ADMINISTRATIVE COUP IN SHIMLA-----BUSHAHR RULES !

Himachal's Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh has caused immense damage to the bureaucratic edifice in the state by superseding four IAS officers in his determination to appoint a favourite as Chief Secretary ( 31.05.2016). This was expected, because the decks were being cleared for this for quite some time and inconvenient officers were being made to walk the plank in true Bluebeard fashion. Nonetheless, this purge goes against the traditions of this model state. Till now HP has had a relatively cleaner, equitable, non-partisan and transparent higher bureaucracy, and both rules and conventions have been followed in the matter of promotions. I do not recollect of any such supersession taking place in the last twenty years. It has now become an accepted( but nonetheless unfortunate) practice that a CM is entitled to appoint as Chief Secretary an officer who enjoys his " trust" ( whatever the hell that means), even if he is not the seniormost or most competent among the lot. But there are graceful ways of doing this without humiliating more senior officers who have first claim on this post.

                                                                                                                                                Virbhadra Singh's predecessor, Mr. PK Dhumal, and his close aides had a generic dislike for a particular officer who was the seniormost IAS officer in the state on at least  two occasions between 2008 and 2010 and could therefore legitimately claim the post of CS. Dhumal did not appoint him because he didn't " trust" him to do his bidding- but he didn't supersede him either. On both occasions he asked a more senior, and equally if not more competent, officer to revert to the state from Delhi and appointed them as CS by turn. Perfectly fair, compliant with rules, respectful of conventions: nobody could have a grouse, and the ignored officer happily retired as Addl. Chief Secretary.

The govt. has not only superseded the four IAS officers but has also heaped humiliation on them by placing them directly below an officer ( the CS) who is junior to them. It could have shown more consideration and grace by posting them in some Board or Corporation or Commission where they would have been nominally independent of the Chief Secretary on a day to day basis. By not making the effort to devise a middle formula and openly humiliating three of the four superseded officers( the fourth has fortunately escaped to Delhi in the nick of time) Virbhadra Singh has shown his contempt for the bureaucracy and the arrogance of a six-term Chief Minister. The bureaucracy is a carefully structured organisation in which hierarchy is important: Mr. Virbhadra Singh, who constantly stresses his own political “ seniority”. could not be unaware of this cardinal principle of organisations; he has, however, chosen to spurn it in a pattern of actions which is looking increasingly like a scorched earth policy. 

                                                                                                                                              His action has also reinforced the widely held perception that he is more than partial to officers from a particular region of the state who now form his Praetorian Guard, as it were. This will, regrettably, also create a divide in the higher echelons of officialdom which the state had managed to avoid all these years. Mr. Virbhadra Singh may or may not  be around as Chief Minister in the days to come, but this is one legacy he need not have bequeathed the state.

By the way, a little bird tells me that a similar Night of The Long Knives is being planned for the Indian Forest Service soon. Banana republic or Apple republic- take your choice, folks.

Bushahr state, a tiny principality in earlier times, has finally achieved what Mr. Virbhadra Singh’s ancestors could never do: it has staged a coup and conquered the whole of Himachal Pradesh ! Mr. Singh’s satraps rule everywhere. Is this the kind of real politic Mrs. Dilma Roussof, the ex-President of Brazil, was referring to when she coined the phrase “ democratic coup”?

DELHI BELLY - A COUNTRY OF GENIUSES !

If we are to go by the CBSE's just released results for the 10+2 exams we have nothing to worry about- India is a country of geniuses! Of 10,67,000 candidates who took the exam 90000 scored more than 90%, and 14000 scored more than 95% . Even more amazing, students have scored 100% in subjects such as English, Psychology, History, Commercial Arts, a feat the likes of Shakespeare, Freud , Michaelangelo and Andy Warhol would find hard to match. The country topper scored 99.4%
   How on earth can one score 100% in these subjects or 99.4% in the aggregate? In my time a 75% was considered exceptional and anything above that prompted a judicial inquiry. Perhaps the answer lies in the response of one student ( Urna Chakraborty of Springdales, Pusa Road, Delhi) when asked how she secured 100% in History: " History is a very interesting subject. I memorise everything in detail for my exam." ( Emphasis mine). It would appear that what CBSE is testing is rote learning and not true understanding and assimilation of a subject. It is also indulging in lazy question setting and rote marking. This is not promoting genuine education and learning but encouraging phenomena like the Kota model of education which is churning out thousands of tunnel vision cyborgs who go on to secure engineering degrees and then find themselves unemployable. Indian industry has been complaining about this for some time and now even the IITs and IIMs have started changing their admission processes to test for real knowledge rather than memorised data. Even some leading Universities and Colleges now prescribe admission tests rather than simply go by the 10+2 results. It is time CBSE realised the damage it is doing to the education template in the country by its ridiculous system of marking.
  It is also causing real harm to the psyche, and even the lives, of students who cannot withstand the immense pressure exerted by a system where even a score of 80% brands one as a failure. This year itself a student of Naraina who secured 60%, unable to face his parents, killed himself by hanging himself from a ceiling fan. A dozen students kill themselves in Kota every year. CBSE's toxic assessment process inturn leads to cut-offs in universities that are even more ridiculous: last year one college in Delhi had a cut-off of 101% for a particular subject! By these standards I and all my friends would be deemed to be only half-literate because none of us got more than 65% in college; the one illiterate among us ( he failed) later on went to become a crore-pati ! Last year one Shivani Mohan who secured 92.5% in her 10+2 but failed to get into St. Stephens or Lady Shri Ram took admission in a leading university in California. Come on Mrs. Irani, there has got to be something wrong with an assessment eco-system where it is easier to get admission in a US university rather than in a Delhi college. Please do something about it before heading off to UP as the BJP's Chief Ministerial candidate.

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It is encouraging to note that the Supreme Court has once again dismissed the appeal by the taxi operators of Manali( supported by a vision-less state govt.) against the NGT orders restricting the number and type of vehicles going up to Rohtang pass. Even the 1200 allowed so far is a thousand too many. But it is distressing to note that , apart from enforcing the NGT orders in a ham handed manner, the Kullu administration is doing little else to devise alternatives to minimise its effects on tourism in the valley. It should by now have fast tracked the installation of the rope-way from Palchan to Rohtang, but the govt. appears to have done precious little about it in the last four years, apart from cancelling the tender floated in the last months of the Dhumal govt. for no apparent reason. Electric vehicles is another solution, and one would have expected that the govt. would have gone out of its way to promote this pollution free mode of transport. Instead, as reported by HILLPOST a few days ago, it is harassing someone who has displayed individual initiative to procure an electric taxi: Mr. Buddhi Prakash Thakur has been running from pillar to post to get his battery driven taxi registered with the Transport and Tourism departments- with zero success so far. By now the state govt. should have framed a policy for registering of E- vehicles; if it lacks the ability to do so it should simply adopt( with suitable modifications) the policy prepared ( and implemented) by the Delhi govt. I would also advise Mr. Thakur to shoot off a letter to the NGT immediately- governments nowadays work only on court orders.
Incidentally, the govt. has ordered 20 electric buses for the Rohtang route, to be operated by the HPTDC. Once these buses arrive the govt. should ask the NGT to reduce the permissible number of cars by 200, to 1000, since one bus is equivalent to at least ten cars. This way the vehicular load will not increase with the addition of the buses. I have a feeling that the state govt. would not be too keen to do this, so perhaps our environmentalist friends or NGOs could initiate this measure.

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The general level of political discourse in this country keeps declining with each session of Parliament and with each election, and even lady opponents are not spared. Degenerate comments on each others' character, parentage, integrity, morals etc. are the order of the day. To my mind, this reflects the diminishing caliber of the people we elect to office, their lack of genuine education, their limited intellectual capacity and their total inability to indulge in the cut and thrust of genuine debate. In contrast, it is a pleasure to watch, or to read of, the proceedings of some other parliaments, especially the British Parliament. I give below two historical exchanges between MPs in the House of Commons, just to grasp how far removed we are from the Westminster model ( which we purport to follow):

* A Member of Parliament who was speaking on a subject he thought was important was irritated to see that Winston Churchill was dozing in his seat. He thundered: " Mr. Churchill, must you fall asleep when I am speaking?"
 Churchill roused himself, calmly replied: " No. sir, its purely voluntary" and went back to sleep.

*  On another occasion, this is how two peers of the realm explored each other's characters in the House of Lords:
MONTAGU ( to Wilkes) " Sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox !"
WILKES: " That will depend, my lord, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress!"

When will our legislators realise that the rapier is far more effective than the bludgeon ?

DELHI BELLY-- THE WEEKLY GRIPE [ I ]

I guess the BJP is entitled to its moment of glory after winning Assam but it shouldn't get carried away. After all it did miserably in the other four states: the argument that it " established its presence" in these states doesn't really mean anything in a first past the post system. In Tamil Nadu it didn't even open its account. Nor is it entitled to cock too many snooks at the Congress in these five states: it won 63 seats compared to the Congress's 115. The fact is that it does well only if its a two-way contest with the Congress; wherever regional parties are added major players it comes a cropper. This is going to be its major challenge in the next two years. It therefore needs to evolve a vision beyond the " Congress mukt Bharat" because if it simply succeeds in replacing the Congress with the Mamtas, Jayalalithas, Mayawatis and Kejriwals that won't do it much good, will it?

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The NOTA( None Of The Above) option appears to be finally coming into its own. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections NOTA was 1.1% of the total votes cast: in these Assembly elections the figure went up to 1.5%. In Bengal NOTA was the fourth choice of the voters, behind TMC, Left+ Congress and BJP! The total number of NOTA votes cast was 17.26 lakhs: if the same percentage was applied to the entire country it would come to 12 million voters!- that's equivalent to eight Parliamentary seats. If such a large number of voters feel that the candidates put up by political parties are not worth voting for, it certainly doesn't say much about the quality of the candidates or even their parties. Its time they started paying some attention to this indicator of a flailing democratic process.

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Its time to apply Mr. Kejriwal's Odd-Even formula to Mount Everest, given the heavy traffic up there. Reports indicate that 289 climbers have taken permits for this season, and in just four days ( till 16th May) as many as 88 of them have summitted ! Nowadays there are so many climbers jostling for space that " traffic jams" of upto two hours occur regularly at the point known as Hillary's Step just below the summit. Its easier to climb Everest these days than it is to climb the landfill at Khichripur in Delhi. The plain fact is that if you have enough greenbacks the Sherpas will put you atop the peak, dead, alive or comatose. It costs about 50000 US dollars and the Sherpas do all the rest: prepare a path through the Khumbu ice-fall, bridge the crevasses, cut steps on the South col, and stretch guide ropes all along the way; thereafter you can sleepwalk your way to the summit. Summitting Everest is no longer either an adventure or a challenge, its just s selfie moment for those who have the moolah.

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General VK Singh, the MOS for External Affairs ( how does Sushma Swaraj put up with him?) is the final proof that selection to top posts in the Army is flawed. As if he has not already done enough to expose his regressive and antiquated mind set he has once again started the road renaming drama by demanding that New Delhi's Akbar Road be renamed as Maharana Pratap road. Someone should inform him that we already have a major road named after this very genuine warrior in Karol Bagh, and Delhi's main ISBT is also named after him. I am happy( as no doubt all right thinking citizens are) that Mr. Venkaih Naidu has quashed the General's ersatz patriotism by stating that this is not on the govt's agenda. But I would like to ask a different question on road namings: why must we name our roads only after public figures such as politicians, film stars or sportsmen? I have nothing against their success in their respective fields, but is mere material success to be venerated in this manner? These are personal successes at the end of the day, motivated by personal ambition ( all that bit about " playing for the country" or " contributing to the country's development" is generally crap, with a very few exceptions) and the hunger for fame or gain. How about commemorating the qualities that really count- compassion, the indomitable spirit of man, courage in the face of fear, the defiance of odds ? How about saluting and honouring these demonstrated qualities in the ORDINARY citizen, not a page three celebrity? Three such persons come to mind immediately. Neerja Bhanot, the PanAm air-hostess who died three days before her 23rd birthday in a hijack at Karachi, having saved 300 passengers from almost certain death. Manjunath, the IOC engineer shot in UP because he spurned the bribes and threats of the oil mafia. Dashrath Manjhi the impoverished mountain man of Bihar who carved out an 11 mile road through rocks  with his bare hands in ten years, something which the full might of the state had not been able to do in fifty.

Should we not be celebrating the peerless fortitude, indomitability and character of these non descript individuals who have done more to elevate the human spirit than all politicians and celebrities put together? Can we name a road or two after them also, please?     

NO MONKEY BUSINESS IN SHIMLA, PLEASE.

   .

   I am positively appalled at the prospect that monkeys can now be shot in Shimla, consequent upon their being declared vermin by the central Ministry of Environment and Forests. We must not forget that monkeys are the original residents of this city and came here long before the Captain Kennedys, Negis and Soods: in fact the last two have taken over the government and business, respectively, in an embrace much tighter than what the poor simians exercise over Jakhoo hill.

   In fact, it is my belief (based on brahmanical intuition, and not on any empirical evidence) that it is on the famous Ridge that a stout alpha male got up on his hind legs one fine morning to have a better look at the alpha female and thereby evolved into "homo erectus" (not to be confused with the then Maharaja of Patiala who did something similar vis-a-vis an English lady and was exiled to Chail). Further evolution took place when the government shifted to Shimla in the summers and when Himachal became a full state: these developments produced the "home prostratus", most of whom are to be found in the civil services; the "homo corruptus". who have a natural attraction for politics; and the "homo OROPus" who wear smart uniforms and play golf the whole day. The point I'm trying to make, dear readers, is that there are many sub-species of the rhesus monkey in Shimla, so why pick only on the ones who have, very sensibly, refused to evolve?

   Some years ago the Forest Deptt. decided to adopt an Air-B+B or YOYO Rooms approach to the problem of the apes targeting women's handbags at Jakhoo (incidentally, it is only the more evolved and stupid species that target the women themselves and not the handbags): the forest officials caught them by the dozen in Shimla and let them loose in the Tara Devi forests nearby, where they were fed fruits, vegetables and the occasional Baljee's hamburger. It was observed, however, that over a period of time the forest officials developed healthy paunches and jowels; the monkeys themselves usually caught the evening bus from Kaithlighat and returned to their favourite haunts in the town! Very soon this experiment was dropped and the forests of Tara Devi returned to their rightful occupiers- the poachers and the timber smugglers.

   Next, the Department started a mass sterilisation programme but, mindful of what had happened during Sanjay Gandhi's time, it did not sterilise the babies, the pregnant,  or even  the dead monkeys, and made no distinctions based on caste, religion or economic status. But it soon ran into an unexpected problem: the monkeys quickly started recognising the Divisional Forest Officer or the Ranger who came to trap them, something which even the Forest Minister or I, as Secretary, could not do. They even recognised the numbers of their official vehicles! One knowing look, and they would be off, never to be caught. Nevertheless, according to the figures supplied by the Department, by now every single monkey in HP and a few in Hoshiarpur and Pathankot should have been sterilised and their numbers should have gone down significantly. That it hasn't shows that there's a foreign hand- or some other appendage- at work here: Pakistan? China? the CBI? the Bandar Suraksha Samiti ? Maneka Gandhi ? It might even be a conspiracy to dislodge the present government a-la Uttarakhand: after all, if the increasing numbers of monkeys were to take over the Secretariat one fine day, would that not amount to breakdown of the constitutional machinery? My personal view is that no one would notice the difference, but then again the courts might take a different view.

   Speaking of the Secretariat, the government should realise the stellar role the monkeys play in hiding its incompetence, and worse. It is convenient to ascribe missing files, for example, to the depredation of monkeys and thereby avoid embarrassing RTI queries, something we have been doing for years with panache. In fact, in the early eighties things had gotten so bad (monkeys were even attending cabinet meetings) that the government had to constitute a committee of Secretaries to find a solution to the epidemic. Fortunately, this august body never really took off because it was notified as a COMMITTE OF MONKEYS instead of a COMMITTE ON MONKEYS! We never did find out whether the gaffe was caused by a printer's devil or a Dealing Assistant with a grudge against the IAS. In either case, he was closer to the truth than perhaps even he realised.

Let us not, therefore, run down these magnificent animals to whom we owe so much. Always remember that 98.50 percent of the DNA of monkeys and humans are identical. The difference of 1.50 percent explains why the human race is in such a mess.

I.P.L , DROUGHT AND PRIME TIME : LOOKING BEYOND THE ABSURDITIES.

   For a country addicted to the theater of the absurd, we appear to have plumbed new depths of absurdity with the current cacophony about shifting IPL matches out of Mumbai. It would appear that the country has never been so divided on any issue since the Partition, with even the courts forsaking their tens of thousands of pending cases to examine whether the stadiums should use potable water or treated sewage water, whether the latter can be sent to Latur and whether BCCI is our primary national enemy or Pakistan. BCCI is more concerned about its depleting revenues than the depleting water table. And Mr. Fadnavis, of course, is more occupied with ensuring dance bars remain shut than saving his farmers who, at last count, were being depleted by five heads PER DAY. And the media, which ignored the developing catastrophe for months, has now arrived on the scene with the panache of vultures ( who, it must be stated in all fairness, usually arrive after the object is dead).

   All this is perfectly understandable in the context of our corrupted polity, unaccountable bureaucracy, debased national conscience and an acquisitive society that has completely lost all compassion. It is much easier to quick-fix a villain ( Mallya, Lalit Modi. Kanhaiya Kumar, BCCI) than to admit to our own systemic failings and to deal with them. Even the courts appear to have walked into this trap set for them by the powerful forces who manipulate the national agenda, And so they have lavished all their wisdom on questioning the propriety of BCCI  utilising 7 million litres of sewage water on stadium pitches when lakhs of farmers/ hectares in Vidharba and Marathwada  thirst for every drop. This is precisely what the government( central and state) wanted the courts to ask. For the real questions- the ones that need to be asked- will take some answering: Why is sugarcane( a hugely water- intensive crop) being grown in a region that is traditionally deficient in water? Why are the sub soil water reservoirs being depleted of 183 trillion liters of water every year for this crop, a quantity which just cannot be recouped by nature? Why is it that inspite of having spent Rupees 30000 crores over the last ten years on irrigation the state has managed to add less than 1% to the command area?

   These questions will never be asked. The national conscience has been assuaged by the shifting of 16 matches out of Maharashtra, blood money of Rupees 5 crores extracted out of BCCI and the dying farmers requested to defer their suicides because the Met department has predicted a surplus monsoon. The momentous decision of the Mumbai High Court will lead to the saving of enough water as is needed to produce 2.8 tonnes of sugarcane. Q.E.D. We can now move on, with a clear conscience, to the celebration of the things that actually make India great- Ambedkar Jayanti ( an additional, much deserved holiday for overworked govt. employees), e-NAM ( an digital trading portal for those farmers who have not yet killed themselves), Gram Uday se Bharat Uday  ( a movement for social harmony post Messers Giriraj and Shakshi Maharaj), the renaming of Gurgaon to Gurugram( presumably Murthal shall now be renamed Molesthal), and so on.

   But the misfortune of this country is that there still exist old world die-hards like me who would request Mr. Javadekar and his ministerial colleagues to reassess their approach to the environment and not to regard it merely as an obstruction to the ease of doing business. In just the last four years Mother Nature has sent us four significant warnings: the Uttarakhand disaster, Srinagar floods, Chennai floods, 2500 heat wave deaths in 2015. The latest is this drought which will get much worse in the coming days.The Cauvery has completely dried up in stretches; the level of the Ganges has  fallen to such an extent that last month ( in March, when the summer had not even set in !) the 2100 MW power station at Farakka had to be shut down, triggering a black out in large parts of eastern India; the availability of water in the 92 nationally monitored reservoirs is only 39.45  billion cubic meters against their capacity of 157.80 bcu; the winter snowfall in J+K, HP and Uttarakhand has been almost 50% below average.

   These are reasons enough, Mr. Javadekar, for you to reconsider the manner in which you are diluting the Forests Rights Act and proposing to amend and weaken the three pillars of our environmental regulatory edifice- the Indian Forest Act, the Wildlife Act and the Forest Conservation Act. Mr. Minister, you need to spend sleepless nights over the fact that your own SFR report states that between 1999 and 2013 the country has lost 10.60 million hectares of original forests. The govt. should revisit its decision to notify only 27% of the Western Ghats as Eco-Sensitive Zone instead of the 37% recommended by the Kasturirangan Committee: this alone will protect an additional 13000 sq. kms of the ghats on which all the rivers of the southern peninsula are dependent. Stop whittling away our precious Protected Area network for industries, projects and highways. Give up the China inspired folly of damming our mountain rivers out of existence. Don't rush into inter-linking of rivers without carrying out honest EIAs.

   MOEF should take the initiative in persuading the Agriculture Ministry to develop a Crop policy for the country that is based on climate and hydrology, not avarice and the peddling of influence: there should be no place for sugarcane in Maharashtra or paddy in Punjab, both of which are water stressed states. Steps should be taken to reverse the depletion of underground aquifers; the adverse impact of indiscriminate free power for agriculture should be assessed: this is a primary reason for over exploitation of underground water. Equally important is to develop a national Drought Code which can conserve and prioritize scarce water resources in times of droughts. There is much to be done beyond the court hearings and prime time discussions, and much more at stake than mere TRPs.

    Take care of the natural environment and it will take care of the GDP.

   The next time there will be no IPL to fix as a scapegoat. 

THE POPULIST CHALLENGE TO THE JUDICIARY-- A DANGEROUS PORTENT

     The institutions provided by our constitution to safeguard democracy are in a mess, except perhaps one. Our polity has become vapid, venal. opportunistic, populist and, of late, unashamedly majoritarian. The bureaucratic structure has been bludgeoned into indifference, if not abject submission. The media is sometimes effective but commercialised to a degree that its credibility is now suspect. The only institution in which the people can still repose some faith is the higher judiciary- specifically the Supreme Court, High Courts and the NGT( National Green Tribunal)- though even with them the deterioration in quality, transparency and priorities is a matter of concern. Notwithstanding this however, the Judiciary has ( most of the time) defended the Constitution admirably. It is, in fact, the only institution which stands between the country and anarchy today. It is, however, faced with a new danger- defiance of its authority under the garb of a "people's mandate".

     This has been happening insidiously for some years now, both at the center and the states, but it is only recently that it has been given an official mandate. Its legitimisation was conferred by none other than our Union Finance Minister when, some months back, he referred to a judgement of the Supreme Court as the " tyranny of the unelected". Mr. Jaitley is not only erudite and articulate, he is also an exceptionally gifted lawyer who chooses his words with care; we should not assume, therefore, that these words were simply flights of oratory. They were meant to convey a veiled message to the Court, viz. that public policy can only be framed by the "elected" ( read politicians) and that any interpretation of the constitutional validity of such policy is also to be determined by those who are " elected", namely, Parliament and state legislatures( and therefore, by implication, not by the Courts). Subsequent events seem to bear out the purport of this new doctrine which is fraught with danger for our republic.

     A constitutional democracy is much more than majoritarianism or the " tyranny of the majority" which is what Mr. Jaitley appears to be espousing. The sheer weight of numbers, in the legislatures or in the streets( which is increasingly the same thing) cannot nullify the rights, responsibilities,separation of powers, differentiated roles of organs of the state, protections and safeguards which the Constitution provides. The job of ensuring this is that of the judiciary: if it also fails, then all is lost. But the politician would have won. The recent instances of an almost open defiance of the judiciary, therefore, should be viewed with concern by every discerning citizen of the country.

     This dangerous trend is very much in evidence in some important cases over just the last two months. In all of them there were existing orders of the Supreme Court/ NGT which were sought to be either defied outright or by- passed or nullified by legislation by both, state and central governments.

    The most cynical of all these instances relates to the reservation for Jats in Haryana. The Supreme Court has time and again laid down the law on this vexed subject, viz. that total reservation cannot exceed 50%, and that reservation for OBCs must be based on tangible data on backwardness( for which state and central Commissions have been established). Successive govts have been attempting, for crass reasons of vote bank politics, to give the Jats reservations as OBCs, even though the National Backward Classes Commission has categorically recommended that they are NOT backward. Both the state High Court and the Supreme Court in 2015 struck down laws granting them reservation on these precise grounds. Instead of respecting these judgements, however, the BJP has capitulated to the thugs of the national highways and has defied the Courts by passing an Act on 29th March giving 10% reservation to the Jats and raising the total reservation to 67%. The Center is also poised to bring legislation, via a private member's Bill, to do away with the statututory requirement to consult the NCBC in such matters. Both are a direct challenge to the SC. To be sure, this is not the first time that states and the center have sought to undo or circumvent the law to favour some politically powerful and muscular community or the other- in the past the SC has had to strike down similar reservations in Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and UP. But it begs the question: is it only the Supreme Court's responsibility to abide by the Constitution?

     In the " Jallikattu" case the center again created a legal flashpoint. This particularly barbaric          " festival" of Tamil Nadu in which bulls are brutalised on the occasion of Pongal had been held by the SC to inflict cruelty on the animals and it had banned this sport. Spurred on by a potential ally ( Jayalalitha) in the coming elections to allow it as a mark of respect for the people's wishes the center earlier this year amended the relevant Act to permit bulls to be used for sport. It did this in the full knowledge that the amendment would be struck down by the SC, but it went ahead anyway. This again raises the question: was the govt. simply testing the waters or is this part of a deliberate ploy to weaken the Court by salami tactics?( The Animal Welfare Board of India challenged the amendment and it has been struck down by the SC. The central government is now concentrating its efforts to get all the members of the AWBI to resign for opposing a govt. policy!).

    Take the most recent case of the imposition of President's rule in Uttarakhand, where the govt. was dismissed just 24 hours before it was to take a trust vote in the legislature. Nothing as blatant as this has happened since Mrs. Gandhi imposed Emergency in 1975. This action also flies in the face of the doctrine which was first expounded by the SC in the SR Bommai case of 1994 and is now considered to be well settled law- viz. that the only place to test the majority of an elected govt. is on the floor of the legislature. By not allowing this to happen the BJP govt. again appears to be sending a signal to the judiciary: you may pronounce your orders based on the Constitution, but we shall do what is in our interest because we are elected and you are not! This way lies certain disater.

    The state govts are also not to be left behind in this race to show the Supreme Court who is boss. Mr. Fadnavis of Maharashtra seems to have made it his personal mission in life to defy the SC and to impose his regressive brand of morality on the state. To set an example he has chosen the ten thousand dance bars of Mumbai which provide much needed, honest employment to lakhs of women. He banned them on grounds of "indecency" the moment he came to power. The ban was naturally and quite rightly struck down by the High Court and the Supreme Court. You would expect that Mr. Fadnavis would respect the orders of the courts, wouldn't you? You would be wrong. For the last eighteen months this lamentable Chief Minister has ensured that the dance bars do not reopen: the moment the Court strikes down one order he comes out with another, and so on. In this infantile game of " catch me if you can" he is showing immense disrespect for the majesty of the law.

    The Badals in Punjab are playing out an even more dangerous version of Fadnavis's game.  The case of the Sutlej Yamuna Link Canal is one which has been festering for more than two decades, ever since the Supreme Court directed Punjab to construct its portion of the canal so that the waters of the Sutlej could start flowing to other states as per their water sharing agreements. This was first shown the finger by Amarinder Singh in 2002 who passed legislation abrogating unilaterally all agreements on water sharing. Challenged in the Supreme Court and expecting inevitable dismissal of this rogue legislation, the Badals will be hard put to explain why they have not complied with the earlier SC order in the nine years they have been in power. There is also an election in the offing, to win which they have nothing to show other than the thousands of crores their extended family has amassed. The solution? One which is becoming increasingly popular with politicians- confront the Supreme Court brazenly by stating that the people are opposed to the court's rulings. This statement came in the form of another law rammed through by the Badals last month, returning to the farmers all the land acquired for the construction of the SYL. The logic is impeccable- how can the canal be built if there is no land available for it? In other words, make the SC order unimplementable. Last heard, this had also been challenged in the SC.

     And the contagion is now spreading to powerful non-state actors. The BCCI is refusing to implement the recommendations of the Lodha Committee( approved by the Supreme Court) on the administration of cricket in India. It has been two months now but not a single recommendation has been implemented; instead the BCCI has flooded the Court with all manner of applications and objections.

   Sri Sri Ravi Shanker of AOL fame continues to defy the NGT as regards the fine/ compensation of Rupees five crores imposed on AOL for ravaging the Yamuna flood plains in Delhi. He first announced, in a rather un-Godly manner for a Godman, that he would rather go to jail, then he negotiated an arrangement by which he would pay Rs. 25 lakhs immediately and the rest by the 1st of April 2016. All Fool's Day has come and gone and he appears to have played the trick on the NGT by not paying up. Now he says that he will only pay up after the assessment of the damage, IF ANY, is done ( BY HIS OWN PEOPLE, NO LESS!). He has magnanimously offered to furnish a Bank Guarantee instead! The NGT is dithering over this last offer.

     The problem with these repeated challenges to the judiciary is manifold. Firstly, it shows scant respect, if not downright contempt, for the judicial system: if elected governments themselves repeatedly disregard the law as laid down by the courts then the whole democratic fabric of the nation itself starts unravelling. Secondly, there is something unethical and irresponsible about passing the buck to the Courts for problems created by the political executive and further compounded by their lack of political will to resolve within the limits of the Constitution. Thirdly, such blatant brinkmanship conveys the fallacious and mischievous message to the public that the government is willing but the courts are standing in the way of the public getting what they want. In the long run this can only erode the majesty and stature of the courts: once this happens, the consequences can only be lawlessness, anarchy or fascism.

    It must be said that the blame is not entirely that of the governments or the powerful entities who have long manipulated our judicial system. A large part of the blame has to be accepted by the Courts themselves. They have not asserted themselves in the same manner as they do when their individual or class privileges are concerned. There is no reason why contempt notices were not issued against Messers Jaitley, Badal and Fadnavis for their statements and actions. ( Even the Supreme Court of Bangladesh-a far less evolved nation- has recently convicted two of its Union Ministers for contempt of court and for denigrating the stature of the Court by their statements). There is no reason why the Supreme Court cannot send out a clear message to ALL governments that any order or legislation by them that contravenes the law laid down would invite censure and costs. There is no reason to justify the NGT's accommodating attitude to AOL. In this case the NGT has given all concerned far too much leeway: the so-called cultural festival should never have been permitted, the officers of the DDA and MOEF who gave permission for the event in defiance of the NGT order of January 2015 should have been proceeded against for contempt of court, Sri Sri should be sent to jail a-la Sahara Shri if he does not pay up as committed by him. I would be the first to acknowledge that the NGT is doing a commendable job in trying to preserve the natural environment, but its fulminations are becoming predictable as they are not being backed up by strict action. Imposing fines won't turn a hair on a bureaucrat's head because the fines are paid by the tax-payer. Fines should be imposed on the person( not the organisation), and a few need to be sent to jail for serial offences or negligence. The NGT is in danger of becoming what Dryden described as " willing to wound but afraid to strike." It is important that our courts dispel the rapidly growing impression that there are different laws for different people, and that they are loath to take on the elected classes.

The politicians, plutocrats and revisionists are making their moves. To the many layers of populism laid by the previous governments is being added the even more fissionable layer of majoritarianism by the present one. All their elements will sooner or later come to the higher courts- firebrand nationalism, bans of various kinds, status of minority institutions, religious conversions, autonomy of institutions, and much more that we cannot even conceive of at the moment. The future of this nation as a democratic republic depends on how our higher judiciary responds to these emerging legal and social challenges.

   

THE DEPUTY COMMISSIONER'S DOG

     Those joining the IAS come form all religious faiths and creeds, excluding possibly the Mormons and born-again Adventists . But for any IAS probationer training in a district there is only one God- the Deputy Commissioner. The DC( as he is generally known) has all the attributes of divinity, is to be obeyed without question, can make no mistake, is the acme of success, represents the majesty of the state, and his every word is etched in stone. That was the prevailing general wisdom in the spring of 1976 when I was informed at Mussoorie that I had to do my district training in Mandi district in Himachal: the DC, I learnt, was one Mr. C.D.Parsheera of the 1967 batch.

    Mr. Parsheera was precisely 5 feet 3 inches tall and it took me some time to spot him behind the huge table ( mounted on a two foot high platform) from where generations of DCs had dispensed justice. He handed me a folder and said, with an impish gleam in his eye that was his hallmark:         "Shukla, here's your training schedule in various offices. But your real training will be at my residence, from 7.00 PM to 10.00 PM every evening. Don't even think of missing it!"

   And that's how it was for the next six months. During the day I learnt the hardware of government- rules, procedures, processes, programmes- and in the evenings the vital software and OS, without which the former was useless. Mr. Parsheera was fond of the Hippocrene and used to boast that he could do what even Jesus could not: whereas Jesus converted water into wine, he could convert wine into water!- and he did, prodigious quantities of it. But I'm getting ahead of my tale.

   On my first visit to the DC residence that evening I was shown into an empty sitting room; I was as nervous as a patient in a dentist's chair. I straightened my tie. combed back my hair ( I had plenty of it back then), polished my shoes with my hankie and sat back, as if reclining on an egg souffle . Presently, a little wire haired terrier ambled into the room with a swagger that indicated it was aware of its exalted position as the DC's dog. It saw me, gave a magisterial bark as if asking me to identify myself. I sat still, unaware of the social status of a DC's dog. The little horror walked over to me and started sniffing around my ankles. Suddenly, it raised one leg and piddled all over my polished shoes! I instinctively kicked out, landing a satisfying blow on its ribs: the pooch howled and made for the door- through which in walked the DC. His practiced eye took in everything in an instant.

" Shukla," he asked in a menacing voice, " did you just kick my dog?"

" Yes, sir, " I blurted, " he piddled all over my shoes."

" Consider yourself privileged, young man- he usually ignores all probationers. But don't EVER kick my dog again."

" But...but..sir," I tried to explain, sticking one foot out," my shoes..."

" Irrelevant!" ruled Mr. Parsheera. " Take this as your first lesson: A DC's dog ranks above an IAS probationer at all times, and you will not raise your voice, let alone your foot, against him ever again." So that was my first lesson in service, and a good one too, for in the IAS your batch and seniority determine the rest of your life. In fact, there's nothing more interesting than watching two IAS officers, strangers to each other, meeting for the first time: they will circle around each other like two wolves in a wolf pack, sniffing tentatively, trying to determine each other's batch; once that is figured out and the pecking order established, normal social behaviour is restored.

   The evenings at Mr. Parsheera'a house, with the whiskey flowing like a perennial mountain stream, taught me more about government than the year I spent in the Academy. His core team, hardened Bacchanalians all of them, comprised ( if I remember correctly) Mohar Singh the G.A, T.R. Sharma the SDM( Sadar), Captain Hiralal the LAO, and Dr. Pandeya the C.M.O. Listening to this merry band of Revenue Officers I was exposed to the entire gamut of survival techniques needed to progress in the bureaucracy: how to handle the ego ( and more important, the personal staff) of a visiting Chief Minister or Governor, how to keep an MLA on your side without doing his work, how to extract a new car from a stingy Finance Department, how to reply to an Assembly Question without giving any  worthwhile information, how to control an unruly mob when the police have all run away, how to show the same water-harvesting structure from four different angles in order to quadruple the performance statistics! Invaluable strategies that stood me in good stead and later enabled me to rise even higher than my generally acknowledged level of incompetence.

   Mr. Parsheera was only about 32 years old at the time but looked like he was 22 or so, as all Lahaulas do till the day they are buried. but he was mature and seasoned far beyond his years and watching him deal with the public and politicians was a treat. He was also instinctively smart and savvy far beyond his humble beginnings in a small Lahaul village. To cite just one example: he hardly ever went to the District Club even though he was its President, though he would tipple at home every night. I once asked him about this and his reply was: " To avoid rubbing shoulders with people who have have some work with me. Always remember, Shukla, its very difficult to say NO to a person with whom you've had a drink the previous night,"

   On one occasion he asked me to accompany him to Shimla for a meeting, just to prove to me what a waste of time Secretariat meetings were. In those simpler days DCs had no cars, just Willy's Jeeps. Mr. Parsheera insisted on driving himself, his boyish head barely visible above the steering wheel. We drove into Shimla at full speed , the black flag of the DC fluttering imposingly from the bonnet. At the bus stand we were stopped by a police constable, an unusual occurrence for a DC's car. The constable walked over to Mr. Parsheera's window, looked meaningfully at the flag, patted the DC on his right cheek and said: " Beta, jab Papa gadi me nahi hote hain to jhandi utar diya karo." ( Son, when your dad is not in the car then you should remove the flag). Completely unabashed, Mr. Parsheera pointed at me, said " Yeh mere papa hain !" ( He is my Dad!) and drove on. There was nothing officious about him ( as a tribal boy who had made it to the IAS there was nothing left for him to prove) and he could always see the funny side of things- another survival technique, by the way!).

   Mr. Parsheera was keen that I should marry a beautiful Mandi girl. In those days Mandi was known as the Paris of north India and its girls were pretty, fashionable and educated. I was advised by the DC that I should hang out at Gandhi Chowk every evening and in no time at all my plight would be trothed with some hill beauty. Now, for those not acquainted with Mandi town, Gandhi Chowk is to Mandi what Connaught Place used to be to Delhi or Oxford Street to London- the fashionable hub for the young and trendy. Gandhi Chowk is the offline equivalent of Matrimony.com where couples suss out each other, meet, date and eventually tie the knot till debt do them part. For a probationer, " advice" from a DC is actually an Order, so I took to hanging out at Gandhi Chowk every evening, circumambulating around the statue in the middle more times than the Orbiter has gone around Mars. It was, however, to no avail: the maidens of Mandi were not only beautiful, they were also smart and obviously detected in me the fatal flaw which in later years prevented me from becoming Chief Secretary! They stayed away, and I had to go back to Kanpur to find a wife- in UP you can be a lump of Kryptonite, but if you are in the IAS, your marriage prospects are bright. For Mr. Parsheera, however, it was an abiding regret that he could not succeed in this venture.

  One never forgets one's first DC, just as one never forgets one's first love. My DC died young. Mr. Parsheera suffered a massive heart attack while crossing the Rohtang pass in 1983 and was dead by the time they brought him to Manali. I attended his wake the next day at Manali: it was the last evening I spent with him and got thoroughly drunk. I know he would have approved.