CAN MODI DISMOUNT THE TIGER ?

  The unsavoury developments of the last few weeks bring to my mind a limerick from my school days. It goes like this:

                 There was a young lady from Riga

                 Who went for a ride on a tiger

                 They returned from the ride

                 With the lady inside

                 And a smile on the face of the tiger.

It appears to me that Mr. Modi is very much in that lady's shoes-or saddle, if you will- and it needs no great intelligence to figure out who the tiger is: its stripes are saffron and black.

The RSS and its Hindu majoritarian cohorts have played a role in bringing Modi to power, and they are now playing an even bigger role in alienating him from the very people who have reposed their trust in him by making it difficult for him to do anything positive with that power. Mr. Modi began with promise and unveiled ideas that struck a chord with the people, a chord that had gone slack for the last five years. But the discordant notes of the last couple of months have started alarming a lot of his supporters.

The list of provocative incidents is long: abusive comments by his Ministers targetting a specific community, Mr. Mohan Bhagwat's assertion that India is a Hindu rashtra, repeated directives by the HRD Minister to push education in a vedic direction, forcible conversions, usurpation of Christmas by a thinly disguised attempt to eclipse its importance, the Hindu Mahasabha's veneration of Godse, the utterly despicable statement by another worthy that Godse should have killed Nehru instead of Gandhi, the street agitations against the film PK. The agenda of the extreme right majoritarian forces is crystal clear: intimidate all other religions( notice how the Christians have been targetted for the first time) into submitting to a pan Hindu ecology, and rewrite history to authenticate this expropriation of a nation's history and soul.

The ignominous list above is not surprising-we can expect little else from these bodies and individuals that belong to the Jurassic period. What IS surprising, however, is the complete silence of a Prime Minister who is otherwise a great communicator and orator. Why is there not one word of public condemnation from one who came up with the hugely successful " chai pe charcha " and " man ki baat ?" A five minute statement in the Rajya Sabha could have saved two weeks of Parliament's time, but he did not consider it a good trade-off-- why?

The usual excuses trundled out by his acolytes won't wash anymore. Reported admonitions at a closed door party meeting cannot substitute for a declaration in Parliament. Statements by powerless Ministers in Parliament won't reassure a nation that is increasingly on the edge-the whole world by now knows that this is a one man show and that no one else counts. Moreover, when the ruling party's own affiliates openly indulge in socially divisive activities, it is incumbent for the leader himself to explain to, and reassure, the nation that all is well. Mr. Modi takes ( justifiable) pride in absolute control of his party and government, therefore he has to stand up and speak: he has sown the wind and he shall have to reap the whirlwind.

My initial assumption-and that of a lot of others who had reposed trust in him- was that Mr. Modi was not part of this regressive and disruptive brigade and that he would soon bring them to heel. But it has been eight months now, the vicious crescendo is only rising, and the Prime Minister has not uttered a syllable in public to condemn this rising tide of intolerance. One is left, therefore, with no other option but to conclude that all this has his tacit, if not explicit, approval.. Mr. Modi does  have a pronounced streak of hubris in him but he is also a shrewd politician and would not let his ego stand in the way of his development goals, which are being badly compromised by a resurgent opposition and a steady surge of adverse public opinion. If he has been silent all these months it can only be because he empathizes with these Hindu majoritarian sentiments and has not yet renounced his RSS roots. Therefore, while there is no doubting his vision of a modern, first-world India, it shall have to be an India cast in the image conceived by the RSS and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. He has not one, but two visions.

Mr. Modi's second vision casts him in the role of a Hindu Samrat-it appears that he wants to efface the last 1200 years of India's history and resurrect the hey days of the Guptas, the Mauryas and the Chauhans and relegate the Mughals, the British, the Nehrus and the Gandhis to that most modern of appliances- the shredder. But history is not just the past, it is also the present and its strands are so interwoven with the fabric of the contemporary India that they cannot be separated without destroying the whole.

We certainly did not vote for this second vision.

Mr. Modi has to comprehend this, he has to realise that this Icarus-like quality in his psyche will carve a hundred Radcliffe Lines across our landscape. It will also destroy his first vision of a modern India. The hardware is important but it will not work without a compatible software, and this is true of nations also. GDP, FDI, Smart cities, NITI Ayog,  Bullet trains,-all these are commendable objectives but they cannot be achieved without social harmony, religious and cultural tolerance, respect for dissent, cooperation with civil society and a functioning Parliament.

Mr. Modi has to realise that a country as vast and disparate as India cannot be ruled by ordinances, and that he has to at least make an honest attempt at bringing about a consensus on divisive issues. Industry-and foreign capital-will not bring in their billions of investment on the basis of ordinances that will lapse in a few months: to the contrary, an ordinance will only fuel their distrust in our political and legal systems. Far from furthering his goals by taking this route Mr. Modi is only erecting more road blocks.

And finally, Mr. Modi has to realise that winning elections is not the "summum bonum" of a democracy, that the hard work of governance is the true test of a statesman, that if he cannot work with Parliament then he cannot work at all. He should not lose sight of the fact that the Parliament where he did not deign to speak also represents those 69% of voters who DID NOT vote for him or his party!

However, Mr. Modi's primary realisation has to be that he can achieve nothing as long as he marches to the tune of the Sangh Parivar. He must realise-how can he not ?-that they are pushing an agenda different from his. He has to either tame them or jettison them. He may have won the elections because of them but he now has to govern in spite of them. This is one tiger Mr. Modi cannot ride. He has to dismount NOW- because already that smile on the tiger's face is beginning to resemble a " tilak". 

THE UBER RAPE CASE- MAKING SENSE OF ABSURDITY

Its happened again in Delhi and probably would have been marked as just another statistic if the incident had not been connected to an MNC and high-end app. technology. The real tragedy, however, is that everyone-the government, the political parties, the media, the NGOs-are all running around like headless chickens, spouting the same cliches about women's safety, demanding action against Uber, the police, the Transport Deptt, the Home Minister and so on. The grim truth is that this is not just about Uber or about the safety of women- this is about the complete collapse of the Delhi( and all other) police systems. Our public places have been vacated by the state and handed over to the criminals.

It is being made to appear that the cause of the incident was the failure of the verification process. This is all humbug and nothing but a red herring. Firstly, how many verifications is an ordinary citizen supposed to carry out? In Delhi we are already required to get our tenants, servants, drivers, casual employee etc. verified. Is this a police state? Isn't this a tacit admission of the total failure of our law enforcement system, if every person is to be regarded with suspicion unless proved otherwise? If latent criminality has seeped into our society to such an extent that no person can be trusted without a police certification, then we are certainly entitled to ask the question- what has our police and judiciary been doing all these years? The very need for verification is an admission of their failure.

Secondly, the verification process is an absolute farce. Pay Rupees two hundred( as Manish Sisodia  also stated in a TV programme yesterday) and you will get the certificate within twelve hours: refuse to pay and you will never hear from the police again. They have no data base and at best can only write to their counterparts in other states who can't be bothered to reply. This does nothing to curb crime in its present form and only serves to generate more money for the police and provide an excuse( as in the present case) when something goes wrong.

Thirdly, any certificate can be replicated or forged by anyone within a few hours. In the instant case Yadav DID have a certificate-a forged one! It is common knowledge in Delhi university, for example, that students of a few neighbouring states seeking admission in a DU college saunter into the colleges, find out what the cut-offs are, and come back the next day with a mark-sheet showing the requisite marks! Fake driving licences by the hundreds are churned out in every city. My last driver had an unauthorised exact duplicate of his ( legitimate) licence: he couldn't, therefore, be bothered if the police confiscated the original! What value can a certificate have in a country where even central ministers are charged with forging mark-sheets?

The order banning Uber is just a smokescreen. The accused, Yadav, had all the documents which the company was required to ask for. If he turned out be a serial rapist who had spent seven months in jail and had five other sexual molestation cases registered against him but was still roaming the streets like a predator its certainly not the fault of Uber. If he repeated the same offence he is alleged to have committed in 2012 then it is the fault of our judiciary which let him off in the first case, and of the police which fails to keep track of such potential repeat offenders. Women are routinely molested in all forms of public transport-shall we then ban all buses, taxis, auto-rickshaws, even the railways? Do we stop all economic activity in this country just because the police and the judiciary are unable to do the job they are tasked to do?

The simple truth, and the crux of the problem, is that the criminal administration system, especially in our cities, has fallen apart at the seams. Our streets and public places have been vacated by the police and handed over to the criminals. The incontrovertible proof lies in the grim statistics of crime in Delhi published by the Hindustan Times on 27th November. In the last one year crime has gone up by 100%! Street crimes such as robbery, snatching and vehicle thefts have increased by 513%, 137% and 61% respectively. Burglary has gone up by 337% and dacoity by 240%. Every single day 400 citizens of Delhi fall prey to some crime or the other. If this is not a damning indictment of the top brass of the Delhi police, the Lieutenant Governor and the Home Ministry I don't know what else it is.

It is self-evident that there has been a complete abdication of leadership by the senior police officers: they are bereft of ideas, strategies or even commitment. Crime on the street is not their priority-providing security to VVIPs and attending meetings is. There are no policemen on the streets, there is no patrolling or beat system, there is no proactivity, PCR vans are generally found parked at tea stalls with their occupants lounging around. This abject lethargy flies in the face of the experience of urban police forces all over the world, and the one lesson they have all learnt: that if you can control the relatively smaller violations on the streets, you can generate an atmosphere of obedience and respect for the law, and prevent more serious and major crimes. This concept is now known as the " Broken Window" concept: catch the guy who breaks a shop window and you may prevent him from graduating to a murderer or rapist tomorrow. This strategy was popularised by Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his Police Commissioner Bill Bratton in New York in the mid-nineties: its soundness was proved by the fact that violent crimes in New York city fell by 30% in just one year, and murders by 50%.

Such a result, however, requires dedicated effort and leg work on the streets, which our police force is clearly incapable of.

Most street crimes( and even more heinous ones) are committed by repeat offenders or people who are out on bail. The police are required to keep a regular surveillance on these elements which by itself acts as a deterrence- but they can't be bothered. Every police station maintains a register ( BC register) of bad characters whose activities are supposed to be monitored  and homes  regularly visited-this never happens nowadays. Every SHO is supposed to develop an intelligence network in his area to keep tabs on criminal activities and the persons involved: this helps him prevent crimes before they occur or to solve them if they do occur- quite obviously, as the crime graph shows, this is considered a waste of time. These are the three time honoured basics of policing and if even one of them had been observed in the Uber case the incident could have been prevented.

We don't need pontifical Police Commission reports or harangues from the Supreme Court on autonomy of Police Commissioners and DGPs to improve policing. We just need to go back to the basics. We need to appoint officers on merit, not on the basis of their contacts, political affiliations, favours rendered or money paid. We need to have a relook at the recruitment of the constabulary, right up to the level of sub-inspectors. The present lot is undisciplined, avaricious, unskilled, corrupt and riddled with the caste and gender prejudices of the social milieu from which they have come. Since they comprise 94% of the police force nothing will improve unless the constitution of this rank and file is changed. The government should seriously consider reserving 50% of these posts for retired ex-servicemen. Jawans retire by 35 and there is no better disciplined or dedicated material available for the police. Their induction shall, in a very short time, bring a professionalism, impartiality and probity to the police that it is completely missing today, and make it much more effective. The idea will, of course, be fiercely resisted by all politicians and senior police officers whose apple carts it is likely to up-end, but it must be considered seriously.

Crimes in a complex society of 1.2 billion people and 29 states cannot be prevented or controlled unless there is a comprehensive and real time data bank available to the enforcers of the law. There should be a national registry of all convicted criminals, persons charged with crimes, accused out on bail: this could be referred to before granting licences or for verification purposes by employers. Had such a registry been available Yadav would have neither obtained a driver's licence nor a contract at Uber. There should be a similar on-line registry or data bank of driving licences issued or cancelled throughout the country to address vehicle related offences which appear to be spiraling  out of control. The govt. itself has admitted that 30% of driving licences are fake! The bed rock of these registries should be the Aadhar card whose biometric features will make the data virtually fool-proof.

The time has come for the country to have a sane discussion on how to get a grip on a crime graph that is galloping out of control and on a police force whose incompetence is reaching Haiti like proportions. Let us not continue to hide behind excuses like social mind sets to explain away rapes, or free registration of FIRs to explain away increase in dacoity or kidnappings. Let us not further delude ourselves into thinking that we have resolved these problems by creating Nirbhaya funds or by banning radio taxis. Because the problem lies within the edifice of government, not outside it. Change the edifice before it comes crashing down on all of us.    

INVITING TROUBLE

   It's Neerja's birthday later this month and I've been thinking of inviting a few people over for dinner and drinks. And that's precisely where the problem lies. Extending invitations nowadays is a risky proposition, what with the entire nation watching including Arnab Goswami, Shobha De, Swami Adithyanath and Manu Singhvi  (when he is not growing termites, that is). Look at what happened when Prime Minister Modi invited Nawab Sharif to his swearing in: half the nation was swearing at him instead for extending this courtesy to our Enemy No. 1. And soon thereafter the Shahi Imam of Jumma Masjid was held by some to have created a constitutional crisis by NOT inviting Mr. Modi to his son's  "dastarbandi"! Finally, last week another furore was engendered by the selective guest list for the Nehru birthday celebrations. Things have come to such a pass that, no matter who you invite, or don't, you are likely to be labelled either a right-wing fundamentalist or a "sickular", a capitalist or a Nehruvian socialist, a war-monger or a spineless pacifist, a status quoist or an anarchist, and worse.

I have difficult choices to make, as you can see. I can't invite Mr. Modi for a number of reasons, the main among them being that I belong neither to the Gujarat cadre, nor to the Vivekananda Foundation nor to the RSS or to the NRI community. Furthermore he may consider the invite as a ploy to wrangle a post-retirement sinecure (he may not be wrong in this but that is not the point). The point is that he is likely to refuse, and what would my wife think of me then? -that is, if she thinks of me at all.

I could invite Mr. Rahul Gandhi, I suppose, but he is an impulsive person and he might just tear up the card and throw it into the nearest dustbin where that old ordinance is probably still lying. Or he may regard my usually vacant looks as indicating that I belong to an OBC (Other Backward Classes) family  (he HAS made mistakes before, you will concede) and decide to spend the night at my place and have only dal and chapattis for dinner. That would be very inconvenient.

Another possibility is to invite Mr. Robert Vadra, but approaching him with an invitation is a bit of a risk. He is likely to scream: "Are you serious? Are you serious?" four times and knock me down (once is enough in this case) with his sixteen inch biceps. Or he may like the look of my house and decide to buy it. On the other hand, if I DON'T invite him I'll never get that DLF flat in Gurgaon that I have my eyes on.

You see my dilemma? Issuing invitations is serious business these days. But it was not always so and there have been a few memorable moments  in my career worth sharing.

  In the early eighties I was posted as a Deputy Secretary at Shimla, still wet  behind the years and laboriously climbing the learning curve. One day I received an invitation from the Governor for an "At Home" in the Raj Bhavan the next evening. This clashed with my squash game and, since the most potent drink served at the Raj Bhavan was tomato juice laced with Chyawanprash, I decided to skip it. The day after I was summoned by the Chief Secretary (CS) and given a proper dressing down with an implied threat of being posted to Spiti as the Officer on Special Duty (Potatoes, Peas and Ponies).

" Let me explain the rules to you, young man," roared the CS. "You never disregard an invitation from either the Governor or the Chief Minister. An invitation from them is not an invitation-its an Order! Have you got that?"

" Yes sir", I mumbled, but wanting to get things right the first time, I further ventured: "But what about an invitation from you to me sir-what would that be?"

" That, Shukla," he yelled," would be an act of folly! Now take that junior-scale arse of yours out of my office!"

Today, even though that "arse" has now retired in the apex scale, I take invitations more seriously.

   Well intended invitations can sometimes have unintended consequences. I was still at Shimla when Mr. IK Gujral became the Prime Minister and arrived at Shimla with his family for a holiday. I had worked with him earlier when he was the External Affairs Minister and could also claim a tenuous  relationship with him. Armed with these credentials, I called upon him at the Retreat and invited him and his family for lunch to my home: the gracious and warm person that he always was, he immediately accepted. The local administration and Special Protection Group (SPG) were duly informed of this for making the security arrangements required by a Prime Ministerial visit.

All hell broke loose thereafter.

The next morning the SPG arrived at my house even before the bed-tea, in the form of three burly officers in track suits. They rousted me from my warm bed and poked into all the nooks and crannies where assassins could hide or bombs be planted. Since it was a house that was a hundred years old there were numerous such places so the dogs were called in. Three fat Labradors were summoned who promptly started romping in the garden with my Golden Retriever: they didn't find any bombs but they destroyed all my flower beds and were sent away in disgrace. The SPG then turned its attention to my neighbours, all very senior IAS officers who could make or break (more likely) my career. Disappointed at not having been able to implicate me in a plot against the PM, they poured their professional training and expertise on these folks. They were all ordered to close their windows and doors and stay inside till the PM left my house: it was hinted, not too politely, that any head that poked out would be blown away. Hell hath no fury like an IAS officer being ordered about by an IPS officer and it was a long time before I was forgiven by my colleagues for this " humiliation".

One fat policemen was stationed INSIDE the tiny kitchen where Neerja (my wife, folks) was cooking the lunch for Mr. Gujral and family.  He would not move out in spite of all our entreaties: his job, he stated, was to  ensure that no poison was put into the food being cooked for the PM. The situation was getting desperate: Neerja wanted him out and had that NIKE look on her face (JUST DO IT!), and the cop wouldn't budge. Taking advantage of a break when she had left the kitchen I pleaded with the copper: "Listen, just take a look at what my wife has cooked. Don't you think that if Mr. Gujral can survive this kind of food, he can survive any poison?" Surveying the smorgasbord of burnt and oily stuff on display, the constable gave the knowing smile only a husband can, nodded as if in agreement and left. I am glad to report that Mr. Gujral survived the lunch and I went up a couple of notches in Neerja's estimation. Another reason why I just can't invite Mr. Modi. Any marriage can take only so many shocks, and no more.

                                                 

   And now its time to let you all in on a well kept secret. Have you ever wondered how, whenever one invites people over for a wedding , engagement or the birth of a child, the first to land up are the  "hijras" or eunuchs? They WILL NOT LEAVE until you fork out a considerable sum of money to them-and their demands keep pace with the rate of inflation. The going rate in South Delhi is anywhere between Rupees fifty thousand to one lakh! This is their secret: they have informers in all the printing presses (where the cards are printed) and the hospitals/ nursing homes(where the deliveries occur) and so know immediately where to go and do their song, dance and swearing routine. These days I am sure they also have Google maps. The way to beat them is to issue your invitations on-line. Not only will it save you a lot of money, it is also environmentally sustainable as it cuts down on the need for paper. Of course, this stratagem will endure only till some nerd from IIT develops an app to track all on-line invitations. But hopefully by then people will stop marrying in favour of live-in arrangements, and couples will prefer to freeze their eggs for posterity instead of having kids.

                                               

Postscript: I've decided to take Neerja to Murthal on her birthday. Not only are the parathas there to die for, but hopefully there will be no Prime Ministers, SPG, Labradors or Hijras there. 

  

IS IT TIME TO DO A RETHINK ON MR. MODI AND THE BJP ?

Long before words such as " populism" and " majoritarianism" started dominating public discourse Mark Twain had written: " Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." Today, after what happened in the Maharashtra Assembly yesterday, I am inclined to follow his advice seriously.

In July 2013 when Mr. Modi was still the rank outsider in the electoral sweepstakes and was being reviled by the press and the intellectualatti I had written a piece in these columns- WHY I SHALL SUPPORT MODI IN 2014- laying out the reasons why the country needed him as Prime Minister. Today, he is not only the Prime Minister but also the flavour of the season, sweeping state after state, adulated by frenzied crowds, and fawned upon by the same people who had earlier cosied up to the Gandhis and the Chidambarams. It appears he can do no wrong. And, mindful of Mark Twain's words, I am worried and inclined to do some deep reflection.

I have not changed my opinion that Mr. Modi is what India needs to pull us out of the morass of the last ten years. He has the vision, energy, commitment and resolution to extract the country out of the quagmire of corruption. cronyism, indecisiveness, breakdown of systems and values that we had become entrapped in. But I still worry.

There are indications-straws in the wind as yet, but they tell us which way the wind is blowing- that Mr. Modi is becoming too powerful and uncaring of the few sane voices stifled in the roar of the hosannas. Consider some of these straws:

Far too many senior appointments to government are being made of persons associated with the Vivekananda Foundation, a right wing forum with links to the RSS. I will not name them because those who follow public affairs seriously know who they are.

An obscurantist historian trapped in the vedic age, who is unknown even to students of history, is made head of ICHR ( Indian Council of Historical Research) inspite of across the board protests by his peers.

A man whose life mission is to burn books and propagate a version of history that mocks all scientific progress, Mr. Dinanath Batra, is made Advisor to the Education Department of Haryana and his books prescribed as text in 35000 schools in Gujarat,

An avowed Hindu hard liner who had advised opponents of Mr. Modi ( read Muslim) to go to Pakistan and in whose house ten million rupees of unexplained cash was found is made a Minister in the Centre.

Delhi is denied an elected government for ten months and the local BJP cadre given a free hand to purchase MLAs; it is only when the Supreme Court steps in that a thoroughly compromised Lieutenant Governor orders re-elections.

Unexplained communal riots break out in Trilokpuri, Bawana, Babarpur and Okhla-all sensitive areas of Delhi- when it becomes clear that elections are inevitable. The signature on them is obvious. No action is taken against party loyalists who spew poison against minority communities or saffron clad hooligans who attack couples for holding hands or dining together in restaurants.

Hindu supremacy is being reasserted against Pakistan through the doctrine of " disproportionate response" which now appears to have replaced the Gujral doctrine of peaceful engagement with neighbours. Yes, Pakistan had to be taught a lesson for its continual violations of the cease-fire and the ten thousand shells fired by the BSF have effectively conveyed this message. The Pakistan army has learnt its lesson. Shouldn't the victor now be gracious and take the first step towards restoring normalcy again? Or is this about Hindu supremacy over Muslims again: if so, what message does this convey to the 200 million Muslims in India?

And finally Maharashtra. The vote of confidence in its Assembly yesterday has shamed the nation and set a new benchmark for chicanery and electoral fraud. For the first time in the history of this democracy, we are told, a minority government has established its " legitimacy" by a voice vote and not by a proper process based on Division. This, after committing an even bigger fraud on the voter who elected it- viz. by allying with the party( NCP) against whose corrupt govt. it had asked for the votes!

These instances make me reflect and suggest to me that the BJP and Mr. Modi are perhaps becoming too imperious and over-bearing with the power they are rapidly acquiring. The issue of concern is not that of a mere appointment or two or of a riot here or there. It is of a trend that appears to be emerging- of a sustained domination of one community, of ramming down the throats of a nation a flawed concept of Hindu values and history, of Mr. Modi himself donning his personal cloak of integrity and high morals while allowing his party to shred ethics and morality to bits( how does that make him any different from Mr. Manmohan Singh then, you may well ask), of playing Russian roulette with two unstable neighbours( don't forget Afghanistan). Its an ill wind that blows no good and the BJP is fanning it.

We need Mr. Modi, if not the BJP. We need his initiatives in liberalising the economy and manufacturing, in foreign relations, in financial inclusion, in strengthening our defence forces, in rebuilding our failing infrastructure. What we don't need is a return to the vedic ages, to attempts to re-write history, to packing the higher bureaucracy with persons of a particular ideology, to an unleashing of the dogs of war, to criminal and mercenary politics, to handing over the streets to dogmatist and sectarian bigots.

What we need most of all is a Mr. Modi who is responsive to public opinion, even though it may be that of a minority, a Mr. Modi who respects a contrary point of view, a Mr. Modi who does not consider the press his eternal foe, to be treated with accumulated contempt as a form of vengeance for years of baiting. So far he has not displayed these qualities- he talks, but he does not converse, or respond or answer, and this is not healthy for any democracy.

The crux of the problem is that Mr. Modi has no opposition worth the name, and consequently the hubris is building up in his system and, like the hero in a Greek tragedy, he is moving towards his denouement. But this is far more serious than a Greek tragedy, for when( in a metaphorical sense) he falls he will not fall alone but will take the entire nation with him. Mr. Modi is here to stay and the only force which can persuade him to do a course correction is a strong opposition. The entire universe survives on a balance of forces: every yang needs a ying, a thesis an anti-thesis, a point a counter-point. This critical balance is even more crucial for nations and somehow our present political dispensation must find this.

We need Mr. Modi but we also need a strong opposition in Parliament and other parties in power in some critical states. I hope voters of Delhi will bear this in mind in the days to come. This of course is free advice, but as Oscar Wilde said: " The best thing to do with free advice is to pass it on!"

UNEARTHING BLACK MONEY-- THE HINDU WAY !

   So we have come full circle again- the list of holders of foreign accounts which had been lying with the  government for three years and was given to the SIT four months ago has now been submitted to the Supreme Court and has been passed on to the SIT again yesterday. Hallelujah! The Chairman of the SIT has announced that their investigation into all the 700 accounts shall be completed by March 2015. Amen! Whether they will find even a cent in these accounts, now that their holders have had three years to move the moneys to anyone of 193 countries, is the next big thing to be debated on prime time television.

   Actually, lets admit it. Indians love black money and treat with renewed respect and a sneaking admiration anyone raided by the Income Tax Department. We welcome, nay invite, Laxmi into our houses but prefer that she comes with hard cash rather than with a bank transfer or a draft. To fully understand this phenomenon, and the govt's convoluted strategy in the present case, we need to understand the Hindu view of wealth.

   Nirad C Choudhury, that iconoclast of everything Indian, explains in his book " Passage to England". Hindus, he says, are devoted to wealth and to the hoarding of it because of their belief in reincarnation or rebirth. The devout Hindu reasons that since he will be coming back to this mortal coil at some future date, he may as well hoard his wealth to ensure a good life in his second innings. Nirad Babu is aware of the flaw in this argument- how can the person be sure that he will come back to the same family where the wealth has been hoarded? He answers this by contending that if all, or most, Hindus do the same thing, then statistically there are good chances of the new soul landing in a family with amassed wealth! To put it bluntly then, the Hindu is genetically and spiritually primed to hoard his moneys- black money, therefore, is something to aspire for and to respect.

   Enter the government with its farcical attempts to recover this stockpile. To comprehend its PC Sorcar kind of moves we must first understand another facet of Hinduism- its rituals. Hinduism is all about ritualism, not substance. We can commit all manner of wrong doing-kill, cheat, beat, destroy, molest- provided we observe the right rituals: wash our sins in the Ganga, organise weekly havans, shave our hair, sing kirtans, feed portly Brahmins and so on. We garland the cow with many incantations and then let it starve to death on the streets. We feed widows in temples and then throw them out of our own houses. You get it? The ritual is everything.We are in no way interested in doing the right thing, we merely want that we should not be punished for doing the wrong thing.

    This is precisely the kind of ritualism the central government( and dare we say, the Supreme Court?) is indulging in in the matter of the Black Money. It signs treaties, obtains lists from foreign banks, sets up SITs, makes announcements about getting back the lucre in 100 days, promises investigations-and allows business to go on as usual. The business, of course, being the continued generation of black money in the country.

   Forget the foreign accounts: there won't be a farthing left in them by the time our sleuths get there. One report states that Rupees 14000 crore has already been moved out of Switzerland in the two years ending 2012. The obvious solution is staring the government in the face but it won't even look at it: take immediate steps to stop the generation of black money within the country itself. Just three measures will ensure that 90% of the tap can be turned off.

   First, tackle the real estate and property sector, the main generator of illegal and untaxed wealth. The devil here lies in the difference between the price actually paid for a transaction and the price at which it is registered, which is between half and one-third of the former: the difference is the black money. Today, anywhere in India, an all-white money sale is unheard of: if some idiot wants only white money for his property he will have to settle for a price far lower than its market value. All state governments have performed the mandatory ritual to counter this problem: they have fixed circle rates below which a property cannot be registered. The problem is, these rates are so far below the market rate they have no effect at all. In Greater Kailash of South Delhi the real rate is about Rs. 5-6 lakhs per square yard but the circle rate is about Rs. 2 lakhs. In the village where I betook myself after retiring to lick my wounds( above Shimla) the circle rate at Rs. 35 lakhs per bigha is only half of the actual market rate. It is inconceivable that the governments are not aware of this, what with their armies of Registrars,Tehsildars, Patwaris and what not, all with their hands on the pulse( if not the pocket) of our citizenry. Simply by doubling the existing circle rates the government would instantly knock off the major chunk of black money from the economy: in the process it would also realise thousands of crores of additional revenue as stamp duty every year and real estate prices would come down to sane levels as the speculators with their illegal money would be driven out of the market. A win-win situation, you would say? Well yes.....except that our politicians only want to win-win elections, and for that they need the difference between the two rates to continue. As Adam exclaimed after having a long, hard look at the uncovered Eve: " Viva le difference!"

   Second: why make a joke of our Income Tax mechanism? Only 4% of our population file income tax returns, and only 1% actually pay income tax! Can you believe that there are only 40000 people who have declared an annual income of Rs.one crore( and above) as per the IT Department's own figures? In a country where thousands of luxury cars are sold every year, where gold imports crossed the figure of US $3.5 billion last month, where a flat in South Delhi sells for Rs. 15 crore, where one peg of premium single malt at the Habitat is priced at Rs. 7500/, where the Presidential suite in a Jaipur hotel at US $ 45000/ for one night is the second costliest in the world? Why, I could point out 40000 of the one crore plus types within a ten minute walking radius of my mother-in-law's house in GK-I! And this is when one can barely walk in GK-I what with all the Audis, Mercs, BMWs and Rolls parked on the roads there!

   Furthermore, I am fairly confident that most of the people in that hallowed neighbourhood pay less tax than I do on my pension. Their salaries would be negligible and every single expenditure they incur, down to the toilet paper in their eleven bathrooms, is booked to either their company or their business- drivers, servants, electricity bills, fuel, parties, travel, holidays, even their pet dogs who are probably covered under Security Expenses. ( OK, there may be some exaggeration here but not much, I assure you). Not only does the government lose on Income Tax, it is also fiddled of its Corporate Tax.

  The other great escape route deliberately provided is the exemption from Income Tax for agriculture. There is no rational basis for this and therefore its justification does not even merit a discussion. This exemption may appear obtuse and stupid but actually its quite clever, from a crooked perspective: it enables politicians and bureaucrats to launder their ill gotten wealth by showing it as agricultural income even if the land they own is as barren as the Gobi desert. I can bet my next DA instalment that there is no major politician in this country who does not " own" agricultural land. It is not for nothing that Ms. Jayalalitha bought 2000 acres of land-such a huge area can launder far more than what she is accused of amassing, and I have a feeling that she may yet avoid the VIP cell on the strength of this acreage!

  You can be sure the government performs its rituals in this matter also. It sends notices to you and me for not declaring the Rs. 2373/ received as interest on our Savings Accounts, and fines us for filing our returns two months late. It conducts raids with much fanfare and nets the plankton and shrimps but allows the sharks to get away. But it will do nothing to broaden the tax base or to suck the undeclared income out of the parallel economy. It will not mount surveillance on some HNI individuals to match their life-styles with their declared incomes. It has PAN, TAN and what not but cannot or will not track purchases to any effect. Nothing else can explain the deplorable tax base of a country whose GDP is estimated at almost a trillion US dollars.

  And finally, that other great repository of black money- our political parties. The disclosed accounts( and these accounts are about as transparent as the sludge in your sewer line)reveal that both the Congress and the BJP have collected funds in excess of Rs. 2000 crore each and BSP is not far behind. We have no idea where this money came from, and we will continue to remain blissfully ignorant because ALL parties have ensured that the RTI Act will not be made applicable to them. They have refused to comply with the order of the Election Commission to provide information to querists. The Commission itself, clearly surprised by its own temerity in passing such an order, has retreated into its protective carapace, trying to figure out which way the wind is blowing before even attempting to enforce its order. And so tens of thousands of crores of black money continue to be spent on elections. The ritual? Oh yes, the EC fixes modest limits on expenditure by candidates, appoints Observers, audits expenditure statements, issues notices and warnings and is interviewed by Rajdeep Sardesai and Rahul Shivshankar.

    We don't need treaties or SITs to flush out the black money in this country. We simply need to go beyond rituals, to the one real religion that this country so badly needs- good governance.

     

RULE OF LAW? REALLY?

     Its fashionable to begin articles these days with a disclaimer( it makes one appear more profound), so let me confess too. I am no law graduate, never having enrolled myself in the " La Fucklety" of Delhi University, as the Law Faculty was lovingly called in my days. My knowledge of law is also limited: I cannot tell a habeas from a corpus and don't even know the difference between a solicitor and a procurer. But I have of late been getting the feeling that you don't need to know law to realise that all is not well with our juridical ecology, that the pedestal on which we have ensconced our judiciary has far too many bird droppings on it- in short, it is impossible to make sense of either some of our laws or even some of the judgements of our higher courts.

    I am not talking here of the Courts' refusal to decriminalise homesexuality or to disallow  euthanasia in terminal cases, both important facets of a progressive value system which more and more countries are increasingly adopting but we seem to be shying away from because of an ossified mind set. I am not talking either of a government( both past and present) that prefers to flounder in legislations of the last two centuries rather than devise laws for the 21st century. These are serious crevasses in our legal system into which thousands have fallen, but they will have to wait for another day.

   I am addressing today the more immediate issue of how we treat different classes of accused, even though we are fed, ad nauseum, the lie that the law is the same for everyone. I am increasingly beginning to feel that the law is putty in the hands of skilled and expensive lawyers and that there is no consistency in the judgements handed down from those lofty heights.

   How else does one explain that in this country a convicted and sentenced felon can get bail while a person who is not even convicted is denied bail? Both Mr. Lalu Yadav and Ms. Jayalalitha have been convicted and sentenced but have been released on bail, simply because they have/ are appealing their convictions. Why then have the Talwars not been released, whose circumstances are exactly similar? I am no apologist for Tarun Tejpal but I am one for equality before the law, and therefore I am compelled to wonder why he has been locked up since one year even though he has not been convicted and his trial has a long way to go? Because one set relates to corruption( not heinous) and the other to violent crimes? Then why were Kanimozhi and A Raja imprisoned for a year( their charge was also of corruption)? Because they could influence witnesses? Really? It stretches one's credulity to believe that the latter two could threaten/bribe witnesses and Lalu and Jayalalitha cannot.

   As I said earlier, try as you might it will be impossible to locate any thread of consistency in the law applied in these cases. We are told that each case is different-yes, indeed, but isn't the law supposed to be the same? I do discern, however, a faint and nebulous thread running through these cases, and perhaps you do too- if you are a politician the law will treat you with kid gloves, and if your case is picked up by Arnab Goswami and Karan Thapar for prime time panel discussions then you are damned! This is a constantly emerging pattern and cannot be a coincidence. The Talwars and Tejpal( and Mr. Pandher-let us not forget this gentleman who has been acquitted in almost all the cases against him but has been reduced to a cadaver after seven years in jail)-they were dead meat the day the prime time mob got after them, and the law obliged.

    The grant of parole is another mystery I cannot fathom. Tens of thousands of undertrials cannot even think of getting parole but the privileged have no problem, even though they are convicted and sentenced. A Chautala gets the reprieve on medical grounds and then goes on to campaign for elections: our judicial conscience is assuaged by sending him back to jail AFTER the campaigning period is over! A Manu Sharma( sentenced to life for murder, no less) repeatedly obtains parole for attending funerals, weddings and taking exams. A Sanjay Dutt benefits likewise because his wife is supposed to be ill, though she is otherwise seen partying. Two Italian marines are given a vacation to celebrate Christmas with their families in Italy- if bilateral relations make this imperative, then why charge them in the first place: why not simply accept the crores offered by Italy as compensation and give the two a Presidential pardon? Why first bring them into the legal system and then twist this system and make a mockery of it?

    Something else that addles my jurisprudence challenged brain is the constant interventions by higher courts in the proceedings of trial courts, somewhat similar to what Arnab Goswami does to his panelists. With more than 30 million cases pending in various courts as of 2013, should trials be stayed on the flimsiest of applications? A case which immediately comes to mind is the National Herald case against the Gandhi clan. Taking cognisance of a complaint the trial court issued summons to the accused for appearance almost three months ago. The accused immediately approached a higher court( no surprises here!) and got a stay-and added another number to the pendency. The case has not moved forward an inch-which suits the Gandhis just fine. Consider another odd case: Salman Khan was CONVICTED by a trial court in the black buck poaching case two years ago but the sentence was suspended by the Rajasthan High Court without even deciding his appeal. The Rajasthan govt. has challenged this in the Supreme Court. The main appeal is yet to be heard. Years have been unnecessarily added to the final disposal of this case enabling our dabang hero to add a few dozen more crores to his kitty. And this is in addition to the dozens he has already added because his hit-and-run case in Bombay has already taken 12 years and reached nowhere, because mid-way the honourable judge decided to add fresh charges against the thespian, and the whole trial had to be started de nouveau. Why can our courts not realise that delays benefit only the rich and powerful, and then do something about it?

   It has become almost the norm, if your pockets are deep enough and your connections extensive enough, to challenge every interim order of a trial court at a higher forum. Appeals are filed against charge-sheets, summons and warrants, framing of charges, summoning of witnesses, nature of evidences, and just about every excuse the fecund mind of a well paid lawyer can conjure up. I am unable to understand why these appeals are entertained at all-why not simply let the trial go on and let these issues become the causus belli in appeal when the trial court passes its final order? I have no difficulty in understanding why the lawyers do so- after all, if you are paid a few lakhs for every appearance( in court) your mind will be as fertile as a vermicomposting pit. But why do the courts allow this to happen?

   How is it that politicians who work 16 hours a day while in office and corporates who party for just as long, invariably develop heart/ blood pressure conditions the moment they are sent to jail? And why are our courts so accommodating as to send them to the nearest five star hospital ( in the comfort of which they can plan their next interlocutory appeal)? Why can they not be treated, if treatment is required at all, in the jail hospital or the nearest govt. hospital? After all, govt. hospitals are where law abiding and unconvicted( as yet) citizens like you and I go to-why not these hot shots? If the courts sent them there instead of molly coddling them I can guarantee that, given the conditions of our govt. hospitals, these worthies would be screaming to be sent back to their VIP cells in Tihar and such requests would end once and for all.

   And finally, about our laws and law makers. About 150000 Indians die in traffic accidents every year, victims of over speeding, drunk driving, unlicensed drivers, rash driving and other similar conscious acts. And yet the perpetrators of these deaths obtain bail within a few hours and, if convicted at all, can get a maximum sentence of two years only. In other words if you kill somebody with a six inch pistol or a nine inch knife weighing 500 grammes you will get life or death, but if you know your law you would be better advised to kill someone with a four meter projectile weighing two tonnes; chances are you would go scot free or spend just a year or two in jail, even less if you develop high blood pressure or an enlarged prostate or decide to take your bar council exams at this propitious moment. Why cannot the law be amended to make such a deliberate act( it IS deliberate if you drive while drunk or break the speed limit or do not have a driving license) culpable homicide at least? In the USA such offences come under a separate category termed vehicular homicide, an eminently sensible formulation. What prevents the government from bringing in a similar law, or the Supreme Court from ordering the govt. to do so?

   Civilisations cannot exist for long without a system for imparting justice that is fair, equitable, affordable, accessible; a system that is not hijacked by the rich or powerful few. In India our much vaunted justice or judicial system sadly lacks all these attributes. Furthermore, it is not merely laws that ensure the rule of law: its guarantee lies in the intellectual integrity of its practitioners-the plaintiffs, lawyers, the judges; here again there is much that is found wanting. 

   The time has come for us to tackle this creeping malaise. Otherwise there are Alternative Dispute Redressal Mechanisms( ADRMs) waiting in the wings to take over. These comprise a range of mediums or agencies, none of them compatible with a progressive society: the Taliban, The Khap Panchayat, the D-company, the Vigilante, the Encounter Specialist, the Dirty Harry cop. Their prototypes have already arrived. Its time for us to wake up.

    

TIHAR REGENCY

       This is the century of Private Capital. While governments involve themselves in waging wars and making life as difficult as possible for their citizens it is the private sector that is pushing forward the frontiers of economic development and spawning the innovations that will make life sustainable in the years to come. It is  private enterprise and entrepreneurship again which is( happily for all of us) ensuring that governments are becoming more and more irrelevant to the life of the common citizen- whether it is Twitter and Facebook for information sharing, or Dupont and Suzlon for renewable energy sources of the future, or Amazon and Ali Baba for creating freer markets. It should surprise no one, therefore, that MacDonalds and Coca Cola have conquered more countries than all of Mr. Obama's armies, or that just the combined" Brand values" of just four companies- Apple, Google, Coca Cola and IBM- at US$ 380  billion, is more than the total foreign reserves of India!

     In this changing environment, therefore, Mr. Modi is spot on in stressing the primacy of the private sector in developing the country's economy, in sectors as diverse as defense production, power, infrastructure, tourism, food processing, housing and so on. But he appears to have neglected one critical sector which of late has become a magnet for powerful politicians, bureaucrats, corporates and well connected criminals, a sector which is like, pardon the pun, a " holding" company for all kinds of dubious operators. I refer, of course, to our prisons.

    I owe this path-breaking realisation to a very close friend of mine who is a successful hotelier in Shimla. Looking around for his next project, his usual fertile imagination bolstered by a couple of single malts, he voiced the desire to build a five-star hotel in Tihar Jail of Delhi, exclusively for its convicted inmates( or at least those who could afford to pay for it). If this sounds crazy to you, just list out the crazy ideas of a few decades ago which now go by brand names such as Gillette, KFC, Otis, Hoover, Ford, Frigidaire, or by product names such as submarines, steam engines, telephones, airplanes, even the humble condom for God's sake! To slightly alter a Shakespearean phrase-those whom the Gods would make billionaires, they first make crazy.

     The more I think of a luxury hotel in Tihar the more sense it makes to me. After all, prisons in the Us and UK have been handed over to private companies for their running and management, and even Tihar has its own snacks making division, a furniture unit and even has a food-court, all under the brand name " TJ". Why not then a franchised hotel? I even examined the idea on the crucible of the three hallowed P's of marketing management- Product, Price and Promotion- and found it a winner on all counts. Let me share this with you.

    PRODUCT. There is no doubt at all that there is a niche and unmet demand for this product i.e. a five star hotel in Tihar Jail. Firstly, with the change in govt. at the centre the list of erstwhile VIPs gradually lining up for admission to Tihar is growing by the day. These include politicians of the A. Raja and Kanimozhi variety whose brief sojourn earlier is likely to be followed by a more prolonged stay now that the 2G case is reaching its end, Kalmadi and Sheila Dixit whose ( commonwealth) game is almost over, Lalu Yadav and Jayalalitha and maybe even Mamatadi and Mayawati if the CBI is allowed to get on with its investigations unimpeded and the Supreme Court takes fewer vacations. Add to this the captains of industry involved in the 2G and Coal scam cases, Augusta Westland and other assorted scams too numerous to list. And of course, how can we forget those who are already ensconced in Tihar or other jails, earning loyalty reward points- Sahara Shri, Sudipta Roy, Kunal Ghose, or those, like Mr. Mallya, who should have been there much earlier, Sanjay Dutt whose bulging biceps rule out his own release on medical grounds and therefore his wife has to perforce fall ill every few months. Scattered among these heavy weights will doubtless be some bureaucrats or bank managers who thought that their fat pensions did not do justice to their talents.

    These gentlemen( and ladies) would pay anything to be provided in Tihar the comforts they are used to- this is the nub and heart of my friend's brilliant concept. Right now they get barely a fraction of the luxuries they desire, and that too by devious means-false medical certificates to obtain parole or get admitted to super speciality hospitals, generous contributions to the jailors' post retirement corpus for special favours such as special VIP cells and servings of biryani, killing off a relative now and then in order to attend the funeral simply to get out for some time.

    All this poses a massive headache for the courts and the governments. And things are about to get  worse. At least one ex-but-de-facto Chief Minister and one potential Chief Minister are all set to establish their offices and secretariats in jail and rule from there , surrounded by pimps and rapists and murderers. Very soon, other than Mr. Subrata Roy, there will be other corporate honchos wanting to sell their assets to get bail or liquidate their loans or to pay their fines- how many corporate offices can Tihar be expected to provide on the Sahara model? No indeed, this is a deluge that the government cannot counter by itself-it needs the services of entrepreneurs like my friend from Shimla.

   A luxury hotel in Tihar would resolve all these problems at one stroke-five star accommodation, multi national cuisine, all corporate facilities, wi-fi, access to hawala accounts. Given the inventiveness of our private sector I have no doubt that soon the basic product would be tweaked to offer all kinds of special packages: for example, a Corporate Package( or discount) for two or more CEOs booking in as a group, a Bail Package for two days and one night for those who intend to stay only till their bail petitions are approved, a Nuptial Package( two nights and one day) for those wanting to be reacquainted with their wives, a Parliamentary package for our legislators, a Repeat Offender package for inmates gracing the jail more than once. There could even be a Chief Ministerial suite( they'll probably need more the way things are shaping up). Of course all payments will have to be made in cash since the guests could hardly be trusted with any money-if they could they wouldn't be here in the first place.

   PRICE. This is not an issue considering that the combined wealth of all these worthies would probably be more than the GDP of all our neighbours, with the exception of China.

   PROMOTION. Most of this would be by word of mouth and hoardings put up outside prime catchment areas such as Parliament, corporate offices of companies, Stock Exchanges, major studios in Bollywood conveying messages such as TIHAR ME ACCHE DIN AAGAYE or TIHAR-THE KING OF GOOD TIMES or THE PERFECT ESCAPE-TIHAR REGENCY. Being a captive market, pardon the pun again, the expenditure on promotion would be negligible, adding to the viability of the project.

   Tihar Regency would be the perfect product-a win-win for all: the consumer, the promoter, the government and even the courts who would be rid finally of all those frivolous applications for parole, health check-ups, attendance at funerals, sitting for exams etc.which so far have not served the cause of justice one iota but have certainly enriched the likes of Mr. Ram Jethmalani and Salman Khurshid no end.

  My hotelier friend is preparing a project report for submission to the central government. He still has one problem, though: where does he find a Chief Guest for inaugurating Tihar Regency? If you think you have an answer please do leave a comment.