our billion plus population Below the Poverty Line; defined by the World Bank at an income of $ 1 or less a day or $ 365 a year.
The Indian Government defines the Poverty Line much lower, at an income of just Rs 10 a day, stating that it is enough to buy food that can deliver 2,000 calories of nutrition. It is difficult to see how this is feasible in 2009 unless the presumption is that multiple family members will beg, borrow or steal at least Rs 10 daily. Over 300 million eligible-for-work Indians are both unemployed and languish below the Poverty Line.
Internationally, also in the 1980s, Irish rock-star-activist Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats organised the Band-Aid (Song: Do they know it’s Christmas), and Live Aid concerts in 1984 and 1985, respectively, watched live on TV by over 400 million people in 60 countries.
Live Aid, in particular, raised nearly $ 300 million, right in the first flush, for the starving in Ethiopia, while advancing the capabilities of global satellite television, the so-called ‘global jukebox’, with simultaneous live concerts on different continents, hooked up and broadcast in real time.
Geldof persisted with the serious work of getting the succour to the needy after the razzle dazzle of the concert was over. And unhappy with the chronic leakages in disbursement, he set up a parallel administration to reduce the waste, profligacy and corruption endemic in a great deal of charity work, as even more money poured in; but with predictably mixed results.
Much of the funding or the relief material was siphoned off by NGOs and Ethiopian Government agencies, even the carefully vetted ones, that were not above profiteering on the misery of the helpless. Black markets prospered on Live Aid largesse. This, even as the entire effort benefited from the sympathy of the world, provoked by the massive publicity generated — not the least of which were from the harrowing, prize-winning images of the starving and dying shot by highly acclaimed photo-journalists.
The subsequently knighted Sir Geldof’s moral successor in the Irish rocker cum economic activism stakes, Sir Bono of U2, is more philosophical about the actual good that concerned people are able to do, choosing to persist regardless.
Initiated into the charity arena by Bob Geldof, Bono helped organise Amnesty International’s Conspiracy Of Hope global tour in 1986 alongside rock star Sting. Bono subsequently organised Live 8 in 2005 and remains committed to his fund and awareness raising efforts for a host of global issues to this day.
Viewed in broader terms, celebrities and charities, ranging from causes such as AIDS to global warming, and the vanilla, if vital, universal needs of education and health, have been enjoying a mutually beneficial relationship for quite some time now. The protagonists feature the stars of Hollywood, the international sporting world, entertainers of various hues, senior Western politicians and ex-Presidents of the US, Nobel laureates and so forth, in its fold.
But here in India, or internationally, in all the global distress spots, the rate of disbursement of relief to the most needy continues to be badly afflicted.
The United Nations and its agencies, less headline-grabbing, perhaps less glamorous, definitely less self-serving, but with demonstratably long-term commitment and steadiness of purpose, also plough on with dogged determination. They are realistically attuned to doing as much as they can. They carry out authentic and formidable research on their subject areas before acting, despite the corruption and the thicket of political pressures applied to them under the guise of nationalism.
Meanwhile, over 20 years after, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi is famously focussed on the trials and tribulations of the poor in rural India, seeing in their betterance the panacea to most of India’s ills.
He is allegedly the prime mover in many of the UPA Government’s recent rural upliftment initiatives, which have been riddled with delays, sluggish implementation, and rampant corruption. Mr Gandhi, on the campaign trail recently, put the figure of actual benefit to the target audience at just one rupee out of ten.
Clearly therefore, something needs to be done to overhaul the popular models of poverty alleviation. The United Nations, no fair-weather friend to the task, privately bemoans the lack of strategic thinking in this regard, the near non-involvement of academics and thinkers who might be able to fashion plugs for the loopholes.
But perhaps the answer lies in buying something to show for your money, creating rural and poverty alleviating infrastructure, instead of targeting the minimum guaranteed employment programmes with their on-paper progress and their dig-a-ditch-and-fill-it-back-up dynamics.
By this reasoning, the rural roads programme, initiated by the previous UPA Government, has/will probably yield better results than yet another ‘rozgar’ programme. Infrastructure development also possesses a bottom, budget overruns notwithstanding, unlike hand-out style poverty alleviation which gives new meaning to the term ‘bottomless abyss’.
The United Nations set itself some millennium goals for ‘all United Nations Member States’. In 2000 it wanted to “eradicate extreme poverty and hunger” by 2015, amongst a host of other objectives such as “universal primary education” and “environmental sustainability”. Peopled by highly skilled professionals, it is nevertheless used to revising its time-lines.
But, perhaps if it developed a consensus with the Indian Government, and those of other countries, that it will only fund poverty alleviation infrastructure, instead of intangibles, more than the disgraceful five to 10 per cent of the funding may yet turn out to the benefit of the poor.
It is not everyone’s case, but those less concerned with the exigencies of creating compliant vote-banks may see merit in encouraging the abject poor to help themselves via decent and plentiful facilities placed within their reach.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Politicians face credibility crisis
With the second Manmohan Singh Government looking more like a Congress Government, it is possible that the illusion of single-party dominance is going to become the framework of political discourse for the next few years, or at least until there is a crisis which proves unmanageable. This effortless return to the mental parameters of the Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi era may not be a good reflection of ground realities. But the resounding post-facto endorsement of the chattering classes for the Ruling Party of India has, unfortunately, never been marked by profundity.
The natural corollary of this winner-takes-all mindset is that after being at the receiving end of some initial derision, the vanquished will be left to lick their wounds in private. Both the deflated Ministerial aspirants in the BJP and the frustrated puppeteers in the CPI(M) know that they have a lot of listening and explaining to do. But they also know that some perfunctory show of contrition will suffice to defray the immediate frustrations of the foot soldiers. Apparatchiks, particularly those who exist in a cloistered environment of the party offices, know that they can put off exercising hard options by falling back on the need to take a considered decision.
Time and events being great healers, a rigorous post-mortem can be shelved indefinitely if the immediate pressure to take remedial action can be averted.
It is paradoxical that despite functioning in a democratic environment, the internal regime of India’s political parties is grounded in committee room secrecy. This wasn’t always so. Till the late-1960s, the Congress, for example, had a reasonable degree of inner-party democracy. Elections to the All-India Congress Committee and its State counterparts were held regularly and were often fiercely contested. The annual AICC sessions were marked by speeches that were robustly critical of the Government’s policies and the party leadership.
Open, rumbustious discussion was also a hallmark of the Socialists. Ram Manohar Lohia fought bitter inner-party battles with the likes of Asoka Mehta, Chandra Shekhar, NG Goray and Nath Pai. His flamboyant followers such as George Fernandes, Raj Narain and Madhu Limaye were great votaries of the “change or split” path.
Communism in India was nominally wedded to the Leninist tradition of party organisation that ensured a paramount role of the Central Committee and Politburo-the proverbial vanguard of the vanguard. Yet, and particularly after PC Joshi injected intellectual vibrancy into the party in the mid-1940s, the undivided CPI boasted a culture of political discussion.
The subjects of concern-the class composition of the Indian state and the relevance of “bourgeois democracy” were two all-time favourites-may have been abstruse. There was also an exaggerated reliance on what Lenin “himself” or Mao Zedong may or may not have prescribed, and cravenness before discreet instructions from Moscow. However, despite these constraints, the political “line” was thoroughly dissected. The Communists moved seamlessly from “correctness to correctness”.
The tradition of political openness received a grave setback after the Congress split of 1969 and the Emergency. The emergence of an all-powerful leader and the dynastic principle meant that decision-making was arrogated to the one and only leader. In the 1990s, the Congress suffered three major electoral defeats. Yet, apart from one brain-storming session in Panchmarhi, the party did nothing to address the grave problem of political erosion. The Congress’ recovery in 2004 and the awesome advance in 2009 owed little to any well considered plan of rejuvenation. It was an outcome of happy circumstances.
Rahul Gandhi has proclaimed his intention of democratising the Congress. The intention is noble and suggests that the heir apparent may have cottoned on to the root cause of the decline of political culture-a problem he has tried to circumvent by making politics into a caste. However, the extent to which the Congress reverts to its original moorings will depend on the calibre of its top leadership. It is one thing to promote inner-party democracy in the good times. Bad times often prompt a regression.
Curiously, it is the BJP which faces a problem not dissimilar to that of the Congress. If the Nehru-Gandhi family acts as an adhesive in the Congress, it is the RSS which plays Pope in the BJP. The BJP’s problems have multiplied on two counts. First, the RSS has eroded its moral authority and social influence thanks to its unwillingness to face contemporary realities. Second, success in electoral politics has triggered a breakdown of ideological certitudes and added to the charms of aggregative politics. The RSS has tried to hold things together by command. Diktat has replaced informed choice and this enforced regimentation has in turn stymied the party’s renewal.
After Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani, the party’s presidents have lacked the depth to pursue creative politics. Since the defeat in 2004, the BJP has curtailed inner-party debate, not least because the minders and their nominees have lacked the competence to handle intellectual scrutiny.
Restoring the credibility of politics and the political class is a national challenge. As democracy strikes deep roots, more and more people want a say in how parties behave and who they project. The Primary was once an American quirk but it has now become crucial to the British system as well. In India, people are offered choices on election day but have no say in determining the shortlist. To strengthen the quality of democracy, a system of constant interaction involving the top and the bottom is imperative.
The country pays lip service to the argumentative India; it is time to show similar respect to the arguments.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Pak: A failed State with a crashing future
As is often said, Pakistan is a failed State. This is an understatement if one bothers to check with reality. The powers that be in Pakistan are living under a make-believe utopia. True, they have delivered a shock by attacking Mumbai, killing around 200 people, many of them being very important persons. But there is no doubt that India is a bigger and better military power with credible nuclear and missile armaments. It has been tested on ground on as many as four times, and on all the four occasions the war was initiated by Pakistan. But everytime, Pakistan was defeated by India decisively. In Kargil, though Pakistan was in an advantageous position, the brave jawans of India still defeated Pakistan capturing peak after peak. However, the US managed a honourable retreat for Pakistan.
The military masters of Pakistan still weave the dream of capturing India by 2020. A map has been circulated in Pakistan’s Army to boost the morale of their jawans, which shows areas of UP, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal, and J&K as part of the target area to be annexed by 2012. It also shows Mumbai as Muslimabad and, perhaps, the Capital with half of Karnataka, Andhra and half of coastal Maharashtra to be annexed by 2020. The secret paper demarcates most of south India as disputed territory. This map has somehow reached to one RC Ganju, an expert on Kashmir and Pakistan.
Someone must be dreaming and weaving utopia. After all, the e-mail that was circulated by the terrorists before Delhi blasts were clear in their aims and objectives of disintegration of India and its Islamisation. This is clearly a lunatic thinking.
Let us come to the country where such people can manage to attain high ranks in the army and the Government. In fact, today Pakistan is standing at a more dangerous point of its history than it was in 1971 and it is not because of India. The perception created in Pakistan is that India is its biggest enemy. But, as a matter of fact, India has acted as a biggest unifier of Pakistan. The Pak army is not only Punjabiased, but is also Islamised. Islamisation of the army has created more problems than solving it. It has destroyed the civil society to a great extent, barring two States.
The Baluch are struggling for their basic rights. Whosoever of them happens to meet an Indian, requests him to liberate them from Pakistan. They scream that they do not want to live under the clutches of brute Pakistanis. The FATA area of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), from where Taliban launched several attacks on Soviets in Afghanistan, is practically under Taliban’s control. More and more areas of NWFP has gone under Taliban’s control. U.S. wants Pak army to create a pressure in that area, but Pakistan is moving its army from there under the cover of engaging India on the eastern borders. Pak army today is factionalised and, to some extent, demoralised.
So far as the economy of Pakistan is concerned, all the indices have particularly bottomed out. Foreign currency reserves are hardly sufficient for a few weeks. Industrialisation has a bleak outlook. The military elite have sucked all the vitals of whatever economic wealth it possessed. It is living on artificial respiration from IMF, courtesy the US. It cannot fight India without Arab money and without China’s or US help. All these helps operating together are almost impossible. Terror machines at the hands of private individuals and seminaries are enormous. Moreover, people, especially the younger generation, are angered against US and, therefore, against its own Government. Society and the Government are the victims of their own terror factories. Today, in most areas, these terror factories are not under the control of Pakistan Government.
The attack on Mumbai has isolated Pakistan. Almost all countries, including many Muslim countries, have condemned Pakistan for the Mumbai terrorist attack. Pakistan lost all credibility. All its responses carry no weight in International affairs. In Pakistan today, there are said to be one crore eight lakh unlicensed weapons, that too sophisticated ones. There are over ten lacs young people being trained in extremist universities. What is more dangerous is that more than half of them are unemployed and angry. They can do anything and kill anybody, just for money. Therefore, there is abundance of human supply in the Fidayeen market.
Many scholars of international repute like Stephen P Cohen say that today there is no country other than Pakistan, that is more dangerous. It has everything that Osama-bin-Laden could have asked for: “political instability, crusted radical Islamists, abundance of angry young western recruits, secluded training areas, access to state-of-the-art electronic technology, regular air service to west and security services, which do not always work as they are supposed to (Newsweek January, 2008).”
It needs no expert to conclude that Pakistan has a bloody past and the future of a crashing plane, whenever it happens
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Republic of scams
Benjamin Franklin once said, “There are three things that men are most likely to be cheated in: A horse, a wig, and a wife.” One can easily substitute the word horse for wealth, as the former was considered a measure of a man’s wealth at the time. The desire to become rich has been at the root of all scams recorded in history.
India is not new to scams — they have plagued us right from the time of independence. But the regularity with which they are taking place is truly shocking. Also, given that most of the scams involve the same old tricks of cheating such as underwriting or fudging company books, one will not be wrong in saying that history is repeating itself. The only thing that distinguishes one scam from another is that the companies and the principle actors are different. But the motive remains the same in each case.
The Rs 7,000-crore scam that chairman of Satyam Computers Services Ramalinga Raju has admitted to has taken the wind out of corporate India. He has disclosed that the company’s balance sheets were dressed-up over several years. It is a crime for which he and his brother as well as the chief financial officers of the company have been arrested.
There can be no doubt about the fact that this was a case of corporate fraud of epic proportions, which like other similar white-collar crimes will take centrestage in public memory for some time to come. In the aftermath of the fraud there has been a lot of talk about effective and transparent corporate governance and a system of institutionalised checks and balances.
The role of checks and balances is best illustrated in the thriller Silver Blaze, wherein Sherlock Holmes deals with the theft of an expensive racehorse on the eve of an important race. Asked whether there is any point to which Holmes wants to draw the Scotland Yard detective’s attention, Holmes points to “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” The detective replies, very aptly, that the dog did nothing, to which Holmes responds that the dog made no noise because it knew the thieves well. Perhaps, this is what happened to the internal and external auditors in Satyam’s case. As it is, the laws in our country are so lax that a thief who has stolen a bottle of liquor gets almost the same quantum of punishment as that of a prince embezzler.
Much has been made of the role of independent directors in the Satyam saga. I asked an officer, who had retired from a top audit and accounts service, as to what he was doing these days. He said that he was an independent director in a large number of companies. Then I asked him as to how seriously he took his job, to which he replied that he was only interested in the sitting fees and perks, and that if he raised too many queries he would be eased out of the board.
The truth is that even Government companies and organisations do not function as models of probity and efficiency because of the continuous interference, not only in taking decisions but also in awarding contracts. Large amounts of funds are misused by those who exercise control over these companies from their seat of power.
When the infamous Harshad Mehta scam took place, Mr Manmohan Singh, who at the time was the Finance Minister, described the scam as a system failure and had subsequently declared that steps would be taken to rectify the situation. But promptly after that surfaced the Ketan Parekh scam.
Each scam that comes to light seems to be bigger than the previous one. And each of them is due to greed and the lack of any deterrence. The best of laws with the worst of men can be misused and the worst of laws with good men will never deter these corrupt practices. There is no coherent, integrated machinery in our country to deal with such fraud in the private corporate sector.
The responsibility of enforcing the law in the corporate sector is split between the Serious Fraud Investigation Office, Department of Company Affairs, SEBI, Banking Department and the State police. The police comes in the final picture and can take action only for offences of cheating, fraud and defalcation. A police case can mean a long-drawn affair, which may take even 10 years to be finalised.
Truly speaking, there is hardly any worthwhile punishment for the collaborators and the auditors in such cases of fraud. The Companies Act undoubtedly lays down the duties and powers of the auditor. But the penalty for non-performance is pathetic and puny. If an auditor fails in carrying out his duties properly, the maximum penalty is a fine of Rs 10,000.
Incidentally, PricewaterhouseCooper, the firm which audited the books of Satyam, received a consolidated audit fee of Rs 4.3 crore for the financial year 2007-08, almost twice as much as Satyam’s peers like TCS, Infosys and Wipro pay to their auditors. Satyam promoters and others who have benefitted — some by insider trading — could not have carried out their scam with the fear of being found out by the auditors. According to one report, about Rs 800 crore was made by insider trading and sale of shares in this scam.
The truth is that there can be big or small money involved in auditing, depending upon the size of the company. No auditor, unless he wants to be out of the business, would be too harsh or expose any wrongdoings. There are many Ketan Parekh, Harshad Mehta and Satyam scams waiting to emerge if company auditors are willing to put their neck on the block and lose their business. But it is doubtful, if anybody would commit harakiri.
According to company law, for fudging of accounts there is a maximum fine of Rs 5,000 and imprisonment of up to two years. No doubt the Companies Act does provide for special audit, investigation, reconstitution of the board of directors and even ‘dawn raids’. But the penalties for non-compliance are as good as non-existent. Moreover, there is no mechanism even for test-checking a few corporate balance sheets and accounting statements certified by auditors.
Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. The investigation into the Enron fraud had also shown its auditors, Arthur Anderson, as guilty as Enron’s CEO. No doubt that there are a number of very good companies with impeccable records, though the same cannot be said about every company. The Government must decide what it should do and then do it to end such occurrences. It would be prudent to remind it of what Mrs Indira Gandhi said: “My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people, those who work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group. There was less competition there.”
India is not new to scams — they have plagued us right from the time of independence. But the regularity with which they are taking place is truly shocking. Also, given that most of the scams involve the same old tricks of cheating such as underwriting or fudging company books, one will not be wrong in saying that history is repeating itself. The only thing that distinguishes one scam from another is that the companies and the principle actors are different. But the motive remains the same in each case.
The Rs 7,000-crore scam that chairman of Satyam Computers Services Ramalinga Raju has admitted to has taken the wind out of corporate India. He has disclosed that the company’s balance sheets were dressed-up over several years. It is a crime for which he and his brother as well as the chief financial officers of the company have been arrested.
There can be no doubt about the fact that this was a case of corporate fraud of epic proportions, which like other similar white-collar crimes will take centrestage in public memory for some time to come. In the aftermath of the fraud there has been a lot of talk about effective and transparent corporate governance and a system of institutionalised checks and balances.
The role of checks and balances is best illustrated in the thriller Silver Blaze, wherein Sherlock Holmes deals with the theft of an expensive racehorse on the eve of an important race. Asked whether there is any point to which Holmes wants to draw the Scotland Yard detective’s attention, Holmes points to “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” The detective replies, very aptly, that the dog did nothing, to which Holmes responds that the dog made no noise because it knew the thieves well. Perhaps, this is what happened to the internal and external auditors in Satyam’s case. As it is, the laws in our country are so lax that a thief who has stolen a bottle of liquor gets almost the same quantum of punishment as that of a prince embezzler.
Much has been made of the role of independent directors in the Satyam saga. I asked an officer, who had retired from a top audit and accounts service, as to what he was doing these days. He said that he was an independent director in a large number of companies. Then I asked him as to how seriously he took his job, to which he replied that he was only interested in the sitting fees and perks, and that if he raised too many queries he would be eased out of the board.
The truth is that even Government companies and organisations do not function as models of probity and efficiency because of the continuous interference, not only in taking decisions but also in awarding contracts. Large amounts of funds are misused by those who exercise control over these companies from their seat of power.
When the infamous Harshad Mehta scam took place, Mr Manmohan Singh, who at the time was the Finance Minister, described the scam as a system failure and had subsequently declared that steps would be taken to rectify the situation. But promptly after that surfaced the Ketan Parekh scam.
Each scam that comes to light seems to be bigger than the previous one. And each of them is due to greed and the lack of any deterrence. The best of laws with the worst of men can be misused and the worst of laws with good men will never deter these corrupt practices. There is no coherent, integrated machinery in our country to deal with such fraud in the private corporate sector.
The responsibility of enforcing the law in the corporate sector is split between the Serious Fraud Investigation Office, Department of Company Affairs, SEBI, Banking Department and the State police. The police comes in the final picture and can take action only for offences of cheating, fraud and defalcation. A police case can mean a long-drawn affair, which may take even 10 years to be finalised.
Truly speaking, there is hardly any worthwhile punishment for the collaborators and the auditors in such cases of fraud. The Companies Act undoubtedly lays down the duties and powers of the auditor. But the penalty for non-performance is pathetic and puny. If an auditor fails in carrying out his duties properly, the maximum penalty is a fine of Rs 10,000.
Incidentally, PricewaterhouseCooper, the firm which audited the books of Satyam, received a consolidated audit fee of Rs 4.3 crore for the financial year 2007-08, almost twice as much as Satyam’s peers like TCS, Infosys and Wipro pay to their auditors. Satyam promoters and others who have benefitted — some by insider trading — could not have carried out their scam with the fear of being found out by the auditors. According to one report, about Rs 800 crore was made by insider trading and sale of shares in this scam.
The truth is that there can be big or small money involved in auditing, depending upon the size of the company. No auditor, unless he wants to be out of the business, would be too harsh or expose any wrongdoings. There are many Ketan Parekh, Harshad Mehta and Satyam scams waiting to emerge if company auditors are willing to put their neck on the block and lose their business. But it is doubtful, if anybody would commit harakiri.
According to company law, for fudging of accounts there is a maximum fine of Rs 5,000 and imprisonment of up to two years. No doubt the Companies Act does provide for special audit, investigation, reconstitution of the board of directors and even ‘dawn raids’. But the penalties for non-compliance are as good as non-existent. Moreover, there is no mechanism even for test-checking a few corporate balance sheets and accounting statements certified by auditors.
Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. The investigation into the Enron fraud had also shown its auditors, Arthur Anderson, as guilty as Enron’s CEO. No doubt that there are a number of very good companies with impeccable records, though the same cannot be said about every company. The Government must decide what it should do and then do it to end such occurrences. It would be prudent to remind it of what Mrs Indira Gandhi said: “My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people, those who work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group. There was less competition there.”
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Sorry, but not so sorry
The principles of Westminster system, the democratic parliamentary system that we adopted, modelled after the British government, help us govern the largest democracy in the world. Now that we have finished the gigantic task of electing worthies who will represent us in the national capital, we must look beyond our shores, as we often do for inspiration.
The Palace of Westminster is the seat of Parliament of the United Kingdom and, practically, all former British colonies, with the notable exception of the United States of America, have adopted the legislative model used in Westminster.
While India has adopted the British system, there are differences, and one that has occupied headlines in the UK recently is that the British MPs can, and do, claim expenses for a second home, outside their constituency, in London.
Ever since the British paper, The Daily Telegraph, published expenses claims made by senior British MPs under the controversial Personal Additional Accommodation Expenditure for MPs or second homes allowance, what Freedom of Information activists long held, became obvious-that this is an expense most open to abuse.
Media exposure of glaring cases — like claiming the cost of cleaning a moat, fitting chandeliers and in another case, jacuzzi-style bath — stunned taxpayers, as they learnt exactly what they were subsidising with their hard-earned money.
We must keep in mind that historically, all over the world, more tax is paid by those who do not have homes with moats or chandeliered hallways where their visitors might wait while the butler announces them, or retire to the rest room for a jacuzzi bath. These are blue or white collared workers struggling to pay bills as they balance various aspects of their lives. For them, this extravagance is a bitter pill to swallow, indeed.
Not that all MPs were extravagant in their purchases: They even billed for routine things like an ice tray for £1.50, and to top it all, a chocolate Santa, for 59p! Hey, a guy’s got a right to a snack. Others were billing the British taxpayers as much as £18,800 over four years in “unreceipted” expenses for food consumed at the designated second home!
Now that they have been exposed, the honourable members are not terribly contrite, they are sorry, but not so sorry as to resign from their positions following public outcry at their extravagances. They have actually found the scapegoat — the House of Commons Speaker, Michael Martin, who has announced his resignation for failing to handle the crisis of confidence that followed the evisceration of the expense accounts scandal.
Considered the first person from a working-class background to sit on the Speaker’s chair in the House of Commons, Martin presided over a house that for a long, long time held allowances as a supplementary salary, and receipts as notional, because they were anyways secret.
Now that they had been “outed”, the MPs bayed for blood, and punished their leader. Yet, even after they elect a new Speaker, they will have to reform the system, or be seen to be on the wrong side of fair play, which would definitely lead to the loss of public support. The Honorable Members can still have their chandeliers; clean their moats or have jacuzzis installed, provided they pay for them, like the rest of us.
The Palace of Westminster is the seat of Parliament of the United Kingdom and, practically, all former British colonies, with the notable exception of the United States of America, have adopted the legislative model used in Westminster.
While India has adopted the British system, there are differences, and one that has occupied headlines in the UK recently is that the British MPs can, and do, claim expenses for a second home, outside their constituency, in London.
Ever since the British paper, The Daily Telegraph, published expenses claims made by senior British MPs under the controversial Personal Additional Accommodation Expenditure for MPs or second homes allowance, what Freedom of Information activists long held, became obvious-that this is an expense most open to abuse.
Media exposure of glaring cases — like claiming the cost of cleaning a moat, fitting chandeliers and in another case, jacuzzi-style bath — stunned taxpayers, as they learnt exactly what they were subsidising with their hard-earned money.
We must keep in mind that historically, all over the world, more tax is paid by those who do not have homes with moats or chandeliered hallways where their visitors might wait while the butler announces them, or retire to the rest room for a jacuzzi bath. These are blue or white collared workers struggling to pay bills as they balance various aspects of their lives. For them, this extravagance is a bitter pill to swallow, indeed.
Not that all MPs were extravagant in their purchases: They even billed for routine things like an ice tray for £1.50, and to top it all, a chocolate Santa, for 59p! Hey, a guy’s got a right to a snack. Others were billing the British taxpayers as much as £18,800 over four years in “unreceipted” expenses for food consumed at the designated second home!
Now that they have been exposed, the honourable members are not terribly contrite, they are sorry, but not so sorry as to resign from their positions following public outcry at their extravagances. They have actually found the scapegoat — the House of Commons Speaker, Michael Martin, who has announced his resignation for failing to handle the crisis of confidence that followed the evisceration of the expense accounts scandal.
Considered the first person from a working-class background to sit on the Speaker’s chair in the House of Commons, Martin presided over a house that for a long, long time held allowances as a supplementary salary, and receipts as notional, because they were anyways secret.
Now that they had been “outed”, the MPs bayed for blood, and punished their leader. Yet, even after they elect a new Speaker, they will have to reform the system, or be seen to be on the wrong side of fair play, which would definitely lead to the loss of public support. The Honorable Members can still have their chandeliers; clean their moats or have jacuzzis installed, provided they pay for them, like the rest of us.
Its all about "power",go to hell with "ideology"
If West Bengal’s CPI(M) stood for Communist Party of India (Marwari), it should now be Communist Party of India (Mamata). Not that Didi will ever follow the ‘Hammer and Sickle’. But her Trinamool Congress resembles the Marxists in many ways as it marches relentlessly to Writers’ Buildings.
There was precious little difference between the two manifestoes for the Lok Sabha election. Both parties employed the same rumbustious methods. And the trickle deserting the sinking CPI(M) ship for the boisterously sailing Trinamool vessel may soon become an avalanche. Most important, Ms Mamata Banerjee’s “Maa, Mati, Manush” (mother, earth, people) slogan, the title of a popular 1975 jatra, touched the same emotive, even perhaps xenophobic, chord that the Left Front exploited to sweep to power in the late-1970s.
The Communists were seen then as a wholly indigenous force pitted against a Congress that was at Sanjay Gandhi’s beck and call and the Centre’s tool. Bengalis equated the party ‘high command’ with the cow belt. Without overtly invoking provincial passions like the Shiv Sena or Amra Bangali idealists, the Marxists presented themselves as local men determined to restore Bengal’s glory. Championing peasants and Muslims, Ms Banerjee similarly projects herself as the voice of the most underprivileged elements in long-suffering Bengal.
It will take West Bengal some time to grasp the full long-term implications of her party’s Lok Sabha representation shooting up from one solitary MP (herself) to 19 and the Left Front’s plummeting from 35 to 15. But the Marxists, whose State committee will discuss the rout tomorrow with inputs from the districts, obviously understand their future is at stake.
In a not dissimilar situation in 1977, the Centre’s Janata Party regime arbitrarily dismissed nine State Governments. Three years later, Mrs Indira Gandhi’s Congress did the same. The Centre held in both cases that the parliamentary election results indicated that voters had lost confidence in the State ruling parties.
That argument is again being peddled. Though the Left Front controls 235 out of 294 legislature seats, even West Bengal’s Land and Land Revenue Minister, Mr Abdur Rezzak Mollah, advises Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to dissolve the Assembly and seek a fresh mandate. His case is that the Lok Sabha vote showed that the CPI(M) had lost its majority in 198 Assembly segments and that the Congress-Trinamool alliance had made serious dents in the constituencies of 27 Ministers.
Mr Mollah’s principled stand is unlikely to find takers. Instead, the growing clamour among Bengali Marxists against Mr Prakash Karat and the Polit Bureau recalls West Bengal’s history of resentment against central diktats. Mr Jyoti Basu blames the Polit Bureau for not supporting Morarji Desai’s Government in 1979 as he recommended. Worse, it would not allow him to become Prime Minister 17 years later. Apparently, the CPI(M)’s West Bengal unit wanted the parliamentary Left Front to continue supporting Mr Manmohan Singh’s Government last year and was anguished and angered when failing to bring down the UPA regime, the Polit Bureau expelled the Speaker, Mr Somnath Chatterjee, from the party.
It’s difficult to say whether Bengali Marxists reacted to these Polit Bureau decisions as Bengalis or faulted them on political grounds. But the conflict holds unmistakable echoes of the furore over the 1939 Tripuri Congress when Mahatma Gandhi famously regarded Subhas Chandra Bose’s re-election as Congress president as his own defeat since he had sponsored the defeated candidate, Pattabhi Sitaramayya. Irrespective of ideology, many Bengalis see Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s arrest and death in custody in a similar light.
Now, the former Lok Sabha Speaker denounces the CPI(M)’s central leadership without naming Mr Karat, his wife or Mr Sitaram Yechury on two counts. First, leaders should contest elections and be accountable to voters. Second, the ‘Third Front’ was only a “myth”. West Bengal’s Transport Minister, Mr Subhas Chakrabarty, agrees.
Less prominent and more outspoken political activists blame the CPI(M)’s plight on the party general secretary’s high-handedness, and accuse Mr Karat of deliberately committing political suicide by toeing Beijing’s line. They stress that China played a negative role in the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group until US President George W Bush telephoned Chinese President Hu Jintao. The speculation is that having failed to stop the Indo-American nuclear agreement, China sought to sabotage it through the CPI(M)’s obedient central leadership.
Communists with longer memories claim that betrayal of the national cause has a hoary lineage. They recall that pro-China elements in the undivided CPI opposed SA Dange, the party chairman, when he supported India’s stand in the disputes over the McMahon Line and Aksai Chin. These elements broke away in 1964 to form the CPI(M), thereby establishing a tradition of opposing India’s interests to placate China.
If Mr Mollah is to be believed, a far more remote conflict also casts a sombre shadow on West Bengal. He warns that if the Trinamool comes to power, it will try to replicate the grisly bloodbath that engulfed Indonesia in 1965-66. With three million members, the Partai Komunis Indonesia was the world’s biggest Communist party outside the Soviet Union and China. The purge began when six top Indonesian Generals were killed, allegedly by the PKI, and their bodies thrown down a well. The event triggered a reprisal massacre of Communists by the Army under Gen Suharto, probably with US backing.
A CIA study claimed that “In terms of the numbers killed the anti-PKI massacres in Indonesia rank as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century...” The death toll was estimated at between 500,000 and a million. Sukarno was deposed and Suharto became the ruler in 1967. His dictatorship lasted 31 years.
Such drastic events are inconceivable in West Bengal, even for those who nurse nightmares of the Muslim League’s Direct Action Day and the ‘Great Calcutta Killing’. But turmoil there is bound to be as Communists try to cling to their 32-year monopoly of power and Ms Banerjee, standing high in the Congress’s favour, insists on her reward. She can expect Central help as she sets about storming the bastion of Left Front power.
Mr Bhattacharjee accuses her Trinamool of lacking any “ideological mooring”. She retorts that the CPI(M) is “politically bankrupt”. Both are right. The brewing storm has nothing to do with programmes or policies. It is about power. For ordinary apolitical citizens, therefore, the change can mean jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.
There was precious little difference between the two manifestoes for the Lok Sabha election. Both parties employed the same rumbustious methods. And the trickle deserting the sinking CPI(M) ship for the boisterously sailing Trinamool vessel may soon become an avalanche. Most important, Ms Mamata Banerjee’s “Maa, Mati, Manush” (mother, earth, people) slogan, the title of a popular 1975 jatra, touched the same emotive, even perhaps xenophobic, chord that the Left Front exploited to sweep to power in the late-1970s.
The Communists were seen then as a wholly indigenous force pitted against a Congress that was at Sanjay Gandhi’s beck and call and the Centre’s tool. Bengalis equated the party ‘high command’ with the cow belt. Without overtly invoking provincial passions like the Shiv Sena or Amra Bangali idealists, the Marxists presented themselves as local men determined to restore Bengal’s glory. Championing peasants and Muslims, Ms Banerjee similarly projects herself as the voice of the most underprivileged elements in long-suffering Bengal.
It will take West Bengal some time to grasp the full long-term implications of her party’s Lok Sabha representation shooting up from one solitary MP (herself) to 19 and the Left Front’s plummeting from 35 to 15. But the Marxists, whose State committee will discuss the rout tomorrow with inputs from the districts, obviously understand their future is at stake.
In a not dissimilar situation in 1977, the Centre’s Janata Party regime arbitrarily dismissed nine State Governments. Three years later, Mrs Indira Gandhi’s Congress did the same. The Centre held in both cases that the parliamentary election results indicated that voters had lost confidence in the State ruling parties.
That argument is again being peddled. Though the Left Front controls 235 out of 294 legislature seats, even West Bengal’s Land and Land Revenue Minister, Mr Abdur Rezzak Mollah, advises Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to dissolve the Assembly and seek a fresh mandate. His case is that the Lok Sabha vote showed that the CPI(M) had lost its majority in 198 Assembly segments and that the Congress-Trinamool alliance had made serious dents in the constituencies of 27 Ministers.
Mr Mollah’s principled stand is unlikely to find takers. Instead, the growing clamour among Bengali Marxists against Mr Prakash Karat and the Polit Bureau recalls West Bengal’s history of resentment against central diktats. Mr Jyoti Basu blames the Polit Bureau for not supporting Morarji Desai’s Government in 1979 as he recommended. Worse, it would not allow him to become Prime Minister 17 years later. Apparently, the CPI(M)’s West Bengal unit wanted the parliamentary Left Front to continue supporting Mr Manmohan Singh’s Government last year and was anguished and angered when failing to bring down the UPA regime, the Polit Bureau expelled the Speaker, Mr Somnath Chatterjee, from the party.
It’s difficult to say whether Bengali Marxists reacted to these Polit Bureau decisions as Bengalis or faulted them on political grounds. But the conflict holds unmistakable echoes of the furore over the 1939 Tripuri Congress when Mahatma Gandhi famously regarded Subhas Chandra Bose’s re-election as Congress president as his own defeat since he had sponsored the defeated candidate, Pattabhi Sitaramayya. Irrespective of ideology, many Bengalis see Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s arrest and death in custody in a similar light.
Now, the former Lok Sabha Speaker denounces the CPI(M)’s central leadership without naming Mr Karat, his wife or Mr Sitaram Yechury on two counts. First, leaders should contest elections and be accountable to voters. Second, the ‘Third Front’ was only a “myth”. West Bengal’s Transport Minister, Mr Subhas Chakrabarty, agrees.
Less prominent and more outspoken political activists blame the CPI(M)’s plight on the party general secretary’s high-handedness, and accuse Mr Karat of deliberately committing political suicide by toeing Beijing’s line. They stress that China played a negative role in the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group until US President George W Bush telephoned Chinese President Hu Jintao. The speculation is that having failed to stop the Indo-American nuclear agreement, China sought to sabotage it through the CPI(M)’s obedient central leadership.
Communists with longer memories claim that betrayal of the national cause has a hoary lineage. They recall that pro-China elements in the undivided CPI opposed SA Dange, the party chairman, when he supported India’s stand in the disputes over the McMahon Line and Aksai Chin. These elements broke away in 1964 to form the CPI(M), thereby establishing a tradition of opposing India’s interests to placate China.
If Mr Mollah is to be believed, a far more remote conflict also casts a sombre shadow on West Bengal. He warns that if the Trinamool comes to power, it will try to replicate the grisly bloodbath that engulfed Indonesia in 1965-66. With three million members, the Partai Komunis Indonesia was the world’s biggest Communist party outside the Soviet Union and China. The purge began when six top Indonesian Generals were killed, allegedly by the PKI, and their bodies thrown down a well. The event triggered a reprisal massacre of Communists by the Army under Gen Suharto, probably with US backing.
A CIA study claimed that “In terms of the numbers killed the anti-PKI massacres in Indonesia rank as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century...” The death toll was estimated at between 500,000 and a million. Sukarno was deposed and Suharto became the ruler in 1967. His dictatorship lasted 31 years.
Such drastic events are inconceivable in West Bengal, even for those who nurse nightmares of the Muslim League’s Direct Action Day and the ‘Great Calcutta Killing’. But turmoil there is bound to be as Communists try to cling to their 32-year monopoly of power and Ms Banerjee, standing high in the Congress’s favour, insists on her reward. She can expect Central help as she sets about storming the bastion of Left Front power.
Mr Bhattacharjee accuses her Trinamool of lacking any “ideological mooring”. She retorts that the CPI(M) is “politically bankrupt”. Both are right. The brewing storm has nothing to do with programmes or policies. It is about power. For ordinary apolitical citizens, therefore, the change can mean jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Criminalisation of politics
It was at LK Advani's high-powered book launch at Delhi's Siri Fort Auditorium almost a year ago. BJP bigwigs, a few biggies from other political parties and corporate honchos were all there, engrossed in their chatter, networking and all else. Suddenly the atmosphere changed. In walked "Munnabhai" Sanjay Dutt. Networking was forgotten for a while as all vied with one another to catch Dutt’s attention, and if they were fortunate, hug him. I was immediately reminded of Bill Clinton after his speech to Indian parliamentarians during his India visit. Our star-struck MPs had then created a stampede-like situation. Clinton was a rock star and our humble MPs were like teenage fans. The gathered political and corporate honchos at Advani’s book launch behaved no different.
However, I mention this book release function not to discuss the star appeal of Dutt, which is considerable, but how our values have changed over the years. Dutt had by then spent some years in jail over serious charges, including possession of illegal weapons used in Mumbai blasts. Bluntly put, he had been held guilty of being anti-national. But it didn’t seem to bother these top shots one bit. For them, a demi-god was in their midst and they must touch him and feel blessed.
The same Sanjay Dutt was recently made Samajwadi Party's candidate for the "Prestigious" Lucknow Lok Sabha seat before the country's apex court ruled that his past misdeeds didn't permit him to stand for elections. For a moment, one felt the value system we used to pride ourselves in once upon a time still survives somewhere, before the political party cocked a snook at the nation’s highest court and appointed Dutt its general secretary. He is now travelling all over, seeking votes for the national party’s candidates. Wonderful!
But don't think BJP and SP alone are the ones flirting with infamous demi-gods, for it extends to the nation's oldest party, Congress, as well. And this time it is to do with our nation’s other obsession, cricket.
Just as Dutt kept other interests over his country's, former India cricket captain Mohd Azharuddin was accused of the same too. While courts may not have conclusively nailed him for match fixing, there was enough circumstantial evidence to prove that he did indulge in unsporting activities, enough for the cricket board to ban him from playing for the nation. And what did the Congress do? Propped him up as its candidate from a constituency in Uttar Pradesh. Imagine, the party that fought for India’s independence putting up someone who is accused of betraying his nation as its candidate. Well!
One can give more instances of such characters being feted, but I will restrict myself to these two for now. While one wants to send several lawmakers to Parliament, the other wants to become a lawmaker himself.
I am sure there will be a rebound, including from our readers. What about criminalisation of politics? Are all those who are MPs or even ministers, clean? Has the media been a responsible watchdog? And so on.
Valid questions all, but, these two examples are enough to depict the rapidly rotting times we live in.
However, I mention this book release function not to discuss the star appeal of Dutt, which is considerable, but how our values have changed over the years. Dutt had by then spent some years in jail over serious charges, including possession of illegal weapons used in Mumbai blasts. Bluntly put, he had been held guilty of being anti-national. But it didn’t seem to bother these top shots one bit. For them, a demi-god was in their midst and they must touch him and feel blessed.
The same Sanjay Dutt was recently made Samajwadi Party's candidate for the "Prestigious" Lucknow Lok Sabha seat before the country's apex court ruled that his past misdeeds didn't permit him to stand for elections. For a moment, one felt the value system we used to pride ourselves in once upon a time still survives somewhere, before the political party cocked a snook at the nation’s highest court and appointed Dutt its general secretary. He is now travelling all over, seeking votes for the national party’s candidates. Wonderful!
But don't think BJP and SP alone are the ones flirting with infamous demi-gods, for it extends to the nation's oldest party, Congress, as well. And this time it is to do with our nation’s other obsession, cricket.
Just as Dutt kept other interests over his country's, former India cricket captain Mohd Azharuddin was accused of the same too. While courts may not have conclusively nailed him for match fixing, there was enough circumstantial evidence to prove that he did indulge in unsporting activities, enough for the cricket board to ban him from playing for the nation. And what did the Congress do? Propped him up as its candidate from a constituency in Uttar Pradesh. Imagine, the party that fought for India’s independence putting up someone who is accused of betraying his nation as its candidate. Well!
One can give more instances of such characters being feted, but I will restrict myself to these two for now. While one wants to send several lawmakers to Parliament, the other wants to become a lawmaker himself.
I am sure there will be a rebound, including from our readers. What about criminalisation of politics? Are all those who are MPs or even ministers, clean? Has the media been a responsible watchdog? And so on.
Valid questions all, but, these two examples are enough to depict the rapidly rotting times we live in.
Monday, May 18, 2009
The limits of Modi Magic
Statistically speaking, the BJP has fared better this time by winning 15 out of Gujarat’s 26 Lok Sabha seats compared to 14 won during the 2004 elections. The Congress has actually showed a slight dip in numbers by winning 11 seats compared to 12 in the last elections.
The BJP wrested five seats from the Congress while retaining six. The Congress snatched four seats from the BJP and retained five others. The remaining seats won by both parties are newly created, post-delimitation.
But such a reading would be far too simplistic. The story behind the numbers is one of ambitions and aspirations, claims and counter-claims.
Considering that they were hoping to win up to 20 Lok Sabha seats, the ruling BJP has not fared that well in a state that has been considered a bastion of the saffron party and which played electoral host to a prime ministerial candidate in Lal Krishna Advani even while a section of the party’s national leadership projected Chief Minister Narendra Modi as future prime minister material.
But this decade’s electoral saga in Gujarat has not been about party politics alone. It has mostly been scripted by one man, and that is Narendra Damodardas Modi. His popularity, and his electoral strategies have largely decided the fate of the state BJP.
On the other hand, the electoral fortunes of the Congress have been determined more by projections of Modi’s unpopularity and his miscalculations in the absence of that party’s state-level stars.
This year’s electoral results seem to reflect that Modi’s ‘magic’ did not work to plan or to his party’s calculations. The parliamentary election results appear to mark a dent in his popularity coming as they are barely a year-and-a-half after his second successive thumping victory in the 2007 assembly elections.
Modi had a say in choosing most of the party’s 26 candidates. In the process, as many as 10 of the party’s previous 14 sitting candidates were not fielded partly due to delimitation but mostly due to Modi’s opposition. The fact that Modi may have badly miscalculated appears evident since eight of Modi’s handpicked candidates lost — something that will be the subject of much analysis within the party’s rank and file.
In five out of seven of these eight constituencies, the sitting MP was from the BJP. The defeat in these five constituencies reflects adversely on Modi’s choice and on his decision-making. The eighth, Bardoli, was a newly created constituency.
On the other hand, the two candidates who were not Modi’s choice, i.e. Rajendrasinh Rana (Bhavnagar) and Harin Pathak (Ahmedabad-East), both sitting MPs, won with comfortable margins. In fact, all four sitting MPs who were fielded, emerged victorious.
Only one BJP sitting MLA was able to win the parliamentary elections compared to four Congress sitting MLA’s. All the three Congress defectors that had been fielded by the BJP in Patan, Surendranagar and Dahod were also defeated.
Interestingly, on the other hand, Somabhai Patel, the BJP defector to the Congress, who had supported the UPA government on the nuclear deal against the party, was re-elected from Surendranagar on the Congress ticket. Clearly, both Modi’s personal belief and his party’s confidence that he could get anyone elected single-handedly have been badly bruised in these parliamentary elections.
A nasty shock for the BJP has been its poor performance in the Saurashtra and Kutch region where the Congress increased its tally from a solitary seat to four. In fact both parties polled a similar percentage of votes i.e, 43.09 percent (Congress) and 43.84 percent (BJP).
Much to the BJP’s dismay, it lost two traditional strongholds, Rajkot and Porbandar, after two long decades along with Surendranagar. While delimitation has been attributed as one of the causes, the major factor has been the mobilisation of the Patels away from the BJP, especially in Rajkot, Porbandar and Jamnagar.
The elections also marked the BJP’s first humiliation if not actual defeat at the hands of the Mahagujarat Janata Party (MJP), a breakaway faction of the state BJP, which contested parliamentary elections in the state for the first time.
The MJP’s president, Gordhan Zadafia, who fought from Bhavnagar (also located in Saurashtra), managed to secure 1.5 lakh votes, which resulted in reducing the BJP candidate’s victory margin to just under 6,000.
Yet another significant sidelight from Saurashtra is that Mahatma Gandhi’s birthplace, Porbandar, has the dubious distinction of electing a candidate (Vitthal Radardiya) with the maximum number of criminal cases (16) against him in the state. This was one of the three constituencies that Sonia Gandhi visited during her one-day tour of the state.
To the surprise of many political observers, the state’s three main diamond cities voted for the BJP despite many incidents of suicide by diamond workers following large-scale retrenchment and closure of diamond units. While the BJP was able to retain the seats of Surat and Bhavnagar, it was also able to wrest Amreli from the Congress.
But just how close was the electoral contest, thereby indicating the tough fight that the BJP faced this time, is evident from an analysis of some of the victory and defeat margins. In two constituencies each, the BJP and the Congress won with narrow margins ranging between just 800 to 6,000 votes.
While in Kheda and Surendranagar the Congress won with a margin of 846 and 4,837 votes respectively, in Panchmahal and Bhavnagar the BJP won with a margin of 2,095 and 5,912 votes respectively. Then again, in six other constituencies, the BJP and the Congress won four and two seats, respectively, with margins ranging between 17,000 and 27,000 votes.
However, Advani’s cherished desire of winning with a huge margin like last time was not to be. He won with a margin of 1.22 lakh compared to 2.17 lakh in 2004, partly due to an overall reduction of votes due to delimitation and largely due to mobilisation of the Patel vote against the BJP. Interestingly, Advani’s Congress opponent did better in Sanand where Tata’s Nano car project has been relocated.
Advani’s victory margin is the lowest so far compared to his own and Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s earlier victory from the Gandhinagar constituency. Also, his victory margin is lower than that of some of his party colleagues in the state, for example, Balkrishna Khanderav Shukla from Vadodara who won with a margin of 1.36 lakh votes.
Gujarat’s glamour candidate Mallika Sarabhai, who was the most sought after candidate by the media in the state, lost her deposit while contesting from Gandhinagar.
The Congress party’s most significant shock was the defeat of two of its three union ministers — Textile minister Shankarsinh Vagela from Panchmahal of which Godhra is a part, by just 2,095 votes, and Railway minister of state Naran Rathwa from Chhota Udepur by 27,000 votes. The third Congress minister at the Centre, Dinsha Patel, managed to win but by a narrow margin of just 846 votes from Kheda.
In Modi’s Gujarat, it was the Chief Minister who was the sole star campaigner. But evidently, his 80 odd rallies in the state were not enough to swing the tide. Advani, the state’s only non-Gujarati speaking candidate, confined his campaigning to his constituency and that too during the last three days of campaigning.
Modi clearly overshadowed all BJP leaders in his state. The Congress largely managed locally with few star campaigners. Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi made only one visit each, the latter on the last day of campaigning.
Elsewhere in the country, Modi addressed over 300 rallies, reportedly more than even Advani did. The fact that the BJP fared badly in almost every state that Modi campaigned in, is perhaps a reflection of the magic gone awry — something that might be the subject of introspection within the party.
The BJP wrested five seats from the Congress while retaining six. The Congress snatched four seats from the BJP and retained five others. The remaining seats won by both parties are newly created, post-delimitation.
But such a reading would be far too simplistic. The story behind the numbers is one of ambitions and aspirations, claims and counter-claims.
Considering that they were hoping to win up to 20 Lok Sabha seats, the ruling BJP has not fared that well in a state that has been considered a bastion of the saffron party and which played electoral host to a prime ministerial candidate in Lal Krishna Advani even while a section of the party’s national leadership projected Chief Minister Narendra Modi as future prime minister material.
But this decade’s electoral saga in Gujarat has not been about party politics alone. It has mostly been scripted by one man, and that is Narendra Damodardas Modi. His popularity, and his electoral strategies have largely decided the fate of the state BJP.
On the other hand, the electoral fortunes of the Congress have been determined more by projections of Modi’s unpopularity and his miscalculations in the absence of that party’s state-level stars.
This year’s electoral results seem to reflect that Modi’s ‘magic’ did not work to plan or to his party’s calculations. The parliamentary election results appear to mark a dent in his popularity coming as they are barely a year-and-a-half after his second successive thumping victory in the 2007 assembly elections.
Modi had a say in choosing most of the party’s 26 candidates. In the process, as many as 10 of the party’s previous 14 sitting candidates were not fielded partly due to delimitation but mostly due to Modi’s opposition. The fact that Modi may have badly miscalculated appears evident since eight of Modi’s handpicked candidates lost — something that will be the subject of much analysis within the party’s rank and file.
In five out of seven of these eight constituencies, the sitting MP was from the BJP. The defeat in these five constituencies reflects adversely on Modi’s choice and on his decision-making. The eighth, Bardoli, was a newly created constituency.
On the other hand, the two candidates who were not Modi’s choice, i.e. Rajendrasinh Rana (Bhavnagar) and Harin Pathak (Ahmedabad-East), both sitting MPs, won with comfortable margins. In fact, all four sitting MPs who were fielded, emerged victorious.
Only one BJP sitting MLA was able to win the parliamentary elections compared to four Congress sitting MLA’s. All the three Congress defectors that had been fielded by the BJP in Patan, Surendranagar and Dahod were also defeated.
Interestingly, on the other hand, Somabhai Patel, the BJP defector to the Congress, who had supported the UPA government on the nuclear deal against the party, was re-elected from Surendranagar on the Congress ticket. Clearly, both Modi’s personal belief and his party’s confidence that he could get anyone elected single-handedly have been badly bruised in these parliamentary elections.
A nasty shock for the BJP has been its poor performance in the Saurashtra and Kutch region where the Congress increased its tally from a solitary seat to four. In fact both parties polled a similar percentage of votes i.e, 43.09 percent (Congress) and 43.84 percent (BJP).
Much to the BJP’s dismay, it lost two traditional strongholds, Rajkot and Porbandar, after two long decades along with Surendranagar. While delimitation has been attributed as one of the causes, the major factor has been the mobilisation of the Patels away from the BJP, especially in Rajkot, Porbandar and Jamnagar.
The elections also marked the BJP’s first humiliation if not actual defeat at the hands of the Mahagujarat Janata Party (MJP), a breakaway faction of the state BJP, which contested parliamentary elections in the state for the first time.
The MJP’s president, Gordhan Zadafia, who fought from Bhavnagar (also located in Saurashtra), managed to secure 1.5 lakh votes, which resulted in reducing the BJP candidate’s victory margin to just under 6,000.
Yet another significant sidelight from Saurashtra is that Mahatma Gandhi’s birthplace, Porbandar, has the dubious distinction of electing a candidate (Vitthal Radardiya) with the maximum number of criminal cases (16) against him in the state. This was one of the three constituencies that Sonia Gandhi visited during her one-day tour of the state.
To the surprise of many political observers, the state’s three main diamond cities voted for the BJP despite many incidents of suicide by diamond workers following large-scale retrenchment and closure of diamond units. While the BJP was able to retain the seats of Surat and Bhavnagar, it was also able to wrest Amreli from the Congress.
But just how close was the electoral contest, thereby indicating the tough fight that the BJP faced this time, is evident from an analysis of some of the victory and defeat margins. In two constituencies each, the BJP and the Congress won with narrow margins ranging between just 800 to 6,000 votes.
While in Kheda and Surendranagar the Congress won with a margin of 846 and 4,837 votes respectively, in Panchmahal and Bhavnagar the BJP won with a margin of 2,095 and 5,912 votes respectively. Then again, in six other constituencies, the BJP and the Congress won four and two seats, respectively, with margins ranging between 17,000 and 27,000 votes.
However, Advani’s cherished desire of winning with a huge margin like last time was not to be. He won with a margin of 1.22 lakh compared to 2.17 lakh in 2004, partly due to an overall reduction of votes due to delimitation and largely due to mobilisation of the Patel vote against the BJP. Interestingly, Advani’s Congress opponent did better in Sanand where Tata’s Nano car project has been relocated.
Advani’s victory margin is the lowest so far compared to his own and Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s earlier victory from the Gandhinagar constituency. Also, his victory margin is lower than that of some of his party colleagues in the state, for example, Balkrishna Khanderav Shukla from Vadodara who won with a margin of 1.36 lakh votes.
Gujarat’s glamour candidate Mallika Sarabhai, who was the most sought after candidate by the media in the state, lost her deposit while contesting from Gandhinagar.
The Congress party’s most significant shock was the defeat of two of its three union ministers — Textile minister Shankarsinh Vagela from Panchmahal of which Godhra is a part, by just 2,095 votes, and Railway minister of state Naran Rathwa from Chhota Udepur by 27,000 votes. The third Congress minister at the Centre, Dinsha Patel, managed to win but by a narrow margin of just 846 votes from Kheda.
In Modi’s Gujarat, it was the Chief Minister who was the sole star campaigner. But evidently, his 80 odd rallies in the state were not enough to swing the tide. Advani, the state’s only non-Gujarati speaking candidate, confined his campaigning to his constituency and that too during the last three days of campaigning.
Modi clearly overshadowed all BJP leaders in his state. The Congress largely managed locally with few star campaigners. Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi made only one visit each, the latter on the last day of campaigning.
Elsewhere in the country, Modi addressed over 300 rallies, reportedly more than even Advani did. The fact that the BJP fared badly in almost every state that Modi campaigned in, is perhaps a reflection of the magic gone awry — something that might be the subject of introspection within the party.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Post mandate poltical scenario:India chooses congress
India voted decisively for continuity and stability in the general election to the 15th Lok Sabha, giving the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance another five-year term in office. In contrast to 2004, the UPA, with close to 260 of the total 543 seats, will not need the support of the Left parties, and should be able to get a comfortable majority with the backing of the Samajwadi Party, which emerged as the single largest party in Uttar Pradesh. In terms of seats, this is the best performance by the Congress since 1991, the last time the country saw a single-party, although minority, government. Verdict 2009 gives little scope for the smaller parties or groupings to engage in backroom negotiations to decide the shape of the next government. The Congress holds all the aces. The prime ministership will not be up for bargaining, as some of the smaller players were hoping. For President Pratibha Patil, the task on hand couldn’t be simpler: there is no need to consult constitutional experts to decide on whom to invite to form the next government. Manmohan Singh, the declared candidate of the Congress and the automatic choice for Prime Minister, could be the first Prime Minister since Indira Gandhi to have two full terms.
The triumph of the Congress was actually an aggregation of specific successes across different States. The party retained its base in Andhra Pradesh; cut its losses in Madhya Pradesh; recovered lost ground in West Bengal, Kerala, and Rajasthan; and combined well with its allies in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. There was no one big surprise anywhere, but the party pulled out one small surprise after another across the regions of India. When it seemed to take the long view in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and spurned alliance offers by regional players, few predicted any immediate gains for the party. But now, one of the significant features of this election is surely the re-emergence of the Congress as a key player in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, where 80 seats are on offer. The same strategy did not work of course in Bihar, where the alliance of the Janata Dal(United) and the Bharatiya Janata Party rode on the good track record of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. All the same, the Congress seems to have sown the seeds of its own resurgence by adopting a long-sighted strategy in the two key Hindi-speaking States.
The principal opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, needed to expand beyond its core support base to get ahead of the Congress. This it was unable to do. In 2004, the BJP fared very well in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, and Karnataka — the States where it is locked in a more or less direct fight with the Congress. To merely repeat that success would have been a considerable achievement. But this time, it lost badly in Rajasthan and yielded some ground in Madhya Pradesh. The successes in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, and Karnataka could not compensate for the losses sustained in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. To have a realistic chance of forming the government, the BJP not only had to hold its ground in the Hindi belt; it also needed its allies to do well. While the JD(U) obliged in Bihar, the Shiv Sena disappointed in Maharashtra. The honours were more or less even in Punjab. But more importantly, potential post-poll allies such as the Telugu Desam Party and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti in Andhra Pradesh and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu did not do as well as they were expected to. And this came after the demoralising loss of a long-time ally, the Biju Janata Dal, in Orissa. After reaching a plateau in the Hindi belt, the BJP needed to grow outside its traditional strongholds to really threaten the Congress. In recent years, its only success in this regard has been Karnataka. But in other States in the south, the party is far from being a player of any significance.
Other than the BJP, the big loser in the current election is the Left. In both West Bengal and Kerala, the Left parties suffered severe reverses; if the loss in the southern State can be explained in terms of the customary swing of the pendulum, the failure to win a majority of seats in the eastern State is the first in more than three decades. This has meant that the Left parties will no longer be the influential force they were at the Centre between 2004 and 2008. Although they were not part of the UPA government, the Left parties helped shape a Common Minimum Programme and kept up pressure on the government to comply with it. Factional infighting in Kerala, and a strong oppositional, even if opportunistic, alliance in West Bengal, have succeeded in beating back the Left, which will need to do serious introspection on where it went wrong.
In a tough contest, the UPA overcame not only the anti-incumbency factor, but also the shrill, communal campaign of the BJP. But the mandate must not be read as an unqualified endorsement of all that the UPA government did in the last five years. In many States, regional issues came into play. The Sri Lankan Tamil issue dominated campaign rhetoric in Tamil Nadu, but the voters rewarded neither those who advocated the cause of the LTTE nor those who blamed the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka on alleged complicity and inaction by the Central and State governments. In Bihar, the fight became a virtual referendum on the performance of the Nitish Kumar-government after years of Lalu-Rabri rule. In Maharashtra, the split in the Shiv Sena engineered by Raj Thackeray seems to have played as big a role as the coming together of the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress. India faces a number of internal and external challenges: in particular, the impact of the global economic slowdown, and the tensions and instability in the neighbourhood. The UPA must guard against complacency and must use this second innings to improve governance and respond effectively to the big challenges.
Awatansh Tripathi.
The triumph of the Congress was actually an aggregation of specific successes across different States. The party retained its base in Andhra Pradesh; cut its losses in Madhya Pradesh; recovered lost ground in West Bengal, Kerala, and Rajasthan; and combined well with its allies in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. There was no one big surprise anywhere, but the party pulled out one small surprise after another across the regions of India. When it seemed to take the long view in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and spurned alliance offers by regional players, few predicted any immediate gains for the party. But now, one of the significant features of this election is surely the re-emergence of the Congress as a key player in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, where 80 seats are on offer. The same strategy did not work of course in Bihar, where the alliance of the Janata Dal(United) and the Bharatiya Janata Party rode on the good track record of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. All the same, the Congress seems to have sown the seeds of its own resurgence by adopting a long-sighted strategy in the two key Hindi-speaking States.
The principal opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, needed to expand beyond its core support base to get ahead of the Congress. This it was unable to do. In 2004, the BJP fared very well in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, and Karnataka — the States where it is locked in a more or less direct fight with the Congress. To merely repeat that success would have been a considerable achievement. But this time, it lost badly in Rajasthan and yielded some ground in Madhya Pradesh. The successes in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, and Karnataka could not compensate for the losses sustained in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. To have a realistic chance of forming the government, the BJP not only had to hold its ground in the Hindi belt; it also needed its allies to do well. While the JD(U) obliged in Bihar, the Shiv Sena disappointed in Maharashtra. The honours were more or less even in Punjab. But more importantly, potential post-poll allies such as the Telugu Desam Party and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti in Andhra Pradesh and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu did not do as well as they were expected to. And this came after the demoralising loss of a long-time ally, the Biju Janata Dal, in Orissa. After reaching a plateau in the Hindi belt, the BJP needed to grow outside its traditional strongholds to really threaten the Congress. In recent years, its only success in this regard has been Karnataka. But in other States in the south, the party is far from being a player of any significance.
Other than the BJP, the big loser in the current election is the Left. In both West Bengal and Kerala, the Left parties suffered severe reverses; if the loss in the southern State can be explained in terms of the customary swing of the pendulum, the failure to win a majority of seats in the eastern State is the first in more than three decades. This has meant that the Left parties will no longer be the influential force they were at the Centre between 2004 and 2008. Although they were not part of the UPA government, the Left parties helped shape a Common Minimum Programme and kept up pressure on the government to comply with it. Factional infighting in Kerala, and a strong oppositional, even if opportunistic, alliance in West Bengal, have succeeded in beating back the Left, which will need to do serious introspection on where it went wrong.
In a tough contest, the UPA overcame not only the anti-incumbency factor, but also the shrill, communal campaign of the BJP. But the mandate must not be read as an unqualified endorsement of all that the UPA government did in the last five years. In many States, regional issues came into play. The Sri Lankan Tamil issue dominated campaign rhetoric in Tamil Nadu, but the voters rewarded neither those who advocated the cause of the LTTE nor those who blamed the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka on alleged complicity and inaction by the Central and State governments. In Bihar, the fight became a virtual referendum on the performance of the Nitish Kumar-government after years of Lalu-Rabri rule. In Maharashtra, the split in the Shiv Sena engineered by Raj Thackeray seems to have played as big a role as the coming together of the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress. India faces a number of internal and external challenges: in particular, the impact of the global economic slowdown, and the tensions and instability in the neighbourhood. The UPA must guard against complacency and must use this second innings to improve governance and respond effectively to the big challenges.
Awatansh Tripathi.
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