Manmohan Singh’s growth without equity

In an interview to the Times of India (published on April 25), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has claimed that if re-elected, he would bring the economy back on the path of high growth, to the point of 9 to 10 per cent. Well, it may not be an empty boast. After all, when he took command of the Indian economy in his second stint in 2004, he placed India on the ‘take-off’ stage by registering 9 per cent growth in 2005-06, followed by 9.4 per cent growth in 2006-07.(with per capita income growing at 8.4 per cent during that period).

This spectacular growth of the India economy may have faced temporary setback due to the global economic recession in the last year and a half, but that does not take away the credit that is due to Manmohan Singh for turning around the economy, first as finance minister in 1991-96 and deepening its effect while serving as the prime minister, almost a decade later.

As Manmohan Singh said in the interview with TOI, “Yashwant Sinha – when he was finance minister in the Chandra Shekhar government – sent the country’s gold abroad. When we came back to power, we brought the gold back”. The prime minister was referring to the developments in March 1991 when the Chandra Shekhar government was forced to sell 20 tonnes of gold to the Union Bank of Switzerland to tide over the immediate foreign exchange crisis. That incident brought India to the brink of a ‘basket case’ and there were speculations worldwide that our country would soon fall into the debt trap, as it had happened to many African and Latin American nations.

But barely three months later, Manmohan Singh, as Narasimha Rao’s finance minister, undertook the momentous challenge to prove the Cassandras wrong. He presided over a monumental economic reform programme. And his record was outstanding. India was able to stage one of the fastest recoveries from a deep macroeconomic crisis. The growth rate of India’s GDP which had fallen to an abysmal 0.8 per cent in the crisis year of 1991-92 recovered quickly to 5.3 per cent by 1992-93 and rose further to 6.2 per cent in 1993-94. Over the next three years, the India economy averaged an unprecedented growth rate of over 7.5 per cent, a rate closer to high performers of East Asia.

So, as far as growth rate was concerned, Manmohan Singh’s track record has been enviable. That is why, his emphasis in the TOI interview was high growth. It is worth noting that he did not mention about inclusive growth. It cannot be an oversight. There were many occasions in the past, when he has harped on the need to make growth more .
But he knows that his high-sounding statements have not been matched by bold decisions. That is why he did not want any debate to ensue on his patchy record on inclusive growth, when the elections are under way.

And that brings us to the central question: is growth a laudatory achievement by itself, or should growth with equity be our primary concern? Let us take a look at Singh’s track record in this regard. Well, the government records tell us that there has been considerable poverty reduction during the period the country was on a growth path, but the absolute number of people without the basic amenities has been still large. That suggested two things: one, the economic growth was not fast enough; second, the rising inequality did not allow the benefit of growth to change the quality of life for the poor.

Consider some basic facts: while India experienced spectacular economic growth, the benefit of that growth was hardly reflected in the improvement of the health facilities of the needy. The 2006 National Family Health Survey (NFHS 3) showed an immunization coverage of only 44 per cent – an improvement of just 2 per cent compared to the 1998 NFHS 2 data. Similarly, 46 per cent of children under three were underweight in 2006, again a fall of only 1 per cent over eight years. It was small wonder that India’s position in global Human Development Index (HDI) did not improve during the high growth phase.

As a matter of fact, the high growth was mostly registered in industries and services sector, where as agricultural growth remained sluggish. This had serious implications for the poor as 55 per cent of the total workforce in India is still engaged in agriculture.
The NREGA that the government launched in February 2006 had enormous potential in ensuring that funds reached the rural landless unemployed and the necessary rural infrastructure is built in the bargain, but its success has been only patchy. It has delivered results only where the social audit campaigns initiated by Jean Dreze, Aruna Roy and other social activists are strong. Elsewhere it has got lost in the proverbial bottomless pit of corruption, callousness and unaccountability.

Just see what Rahul Gandhi said while on a whirlwind election tour of West Bengal: “There are four lakh NREG cardholders in Purulia, but I have heard only 950 people have got 100 days of employment.” (Indian Express, April 25, 2009). The Congress leader might have said this to score a brownie point with the Left rivals during election time, but what is true of purulia is also true of most parts of India.

Education is supposed to be the key for social mobility of the poor. Rapid growth in quality primary and basic education as well as higher education is considered critical in providing access to a better life for the poor But Manmohan singh government could not provide for the right to decent education for all. The Right to education Bill was not passed in 2007 citing financial constraints! That showed the clear priority that the government had in mind when spearheading the economy with a spectacular growth rate.

The challenge before a new government today, unlike in the early decades after freedom, is not so much of trying to achieve high levels of economic growth. The challenge is to ensure effective governance that would harness the economic growth and make it sustainable and inclusive.

But Manmohan Singh does not seem to rise to this challenge. Because this needs very tough decisions about fiscal prudence, about allocating resources in a manner that allows the real poor to get benefit, and not those who speak in the name of the poor.

India’s decision-making structure is out of sync with political reality

Originally Published on 23-04-2009

As the General elections enter the second phase, a mismatch in India’s political process is becoming starkly evident. And this mismatch is between political actors and political institutions. Where as the Centre still holds the centre stage in India’s decision-making process, it seems, the states are calling the shots in India’s national politics.

It was the Shiv Sena, a regional outfit confined to Maharashtra, which first broached the idea of supporting Sharad Pawar to become the prime minister of the country; its argument was simple: it wanted to see a ‘Maratha manoos’ to adorn the coveted post and it did not matter if he belonged to a different political alliance. After all, it, an ally of the BJP, had supported the Congress candidate Pratibha Patil for the post of president, because she is a Maratha.

Though Shiv Sena has now reneged on its commitments to support Sharad Pawar, because of several political developments in the near past, the ambition that its initial support had fuelled in the Baramati strongman has not subsided. Pawar is a man of legendary resources; he is now making a last ditch effort to use it to mobilize a nation wide support in his favour.

Though Pawar himself is a regional player, with a visible base only in Maharashtra, he is nurturing the big dream because he is acutely aware of the mismatch in India’s political process. Given the certainty that neither of the two national parties, Congress and BJP, would be able to get a majority, or come anywhere near to it, it would be therefore an open political counter, for buy or sale of elected members. Since each of the two national parties would be driven by the obsessive concern to keep the other out of political power, it would be a dream run for the regional parties. If that happens, there would be a dozen aspirants among the regional leaders to take the top job, but the one with the best networking, will eventually get it. Pawar has achieved a head start in this direction. He has now Naveen Patnaik, the Orissa strongman, endorsing his cause. Pawar’s PR exercise has also succeeded in extracting promise of support from a usually reticent Jayalalithaa.

Whether Pawar eventually gets his dream job will depend on the numbers the various regional players are able to muster. It is possible that another regional satrap, a Mayawati or a Chandrababu Naidu, emerges as the dark horse. Or it could be possible that either of the national parties forms a government with the support of a section of regional outfits. Even in that case, the regional parties will hold sway and hold the national government to ransom.

This was virtually the case with the UPA. The major allies of the Congress took hold of many key ministerial berths and had a free run, unencumbered by the prime minister. If the prime minister’s office pointed out any irregularities, it was asked to mind its business (the business of the ministries under the charge of the prime minister) and not interfere in their affairs.

In the initial burst of goodwill, the prime minister issued a directive that the ministers would not issue advertisements with their pictures at public cost.

Initially, the Congress ministers followed this directive but the ministers of the allied parties flouted it with impunity.

As an economist prime minister, Manmohan Singh, wanted to follow a policy of fiscal prudence. He tried to curb the practice of indiscriminate foreign trips by his cabinet colleagues. But his order was followed only by the breach. As India Today reported, the ministers not only became frequent flyers abroad, they also insisted on taking a large contingent of families, friends and officials, all on tax-payers’ expense, but the prime minister remained a mute spectator.

When Ramadoss was playing havoc with India’s health infrastructure by presiding over a corrupt administration – even the WHO findings made corruption charges at the highest level in the ministry – the prime minister could not even muster the courage to admonish him, lest his party might raise a banner of revolt.

It has now been largely documented how the family of A Raja, the telecommunication minister, made a big fortune by the special favours bestowed on some telecom companies by the ministry. But the prime minister was helpless; he couldn’t raise a finger for fear that it might upset the political equilibrium.

When L K Advani raises the pitch of a weak prime minister, he is only raising the spectre of 10, Janpath. The fact is that the prime minister’s weak standing vis-à-vis the party president is only incidental; his weakness is much more starkly evident when it comes to his standing vis-à-vis the ministers of allied parties. They just acted as if he did not exist. But Advani would not raise the issue of a prime minister’s inability to rein in the ministerial colleagues, as that would alarm his alliance partners who are constituents of NDA or whom he hopes to rope in after the elections. That is why he cannot claim that if he were the prime minister he would strongly enforce the principle of collective accountability among his cabinet colleagues, irrespective of political consequences.

At a time when national parties and its leaders are in the saddle at the mercy of regional parties, clearly, all the rules on which national politics was based have gone haywire. After all, these rules had been made when a national party headed by a leader with nationwide acceptability was in charge of the destiny of the nation. These rules are out of sync with the current reality when regional parties are calling the shots. This calls for a restructuring of India’s federal design, whereby the larger decision-making authority is devolved from the centre to the state level. But, unfortunately, the new rules to cope with the altered reality have not developed yet.

So, we are in a situation of flux. It is a matter of debate whether the new political dynamics is a sign of deepening and strengthening of the democratic framework of Indian politics, or if it is early warning signals of eventual disintegration of a country without a central authority.

As the election enters the second phase, this debate deserves to occupy the centre stage of Indian politics.

click here to view this article

Left Leaders share a common trait with Manmohan Singh

Left parties have gone into the election mode this time positioning themselves implacably against the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. When Singh recently suggested the possibility of a post-poll alliance with the Left, Prakash Karat, the pre-eminent left leader, was categorical that they would not support a Congress party led by the current prime minister.

Although they would not say openly now — as the election process is on and both the parties are pitted against each other in different parts of the country – it is an open secret that the Left may be left with no other option but to support the Congress-led UPA to pre-empt the NDA from coming to power. But there would be one irrevocable condition for such support: dump Manmohan.

It seems paradoxical that the Left leaders are hostile to Manmohan, while their profile would suggest that they should be the best of friends of the Congress leader. After all, they all share a common trait: they are personally honest, but they are devoid of political honesty. For both Manmohan Singh and left leaders, no principle is worth fighting for, if by surrendering it, you get to enhance your political prospects.

Manmohan Singh has not besmirched his personal reputation in his long career in the corridors of power. But he has winked at all kinds of corrupt practices pursued by his colleagues. This would have mattered little had Singh been a small cog in a large machine. But this becomes a problem when you hold the reins of power, when you command the destiny of a nation. In that situation, it is not enough if you just maintain personal honesty, you need to observe the highest standard of political honesty; you have to ensure that all those who work for you also follow the ethical standards set by you. But Manmohan failed in this litmus test. He just closed his eyes to the private agenda that his cabinet colleagues pursued while in office, because he knew any interference would have made his position as PM untenable. His political dishonesty was starkly evident when his party and government resorted to the most unethical means to secure a majority on the floor of the Lok Sabha over the Nuclear Deal. Manmohan showed no remorse, but a sense of fulfillment when he won the confidence motion after the money-for-vote scam on the floor of Parliament exposed us to shame worldwide. He was prepared to turn a Nelson’s eye to anything that helped him to retain the perks of power.

The Left leaders are somewhat Manmohan-like. Not many would point accusing finger at them about their personal honesty. But they have no qualms about resorting to political dishonesty just to remain politically relevant. The buzzword of the Left leaders now is the Third Front. In a way, the Third Front owes its existence to the untiring networking of the left leaders. The Left flaunts it as a secular alternative to the Congress. But what kind of secularism is this? Just take a look at the constituents of the Third Front. They are all secularists by convenience, not conviction. Can a secular party today turn communal tomorrow and return to the secular fold day after? The Telugu Desam Party was born with avowed secular credentials; the Left sang paeans to N T Rama Rao and also to Chandrababu Naidu who stabbed NTR on the back to take control of the party. But the left leaders attacked him as a communal stooge when Naidu courted the BJP a decade ago just to have a slice of power at the Centre.

Now that Naidu has broken with BJP on Muslim vote consideration, the Left is projecting him again as a secular stalwart.

The same is the case of a Jayalalithaa or a Mayawati or a Deve Gowda. All these politicians have no settled convictions. They have all supped with the BJP in the past; if the post-poll situation so warrants and they sniff a chance that they would have a greater share of power booty by doing it again, they would go for it. The Left leaders know it, but they would not like to renounce the brief moment of limelight they enjoy as the driving force of the Third Front.

What exposes the Left to greater ridicule is their stance in Orissa where they have now discovered in Naveen Patnaik, the chief minister and the leader of Biju Janata Dal, an apostle of secularism. Patnaik, who cohabited with the ‘communal’ party for over a decade, made it very clear that the 11-year old alliance with the BJP broke not because of any ideological difference, but because of the differences over the winning prospects of the respective candidates. Winnability, not ideology, was the cause of the split, he was at pains to emphasise. But the left leaders shamelessly rushed to Bhubaneshwar to congratulate the born-again secularist, just because they would be rewarded with some seats with winning possibilities.

The Left’s political dishonesty is even visible in its core ideological postulates. They say that they are with the poor masses. But often they sacrifice the interest of the poor for the sake of expediency. Take the case of Orissa again. The poor people there raised a banner of revolt against the taking over of their land by Naveen administration to hand over to the big industrialists. The left parties should have been in the forefront to fight for the poor people’s cause. But they have got so hooked by the industrialist embrace that they chose to be on the other side of the fence. Even the participation by the local left leaders in these stirs — who joined them because of the emotional bonding with the region and its people or even because they would be marginalized politically if they kept away from the local struggle – was not officially acknowledged by the party. The central high command dismissed the involvement of local leaders in local movements as their individual activity.

At one time, civil insurrection against a corrupt and inefficient administration was, for the left leaders, something admirable and praiseworthy; but now they deem it to be lumpenism. But this is not the ideological distance they have covered, a la the Communist Party of China. China is, at least, openly capitalist and lays great store by its relations with the capitalist world, but our home grown communists are at their hypocritical best. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, They look up to China as the Communist fatherland; they have never found it tormenting when China flaunts its cosy relationship with the US; but, to be politically relevant in India, they raise a brouhaha over India getting closer to the US over the nuclear deal and the like..

This ethical double-think is not a Left prerogative; they share it with leaders like Manmohan Singh who speak high-sounding words, but rarely act upon them. They together can, of course, take solace from the fact that there is only a few in India’s political spectrum that can even talk about ethics, let alone practice it.

Politicians All: No Statesmen Among PM Aspirants

It is barely a month away when we will get to know who finally manages to occupy the much sought-after chair in the south Block. There is a long queue and it is not a joke; for any one of them could bargain his\her way to the chair. If a Chandra Shekhar, a Deve Gowda or an I K Gujral could make it, why cannot a Lalu Yadav, a Jayalalithaa or a Mayawati succeed? The Third Front and the Fourth Front have almost a dozen aspirants (there are also hopefuls within the Second Front — or, is it the First Front? — like Sharad Pawar), and the crown may rest on the head of any of them, depending on who will be on top of the heap on the D-day.

The question is: do any of them inspire confidence? Will things be any better if either the UPA or the NDA emerge victorious and Manmohan Singh or L K Advani makes it to the post?

The unfortunate answer is, ‘No’. Even with a Manmohan or an Advani at the helm, we will have mere politicians, and no statesmen, to command the ship of the nation.

The critical distinction between a statesman and a politician is that the former imposes his will and his ideas on the environment while the latter adapts himself to it. If we take a look at how these politicians acquired power and how they used political power when they won it, we will get the answer where they belong – the category of statesmen or mere politicians.

Unfortunately, our media and the hagiographers choose to immortalize our politicians as they themselves would wish to be remembered, especially when their stars are on the rise. In the 1990s, Lalu Yadav was the darling of the national media, and the latter left no stone unturned to tell the world how he changed the face of the badland of Bihar. And now, when Nitish Kumar is riding the popularity wave, the same media have the cheek to tell the world that Lalu had pushed the benighted state back into the dark age during his 15-year rule.

The media, in their exuberance to go with the flow, had refused to make the critical appreciation then; they were emphatic that Lalu was a statesman who would change the destiny of Bihar. It is only now that they describe him as a mere politician who shielded his misdeeds behind gimmicks.

Now the media are gung ho about Nitish Kumar in the same way they were about Lalu Yadav a decade ago and a time will come when they would outdo each other in exposing the JD (U) leader’s feet of clay. That will happen when Nitish’s popularity graph nosedives.

But then Lalu’s was not a special case about the descent from the statesman to a mere politician. Mulayam was also depicted a hero in his hey days, only to be denounced as a villain when people rejected him.

Mayawati, the Behenji, was also hailed as the leader who had her rendezvous with destiny at a moment when she swept the polls in the largest state of India.

The media forgot about her duplicity, her faithlessness and her unprincipled egotism during her previous stints as chief minister. But if she does badly in the forthcoming elections, the same media would strip her of her statesmanship.

That is the tragedy: the media, and the writers of biography, cover the tracks for politicians whose going is good; all their hypocrisies are kept under wraps when they do well in the polls. If anyone points an accusing finger at them, they dismiss it as cynical debunking.

Take the case of Orissa. Naveen Patnaik is depicted as a statesman – some one who has set the state notorious for starvation death on the path of development, with his honesty integrity and vision. So long as he rides as a colossus of Orissa politics, the mainstream media are not going to talk about his betrayal of the cause of the state – his handing over the state’s mineral resources to private sector giants for a huge consideration. Just as his father, Biju Patnaik’s corruption was exposed when he was thrown out of power, Naveen’s shenanigans will see the light of the day when the popular mandate goes against him. That day, Naveen, the statesman, will be seen as Naveen, the hypocrite. But till then any word against Naveen will sound like the wily tales of a wicked man.

The bottom line is this: political success catapults a leader to the stature of a statesman; and the failure pulls him\her down to the state of politician.

If Manmohan Singh becomes the prime minister again, his virtues will be enumerated for days to come and all his failings will be whitewashed. But if he fails to make it, all his weaknesses will tumble out of the cupboard.

The same is true about L K Advani. He may be the original sinner, the high priest of communal politics, but if manages to upstage Manmohan Singh, even the so-called secular media would sing paeans for him, will hold him up as some one who is an apostle of Indian nationalism. Advani, the statesman, would overshadow Advani, the politician. But it will just be the reverse if the octogenarian leader does not get to fulfill his life’s biggest dream.

The truth is that none of these leaders qualifies to be called a statesman. All of them have accepted politics, including the seamy side, as a way of life. Success has come their way because they know exactly when to jettison a principle or a friendship without a twinge of conscience. They have no settled convictions. They can lie or twist, as the situation demands.

It does not matter, therefore, if one or the other assumes the high office the next month. What matters is that the truth must not be allowed to be suppressed. That will happen only if the media do not allow the network of make-belief and shadow-play hide the reality.

How to weed out the real criminals from electoral politics?

A report compiled by the National Election Watch, based on the affidavits submitted to the Election Commission, informs us that about 11 per cent of the candidates (34 out of 315) who have filed for the ensuing Lok Sabha elections in Andhra Pradesh have criminal antecedents. This proportion could be more or less same throughout the country. Most of these ‘criminal’ candidates have been sponsored by the political parties, though there are a few candidates in the electoral fray as independents.

Party-sponsored or independent, these candidates have always defended themselves as innocent; they argue that the cases have been falsely slapped against them by a biased police and civil administration. They say that they deserve a chance because the courts would ultimately absolve them of all false charges. They seek popular support on the premise that they should be treated as innocent till they are found guilty by the due process of law.

There are many who sneer at such excuses and demand that no candidate with criminal cases pending against him should be allowed to file nomination. Given the snail’s pace at which the juggernaut of India’s judicial system moves, it is impossible to cleanse the political system of such criminal elements if they are allowed electoral participation till they are indicted, they would argue.

Both sides have logic on their side. Take the first view, for example. We often dismiss that argument because they are advanced by hardened criminals and their patrons across the political spectrum in the country. But we must not forget that a large number of grassroot activists are often at the receiving end of the ire of the police and administration just because they are a fly in their ointment, they raise uncomfortable questions about their acts of omission and commission.

We need, therefore, to distinguish between two different sets of people; one set, for whom crime is the profession and the means of livelihood. The other set which is committed to social activism and is often branded as criminal by the state to put fetters on their campaign.

And the irony is that the professional criminals are often set free because of their financial wherewithal and political clout, whereas the social activists often languish in jail as they are powerless against the repressive machinery of the state.

Take the case of Mohammad Shahabuddin of Bihar who had a very early baptism as a history-sheeter. But the so-called long arm of the law could not indict him as he had political protection; Lalu Yadav’s administration had ensured that he carried on his criminal pursuits without let or hindrance.

It was only when a former chief justice of the Patna High Court, Justice Wadhwa, threatened to put the top brass of the police behind the bars if they did not act on a decade-old non-bailable arrest warrant pending against Shahabuddin that the Siwan don surrendered before the court. But a few months later, when Justice Wadhwa left Patna on being elevated to the Supreme Court, Shahabuddin was let out on bail and continued his depredations unhindered, till Lalu ruled the roost in the state.

It was only with the change of the government and the ascent of the Nitish regime in the state three years ago, that the law began to catch up with Shahabuddin. Nitish government decided to shift the cases involving criminal-politicians to the fast-track courts; the result is that after more than two decades of free run, Shahabuddin today is a convicted criminal, unable to seek people’s mandate in the elections.

It goes to the credit of the Nitish government that the fast-track procedure has brought many criminals who had arrogantly defied the authority of law on their knees. But, then, there are many professional criminals in many states who continue to be at large as the cases against them linger on endlessly in the arcane, long-winding judicial process.

Now, take the case of the other set that pay the price for being pro-poor. Sunil Gupta, an Economics topper from JNU gave up the lucrative career that waited him and went to serve the people of Itarsi in Madhya Pradesh. He created awareness among them about their rights and responsibilities; as those were the pre-RTI days, he mobilized the people to seek information from the state agencies about the welfare measures undertaken for them and the money involved in the process. Although he was a Gandhian, in both method and utterances, a host of criminal charges were filed against him and he was incarcerated many times; the administration made it out as if he was a big threat to the peace and harmony of the area.

If we make a flat rule that a citizen with criminal cases against him must not be allowed to contest elections, then people like Sunil will be weeded out of the electoral process. That would be a grave injustice to them and the people they seek to serve. Then the doors of politics would be closed to the committed social activists who want to use the electoral process to send out their democratic message.

How then do we distinguish between the two sets – the one for whom politics is the extension of their criminal activities and the other for whom politics is an extended forum for social service? After all, both have criminal cases slapped against them.

It is difficult to create a parameter by which we can distinguish between ‘malignant criminality’ and ‘benign criminality’ and preclude the first lot from and allow the other into the electoral arena. Why can’t we think out-of-box and make a demand that the process of filing nominations be done a year before the actual schedule of elections and all the candidates with criminal cases be subjected to the fast-track court adjudication, with the mandatory provision for declaration of verdict within the stipulated period? In that case, all those found guilty would per force withdraw from the electoral race and their place could be taken, by law, only by those with no criminal record.

This may not be a fool-proof answer to the menace of the criminals in politics, but it may provide a way out from the logical impasse — to distinguish between the real criminals and those who have been unfairly accused as such by a corrupt and motivated administration.

Lalu-Paswan-Nitish and their nexus with criminals

Three politicians from Bihar, who adorned the hallowed precincts of the Lok Sabha last term, will not be able to repeat the feat this time as they have been barred from contesting elections. The reason is obvious. In the course of the last five years, all of them have attained confirmation about their status as criminals by the designated courts. For long, the prefix ‘alleged’ was appended to their name when their criminal antecedents were mentioned, which somewhat undermined their standing. Now, they have reasons to be happy that their true calling has been recognized.

But the absurd laws of the country have come in the way of their celebration. When they were just probationers in the field of crime, they could merrily render ‘public service’. Now that they have been confirmed officially as criminals, they are deprived of their right to do ‘selfless service for the common man’. But ‘committed’ as they are towards the ‘public cause’, they have decided to field their near and dear ones in the ensuing elections, so that they could have a say in the corridors of power.

With this noble thought, Mohammad Shahabuddin, who is languishing in the jail on murder charges, has chosen his wife Hina Sahab, to substitute him in the electoral fray from the constituency that he rules with an iron hand – Siwan.

Pappu Yadav, the other well-known name in the category of criminal-politician in Bihar, has carved out Purnea as his political base, though he was an MP from Madhepura constituency in the last Lok Sabha. Pappu, who is also convicted in a murder charge, has fielded his father as the proxy candidate to stand in for him from Purnea. His wife, an outgoing MP from the neighbouring Saharsa, will again try her luck from the new Supaul constituency created after the delimitation.

The less well-known, but no less ferocious, is Suraj Bhan Singh, the don of the Diara region of Bihar, where criminals find a safe haven because of its geographical advantage. He has also been convicted in a murder case and cannot contest elections. Not surprising that his wife, Veena Devi, will be the dummy candidate on his behalf in Nawada constituency.

It is true that all the three are attached to one political party or the other. But that is of little significance. These leaders command a transferable vote bank. They can hitch their bandwagon to any political party and come up trumps. That is why they are a rage. Every party mollycoddles them in a bid to win their loyalty.

To assert their individual importance, all of them did strike out on their own in the beginning, and win assembly seats as independents. There was no looking back after that. Politicians of all hues made a beeline to them to appropriate them as their own.

Shahabuddin first won a berth in the Bihar assembly from Ziradei constituency – incidentally the birth place of India’s first president, Rajendra Prasad – in 1990. He seemed to emerge as a rallying force for the Muslims of the area. Lalu Yadav, who had then taken over as chief minister and was trying to cement a Muslim-Yadav alliance, realized the importance of a Shahabuddin in his scheme of things. He extended a protective cover to the Siwan lord and assured him that the long arm of the police would not come near him if he became part of the ruling political establishment. Shahabuddin had everything to gain from a quid pro quo; he could move from the realm of the crime to that of politics and vice versa with ease.

Lalu was assured that Shahabuddin, being a criminal, would not be able to upstage him politically; so he gave him a lot of political legitimacy. Shahabuddin was the only MLA candidate in 1995 who filed his nomination papers accompanied by the chief minister. In 1996, Lalu obliged him by nominating him for the Siwan Lok Sabha seat. In the last four Lok Sabha elections that Shahabuddin has fought and won, Lalu Yadav has always made it a point to make a personal show of solidarity by accompanying his criminal colleague on the day of filing of nomination. That demonstrated Shahabuddin’s clout, which was again on display when Lalu Yadav was constrained to accompany Shahabuddin’s wife to the district magistrate’s office for filing nomination last week.

But, unlike Shahabuddin, Lalu has been quite wary of Pappu Yadav, simply because he could not prop up another Yadav who could threaten his caste constituency. Lalu could not completely ignore him either because he has a sizeable personal support, on the strength of which he had won the first assembly seat as an independent. Lalu, in his bid to consolidate the Yadav vote bank, had to bring Pappu under the party umbrella, but he was careful not to lionize him. He never accompanied Pappu when he filed nomination papers.

A free-spirited criminal that Pappu is, he has also shown scant loyalty to Lalu. Pappu has minced no words to say that he was with Lalu on his own terms, unlike many Yadav politicians who are at Lalu’s mercy to survive politically. That explains why Pappu has an unstable political trajectory – it started with Lalu’s RJD, then traversed to Ram Vilas’s LJP (when he accommodated both he and his wife) and now in the territory of the Congress which agreed to accommodate his father and his wife in the ticket distribution.

Ram Vilas Paswan would any day outshine Lalu Yadav in embedding the criminals for political mileage. When he launched the LJP, the roll call of the party leadership comprised the who’s who of Bihar’s criminal world. And Ram Vilas didn’t bat an eyelid to defend his gangster colleagues.

It is not as if Nitish Kumar has kept away from the criminal nexus. As a matter of fact, his first term as chief minister (which ended in his resignation barely a week after taking office as he could not muster enough support on the floor of the assembly) took him to the jail to meet half a dozen inmates to mobilize their support. But all his desperate efforts proved futile. He had to demit office.

In his second stint too, he had not hesitated in hobnobbing with the criminals. Suraj Bhan Singh’s clout went up only because of his proximity with Nitish Kumar. It is widely believed that Singh had amassed a huge fortune by bagging railway contracts during Nitish’s tenure as Union Railway minister. It is a different matter that Singh switched sides to break bread with Paswan because there was a political clash between Suraj Bhan and Nitish’s alter ego, Lallan Singh, about whom Rabri Devi made derisive comments recently.

Lalu, Nitish and Paswan are happy that these criminals are under their wings as they bring in assured personal loyalty votes and community votes. What matters to them is the numbers tally at the end of the election – they know that nobody would come to lionize them just because they refused to give tickets to criminals and therefore lost election.

Should voters, then, stop lionizing the criminals? It is a subject for the next column.

Citizen Journalism Cannot Succeed Riding the Conventional Media

Originally Published on 05-02-2009 in indiainteracts.com

On January 30, some newspapers carried a news item — with a cell phone camera grab to authenticate it — that former Delhi mayor and a current councilor in Municipal Corporation (MCD) of Delhi, Farhad Suri, was found puffing away at his cigarette in the MCD premises itself, flouting the law that bans smoking in public places. The news in itself did not amount to much as it is a minor offence, except that such a senior leader ought to have behaved more responsibly.

The news item was, however, important as a pointer to a new trend of news gathering. After all, it would be difficult to establish a charge like this unless you are caught in the act. And there was no reporter or cameraman snooping around to establish the charge. It was Rekha Gupta, another councilor from a rival party, who presented the evidence to the current mayor and also to the media. She could succeed in establishing the charge because of the new (or not so new?) technology: cell phone camera.

It was not very long ago, many of us accepted the maxim that the freedom of the press only belonged to the one who owned it. On the face of it, it appeared a cynical view, but there was no denying that the nature and expanse of the news was circumscribed by the perceptions of owners and managers of news establishments. The subscribers of the news media did not have much role in shaping or selecting the news that they received. They were mere passive recipients.

The situation did not change much with television replacing print as the mass media. The owners and managers of television stations too were presumptuous that they knew what the people wanted to see, or, if you like, what they should see. So this medium too remained essentially unidirectional, despite the remark by a celebrated media theorist that the concept of the global village dawned thanks to the television.

The architects of this global village were the chosen few – the journalists. If anyone asked, who was a journalist, the answer invariably was: those who worked for the mainstream media. The alternative media was mostly inconsequential, as that only sought to reach out to those who were already converted.

But, with the new media, things began to change, in a revolutionary way. In the current digital age, the divide between a journalist and a non-journalist has almost blurred. We are All Journalists Now – a book by Scott Gant, an American author, in 2007 heralds the onset of the new media age.

In this age, the news is being garnered not only by those who own or work for established newspapers and television channels, but also by any lay person who chooses to be a journalist. The only requirement is that you should be using any of the technological artifacts of the modern age — a cell phone, a video camera, blogging software or any other technology to deliver news and views to the larger world.

Rekha Gupta, the BJP councilor, chose to be a journalist when she captured the event of a fellow councilor smoking in a public place in a cell phone. If she were technology savvy, she would have transmitted the capsule through the internet. But possibly that would not have reached her intended audience. So she chose to share it with the mainstream media.

This is a welcome development – where an individual, for whom news gathering is not a profession, turns into a newsperson when the situation so warrants it. Since the cell phone camera has become a ubiquitous device, found in the person of high and low, rich and poor, it is possible for every one to capture an event that presents itself before them out of the blue; they can then get in touch with mainstream media organizations to publish or broadcast the incident.

It is a win-win situation for both; the individual gets recognition, and possibly some money, which he\she would not have dreamt of before; the media organization stands to gain too, as it cannot afford to have professional journalists posted in every nook and corner. When citizens are the source of the news, you cover a large canvas, with little cost.

That explains why citizen journalism has become the buzzword today. Of course, the very idea of citizen journalism emerged out of a rebellion against the traditional media – both print and broadcast – as they treated the citizens as hapless consumers who have to live on what is dished out to them. The new media technologies provided the rebels an alternative avenue to connect to the like-minded people and challenge the exclusive domain of the established media.

The trend has caught on so well — thanks to the internet — that the popularity of citizen journalism has become a cause of concern for the hitherto dominant traditional media. In some of the western countries, as also in east Asia, where the online penetration is very high, the advertisers are flocking to the popular online sites, leaving the print and television organizations red-faced.

That is why the traditional media are seeking to make amends – by engaging the citizens as active dispenser of news. The CNN began this trend by relying extensively on video shot by nonprofessionals. It called them iReporters. There were many who railed against this trend. David Hazinski, a journalism professor at the University of Georgia, made that famous criticism: “Calling a citizen iReporter a journalist is like saying someone who carries a scalpel is a ‘citizen surgeon’ or someone who can read a law book is a ‘citizen lawyer.'”

Despite this criticism, the traditional media organizations are going ahead with the experiment because of its obvious advantages. The CNN-IBN, in India, has also gone ahead with its Citizen Journalist project, asking and providing resources to young and old alike to shoot videos and present scripts that cater to general interest.

But this is mere marriage of convenience. What Rekha Gupta provided to the media found space only because the traditional media considered it newsworthy. But what happens if the news provided by the citizen journalist is unpalatable to the established media organizations, not because it does not conform to its high standards, but because it takes pot shots at some of their ‘holy cows’?

So long as the harmony continues, there is nothing wrong in having the synergy between the two. But meaningful citizen journalism cannot be done riding the traditional media, because of the obvious conflict of interest.

Moral policing is bad, but so also is media obscenity

Originally published on 09-02-2009 in indiainteracts.com

As the Valentine’s Day draws near, a frenzied debate is on in the media about the Indian value system and the locus standi of the moral brigade which often goes berserk by claiming to defend it. This debate has had an extended run this time, thanks to the ugly incident in a Mangalore pub and the subsequent assault on a young girl and her male friend. The national media rightly condemned this hooliganism that masquerades as a social cause.

In a democracy, every one has a right to express one’s opinion but has no right to impose it on anyone unwilling to accept that version, let alone taking law into one’s hands to send the message home. To that extent, the sainiks of Sri Ram Sene or Shiv Sena are the biggest enemies of the democratic cause.

But what about the chief ministers who spoke against the pub culture? The burden of their argument was that boys and girls of a very tender age drinking, partying and becoming sexually active is not good in their long-term interest; they insisted that it is a culture imported from the west; it is alien to Indian culture.

Of course, as political leaders, they are entitled to express their personal opinions. At the same time, those who disagree with it are equally entitled to revile their logic. Nilotpal Basu on this platform did it the very day after the Manglalore pub attack. The media houses have been doing it ever since. It is nothing wrong. It is a healthy sign of a democratic culture.

The only problem arises when the political leaders happen to be state leaders and they use the state power to soft-pedal action against the breakers of law. One saw evidence of it in the case of Karnataka where the police did not appear to be in a hurry to take the ruffians into custody as the chief minister made equivocal noises about the incident. Only when the pressure mounted, his administration moved to book the culprits. The chief minister, it seems, has been made to realize that private sympathies cannot be allowed to interfere with the rule of law. In fact, a chief minister whose sympathies lie with this gang of vandals does not deserve to remain in office.

But one has to make a crucial distinction between the opinion that the pub culture is not good for the younger generation and the lumpenism that one saw in Mangalore recently, that one has seen on Valentine’s Day many a time in the past. The debate must continue, in the true democratic tradition, keeping at bay those who seek to unilaterally foist their will.

Any debate always has two sides, with some logic on either side. The issue is which logic has greater number of adherents. Most of the media houses seem to argue that asking for the scaling down of the pub culture amounts to an infringement of the democratic rights of the youth. In fact, some media houses have advised these ‘regressive’ leaders to ‘grow up’, to extricate themselves from the ‘feudal mindset’.

Well, the media is free to give its advice and the subscribers of the media are free to accept or reject them. But the problem arises because of the enormous clout of the media as the central cultural podium where the opinions of the majority are formed and shaped. And that is certainly true of the print media. It is in the print media that all the major debates of the society and polity are carried on.

If it is a genuine debate, with the diversity of cultural views reflected in it, then the average people, for whom the newspapers and magazines are the mainstay of information-gathering and opinion-building, get the opportunity to make informed judgement.

But the problem arises when, in the advertisement-driven media industry, the media houses have a vested interest in narrowing the cultural diversity and emphasizing ideas and information congenial to their profits. .

There was a time when the advertisement industry kept harping on the fact that smoking was a hep thing, one who did not smoke did not belong to the smart set. But with the increasing legal curbs on smoking, and the ban on advertisements for hard drinks, the emphasis is on the free spirit of the youth, on expensive gifts, swinging night clubs. And the big media, being slave to the advertisement industry, only give fillip to these ideas and the contrarian arguments that makes a reasoned espousal of Indian culture hardly find space in it.

Can one ask this question to the mainstream media: you branded the chief ministers who called for a halt to the pub culture as being regressive; but are you acting progressive by publishing the photographs of women in advance stages of undress? If that is your understanding of a progressive media, then you will continue to strengthen the hands of the reactionary elements.

Many men might get voyeuristic pleasure looking at naked human flesh, but they have many adult magazines to browse to satisfy their lust. Why should such images be carried in newspapers which are delivered at homes and are accessed by the minors? Newspaper houses often brush aside the objections of some sensitive individuals to such obscenity or indecency, by giving them the advice that they need to grow up, but what do they have to say about the minors? Will their advice to the minors also be to accept it as an unavoidable hazard?

When there is a worldwide campaign to protect the minors from harmful content from all media sources – violence, sex, graphic crime reporting and cult worship — shouldn’t the Indian media be taking steps so that the minors are protected from the impairment of their moral development? But why hasn’t that entered the media debate in our country?

It is because media houses would not do it, as that would lead to their plunging bank balance; after all, they have made a fortune by exposing plunging necklines. They need to make a virtue of it to keep their cash counters buzzing.

Then what about the likes of Renuka Choudhary, who is quite loud-mouthed while reminding the Karnataka chief minister of his duties and responsibilities? She, the Minister for Women and Child Development, should have been in the forefront to wage the battle against the offending media. She ought to have invoked the statutory provisions accepted universally to prevent the mainstream media from dishing out content harmful to children. But she would not, because raving and ranting against Yeddyurappa would give her media attention but waging a principled battle against the media would black her out of it!

The media debate has taken a flight across the statutory landscape in this country because of these self-serving politicians. And that is our biggest democratic concern.

Voting is not enough: youth must raise larger electoral issues

There is a large-scale media-driven campaign exhorting the youth to participate in the elections. The newspapers are doing it; but, it seems, the greater effect is that of television. Many celebrities are endorsing this campaign, invoking the young men and women not to take their rights and duties as citizens lightly.

Given the media’s pervasive influence over the lives of the people, the campaign has reached a crescendo; the middle class and the youth, which used to give the elections a miss, suddenly find it cool to participate in this ‘biggest festival of democracy’.

This is a welcome development. If the voters show indifference to the electoral process, then they will get a government they had not asked for. That, in turn, will further alienate them from the electoral process. And the voters’ alienation is a sure recipe for democratic disaster.

The emphasis is on young voters as they have a larger and longer stake in the electoral processes and their outcomes. If they start getting actively involved right from the days they are eligible to vote, they can shape the country’s destiny; they can hope to get a government they deserve.

But, the question is, is large-scale voting the solution to the distortions that have crept into our electoral system? To me, for the electoral process to be meaningful, we need to mount a spectrum of action, before and after the voting. The voting day must be the nodal point for establishing the backward and forward linkages of the electoral mechanism.

We must remember that the voters’ apathy to the electoral process is, in the first place, because of the nature of the candidates that the political parties foist on the electorate every time the elections are announced.

And, what kind of candidates? Take the case of celebrity outsiders. One fine morning, the people of Moradabad woke up to realize that Mohammad Azharuddin will vie for their support as Congress candidate for the Lok Sabha. Well, he is a known name and face; he has had his highs and lows in his career as a cricketer. But, pray, why Moradabad, why not Hyderabad where he lives?

But then the Congress felt that he would be of no use in a state where the party was in power. Anyway, Azharuddin’s use value lay not being a famous ex-cricketer, but as a widely recognized Muslim face. So he would be the Muslim card that the Congress could play to woo the minorities.

So he was chosen to represent an area (Moradabad) – a constituency which, in all probability, Azharuddin had never set his foot on before he was sounded out for the seat – only because this and a couple of surrounding constituencies have a high concentration of Muslims.

But was it fair to the voters of Moradabad, to be saddled with a candidate whose commitment to the area and its people was suspect?

But then in the neighbouring Rampur, another south Indian, a film actress, was imported by the Samajwadi party in the last election. And Jaya Prada romped home on the strength of her glamour quotient.

The question is: why should we worry about the outsider tag of Azharuddins, Jaya Pradas and Sanjay Dutts if the people don’t mind electing them? After all, the people have a choice; they can consign these outsiders to the dustbin of history.

But then the people are left with a Hobson’s choice, because they are to choose from a list of candidates who have been foisted on them on considerations other than the commitment to public service. There are some who treat elections as a business to invest; they don’t mind forking out crores of rupees to get a ticket so that they can get manifold return on their investment within five years. Didn’t a candidate in Andhra Pradesh rue that he was denied a ticket though he was willing to pay Rs 10 crore, as there was a higher bidder?

With these mercenaries around, is there a genuine choice before the people?

The answer is an emphatic ‘no’. Then what is the way out?

Why can’t the people demand that the party candidates for a particular constituency must be chosen by the party members in that constituency? The parties, willing to enter the electoral fray, must be legally bound to reveal the list of its party members in each constituency and engage them to elect their chosen candidate. This process must begin at least a year before the scheduled elections. This would put an end to the politics of money, glamour and crime.

That would establish the backward linkage in a new political process. The people of the constituency will get candidates that are chosen from amongst themselves, and not foisted from above.

So on the voting day, all those voters who are not members of one political party or the other, have a semblance of choice. Still, if they are not happy with the candidates, they ought to have the option to cast a negative vote, rejecting all of them.

Today, there exists a provision for a voter to walk up to the presiding officer of the booth where he is enrolled, and fill up a form that he does not want to cast his vote. But this exercise has no electoral significance. It may as well be that the voter stays at home and does not take the pain to go to the polling booth to take part in this meaningless exercise.

What is needed is to legally enact a provision that allows a voter to exercise the protest vote and if the number of ‘no’ votes is more than the number of votes cast in favour of the candidate with maximum votes, then the election in that constituency must be nullified, setting in motion the process of another election with fresh candidates.

This would give the opportunity to the voter to actively intervene in the electoral process, instead of a being passive robot that he has been reduced to, as of today.

This brings us to the forward linkage. If, despite all these corrective measures, a candidate who gets elected turns a deaf ear to the constituents’ grievances, then the voters should not be left helpless for five years to throw out such a candidate. There must be a legal provision for ‘right to recall’, a provision that Jaya Prakash Narayan had vociferously advocated.

It is time the youth of the country ask from the politicians and political parties their support to such causes. It is not easy to come by. But if the campaign gets momentum and the political class realizes that it could ignore the popular demand only at a great political cost, then it would come round to accepting them.

No doubt, it is a long haul; it can’t be achieved in the run up to this election. But this election can be a starting point, for these electoral reforms to set in motion in the days to come.

The insatiable greed of the Patels and the Trivedis

Originally Published on 17-02-2009 in indiainteracts.com

Effective March 1, 2009, the Government of India has allowed the Delhi International Authority Limited (DIAL) to collect Rs 200 as airport development fees (ADF) from every domestic outbound passenger ( Rs 1300 per international passenger) taking off from Delhi airport. Mind you, this is an additional charge, over and above the Rs 225 that the government charges from every domestic passenger as the airport fee. The government said that this additional charge was necessary to enable DIAL to raise Rs 1,827 crore over a period of three years to carry out the modernization programme at the Delhi airport.

Look at the mockery of the government stance! Years ago, when the NDA government was in power, it strongly supported a public-private partnership for carrying out the airport development projects on the specious plea that the government did not have enough resources to undertake the massive task and it did not want to burden the air passenger with additional cess. The government was convinced that the private players were in a position to raise the needed resources.

Despite their skepticism about the involvement of the private players in a critical sector like airport, many accepted the government logic on its face value. After all, there was a boom in the civil aviation sector and there was a need to improve airport infrastructure to cope with the fleet expansion. And Delhi and Mumbai being the hub that dominate India’s airport traffic, accounting for 40 per cent of the passengers, they needed urgent upgradation. If the government was unable to do it on its own, and it could be done with the help of private sector, without burdening the average air passenger, so be it.

The NDA government amended the Airport Authority of India (AAI) Act in a manner to allow controlling stake for the private players. Luckily for the country, due to the technical difficulties, the NDA government did not succeed in its design to sell India’s airports to foreign players on a platter during its tenure.

It was left to the UPA government to open the bids by the private players. The UPA was no different; its leaders would not mind, like those of the NDA, to sacrifice Indian people’s interest to line their pockets. But, luckily for Indian people, the UPA was dependent on the Left Front support to remain in power. The Left forced the reduction of the FDI limit from 74 per cent to 49 per cent and the corresponding increase in the share of the Indian entity. The balance 26 per cent was to be retained by the AAI.

It was also made clear that the private consortium (an amalgamation of international and domestic private players) that succeeded in the bid would have to generate money through non-aeronautical commercial ventures. They were to invest and get returns on their investment in duty-free shops, malls, restaurants and such like ventures on the airport premises.

But having given the contract to the GMR-led consortium, the government is now reneging on its earlier stance that the private enterprises would raise resources on their own. The government is now coming to the rescue of the private players by putting additional burden on the air passenger, thereby turning the entire logic of the private enterprise stand on its head.

And how will the average flyer gain from the swank airports? As one could see at the new Bangaluru airport (which became operational in May last year), built by a Siemens-led Swiss consortium, there are bars which charges Rs 350 for a can of beer and those who could afford swill it at will.

But the average domestic passenger, with not much hard-earned money to be splurged, does not mind so long as it does not cost him for not taking a look at the expensive outlets.

But that was only till the other day. From January 16 last, every domestic passenger has been asked to fork out Rs260 extra as user development fee (UDF), a fee to be paid for enjoying modern facilities at the Bangaluru airport. Pray! What facilities! To pay extravagantly for anything that you shop there, which are in any case available for a fraction of the price in the city market? If one do not want to avail these ‘modern facilities’, then he should not be charged for it. But then airports are monopolies and you have no option but to pay what is asked for.

Air passengers faced similar predicaments when Air India and Indian airlines were the monopoly carriers in the Indian sky. They charged atrocious amount from anyone who dared to fly. So most of the passengers were the political leaders, civil servants and corporate honchos who did not have to pay from their pocket. Despite the high fare, the state monopoly airlines did bleed, and the taxpayer’s money had to be doled out to enable the civil aviation sector to survive.
This came about because the authorities were both incompetent and corrupt. Airlines become profitable when they improve their productivity. But unfortunately, Air India’s employee per aircraft, at 398, was more than five times that of, say, China Southern Airlines.

But the bigger concern was that civil aviation authorities treated the state sector as their private fiefdom. They could ladle out complimentary tickets at will to their family, friends and hangers-on, while the airline was supposed to be losing taxpayer’s money. One classic case was that of Vishwapati Trivedi, someone who had cultivated the civil aviation minister, Praful Patel, to such an extent that he managed to bag one prize post after another in the public carriers.

And what is the biggest achievement of this man? As the Mail Today, in its inaugural issue (November 16, 2007) did the expose—Trivedi’s wife, son, three daughters, parents, brother and sister used 116 free flight tickets to criss-cross the world, within a span of a year and a half. In his explanation, Trivedy not only accepted the charge, but also, replying to queries, came clean that during his association with the civil aviation sector, he had issued additional 161 free tickets to members of his extended family. And he had the gall to justify it by referring to a 1994 board resolution that not only reaffirmed that senior executives of the airline had the authority to issue free ticket to their families but also changed the definition of the family to include brothers, sisters, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, other than spouse, children and parents.

But Praful Patel gave Trivedi a clean chit. Trivedy did not do anything illegal, Patel told journalists and refused to initiate any action. How can he? As the man at the helm of the civil aviation sector, Patel has been milking it for last five years.

The question is, why should the common air passenger pay for the insatiable greed of the Patels and Trivedis?