The Election Commission is notread more…

The Chief Election Commissioner of India has announced the dates for assembly elections in five states of India. This follows views to the contrary from the leaderships in many states, notably Uttar Pradesh where the CM was inclined to hold the elections after March, when the annual examinations for students would be over and the education department personnel would be free to be engaged in this activity.

On the other hand, speculation had been rife that the Congress led UPA wanted the elections as soon as possible based on their estimations that somehow the anti-incumbency against the Mayawati government would be better exploited now than later, that the anti-graft campaign by team Anna and the general mood of the state could be turned against her even as it was turning against the UPA at the centre.

While this remained in balance, the exertions of the UPA Government to somehow rush in the Food Security Bill before the Lokpal Bill could be tabled went not unnoticed, albeit unheard in the din. But the plot thickened when the Lokpal Bill seemed to satisfy nobody and had created more controversies than it had settled.

What followed thereafter, from RJD leader Lalu Yadav’s heart rending rendition of the minority issue to the grating howls from fattened allies is now documented well enough to register as fait accompli – a choreographed gambit, using jokers in the pack to send the bill to its early demise or push it towards a lengthy incarceration in dusty files through legal challenges. Notwithstanding the three extended days supplied as sop to opposition, the friends of the Congress in the parliament had served the purpose in escalating the minority issue on the last official day of Parliament.

On Dec 23, 2011, this is what the The Free Press Journal reported:

The Congress has played its trump card in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. The Union Cabinet on Thursday night approved a 4.5 per cent sub quota for the Muslims within the larger 27 per cent quota earmarked for Other Backward Classes. The reservation in central government jobs and education, which comes into effect from January 1, will benefit a vast majority of Muslims. UP has 18 per cent Muslim population as per 2001 census. Their number swells to around 24 per cent when one includes the Muslim Jats in western UP, close to Delhi. They can swing the poll fortunes as they mostly vote en masse.

The government was just waiting for Parliament session to end on Thursday so that it could rush the decision, lest the Election Commission stops it in its tracks by announcing the UP poll schedule and brings the code of conduct in force.

This is the second major decision taken by the UPA government to woo UP Muslims. It had on November 19 announced Rs 3,000- crore bonanza for handloom weavers in the form of loan waivers. Most of the handloom weavers are Muslims.

One would have admired the Congress’ gumption to pull this fast one on a nation agog with expectations of a silver bullet, or bemoaned the guilelessness of the opposition for falling for it in the first place depending on which side of the divide you are, but the real cut was not delivered until a day after when the penny finally dropped. Exactly 24 hours later, the dates for the elections were out.

As if on cue, the election commission had stepped in and the dates for UP elections advanced to February – just as the Doctor ordered. In their haste to comply with their brief, the EC gave Uttarakhand the raw end of the same deal. [Now the CM and the leader of opposition in the state are suggesting that parts of the state would be snowed in end-January.]

On 24th December, 2011, India Today reported the following:

The EC on Saturday [24th December 2011] announced the dates for assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa. The schedule suits the Congress and upsets the BSP’s plans. At the core of the tussle for schedule lie ten Rajya Sabha seats. The BSP wanted the elections to be held in April so that by virtue of its majority, it could get maximum members elected to the Upper House in the biennial poll which are due in March.

The Congress wanted an early election because hopes to form a government in UP in alliance with Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party. If everything works according to the Congress’s plans, the party may be able to increase its strength in the Rajya Sabha where it is in minority. It is also an opportune time to harvest the recent decision to introduce a sub-quota for Muslims in jobs and central educational institutions. The Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi, who announced the schedule at a press conference here, said “all aspects” have been taken into consideration while charting the time table.

But no one said a word. The political parties all peppered the day’s press conferences with their readiness for the great game of elections. Nobody pointed out that the EC was curving its trajectory to suit the senators in command. Perhaps, because it was deemed de riguer. Or perhaps, because it is the holy cow of Indian democracy.

When the EC becomes party to a Government’s election strategy, it not only loses credibility but it also demeans democracy. The choreography has been apparent not only in Parliament – with a well timed response from UPA allies who threw up the unconstitutional demand for a minority representation within the Lokpal – but now it seems that the EC held on to the declaration just so that the UPA could make its move in Parliament with the two bills it thinks will allow it to secure minority interests in UP – the Food Security Bill, and now the Lokpal Bill with the minority caveat.

On 24th December, the Chief Election Commissioner comes into his own:

Model code of conduct is applicable in all poll bound states from today. “There shall be no appeal to caste or communal feelings for securing votes. Mosques, churches, temples or other places of worship shall not be used as forum for election propaganda,” said SY Quraishi, chief election commissioner.

In a sudden and splendid contiguity of views, timing and dovetailing interests, the CEC has become the alter ego of the party in power delivering for them the exact prescription, the precise dosage of electoral lift they wanted from him. So now that the “appeal to caste or communal feelings for securing votes” has been made by the Congress, no one else may do so!

If only it were that he stood aside having done so. But no, he wasn’t done yet. On 25th December, as matters reached a boil and Team Anna stated preparations for the fast in Mumbai and the Jail Bharo and threatened to campaign against the Congress in states, the CEC released a veiled threat to Team Anna.

This is what the IANS reported on Sunday 25th December.

Team Anna’s conduct will be monitored: Quraishi (14:04)

New Delhi, Dec 25 (IANS) Team Anna’s conduct will be monitored during the assembly elections in five states, Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi said Sunday, adding that its campaign against a “particular party” could become an issue of propriety.

Well done Mr. Quraishi! Now, let’s see if we have any plans for you after you demit office.

It is not new to note that the country’s institutions are being unabashedly denuded of their constitutional values under the UPA regime. But it is a new low for the vaunted democratic traditions of India that the Congress party has infiltrated the Election Commission of India. Navin Chawla was the first ungainly incumbent. But S.Y. Quraishi takes the cake.

The example of former CEC M.S. Gill who is part of the present cabinet after demitting office and the reasoned argument that it should be necessary for persons in such posts to give an undertaking to not take up any offer from Government is back at centre stage. And any attempt at eluding this issue now would raise another – Is it time to bring the CEC under the Lokpal? After all, if we can’t trust the PM, why should we trust the CEC – constitutionality be damned.

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Picture Credit: livemint.in

1. FDI in retail is a non-critical area of intervention. Nobody in urbanIndia is suffering for lack of ‘access’ to food or grocery items. If at all it is the public distribution system that is diseased with corruption and needs to be replaced or removed. Access to food is an issue in the remote and rural impoverished areas of the country, where as the fine print tells you, FDI in retail will not be implemented. Comparative examples that try and portray an opposition to FDI in retail as regressive are not only misplaced, they are patently suspect.  [Montek Singh Ahluwalia of the Planning Commission included, who suggested that arguing against FDI in retail was like complaining that the taxis would dislodge theTonga]. To imagine that FDI in retail exemplifies a progressive mindset shames us into thinking that an ability to buy in the comfort of a twenty  thousand square feet air conditioned space is more indicative of progress than providing similar quality housing for its citizen or schools for our children. The taxi took over theTonga for reasons of speed and protection from the elements. FDI in retail projects no such benefit. We already get what we need for our daily needs through local general stores and local big format stores. The gloss of a shiny international brand name atop a store is not enough of a differential.

2. Middlemen are key to distribution. The myth about ‘farm-to-store’ supply chain should end with the simple fact that middlemen will not be removed from the operation but that existing middle men will be replaced by bigger, more organized, more prosperous middlemen. Anyone who knows the business of distribution knows that there is nothing called a direct sale from farmer to retail, unless it is self-owned farm by the retailer. The process requires a minimum of three transactions. From the farmer to the transporter, to the distributor and to the end supplier. There are middlemen even if you make a direct purchase and underwrite the farmer’s produce and each point of contact costs something to keep his or her services going. The middleman is not an enemy of the state. The middleman is being paid for services rendered, his is not a free lunch. He is the conduit that makes delivery possible. Removing middle men, as is being claimed by votaries of FDI in Retail does nothing for the families of those who will be obliterated by the new model that will take over: the retailer will have his own middle men in the system, and that is all the difference there will be. The argument advanced by many including some farmer lobby groups that there are 4 to 10 layers of middle men between producer and retail are not only humbugging they are undermining free market movements where nobody can get in line unless he performs a function. The other charge, that a policy failure produced such layers of middlemen can be countered with a simple answer – FDI in Retail cannot remedy a policy failure. It is the government’s job to fix that, not Walmart’s.

3. Farmers will not get better prices. The idea that the farmer will get a better price for his produce if FDI in Retail is allowed is a baseless suggestion. The open market does not work on altruism and social service. It negotiates the best for itself so it can corner the most for itself. Farmer suicides are not because they cannot sell, as is being written about by irresponsible columnists and business leaders but because they are unable to get remunerative prices for their produce qwing to poor quality produce due to lack of proper crop management or crop failure, an inability to pay back their loans or make ends meet and lose their land. To suggest that foreign retailers would be so teary eyed at the plight of farmers that they would offer a premium on produce which is available at less is plain childish. Fact is that the markets, if allowed to function without controls, will take their own route to price discovery. And remember, the more clout a buyer has, the lesser the seller gets per capita. That is a law of the free market. FDI in retail cannot do any more than local big format retailers are already doing. Those that argue that FDI in retail will bring succor to farmers and reduce prices for consumers need to explain why, when there are home grown large format retailers, that is not already the case. How can you expand on a theme when you admit that it is not working? The farmer is only an emotional hook in the pro FDI lobbyist’s scheme. The truth is that more than 70% of revenues of large format stores come from non-food items where the farmer does not even figure. All the stories in media about farmer unions supporting the move are motivated through two straight facts: lobbying with a generous dose of cash infusion into these unions by food majors and retail chains and the other more important fact – they are right about some farmers in their areas, specially Punjab getting a better deal. But the cost of that is this: big retail and food processors alter crop selection to have farmers produce to order. So, because Pepsi needs potatoes for their chips, farmers skip the Dal season and other such produce in favour of extensive cultivation and specialization towards potato cultivation. Now they are right – that particular farmer is doing well – contract farming is profitable, but in effect an entire range of products are now in short supply. Precisely why Dal and cereals and vegetables are becoming costlier by the day. This is apart from the other real problem – corporates do not like dealing with a dozen small producers. So they focus on one or two large producers and create conditions for the rest to either submit to a larger contractor or just sell the land and move out of business.

4. Brands compete to secure market share. Market share can only be secured at the cost of another existing competitor. It is equally naive to imagine that the anomalies of predatory pricing will be taken care of once the sector is open to competition. Let us understand the idea of competition. All competition starts from a baseline price point. The base line price already exists with the current prices the farmer gets. All competition is normally over and above that base line. Nobody sells below his purchase price. But what is being debated here is the ability of the big retailer to sustain losses for a long period of time by selling under cost to dismantle competition owing to deep pockets. Brands will go on a losing spree to corner market share. That is an old principle. Walmart will sustain losses to counter Carrefour and a Carrefour will do the same to contain another competitor. In a fight of such giants, the small retailer and the kirana shop owner of today stand no chance. As a caveat, one should be wondering what the local large format stores would face and why they are supporting a policy shift that could hurt them. After all, Spencer and a number of smaller retailers hardly stand a chance in the face of a Walmart. Well the reason is simple: The only reason you hear some of them support the idea is because [a] some want to raise money from markets abroad to run their unprofitable enterprises for a little longer until they hope to break even [b] access cheaper funds which the Government and its fiscal laws have made almost non remunerative or [c] hope to be taken over and bought out. Note that the retail business is cut throat and many large-format or branded stores have already folded. Subhiksha inSouth India and Vishal and Sabka Bazaar in the North come to mind immediately. Most of the existing local large format retailers who support the idea are folks who are looking for a bail out or hoping to sell their operations on the back of decent valuations.

5. Big Retail cannot co-exist with small retail. That big retail can coexist with kirana is a flat impossibility. It can’t because big retail alters the playing field permanently. The instruments of small retail are redundant in the schema of big retail. The grammar of big format selling influences the buying habits of people. The kirana sells on the basis of daily consumables of a middle class. The big-format pushes for bulk sales, weekly big purchases where you buy four when you need one simply because it is priced in an attractive deal for the day. The kirana and the small retailer cannot bundle promo packs because it can’t deal directly with producers. Big retail is habit altering. It is not an alternate, not an expansion of choice but a modification of the manner of consumption and sale. Big retail does not encourage balanced consumption but exists on the principle of overuse, and excess. Big retail altered the psyche of an entire generation of Americans – consumers, producers and manufacturers alike. The idea that shopping can be a weekend activity, where you load up on supplies for a week comes from a country where joint families are not known, buying fresh vegetables daily is unknown, where women don’t cook and burgers are staple diet. Weekend buying leads to storage. Which leads to oversized freezers; which leads to more frozen food, and to more heat-and-eat dishes, and the spiral of the other problems of plenty. Indians don’t consume like that and there is much to be said about buying fresh and local, as the world is now discovering.

6. Big Retail is one big cause of food inflation. That food inflation will be curtailed with FDI in Retail is a plain lie. Food inflation has to do with supply side shortages and distribution bottlenecks that have mostly to do with government policy in each case. The advent of big retail will not induce any farmer to grow more food or make any dent in the fossilized mechanisms of food procurement and distribution policies of Government. The truth remains that agriculture has suffered for long, that farmers do not get remunerative prices and that they are unable to pay back whet they have borrowed. Food inflation is a derivative of the paralysis of government and states and nothing to do with FDI in retail. We’re talking about FDI in retail for God’s sake, not FDI in agriculture. The other startling aspect of FDI in retail is that it is being sold as the answer toIndia’s farming woes. Congress MP Jyoti Mirdha has pointed out that the FDI introduced in the agriculture sector in 2006 is yet to show any progress, so where is the basis for moving on to FDI in retail. What FDI could not do for agriculture directly, it will do through FDI in retail is a bit of a big joke.

7. Consumers do not get better prices. Consumers will get lower prices is another figment of the lobbyist’s fertile imagination. Prices never come down. Big bazaar or Walmart, prices never come down. The argument is a facetious assault on the principle of growth and inflation. Big retail can at best sell you cheaper potatoes or five such items carefully selected on seasonal variations or bulk deals with producers cheap for only a week and no more. For everything else you buy from them, you will pay more. That is how big retail works. To qualify this, read this comment from a KPMG expert who was arguing for FDI in retail:  “To draw consumers, [big] retailers squeeze suppliers and ensure efficiencies in categories that drive foot falls. They balance it out by enjoying higher margins in categories where impulse buying is high”  [Anand  Ramanathan quoted in Economic Times,1^st Dec 2011] The reason there is no data on this is because it is not in the interest of big retail or big media to support the idea. Think about infrastructure and overheads. A large format retailer, if it is not within an existing mall and aims to be the size of Walmart stores will have to put up its own air-conditioning plant, parking, galleys, staff, vans, transport, machinery and processes that simply cannot offset any purchasing bulk deals to support the idea of cheaper prices.   That prices of food items are cheaper at big retail outlets is also not without a serious caveat. Comparing prices is not the only criterion: you have to compare quality as well. Has anyone ever bought fresh vegetable produce from a big retailer – nobody will accept that quality from a local vendor. The jargon about cereals and selected stuff being cheaper is sketchy at best and the reason there is no data on this is because nobody wants to reveal the modus operandi of selective discounting by big retailers as a marketing tool rather than any real principle of lower pricing. The survey published in a newspaper is an in-house attempt which does not answer to the most fundamental discrepancy – why does every survey attempt at comparing prices of chosen commodities at kirana stores with big retail outlets: how about comparing one big retail outlet with another and explain why they do not conform to the same price principle across the board?

8. Big Retail kills small jobs. More jobs will be created when big retail comes in is a fallacy and a purposeful falsehood. For an economy where 80% of the population engaged in trade and local retailing is self employed, how do the numbers stack up if you dislodge even 20% of that population. Does any math support the theory that any number of big retailers in a city likeDelhi will be able to support 5 lakh people who will progressively be thrown out of business due to their advent? For a government that is unable to provide employment in big cities with reasonable opportunities, the impact in smaller ones will be unmanageable. The 30% caveat that is being bandied about as a bulwark against large scale displacement of local producers is also a charade because it does not concern itself with produce but infrastructure investments that big retailers must make, [as a safeguard, in the Government’s weak words] without explaining that these could be the plywood and the roofing they use to set up their retail stores or the marble tiling and the bathroom fixtures or even the trucks they buy. So what protection is this worth? Then again, even if this were to be reworded to ensure that the 30% limit pertained to produce and not infrastructure, which gigantic micro management agency would pore over their account books to determine this on a daily or monthly basis?

9. Big Retail is relative to Real Estate. Retail is a first cousin of the real estate industry. Already the calculators are out fantasizing about the acreage these new big format retail marts will need and the newer malls that will be coming by design around such anchor stores. Big Retail loves Big Development and vice versa. The upshot is that the already skewed real estate market will only get more out of control and housing for middle classes and the ordinary folks that much farther. Big retail creates the grounds for large scale property price hike throwing up a new spiral of inflation in real estate space – a totally unregulated, unbridled, black money haven. Another reason why the smaller retailer will have to pack up and move – can’t afford the real estate.

10. FDI in Retail is a political hot-potato and a non-issue. The political expediency attributed to the opposition on the issue of FDI in Retail is actually misdirected and it is the government of the day which should be under a cloud of suspicion for the timing of this move. If this is about proving that there is no paralysis in governance, it is plainly a bravura act which should be set aside for the moment. On the other hand, if this passes for reform, how about we discuss instead FDI in education, a sector that holds the key to prosperity for this country and its future generations. If this is a sop for theUS and the rest of the west, let us learn from their mistakes – profligacy in consumer spend and consolidation of business are dangerous instruments in the economic life of a country. Let us not bail out those who would take us down the precise route that landed them in hell. India must decide if it wishes to trade its cultural, dietary and social habits for the old western paradigm of conspicuous consumption and whether it can stave off the easy charm of easy money and draw a new plan where the farmers are attended to immediately, incentives woven into their crop cultivation habits, offer remunerative prices which keep him engaged and allows him to prosper. This pandering to the urban consumer with the idea that he will have more choice and better pricing is a charade and its bluff must be called. The urban consumer they are talking about probably earns Rs 5 Lacs annually on average and is already spoiled for choice. If it is all about saving a few rupees per kilo on a packet of Ariel detergent, is it worth sending a man out of work for that? Can a Government which cannot provide jobs afford to argue with that? All the media support for FDI in retail is connected to their advertising potential and business cross holdings. Media houses are naturally not saddled with the responsibility of finding employment for the burgeoning population of the country and they must be excused their fit of greed. The best way to test their integrity is to ask if they are okay with FDI in media.

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Picture credit: disinfo.com

Why the recent mobilisation of the youth and the country on corruption could end in a whimper if the correct lessons are not sought. And, how political reform and citizen engagement are the real solutions.

It has now been analyzed threadbare that what looked like a comprehensive outpouring of public sympathy for Anna Hazare’s campaign to press for his team’s version of the jan lokpal bill is really the public venting of outrage at the spread and depth of the scourge of corruption the people find themselves mired in today.

The campaign and its response, and the response of the Government to it have been exemplified by mis-starts, mistakes and misanthropy, to say the least. It is reckoned that a lot of the support that Anna Hazare has been able to garner is rooted in the obduracy of the Government in a repetitive pattern of insolent behaviour which also saw a scandalous attack on Baba Ramdev and his followers earlier.

But it would be a mistake to see this outpouring as an indictment only of the Government on the lokpal bill: it would also be misreading the mood of the people. Above all it would be an omission of critical value to miss that Anna’s movement challenges not only the state for its antagonism to the more comprehensive lokpal bill, but that it aims at the larger issue of political behaviour, reform and leadership. 

The same sentiment is salient in the public response which while severely castigating the incumbent government and the dominant ruling party, tended to tar all political parties and politicians with the same brush. While it is not to suggest that this is a complete truth, the trend of public angst towards the quality of politics practiced for the last few decades is a clear signal for parties and politicians to introspect.

Be that as it may, it is also clear that the current campaign and its mobilization is not all-pervasive considering the bias its exhibits towards an urban centric population and its popular modes of protest. That is not to suggest that the impact of corruption is not felt in other strata of society, but just to present the limitations of a sustainable movement against corruption if left circumscribed here.

That apart we have seen sections of social leaders choosing to express disaffection for the campaign and the movement based on unconvincing theories but reflecting discomfort with its urban/upper class orientation.

On the other hand, the original drafters of the bill, the NCPRI, and the NAC and other voluble sections of the intelligentsia as well as the political spectrum is emphatic that the provisions of the bill must eventually be the subject matter of deliberations for the standing committee and finally of the parliament.

It is a concern that between the stress of hardened positions and subsequent negotiations, the energy of this mobilization might be laid to waste and the real opportunity for reform may be permanently lost. If corruption is the result, as is being portrayed by the team, of politics, then it stands to reason that political reform must be the target of correction and as is now being more universally accepted, a mere bill is no panacea.

In the absence of any attempt to federate the energized youth, there is danger that the core of the movement might be reduced to the specifics of the bill and no more. For it is not by events that a movement is sustained, but by organization and architecture.

The real challenge this movement poses is not therefore to the bill or the government but to the texture of politics in general and it is that which must be our focus if we are to make use of this massive mobilization of public opinion. It is my interest therefore to bring focus back to the essential subject – of probity, of ethical conduct and the intent to establish new benchmarks for high quality politics.

Reform, perform or perish.

If we must take away something from this movement it has to be the learning thatIndiahas changed and that its young citizens are looking for a new grammar of politics and a new breed of politicians. Not for them the old wine in new bottles or the blood line of past, not for them the in-bred feudalism of yesteryears but a new paradigm that puts citizens first and accords accountability a premium.

But do we take up that challenge? Are we made of the material that Anna and his youth generation seeks?

I wager that we do. That there are in the political spectrum, as there is in the corporate world or the burgeoning enterprises of growing India, people of high merit, high values and those who make the cut.

But do we have the mechanisms, the apparatus and the procedures necessary to attract, mentor and deploy them?  Maybe not completely, but the process is on. In the BJP there has been a subtle but sure shift of strategy and for those who may not have noticed it the party is reorienting itself to brace for a new generation of policy consumers. And that has required preparing for a new generation of political aspirants. If at all it is necessary to say it, I am proof of that shift.

Can we take this forward with enough speed and size? Yes we can. In spite of setbacks like Karnataka and the occasional compromise of character by someone or the other, I believe we can. But we can have even more traction in this enterprise if the motivated young men and women who have trudged to parks and maidans in the last week are prepared to not let their enthusiasm and energy waver and if they agree to become part of a larger movement – a movement which is easy to target and pillory, but a movement that nevertheless is the only way good governance can be delivered – the political movement. 

It requires all those hundreds and thousands of young men and women who have thronged public parks and jostled on streets on marches and protests in support of this movement to enlist and take charge. It needs them to unify in the purpose they rose to meet – and to take this movement forward and not let the moment melt away. We must ask them to join us in establishing the order they want to see – ask them to be the change they want to see.

I would say to them that it is only by flooding the political system with your sense of goodness and honesty that you can impact political behaviour – so flood the gates, enlist and overtake the political mainstream. Don’t just stand by the side chanting slogans. Be the slogan you chant.

But that is only half the problem. Political reform is only part of the solution, for without constant oversight nothing ever works well for long. In that, the role of citizenry is essential and it is only in the absence of any institutional harness for constant public consultation and engagement that such a travesty of public will takes place.

Bringing people into the picture: The RWC Scheme by the BJP in Delhi.

The day we outsource governance without establishing a monitoring mechanism is the day we give corruption space to fester. It is not without reason that it has been said that a democracy where the polity meets not as often as each week is never in a healthy state.

In Delhi, the BJP’s experiment with devolving power at the civic level by establishing consultation committees where residents and their elected representatives meet every month and list priorities of development for their wards is one fine example of how corruption is kept in check and how the principles of transparency, accountability and probity are inbuilt as a mechanism in governance.

In this recently launched initiative under the Mayor’s office, the BJP leadership in the Municipal Corporation ofDelhihas instituted a Resident Ward Committee scheme that is a simple mechanism to integrate public consultation in an unostentatious fashion in normal day to day functioning of the city. The RWC, as it is called in short, is a committee made up of one member from each Resident Welfare Association that falls within that ward and the local councilor is the automatic Chairman of this committee.

Only two conditions prevail: One meeting every month; and Minutes recorded and forwarded to the Mayor’s office. A Convener selected by consensus calls meeting and records minutes. Just this two-step architecture presents us with a remarkable model for reorienting local governance. These consultative committees define the new outlines of the governance ecosystem where the pre-legislative consultation process is endemic and demands a debate without straining for the kind of attention the Lokpal bill needed.

The premise is simple and puts democracy back to work, for it is only by discussion, debate and dissent that democracy crawls forward. The problem with our democracy is not there is too much noise but that there too much chatter and too little talk. And the reason is not for any lack of anything except formalized structures conducive to the forward movement of ideas. The indiscipline of aimless banter can be tamed by the formality of procedures and precedents. Men can become statesmen when put to the task. The responsibility of charting a course gets a ship a Captain.

Given the conditions, people are capable of resolving issues, evaluating solutions and taking decisions. Given the conditions, elected representatives too respond to their electorate in the manner they are expected to. The RWC provides such enabling conditions that allows for engagement at the critical, basic levels of governance that in turn defuse the pyramidal build up of corruption and in response public angst and disgust.

It is now time that the RWC scheme is applied to every city inIndia. It is only then that we will see not just the beginning of a new dawn of good governance, but also of the end of corruption.

Congress cons. BJP budges. Media fudges.

Varying versions of media reports abound but the sequence of events all through this episode from the first shot at fasting at jantar mantar by Anna Hazare down to the capitulation of the parliament is a study in how democratic institutions in India have pretended to be working while being progressively ossified into ineffectual architectural boulders rather than facilitating edifices of any worth.

The part that rankles most is how the incumbent government exhibited animal displeasure at the first attempt by ‘civil society’ to invade their space as it were and how its actions continued until the very end to be laboriously in the same direction of destructive disdain, camouflage, obfuscation and plain contempt.

It is another matter that in the euphoria of the final moments the media lost all track of the chain of events and in the final analysis showered kudos on the very establishment that had attempted to pulverize and demolish public opinion until the opposition party forced its hand.

Anyone looking at the highs and lows of the entire episode from any vantage point would not miss the attempt by the Congress led regime to use every trick in the book to first discredit the movement, then the persons involved and when it promised to balloon into another dimension with another round of activism by Baba Ramdev to use force to crush the attempt. Then the second round of attack which started with more obdurate posturing and the imprisonment of Hazare and cohorts and then the public bashing, the abuse by street fighter spokespersons and threatening ministers and then the pull back and the correction, but only in name while all along every trick in the book was used to delay, defray and defibrillate the movement and national mood and when all else failed, the final attempt at rousing up its allies in the parliament with an echoing editorial media on its heels to paint it as an attempt to usurp the role of parliament.

Never did this government exhibit grace, never good intentions and at no time any suspension of its innate belief that it is a monarchy invested with perpetual governing rights until it bought opprobrium to the institution of democracy and led to one of the greatest humiliations of parliament ever seen by us even as members rose to piously defend the people’s will while they cursed under their breath.

The crass insensitivity of the Congress mandarins towards the movement, the will of the people and above all to the life of the septuagenarian Hazare were witnessed by all in as transparent language as it possible. Even the cleverly assuaging words of the PM when the government found itself facing a wall of public outrage were relegated to mere posturing with the pompous and overbearing intervention by Rahul Gandhi only illustrated what we knew all along – that the entire episode was either bereft of leadership in the first instance or it was turned to become a national platform to launch the scion of the Gandhi family as a messiah once it peaked enough.

Insincerity, insensitivity and innate selfishness shone through every move of the Congress in this episode and yet in the final hours, everything was forgotten and the PM actually canonized by many for his leadership. The media all through was biased, everyone agrees and some forgot their creed and tried to become the news but their collective failure to sift fact from fiction and record the episode in its correct perspective is still the crime they should not be forgiven for.

The BJP may like to analyse too, how a party that was accused of propping up Anna Hazare and the movement in its first outing, then Baba Ramdev, came under attack for not revealing its position on the issue. It fails reasonable analysis that a party that blew the bugle on the corruption in the UPA regime last year and provided the enabling conditions for campaigns like Anna and Baba Ramdev’s to develop and catch momentum was relegated to the same corner as the Congress, having to explain its complicity, is a matter for serious introspection in terms of strategy and tactics.

The other side of Annamania.

For all the delicious praise now being heaped on the parliamentarians, the shining democracy of the country in glowing terms is really a mind-numbing reminder of how an entire nation can reduce itself to wildly hallucinating people under a dose of TV-led jingoism when in fact they uprooted whatever soil there remained around our institutional pillars.

That a pack of activists can bend the parliament to its will –all that humbug about the will of the people being supreme kept aside for what else was the parliament all about anyway! – is only representative of not anything fundamentally incorrect with the demand but an illustration of the sloth and hubris that is eating away at the vitals of our democracy. It is – and as the leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha touched upon this – the inability of parliament to reflect the will of the people for so long that brought it to such a shameful capitulation.

The absence of our parliamentarians to get a ‘sense’ of the popular desire to root out corruption for decades coupled with an administration that has shown itself to be a peddler and protector of some of the gravest acts of corruption in our history has brought one of the singular edifices of our democracy to this low point. That, parliamentarians now sing the tune of acknowledgement, of the will of the people is not to be mistaken for any evidence of a strong democracy, but a weak one.

The craven capitulation by exalted members within the circularity of the parliament hemisphere when the government had its back to the wall will remain etched in public memory and this ghost will haunt us again, and again. The generation which saw the crown of Indian democracy mocked will choose to play its hand again, some time later, some time soon. The Congress will bear the scar on itself for it just as it inflicted on the edifice that day. And there must be penance. Or there will be punishment.

Quickie Democracy versus Good Governance

The plethora of sudden solutions that have appeared since the Anna movement acquired its momentum and achieved its end has thrown up a confounding miscellany of ideas none of which seem to hover around the critical aspects espoused earlier viz. citizen empowerment and institutionalized intervention or institutionalization of public consultation or pre-legislative consultation.

It was not unusual therefore to see the sleeping dragon of electoral reform step out of its cave with many related proposals though it has to be admitted that the team Anna’s indications and utterances on the right to recall set tongues wagging more than anything else. The debate is in the right direction, for any discourse towards better governance through transparent mechanisms is welcome but now that the second silly season is upon us it would be worthwhile to ponder on some of these ideas just so the discourse is not compromised by some ungainly, disproportionate ideas.

Between the right to reject and the right to recall is a chasm of interminable width for one is the lazy man’s solution to the problem whilst the other is the plodder’s recipe. Whereas the right to reject suffers from conceptual infirmity, the right to recall defeats itself in practice. Noble ideas, in intent both, their authors are passion more than intellect, for both are in themselves unaccountable to reason.

Consider that the average urban voter chooses to cast his vote far more reluctantly than his rural counterpart. The same bias holds for economic classification, the rich vote less than the poor. Consider then that the right to reject is an act that permits a voter to first queue for voting, and then at the moment he is expected to vote, chooses to actually not. Pioneers of this idea think that by doing this they might produce a verdict of None-Of-The-Above, indicating a re-match, so to say. But the idea is frivolous. People are not ingrained to make investments in status quoist options. Affirmative action, yes; negative voting, yes too. But parapsychology does not support the theory that man will move to achieve nothing. And before another argument is unsheathed, remember that the other part of the problem stays unsolved. Even if it were to force a re-election, where would the new candidature come from? And can you really democratically cauterize the right of a candidate to stand for re-election? The systemic environment as it stands is severely antithetic to easy candidature and the chances that a new, better candidature emerging is a false alarm at best. Anyone who knows politics as it is practiced and in the circumstances it is practiced would immediately understand the impotency of this idea.

The other idea, the right to recall is sounder to the ear although unrealistic to the test. Recall is sexy, when put in context of the current mire of party politics but it is weighed down by the conditions that would be needed for it to be acceptable to all. It might be possible to take a leaf out of the election laws of the state ofCaliforniabut even then the right would be unenforceable in 99% of the cases for the sheer weight of effort.

The essence of the movement towards better governance cannot be faulted, but the effort must not be misdirected. Civil society activism on such issues, particularly when they are launched on the back of previous successes in rousing public opinion may lead to missing the wood for the trees. Earlier activism on the right to reject has ended up putting that idea on the list of electoral reforms sought by the Election Commission of India- an institution that might serve us better by creating a national network of independent offices not dependent on state machinery. It also forces them to deviate from their real mandate and start to compensate with another unrelated activity if it cannot show enough progress on such ideas. For example Election Commission has started spending millions of rupees in advertising campaigns trying to get the youth to vote or urban voters to queue up on Election Day – patently irrelevant for an institution whose essential job is to conduct free and fair elections. People not voting are already communicating a choice. It is not for the EC to fret but the political establishment to respond, and if possible, reform. Besides, it has always been the domain of the political party to mobilize voters. How did the EC come into the picture? The EC is wasting precious money and time, led by the nose on such matters by wanton activism.

It might therefore serve governance – and indeed democracy – better, if civil society groups applied this energy to far more serious and productive enterprises such as strengthening the movement of institutionalizing public consultation through models like the Resident Ward Committee scheme that the Municipality inDelhihas launched.

“The challenge to corruption is not a simple game of naughts and crosses, not about the right to recall or reject but an algebraic algorithm that pervades the system in a light and shade pattern that makes the enemy almost ghostlike and intangible. And yet there exists a method to corner this beast – and it is the collective will and intelligence of the people, acting in concert”. 

© Sanjay Kaul 2011

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The three day Sadhbhavna fast by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, close on the heels of the Supreme Court order asking the SIT to place its final report in a trial court in Ahmedabad, has become a subject of delicious speculation with more dimensions than a Surat diamond could flash. Although it would be naive to suggest that there was no symbolism in the act, it would also be vain to imagine that so many facets could be accorded to it. However, let us consume ourselves with reading between the lines since the obvious escapes us.

 To begin with, even if Sadhbhavna were to be seen in the context of the SC observation, the impact hoped for was closure, and perhaps a new beginning – the sort of things Narendra Modi’s detractors would not have him achieve if they could help it. It might have come to the chagrin of congressmen, but Modi’s three day fast was achieving its objectives even as they fuelled the debate and controversy flared. The 3-day event was in fact a masterly conceptualized visual punctuation in the streaming imagery of Modi, the man and the persona. Psychologists and image managers alike will tell you that it is only by painting newer images on the collective public memory that progression is gained. That is sometimes called re-invention or more coarsely, a makeover. But it is really the modification of an image with newer, fresher, more contemporary imagery to transcend older, more dated ones. Nobody in public life should be inattentive to that. But allowing Modi that luxury would queer the pitch for the industry that has come up around his protracted vilification. That explains the late-ish reaction of Modi baiters, in sending a posse of aggrieved protesters to the venue, flanked by Mallika Sarabhai as she courted arrest with a party pooper’s aplomb. The attempt by Shankar Singh Vaghela to try and steal his thunder – limelight, actually – was a pitiable effort even by Congress standards while there began serious speculation as to whether Modi was sending out a message of his arrival on centre stage and whether this was supposed to be a bugle for his march to Delhi. The paranoia of the Congress on that point was tangible through the many hired mouths they unleashed on TV, though it was never clear whether they spoke out of fear or awe and by the time the muezzin calls reached a crescendo, everyone and his cousin were not only declaring it illegitimate for a man to redefine himself and his outlook, but also challenging his right within his party to throw his hat in the ring for prime minister-ship.

The argument against Modi is constantly weakening because his detractors are being repeatedly exposed in their schema of maintaining the Muslim fear factor. Keeping the pain alive, is part of the trade of agencies that stand to gain from it. That would include any purveyor of communal angst or sectarian strife and political parties that work on the principle of hate management to harvest votes. It goes without saying therefore, that should the Muslim of Gujarat reconcile with the past, or bring closure to the horrific experience of the riots, these agencies would lose their potency, their very constituency. We have seen this in much of the Muslim world where reconciliation is made out to be defeat, and we are now seeing some of this in the newer generations of Kashmiri Muslims. This suits the communal agenda of clerics and the extremist political leadership within Muslims, but it would hold no currency unless mainstream, mainline parties like the Congress would grant it legitimacy and aid and abet it.

Many well meaning journalists became victims of this forced view and found themselves babbling the most predictable raft of opinions when in fact it raised serious questions about a leader’s desire to carry his people along and the effort to push the community back into its past. Lest it sound insensitive to ask someone to not visit the shrine of their painful memories, let it be known that the same rule holds for the Sikhs who lost many in the riots organized by Congressmen, and the Hindus inKashmirwho were massacred for no act of retribution, or indeed initiation. Both communities have reconciled and moved on. That does not reduce the crime of those who perpetrated it, and it does not amount to giving anybody a guilt free passport but it signifies the acceptance of the principle of life, of the motor of existence, of moving on. The attempt, therefore, by an army of co-religionists, activists, NGOs and political parties to not let the riot affected forget, and to remind them of those wounds constantly to keep them festering, is nothing short of an act against the very people it pretends to protect.

Gujarat’s tryst with Godhra is a two part series, the first of which is conveniently buried in the orchestrated campaign unleashed by motivated savants with the support of the state at the centre. The easy conclusion, that the post-Godhra events should be deposited at the door of the CM underlines how the Godhra crime is not considered worthy of finding an enemy, or a prime accused. It’s almost like, to borrow from an eponymous film title, Nobody Killed The Hindus, and we don’t even have to bother about making anybody responsible for that. It is this infirmity in the campaign unleashed by Modi’s adversaries that makes Modi such a success, and curious as it may sound, that shrill campaigning and its unfair bias in fact makes Modi come through – at least in the eyes of the larger section of Gujarat’s population – as a victim, and which continues to invest him with the electorate’s sympathy.

The biggest side show proved to be the Maulana cap episode and it became mirthful eventually to see Modi-baiters taking that as ultimate proof of his anti-Muslim outlook. But even in that, and even allowing for the suggestion that he played to the Hindu gallery in that act, they seemed to have missed the big blow he dealt the old Nehruvian-Gandhian political tradition of dolling themselves in the attire of the communities they dally with. Not so for Modi, for he made it a point of departure using the solid plank of symmetrical distancing of religion from statecraft, drawing distinction between politics of governance and vote baiting based on communal pantomime. It is natural that this deviation from tradition will be seen askance, but there is a growing constituency in the country which is taking comfort in the fresh perspective Modi is bringing to geriatric politics. So, instead of carping about a cap, let us just tip our hat to that.

 This post has appeared under a different headline in The Pioneer of Saturday 24^th September, 2011.

Image courtesy: www.post.jagran.com

The UPA Government’s faux bravado and final capitulation in the face of the frenzied public reaction to Anna’s position before and after his incarceration has only underlined what we have been saying for some time now: pelf and hubris do not a government make.

Even as events unfolded around the hack attempts by the Government to silence the Lokpal crusaders, a showdown ensued in the two houses of parliament which many now accept as the defining moment of this entire episode, from the time the protests began on the Lokpal Bill. Anyone who was watching the proceedings in Parliament on Wednesday would not miss the double whammy that leaders of opposition in the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha piled on to the ruling combine with distinctly non-linear and penetrating argumentation.

The PM’s address to the houses, it could be said safely now, did more harm to the Government’s cause than good. The specious tapestry of justification that the PM tried to weave, which began as a litany of events, crumbled quickly into a morass of rhetorical positions which were delectably unraveled by Mr. Jailtley in his subsequent reply. But the points to note were the imperious attempt by the PM to subvert the public discourse and present it as a confrontation between civil society and Parliamentary democracy while evading responsibility for the police actions until the last. Although the treasury benches continued to howl in protest every time Mr. Jaitley mentioned this, the truth carried – that nobody challenged the parliament’s role in law making and the Police is under the Centre inDelhi. Thanks to the guileless maneuvering of the PM by his advisors, an issue about the substance of the Lokpal Bill metamorphosed into an issue of freedom to protest and of affiliated rights of the people.

In the Lok Sabha, the leader of opposition scored a bull’s eye and reduced the PM’s arguments to tatters by asking who subverted parliamentary process by consciously disallowing the opposition into the debate on the Lokpal and supping with the so called ‘Annarchists’? Nothing more needed to be said. The pained and self righteous rebuttals looked more like apologies than arguments.

The Justice Soumitra Sen impeachment was the other highlight that inter alia only pressed the aching point – more corruption, this time related to the judiciary throwing into gear newer arguments for demanding the judiciary be tested more stringently under the new Lokpal. In effect, the Congress’ dictatorial attitude and concomitant circumstances have converged in a planetary synchrony that leaves it at the door of the Congress for losing the confidence of the country. Come denouement, it will have nobody else to blame but its own sense of its divine right to rule.

Sections of commentators who have called the anti-corruption movement motivated and populist in a tinge of abuse are in fact paying it compliments – if these are motivated groups, so much the better. If they are popular, it goes to their credit. If anyone supports them – be it the BJP or the RSS, Ramdev or Sri Sri – more power to their elbow. Arm chair punditry and the dwindling tribe of congress supporters may be faulted for missingIndia’s very own jasmine moment, but they should bear in mind that the people of this country smell a victory. Their only option is to be part of it.

Contrary to the insinuations of Congress spokespersons about the relationship between the maelstrom of the anti-corruption movement and the BJP and RSS, when I visited the venues of such protests, particularly Chatrasal Stadium I found no collaboration even between the protestors who had gathered there. It took me about 45 minutes to identify team leaders and who had between them a posse of 20 or such like friends each of whom had converged of their own will or peer pressure. No organization to back them up, I was asked by one to contribute money for candles. Another asked for some food and cold drinks. Walking the length and breadth of these protests, it was clear to anyone without blinkered vision that this country is very angry with the government. True, the post adolescent tribe that is growing by the day and leading the chant is not yet directly attacking the government, but to expect them to do so would be infantile – for one, they are far too unsullied by the demands of polarized politics to take sides, but also for the internal combustion of the movement which tends to blame politicians of all hues for corruption.

The BJP has exhibited statesmanship in underlining its open support for these ‘referendumentalists’ who are pointing to not just another point of view but also expressing disaffection with the subversion of the opinion they want to see sent to Parliament. The BJP must now focus of winning the hearts and minds of this blooded generation with a commitment and high idealism that defines its real ethos. In spite of the ambient cynicism against politicians and politics, my wager is that they would side with a party that has the gumption to accept that a right is a right, and one that is willing to fight the good fight.

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This post has appeared as an op-ed piece under a different headline in The Pioneer of Saturday 20^th August, 2011

Picture credit: ismaisin.com

Trained to Kill

Even as Trinamool Congress tastes power inWest Bengal, and the mercurial Mamta Bannerjee slides out of her Ministerial chair at Railway Bhavan, we notice the inauspicious start to her tenure with a train accident in UP which remains unexplained beyond the usual fact-finding team and finger pointing. That led me to explore the state of the railway’s accident records over the past few decades and this is what that threw up: In the 1980’s,  12 incidents costing 1680 lives; in the 1990’s 27 incidents costing 1870 lives; in the year’s 2000-2009, 15 accidents costing  648 lives. And here’s the shocker: In 2010 alone, there were 20 incidents costing 290 lives! More shocking: In 2011, up to today, 12 incidents, costing 109 lives. [And I am not including the Malda accident, which has happened even as I write.] If you take these figures and extrapolate, the scenario promises to be horrific for this decade.

An article in Business Standard has noted that of the 50 worst train accidents in 2010 in the world, 14 were inIndia. There is now belated talk, more and more looking like a pattern, that the PM is seized of the matter and has initiated some soul searching – fact finding, I guess. But the problem with the railways is the same as the problem with almost everything else in this government – drift and more drift, a paralysis of initiative, and an absence of action. From the jokery of Lalu Prasad as railway Minister* to the mockery of Mamta Bannerjee as one, we have seen the railway portfolio become sop, charm, prize and catch all at once, used to mollify allies, cultivate crooks and in general play footsie with coalition partners.

So expect more mangled bodies on the rail tracks while our government perpetrates its brand of politics, a la Congress.

[* apparently, in 2009 on 13^th February even as he was reading out the rail budget and boasting about the increased safety measures taken by his ministry, the Coromandel Express derailed – all facts above collated from wikipedia ]

Mumbai once more.

It came as a relief even in the dastardly attack on innocents in the Mumbai blast that the jingoists’ regular salute to the Mumbai spirit was finally given a farewell. I was glad to note that this anesthetic sentiment has run its course and the Mumbaikar is not going to any more swallow another bitter pill that his inept Government just pushed down his throat. The blasts showed up the total lack of intelligence support, the disarray in the police management and its departmental disintegration. The CM’s honest, if childish, admission to the public that he lost communication for a while after the blasts only exhibits the importance Maharashtra Governments have given to the aspect of homeland security while his comments about wanting a unified command [ read Home ministry] at such times only underlines the uncomfortable relationship between ally NCP and the Congress. The short point remains that irrespective of the internal arrangements and power sharing equations of the government, the cost of all this is borne by that guy in Zaveri bazaar who just wanted to finish his day’s work and get home to help his little girl finish her homework but was found strewn across the pavements. But this is the Congress party at work – do not expect a single firm step against the war on terrorism for fear they might upset a trusted vote bank. We understand. What’s 20 dead against the lucre of continuing in power. 

The graft draft.

The government persuades us that it will have its say. Partly to reclaim some sheen that A.Hazare and Co. took off its NAC led nose, the Government has mulishly refused to include the PM in the ambit of its draft and stayed with the old provisions on the judiciary. There are many other operative aspects of the draft that AH & Co. disagrees with but the glaring omission is not lost on anyone. The disappointment among the believers is palpable but the other notion peddled by the Government about the primacy of the parliament also seems to have worked on some part of the supporters. Which brings us to a question: Does that mean that the Lokpal agitation is finally annulled, or do you think Anna can still pull it off.

Raja Singhs!

A.Raja’s incarceration has given him time to get his defence in order. No surprise that it was he who put things in perspective by candidly underlining the complicity of the PM and Chidambaram in the process that led to the flight of capital in the 2G scam. The weak and injured response of the PM – and it will get weaker in days to come, you will see – cut little ice with people and party members who admitted that exonerating the team captain for the failure of the team is not cricket and that the PM has to take responsibility. Congressmen gunning for his scalp are forging common ground with opposition parties that say the same. [Who said the congress is not a divided house.] But more caustic was the response of the chida hua Chidambaram who tried to take pot shots at the Mumbai blasts and hint at a Hindu hand in it. Fortunately, the media bought none of it and he was hauled over coals for his brazen attempt at trying to escape the heat. Expect the tale to get murkier in the days to come. For more action, tune in to Lok Sabha TV.

Hard Landing

The imbroglio over the Court’s decision to take a sympathetic view of farmers’ plaint over land acquisition and compensation in NOIDA has thrown up the quintessential conundrum: development at what cost. After the Bhatta Parsaul experience which the Congress milked, now this must seem to a lot of people as a particular construct of UP politics under Mayawati but let it be known that the stilts on which the shaky acquisition policy sits was dug in by the Congress regimes down the years. The recent PR project reading by recently shuffled Jairam Ramesh on the new sensitive policy with inputs by the young Gandhi is a classic stratagem by the Congress to take no responsibility for the ills that plague this policy but try and reposition itself as the messiah of the villagers where their votes in UP lie. Else, one just has to look at Gurgaon where corporate companies pillaged village land without restraint under the kind gaze of the Congress regime, an art finally perfected by the subsequent INLD administration. The talk about land acquisition under the Haryana model is a lot of bunkum because it boils down to the issue of just compensatory money whereas the issue of land and ownership is a much deeper subject. The argument that farmers have become smarter has a ring of truth to it. But question is whether there was any generous support from Congress party pyromaniacs in this conflagration who want so badly to upset the BSP applecart in the sudden activation of farmer unrest?

Bangalored.

Now that the Lokayukta indicted CM has resigned and the drama has ended in Karnataka, it is perhaps time to ensure that Anil Lad and Kumaraswamy also face the heat. In discussions earlier than the CMs resignation, I had argued that it was most likely that if the CM resigned, the baying crowds of the opposition and the media would as soon forget about the others. The worry is not without reason – look atDelhiwhere a minister indicted by the Lokayukta of Delhi got a clean chit from the cabinet and reduced the Lokayukta to a joke. Similarly, while CWG OC Chairperson Kalmadi is in jail, the CAG report co-accused CM of Delhi Shiela Dixit had the pleasure of sending a rebuttal to the PM reducing his own appointed Committee to tatters. So you see, this cock eyed justice is sure to follow when our friends, the congressmen are in power. What’s new, you may ask. You can’t beat the casino.

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Picture credit: news.bbc.co.uk

How do we commemorate what we hate? India must grapple with that existential question as it prepares to meet, in one week from now, twenty five years of that defining event in India history that left an indelible smudge on the history of democracy – the emergency.

And yet, in all the attendant hyperbole of the occasion it may be possible to miss the clear and present danger in the ruling party’s growing virulence to opposition and the protestations sweeping the country. The argument is this – for while I agree the impression that the conditions of the country mimic the emergency of June 1975 is not totally unfounded, the only error with that analogy is to the other end – that we are already in the throes of another emergency, only we don’t recognize it as yet.

India has changed, as has the world since Mrs. Gandhi’s nervous capitulation to the baser instincts of what we now recognize to be family trait. The rise of media, the internet and general awareness makes it perhaps not possible for any regime which answers to any sort of democracy to rewind to those shameful years in exactly the same fashion. It stands to reason that since the context is different, the form of this new emergency would be too. What has not changed however is the desire for consummate power and the intolerance to the other point of view and an insane abhorrence of anything that doesn’t look like us, or me, or my family.

The tendency to see ghosts is frequently indicative of a chemical imbalance in the mind that leads to visions, or hallucinations. In political parlance, the use of ghosts is more strategic and is used frequently to herd public opinion towards one or the other extreme. The ploy is designed to heighten suspicions, create an environment of perceived danger and thereby cauterize people’s ability to judge or think clearly. This is standard practice in dictatorships, or where despots rule. Germany used this to exciting effect when it wanted the country to rally together against the world and the bogey of the Jews came in handy.

Typically, juntas which have cause to divert attention or create a sense of imbalance within the polity will use this stratagem to meet their ends. The vicious, almost allergic vilification of the RSS by the Congress as almost an extra-national movement, is a classic replication of the theory propounded above. The last two years of the UPA’s campaign in discovering the RSS ‘hand’ in everything, specially bombings and protests and the destabilization of the government, is quaintly reminiscent of Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s ‘foreign hand’ theory that then became the bedrock of her consequent moves to stifle the press, snuff out the opposition and terrorize the populace through the emergency.

The repeated references to the Muslims of India by coterie members of the Gandhi citadel through innuendos and suggestions to the ‘taint’ of activists for being close to the RSS is part of the same stratagem to sow fear and doubt among minorities, leftists and pseudo-liberals where logic and purpose would have served better. The attempt at mobilization of public opinion against the BJP through all instruments of the party machinery is all too apparent as it tries to splice the people’s anger at corruption into communal quarters.

Since all paranoia must be preceded by preparation, parts of our celebrated independent press has shown itself willing to once again tango with the government and fall for the party gambit, reminding us of the those famous lines reminiscent of the last emergency; when asked to bend, they were willing to crawl.

Much of the brouhaha in media has been centered around the Lokpal Bill protests and the distill of which seems to be an agreement that as long as the protests are untainted by the BJP or the RSS, they are kosher and not other wise. Senior journalists and corny Congressmen and women have argued publicly the daft position that social movements have no political validity and yet contradicted themselves by insisting that that the Anna Hazare and Ramdev protests were politicized because of their association with the RSS and the BJP. Quo vadis? Look at the debasement of the discourse – for even if for a moment it were to be accepted that the BJP or the RSS were associated with such protests, is it antithetical to democracy that this should be so? What else is the opposition’s work? The notion that the ruling party makes rules about the nature, form, shape and size of protests and protest movements against itself is another sure sign of debauched democracy.

It is a recorded fact of history that during the emergency imposed by Mrs Gandhi in 1975, it was the RSS which offered the beacon of resistance through its large social network across the country. Observers have noted that the anti-emergency movement was dominated by tens of thousands of RSS cadres, and recorded that the organization shifted to a single point agenda during those years – to bring democracy back to the country – and had prevailed. No wonder the Congress sees the RSS as the only impediment to its grandiose plans of a unilateral power centre in the country. And yet this was not always the case. Conversely, it was Nehru who recognised the seminal role played by the RSS during the critical time of the Chinese aggression and consequently invited the RSS to participate in the 1963 Republic Day celebrations. For a party that thinks nothing of cohabiting with leftists whose derivative philosophy has thrown our nation’s integrity its biggest challenge through Maoist insurgency, to find the nationalistic genre of the RSS anathema, is a mystery to all.

But the madness does not stop here and the Congress’ stilted view is not even a subtle oeuvre anymore. The shame is absent, the sensibility almost gone. And there is mounting evidence of symptoms that prove my point : The CVC appointment in the face of logical opposition by BJP; the serial of scams under the nose of the PM and the refusal to allow a JPC; the trashing of the PAC; the denigration of civil society members through personal attacks; the thrashing of Ramdev’s followers; the clean chit to Congress CM Dixit in Delhi even as she is indicted by the Shunglu Committee; the reversal of the Lokayukta’s decision on a prima facie case regarding a Delhi Minister by the President on the cabinet’s recommendation; the open threats issued by a minister in the government to civil society followed by a reminder that the police action was a lesson for others; the sidelining of opposition parties; the concoction of cases against prominent RSS leaders; the preoccupation with the Gandhi family; the replay of the mother-son syndrome; the propaganda machinery unleashed to defame and abuse – these are all indicators of a functional emergency under a demagogic regime, all signs of bankruptcy, rupture with public trust and a demeaning self obsession that almost always ends in self delusion.

The emergency of 1975, as anyone who saw it at close quarters will tell you, was a result of just that. That we are in another such time today is all about realizing that since the symptoms are the same, the malaise can be no different. Therefore while the fashion is different, the fascism is not.

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Picture credit: profiles.google.com

This post has appeared as an op-ed piece in The Pioneer, Delhi on June 18, 2011 under a different headline.

 New Delhi, 5^th June, 2011: The gloves are off, the fangs are bared. The Congress has finally come into its own. The surreptitious, night-time attack by the Police on Baba Ramdev’s supporters under instructions from the central government is merely a culmination of a process of organizational decay within the Congress that was always due.

For a party that is more and more run on the lines of a cult, and operates like a clique with a Mafiosi code for revenge, the latest brutality is par for the course. What is notable however, it that their denouement should be caused by their violent abhorrence of anything looking like the colour saffron.

Of course they are not alone in that. The secularists they have spawned in the civil society marketplace and who tap to their beats are almost always first off the block. And so you had a variety of them on TV for the last many days expounding breathlessly at the temerity of a Baba to go on fast against corruption as if that were a crime. The attempts by practiced henchmen type spokespersons of the Congress who tried to poison the public debate with insinuations and just plain name calling, too was an old Congress trick of speaking with a forked tongue.

And finally the poor attempts by Kapil Sibal to nail Ramdev on the basis of a scruffy, hand written note which was promptly explained away by the yoga guru – and then the irresistible veiled threat: “we have always reached out, but we can also rein in”. That’s the point I am making. We are dealing with the mafia here  – these are not ministers, not honourable men any more.

A simple question that everyone asks – irrespective of whether Ramdev has political ambitions or not, irrespective what he is all about and whether he owns anything or is a pauper, what is the issue about? And why is the C0ngress so unwilling to absorb his concerns and make them their own. I mean, it makes simple strategy to co-opt Baba Ramdev, precisely like they were forced to earlier by Anna and his folksy civil society activists. So, why the bluster? Why the muscle flexing? 

Now look what they have done. They have incensed the country; strengthened the impression that they have a lot to lose if black money is traced and generally shown themselves to be highly intolerant of any other power centre except their own; perfect fit with the Congress DNA, and with Indira Gandhi. This must be the only case in genetic history where a woman’s DNA transferred into her daughter-in-law.

So was the real problem that the Congress could not afford to be Anna Hazared once again in view of the national sentiment against corruption – and them, by popular association?  Or was it the panic at the sea of saffron – a colour that sends them into paroxysms of fear and loathing?

Either way, it may be noted that by this action the Congress has finally heralded its own end. Let us just call it the first day of the last days of the Congress.

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Picture credit: viewstonews.com

The events surrounding the spate of corruption scams in the country makes me recall pop-star Brittany Spears’ year 2000 hit single, ‘Oops, I did it again!’ to capture the latest shenanigan from the Congress’ cronies. If the plot plays out to script, Dayanidhi Maran could well be the next fall guy, but the moot point would remain pretty much the same and the polity will still beg the question – what is it in the governance code of the Congress that so much corruption crawls of the cabinet each time it hits the Lok Sabha with a comfortable majority?

It is now testing the limits that we should still have to debate in subtle language the rapacious greed of the ruling junta and its Machiavellian tactics to defend, hide and protect such people as we are seeing unmasked almost each month. That the UPA-2 stumbles along, in spite of all this is a testament to how well the Congress party has mastered the art of outsourced responsibility.  It not only uses allies, friends and accomplices in its network of operations and as quickly dumps them, it has also patented the mechanics of protecting its troika of leadership consisting of the Congress President, the Prime Minister and the heir apparent from the fall out through a matrix of subterfuge and political ventriloquism.

Holier than thou

It uses standard procedures of power play like having its own members attack itself to ward off real opposition – a role earlier outsourced to the left while in government with them, and now to the NAC. It appeals to both the higher and the baser instincts of the public – officially celebrates the Osama Bin Laden breakthrough and then uses servile henchmen to mouth palliatives for the Muslim community. It engages  cussedly with civil society groups on the Lokpal bill while its dirty tricks department by the side tries to bring them down publicly. It dallies with Baba Ramdev, even as it details family friendlies like Shahrukh Khan and slavish secularists to besmirch him. It assuages the nation about the spotless intentions of the Government on corruption but balks at the mention of Swiss bank accounts. It projects its leaders as messiahs of clean politics even as it offers sustenance to graft and victimizes those who would fight it.

This game of changing masks is achieving a sophistication that the country has never seen before and I daresay the enormity of the web of deception that has been woven around us all is still not clear to many. Even the media is incredulous, arguing against itself even as it uncovers scandal after scandal unbelievingly. This paralysis of judgment, even reticence to route the crime to its masters, is more intriguing than the scandals they tend to unearth.

Thuggery and jugglery

In Delhi, where the crime is no less cardinal, the media is looking even more menial. The Shunglu Committee report, a byproduct of the Committee set up by the Prime Minister to enquire into the excesses of the Commonwealth Games indicted a number of people including the Chief Minister Shiela Dixit and CWG Organising Committee boss Suresh Kalmadi. But while Kalmadi is in jail, Shiela Dixit was accorded the unique privilege of sending a rebuttal to the Committee’s findings – unbelievable but true, and a first even by the glamorous double standards of the Congress. But if only it were to stop there!

A serious case of ministerial corruption in Delhi where the PWD Minister was found influencing the state tax department against a high profile business house was indicted suo moto by the Lokayukta of Delhi Manmohan Sarin who, on the basis of a preliminary, and then a fuller enquiry recommended the Minister’s dismissal on account of charges of attempting to obstruct a government official from carrying out his duty. That the case pertained to VAT evasion of hundreds of crores of rupees and which was enough to get the business house into trouble and its owner into possible incarceration was precisely the reason the Lokayukta acted in the manner that he did. But once again, the Delhi CM got carte blanche. In a splendid display of self righteous contempt, she first publicly berated the Lokayukta and then once the file was escalated to the LG and the President of India, lobbied hard with the Congress President to get her man off the hook. For a man that the Lokayukta had asked the President to “withdraw her pleasure” now continues, with her pleasure, thanks to the raise of an eyebrow at 10 Janpath.

The sinister code of protecting one’s own and those who can spill beans is now a counter movement to the whistleblowers we are prone to toast. If the President of India can walk all over the Lokayukta with such élan at the behest of a party president and her all-powerful acolyte, then we have hit the nadir of institutional decay.

Crooks, cronies, charlatans…..lend me your ears

That the Congress has hollowed out every institution of worth since its last run at the hustings is plain to see and below the worth of notable discussion anymore, but the dazed silence of the middle class, the media and the men who matter is a breathtaking paean to the state of our self respect and self worth as a nation. Each time we say this, there are howls of protest at the yeoman service media has provided in outing the Rajas of graft, but that is precisely the point  – we are investigating sitting ducks; it is as if it were an investigation of convenience. We have seen nothing of anyone even attempting to challenge the validity of the PM to continue in office even as ministers and members of his party fall like nine pins in a game of bluff.  We see no body with the courage to challenge the propriety of allowing Kalmadi to sweat in jail while his colleague in the party – or partner in crime as far as Shunglu is concerned -  is signing her own clean chits. I visualize no one, for instance, having the gumption to question the President’s move to supersede the Lokayukta.

If this regime is allowed to carry out its devastating design, the country will pay for it for decades. There is a run on our morality, and somebody has to stop it. The President of India’s decision in the context of the current mood of the nation and the squeeze on graft is not only a signal in the opposite direction but in effect a marker to the tendencies of the Congress’s innate organizational DNA. This weltanshauung, as it were of the Congress, is the next demon we have to slay.

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Picture Credit: uttrakhandspider.com

This post has appeared under a different headline in The Pioneer, Delhi of Saturday 4^th June, 2011.