CLUELESS IN DELHI- A POTPOURRI OF RANDOM THOUGHTS

     Just about every medium of communication these days- television, print, hoardings, social media, even the " chai pe charcha"- is dominated by politics, to the point where even our dreams now are of Kejriwal on a dharna or Modi on a white horse. Now, politics is important but I draw an Obama type red line when it excites my wife more than my ardent come-hithers, when she would rather watch Arnab Goswami"s Prime Time than ladle out the soup, when even the aging mastiff shows his preference for the Aam Aadmi party by barking fondly every time Kejriwal and his muffler appear on TV. Surely( the Bard would have no doubt shrewdly observed) there are more things in heaven and earth than are thought of by Rajnath Singh and Sitaram Yechury? So I've decided to make a weekly foray into other, unrelated issues that should concern us just as much and which should also be discussed. You may not be any wiser after reading this but you will be well on your way to developing the rounded personality that took us into the IAS once upon a time but will now get you arrested at India Gate.

                                 THE  DOWNSIDE  OF  POLITICAL  CORRECTNESS.

    The SMS went something like this:

Question: Why do women find Jewish men irresistible?

Answer:  Because they can't resist anything with 20% off!

Its a joke, right? Wrong. In today's India this attempt at humour is sexist, racist, communal and a public obscenity. Reciting it can get you dismissed from your job, mauled by Arnab Goswami and his panelists, condemned by Kavitha Krishnamurthi and HER panelists, sent to jail for a few years, disqualified from contesting elections: it may even cause a diplomatic uproar. In this tower of Babel that is India today there exist a myriad lunatic fringe groups that claim to represent some community or the other: desperate for their five minutes of glory on TV they latch on to any statement, dissect it under the microscope and hey presto! discover the gene that denigrates a community, a sex( there are more than two, you know, though the Supreme Court has yet to realise this). a religion, an occupation. The script thereafter is predictable: street agitations, panel discussions on TV, NGO spokespersons frothing at the mouth, intimidated governments passing legislations more appropriate to the Dark Ages. Whatever happened to our sense of humour? Our appreciation for beauty? Our longing for romance? ( There are in fact many more dimensions to political correctness but I shall concentrate on just two- humour and romance).

   The greatest truths are the most simple ones. Someone once said that the secret of happiness lies in having a sense of humour and a dirty mind. Both are forbidden by law today. The essence of humour lies in laughing at, or with, someone including oneself, without giving offence. Most of the civilised world does this-on Prime Time! In the USA their Presidents are the biggest butts of jokes, as are British Prime Ministers. Remember that gag about Margaret Thatcher when she was at the height of her power- that if she did to her husband what she was doing to the country then at least there would be one happy man in the UK!?( In this country the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, no less, warns the media to show more respect for the Prime Minister). Certain communities have had their legs pulled for centuries- the Irish, the Cockney, the Hillbilly in America, even the Sikhs in India personified by Santa and Banta. ( It is no coincidence that all the three communities referred to are among the most resilient and loveable in the world- after all, singling someone out for mention is also a sign of respect. Genuine humour does not defile the person or object of the joke, it brings that person closer to you). Today in India it requires genuine courage to publish a joke about Santa and Banta. Chances are that if the SGPC doesn't get you the DSGMC will, or the Akal Takht or the Akali Dal- all with the sanction of law. A degree of sexual nuancing is very much integral to humour, too, for after all sex is the primordial force that drives all living beings and is in fact responsible for all great literature- how then can it escape the gaze of the comic? Genuine humour is completely eclectic, secular and egalitarian-it holds nothing sacred, not even religion. ( I recently viewed a Jay Leno show where he rummages around in his desk to see what's been lying there for years. One of the objects he finds is a ladies' thong with a picture of Christ in front with the words: " What would Christ do?"! The audience( all Christians, presumably) had a good laugh. Can you imagine what would have happened if it had been a Hindu or Muslim god on that thong? Yes, we would have had a good riot or two followed by some stupid legislation.                                         What has happened to the sense of humour in this country? When will we realise that humour has no agenda except to tell its audience or reader not to take life too seriously ? Humour  assumes a maturity on the latter's part to get its true message across. And that precisely is the problem in this country: we take ourselves too seriously and are therefore quick to take offence. When Sashi Tharoor refers to travel by " cattle class" we demand his resignation. When Kumar Vishwas refers to the colour of Kerala nurses we demand a public apology. When Mandira Bedi wears a saree with the tricolour on it we want her to be jailed. When Farooq Abdullah jokes that men are now afraid of having women secretaries we denounce him as being sexist.

    The entire cosmos of love and romance is equally threatened by this tsunami of righteous political correctness. Love is not merely consensual sex behind closed doors- in fact, that is rarely love. Love embraces a whole spectrum of nuanced actions and cues- the covert look, the hesitant speech, the tremulous epistle, the trembling touch, the hopeful pursuit. Women's organisations and a hysterical press have ensured that all these beautiful components of love-glorified and immortalised over the ages-are now illegal: each and every one of these can now send you to jail for they have all become variations of Rape! A Romeo serenading Juliet below her balcony would now be charged with sexual harassment, Rhett Butler would be guilty of rape because he had sex with Scarlett o"Hara by holding out false promises, Helen( of Troy, not Bollywood, fame) would no doubt be entitled to register an FIR against the poet who praised her beauty as " the face that launched a thousand ships" since the remarks are personal in nature and violate her sense of privacy. How will future generations of amorous youngsters woo girls, how will the passions of romance play out, what will happen to that oldest of literary legacies-the love letter and the love song? The expression of love today has been criminalised because of some cruelly distorted idea of what is politically correct; the finer senses have been taken over by the coarse instincts of the fringe groups-including women's groups and social activists- who are becoming more Orwellian every day and dictating to society at large what constitutes acceptable behaviour. Granted that the original intention-of preventing assaults on women- was bona fide. But it hasn't worked: the number of such assaults has not gone down, the time it takes to punish offenders is just as long drawn out, the rate of convictions is just as abysmal. Shouldn't we then roll back these misplaced nostrums and follow the real trail of police and judicial reforms? For what we have done so far is to not only throw the baby out with the bathwater- we've thrown out the ruddy tub itself!

    No humour, no love, no romance-what are we reducing our society to? It would do well to remember- man does not live by law alone.

    

THE KG BASIN GAS DEAL AND THE CURIOUS STORY OF THE DOGS THAT DIDN'T BARK

     So the " supari " that had been issued against Arvind Kejriwal after his filing of the famous Gas FIR has been executed by the BJP and the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party has been shown the door in Delhi, at least for the time being. But the burning plume of gas left behind at the Ambani well-head will not subside as conveniently, and indeed will only become more intense as the elections draw nearer. Kejriwal has made a very serious charge against the Govt. and Mr. Ambani, as have four of the most respected citizens of the country, who, incidentally have had a ring-side view of the establishment's manner of functioning. The registration of a criminal FIR against a Union Minister and Mukesh Ambani, no less, is absolutely unprecedented. Attaching criminal intent to a decision of the Union cabinet is unparalleled. Alleging windfall benefits of Rs. 54000 crores per annum to Mr. Ambani is outrageous( if true) and scurrilous( if not).

    The public waited for a thunderbolt of denial from the Government or the Congress, a White Paper on the price revision of the gas from the KG Basin, at least a detailed  statement from the Minister in Parliament( between the knife wielding and the pepper spraying side-shows) or the spokesperson on TV. All we got, instead, was the epiphanic revelation from Mr. Moily that Kejriwal was ignorant. The Govt. said that it would go to the Supreme Court, its favourite haunt for burying chestnuts it finds too hot to handle. Not a word of explanation for the public.

    The Opposition was equally subdued. Here I refer to the BJP because we don't expect the two Madams or Mulayam Singh or Mayawati or Lalu Yadav or Sharad Yadav to bother about a few thousand crores of public money. The BJP was strangely silent in the middle of a Parliament session, when here was a heaven sent opportunity to stall Parliament for the second year in a row and set a Guinness record! All we got was an erudite statement from Mr. Jaitley about how Kejriwal was assaulting the federal structure ( an admission of sorts, some would say, that Mr. Ambani IS the federal govt.!)

    Equally surprising was the demeanour of the elitist press and TV who suddenly appeared like a shoal of piranha going on a vegetarian diet. The news of the FIR was mentioned in passing, a few " experts" were hauled in front of the camera to mouth technicalities that no one understood or hosannas to Mr. Ambani that everyone did, and then the matter was dropped and the flush pulled. Period. And this is the same media that spent DAYS on Kumar Vishwas's poor joke about nurses and went apoplectic about Kejriwal moving into an official house or sitting on a dharna. There were no sound bytes from the regular cogniscenti or glitterati who otherwise line up every night on prime time to air their views on things that bother them. Presumably, 54000 crores is just loose change they couldn't be bothered with. 

     Readers of Sherlock Holmes will certainly recall that story( I forget the name) where Holmes is investigating a blind murder in a country manor. There are no clues- no witness, no signs of forced entry, no evidence left behind, even the guard dogs had been quiet that night. And that is what Holmes found curious-why did the dogs not bark? It is in the nature of dogs to bark at intruders, and their not doing so was the clue which Holmes had been looking for and which ultimately led him to solving the case. Why is there no barking now?

    There is more to the KG Basin story than meets the eye and the Govt. trying to hide behind the Rangarajan report won't wash. This report was submitted in December 2012, long after the KG gas was allotted to Mr. Ambani's RIL. The PSC ( Production Sharing Contract) with RIL was based on the then existing price mechanism which stipulated a cost plus formula, not a market price( which RIL has now got). Kejriwal is quite correct when he maintains that the contracted price was $ 2.34 per MMBTU. This was revised in 2007 to $ 4.20 in 2007 under the new NELP( New Exploration and Licensing Policy). It is a moot and debatable point whether RIL could have been given the benefit of the NELP formula when its contract predated it and should instead have stood on its own legs.

     However, even if we accept the 2007 price revision, the current proposal to further increase it to $ 8.40 certainly needs a deeper investigation, or at least a convincing explanation from the govt. True, the 2007 decision of $4.20 provided for a review of the price after five years, that is, w.e.f. 1st April 2014. But this revision should have been allowed on price indexation, not by a jump to parity with market prices, which is an entirely new mechanism which did not even exist in 2007, let alone when the contract with RIL was signed. Once again, Kejriwal cannot be faulted with this assertion.

    The Govt. says( when it deigns to speak) that this latest revision is based on the Rangarajan Committee's recommendations. True, this Committee has suggested moving away from the Cost plus formula which is difficult to monitor or audit owing to the gold-plating of costs involved. It has thus recommended that gas prices be based on the weighted average of two prices-[a] the price received by producers at the exporting country well head for imports to India, and [b], weighted average of gas prices available at international hubs of three regions. The Govt. claims it has simply applied this mechanism to now revise RIL prices to $8.40.

    This appears to be patently erroneous, if not worse. For the Rangarajan Committee's recommendations come with a very specific caveat that the new mechanism would apply prospectively, and not retrospectively. I quote two of these caveats:

PARA 1.8 OF THE SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS

" All the PSCs signed by the Govt. upto the ninth round of NELP will continue with the existing fiscal model, ensuring the sanctity of these contracts." 

PARA 4.9 OF THE SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS

" It is clarified that the proposed pricing formula would only apply prospectively and is not proposed for application to gas prices already approved."

    It could not be clearer from the above that RIL could not have been given the benefit of the Rangarajan Committee's new pricing formula because the KG Basin contract was signed before the ninth round of NELP. In fact, the Committee was well aware of the fact that RIL had been constantly trying to link its prices to international prices and had been pushing for import parity pricing. The Committee categorically rejected this as ( in its own words) " this will give a huge monetary benefit to domestic producers."

   How then are the Committee's recommendations being applied to KG Basin gas to give such a huge benefit to RIL? Not only is the govt. not clarifying this, it is trying to drag other red herrings across the trail to throw us off the scent. It is now claiming that since ONGC and GAIL produce 70% of the country's natural gas( and private players only 30%) the major benefit will go to PSUs and not RIL. How is this relevant? For one, the public has a right not to be robbed by anyone-the govt. or the private player. Secondly, sharing of the loot with the govt. doesn't make it legal. Thirdly, the govt.'s net gain will be nil because it will have to increase subsidies on fertiliser, power, CNG etc. to offset the hike in gas price, whereas RIL will have to do no such thing when it goes laughing all the way to the Bank with its 54000 crores. It is clear that there can only be one gainer in this dubious transaction.

   We may be wrong in our assessment. But we have a right to know the full facts. It does not behove an elected govt. to treat its citizens as mentally challenged and not worthy of being apprised of the truth on an issue of such financial magnitude. It behoves it even less to hide behind an army of expensive lawyers and take cover in a thicket of legalese which it will take years to penetrate. And it is equally incumbent on our other political parties, media and social organisations to demand answers. Do not bite, but at least bark. 

    

THE DEMONISATION OF KEJRIWAL--HAS THE MEDIA GOT IT ALL WRONG?

     Over the last few months Kejriwal and his AAP have turned the spotlight on a number of fundamental issues: one of the most important of them, which has not received the scrutiny it deserves, is the attitude of the mainstream media-primarily the elitist, English language TV channels and print media- towards the Aam Aadmi party and some of its leaders. Their approach has progressed through the full range of journalistic hysteria- from contempt, scepticism, grudging acceptance, demanding, outrage, to outright condemnation ( the current phase). During this tortuous journey the media has also exposed the full range of its deficiencies, from elitist bias to ignorance, disconnect, arrogance and perhaps cupidity.

     The media has never accepted Kejriwal. It initially dismissed him as a charlatan and fraud and even dug into his IRS past( without success) to find material(the study leave issue, dues to govt.) to discredit him. It deliberately created a rift between him and Anna Hazare by over-emphasising their different paths. It churned out opinion polls ( of toilet paper utility) that could only prejudice his electoral prospects. It grudgingly accepted his political and moral ascendance in Delhi after the elections but quickly recouped its forces, joined ranks with all other political parties and unleashed a blitzkrieg against him that continues unabated till today.

     I am not talking of legitimate criticism and careful analysis, which is the reason the press exists, but of which we have seen little these last few months. I am talking of misinformation, misinterpretation, highlighting issues which support only a pre-conceived thesis and blacking out others, giving a slant to the reporting, shouting down contrary views, distorting the facts and making connections where none exist, regurgitating half digested news. ( To be fair to this section of the media, they have done this to others also-the shocking manner in which the OB vans and the anchors wormed their way into the Sunanda Pushkar case, like maggots, and laid bare before the nation all kinds of nonsensical theories- murder, ISI plot, Dubai connection, IPL connection( they showed Subramaniam Swamy making this charge on TV), Sashi Tharoor's culpability on charges of abetment to suicide,all without any verification- would make anyone want to throw up. Those anchors have  all shut up now that all those bestial theories have been disproved, and ( without so much as a " sorry" to Mr. Tharoor) turned their undivided malevolent attention back to Kejriwal.

     How fair has the media been in the following?

[*] Accusing Kejriwal initially of not forming the govt. in Delhi (  REASON-shirking his constitutional responsibility), and when he does form the govt., castigating him for doing so with Congress support ( REASON- contradicting his stated position). All channels ignored the obvious explanation given by the party- that they never asked for Congress support. What was Kejriwal supposed to do in the Assembly when the Congress voted in favour of his party-ask the Speaker to reject those votes, or expel the Congress MLAs, or go to Arnab Goswami for advice?

[*] Accusing Kejriwal of not keeping his election promises to the people when he does not announce any relief on Water and Power within a week of assuming office, and criticising him for being populist when he does announce such relief. And when the CMs of Haryana and Chhatisgarh ( and now even Maharashtra) make similar announcements, the same press only refers to it "en passant"!

[*]  Constantly questioning Kejriwal on what concrete action he would take to make the Delhi police accountable to the people and govt. of Delhi.- and condemning him when he takes the first effective step( the dharna) to attain this. For the last twenty-one years each and every Chief Minister of Delhi took shelter behind the alibi of central control of the police rather than assume control and the responsibility for their actions that comes with it. Kejriwal accepted the challenge but is being condemned for it.

[*] Terming the dharna at Rail Bhawan as " anarchy" even though it was peaceful, did not seek to bring down any govt., or break any laws( except the ubiquitous Sec.144 which was never meant to be applied in the case of legitimate protest but has become the first resort of all govts to stifle them). The media has a very short and selective memory-if all protests are to be termed as anarchy then the Jai Prakash Narain movement would never have happened and we would still be under an Emergency.

[*] Stigmatizing public participation in governance as " Vigilantism". The media-comfortable in their privileged status where any favour is just a phone call away- disapproves of public involvement in the monitoring of schools, hospitals, police stations even though they are fully aware of( and quite often expose) the deplorable conditions prevailing there. Law Minister Bharti is denounced as a Vigilante even before the Inquiry Commission has given its report. The murder of Arunachal's Nido this week and the thrashing of two other girls from the North-east in Kotla last week has thoroughly exposed the rot in the Delhi police, and vindicates Mr. Bharti's action in personally going to Khirkee village and demanding that the police take action. This is not vigilantism. Vigilantism is what MNS and SP goons are doing in UP and Bombay, but our TV channels let them off with brief mentions, reserving their vitriol for the AAP.

      The double standards on display only add to this pathetic roll call of ineptitude. All parties come out with grand manifestos before elections but consign them to the dustbin on assuming power, and the media forgets about them too. But Kejriwal's 18 point manifesto was flung in his face from day one and he was castigated on an almost hourly basis for not implementing it. The Congress has done nothing about the scams for ten years but Kejriwal is expected to throw Sheila Dixit in jail within twenty four hours of assuming office! When Gadkari makes allegations about  clandestine pay-offs to form the AAP govt. it is merely reported; when AAP's Madanlal alleges he was offered Rs. 20 crores to defect the media demands that he produce proof and file an FIR; every penny received by AAP is on their website but still questions are raised repeatedly on their legality, but have you seen any  Primetime discussion on why Mallya refuses to pay his employees or the Banks while continuing with his Great Gatsby life-style? Or why SAHARA's Subroto Roy refuses to explain how he got the Rs. 20,000 crore for his deposit schemes? Or why India's most fearless journalist forgot to ask Rahul Gandhi about Robert Vadra's rags-to-riches miracle? Or about the Houdini-like manoeuvers that enabled his family to take ovet the assets of the National Herald? Has there been even a whisper on TV or the press about Madhu Kishwar's expose on the NDTV- Chidambram laundry list of Rs. 5000 crore?

     The media has become an expert at manufacturing red herrings to divert the attention away from AAP's core issues/ intentions so as to serve their main purpose of discrediting the party. Khirki thus becomes a matter of Racism and Sexism, and not about drugs, prostitution and police corruption; Kejriwal's dharna is projected exclusively as a constitutional break-down and the issues relating to federalism, the right of a state govt. to exercise control over its police force, the attitude of an insensitive central govt- all these are disregarded. Misleading Headlines and Breaking News spots predict the imminent fall of the AAP govt. and party, a few defamation cases against Kejriwal by affected politicos is projected as the law closing in on him, an attempt at having a genuine janata durbar is tom-tommed as an administrative failure of cataclysmic proportions. Speakers on panel discussions who support the AAP position are either shouted down, intimidated, lectured to or simply have the mike taken away! Only domesticated panelists whose toe-the-media-line biases are well known are chosen to appear at the mid-night hour ( one of them inadvertently gave the game away recently by mentioning( live) that he gets paid Rs. 5000 for every appearance!). There was no contradiction from the fearless anchor who quickly changed the subject!

     What is the explanation for the patently partisan and adverserial( to the AAP) posture adopted by the media, for its 24x7 condemnation of Kejriwal and his party, for its perpetual fault-finding autopsy of every word and act of this fledgeling entity which should at least be given some grace period to flap its wings before expecting it to soar into the firmament? Having given the matter some thought, I see three main reasons to explain the media's curious behaviour.

     First, a total disconnect with the pulse of the people. Editors and anchors who divide their time between padded air-conditioned studios and the drawing/dining rooms of the rich and infamous, whose ears are fixed on their smartphones rather than on the ground, who move only in their own circle from which they also choose their panelists and pollsters, have lost touch with reality. They have yet to realise that Kejriwal's mass appeal does not stem from reduction of power or water tariffs or from the promise of regularising contract workers- it stems from his visceral denunciation of corruption and elitism, from his projection of abject simplicity, from an idiom that is not conventionally political. The more the channels concentrate on the non-issues, the more irrelevant they become to the people and the more they are perceived to be part of the effete superstructure that the people want to demolish.

    Second, sheer ignorance of both history and current developments across the world. If you have already made up your mind before the show starts, and if you profess to be an expert on seven subjects in seven days, there is very little your research team can do for you. By continuing to insist that Kejriwal is the Great Anarch the elitist media is negating all the struggles in the past that make us the great democracy we are. In the process the media has also blinded itself to the contextual relevance of Kejriwal's movement. The emergence of the AAP has to be seen as part of a global churning against big government, corruption, the feeling that " the modern state often seems designed to look after itself rather than the citizens it is supposed to serve" ( the Economist, January 4th 2014), against 19th century Chicago style politicians, against an elite prospering at the expense of the working classes. The last ten years has seen political parties with the same DNA as the AAP, what are being called " insurgent parties", asserting themselves across the globe- the UKIP( United Kingdom Independence Party) in the UK, the Tea Party rump of the Republican Party in the USA, The Progress Party of Norway, the Front National ( FN) of the inimitable Marie Le Pen in France, The Freedom Party in the Netherlands, the Five Star Movement in Italy. Once considered fringe groups they too were demonised by the media and the establishment, but they have come to stay: they have broad appeal, command sizeable vote percentages, influence the formation of governments, and sleepless govts. are learning their lessons the hard way-either they adapt to the policy demands of these newcomers or they vacate more and more space for them. Lessons, dear Mr. Goswami-Sardesai-Rahul Kanwal and Ms. Dutt and Ghosh, are not derived from vacuous panel discussions but from studying what is happening in the world around you. You may consider Kejriwal a freak but most of the developed world is taking people like him very seriously.

    Third, and most important, one is beginning to suspect that there might be more than meets the eye in this sustained campaign to discredit Kejriwal and AAP. One has to weigh seriously Shazia Ilmi's charge that big corporates, who are desperate for Modi to become PM, are behind the media campaign. The Congress, equally petrified of this unpredictable party would certainly not hesitate to call in favours from a media with which it has always has a cosy relationship. The DAVP budget is a handy persuader ( as the AG audit of the advertising spend of the Chhatisgarh govt. makes amply clear). And let us not forget that loose change of Rs. 500 crores which the Congress party has set aside for its election campaign! I may be wrong, or perhaps senility is catching up with me, but I do seem to feel that our media has raised the decibel pitch against Kejriwal rather noticeably ever since news about this bankroll became public. Quite often the loudest bidder is also the highest bidder! Ever since the Radia tapes exposures the credibility and integrity of our mainstream media have been under a cumulonimbus cloud. And we are well aware of the fact that almost all  prime channels and publications are owned or controlled by business houses or leading politicians.  Aditya Thakur's article in the Hillpost gives some of the details: Prannoy( NDTV) Roy's wife is the sister of Brinda Karat of the CPM, TIMES NOW belongs to Bennet and Coleman, NEWS24 is controlled by Rajeev(IPL) Shukla a Congress Minister,PTC is owned by Sukhbir Badal, INDIA NEWS is owned by Karthikeya Sharma son of Congress leader Venod Sharma, THE PIONEER is ably steered by BJP MP Chandan Mitra , the HINDU is owned by the Kasturi family which has overt CPM sympathies, The INDIAN EXPRESS supports the Congress while its twin the NEW INDIAN EXPRESS is an avowed NDA sympathiser, the HINDUSTAN TIMES is the undisputed turf of Shobhana Bhartiya, a former Congress MP and daughter of KK Birla, the TIMES OF INDIA can no longer lay any claim to fair reporting ever since it started the reprehensible practice of accepting equity from companies( instead of payment) for their advertising: you may not lick the hand that feeds you, but you'll certainly bite the hand that doesn't.

    These then are the forces that are ranged against Arvind Kejriwal, forces that will not even allow him thirty days to prove himself. In the electronic din created by them even the sounds of genuine criticism ( which the AAP will no doubt welcome) are drowned out. We expect no better from our political parties which live in a world of dog eat dog. But we expect better from our Fourth Estate in these momentous times when change is palpably in the air. Let them not forget the words of John F Kennedy: " Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

     

KEJRIWAL'S DELHI DHARNA--- THIS IS NOT ANARCHY, MR. HOME MINISTER, THIS IS A REVOLUTION.

     What we are witnessing in Delhi today is historic-for the first time since Independence a legitimate political party has refused to play by the rules that all political parties in India have battened on for sixty-five years; for the first time a State govt. has taken on the Central govt. at its own doorstep; for the first time a Chief Minister and his entire Cabinet are sitting in protest in their own capital; for the first time their own police force is ranged against them in their thousands. The immediate reason for this may be the demand for the suspension of five police officials, but the actual reason is more basic, and fundamental to any democracy-- the accountability of the rulers to the ruled.

     The rulers are not just the politicians and the bureaucrats- they are also the larger constituency that benefits from the present status quo: the industrialists, the TV and news organisations, the " cogniscenti", the " glitteratti", the South Delhi socialites, the " intelligentsia" that makes a nice living by appearing nightly on TV panel discussions: in short, all those who are comfortable with the status quo. They have, with the assistance of disgruntled elements like Kiran Bedi and Captain Gopinath, unleashed a veritable barrage of abuse and condemnation against Kejriwal and his party over the last week, terming him a Dictator, Anarchist, Chief Protestor, Law-breaker and so on. It is because they feel genuinely threatened by the forces that the AAP has unleashed, the ethical standards that it has prescribed and demonstrated, the personal examples that its leaders have shown. Because they know that if these paradigms become the norm of a new India then the sand castles that these privileged reside in shall come crumbling down in no time.

    And so they accuse Kejriwal of not following prescribed conventions, protocol or procedure and thus encouraging anarchy. Let us look at just three of these alleged transgressions:

[1] Law Minister Somnath Bharti asking for a meeting of judicial officers of Delhi. What is improper about this? Isn't the judiciary a part of the government- funded, staffed, appointed by the state? Yes, it is operationally independent of the govt. ( as it should be) but it is certainly not a holy cow whose performance cannot be questioned, or monitored, by the people of this country through their elected representatives. The judiciary is meant to serve the people, just as the bureaucracy is, and it cannot have internal accountability only. An elected govt. has to have the right to review its performance, especially given the pathetic state of the disposal of cases in courts. In my view Mr. Bharti was within his rights to take a meeting of judicial officers to assess the shortcomings of the system( which is the first step to removing these shortcomings). Yes, he could have routed the request through the High Court, but this was a trivial error and certainly not the  grievous violation that the media made it out to be. To the contrary, the Law Minister should be lauded for his initiative in seeking to address the issue instead of washing his hands of it as ALL LAW MINISTERS OF THIS COUNTRY HAVE DONE SO FAR, as if the collapse of the judicial redressal system was no concern of the government!

[2] Subsidies on water and power to small consumers in Delhi( something for which Kejriwal has been contemptuously branded a populist). Really? The Central govt. dishes out more than 160000 crores worth of subsidy every year on just three schemes( Mid-day Meals, MNREGA and Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan). Just about every state gives subsidies on water and power. Here's something Mr. Arnab Goswami and his kind should consider: the Golf Club in New Delhi which has about 4000 privileged members( all of whom are now arraigned against Kejriwal) has been given 250 acres of the most expensive real estate in the country worth 60000 crores for a paltry lease of about Rs. 15 lakhs per annum. The annual return on Rs. 60000 crores should be at the very least Rs. 6000 crores: in effect, what this means is that every member of the Golf Club is being given a subsidy of Rs. 1.50 crores every year! The same is the case with the Gymkhana Club, another watering hole for the rich, the famous, and the now scared. According to the latest report of the RBI, the total non-performing assets (NPA) of the Banks in India is more than Rs. 1.60 lakh crores. NPA is just a euphemism for what the Vijay Mallyas and the Captain Gopinaths of the world owe to the aam aadmi( and refuse to pay) while flying all over the world in their private jets and pontificating in TV studios on the correct form of governance. Is it " populism" if indulged in by Kejriwal, and " entitlement" and " economic surge" when practiced by others ?

[3] Somnath Bharti's( Kejriwal's Law Minister) mid-night visit to Khirkee village has generated so much misinformation, ignorance of the law, reverse racism and hypocritical harangues that it is sickening. Shorne of all this, what does the entire incident amount to? Merely this: a Minister, in response to complaints by residents ( which are on record, as is the police inaction on them for months) of a locality personally visits the spot and asks the police to take immediate action by raiding the building where illegal activities are taking place. The police refuse and insult the Minister. This is the essence of the matter. All the rest- search warrants, lack of female police, racism, urinating in public, cavity search(!)[ the latest addition to the shrinking vocabulary of Ms. Meenakshi Lekhi] etc.- are red herrings and a smoke screen which no doubt the judicial Inquiry Commission shall see through. How was the Minister wrong in asking the police to take action? Is it a Minister's job to simply sit in an air-conditioned office and write on files?( a question which Kejriwal has asked and to which we are still waiting for an enlightened response from Ms. Barkha Dutt and gang). Does the police require a search warrant to enter a place where they have reason to believe that illegal activities are going on? Really, Mr. Salve? If so, then how do you explain their barging into the house in the Batla House encounter and shooting three people, WITHOUT A SEARCH WARRANT? Or their constant nocturnal forays into the poor whore-houses of GB Road whenever they are short of spending money?  

     No, sir, the opposition to Kejriwal from the BJP and the Congress, from the Arnab Goswamis, Rajdeep Sardesais, the Barkha Dutts, the Kiran Bedis, from the Editors of English dailies, from the captains of industry, from the Single Malts and Bloody Marys of Gymkhana and Golf Clubs, does not stem from any illegality or impropriety on his part, or from any ideological differences between them. It stems from their complete and total failure to comprehend what Kejriwal is and what he stands for. It stems also from the deep social divide between the upper crust of society( who are happy with the status quo where their money, power and contacts can ensure them a comfortable life) and the masses below them who have to daily bear the brunt of the system inspired corruption, harassment, inconvenience and indignity that the present dispensation guarantees them. This( hitherto unacknowledged and invisible) divide becomes clear when we compare the editorial slants of the English and Hindi channels in the coverage of the ongoing protests: the former are virulently anti AAP and only pop up panelists who support that view, while the latter appear to be more understanding of what AAP is trying to do.

   Those who are denouncing Kejriwal for being an autocrat, anarchist, activist and for protesting at Raisina Road are missing the most obvious point of his movement- THAT KEJRIWAL WILL NOT PLAY BY THEIR RULES ANY MORE. As they say in Las Vegas- you can't beat the house, because the dice are loaded against you. Everyone wants him to play with their set of dice( which they mysteriously call the Constitution and the CRPC!) but Kejriwal wants to play with his own dice, hence the confrontation. They want him to pass a joint resolution of the Assembly for bringing the police under the Delhi govt.-he's smart enough to see that the resolution will be thrown into the same waste paper basket where presumably the Ordinance on protecting convicted MPs was consigned by Rahul Gandhi. They want him to be a good boy and take his dharna to Jantar Mantar where all civilised protests begin and inevitably end, while the govt. of the day can get on with its gerrymandering uninterrupted-he knows that unless he disrupts the comfortable existence of the bourgeois he may as well relieve himself in the Yamuna for all the difference he will make. They want him to sit in the Secretariat and be guided by his bureaucrats and lose all touch with reality- he won't fall for this Pavlovian routine. They desperately want him to become one of them, red light, siren, gun-toting commandos, Lutyen's bungalow and all- he knows that if he falls for this he loses his USP and becomes just an intern in this hoary club of gnarled sinners. They want him to follow the script co-authored by all the political parties of the day, not one excluded, because this script contains an agreed-upon plot, wherein politicians make noises but don't act against each other, wherein corruption is just a sound-bite, where dynastic succession is a silently accepted sine qua non, where no one is interested in finding out whether the hundreds of proved Swiss bank accounts contain anything other than Swiss chocolates- Kejriwal, however, wants to write his own script with substantial inputs from the aam aadmi, not from the Ambanis or the Radias or the Shobhna Bhartias. They want him to talk about corruption but not do anything about it, something Manish Tewari's poetic flair would term " willing to wound but afraid to strike", an attitude as old as Chanakya and Kautilya which offers all of us a catharsis via the good offices of Arnab Goswami and little else- but Kejriwal is no respecter of Machiavelli or Chanakya, his vocabulary is limited because he can only call a spade a spade, he is colour blind because he can only see in black and white( the shades of greys can be left for the likes of Manu Singhvi), and therefore he insists on striking, not just talking.

   Is there any cause for surprise, therefore, at why the present dispensation, both in and out of government, is rattled by this five foot four inch " insect" from Ghaziabad? He is neither fish nor fowl, he defies understanding. The establishment has made the supreme mistake of trying to counter him by quoting the rules of the game( loaded in the former's favour, naturally!) they are past masters of- but Kejriwal has changed the rules, and now they don't know how to control him or neutralise him. For the time being only Kejriwal knows the new rules, and he is springing them on the carpet baggers one by one, catching them by surprise all the time.

    Forget the English TV channels-they rarely get anything right. Forget the Manish Tewaris, the Kiran Bedis, the FICCI spokespersons, the Minakshi Lekhis- they are either scared witless or rank opportunists. What they all do have in common, however, is that they have failed to see how the common man-the aam aadmi-are gathering behind this dimunitive man with the perpetual cough. The sincerity, integrity and commitment of this man is phenomenal, his capacity to harness the anger and frustration of the people is limitless. His defiance of accepted conventions and interpretations is not anarchy- it is nothing short of a revolution. When the people have had enough of injustice, callousness and indignity, they will not play by the rules of the rulers-they will make new rules. The French Revolution would not have happened if the existing rules had been followed. Tehrir Square would not have happened if everyone swore by the old rules. Changing the rules, Mr. Home Minister, is not anarchy-it is the beginning of a people's revolution. The sooner we realise this the less pain in the transition, the less violence. No matter how the stand-off in Delhi ends- capitulation by the Home Minister and the Police, withdrawal of support by the Congress, imposition of President's Rule, police violence on the protesters and their eviction- one thing is certain: Kejriwal is going nowhere. He, and his paradigms, are here to stay and haunt our rulers. With his uncanny understanding of the pulse of the people he has re-written the rules of politics and governance.There are now only two options Kejriwal has left the ruling class- either they change, or the people will change them. 

   

2014 ELECTIONS-- IS AAP THE REAL THIRD FRONT ?

          Arvind Kejriwal is the most under-rated man in India today- even now, even after he has staged the spectacular coup in Delhi. Most political parties consider him a flash in the pan: the Congress sees him as a limited urban phenomenon which will have no effect on its traditional rural votebanks  nurtured by the politics of " entitlement"; the Samajwadi Party and BSP still feel secure in their carefully woven cocoons of religion and caste, respectively; the likes of AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, BJD in Odisha and TMC in West Bengal are confident that the regional broth they have been cooking in their states has no place for any other ingredient; and the BJP, still smarting at being denied power in Delhi, is so far into denial mode that it refuses to even recognise the Aam Admi Party(AAP) as anything but the B team of the Congress! In short, they all see Kejriwal, the Chief Minister of Delhi, as nothing but a latter day Bahadur Shah Zafar, whose writ does not prevail beyond the Yamuna.

        The facts tell a completely different story. What they tell us is that Kejriwal is a brilliant tactician, a master of guerrilla warfare who has completely routed the overwhelmingly superior forces of the Congress and the BJP by skilfully changing the rules of engagement. In the process he has caught the imagination of the entire nation and resurrected the hope that change IS possible. It is not only the issues he took up, but the manner in which he took them up, the personal demonstration of his beliefs, that made the difference in Delhi. Here's a list of what he did differently:

*  Total identification with the " aam aadmi"- in dress, language, uncompromising candour, the company he kept, consulting the " mohalla" on every issue, the whole tenor of his campaign. He did not hold huge rallies( like Modi) but walked the streets or drove in auto-rickshaws( not SUVs) to talk to people in THEIR houses; he was grateful for a donation of even ten rupees; he was beaten up outside police stations and VIP bungalows and arrested when reconnecting meters of labourers who were given electricity bills of Rs. 20000 for a month; he was rubbished day in and day out by TV anchors and all political parties. He personified, gradually, the harassed, vilified, exploited, unheard "aam aadmi" who saw in him, and through him, their chance to get even with the fat cat politicians and bureaucrats.

*   Making corruption the corner-stone of his political message. He saw, perhaps as no one else did, that, while the Material was still important for the voter, it was the erosion of the MORAL essence of the nation- exemplified by corruption-that evoked a deep anger, frustration and desire for change. His master-stroke was to take on both, the Congress and the BJP, on this as there was indeed little to differentiate them on this. He was rewarded by claiming a substantial part of both their vote shares.

*   Total transparency- in funding, selection of candidates, decision making. An unheard of phenomenon in ALL our political parties, it further reinforced the people's faith in him as walking the talk. These features were put to the test repeatedly -fake sting operations, special audit of his foreign donations, dropping of a candidate for having a case registered against him- but Kejriwal stood his ground, gaining even more credibility.

*   Attracting thousands of volunteers to spread his message. His party/movement/campaign-call it what you will-was supported on the shoulders of people who believed in the message, not people whose belief was proportional to what they were paid to spread it! And these volunteers were not musclemen or rent-a rabble types( the mainstay of all political parties), but students, IITians,NRIs, retired public servants, private sector execs on a sabbatical. Their faith in the AAP could not but be contagious.

*   Selection of candidates. Till Kejriwal muddied the waters, the democratic process in India was initiated by a party thrusting a candidate on the voter-take it or leave it. No reason was ever proffered for choosing or rejecting a person.For the first time ever Kejriwal announced a check list of criteria for screening the applications. He also introduced a kind of " primaries" where the short list was generated by the voters themselves: they therefore " owned" the candidate -he was their candidate in the true sense. Nothing else can explain the victory of AAP nominees( pitted against mainstream stalwarts and multiple-time MLAs and Ministers) whose names one had never heard of. Rakhi Birla? Saurabh Bharadwaj? Would any other party have even considered them for a ticket?

*   Complete and unambiguous rejection of the VIP culture that the people have come to detest with a visceral loathing that only Kejriwal could assess accurately. He confronted it with a simplicity of demeanor and personal conduct that took one back to the days of Gandhi, Acharya Kriplani and Jaiprakash Narayan-a reminder of what real democracy once was, and could be again, if the usurpers could be shown the door. It was a powerful appeal, especially to the young and the professionals who are no respecters of the in-your -face arrogance that has become the hallmark of the so called "people's representatives" today.

        The success of the " Kejriwal package" should not be seen only in the 30% vote share or the 28 seats he garnered in Delhi. Its true success-and future implication and promise-lies in the manner in which it has instantaneously changed the political narrative and public attitudes of our rulers. The BJP forewent the   support of four MLAs in Delhi and sulked in the Opposition benches, whereas earlier it could have purchased them in to time at all ; Sheila Dikshit started the process of moving out of her palatial bungalow within days of losing office; Vasundra Raje voluntarily reduced her security entourage ( and yesterday announced her decision to move to a less palatial residence) ; the Lok Pal Bill was passed in two weeks by the same Party that had stalled it for twenty years; Rahul Gandhi, no less, publicly stated that there was a lot his party needed to learn from the AAP; the Congress was forced to go back on its earlier decision of rejecting the Adarsh Commission report; the Haryana Chief Minister has declared a reduction in electricity tariff, and Maharashtra will follow suit any day, forced to follow the AAP's pitch in Delhi.  These are not isolated events but straws in a wind that is in fact the Kejriwal effect. They are welcome harbingers of a gradual change initiated by the victory of AAP in Delhi, and the ripples are moving out of Delhi in ever widening circles, engulfing the dinosaurs that have ruled this country for decades.

     The AAP victory in Delhi contains other positive indicators of the paradigm shift we are witnessing in our polity. It convincingly demolished age-old myths relating to elections in India, myths which justified practices that have corrupted and eaten away the very essence of democracy in our country. For example, Kejriwal  completely eschewed calculations of caste, religion or region in both the selection of his party's candidates or the manner in which he campaigned, catching veteran politicians, psephologists and TV anchors-who can conceive of no other matrix for elections-by total surprise. And the AAP succeeded hugely in its attempt to show that elections need not be held hostage to these factors-both SP and BSP failed to win a single seat; even better, their vote shares declined massively, indicating that even their presumed " captive " vote banks did not vote for them!  The Congress, which believes that it holds a Power of Attorney for all Muslims minorities and " weaker sections" fared even worse- not one of its candidates from these constituencies won. This has forced theMayawatis, Mulayams and Lalus of this world to go back to the drawing board, a withdrawal which can have only a positive fallout.                                                                                              To take another example, AAP contested 70 seats on a budget of Rs. 20 crore only( Rs. 2 crore was saved even out of this!). This works out to just Rs. 25 lakhs per seat, a figure with which no self respecting party in India would even think of contesting a Gram Pradhan seat! Kejriwal has effectively demonstrated that CLEAN politics is possible, if only our main parties have the will to stop tapping black money, that it is not necessary to bribe voters or ply them with hooch to earn their loyalty. Can anything be more telling than that a party just 15 months old with 20 crores in its kitty humbled two parties with a combined age of 100 years and coffers overflowing with declared funds of almost 4000 crores? If this is not the beginning of a non-violent revolution, then I fail to see what it is.

    AAP has shown that political parties do not have to ghetto-ise the electorate, carve them into separate components, create divisions among them, to win elections. Kejriwal has forcefully demonstrated that a party CAN appeal to ALL sections and classes of people- urban/rural, rich/poor, majority/minority, upper/lower caste, employed/unemployed- with a message that cuts across these artificial distinctions behind which all major parties have been hiding all these years. The voting pattern in Delhi proves this- he has been backed by a genuine cross section of all the categories above, and his appeal is not limited to any one of them. If even the super-rich of South Delhi who rarely come out of their BMWs to rub shoulders with the proletariat stood in line to caste their vote for an unknown ex-software engineer who bearded the lion's cub in the latter's own den, surely there is a strong message here? That the voter of India has finally been released from the shackles of an imposed identity and is now free to vote for a party that transcends such labelling?

    Make no mistake- the Agenda for the 2014 elections is now being set by the Aam Aadmi Party. All major and regional parties are desperately scrambling to reinvent themselves in the image of Arvind Kejriwal and his team. ( And that is where the real success of AAP is to be found- politics in India will never be the same again). Publicly, mainstream parties are in denial mode, but they are worried at the resurgence in the passion which the AAP is evoking across the country-hundreds of thousands of volunteers are joining the " monsoon insect" from Ghaziabad and the Modi wave is being replaced by the Kejriwal tsunami. Derisively dismissed as a Delhi phenomenon, the AAP is now being wooed in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, UP, and by the Left. 

     The Congress has already lost the 2014 elections. Till a month ago the BJP and Modi were the clear favourites, but Delhi has changed all that. Kejriwal has stopped the Modi juggernaut not just in Delhi but across the country-there is now a real possibility that the NDA will fall well short of the 200 mark. Here are some facts:

* Delhi, and the response in Bangalore, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Jaipur to name just a few, have shown that the AAP has tremendous appeal in the metros and urban areas. There are about 200 urban Parliamentary constituencies and AAP will almost certainly be contesting most of them. That is bad news for the BJP which was relying on them to reach the magic figure. If AAP can get even half the vote share in these towns that it got in Delhi ( a distinct possibility) Modi would have lost the war.

* North India was where the NDA was hoping to increase its tally: unfortunately, that is precisely the area where the Kejriwal effect will be most felt. The constituencies around Delhi- in UP and Haryana, particularly- are Kejriwal's to lose, in my opinion. After Muzzafarpur the Muslims are likely to desert the SP in hordes: most are likely to go to Mayawati, but a substantial number, fed up of both, will gravitate to the AAP. So will a fair percentage of the BSP's scheduled caste vote bank, if Delhi is anything to go by. The more liberal and educated Hindus, who had given up on both the Congress and the SP and had reluctantly decided to support the BJP for want of an alternative, now have one in the AAP. The combined effect of all this is bound to reduce the BJP's vote share in the state.

* That the AAP is now actively thinking of alliances in some states( with the Left and smaller regional parties) will also significantly dent the BJP's expected vote share as it will deny the the latter the votes that shall now move away from the Congress, and which the BJP was hoping to garner. Bi-polar  contests, where the BJP and the Congress faced each other one-on-one, would definitely have suited the former, but a tri-polar one with the AAP being the third pole would not. That, essentially, was the difference between Rajasthan-Madhya Pradesh-Chhatisgarh and Delhi in the recent elections. There will not be many bi-polar gifts for the BJP this time around.

     It is a distinct possibility that the AAP shall capture 30-35 seats in Parliament ( seven of them shall come from Delhi itself, given the manner in which the BJP is demonstrating its pettiness there, nitpicking on a daily basis on the nature of Congress support to the AAP, allotment of houses and cars to the new Ministers, wild allegations of money-bags brokering deals to form the AAP government- being a bad loser is one thing, but being a stupid one is worse. The BJP is just refusing to learn any lessons from its humbling in Delhi. And matters for the BJP can only get worse, once Kejriwal starts digging into the alleged corruption in the four Municipal Corporations). These seats can only come at the cost of the BJP to whom they would have gone had there been no AAP in the fray. If this happens it will seal the fate of Modi and the BJP.

    With 30 or so seats in Parliament, AAP may well be the single largest party outside of the big two. To my mind, it will then become the natural choice to head the Third Front for three reasons. First, it will be the only party from this group to have a truly national footprint, all the others being one state wonders: being far more representative of the nation, the AAP will have a greater claim to head a national coalition government. Second, AAP does not yet have the inter-party baggage of mutual rivalries and competing egos that the others carry: Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi, Mamta and the Left, Mulayam and Mayawati, Nitish and Lalu. It will therefore be easier for these worthies to extend support to Kejriwal than to any one of each other. Third, the groundswell of support for Kejriwal will only grow ( just as it had for Modi) forcing the other leaders to fall in line. With 30 seats in the the AAP's bag the people of India would have found an alternative to the BJP and the Congress.

    Arvind Kejriwal as Prime Minister of India?

    In 2008 people were asking: Barack Obama as President of the USA?

    Res ipsa loquitor.

      

ANNA'S EXPIRY DATE IS OVER.

The LokPal Bill will be passed in the next few days in its present imperfect form. The Congress is desperate to remove this weapon from Kejriwal's armoury, the BJP dare not be the spoil sport and no one cares anymore about the anti-diluvian mutterings of the Samajwadi property. A lot of credit for this must go to Anna Hazare whose obstinate idealism embedded this demand firmly in the nation's conscience last year. But since then Anna has lost his way.
One can overlook the fundamental difference of opinion between Anna and Kejriwal about the course to follow post the Jantar Mantar protests: their parting of ways was a natural consequence of their differing perceptions and ideologies. But whereas Kejriwal marched onwards to his new destiny under the illusion that he still retained at least the blessings( if not actual support) of the old war horse, it is now becoming increasingly clear that Anna harboured a lot of rancour and illwill towards his former protege for daring to differ. Nothing else can explain his curious behaviour since then.
Ever since Kejriwal and his group took the paradigm-changing decision to go political the Anna rump has been constantly sniping at him, realising fully well that this could only strengthen the Goliaths whom the former had taken on in a trench war-fare( whereas Anna himself had retired to the comforts of the Jindal spa in Bangalore). Beginning with sniping shots  about Kejriwal's political ambitions( what's wrong with that in a democracy, anyway?) it quickly developed into a fusillade of accusations and innuendos about his using Anna's Lok Pal issue to garner support and raising questions on the use of funds collected during the earlier movement. As it turned out, neither of the charges was correct but they took away a lot of the energy and time of the fledgling party to counter. It also brought them a lot of adverse publicity from TV anchors who right then were short of news and were willing to scavenge on any offal. Kejriwal's response was to rebut them in a civilised manner: he would have been well within his rights if he had behaved like Kiran Bedi and reminded the patriarch that the LokPal was not his IPR( Intellectual Property Right) and that he should also apologise for the canard about mis-use of IAC funds. Post the recent elections the tirade by the Anna camp has acquired an air of desperation in the last couple of days: Kejriwal has been told not to bother to come to Ralegaon, his supporters have been thrown out of the village, he has been reminded that the credit for the LokPal Bill belongs to Anna exclusively, and that he is an apostate for opposing the Bill. Just when Kejriwal had routed the enemy in the front, he has been attacked on his flanks by a force he had considered his ally.
Anna Hazare has betrayed not only the Aam Aadmi Party and stabbed it in the back: he is also betraying the people who had supported his agitation in Delhi and elsewhere.
Look at the facts dispassionately and realistically. Anna cannot appropriate all credit for the LokPal movement: people like Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan also made stellar contributions to it: in fact Anna was the moral figurehead- all strategy, planning, logistics, confrontation with authorities were scripted and executed by them, and it would be fair tosay that without their relentless efforts the movement would have petered out long ago. And peter out it did, with the sham drama at midnight in the Rajya Sabha. The Bill went into the cold storage owned by Congress Inc. Anna went back to his idyllic village to issue dictats about hanging drunks from the tree tops. It was Kejriwal who kept the movement and the momentum alive, not least by his realisation that he would have to enter the Augean stables if he meant to cleanse them. He decided to enter the political arena, much to the amusement, derision and moral condemnation of intellectuals, armchair conscience keepers, dyed-in-the-wool politicos and TV anchors-and Anna. The likes of Kiran Bedi, Hegde and Gen. V.K.Singh, long used to lecturing from the pulpit instead of getting their hands dirty in the muck, rallied behind Anna to denounce Kejriwal as nursing political ambitions. Even this short-sighted behaviour would have been acceptable if not for what followed.
Kejriwal proved them all wrong. He went out into the streets to rally support in the heat of Delhi, preparing for the elections, when all other political leaders were happy to strategise from their air-conditioned rooms. This was the time for Anna and his advisors to have supported him, but it was probably at this time that they started feeling side-lined and marginalised by the massive response that the AAP started receiving from the common public. Anna's hubris now took over, ably aided and abetted by the likes of Kiran Bedi, Hegde and the General, all blue blooded ex-members of the power pyramid who could not stomach a lowly ex-Income Tax official from Ghaziabad stealing their thunder. They did all in their power to ensure that he came a cropper in the elections. The y failed miserably, but they cost him at least ten seats, and deprived him of the clear majority that he needed to form the Govt. And still they continue to hound him, to the point where they have compromised on their own LokPal Bill, and now support the Congress Bill which lacks some of the major provisions they once swore by. They are now denouncing Kejriwal for insisting on the passage of the Bill they themselves had drafted !Their intentions have now become clear- Anna is desperate to claim credit for a Lok Pal Bill, any Bill, even a truncated one, so that Kejriwal and AAP can be denied the credit for the real Bill ( which, I have no doubt, the people would get if only Anna put his weight behind the AAP). In the process, if AAP can be halted in its tracks and its march towards a repeat performance in the General Elections next year slowed down, so much the better. Anna Hazare and his gang have lost the public space to Kejriwal and the AAP and are now desperate to reclaim it, even if it means supping with the devil. But I have a feeling that they will be proved wrong once again-the people of Delhi will see through their miserable strategems and power plays. It is time for Anna Hazare to gracefully walk into the sunset and not try to do more damage to to the first real chance we have had since Independence to introduce real democratic principles in our polity.  
     

BUREAUCRATS DON'T NEED FIXED TENURES-THEY NEED STRONGER SPINES.

[ The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that all bureaucrats should have fixed tenures and that states must set up Civil Services Boards to decide on transfers, promotions and disciplinary action. This would improve professionalism, efficiency and transparency. It has asked the Center to frame appropriate statutes for this and report back within three months.- News report.]

   Many, many years ago when I was a pimply faced Deputy Secretary in Shimla a group of us blisters put up a skit for the annual Indian Administrative Service (IAS) Association Night. The skit opened with the victim of a hit and run accident lying dead on the road. The police identified the body as being that of a very senior IAS officer on the basis of the post mortem report revealing that it had no backbone! This one scene from a long forgotten and much derided skit comes closer to the truth than does the Supreme Court, I dare say.

However well intentioned the Court's order is, it won't stand the test of a reality check: not only will it not be effective, it may just worsen the situation. Consider the following.

   The root of misgovernance, corruption and lack of transparency is not the politician but the bureaucrat, not only because of what he does, but mainly because of what he does not do. He does not express his own mind but goes along with what the politician wants. He does not take a stand based on principles or the law. He does not say that he will not do what is wrong. He does not enforce discipline and integrity for fear of rocking the boat.

WHY?

  The assumption behind the Supreme Court order is that the bureaucrat cannot act because he is intimidated by the prospect of transfer, denial of promotion, dismissal by the political executive. Nothing can be further from the truth for the following reasons:

[1]  Insofar as the All India Services (AIS) are concerned I can assert with all responsibility that there is no job in India which offers greater security of service- it is practically impossible to dismiss an IAS/IPS or IFS officer (the same is true of the Central Services). The services themselves have ensured this- even if the political or administrative will to take action is present (it rarely is) the process is so cumbersome( like impeaching a judge!)-- consultations with state government, central governmentt, Union Public Service Commission, Vigilance Commission, Law Ministry, followed up with appeals to the President of India, Administrative Tribunal, High Court, Supreme Court-that no one even wants to initiate the process. Getting into government service is tough-but getting out is even tougher! Forget dismissal-even someone who wants to resign can find that its not easy to leave - a friend from the UP cadre submitted his resignation six years ago: he has since retired in the normal course but his resignation has not yet been accepted! Dismissal from service, therefore, is no threat to a bureaucrat.

[2]   ALL promotions in the AIS and Central services are time bound- that is to say, one is promoted almost automatically after certain years of service at every succeeding level. Performance has very little to do with it; the only relevant factor is the Annual Confidential Report (ACR) and it is extremely rare for someone to have an adverse ACR- peer pressures ensure this. As long as the assessments at the superior officer level are okay there is very little a politician-even a Chief Minister- can do to hold back a promotion. Even if he over-rules the Secretary/ Chief Secretary he has to give detailed reasons for doing so, and any Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) in any case goes more by the assessment of the Chief Secretary than a Chief Minister or Minister. Proof of this is not far to seek: 99 out of 100 IAS officers retire at the maximum (Apex) scale of Rupees 80000 per month * ; the same holds true of the other services. This is almost their fundamental right, no politician can deny them this, and they know it. No threat here, either.

[3] This leaves us to consider only the alleged threat of the dreaded T word-Transfers. The effect of this politician's " brahmashastra", as it were, has been grossly exaggerated and sensationalised by the media and their expert panels. There are two types of transfers- those which involve just a change of job in the same place, and those which which entail both- change of job as well as station. Now, 90% of IAS and IPS officers are invariably located at the state capital and for most of them a transfer does not even mean changing their room, personal staff or residence-only their files change, nothing else. I simply fail to understand how a transfer is a " hardship" in such cases, or why it should conjure up images of Dante's Inferno! Yes, frequent transfers for those in the field- District Magistrates, Superintendents of Police, Subdivisional Magistrates- do cause great inconvenience, especially if they are ordered in such numbers as in UP under both the earlier Chief Ministers, Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav, but here also it is the timidity of senior bureaucrats which is to blame as much as the politicians. It is in the nature of a politician- a Minister or an MLA or even a party worker- to try and get rid of an inconvenient officer: we can't blame a leopard for having spots. It is for the senior bureaucracy to resist such efforts and to protect the junior officer who is doing his job. This just doesn't happen. It is extremely rare for a Chief Secretary or a Director General of Police to speak up on behalf of one of their officers in such cases, primarily because they want to hang on to their own posts! (Remember how the U.P. Secretariat was opened up at mid-night to enable the issue of the suspension orders of Durga Shakti, a Sub_Divisional Magistrate who had taken on the mining Mafia?) But then, why pin all the blame on the politician when the bureaucracy is just as complicit? And why build barricades all around when the enemy is actually within?

The actual fact of the matter is that the bureaucracy in India has developed an auto-immune disease and is destroying itself-the politician is only a virus that takes advantage of the former's weakened immune systems to invade it. It is my assessment (I could be wrong, but not far off the mark) that only about ten percent of the senior bureaucracy is actually corrupt, but the vast majority is simply pusillanimous and not bothered at what is happening to their colleagues just so long as they can hang on to their own posts. They do more harm by their silence and indifference than what their more courageous comrades do by their cupidity. I remember an incident pertaining to roughly the same time as the skit referred to in the first paragraph. A senior Secretary was transferred because he had taken a decision (the right one, as it later turned out) which was seen to be against the interests of Scheduled Caste employees. Some of us young bloods in the IAS Association decided that we must convey our protest to the Chief Minister and took an appointment to meet him the next day. The whole day was spent in drumming up support from the Secretary level officers, all of whom assured us that they would also join us the next day in our meeting with the CM. The next day not a single one of these senior officers turned up!

   Transfers are not such a big thing as they are made out to be and an honest, forthright officer should take them in his stride- if a price has to be paid in terms of inconveniencing the family, so be it. Why else should the IAS be called a premier service, if their members have the vision and commitment of only a sanitary inspector? If the truth be told, bureaucrats today lack the breadth of vision, the underpinning of values, the sense of mission and the feeling for history that their predecessors of even twenty years ago proudly possessed and worked for. Today it is for them just a ten to five job in which the perks of office have to be protected at all costs and the devil take the hindmost. They have vacated the space where values, sense of destiny and feeling for the country should reside in favour of the politician who therefore now calls the shots.

   It is in this context that the prescription of the Supreme Court should be assessed.

  A " fixed tenure" will change nothing because those who have " plum posts" will not vacate them (a fixed tenure provides a minimum term and not a maximum one), and those who are out of favour will be rotated among the unwanted posts.  In any case, bureaucracy is not the second oldest profession in the world without reason: it can adapt to changing contexts with amazing versatility. It has so adapted to the transfer syndrome too: every five years, when governments change, their positions are reversed- those who were out in the cold now come in to the warmth of plum postings, and vice-versa! In a way, they find this an equitable system as the loaves of office are, in the long run, fairly distributed to all!                                                  There is a negative side too in assuring an officer of a fixed tenure, regardless of his or her performance. Not all transfers are politically motivated. Not all transfers are bad. Many of them are necessary in the public interest and based on the officer's lack of performance. What does the government now do with an officer who is corrupt, does not behave properly with the public, whose work is grossly unsatisfactory ? Non-performance is not chargesheetable and there is not always evidence of corruption. In such situations the only option before the government is to shift the officer, but with fixed tenures that will no longer be possible. Taking away a govternment's powers of superintendence over its officials can never be a healthy antidote to the disease. We have just recently witnessed the consequences of such quick-fix solutions: the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) infamous and highly dubious case against Kumaramanglam Birla and Mr. Parakh, two of India's premier industrialists and bankers. Without a shred of evidence, and acting solely on presumptions of wrong-doing it has filed criminal cases against both of them. Though its Ministers were critical of it on the media, the govt. itself was a helpless spectator and could do nothing to rein in the agency because it has suddenly acquired an " autonomous" halo. (I had warned against just such a possibility in my earlier blog- CBI-CAGED PARROT, SWOOPING EAGLE OR SITTING DUCK?). The fixed tenure rule will only end up creating similar rogue officers cocking a snook at a hapless government.                                                                                                    A Civil Services Board will change nothing because all those who will be on it are answerable (and owe their positions) to the Chief Minister and will do nothing that displeases him . It will only endorse the Chief Minister's wishes: this is precisely what is happening with the Police Boards that have been set up in some states after the Supreme Court's orders in 2006. They are rarely consulted: Muzzafarnagar is the latest example of their vestigiousness- how else could four SPs have been transferred within one month before, during and after the riots, purely for reasons that are now known to be political?

We appreciate and laud the Supreme Court's earnest desire to make the bureaucracy more efficient, professional and transparent. But there is no instant cure, and the primary villain is not the politician- it is the bureaucrat himself. The cure lies within. He is paid handsomely; he has been given more than adequate protection; he enjoys the highest status in society- what more does he need to be upright and do his work fearlessly? All he needs, actually, is a backbone. Character cannot be legislated or decreed by courts.

Footnote.

* Now upgraded to Rs. 2,25,000 by the Seventh Pay Commission.