THE KANT-ERBURY TALES : THE DEBATE OVER DISABILITIES QUOTAS

 A wise man once had this piece of advice for people who talk too much and out of turn: it's better to keep your mouth shut and let people suspect that you are an ignoramus, rather than open it and confirm their suspicions. It appears that this gem of wisdom applies very well to the likes of Mr. Amitabh Kant, the over-burdened sherpa, and Ms Smitha Sabharwal, considered by some Youtube channels to be the "most beautiful IAS officer" in India. Both belong to my erstwhile service, sadly.

Mr. Kant has been in the Hall of Fame for some time now, with comments like "India has too much democracy" and  that the G-20 conference stewarded by India last year had issued "the strongest statement ever issued by the G-20", never mind that democracy is in the ICU here and no one remembers what that G-20 was all about, except perhaps a stepping stone for our 2024 elections. Ms Sabharwal, on the other hand, had not yet uttered anything of equal import so far, but has now decided to let the people know that she has brains as well as beauty, and should therefore be placed a notch above Mr. Kant (on the brains scale, of course, not the beauty one).

My reference is to the recent public statements made by the two, post the shocking revelations about the misuse of the reserved quotas in the IAS by one Puja Khedkar under the aegis of a somnolent UPSC and the Department of Personnel and Training. Mr. Kant has let it be known to the hoi polloi that he supports the SC/ST and OBC quotas but not the one for the physically handicapped which should be "reviewed": he has not bothered to explain what he means by that laconic word, but presumably he wants it discontinued. For good measure he has also voiced his opposition to the transgender quota. Ms Sabharwal is more explicit: she wants the handicapped quota abolished as disabled persons cannot do the rigorous field work and put in the long hours required in the civil services. (She is of course, wrong on both counts: the average IAS officer, after the first 4-5 years of field postings spends the rest of his life in office jobs, as Ms Sabharwal herself is doing currently. As for long hours, my son, who is a paraplegic, puts in longer hours at his office table six days a week than I ever did.) The lady then delivers the coup-de-grace to the disabled by pointing out that there are no disabled pilots flying planes or surgeons performing operations for a very good reason! (She is wrong again, and would be well advised to read an article by Satendra Singh of the University College of Medical Sciences, listing the contributions of some eminent disabled professionals, administrators and academics. It demonstrates convincingly that disabled persons, if given a fair and equal opportunity, can do as well, if not better, than the able-bodied in most fields. This piece, titled People with Disabilities need Bureaucrats who are Allies, and not Adversaries, has been published in The Long Cable on 26th July 2014)).

The short point is that, with their crass comments, both these officers have exposed not only their insensitive and callous nature but also their ignorance and regressive tendencies. For equality and equal opportunities for the disabled are now enshrined in the social and legal framework of all countries today, as is the goal of an inclusive society. India is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 2006; Part III of our Constitution provides for equality and dignity for the disabled; the Directive Principles of State Policy and Article 41 enjoin the state to make effective provisions for securing the right to work for the disabled, among among other vulnerable sections of society. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, makes specific the obligations of the government, society, employers etc. The world is moving/ has moved towards integrating the disabled in the mainstream of society but these two bureaucrat-dinosaurs have not progressed beyond their heartless, able-bodied  arrogance and anesthetised conscience. 

One would have understood, indeed applauded, if they had come out strongly against the misuse of all these quotas. as irrefutably demonstrated by the Puja Khedkar case, instead of attacking the disabled quota. One would have been delighted if they had raised the following questions and demands:

[1] How and why did DOPT issue Ms. Khedkar appointment letter when it had been opposed by the UPSC and her case had been dismissed even by CAT?

[2] How was she allowed to do forum shopping for four different disabilities (locomotor, visual, hearing, mental) from three different hospitals, at different times, in order to aggregate her disability to meet the 40% requirement of the UPSC?

[3] How did the UPSC/ DOPT fail to notice that with each attempt at certification she kept adding additional disabilities in order to reach the 40% threshold ? This itself should have raised red flags.

[4] Why was she even considered for appointment when she had refused to appear before the AIIMS, Delhi board six times?

[5] Why has the Chairman of UPSC been allowed to resign precisely at a time when he is required to answer questions about his organisation's dubious role in this scandal?

[6] Why are the DOPT and UPSC not taking any action to shut the many loopholes in the OBC and Disability quota system, even though it is common knowledge that people with connections have been gaming the system all these years? Why are they not tightening the rules/ processes to prevent the adoption of strategies to get around the "creamy layer" provisions- such as paper adoptions, gifting of assets, taking premature retirement etc.? 

[7] What is the rationale behind not counting the candidates' own income (but only that of the parents') for determining economic status vis-a-vis the creamy layer requirements? Surely it is obvious that the loophole here is as wide as one of Mr. Gadkari's expressways?

[8] Demand that ALL OBC/ Disability quota certificates submitted by the successful candidates since 2010 be put through a rigorous scrutiny so as to determine how far the rot has spread. Enough anecdotal evidence is available on social media to convince one that the Khedkar case is only the tip of the ice-berg.

This gaming of the system adversely effects the caliber of the civil services in two ways- it allows induction of sub-standard people into the services, and it does great harm to the genuinely disabled/ economically disadvantaged sections by depriving them of their rights to these jobs. This, and what Ms Khedkar has done, could not be possible without collusion at various levels and friends in high places. It is quite clear now that some kind of a cover-up has been set in motion. Ms Khedkar services shall be terminated but the various cases filed against her shall be allowed to peter out into the arid sands of time and be forgotten. The UPSC Chairman has already been allowed to don monkhood and will no doubt take a vow of silence, a few minor bureaucrats and doctors shall be shuffled around and normal business shall (literally) resume.

I wish the Kant-Sabharwal duo, who appear to be so worked up about reservations and quotas, had applied their immense acumen to these issues instead of favouring us with their biases and lack of emotional and empathetic intelligence. They should be questioning why the bathwater is so dirty instead of wanting to throw out the baby in it. The laziest option is not usually the best.

THE WEDDING AND THE FINE PRINT

 In my 74 years I have not seen, or even heard of, a more tasteless, egotistical or pretentious wedding than the recent, 24X7 televised extravaganza of the Ambanis. It is not just about its cost, which is estimated to be anything between Rupees 1500 crores to 5000 crores, not including the cost to the government in facilitating a private function as if it was a state event. The ugliness, the perversity and its real portent lie elsewhere.

It lies in the in-your-face manner in which this money was expended, at a time when the average Indian has never been worse off economically, when inequality and unemployment have reached record heights, when 67% of the GST is paid by 50% of its poorest citizens, when the top 1% control 40% of the country's wealth, when 800 million people have to be provided free/subsidized foodgrains to survive. At a time like this it needs a specially insensitive and supremely contemptuous mindset to distribute invitation cards which cost lakhs of rupees each, to charter 100 private jets to bring in  guests from all over the globe, to take 500 guests on a pre-wedding cruise, to flaunt clothes and necklaces that are worth more than the GDP of many countries, to pay Rs. 80 crores (reportedly) to someone who is practically unknown in India, to dish out gifts that reportedly cost more than rupees one crore each. Marie Antoinette at least offered cake to the citizens when there was no bread, her Indian avatars offer only a soap-box serial (spread over eight months), every event of what should be a private affair playing out in full public glare. It is this which offends the sensibilities, not just the scale of expenditure. (Incidentally, I find something sick and diseased with this obsession for things foreign in our super rich, this compulsion to flaunt white skinned invitees, whether they be pop-stars, ex-Prime Ministers or corporate honchos. It's as if our billionaires have not fully "arrived" until they can rub shoulders with these imported types, even if the latter have to be paid for condescending to come. Why, for example, a Rihanna or a Justin Beiber when our country has such a rich galaxy of artistes and unparalleled cultural variety  of our own? )

Let us be clear about one thing: this wasn't just a wedding- it was a powerful political statement. It appears to me that Mr. Ambani was making two statements here through the glitz, the hype and the greenbacks. One, that no one should be in any doubt about his political clout and preeminence. (Incidentally, this vindicates what Rahul Gandhi has been saying all along about who the real powers behind the throne are). And Mr. Ambani's confidence is certainly justified- barring the South and the Left, every politician of any note- including those from the India Alliance and even the Congress itself - were in obsequious attendance, as were the Shankarcharyas who had boycotted the Ram Mandir inauguration, an indication that the Ambani empire holds sway over both the temporal and the spiritual! And the Prime Minister was there too, making contrite amends for accusing his host of sending tempo loads of black money to the Congress during the elections.                                                                                                                                                The second statement by Asia's richest man is that he doesn't give a tinker's curse for public opinion or his fellow Indians, that other 99% who have funded his riches, consumed his products and have made him what he is. He had demonstrated as much earlier when he built his 27 storey, Rs. 3000 crore mansion overlooking the slums of these Indians: the mansion is the symbolic finger he is showing them. And why should he bother, anyway?- he controls most of the media, the many anchors and editors had their snouts firmly in the multi-cuisine troughs he had prepared for them, and their studios obligingly read from the script prepared by them.                                                                                                                                                              But beneath this sickening display of naked power and wealth one can detect the parvenu type aspiration of the nouveau riche,  the real colonial mindset of the Indian uber rich: a desperate, almost paranoiac desire to be "accepted" by the glitterati and power brokers of the West, to be one of them, to rub shoulders with them. This is a trait Mr. Ambani shares with his political mentor: the  mentor does it by bear hugs and dropping of first names, our aspiring Midases do it by basking in the company of these invitees (what P. Sainath calls "Nero's guests"), even if it means your star performer performing with his jockeys showing and a Kim Kardashian doing a "gajni" walk next to Mamata Bannerjee plodding along in hawai chappals! It is THIS colonial mindset which is the bane of a progressing India,  which Mr. Modi should be working to eradicate, rather than on renaming Rajpath or revising the IPC and CrPC or redesigning the army's uniforms. But a doctor can hardly be expected to cure a patient if he has the same disease himself, can he? 

For me, the only ones who come out of this tamasha smelling good are the Gandhis, not one of whom attended the wedding functions, in spite of being invited personally. The absence of Rahul Gandhi particularly is not a sulking refusal or  arrogant behaviour; as Valsan Thampu has explained in a video, it is an affirmative action which demonstrates moral uprightness and political consistency. For this was not just a wedding, it was a political statement, a reiteration of the power and wealth of someone who controls the levers of government, and wanted it to be known not just in India but globally. It had to be answered in kind, which is what Rahul Gandhi has done. He has shown that, notwithstanding the capitulation by his peers in the Opposition camp, he at least has the courage and commitment to practise what he preaches- that this country is being handed over to the oligarchs, that the national wealth being cornered by the rich 10% needs to be equitably shared with the other 90% of the citizens of the country, that the nexus between politics and Big Capital has to be broken for the country to progress and to remain a true democracy. To that extent he has been true to his new persona and has done us proud.

Sadly, no other leader of the opposition alliance has shown a similar fortitude or moral integrity: they have all succumbed to the lure of power and wealth and performed the role of "baratis" (if not "labhartis") in full public glare. They could have wished Mr. Ambani personally and in private in the best Indian traditions, without associating themselves publicly with this circus. Instead, their cringing behaviour has exposed the fragility and lack of any genuine, value based adhesive to the India Alliance. It further shows the difficulty of formulating any Common Minimum Programme for the Alliance. This is a warning flag for Rahul Gandhi and one hopes he has taken note of this. For all their talk of socialist principles, concern for the common man, tears for the vulnerable sections- all this is just a facade, they are perfectly comfortable with the purveyors of vulgar affluence and riches; they are self serving opportunists whose only goal is to attain power. They will sup with the devil, if necessary, to attain this object. If they are opposing Mr. Modi it is not because they do not approve of his values and principles (or the lack of them), it is because they would rather be sitting on his throne. They cannot be trusted to stay the race and the Congress will, sooner or later, have to find a way reduce its dependence on them.

Many years ago, when I was a probationer on district training in Mandi (unfortunately, Kangana Ranaut was not around then), I used to go to the district Club almost every evening for a drink or a game of bridge. My Deputy Commissioner, the late CD Parsheera, was the President of the club but NEVER visited it. One day I asked him the reason for his staying away. I still remember his words, which have guided me throughout my career: " Avay, our job demands that we say NO more often than we say YES. And remember this- it's very difficult to say "no" to a person with whom you have had a drink the previous evening."

Do you now see the fine print in this wedding?

IF IT'S BOEING I AIN'T GOING !

 This week my thoughts have turned to a subject I'm not very familiar with- outer space. Actually, I'm in the middle of a fascinating book, THE WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD; it's about the first explorations of the South pole and Antarctica by Shackleton, Scott and Amundsen. The last quarter of the 19th century and the first of the 20th was the golden age of exploration and discoveries, on land and sea, whether it was Livingstone in Africa, Mallory on the Himalayas or Peary and Amundsen in the icy wastes of the North and South poles, respectively. Whether it was driven by imperialism or colonialism is beside the point- the fact is that it showed the human spirit and character at its best, and produced a race of indomitable men we sorely lack today.

Thanks to these explorers, there are no more worlds left to discover on this planet, except perhaps under the oceans and in outer space, and we appear to be making a royal mess of both. By the time we get to the ocean depths the bottom of the seas would be carpeted with micro plastics and the bodies of drowned migrants desperate to get to Europe. And as for outer space, it's destined to become  a huge cosmic landfill: it is estimated that there are more than 9000 tonnes of junk in the stratosphere, comprising of 25000 pieces more than 10 cms in size, 500000 between 1cm and 10 cms, and 100 million pieces of 1 cm. And that does not include the poop: in space, the shit doesn't hit the ceiling, it keeps floating for eternity, like the jumlas liberally dished out at elections.

The other thing of interest is that whereas the exploration of terra-firma was driven by human grit, muscle and sheer dedication, the exploration of space is powered more by technology and science. This is not to deny the undoubted courage and intrepid will of the astronauts - it takes nerves of steel to launch oneself into a dark, infinite emptiness with an uncertain umbilical cord- but simply to underline the distinction between human and technological prowess. The other difference is that whereas the earlier explorations were motivated by the passion and love of discovery, today's explorations are driven mainly by greed (deep sea mining for minerals) and/or geo-political hubris (why else would countries be scrabbling over rights on the dark side of the moon) and sheer stupidity (looking for another planet to colonise after we have destroyed Earth- wouldn't it be much easier to save our own planet?).

Which brings me to this fortnight's news and updates about space.

Mr. S Somanath, the head honcho of ISRO, is a softspoken man who lived in the shadows till he became a star after the success of the Chandrayan mission. And stars must make their presence felt, not necessarily by shedding light but by issuing statements. One such by Mr.Somnath last month was that he would like to send our Prime Minister on a space flight- that would, presumably, be the apogee of his career, not the landing of a man on the moon. Fair enough: each man has to set his own goals, even if they are self-goals. We shall also ignore the slightly seditious strand implicit in his desire to dispatch our Head of Government on a journey to nowhere, perhaps without a return ticket. But I learn that this invitation has got Mr. Modi really worried. For the timing of the invite was unfortunate; you see, the Indian origin American astronaut, Sunita Williams, has been floating around in space for the last three weeks with no indication when she can come back, due to a glitch in the Boeing Starliner which took her up. She is running out of patience, and more important, time. The current refrain in NASA is "If it's Boeing I ain't going!" but that is cold comfort for Sunita.

So  you see why the PM is uncomfortable? This is definitely not the best time to be considering a walk in the interstellar regions. Accepting Mr Somanath's offer, while it may enable Mr. Modi to revisit his self proclaimed celestial origins, a kind of "ghar wapasi" if you will, it may end up with him doing an Argentine Tango with Sunita Williams for eternity just outside the International Space Station. Not accepting it, conversely, would show lack of confidence in our space programmes, something which President Xi would no doubt note before making another dash for the dark side of Mars or Saturn or Moon, depending on the prevailing "rashi" at the time. There is, therefore, a possibility that Mr. Modi may transfer the invitation to Yogi Adityanath, thereby preserving his own skin and getting rid of a rival at one go - killing two birds with one asteroid, what?

Asteroid brings me to Mr. Somanath's next Nostradamus type statement- that a huge asteroid is likely to hit Earth next year, if it does then all life on the planet would be exterminated, and therefore we should prepare for extinction. I understand that bit about extinction: after all, there have already been six mass extinctions, the last being that of the dinosaurs. I was hoping the next would be that of the "bhakts" but Mr. Somnath says it will be all of us and who am I to quarrel with a man who can land a Rover on a postage stamp a million miles away? But I do have a question for him- how does one "prepare" for extinction?

Preparing for death I can understand- ensuring that one has made all the nominations, executed a will, divided one's properties among all the slobbering descendents and an impatient Mrs. Sitharaman, reminded the wife of where all the black money has been kept, have one last lingering look at that framed photo of Sunny Leone, return the Aam Aadmi cap to Mr. Kejriwal, and so on. You get the drift, don't you?- one has to prepare for an orderly departure, provide for all those left behind, so that life carries on here even as you line up at the pearly gates hoping you'll take the lift going up and not be pushed into the trap-door with the sulphur fumes. But extinction? When there's no life left on the planet, no Puranikoti, no inheritance or inheritors, nothing but a final puff of smoke to indicate that a beautiful blue planet once existed here? How does one "prepare" for that, Mr. Somanath?

I'm sure our rocket scientist will enlighten us on this point soon. But I'm not waiting. I've already decided on the details of my "preparation". I shall wait for that damned asteroid to appear on the horizon, give the wife a peck on the cheek, tell her to forget about the mangalsutra and the buffaloes, and retire to my study. There I shall pour myself a stiff single malt and tune in to the PM's latest Man ki Baat. The former shall put me in the proper frame of mind to say "Howdy!" to St. Peter, and the latter shall remind me that there are things worse than extinction. As my niece, Mitali Saran, has always maintained: a good sized asteroid is the solution to all our problems. Cheers, and Amen!

PRESENT IMPERFECT, FUTURE TENSE- AND TO HELL WITH THE PAST.

 Oceania, that dystopian country in Orwell's 1984 (to which India has started bearing a disturbing resemblance), has a Ministry Of Truth whose job is to function as a Ministry of Lies. Its function is to rewrite history so as to delete/revise any record inconvenient to the ruling regime of Big Brother, to edit/censor news to ensure it conforms to what the government wants, to make doubly sure that the public  gets to know only what the powerful junta decides it should know. It is perhaps the most important of all the Ministries, because it controls that human faculty which all dictators dread- the human mind. The rulers of Oceania have learnt well that axiomatic lesson: he who controls the present controls the past, and he who controls the past controls the future.

This dictum lies at the heart of the BJP's vision for its thousand year Reich (currently truncated to the year 2047). Except that the BJP has gone one better than Orwell- the task of erasing facts and validating untruths has not been centralised in just one Ministry but has been farmed out to multiple institutions, from Municipal Corporations to Parliament. The insidious operation is being conducted in the party's usual thorough manner, in incremental steps, after creating fertile ground (through a prostituted media and a terrified bureaucracy) in which to sow the seeds of fiction and falsity. For the party has a healthy distaste for history, and quite rightly too, considering that for most of its existence from the pre-Independence days to 1990 it has been just a footnote in the pages of India's history. That little omission rankles, and therefore the desperate efforts to rectify it in true Orwellian fashion.

The first steps were intended to erase the 300 odd years of Mughal heritage of the country-to begin with, by renaming roads and cities, then by demolishing Mughal architecture under the guise of removing "encroachments" (like the masjid in Delhi, stated to be an encroachment in a reserved forest, which was built 400 years before the forest was declared to be reserved!), and now with the full fledged assault on the Places of Worship Act under the benign watch of a nonchalant judiciary. And it's not just masjids and madrasas - both the Qutab Minar and the Taj Mahal are also alleged to be sitting atop temples. The next step will be the Uniform Civil Code.

Leading the charge on another front are our education regulators, ensuring that future generations do not learn anything that may threaten the ruling regime and its absurd narratives. And so under NEP (New Education policy) the syllabi removes all references to secularism, federalism and citizenship from the text books; the NCERT, not to be outdone, has deleted (from Class 12 texts) all references to demolition of the Ram Mandir, Advani's rath yatra and the 2002 Gujarat riots. The astounding explanation given by the NCERT chief on this vandalisation of history is that "we want to create positive citizens, not violent and depressed individuals." By that logic 3/4ths of all human history shall have to be expunged, in the interest of producing ignorant, uninformed morons as foot soldiers of a particular ideology, which probably is the intention in any case.

The new Parliament building is only the external evidence of how even our Parliamentary history is being recast and revised with the intention of making it an extension of the right wing architecture, shorn of its glorious past and traditions: the real, extirpative changes are taking place within its walls. All past heritage and conventions are being eroded one by one- consultations with the Opposition, consensus on election of presiding officers, full and free discussions on important legislations, unrestricted coverage of proceedings by the press and media, acceptance of urgent adjournment motions, reply by the Prime Minister to questions, nomination of Opposition party members to important Committees, reference of Bills to Consultative Committees, and so on. Instead, new traditions are being introduced unilaterally, such as suspending more than a hundred members at one go, disqualifying members with unholy haste and without a fair hearing, expunging speeches with gay abandon (as in the 14 expunctions recently to Rahul Gandhi's speech on the President's Address. The Prime Minister's unparliamentary language and vilification, of course, were allowed to stand).

This Prime Minister is desperate to change the character and nature of everything of historical note and to leave his own half-baked imprimatur on them instead, marking territory, as it were. And so the tragic and solemn Jalianwala Bagh has to be Disneyfied into a garish tourist attraction, Gandhi's Sabarmati Ashram has to be forcefully renovated and redesigned over the  protests of its care-takers and residents, the magnificent Rajpath and its environs have to be expropriated at a cost of Rs. 20000 crores just to show who is the Bossman, the ancient ambience and unique aura of Ayodhya and Kashi have to be "modernised" by demolishing hundreds of houses, shops and smaller temples so that the Great Builder can engrave his non-biological insignia there for all posterity to marvel at.

Work is going on on other fronts too- renaming of old welfare programmes to remove any historical connection with previous governments (19 of 23 UPA schemes have been renamed), redacting inconvenient official records (like the part of the CAG report that dealt with the financials of the Rafale deal), using sealed covers in courts to hide the truth from the public, ignoring earlier Prime Ministers in the documentation of ceremonial functions (like the ICHR omitting Nehru's name from the posters commemorating India's 75th year of independence). The BJP however has a problem with Nehru who has to be pulled down if the Supreme Leader has to occupy his place on the pedestal. But the problem is that Nehru also has to be kept in the public mind constantly so that he can be blamed  for all of this govt's failures, the list of which keeps growing! Love him or hate him, but the BJP can't ignore him.

There are three types of people: those who make history, those who learn from history, and those who are afraid of history and want to erase it. This last type are tormented by insecurity and fear, and can never achieve greatness. One is reminded of this little anecdote about Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth I. It was said that perhaps there was something more than just the sovereign-subject equation in their relationship. The former had to be very careful and circumspect, however, in expressing or conveying his feelings about this in the age of sudden decapitations by the Virgin Queen. The two used to take regular evening walks in the royal arbor. One day the Queen found written on a wall of the arbor the following words: 

"Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall."

The Queen wrote below it:

"If you fear to fall, then do not climb at all."

Indeed, fear and self-doubt are not the right stimulants for creating history.