THE FINAL WORD

 

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. And then God committed one of his periodical goof-ups, the second after the original mistake of creating Eve and involving us for perpetuity in sexual molestation cases: he created the Bureaucracy, and the Bureaucrat took over the Word. Originally intended to convey meaning, the Word now became the polar opposite-a means to conceal,a mechanism which even the Right to Information Act has not been able to dent. But let’s not scoff at this, for concealment is an art; given the sheer scale of goof-ups and gerrymandering constantly going on in the labyrinths of power, concealing them behind just a few words requires far more skill than merely revealing to us that our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Shelley may well have been right when he said that, but could he have hidden behind words a hefty kickback in danger of disappearing? That's what one Minister was once required to do, without Mr. Vinod Rai, our long retired CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General), finding out about it.

 Having successfully negotiated the required payola from a contractor, a Minister called for the file and wrote on it "Approved." The contractor, secure in the false illusion (like Mr. Fadnavis a-la Mr. Amit Shah in Maharashtra) that the Minister was now committed and could not go back on either his word or file noting, refused to pay up. Unfazed, the Minister requisitioned the file again and simply added the word  "Not" before "Approved." The now chastened contractor, acknowledging defeat at the hands of a master, prostrated himself (like Mr. Kalyan Roy a-la Mamata Didi ) before the icon of democracy and begged for his contract back, wondering at the same time how the worthy would find a way around the neological cul-de-sac. The Minister, a wordsmith par excellence, extracted the file from his drawer and just added the letter "e" to the word "Not." The final noting read "Note Approved"- two simple words that concealed twists worthy of a Saki or an O' Henry !

     In the mid eighties in Shimla a powerful Principal Secretary to the CM (Chief Minister), whose wife wished to devote all her time to disciplining other IAS wives and thus delegate her culinary responsibilities to a cook, moved the Finance Department for the creation of a Class D post. The file duly reached the JS (Joint Secretary)  in Finance. Now a Joint Secretary, compared to a Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, occupies a slot in the bureaucratic food chain comparable to the position of the plankton in relation to the sperm whale, and in the normal course the file should have been cleared without a whimper, or whatever sounds the plankton emits. In this case, however, this humble organism (born and bred in the badass corridors of Hindu College) refused to accept his lowly station in life and rejected the request ! A livid Principal Secretary to CM, accustomed to worms squirming before him instead of turning, returned the file with the noting: "Has this file been seen by the Finance Secretary? If not, it may be put up before him." (Senior Secretaries belong to the same lunch club and are usually more adept than the macaque monkey in scratching each others' backs). The Joint Secretary returned said file after recording on it the standard default noting of all Finance Departments ever since Moses refused to sanction funds for the purchase of a golden calf : "FD regrets to reiterate its rejection of the proposal." In the Queen's (now the King's, English) this means: Get lost- nothing doing! An epileptic Principal Secretary to CM decided to teach this callow fledgling a lesson. Confident that he now had this amoeba cornered, he put the ball back in the Joint Secretary's court with a thunderous ace: "At what level has this decision been taken?" The Joint Secretary, having dealt with seven foot Jats on a daily basis in Jubilee hall, was unfazed and responded with a classic cross-court of his own: "Secretary to CM is respectfully informed that the decision has been taken at the competent level." Game, Set and Match. No actionable information revealed. no one to hang. The sperm whale retired shortly thereafter, sans cook.

    Another story which comes to mind is that of a  young DS (Deputy Secretary) in Shimla, now grown long in the tooth and safely parked in the USA, whose newly acquired wife happened to be in Delhi. He kept applying for leave to spend some time with her, especially during those long winter nights in Shimla when a quilt is not enough to keep one warm. His applications were invariably rejected by the CS (Chief Secretary) who had long ago replaced his wife with a bottle of triple XXX rum. The Deputy Secretary then changed tack: he requested for leave on  "compassionate grounds", stating that he had to check up on his aging parents in Delhi, lest he be left out of the Will. Even this crap did not cut any ice with the Chief Secretary (the mixed metaphor may be excused). The increasingly desperate Deputy Secretary then made his final gambit, taking a huge chance: he applied again, this time on "passionate grounds" viz. that he was only recently married and had not seen his wife for many months and would not be able to recognize her if he did not see her soon! It worked. Quite clearly, the milk of human kindness above the Chief Secretary's ample Plimsoll line had not been entirely replaced with the demon rum . Off went the Deputy Secretary to Delhi and he has not left his wife's side since then, much to her annoyance, of course. The power of the word- the deletion of three letters- made all the difference between marital bliss and enforced "vanprastha". Why, he may even have joined a sangathan if denied leave again, left his wife and become a Prime Minister !

    My own favourite is the one about the officer who wanted a bigger garage built in his official residence to park his two cars. He sent a note to the Secretary PWD (Public Works Department) requesting that the "garrage be constructed immediately.'' The latter's response revealed his stout English literature background: "Request approved. However the officer may be informed that while a garage can always contain two cars it can never contain two 'R's'! "

    The good Lord need not worry- His Word is in good hands.

A PERSPECTIVE ON THE HIMACHAL ELECTIONS : SINGLE MALTS, DOUBLE ENGINES AND TRIPLE TALAQS

   Last month the editor of a leading newspaper asked me to do a piece on the elections in Himachal and the prospects of the various parties. I politely declined, and with good reason- when it comes to elections I am an inveterate loser. I never get my analysis/ predictions right, and I am pretty consistent at this failure. I have voted in every election, including my RWA (Resident Welfare Association) elections where a Donald Trump type always wins, and I have got it wrong every time: the chap I vote for invariably loses, and the guy who wins loses no time in conning those who voted for him. Which, I suppose, sums up our democracy succinctly.

  But though I have given up predicting outcomes, leaving it to those who make a good living by conning the unsuspecting voter, I continue to follow developments and observe the low life, in the manner of the superannuated barn owl who sees everything but doesn't give a hoot anymore. And since, to quote Oscar Wilde, the only thing to do with unsolicited advice is to pass it on, I'll share some of these with those who have made the fatal mistake of logging on to my blog.

  Tell me, folks, aren't you sick of those stock photos after every polling day, the ones showing various VIPs showing off their finger with the indelible ink stain on it? They may intend to show that they had cast (caste?) their vote, but to me it always looks like they are giving the finger to someone. It's a good thing that our rules mandate the forefinger for inking, and not the middle finger which is universally regarded as the sign of the crossed (no religious innuendo here, trust me). But a finger is a finger of speech, as it were, and I can't help but wonder to whom are these guys giving the finger- the government, the opposition candidate, the rebels, the party President? I personally feel it's the voter, who is in the position of the proctologist's patient and better get used to it. 

  On a more serious note, I am afraid (but not surprised) that the Supreme Court has let us down again, on two counts. It has kept mum on the govt's brazen opening of a window for donations to the Electoral Bonds scheme on the 7th of November, just before the elections to Himachal and Gujarat, in a departure from the notified scheme. It has also, by a happy(for the BJP) coincidence kept the next date for hearing on the Electoral Bonds case as the 6th of December, one day after the Gujarat polling. Surely it should have intervened and stayed the opening of this window since the matter was sub-judice? It is also a violation of the Model Code of Conduct but it appears that the Election Commission has also buried its head in the saffron coloured sands of Kutch. No points for guessing who's showing the finger to whom on this one.

  The second issue on which one is disappointed with the Supreme Court is its judgment of 7th November, 2022, clearing the govt's amendment for reservation for the Economically Weaker Sections from the "forward" castes. This has provided another arrow in the BJP's quiver to further target and win over the forward castes in the elections to the two states. Could the Court not have waited for another month, considering that the case was pending since 2019? If the Electoral Bonds case could have been deferred till after the polling, surely this EWS order could also have been similarly deferred. The so called "level playing field" is beginning to look more and more like the foothills of the Himalayas, where, don't forget, our venerable Prime Minister spent much of his formative years. He knows how to take advantage of the terrain.

  Coming to my own state of Himachal, it appears that the BJP launched its campaign with the familiar Hindutva artillery barrage of Uniform Civil Code, National Population Register, Triple Talaq and the Ram mandir, but quickly realised that this was not getting much traction. And not without reason: Himachal is the second most literate state in the country and its citizens are not the gullible fodder of the cow belt. Which is why, like Kerala (the most literate state), Himachalis sensibly change their govt. every five years. Secondly, though they are Hindus, yet they set more store by their local devtas and devis, who command absolute devotion. Institutional Hinduism takes a back seat here. Thirdly, Muslims comprise barely 2% of the state's population so any attempt at polarisation is doomed to failure. No wonder the BJP quickly fell back on their default battle line- Mr. Modi himself.

  Mr. Modi predictably positioned himself as a son of Himachal, drawing on his stint as Himachal in-charge for the BJP during his salad days. But here he has come up against the daughter of Himachal- Priyanka Gandhi- who has a more valid claim since she actually has a house in Charabra, near Kufri. It is nowhere as grand as the Rs. 300 crore house being built for Mr. Modi on the Central Vista in Delhi, but it is, after all, in Himachal, and a matter of some pride for these mountain folk. They will now decide who they prefer as a neighbour.

  The BJP has tried its best to keep the focus of the election on national issues, whereas the Congress has played it close to the ground, reiterating local concerns and resentments: Old Pension Scheme, exploitation of apple growers by corporates, unemployment, Agniveers, persistent corruption, bureaucratic ineffectiveness as exemplified by the fact that the state has seen seven Chief Secretaries in five years. Mr. Modi's frequent rallies were part of the plan to retain the national focus. Rahul Gandhi has been criticised for not campaigning in Himachal, but I feel this was a smart move. Had he confronted the Prime Minister in Himachal it would have become the old Modi-Rahul fight all over again, and these contests have never favoured the latter. It's difficult to hit the target when you don't have one to begin with.

  One factor going for the Congress is the virtual exit of the Aam Aadmi Party from the hustings. The arrest of Mr. Stayendra Jain, the AAP in-charge for the state, may have actually helped the Congress because it is only after that that the AAP went cold on Himachal. This arrest may yet prove to have been a grave miscalculation on the part of the double- engine in Delhi because, had Mr. Kejriwal stayed the course, he would have hurt the Congress more than the BJP. It doesn't always pay to be too clever by half.

  The rebels are going to be a determining factor in many constituencies because, with its small constituencies, seats are won and lost in Himachal by tiny margins. In 2017, almost half the seats had victory margins of less than 5000 votes. Rebels, therefore, can influence the elections even if they garner just a couple of thousand votes. Here again the BJP is at a disadvantage: it has twice the number of rebels than the Congress does. It is an open secret that quite a few have the silent backing of Mr. Dhumal, the ex-C.M, who was denied a ticket (along with many of his putative candidates) as part of the old tussle between him and Mr. Nadda. This is payback time for Mr. Dhumal and the internecine warfare may yet cost the BJP dearly. But a codicil: if the BJP rebels win this would not pose a problem for the party- they would be welcomed back into the fold before you could say Jai Shri Ram and would add to the BJP's tally. But if they lose they would have ensured the defeat of the BJP in those constituencies as they would have taken away priceless votes in what will be a tight election. In that case the cry may well be: Good Bye Jai Ram! ( Jai Ram is the current Chief Minister, from the BJP).

  A word of caution, however, for the Congress, in which the bugles already appear to be sounding for the Chief Minister tourney: if it does get a majority its margin must be at least 15 seats. Anything less and Mr. Shah will make short work of it with his grinder, washing machine and RO (his reverse osmosis technique ensures that those who ooze out of one party quickly get absorbed in the BJP and live happily ever after).

  We shall find out on the 8th of December which cry- Jai Shri Ram or Goodbye  Jai Ram- will resonate through the valleys of this beautiful and idyllic state. I have my own guess, but that is strictly between the bottle of Glenfiddich and me, folks. Let no one tell you that a single malt cannot talk.

WORRY ABOUT THE IQ, NOT THE AQI

   I've been a liberal arts type all my life, both by education and aptitude, and avoid numbers like Queen Camilla avoids Meghan Markel, except when the numbers come in a sequence like 36-20-34. But one has to admit that at times they make sense, in a fascinating way, and so this week I've decided to delve into some of them.

  I have a good friend in Switzerland who sensibly quit the IAS and the country 40 years ago and now spends his retirement playing the alphorn to frolicking sheep on the mountain slopes. But not before sending us a Whatsapp message every morning giving us the AQI of his adopted country on that day. It usually hovers between 13 and 18. For those who are slow on the uptake, or up on the slowtake, I'll repeat that- between 13 and 18. (This figure used to be about 8 before my friend and about 16500 other Indians decided to take up residence there in preference to Malerkotla and Kotkapura). The average AQI in my NCR area is about 400. And for once this can't be passed off as a foreign conspiracy to "belittle our image" since this is our own, make in India, data.

  Now, we are a Vishwaguru, the fifth largest economy in the world, ruled by the largest political party in the world, presided over by a Prime Minister who (by his own declaration) is at the forefront of the war against climate change and has even "won" international awards like Champion Of The Earth. So why is our ambient air quality 45 times worse than Switzerland's, even allowing for the fact that my Swiss friend doesn't smoke, while I do?

  This question has no doubt been answered by experts, politicians, Baba Ramdev and Mr. Kejriwal, but we are still inching up to the 500 mark. Why? you may well ask, like Zelensky did when Putin frog- marched into Ukraine. Because, dear reader, no one has grasped the real reason, except me (or is it 'I' ?) The real reason, according to me, is the fact that we mistake AQI for IQ, and vice versa, and so believe that the higher the AQI, the better it is. (This, incidentally, is what happens when you ditch the Queen's English for the King's Jumla, and don't learn how to watch your ' Q's' and dot your 'I's').

  After my epiphanic discovery I decided to dig deeper into this IQ business to see if there exists a co-relation between IQ and AQI, and found, to my Archimedian delight, that such a relationship does exist!  But it's an inverse one- countries with lower IQs usually have higher AQIs and vice versa. Here are the figures for India , Switzerland and the top three countries of the world for good air quality (the AQI figures are for their capitals as at the time of writing this piece):

COUNTRY      AQI     IQ

Switzerland       13      100.4 

Japan                 41      112

Taiwan              38      106.47

Singapore         34       105.89

India                 400      82

So there you have it, the cause and effect, the smoking gun literally. One would think that the solution to our AQI problem is now obvious- raise the average IQ of India. But that. folks, is harder than raising the Titanic.

For one, our intellectual eco-system is not conducive to that at all, and it's getting more lobotomised every day. It's hard to improve intelligence levels when students are taught that we attained our independence in 2014 and not 1947, or when we are told that Maharana Pratap won the battle of Haldighati, or when Nehru, not China, is blamed for the 1962 war, or when the govt. of the day regularly attempts to wage a linguistic colonialism on states, forgetting that the colonial age has been long dead and buried, or when Universities are sought to be turned into indoctrination centres, the "slaughter houses of intelligence", as Madhusudan Das had famously said, or when the Minister for Environment proudly claims that "India is the solution, not the problem" to tackling climate change even as he approves the diversion of 140sq. kms of evergreen rainforest land and felling of 8.50 lakh trees in Greater Nicobar for construction of a port, airport and power plant ! (Incidentally, you don't need a high IQ to guess who will get these projects). It would appear that history is indeed written by the victor, whether the victory is obtained in war, or at the hustings, or by purchasing the winning horses. But a country in continuous Derby mode does not guarantee a sound intelligence quotient. It also does not help the cause of promoting intelligence when a country reserves 60% of its jobs and college quotas (in some states it's even higher) for various castes and classes under the guise of "affirmative action", relegating merit to the back benches. Merit has now become  non-merit goods, in economic parlance. As my late Professor, P.Lal, would have said- I am what I think, and if I can't think, then I am nothing. 

Our rulers and "influencers" do not inject much wisdom into the ecosphere either. In fact, they do precisely the reverse and flush out what little national IQ there remains every time a Minister says that Einstein discovered gravity, or when another Minister scoffs at Darwin's theory of evolution because none of his ancestors had ever seen an ape turning into homo sapiens, or when the Finance Minister claims that the rupee has not weakened, it's the dollar which has become stronger, or when the IIT educated Mr. Kejriwal says that the rupee will recover if images of Hindu gods are printed on it. (My own personal view is that the only force which can make the rupee rise is Sunny Leone- her touch would make the dead rise in their graves- but that will not amuse the flaccid mandarins in South Block so we'll let that slide). 

To conclude, therefore: I am no meteorologist or climate scientist, but I can confidently predict, like Baba Venga, that, going by the inverse theory established above (for which I generously claim no patent),  our AQI will only continue to rise in the days to come. But I am not complaining. According to another set of statistics released recently in a Berkeley Earth Scientific paper, the pollution in Delhi is equivalent to smoking 20.4 cigarettes a day. After reading this I've now stopped smoking- why should I spend my money on something which the govt. is giving away for free? The savings almost make up for the denial of those three instalments of our DA during the pandemic period.  As the Chief Economic Advisor would doubtless claim, Delhi's smog is revenue neutral. Or, to put it in the more easily comprehended language of our Finance Minister, our IQ is not falling, our SQ (Stupidity Quotient) is rising.

MAN'S BEST FRIEND DESERVES BETTER

    There are certain acknowledged attributes of a civilised and humane society and these have nothing to do with GDP or Per Capita Income or how many billionaires a country can boast of. Yes, prosperity does, or should, take a country up the civilisational ladder but it is not a given, and New India is the living proof of this. Even as we edge towards becoming the fourth largest economy in the world, as a society we are fast losing our gentility and becoming more brutal, to each other and to other living things.

   One of the markers of a humane society is the manner in which we treat animals, and in this respect our track record is dismal. I will not talk here about the horrendous slaughter of wild animals for "bush meat", or of the rampant, illegal trade in exotic wild species: these are distant from the lives of the average Indian. I will talk instead about animals that are closer to us, have been living with man for thousands of years, and have earned the description of " Man's best friend." I will talk about that one animal which has abandoned its wild and free roaming ancestry in favour of living with homo sapiens, and how we are returning that trust by betrayal and cruelty. Yes, dear reader, I am talking about the humble and loyal dog.

   India will have an estimated 30 million pet dogs by 2023, and the pet care industry is valued at half a billion dollars per annum. It is harder to arrive at the number of stray/ street dogs, the figures varying between 15 million and 60 million, depending on whether you want to believe the government or independent researchers/ animal care activists. Our treatment of both categories can be appalling, lacking in compassion, a scientific approach or even a cause and effect co-relation.

   Most pet/ dog owners are caring and responsible, but of late a new breed of nouveau-rich owners has appeared, for whom dogs are as much of a status symbol as their cars and villas. They have no real love for animals, haven't the foggiest idea of how to care for their pets, but will think nothing of spending upto Rs. 100,000 for an exotic breed they can flaunt in their club or kitty party. But they will not bother to train them or bestow any personal attention on them, leaving them to the careless care of their minions. A dog for them is not a loving companion but a status symbol, to be cruelly discarded when they tire of them or when they have served their shallow purpose. We have all seen numberless videos of these types abandoning their dogs on roads or just throwing them out of their houses, with no thought of how these poor domesticated animals will survive on our callous streets.

   The problem with the stray/ streets dogs is more complex because it involves a govt.-public interface. It is a man made problem, as most civic issues are. Street dog numbers keep increasing because of uncleared garbage on the roads and public places, because hardly any urban body has a proper, science based sterilisation policy, or thinks it necessary to allocate resources for dog pounds or shelters. Hundreds of crores are spent on gaushalas but not even a pittance for dog shelters. ( I am not against the former, but surely all stray/abandoned animals need a humane shelter policy).

   Street dogs are not our sworn enemies, they are our creation, but an increasingly bigger section of the public ( mainly the so called educated(?), financially well off classes who create the garbage and abandon the animals) would like to see them exterminated by any means whatever, no matter how cruel or savage the method. Their hypocrisy and ignorance are all too evident in their behaviour and selective outrage. There are about 18000 deaths due to rabies every year in India, and that is 18000 too many. But they occur not only because a dog bites someone, but because of our failure to innoculate both pet and stray dogs, or to control their population, or to create dog shelters. I wish there was a similar outrage over the 31000 rapes every year or the 150000 traffic deaths or the 12000 deaths in railway related accidents every year. More people die every day in Mumbai from falling off overcrowded trains than from rabies, but I don't see any outrage against the Railway Board or the Railway Minister. The helpless dogs are easier targets, aren't they ?

   The worst culprits in this respect are the RWAs ( Resident Welfare Associations), the gate keepers of the gated communities which think they can keep the real world out by paying a hefty maintainence fee and hiring a horde of security guards. Remember, these are the same people who threw out their maids and cooks and drivers during the Covid and lockdown periods, so perhaps it's not at all surprising that they now wish to send all dogs to the gas chambers. The couple of recent incidents in NOIDA saw their savagery and inhumanity on full display, lusting for canine blood on prime time TV.

   Most RWAs are headed by people who have been irrelevant all their lives to the larger scheme of things, but now behave like petty tin-pot dictators, passing all kinds of illegal directives about pets; some have even banned pets! All these are against the orders and guidelines of courts and the Animal Welfare Board, but these worthies continue to froth at the mouth in front of TV cameras and equally ignorant anchors, whenever a dog bites someone. The residents of these RWAs are equally bad, parading their pathological hatred of dogs as civic indignation. They continue to burst crackers long after Diwali ( the pollution probably causing many more deaths than dog bites), unmindful of the suffering of these dumb animals: at least the pets can cower in their flats, but the poor strays have no hiding place. This year, a street dog was found dead in front of our Society the morning after Diwali, dead from a heart attack brought on by the crackers.

  The Municipal authorities, of course, are a class apart in their savagery and sadism. When driven to some knee-jerk action by apoplectic anchors, they become dog catchers, lassoing the poor animals and dragging them, screaming and struggling, into their vans with totally unwarranted violence. After the incident at the Lotus Boulevard Society in Noida last month, a pregnant bitch who was dragged away died of injuries a few days later; there is no news of her pups. Such behaviour is inhumane and totally unnecessary.

   There are plenty of animal welfare groups and NGOs who are willing to render their help and services in feeding, sheltering , treating and even sterilising these stray dogs, but our civic bodies have failed to utilise their services; worse, they are treated like adversaries and busy bodies. The govt. should accept that it lacks  the expertise, knowledge, motivation and mind set to tackle this problem, and should therefore partner with these voluntary bodies, assisting them financially and in other ways to resolve the issue in a humane, caring and effective manner.

   And finally, the judiciary. The courts could have played an effective role in nudging both society and the administration to act sensibly and with compassion, but they have only nibbled at the matter. Worse, their orders have at times been inconsistent, erratic and with no scientific basis. The Delhi High Court showed both gravitas and solicitude by ordering that stray dogs can be fed by RWA residents, but only at designated spots. But in a recent order that defies belief the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has banned their feeding in public. It has further compounded this by another irrational direction- that those who want to feed street dogs should first adopt them and keep them in their own houses! For God's sakes, it shouldn't take a genius to figure out that any animal which is well fed is less dangerous than one which is starving! Feeding strays is a public service, apart from being a kind act. As for mandatorily adopting them, by the same logic we should also be adopting all the beggars and vagrants we give alms to on the roads, or all the victims of man made and natural disasters for whom we make donations ! Citizens can only do so much; for the rest we pay taxes to the government.

   It's not hard to despise these cynophobic people, and the paranoia and ignorance that masquerades as public concern or judicial wisdom. But I also pity them, for they will never know the only pure and selfless love in this world, apart from a mother's love for her child- the unquestioning love of a dog for his master or mistress. They are the poorer for that, though they are probably ignorant of that too.

    

JUSTICE IN INDIA IS BECOMING LIKE RUSSIAN ROULETTE

   It was that great writer, Kingsley Amis, who said:  "If you can't annoy somebody there is little point in writing." Which is precisely the raison d'etre for someone like me writing blogs. Life is pretty pointless if you don't have a Bentley in your garage, or a suicide vest in your suitcase, or Kangana Runout on your arm, or a degree in Entire Political Science, or a pilot car in front of you- nobody knows you exist, and they wouldn't give a shit even if they knew. So you get  your own back by writing blogs and annoying these same twerps, see?

  Only a blogger- the Samuel Pepys of today- can do that. Unlike a columnist or journalist or "public commentator" or established writer, a blogger does not have to bother about fearful editors with one ear tuned to the PMO, or keep one eye cocked on the Booker's long list, or keep both open for a possible nomination to the Rajya Sabha. He is a free bird, a pigeon which can splatter his dubious wisdom on any statue. The statue this week happens to be that of Themis, the goddess of justice in Greek mythology and now universally accepted as the symbol of Justice. Because the more I look the more I find that her scales have become tilted, the sword has become double edged and the blindfold has taken on a saffron hue and developed a few peep holes. Invoking justice in India today is like playing Russian roulette- a game of chance, an uncertain outcome, and a better chance of being arrested if you are innocent than if you are guilty.

  Anyone who has taken the trouble to get to know me (not many, I must admit) knows that I prefer single malt to single women- the former ages better and doesn't have a bite. So it was with extreme reluctance that I recently had to refuse the gift of a bottle of Glenmorangie by a friend returning from watching the change of guard in 10, Downing Street, which has now replaced the change of guards in Buckingham Palace as the prime tourist attraction in London. You see, he had smuggled in a few bottles without paying duty, which was technically a crime. So the offered gift was a proceed of crime, for which the ED could arrest me, seize the bottle, and freeze my bank accounts. Ask Jaqueline Fernandez; she's on her way to the clinker by now, along with the cat costing forty lakhs gifted her by the con-man Suresh. It remains to be seen which of the two has the proverbial nine lives.

  But seriously, this law ( The Prevention Of Money Laundering Act) states that if you accept anything which is allegedly the proceeds of a crime, you are complicit , even if you have no knowledge of any violation of the law. For example, if you buy a flat from someone who has built/bought it with money suspected to be tainted, then your flat can be seized, even though your own bonafides are clear. Ditto with your money if you sell your flat to such person. And since it will take about ten years for you to get bail (unless you are an Arnab Goswami or Nupur Sharma) and another ten for the case to be decided, you'll never see either again. So now you know why the ED is now the most dreaded agency in the country, and why the BJP can form governments even when it loses in elections. The PMLA is the gift that keeps on giving- to the powers that B(JP). The highest courts have upheld this law. The law may or may not be an ass, but it can surely deliver one hell of a kick.

  Then again, you would expect that a decision by a High Court or even the Supreme Court would be respected by the courts at least, unless it is set aside by a reasoned judgment, right? Wrong- this is Russian roulette, remember? Three recent instances indicate how fickle and inconsistent our courts are becoming. 

  In the case of remission of the Bilkis Bano convicts the Bombay High Court ruled that since the trial was conducted in Maharashtra, it was the Maharashtra government that should decide their remission pleas. An eminently logical decision, but it was set aside by the Supreme Court, which, to add insult to the injuries already suffered by this poor woman, also added for good measure that the more lenient rules of 1992 ( and not the 2015 rules which debarred rapists and murderers from getting remission) would apply. This ensured their release, and has muddied the waters for future cases too.

  Take the case of the BCCI, which has practically become a branch office of the BJP. The Justice Lodha Committee in 2016 had recommended, inter alia, limiting the tenures of its office bearers to six years ( including in the state Associations) with a cooling off period in between, to introduce accountability and to avoid its capture by unholy interests. This was, naturally(!), challenged by BCCI  but twice, in 2016 and 2018, the Supreme Court upheld these recommendations. And then, suddenly, the same court reversed these two decisions last month for no sensible reason, ensuring the BJP takeover of perhaps the richest sporting body in the world. One ex- Chief Justice and two benches of the apex court over-ruled in a nano second, without a by your leave.

  The most recent instance of judicial shock and awe was provided by the extraordinary convening of an SC bench on a holiday to consider the NIA's appeal against another order of the Bombay High Court ( a serial culprit in such matters!) acquitting Prof. Sai Baba of the UAPA charges against him. The bench stayed the High Court order after just one hearing, and sent Sai Baba back to jail even before he could trundle his wheel chair out of its gates. Most independent legal scholars and jurists have opined that such an order is unprecedented. Why were the Hon'ble judges in such a tearing hurry? Could they not have heard the appeal of the NIA in its normal turn, and then decided? Can a man's rights be taken away in such a cavalier manner, without going into the merits of a case, without giving the defendant an opportunity to present his side of the case? Was Sai Baba, a man on a wheelchair with 90% permanent disability, such a threat to the Indian state that he deserved an ex-parte condemnation between the serving of soup and the main dish on a holiday?

  Similar bewildering judgments have become the order of the day of late, including the fact that one bench of the Delhi High court released Natasha Narwal and four others accused under UAPA in the Delhi riots case on bail, whereas another bench dismissed the bail application of a similarly accused Omar Khalid, languishing in jail for the last two years. Then again, in the Ram Mandir case the Supreme Court had, for a second time, upheld the constitutional validity of the Places Of Worship Act 1991, declaring it as a basic part of our legal structure. But it now appears to have done a shocking volte face: it has now admitted a number of petitions challenging the Act, stating that the Act does not forbid an inquiry to determine the character of the religious place. This is intriguing, to say the least, for the whole purpose of the Act was to freeze the religious character and status of the place as it stood in 1947: any inquiry now, 75 years later, can render the Act infructuous and unsettle the status in hundreds of cases.                                                                     There has to be some sanctity and permanence attached to court orders, some finality and closure in law, and reopening settled legal  rulings casually or opportunistically can only result in chaos and the perversion of justice. A citizenry has a right to expect justice based on general principles of law, not on the whims and interpretations of individual judges. Past judgements are supposed to provide valuable precedents, and to guide future judgments, but today they appear to count for nothing, with each judge ploughing his own furrow. This introduces a regrettable uncertainty in the administration of justice, leaving the litigant and his lawyer equally confused. It's easier these days to calculate your odds in a casino than in an Indian court of law.

   Even Russian roulette is more predictable than our justice system. In the former one at least knows that out of the six chambers in the revolver, only one has a bullet. In our legal system one can't even bet on the number of bullets, or on whether they are live or blanks. Or whose finger is on the trigger.

THE QUEUE- DRAWING A FINE LINE

    The Brits have perpetrated more than their fair share of colonial atrocities in India. But we didn't raise much of a stink about them at the time of our Independence, partly because most of us were not even born then, and partly because those who were, were mostly illiterate. There was also no Whatsapp then to help us along or Kangana Runout to remind us. But now we know all about them: destruction of local industries, forced indigo and opium plantations, the Madras famine of 1876-78, the Bengal famine of 1943, the Jalianwala Bagh massacre, the Radcliffe line and partition of India, the millions jailed, tortured, shot, etc. But one has to admire their consistency, for they did exactly the same wherever else they went- South Africa, Kenya, Australia, New Zealand. even North America where the Pilgrim Fathers went to pray but ended up preying (on the indigenous Indians).

   But I still have a sneaking admiration for them, and for one sole reason- the British invented the Queue, the single most civilised behavioral trait which distinguishes us from the great Apes. It's the queue which enables millions of people to shop, board trains and buses, go to cinemas, get their work done in offices, catch planes, watch soccer and cricket, without murdering each other in a temple- like stampede. The queue may even have saved more lives than the British snuffed out in their colonies!

   Interestingly, the queue (the line, not just the word) originated with the introduction of the urban transport system in the cities of Britain, and became firmly embedded in its civic life with the rationing introduced during WW1. It has even contributed to science- there is now a Queuing Theory, the mathematical study of waiting lines, created by a Danish engineer, A K Erlang, a hundred years ago. Shopping malls, airlines and other corporates spend a lot of time and money figuring out the most efficient manner of queuing. This has led to many variations of the standard straight line and queuing behaviour - queue chunking, skip and slip, serpentine queue, accordion queue, Wilma queueing method (for airlines) etc.

   We Indians of course have a very laissez faire attitude to queues, and consider it a waste of time, strictly for those without connections. Which is why I still remember my first taste of the British reverence for a queue. It happened in 1990, when I was posted as Private Secretary to Mr. I.K.Gujral, the External Affairs Minister. On a visit to the UK, our British Airlines flight landed at Heathrow about 45 minutes ahead of schedule; the Indian High Commissioner and the protocol staff had consequently not yet arrived to receive our party at the air-bridge, as was customary.

   Mr. Gujral and I de-boarded as ordinary mortals and proceeded to the immigration hall, where there were long queues at each counter. Seating the Minister on a bench, diplomatic passports in hand, I skipped a queue, jumped a yellow line and inserted myself at the counter, manned by a rather large lady who was not looking her best at this time in the early morning. Thrusting the passports and immigration forms at her, I said, with an air of self importance: "Madam, the Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs is sitting on that bench. Could you please stamp these passports?"

   The lady looked at me like I was a bad smell that she wished would  go away.

  "Sir," she thundered, "would you please go to the back of this queue and wait your turn !"

  "But he's the Minister for Foreign Affairs of India....." I stuttered.

  "I don't care if he's the Sultan of Brunei !" she roared back. "Get into that queue."

Fortunately, by this time the High Commissioner had arrived with the British protocol staff and took matters into their hands. I managed to save my job and the large lady proved indisputably why Britain managed to rule half the world for such a long time: the first rule in "Rule Britannia" was to stand in line.

  Most of my younger years were spent in standing in various queues: the ration shop, the railway booking office, the post office, cinema ticket counters, the electricity bill office, college admission counters. Even as an adult I grew a beard while standing in lines to buy my liquor, deposit my Income Tax returns, make an STD call to my parents in Kanpur. And these queues were nothing like the ones at Wimbledon or the Queen's funeral recently; they were more like the scrummage lines in a Rugby match, all shoulders and shoving, no quarter given.

   These days the digital revolution has changed most of that, and the only queues we land up in are the ones on the phone where a disembodied voice from Customer Service tells you: "All our executives are currently busy on other calls. Please stay on the line. Your custom is important to us." This is repeated ad-nauseam for about fifteen minutes, but at least one is sitting in the comfort of one's home, not being pounded on the midriff by the guy behind or elbowed in the face by the chappie in front. For a brief time in 2016 Mr. Modi, who as we know values tradition before anything else, attempted to take us back to the not-so-good old days when he forced about 150 million people to stand in the demonetisation queues before banks and ATMs every day for a month. Fortunately, he had bungled up as usual, within a short time the crooks had exchanged their old notes for new ones, and life returned to normal. As they say in Italy- Queue Sara Sara.

   The latest queues, post the death of Queen Elizabeth II, consist of former colonies of Britain seeking reparations and the return of their stolen artifacts in the British Museum which, according to John Oliver, is an active crime scene. India is also in line, demanding the return of the Kohinoor diamond.  The Kohinoor, as we all know, was forcibly wrested as a "gift" from Maharajah Duleep Singh, the younger son of Ranjit Singh and the last ruler of Punjab. He was only fifteen years old at the time. This was daylight robbery and we are certainly entitled to demand its return.

   But why is our outrage limited to the diamond ? Why are we not retrospectively indignant at the treatment meted out to the young Maharajah- separated from his mother, forcibly taken away to Britain and never allowed to return to Punjab, allowed to visit Nepal only once in his lifetime when his mother died. He himself died a lonely death in a hotel in Paris, a penniless pauper, and was buried in the small village of  Elveden in the Suffolk countryside as a Christian- the son and rightful heir of perhaps the only Indian ruler who made the British eat humble pie ?

  Why are we interested only in Duleep Singh's baubles and not the man himself ? Why has the Indian govt. not demanded back the remains of the last ruler of Punjab, so that he can finally be laid to rest in the land of his birth and his ancestors? Most surprising, why have the government and the proud people of Punjab, so conscious of their history and sacrifices, not raised this demand yet? The only feeble effort made so far has been by a Sikh charity, The Maharajah Duleep Singh Centenary Trust, but it has not been supported by either the Indian or the Punjab governments. The Kohinoor is, after all, an inanimate trinket but Duleep Singh is part of our lived history, and if we fail to remember him we betray and disown our own past. Looks like we are in the wrong queue on this one. 

IS MR. GADKARI OVERSPEEDING IN THE FAST LANE ?

      Why is Nitin Gadkari, the Minister for Road Transport and Highways, in such a tearing hurry? It certainly hasn't got him any brownie points with the Deadly Duo, from all accounts. He has tripled the pace of construction of NHs from 12 kms per day in 2014 to 37kms/day in 2021, ramming his machines through virgin forests, protected wildlife reserves, fragile mountain terrain, prime agricultural lands, without any thought to either the environment or individual livelihoods. Which would be at least partially justified, I suppose, if it led to an improvement in driving experience or safety, but both official figures and personal experience show that it has not. 

   NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) data shows that the number of deaths in road accidents has gone up from 146,133 in 2015 to 155,622 in 2021, an increase of about 7%, even though Gadkari has built 58000 kms of new national highways during this period. At a personal level, it used to take me 8 hours to drive from Delhi to Shimla in 1982 (when I bought my first second-hand car-a Fiat Padmini); it now takes me 9 hours, even though the entire stretch is now a multi-toll expressway. From what I've been reading, it's the same for the Yamuna Expressway (Delhi-Agra-Kanpur-Lucknow) or the Mumbai-Pune highway too. Even though we now have to pay heavy tolls, about Rs. 1.50 per km, where earlier there was no such levy. Clearly, something is not right here: what has improved after the massive financial and environmental costs incurred?

   A recent blog by Dilip D'Souza, a retired computer engineer, gives us another dimension. Comparing USA, China and India, Dilip states that the number of accident deaths per million vehicles in these three countries is 141, 814 and 2247, respectively. Simply put, our death rate is 15 times that of the USA and 3 times that of China. Another paradox- in the USA there is one death for every 50 road accidents, in India someone dies in every second accident- a 25 fold increase. These are horrendous figures, and I do hope some brave soul conveys them to Nitin Gadkari and the NHA (National Highway Authority) satraps, so that the former stops boasting that by 2030 our road infrastructure shall rival that of the USA. Not with these number of deaths, it won't, sir.

   In his race to enter the Guinness Book of records, Gadkari forgets that an expressway or a highway is more than just a six lane stretch of asphalt or macadam, dotted with toll plazas- it is an eco system with many parts, and proper attention has to be paid to each of them. These include proper and timely maintenance, enforcing road discipline. internationally accepted road designs, proper signages, setting up a highway patrol system, establishing medical and trauma centres to attend to accident victims. Yes, they will cost money, but they will prevent accidents and save precious lives.

   Unfortunately, in its single-minded pursuit of kilometers constructed, the NHA appears to have lost sight of these vital components of a highway system. Upkeep of these roads is dismal: the NHA collects more than Rs. 40000 crore every year from tolls- where is this money going? Repairs, diversions, widening-all these are never ending exercises and carry on for ever: there are at least six "diversions" between Sonepat and Chandigarh, replacing three lanes with one, and they have been there for at least the last two years. Where is the urgency to complete these works, considering that the motorist is paying a toll of Rs. 400 between Delhi and Chandigarh and still averaging the same speed he did in 1980? The Kalka-Solan expressway (just about 45 kms) has been in the making for the last 8 years, and the constant landslides and subsidence on it have made it a dangerous zone to drive on, with fatalities on it occurring every year. In its hurry to loot the public the NHA starts collecting toll even before a road is completed; though this matter has gone to some courts, they remain mute spectators (probably because My Lords are exempted from paying toll ?)

   Our road designs are atrocious: two or three lanes suddenly being squeezed into one without warning, too many medians and exits, most of them unmarked, uncontrolled access, badly designed grade separators. Signages are considered a waste of money. All this grabbed headlines in the crash (and death) of Cyrus Mistry. The administration tried its utmost to blame the driver for over speeding, but investigations by the International Road Institute and Mercedez-Benz have revealed that the culprit was bad road design and lack of warning signages. (Gadkari's reaction was his usual knee-jerk SOP- mandate compulsory six air bags for all cars.) This is a red herring to divert attention from the NHAI and police's failings: it is better to PREVENT an accident in the first place, than to simply try and reduce its impact once it has occurred.

  Where are the highway police and patrols to discipline our notoriously errant drivers? You can drive for a hundred kms on an expressway and not meet a single patrol car. In any case the traffic police appear interested in only overspeeding. What about the trucks and buses hogging the extreme right lane, forcing motorists to do the dangerous overtake-from-the-left maneuver? What about the stationary vehicles parked on the left lane, without any warning signs. Just these two violations account for a large number of accidents. And then there are idiots driving on the wrong side or the wrong speed lane. Everything goes unchecked and unpunished-it's like the wild west on these highways.

  There is only one trauma centre sign on the entire 400 km stretch between Delhi and Shimla. I didn't see any on the Yamuna Expressway. No dedicated ambulances, either. No wonder our fatality rate is 25 times that of the USA. There is no "golden hour" for an accident victim, no Good Samaritan Act: by the time he reaches a hospital it is usually too late. Why cannot some of that Rs. 40000 crore be used for establishing dedicated highway police units (not just sparing two constables from the local police station) and basic trauma facilities every 50 kms or so to avail of that golden hour? Simply ramping up the length of highways built is no achievement, what matters is the quality of these highways, their engineering, their safety record.

   The second issue on which Mr. Gadkari has gone into overdrive is the collection of tolls. The current FastTag system is working fine, a vehicle now takes just 40 seconds to cross a toll instead of the earlier five to ten minutes, jams at a toll plaza are a thing of the past, leakage of revenue has completely stopped. The country saves Rs.2800 crore worth of fuel every year because vehicles do not have to idle at the plazas any more. Mr. Gadkari deserves credit for all this, but he wants more. You would think the govt. would be happy and not try to fix something which is working ? Wrong. Mr. Gadkari now wants to introduce a new system of toll collection- the New Automated Toll Collection System.

  The new system would consist of one of two options being considered: one, a GPS in your car which will enable tracking of your vehicle and automatically deduct the toll from a connected bank account. Two, an automatic number plate recognition system: cameras at toll plazas will read your number plate and deduct the toll from your bank account. For this a new number plate will have to be installed by you. Both options are problematic.

  Let's not mince words: we are living in a surveillance state and the GPS system will only make it easier for the govt. to track your movements. In short, this option cannot be trusted. Germany has a GPS system for tolls, but it took almost a decade of trial and error before it could be introduced. Mr. Gadkari wants to do it in one year, by 2023 ! This will be worse than the unholy haste of GST and Demonetisation combined. And remember, Germany has only 10000 kms of expressways and 50 million cars; we have 150000 and 250 million!                                                                                                                                                            As for option two (the new number plate), how is it any different from a FastTag ? Why make 250 million vehicle owners repeat the ordeal of the HSRP ( High Security Registration Plate)? It has taken years and crores to install the HSRPs, and just when it is settling down Gadkari wants us to install a new set of plates, for no apparent reason.

  But, the after- effects of Covid notwithstanding. I smell a possible rat. There are big bucks involved in the proposed scheme. It costs roughly Rs. 1000/- to install one of these new fangled plates; for 250 million vehicles that amounts to Rs. 25000 crores! This is what the public will have to dish out and what the chosen contractors will earn if Gadkari has his way. The GPS option will probably cost even more. There's a bonanza awaiting the fortunate and favoured few here.

  I am also not comfortable with linking my bank account with any of these toll systems; I prefer a separate wallet ( as in the FastTag scheme) where I can decide how much to put. This way I can limit any possible damage by way of wrong deductions, hacking and cyber theft, which is becoming all too common. If the security structure of UIAID has collapsed like a house of cards the toll guys cannot be much better.

   There are other arrows in Gadkari's quiver and he has made public announcements of them all- electric highways, completely replacing petroleum fuel with ethanol, vehicle scrappage policy ( announced in 2020 but not yet visible on the ground even two years later), six air bags. I'm afraid he is going too fast with his shock and awe tactics: every second month we have to contend with some new rule or amendment in the Motor Vehicles Act. The Minister should remember that ours is a poor country (no matter what his boss may claim), changes cost money, people need some time to adjust to them, our bureaucracy is not known for its efficiency, confusion about rules only gives greater opportunity for the police to exercise their predatory instincts. Go step by step, sir, take your foot off the accelerator and move over to the  left lane. It's slower, but its safer and will eventually get you to your destination in one piece.