Political pilgrims rarely understand the agony of those who actually vote

By PRABHU CHAWLA

05th May 2013 06:51 AM

Elections don’t decide the fate of politicians alone.  Nowadays, electoral verdicts too define or demolish the image of many self-appointed political astrologers, number-crunchers, opinion-makers, spin doctors and even master strategists of various political parties. Such a fate awaits many of them as the Karnataka Assembly election results are expected on Wednesday.

Of course, the flavour of the month seems to be the Congress party. Since opinions are disseminated as news, and real news as mere speculation, Karnataka is going to be a real test case for the media and scores of byte smiths-turned-TVrattis of every colour and conviction. Karnataka will either explode or reinforce the general belief that now it is leaders, and not parties, who win elections in the states. Karnataka is perhaps the only state in which the battle is between individuals and a faceless national party. Unlike many other states which went to the polls recently, Karnataka’s voters will have to choose between two national and two regional parties. 

If we go by the opinion polls, the odds are heavily stacked against both the BJP and Janata Dal(S) led by former prime minister H D Deve Gowda and his son, former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy. The opinion that both are doomed has been further strengthened by anecdotes from political pilgrims on seasonal visits to the state. Such pilgrimages to election-bound states have always been aimed at finding space for a brahminical order dominated by the Congress culture. In UP last year, armed with opinion polls or ground reports, the soothsayers were pushing the idea of a Congress-supported SP-led government. In the end, Samajwadi Party won an absolute majority, with the Congress barely in fourth position. 

Since these political augurs hardly understand the local language or the agony of those who actually vote, they end up meeting only those who fall in the category of “me, mine and my type”. B S Yeddyurappa and Kumaraswamy are alien to their culture. It is only the likes of foreign-educated S M Krishna and his ilk who represent the voice and pulse of the people—they are the only ones who understand the idiom of communication and dictate the narrative of electoral politics.

There is no doubt that the BJP provided Karnataka with one of the most corrupt governments ever. It is also a fact that the Gowdas are shining examples of political opportunism. But both parties won or lost elections because of individuals and not ideology. On the contrary, the Congress has an ideology but doesn’t have a leader who can be trusted to provide a strong leadership to steer the state out of the mess. On the other hand, local voters know the three chief ministerial contenders—Kumaraswamy, Jagdish Shettar and Yeddyurappa. According to television reports, almost all local leaders have been drawing crowds bigger than most national leaders. Manmohan Singh’s Bangalore meeting was delayed for half an hour because there weren’t enough crowds. Barring Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi, hardly any national leader made his presence felt in the state.

Since the Congress has been out of power for almost a decade now in Karnataka, it is finding it difficult to project any leader. All its honchos like Krishna, Veerappa Moily, Mallikarjun Kharge and others don’t enjoy pan-Karnataka acceptability and have been out of active state politics. But the pollsters parrot that Karnataka is turning out to be an exception and its people may vote for a national party, but not a regional leader. In more than half the states such as Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Himachal Pradesh and even Pudducherry, the electorate has always voted for a leader who was projected as future CM. Moreover, wherever the choice was between an incumbent national and a local party, the voters have always defeated the former and chosen the latter. For example, in 1989, the Congress decided to go it alone in Tamil Nadu under G K Moopanar’s leadership, but it was the DMK that came to power.

In Karnataka too, the undivided Janata Dal led by Deve Gowda defeated the Congress in 1995 to form the government. So, poll predictions in favour of the Congress not only indicate a trend that is witnessed in the rest of the country but also contradict opinion polls. Almost all opinion polls have confirmed that Kumaraswamy is the most popular candidate for the Karnataka chief ministership followed by Yeddyurappa. According to the prognosticators, however, the Congress would get the maximum votes. The BJP and JD(S) are solidly backed by two dominant communities—the Vokkaligas and Lingayats—while none of Karnataka’s major communities back the Congress. Even in 2008, it polled the highest percentage of votes, but it was BJP that won a near majority with fewer votes. For the Congress to win an absolute majority, it will have to break the caste and community coalition, which is heavily positioned against it at the moment.

There are many more flaws and inconsistencies in political astrology. For example, there appears to be a strong anti-incumbency wave against the BJP, but less against the chief minister. Similarly, there is hardly any negative outrage against Kumaraswamy, who is perceived as one of the most decisive chief ministers the state has seen in recent times. The Karnataka verdict has a bigger significance for national politics. Besides deciding the survival of the UPA in Delhi, it will also define the future contours of national politics. A Congress victory in Karnataka would mean the erosion of regional parties and the downfall of local satraps. A mutilated Hand would cripple a 120-year-old party and its ability to retain  authority.

Prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com

Follow him on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

The Supreme Court has strongly endorsed the role of the gram sabhas as democratic decision-making fora on issues of individual, community and cultural rights of tribals and traditional forest dwellers. Its recent ruling in the Niyamgiri bauxite mining case has far-reaching impact because environmental laws such as the Forest (Conservation) Act, the Forest Rights Act and the Environment (Protection) Act are given scant respect by industrial project proponents looking for natural resources. This trend has accelerated in recent years, with national development being measured by a single number, the Gross Domestic Product. Under pressure, the Ministry of Environment and Forests has generally adopted a benign approach to enforcement. In the bauxite mining project promoted by the Vedanta group in Odisha, the Ministry made a welcome exception and recorded “violations too egregious to be glossed over.” The Supreme Court order in the case, endorsing the rights of tribals under the Forest Rights Act and the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act to make fresh claims and designating the gram sabhas as the competent fora to decide them, should end strong arm measures against defenceless communities. It is beyond doubt that there is an organic connection between tribals and the land, and this has been accepted by the Supreme Court in another case in 1997. That bond must be respected.

Besides this fundamental issue, several key questions relating to negative externalities caused by development projects have also been addressed: diversion of forest land for industry should be compensated through payment of Net Present Value; separate funds must be earmarked for compensatory afforestation and wildlife management; designated pre-tax profits should be allocated for development of scheduled areas. Unfortunately, such basic requirements are often portrayed as impediments to economic growth, and environmental losses stand ignored. Moreover, a transparent, independent assessment mechanism to monitor implementation of conditions set for grant of clearance does not exist. In Odisha, for instance, environmental rules and conditions were brazenly violated by Vedanta Alumina when it launched the expansion of its project before clearance was given, a fact recorded by the Saxena committee of the Environment Ministry. Now that the gram sabhas, and thereafter the MoEF have another opportunity to revisit the Niyamgiri project, they must ensure that tribal rights are recognised. The Supreme Court order is a good precedent for all projects that have environmental and social consequences. Development is a natural aspiration, but it must be genuine and not result in the loss of even the existing quality of life.

Keywords: Vedanta bauxite mining project, Niyamgiri Hills, Niyamgiri project, Dongria Kondh tribals, Supreme Court, tribals rights

The acquittal of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in a 1984 riot case extinguishes every glimmer of hope for substantial justice to the Sikh victims of the bloody pogrom that took place in the nation’s capital in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination. The judge found three men guilty of murder and two of rioting, but was not convinced that Mr. Kumar had instigated the riots. The verdict is bound to reinforce the view that politically well-connected persons will continue to evade the law, helped as they are by an excruciatingly slow judicial process, manipulated investigations and shoddy prosecutions. The positive feature of Judge J.R. Aryan’s 129-page verdict is that it recognises the value of the testimony of the first prosecution witness Jagdish Kaur despite 28 years having elapsed since her husband, son and three cousins were killed in the Raj Nagar area of Delhi Cantonment. However, her credibility, according to the court, is limited to her account of these five deaths and does not extend to her claim that she had seen Mr. Kumar, then the local MP, addressing a crowd of supporters, while she was on her way to the police station on the morning of November 2, 1984. And two other witnesses who sought to corroborate her version, also failed to convince the trial judge. It did not help matters that Ms Kaur, who testified about Mr. Kumar’s role before the Justice Nanavati Panel in 2000, had, presumably out of fear, omitted mention of the Congress leader in her submission to the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission soon after the massacres.

While appreciating the Central Bureau of Investigation for persisting with its charges against Mr. Kumar despite the complicity of sections of the Delhi police with the suspects in the early stages, one must fault the agency for limiting its charge sheet to simple oral testimony by witnesses that they had seen Mr. Kumar berating his supporters for not doing enough damage to the Sikhs and warning that even Hindus offering shelter to them must be killed and their houses burnt. Given the deliberate inaction on the part of the Delhi police and, in some cases, its active collaboration, the agency ought to have more diligently pursued a possible conspiracy angle. There is not a whisper in the testimony discussed in the verdict on the party affiliations of the rioters, or how the mob came to assemble in the area or the extent of planning and coordination behind the organised riots. Sadly, at no stage has any investigation seriously attempted to grapple with the vital element of political complicity, a curious omission since the thugs who wreaked murder and arson across the national capital for three days were only executing what someone in authority had deliberately willed. Until the time these instigators are identified and punished, 1984 will always haunt the conscience of India.

Keywords: Congress leader Sajjan Kumar, Anti-Sikh riots trial, Indira Gandhi assassination, 1984 Anti-Sikh riots, Sajjan Kumar acquittal

In its annual monetary policy statement for 2013-14, the Reserve Bank of India was not expected to depart from the cautious stance that has characterised its recent policy statements. Therefore, the reduction in the policy repo rate by just 0.25 percentage points to 7.25 per cent has not caused much disappointment, although there were some who were hoping for a similar cut in the Cash Reserve Ratio too. Whatever expectations there were of more generous monetary easing were dashed by the RBI’s report on the macro economy which was released a day ahead as a backdrop to the monetary policy statement. The report, after listing various macro-financial risks, said that “the space for action for 2013-14 remains very limited.” In its March policy statement too the RBI had conveyed the same message. These statements are, however, not cast in stone and much would depend on the rapidly changing growth-inflation dynamic in India and abroad. For now, inflation remains a big worry, even though WPI inflation for March 2013 had turned out to be lower than the RBI estimate. For 2013-14, the RBI expects it to be range bound, at around 5.5 per cent, with the March 2014 target even lower at 5 per cent. The Consumer Price Index-based inflation rate remains in double digits, a point surprisingly not highlighted by the RBI.

Economic growth during the current year is expected to be not more than 5.7 per cent, which is far lower than the 6.4-6.5 per cent that the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council and, earlier, the budget had estimated. This is another instance of the central bank being cautious, no doubt prompted by its expectation of sluggish performance in both industry and services. Interestingly, the RBI’s baseline growth projection of 5.5 per cent for last year turned out to be higher than the official estimate of 5 per cent. Among the major macroeconomic risks, the biggest is the current account deficit, which last year was at its historic high and well above the 2.5 per cent level which the RBI considers to be sustainable. As much as the size of the CAD, its financing exposes the economy to the risk of sudden stop and reversal of capital flows. The advanced economies from where these flows originate themselves face an uncertain economic outlook. Within India, a growth revival is not possible without a revival in investment. But business confidence is at a low and both borrowers and lenders have become risk averse. Finally, the effectiveness of monetary policy in easing inflation pressures could be undermined by supply constraints in the economy, especially in critical areas like food and infrastructure.

Keywords: RBI, CRR, Annual Monetary Policy, CAD, Inflation, repo rate, Indian economy

The economic vulnerabilities that confront households in the current sluggish recovery from the global meltdown are aggravating the fight against child labour, says the International Labour Organisation. Its latest report emphasises the need for universal coverage of at least a minimum level of social security to help some 215 million working children. Half that number is trapped in the worst forms of child labour — work akin to slavery, debt bondage, child prostitution and hazardous occupations harmful to health and safety. To be sure, the number of child workers did drop by some 30 million in the last decade. But job losses in the adult population in the wake of the global financial crisis and shocks related to crop failure and recurrent freak weather patterns are threatening a reversal of recent gains. The report collates findings from various studies that establish a clear correlation between adverse macro-economic indicators and the recourse to child labour. Correspondingly, cash transfers are known to prove effective in reducing child labour in Asia and Latin America, subject to supply-side conditions such as the availability of education facilities. Similarly, in many African countries where parents have been lost to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, social protection measures such as health insurance, targeted at the elderly, ensure uninterrupted school attendance among children.

It is abundantly clear then that the elimination of child labour is predicated upon making progress on many fronts. Getting kids to go to school, a key priority that drove the abolition campaign a decade ago, is obviously a necessary but not sufficient condition for the eradication of child labour. Surely, there has been a surge in enrolments in recent years and there has even been some talk of devising ways to retain wards beyond primary school. But all of this presupposes a sound overall policy framework to be sustained over the long term. A scenario where as much as 75 per cent of the global population (more than 5 billion people) has no access to comprehensive social protection, as per ILO estimates, hardly inspires confidence in the capacity of countries to kick start the lives of millions. To make headway, governments must be prepared to spend more. A hugely influential 2010 study which claimed that public debt ratios in excess of 90 per cent of gross domestic product would automatically lead to a decline in growth has recently been exposed as relying on erroneous calculations, a fact conceded by its authors. Several governments that have so far persisted with crippling austerity measures to cut back on welfare spending, with severe socio-political ramifications, should reconsider their stance.

Keywords: child labour, International Labour Organisation, Social security, child rights, child prostitution, school dropouts 

I have been apolitical all my life and do not see why I should change into a political person, says Vinod Rai

In an exclusive interview to The Hindu on the sidelines of an audit event in Jaipur on Saturday, Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Raireflects on his tenure and answers the criticism that has been made of the CAG’s recent reports on 2G and coal.

After an eventful five years, your tenure is coming to an end this month. A criticism that some in government have made is that your reports have strayed from the path of auditing and begun to question policy.

We have never commented on policy formulation. In April 2008, immediately after I took over as CAG, I addressed senior civil servants and explained that auditors and those in the administration are on the same side. There should not be any ‘we’ and ‘they’ relationship since both of us are engaged in the job of ensuring good governance.

The executive implements government policy and our job as external auditor is to audit the government’s expenditures and implementation of policies, post the events. We believe that we are as much in the process of upgrading governance as anybody else is. We do not question policy. We only audit implementation.

I think it is an entirely incorrect perception that at any point we have questioned policy prescriptions or formulations. If you read 2-3 of our performance audit reports recently, in the introductory part itself we have said that policy formulation is the sole prerogative of the executive. We recognize that and respect it. What we audit is the implementation of that policy. Also, at times we have tried to see in the course of our audit whether that policy is suboptimal.

We have never taken on the role of policy formulation or even questioned policy formulation. We just audit the implementation of policies and not a single instance has been pointed out to us where we have questioned policy. Yes, we may have compared policies formulated by the government just to find out sub optimality.

There has also been some criticism of reports being leaked to the media.

Auditing goes through four or five layers. The first level of audit is when we make basic queries. Those questions cover a whole gamut of issues. The answers come, and at that stage, 80 per cent of what we ask is dropped because the answers satisfy us.

Now, at that stage if someone makes an RTI application about what the questions asked were and if we release those queries, these would give a very incorrect picture. This is because the media does not see the answers and that is where it becomes slightly misleading. If you ask me, in hindsight, I would like to suggest to government and Parliament that since we prepare reports for presentation to Parliament, thus anything that we do leading to the presentation should come into the public domain only after this has been done.

This is mostly because at the intermediate stage if any of this is seen by the public it is half baked and may give a very incorrect position.

The media being the media may want to sensationalise some issues and thus sometimes you have instances where out of context issues create headlines.

Another charge is that the audit process has made officers fearful of taking decisions, has led to policy paralysis.

To argue think that our audits have become a stumbling block to decision-taking is a bogey. It’s an alibi for non-performance because those in the bureaucracy who are dynamic and take decisions in good faith have always done so and come out unscathed.

An audit does not fault a person who may have gone wrong because he or she is exercising judgment every other day and acting in good faith. If something is premeditated and is an act of commission for a benefit, then certainly it is a vigilance issue and we point it out.

Some critics have asked why the coal and 2G audits which led to scams being probed deal only with the tenure of the UPA government and ignored what went on during the NDA’s time.

If you look at the spectrum issue, our report points out that the entire spectrum phenomenon had been audited by us. We had audited up to 2002 and thereabouts. The only difference was that they were financial audits or compliance audits and we had not gotten deep into the implementation of policies.

After 2002, when we have taken up this audit, it is a performance audit. In the process of a performance audit, we have gone into the efficiency and efficacy of the implementation of whatever policies the government had formulated. This is the only difference. We picked up a particular Cabinet decision and saw whether it has been implemented or not. That is it.

When different arms of government were seeking a market discovery process, the department concerned did not accept it. When different arms of government were suggesting market indexation, the concerned department did not accept that. Whereas in its own policy formulation two years later, the same department has gone into a market discovery process through an auction. All that we tried to explain is that the concerns of the Finance Department, the PMO, the Law Ministry were all indicating a market discovery process. What has the nation forgone by not following that process? Unlike the government, we are auditors. As I have explained to the PAC and JPC, ‘presumptive’ and ‘potential’ have been used interchangeably in our report. We have used four models to calculate the loss. The quantum or amount of loss can be debated but that there has been loss cannot be denied.

According to Opposition MPs, the JPC draft report uses the testimony of a retired CAG official of ‘dubious credentials’ to prove you wrong. How would you react to this?

I had explained this to the JPC. I must add that the JPC has been very fair to us because they gave us 3-4 opportunities to clarify our position as well as the thinking or process that had gone into the preparation of this report.

I do not want to comment on any officer. Each officer is as good as the other. It is a fact that this particular officer had done the audit and had made the presentation to the Public Accounts Committee of this audit. He may have had an afterthought and wanted to retract, however that is his choice. I do not want to comment on it. As far as we are concerned, we have explained to the JPC very clearly the processes that have been undergone.

I have 40 years of experience behind me in government. I am extremely proud of this department and its robust processes and there is no way in which an individual — even the CAG — can overrule the findings of the department and superimpose his/her own opinions.

We are totally in agreement with the observations of the Supreme Court. The government can decide that a particular national asset has to be made available to the public as a social welfare activity, irrespective of the cost. All we have been trying to do is compare the government’s policy formulations from time to time. We have never said that in the sale/auction of spectrum, revenue should be maximized. We have only said, as has the Planning Commission, that there should be an element of revenue generation not maximization. There should be a balance between revenue generation and maximization.

In the case of coal, we haven’t questioned anything. All that we have noted is that the secretary said the process was opaque, it was leading to windfall gains and these were his exact words. There was lobbying for these licenses and the minister in charge agreed with the findings of the secretary and decided that there should be a process of market discovery. That is all. We have not questioned any of these decisions. We are 100 per cent with the government and the Supreme Court.

What do you feel about the government’s attempt to make the CAG a multi member body like the Election Commission? Will this bring more checks and balances?

The government has been very fair with us. They sought our opinion around three years back, post the Commonwealth Games, on a multimember body. We pointed out that there are three models of supreme audit institutions in the world today. The first is where the audit is a court of audit and it sits as a multimember bench, it has powers that are punitive. It has the powers of the judiciary, like in France. The second is the commission of audit like in Japan. The third is of a single-member body like in the Canada, UK, Australia and NZ, the US. There is a single body CAG assisted by deputy CAGs, depending on the numbers required. Each model has its own advantages and disadvantages so we left it to the government to decide which would be more suitable in our milieu.

You are considered a symbol of the anti-corruption movement. How do you react to this tag?

It is very unfortunate and that is why I said that the media is fond of headlines. Certainly by no stretch of imagination would I like to be called an anti- corruption crusader because that is not what we are. Auditing has a philosophy. Worldwide, the audits run by supreme auditing institutions are meant to hold the executive financially accountable to the legislature. This is exactly what we are doing.

How do you feel about the past practice of CAGs joining political parties or accepting assignments like governorships?

I would not like to comment on any of my predecessors as each one of them is free to have chosen a career path or life beyond being CAG in his own way. As far as I am concerned, lots of people have said that I have political aspirations. I have been apolitical all my life and do not see any reason why I should change into a political person. I would like to remain active in the various fields that I have experience and proficiency in.

Keywords: Comptroller and Auditor General, Vinod Rai, policy formulation, CAG report, 2G allocation, coal block allocation, audit process

Abe the Bold

After breaking many taboos on domestic economic policy, Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is now in diplomatic overdrive this week in very unlikely places — Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey.

In the first few months since his surprising return to power in Japan, Abe has taken bold steps to revive the long-standing economy — easing monetary supply, spending big and promoting growth in a long stagnant economy. Abe's economic moves, which many consider risky, have helped the yen lose value, boost Japanese exports and raise the approval ratings for the prime minister. He has now turned to diplomatic adventures.

Over the weekend, Abe landed in Russia — the first visit by a Japanese PM to Moscow in 10 years — to impart some political momentum to one of Tokyo's weakest bilateral relationships in the world. After World War II, Russia and Japan did not sign a peace treaty and have long quarreled over four islands, called the Kuriles by Moscow and Northern Territories by Tokyo.

As Japan's relations with China continue to deteriorate and Washington struggles to cope with Beijing's assertiveness, Abe is seeking some room for political manoeuvre for Tokyo by reaching out to Moscow. Moscow has strong ties with Beijing, but is nevertheless is concerned about the implications of China's rapid rise on the regional balance. Russian President Vladimir Putin is happy to test out the possibilities with Abe. Putin is playing hardball on territorial issues and Abe is teasing him with the prospect of Japanese collaboration to revive Russia's manufacturing sector and modernise its energy sector.

At the end of Abe's meeting with Putin on Monday, no breakthroughs were announced. But Abe and Putin declared that "it is abnormal that we don't have a peace treaty 67 years after the end of the World War II". The leaders also instructed their foreign ministers to accelerate the negotiations on drafting a peace treaty and find ways to resolve the dispute over the island territories.

Abe and Putin also want to build on the massive complementarity that has long demanded strong economic cooperation — the massive but underdeveloped hydrocarbon resources in Russia's Far East, and Japan's huge demand for energy imports. While the two sides have agreed to explore cooperation in the energy sector, big commercial deals will have to wait until mutually satisfactory terms are worked out. But Abe and Putin appeared to have broken the ice.

Energy Security
Energy security is at the top of Abe's mind as he travelled from Moscow to Riyadh. It's not been a destination that has drawn Japanese prime ministers in recent years, despite the fact that Saudi Arabia is the biggest source of Japanese oil imports.
The Japanese dependence on Saudi Arabia has intensified in recent years, as the US and Europe squeeze the oil sector of Iran, for long a major supplier of oil to Japan. Reaching out to Saudi Arabia has become an important political objective for Tokyo.
Abe and his advisors are concerned that Japan has kept too low a profile in the Middle East in recent years and ceded too much ground to Chinese companies in the expanding regional market. Abe wants to correct that.

Nuke Sale
One of Abe's biggest political challenges is to revive the Japanese nuclear energy sector that faces huge popular and political resistance after the 2011 disaster at Fukushima atomic power station. While progress at home is hard, Abe is promoting nuclear exports.
In Abu Dhabi, Abe is expected to sign a nuclear cooperation agreement with the UAE. In Ankara, Abe will lobby hard for a joint bid by Japanese and French companies (Mitsubishi and Areva) for a contract to build a nuclear power station at Sinop on Turkey's Black Sea coast. The only remaining competition for the contract, said to be worth more than $20 billion, is China's Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding.

As Delhi watches Tokyo's outreach to Russia and the Middle East, one can only hope some of Abe's audacity will rub off on Manmohan Singh, who plans to visit Tokyo at the end of this month. With Abe pushing Japan into a rare moment of creative diplomacy, Delhi must match Tokyo's new strategic imagination.

The writer is a distinguished fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi and a contributing editor for 'The Indian Express'

Karnataka awaits a decisive verdict

By V Sudarshan

05th May 2013 06:51 AM

• Photos

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  The Congress will walk away with the biggest chunk of seats because people are so unhappy with the experience they had with the BJP.

These days, former external affairs minister S M Krishna does not travel out to exotic destinations, only to a few Assembly constituencies. The Congress did not want his help in winning the Karnataka Assembly elections. Even when he was unceremoniously ejected from the Union Cabinet some months ago, Krishna must have known that he was staring at political oblivion. He told journalists close to him that he knew for sure he was returning to Karnataka but was unsure if he was going to return to the hurly-burly of state politics. Krishna is now a grumpy old man, with a new found love for leisure and music and the like. With four decades of politics behind him, he did not wholeheartedly participate in the electoral melee and he makes it clear in interviews that he is unhappy.

If the Congress had played it better, they could have used the positive recall value that Krishna has in Bangalore for the campaigning in 28 seats, where he might have made a difference. In private, Congressmen admit that they could fall short of a simple majority of 113 when the state goes to polls today. They put their chances at closer to 100. The Congress leadership in Karnataka is divided, Mallikarjun Kharge (Dalit), CLP leader Siddaramaiah (backward, Kuruba, shepherd community, an ex-Deve Gowda loyalist who is now thought to be hobnobbing with Yeddyurappa) and KPCC president G Parameshwara (Dalit). Each one is pulling in a different direction. I am told that in at least 40 seats, the Congress has purposely fielded weak candidates with a view to ensure victory of their friends in other parties. It has, for example, fielded first-timers against the chief minister and deputy chief minister. It is Congress versus Congress.

Even so, the Congress will walk away with the biggest chunk of seats because people are so unhappy with the experience they had with the BJP. The BJP, on its part, was busy flying in stalwarts and big guns, Narendra Modi, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh, Advani, sometimes all on the same day. Even privately, the BJP exuded confidence. It feels it will get close to a hundred seats. Frankly, this may be based entirely on wishful thinking. The BJP is pinning hopes of a win based on the fact that no new scams have emerged after Yeddyurappa left the party. And that along with Yeddyurappa, the rest of bad eggs are gone and therefore, it postulates it is now a clean party. Further, Jagdish Shettar is a Lingayat and from north Karnataka where Lingayats dominate. He will be the battering ram that pummels Yeddyurappa.

Political pundits give Yeddy upto 10 seats, considering that not many of his strong supporters who are ministers in the government, and who could have won on their own, like Industries Minister Murugesh Nirani, Agriculture Minister Umesh Katti and Water Resources Minister Basavaraj Bommai, did not embrace him. Many MLAs also refrained from joining the Yeddy brigade. What he thought would be a flood of support, turned out to be more of a trickle. Yet, one thing is sure. Whether he wins seats or not, Yeddyurappa will eat into BJP votes and not into Congress votes. If the Congress falls short of majority, it may look to him, if Independents do not swing the Congress way.

Amid this, the Janata Dal (Secular) is like a patient vulture, waiting for a split verdict.

Sudarshan@newindianexpress.com

The many pitfalls of playing with minority politics

By Arun Nehru

05th May 2013 06:51 AM

General Elections are around the corner and leaders at this point will do and say anything to strengthen their political hold on voters. Thus, a certain amount of irrationality can be expected. We have seen posturing by everyone this Parliament Session and I think the Samajwadi Party qualifies for the first prize. Observe the comments of Mulayam Singh Yadav, who while criticising the Chinese incursion said the Army should chase away the intruders and China is our enemy No. 1, not Pakistan. I suppose that the minority vote bank is crucial to the SP leader and the Chinese who number a few hundred in Uttar Pradesh are not important, at least not right now.

Senior SP minister Azam Khan, accompanying Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav who was to deliver a speech at Harvard University, was livid after being held up by Immigration at Boston Airport and left sitting on a bench for half an hour. He insisted that this was done because he was a Muslim. Both leaders refused to attend the Harvard function and returned after lodging their protest. According to media reports, there was an incident at the VVIP lounge of Delhi Airport as well where the staff was accused of discrimination against Muslims. There is no VIP culture in the US, and Boston, after the terror blasts, was on extra alert. There must have been several such unfortunate incidents, but there is a way of lodging your protests.

Uttar Pradesh with 80 seats is crucial for every party and there is no doubt that the SP and BSP may win 50 out of 80 seats between them and the minority vote is crucial for the SP, BSP and Congress, and we are looking at a four-way battle. Every party will put many a VVIP candidate in the field. Early days for a firm forecast, but every party is under pressure to retain their 2009 numbers and at this stage only the BSP and BJP seem to be looking at an increase in tally while the SP and Congress are under pressure. Bihar with 40 seats also shows both the JD(U) and BJP under pressure and a combination of the Congress, RJD and LJP, if formed, can dent the numbers to a certain extent.

The murder of Sarabjit Singh has struck a chord. Sadly, Pakistan is living in the dark distant past and you can see this attitude on our TV screens as Pakistani experts give their jaundiced views on Indo-Pak relations. Even after major provocations we hoped for better days, but in vain. The government has limited options and clearly, if this is the attitude, we are dealing with a rogue state and a multiplicity of terror outfits.

The global community needs little evidence of their actions but the US still counts on Pakistan for support in Afghanistan. The US agenda includes drone attacks on terror targets in the cities of Pakistan and while there is widespread hatred for this, the Army and ISI have limited option and need the billions they get to maintain their force. We have to tackle the situation by a step-by-step approach as is necessary for a civilised country, but it is time to call the riot police. The elections in Pakistan will produce a government subservient to the Army and it makes little difference who occupies the chair.

We are a democracy and everyone is free to voice their opinion, but I have never quite understood why we allow anti-national elements to fester in our society. Kashmir is an integral part of our country and no government can think differently and it is time that we stopped pampering those who malign India and they have the option of going into PoK for the rest of their lives. The security situation has improved in Jammu and Kashmir and we need to act on the sleeper units with severity.  

The Karnataka elections are on and the battle is fierce; the Congress has its nose in front while the JD(S) seems to be improving its numbers and former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa may do better than expected, compared to BJP.

Arunnehru89@yahoo.in

Nehru is a former Union minister

You don’t understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender I coulda been somebody,” says Marlon Brando to his screen brother in the Elia Kazan classic, On the Waterfront. His lament was that the big brother should have looked out for him, taken care of him just a little bit. His grief was about his future being bartered. It is a grief that finds resonance in India in 2013. It is this very lament of failed expectations from the big brother—the government—that is fuelling the outrage across homes. Middle Class India justifiably feels the nation should be a contender in the world; they believe India can be somebody. If only! They see the wretchedness of politics bartering away a promising future at the altar of survival.

In Parliament and outside, the blame for failure has been pinned on the limited liability politics practiced by the Congress and the leadership of Manmohan Singh. It is tempting to accept the proposition. Contrast the facilities extended to the Italian marines and the failure of the government to intervene for Sarabjit Singh. Indeed, in the past week, almost every day there was a demand for the resignation of the Prime Minister, even by the sister of the deceased Sarabjit. There is no doubting precipitation of sloth and aggravation of failure since nine years.

There is also no denying a sense of disquiet. For many—and certainly to the rational observers—both the public rage and political response seem disproportionate. The chorus for resignations and war-mongering by agony-addicted anchors on television was matched by the rush of political leaders, the state mourning, ex-gratia and post-event instruments of gratification. Is outrage the only option for families of fishermen from Tamil Nadu and Gujarat imprisoned in Sri Lanka and Pakistan? Where will this all lead both sides to? Must decibels dictate governance? Would there be a state funeral for every prisoner who returns home in a casket?

The crux of outrage lies in the rising cult of evasive politics, fuelled by the aggregation of indecision. The arc of indecision extends for decades. Sarabjit was arrested in 1990; he claimed innocence and waited 23 years for the government of India—six prime ministers and as many regimes—to back him. The incursion by China at Daulat Beg Oldi is the consequence of decades of complacency (the only serious attempt was made by A B Vajpayee). It is not just the external front. One instance should suffice: every inter-state river-water dispute in India is over three decades old and none is resolved.

No national political party—or the long tail aggregation of noisy regional parties—can claim immunity from blame for indecision and atrophy. Or corruption! This week, Sushma Swaraj declared the UPA the most corrupt government since Independence. That did not detain the Congress from declaring a day later that the BJP held the world record for corruption in Karnataka. In the 2G case, neither the PAC nor the JPC has answered the big Q. The BJP blames the 2G scam on the UPA while the Congress relocates it to 1999 under NDA. In coalgate, the BJP carbon dates the scam to the UPA regime and wants the Prime Minister to resign. The committee on coal and steel wants all allocations since 1993 cancelled. Truth and indecision is mired in moral equivalence.

Consequently, every crisis presents its own great apparently insurmountable chasm—between the problem and resolution. Resolution demands continuous communication of objectives and outcomes by regimes. There are those who subscribe to this and others who don’t. Narendra Modi is investing his political capital on growth, prosperity and pride. His colleague Murli Manohar Joshi rubbished the global growth model in Parliament. P Chidambaram espouses the cause of investment-led growth on a global road show while his colleagues in rural development and environment specialise in stalling projects. Essentially, no party has one agreed view.

 Every issue that enrages Indians owes its genesis to this politics of expediency and ambiguity of objectives. India’s voters have long treated governance as a function outsourced to professional politicians without recourse to due diligence. The politicos have treated elections as a toll-gate where a premium has to be paid for passage to power and pelf. The emergence of a critical mass of middle class voters and creeping urbanisation is dismantling this status quo. Ergo, the very visible attacks on the establishment led by an expanding vocal brigade.

In a democracy, leaders are obliged to explain decisions to their people, the sovereign. In India, political leadership frequently fails to even explain indecision. The nub of the current conflict lies in the wide disconnect between politicians and their constituents. Middle Class India lives in the 21st Century. It has experienced the gratification of instantaneous response for cash-on-counter mobile recharge, IVRS-enabled phone banking and giga-hertz speeds. Politics is, however, located in the 19th and 20th century and thrives on delays and indecision.

Politicians in India are yet to fully absorb the import and impact of information saturation, 24x7 news cycles, 377 million urbanites and the fact of over 120 million television-connected homes. The viewers watch, compare and wish for real change. Political parties must engage and deliver. Aspiration is now embedded in the political argument. The emerging middle class, they wanna be somebody. India is at an

inflection point. 

shankkar.aiyar@gmail.com

Shankkar Aiyar is the author of  Accidental India: A History of the Nation’s Passage through Crisis and Change

It is now some time since the Chinese “incursion” into Indian territory first took place, and there has been no mitigating gesture from China as yet. After the failure of the third flag meeting, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Thursday said the issue is capable of being resolved “quickly” through the consultation mechanism on border affairs. We are now in a classic situation of coercive diplomacy by the Chinese. The Chinese, who have not rescinded from their original position either on the ground or by their words, have given their minimum essential demands to meet their goals, and by asking “for patience” only imposed a mild degree of urgency on the outcome. Given the Indian predilection to postpone hard decisions, the outcome of this tussle will depend entirely on our will and ability to engage them in “counter-coercive” tactics of which we have seen no evidence so far.

China’s position has to be understood for what it is: if we succumb to their demand to demolish the structures at Daulat Beg Oldi, we will have accepted the principle of coercive diplomacy in future dealings on the border issue with China, put paid to our plans to shore up and upgrade defences on our side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and reduced India’s salience in the western sector; if we don’t succumb and they continue in their present positions, we will have ourselves negated such sanctity of the LAC as we believe. In so doing, we would also call into question the 1993 Agreement on Tranquillity and our own policy.

Global standing

Much has been written about the slide in our holdings on the LAC during the last 25 years to show that the present situation is the outcome of successive governments and Army chiefs choosing to turn a blind eye at the People’s Liberation Army encroachments into what we regard as our side. It looks like Kargil all over again. Our present policy of viewing this “incursion” as something to be defused locally and not affecting “the larger picture” of bilateral relations gives a free pass to our Army and shifts the onus from a collegiate response by Defence, Home and External Affairs only to the last. Like Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis, the Chinese have concluded that the Indian government is one that can be pushed around. Against this backdrop and with elections ahead, our Foreign Minister’s forthcoming visit to Beijing can only be seen as courageous, if not foolhardy. It also calls into question the harping on the importance of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to India later this month. For whom is the visit important and what would be lost if it is put off until this fracas is addressed?

The seriousness of the situation has to be seen in the context of India’s global standing and in South Asia. With the disastrous denouement to the Sarabjit affair, and our unsatisfactory performance in Maldives and Sri Lanka, India’s pre-eminence in the region seems increasingly rhetorical; so also the oft-repeated view of India’s pretensions in the Indo-Pacific in the context of the United States “pivot” to Asia. How we act now will also impact the views of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan when we seek to protect our interests, and retain political and economic space after the U.S. drawdown in 2014. Similarly, we need to recognise that we are conjoined with Japan and Korea in being subjected to China’s aggressive stance. What we do now will have a significant impact on those stand-offs as well.

The levers

The silver lining is that coercive diplomacy rarely succeeds, presenting as it does, a stark choice between overt submission or great loss of face, and two can play this game. We saw our version of it vis-à-vis Pakistan after the terrorist attack on Parliament. We need to put in place “counter-coercive” tactics that will be credible and proportionate. It is imperative to create an asymmetry of motivation that will be tilted towards us. It will require us to calibrate a policy that would back our diplomatic moves, with a will to support it with firm action if warranted, to assert that our vital interests are genuinely at stake. This policy should factor in the economic areas of our bilateral exchanges where China is vulnerable so they become levers in this strategy.

It has to work on an ascending scale involving diplomatic and economic rupture without provoking actual conflict. The goal of this policy will be to hurt not destroy, what the Chinese are attempting to do unilaterally. It will also need the government to demonstrate strong, domestic and national support from all sectors of the country for such a policy. There is also a need to bring international pressure in our favour. We need to show both the ability and the resolution to inflict unacceptable damage on what the opponent considers valuable — its growing effort to project itself as a power capable of becoming a “manager” of the international system. The message we need to deliver is that this stand-off is not in the interest of China or India.

That neither China nor India would appear to believe that this tussle will lead to war gives grounds for hope that an equitable resolution may be possible. If a decision to finally conclude the long-winded border talks is its outcome, so much the better.

(Rajendra Abhyankar, a former diplomat, is chairman, Kunzru Centre for Defence Studies and Research, Pune. He also teaches at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, Bloomington.)

India tested, found wanting

By Bharat karnad

03rd May 2013 07:21 AM

A Chinese military move seriously to test India’s resolve has been on the cards for a long time now. But, this is only a gambit by Beijing to see what level of provocation will get the Indian government to act, and a means to establish a baseline for future actions. Alas, the Chinese planners misjudged how much soft tissue there is in India’s China policy, and foreign and defence policies generally, where spine should be.
From the first, the China Study Group (CSG) headed by the National Security Adviser and old China-hand, Shivshankar Menon, which fuels the Ministry of External Affairs’ thinking on the subject and dictates the government’s response whenever China heaves into view, decreed that the brazen armed intrusion be soft-pedalled. Thus, the depth of penetration in the Depsang Valley in Ladakh by People’s Liberation Army troops was initially stated as 8 km, before this figure was revised to 10 km and later 19 km. Now, 19 km is not a distance that small military units “stray across” as much as it is ground covered in a directed mission and yet, the junior minister in the Home Ministry managing the Chinese border with some miserable paramilitary maintained it was a mere “incursion”, not armed “intrusion”. By such hair-splitting is the Manmohan Singh government determined to do nothing?
China, in the meantime, adopted its standard stance when disrupting peace on undemarcated land and sea borders. It refused to acknowledge there was any such intrusion. When the PLA presence at Raki Nullah could no longer be denied, it stood the incident on its head by accusing the Indian Army of “aggressive patrolling”, and followed up by offering a fantastical trade-off: India ceases construction of necessary border military infrastructure and mothballs the advanced landing fields in the area in return for the status quo ante.
All the while, Beijing took its cues from excuses the MEA offered for the Chinese outrage, saying it arose from “differing perceptions” of where the LAC lay. The MEA minister, Salman Khurshid, revealing his cosmetological skills, then referred to the Chinese ingress as acne that can be cured with “ointment”.
With the offensively-disposed Chinese military units inside Indian territory, it was again the CSG-MEA that offered Beijing a reason to stay put, saying the Chinese should be provided a “face-saving” way out of the mess they created by repairing to the negotiating table, whereupon the Chinese government promptly called for talks to restore peace. It is little wonder China sees India as a punching bag, an easy target to bully and badger.
The conclusion cannot any longer be avoided that either the China Study Group constitutes a Chinese fifth column at the heart of the Indian government, or is staffed by idiot savants. The classic illustration of an idiot savant is a mentally challenged person who can memorise the numbers on the wagons in a freight train rattling past his house, but does not know how to tie his shoelaces or, in this case, can read Confucius’ Analects in the original but is unable to see a straight forward land-grab for what it is — loss of national territory. The mostly Mandarin-speaking diplomats and experts in CSG seem so overawed by China they cannot resist acting as Beijing’s B Team.
At heart, the problem is that the 1962 war so institutionally rattled the MEA they still act groggy from that blow fifty years after the event and cannot recall just how military success was gained against the Chinese PLA, most recently in the 1986 Somdurong Chu incident. Having espied a PLA unit on the Indian side of LAC, General K. Sundarji airlifted troops, surrounded the Chinese encampment, placed artillery on the nearby heights ready to reduce the Chinese position to rubble, and tented a unit just 10 metres from the Chinese camp (not 500 metres as was bandied about in official circles).
It was an initiative, incidentally, the then army chief took disregarding procedure and not consulting the MEA or anyone else in government, whence its success. It unnerved the Chinese who sued for peace.
In contrast, the present army chief, General Bikram Singh who, by repeatedly parroting the government assertion over the past year that China poses no threat and all’s well on that front, in fact, pre-empted any action that Headquarters Northern Army or Leh-based 14 Corps could have instantly taken to vacate the presence of the Chinese troops, and imposed costs on PLA for this little adventure. But subordinate commanders taking their cue from the chief did nothing. The Prime Minister then compounded the trouble by reiterating the MEA-CSG line that this is but a “localised” incident.
Nineteen days into this affair, General Bikram reportedly briefed the Cabinet Committee on Security about prospective actions, such as severing supply links, etc. Except, has he planned on what he’ll do when PLA helicopters or logistics truck convoys turn up to replenish the food and water stocks? Shoot down the ’çopters and destroy the trucks. Fine. Then, is the army prepared for a bigger fight? 14 Corps can mount a divisional-level action easily, but will require immediate airlifting of another division as reserve. Moreover, half a brigade’s worth of army units should forthwith descend on the PLA-occupied site, raze their camp, and physically push the PLA soldiers back on to their side, and no nonsense about it. If this is not done, a permanent realignment of LAC is on the cards in this strategically important tri-junction area.
Much worse, instead of showing self-respect and brio, and making the new Chinese premier Li Keqiang’s proposed Delhi visit in end-May conditional on immediate PLA pullback, Khurshid is planning to fly to Beijing to ensure Li keeps his date in Delhi and to ask the Chinese to withdraw, pretty please! It is as if China is the aggrieved party and needs placation.
Appeasement never pays; it only emboldens belligerent states to become more demanding. China has proved this time and again, but it is doubtful the CSG-MEA and the Indian government even know what the national interest is, or where it lies.
Bharat Karnad is professor at Centre for Policy  Research and blogs at www.bharatkarnad.com

Ensure full justice to anti-Sikh riots victims

By The New Indian Express

03rd May 2013 07:16 AM

As the protest against the acquittal of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar in a 1984 anti-Sikh riot case refuses to subside, the ruling Congress has reason to be worried about its political repercussions. What many of the protesters do not realise is that the judge, who heard the case and against whom a shoe was hurled, is not to blame. He could have gone only by the evidence produced before him by the investigating agency, i.e., the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Instead of barking up the wrong tree, they should have protested against the conduct of the CBI, which has been behaving like a handmaiden of the government, despite all claims of having been invested with autonomy.
The fact is that the Congress never wanted the police to investigate the charge that some of its leaders, including Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler, had led the mobs that attacked the Sikhs in Delhi following Indira Gandhi’s assassination. An attempt was made to treat the killing and looting spree that the capital witnessed as a consequence like the earth that shakes when a banyan tree is uprooted. Small wonder that the present case against Sajjan Kumar was registered only in 2005. What forced the government to act was the recommendation of the G.T. Nanavati Commission, appointed by the NDA government in 2000, to go into the whole gamut of the 1984 riots.
If the case has fallen it is because the CBI, which had once concluded that there was no actionable charge against Sajjan Kumar, did a shoddy job of probing the case and producing hard evidence against the Congress leader. Of course, all is not yet lost. The CBI has one more opportunity to prove that it is not “duty-bound” to protect the accused by appealing against the trial court’s verdict. It is not uncommon for the higher courts to punish those who were acquitted by the lower courts, as in the Suryanelli rape case in which the Supreme Court has rejected the Kerala High Court decision acquitting all but one.

Don’t blame RBI for government inaction

By The New Indian Express

In line with its cautious but well-meaning and time-tested approach, the Reserve Bank of India on Friday cut the key interest rate by a marginal 0.25 per cent to 7.25 per cent — its lowest since May 2011 — and kept the liquidity enhancing cash reserve requirement unchanged. Though this came as a disappointment for industry and the stock markets which had been hoping for a bigger cut due to easing of inflationary pressures, the apex bank was quick to point out that the risk of inflation persisted despite a recent sharp decline in wholesale price index inflation and high current account deficit. This, RBI Governor D Subbarao felt, posed the biggest challenge to the economy. India’s central bank has continued to sound warnings about the Indian economy. Its economic review released on Thursday had a distinctly hawkish tone. The monetary policy statement released on Friday flashed the same signal once again.
Monetary policy cannot afford to lower its guard against the possibility of resurgence of inflation pressures. It also has to remain alert to the risks on account of the current account deficit and its financing. This leaves little space for further monetary easing. The RBI has done well to reiterate the obvious risks that the Indian economy continues to face. By underlining the limited role of monetary growth, the RBI has sent a clear signal to the government. Finance minister P Chidambaram must deliver on the promises he made during his recent roadshow in America. Without initiating long-pending structural reforms the government cannot expect the RBI alone to ensure growth. That’s the message Subbarao has passed on.
Even though factors like lower commodity prices and narrowing fiscal deficit would help stem inflation, the upside risks to inflation are still significant in the short term in view of supply imbalances, correction in administrative prices of fuel and rising minimum support price for crops. The government will do well to take urgent measures to address the issues that are the real causes of economic slowdown. Blaming RBI alone will not do.

High command rattled
Rahul Gandhi's comments at a dinner last week for NSUI alumni in Delhi had the party high command in a tizzy. Rahul, who moved from table to table interacting with the guests, deplored the fact that decisions in the Congress are made by just half a dozen people. Decisions should be arrived at by first consulting thousands, if not lakhs. Gandhi's remarks seemed to suggest that bodies like the Congress Election Committee and the CWC should be rendered far more representative than they are at present. However, a high command member felt that if Rahul's suggestion was implemented, it would lead to chaos.

Echoes of dissent smothered or shackled

By Lasya Shashimohan

04th May 2013 08:01 AM

There was a time when the world believed the earth to be the centre of the universe. In what could have been an offshoot of self-aggrandizement, the planet that the human race inhabited was steadfast and the other planets and stars revolved around it.
One man begged to differ; “the earth moves”, he argued and espoused the Copernican heliocentric theory. Galileo was arrested, accused of heresy for going against notions contrary to those of the Catholic Church and was condemned to house arrest for the rest of his life.
Dissent — be it holding a marginally different viewpoint or being diametrically opposed to certain established ideas, social, political or religious — has not been tolerated but in fact has evoked much wrath. Most societies ostensibly champion and patronize every individual’s right to the freedom of speech and expression.
Paradoxically, it is unforgiving of any philosophy or outlook that threatens to shake the foundation of its existence. Perhaps it is the fear of a diverse train of thought disrupting the core belief that it has been affirming from time immemorial to ensure its continued existence.
Salman Rushdie, who was no stranger to controversies, courted one of mammoth proportions with The Satanic Verses that among other “sacrileges” also apparently implied that the verses of the Koran were the “work of the devil”. A fatwa was imposed that ensured that he spent nearly a decade leading a claustrophobic existence, zipping from place to place under tight security using the cryptic byname Joseph Anton. Stores that stocked his books were bombed. He tasted freedom in 1998, but continues to pay a price for dissent in many ways.
M F Husain had to wake up to the fact that free expression of ideas comes with a price. His paintings that depicted many Hindu deities in the nude or in a sexually explicit fashion elicited the displeasure of certain Hindu radical organisations. Following several criminal cases filed against him and the attack of his home by a Hindu fundamentalist group, he went on a self-imposed exile, alternating between Dubai and London and was later awarded Qatar citizenship. When his health failed, Husain wished to return to his homeland, but instead, the artist who had put Indian art on the international podium had to breathe his last on foreign soil.
The existentialists, among other things, emphasized on “authenticity” or finding one’s true inner self as a stipulation for overcoming angst and finding meaning in an otherwise inane world. However, we seem to live in a set-up that feels so insecure and threatened by an innocuous Facebook post made by a young girl and “liked” by her friend that it raises a hullabaloo and plunges into extreme, destructive action.
Given such a state of affairs, authenticity seems a far cry. The true spirit of democracy entails tolerance of a different opinion or ideology and of iconoclasts.

Fight Islamic fundamentalism

By Balbir Punj

04th May 2013 08:02 AM

While New Delhi is mired in the fallout of the coal scam and repeated incursions by China deep into the Indian territory, the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalists looms large on the rest of the country.
Ironically, the threat is most pronounced in those parts of India which are under the sway of so-called “secular” parties; and BJP in such places is virtually non-existent. This dubious line-up is headed by the Kashmir Valley, followed by Kerala and West Bengal.
Eclipsed by the Ponzi scheme collapse in West Bengal and the alleged close links of the cheat scheme’s perpetrators to the ruling Trinamool Congress, the emergence of the most dangerous trend in that state has escaped national attention. A recent news item in a prominent English daily reveals a campaign spread in rural West Bengal by certain Muslim organizations to “send back” US President Obama in case he comes to Kolkata, right from the airport itself.
The report is based on a paper prepared by the security agencies and submitted to the state government. It specifies the Muslim organisations that have come together to achieve this anti-national aim. It lists the number of meetings held by a federal Muslim group that is bringing many disparate community organisations under its banner.
The All Bengal Minority Youth Federation had displayed its clout when early this year it prevented author Salman Rushdie from landing in Kolkata. The key to its success was the influence minoritysm holds in the ruling Trinamool Congress which succumbed to this blackmail and caved in to the demand. Earlier, the Islamic fundamentalists had successfully hounded out celebrated author Taslima Nasreen from the state.
Having tasted blood, this Minority Youth Federation is now widening its reach and prey. The report from the security agency lists 12 major Muslim organisations and over 25 other units as having been brought under a single umbrella. What should cause countrywide concern are two developments: one, all these groups were behind the Trinamool Congress — earlier the ruling Left Front was wooing the Muslim groups.
Two years after the TMC came to power, these groups are pressing the regime to concede more ground to them despite Mamata Banerjee declaring many sops like providing salaries to the clerics from government treasury, extension of an Aligarh Muslim University campus in Bengal and boosting madarsa education. Each of these steps will encourage a divisive mindset and promote jehadi mentality.
The second area of concern is the evident link of this federal organisation with anti-India forces in the neighbourhood. This body held a large rally in Kolkata’s Shahid Minar ground only a few days ago (March 26). What was their protest about: the police action in Dhaka against Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh.
And what were the Bangladeshi extremists protesting against? The trial of several leaders of the military coup that killed Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rehman and imposed a military regime. Living up to its past record, the “secular” media either did not report the aggressive demonstration or heavily underplayed it.
That the Bangladeshi Jamaat is anti-Indian and is linked with the India-hating Begum Zia and her BNP is well known. During the regime of Begum Zia, Dhaka changed its original Constitution and made the newly liberated country an Islamic state from a secular one.
The present regime of the Awami League under Sheikh Hasina has reverted the country to a secular Constitution and firmed up democratic provisions. It has brought the perpetrators of the series of murders in 1975 that ended democracy in the country to trial. People have held huge rallies calling for death to the perpetrators.
That Sheikh Hasina’s regime is the friendliest among the Bangladeshi parties to India is also evident. So when the so-called Muslim Federation in West Bengal rallies to support the Jamaat in the neighbouring country, the direction of this Muslim outfit against India is evident.
That all these reports are largely true is brought out by the admission of the Trinamool leaders themselves, conceding that the outfit has become a huge pressure group faced by the regime in Kolkata. Among the many rallies this group has organised is one aimed at the American Center in the state capital to protest a private film in America that was considered anti-Islam.
Over 20,000 people attended the rally, which exposes how quickly the so-called federation has grown under the patronage of both the Left Front and TMC. The Muslim federation protesting against the Bangladeshi government taking action against the country’s extremists, and the Muslim group here using the hypothetical Obama visit to garner emotional response against Kolkata and New Delhi clearly should ring the tocsin in political and government circles.
Targeting the hypothetical visit of Obama to Kolkata is only symbolic. Islamic extremism is actually demanding more. These outright anti-nationals have the confidence to put forward such demands because of the encouragement they receive from the “secular” parties and a section of the media.
Rushdie cannot visit his country of origin because of this extremism. Films even mildly critical of some socio-political stands cannot be exhibited. Now you cannot even invite the President of the United States without their concurrence.
But that is not the only aspect. By spreading a hate US President campaign, this element serves its foreign masters perfectly well. Strong Indo-US relations are critical to India’s global destiny. India receives technology, capital from the US and that is strengthening Indian economy. Almost 80 per cent of its 60 billion US-dollar software export is to the US.
Recently, there was a report from Kerala that the state police had captured an arms training camp in Kannur district where 21 young Muslims, mostly students, were being trained in use of various arms, both firearms and local weapons by the Popular Front.
The front has been carrying on its activities so freely because Kerala’s two main political forces, the UDF and LDF, have been competing in bending over backwards to please Islamic extremists like Madhani who the Bangalore police finally dared to arrest. BJP, since Independence, has never got representation in the state Assembly.
India’s weakness in dealing with Islamic extremism, which is global and aims at bringing the world under its Sharia rule of clerics, is that parties like Congress, the Left, SP, BSP and TMC are already genuflecting to an Islamic extremist minority.
Balbir Punj is National  Vice President, BJP.