Author: Pran Kurup

Every five years, when it’s time to elect the new President of the India, there is needless muscle flexing and show of strength that eventually fizzles out and amounts to nothing. This time seems to be no different. The UPA has settled on Pranab Mukherjee, while the opposition is still in the hunt for a candidate of its own. Thankfully, former President Abdul Kalam refused to take the bait and seems to have survived with his reputation intact. He knew better than to fall prey to a losing cause when he had already served a creditable stint as the President.

The President of India is largely a ceremonial post and nobody refutes that. Most people can barely name our past Presidents (barring probably APJ Abdul Kalam) because in the last few decades, none of them have really had a lasting impact on the country. Sadly, the post of President is generally considered a retirement appointment. Someone who is a safe bet, should it ever come to a crisis of any sort, is often the choice, Pratibha Patil, being a prime example. Plucked from virtual obscurity, she was rewarded with the Presidency for her blind loyalty to the Gandhi family. After several foreign tours with friends and family, she is now headed towards a safe and comfortable retirement. In short, her stint has been a complete waste of taxpayer resources with absolutely nothing to show for it except for a controversy surrounding her post-retirement home. Despite being the first woman President, she has far from proven to be an inspirational figure or a role model of any sort. The irony is that she is hardly to blame because her landing the post is a reflection of the state of our democracy and politics more than anything else.

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The Coal-gate saga, the “scam du jour,” is fast being lost like every other scam, as the media revels in motives, allegations and counter allegations. In the midst of this, the most revealing piece of news on the Coal-gate saga was the pronouncements made by Mr. P.C Parikh, former Coal Secretary, who was at the center of all the action when these decisions regarding the coal allocations were made.

“I had written to the PMO way back in 2004 that coal blocks should be given through an auction. But the policy has been implemented now in 2012 and till date, not even a single coal block has been allocated through auction. The government lost a lot of money by giving coal mines using the existing system.” Mr. Parikh said that the committee was always under tremendous pressure from MPs, state governments, ministries and other players to allot coal blocks. “Any system which is based on a subjective decision is open to pulls and pressures, and this is precisely what happened,” he remarked.

These statements reveal several serious flaws in our current system. Firstly, there is way too much left to the discretion of those in power. The bulk of our scams can be traced down to ministers using their discretion to make decisions that are often arbitrary. The reality of coalition politics is that the PM could feign helplessness if the likes of Raja chose to do as they please. It’s hard to argue that a tough, no-nonsense PM would make a huge difference as opposed to an affable, yet purportedly clean PM.

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Aamir Khan’s recent episode of Satyamev Jayate seems to have created quite a furore in the medical community. The India Medical Association (IMA) have accused Aamir of unfairly targeting them and have demanded an unconditional apology from him. They have threatened to boycott his program and also his films.

The controversy surrounding this program follows a very familiar pattern. For example, from the time the anti-corruption movement was started by Anna Hazare and his team, one common refrain was,  “You can’t paint all politicians with a broad brush and say that everyone is corrupt.” The fact is no one ever said that. The other common refrain was, “You can’t end corruption with one law — the Lokpal Bill” The fact is, once again, no one ever made such a claim. The need of the hour is that you have to start somewhere.

The same holds true for Aamir’s exposé on the medical profession. I saw the program and I thought that Aamir had done a wonderful job of putting the show together. There was absolutely nothing in the episode that said that all doctors are bad or corrupt. It highlighted the fact that there is growing corruption in the medical profession and something needs to be done to at least curb, if not put an end to, this malaise. In a developing country like India, the government needs to play its part in ensuring that its citizens, especially the poor, have adequate, affordable healthcare.

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Mr. Jairam Ramesh had referred to himself as Shikhandi a year back, when faced with attacks for land acquisition for various projects. “I had become Shikhandi in Environment and Forest Ministry,” he had said. But his comment went relatively unnoticed. A year later, Shikhandi is back but this time in the center of a political storm of seemingly epic proportions. What is also back is the indefatigable Team Anna, this time armed with scores of documented evidence of corruption against fifteen ministers including the PM himself. While unleashing a barrage of allegations, Mr. Prashant Bhushan said that the PM was being used like “Shikhandi.” He meant that the Congress party was using the PM’s personal credibility and honesty as a “smoke screen” while indulging in seriously corrupt practices behind the scenes. Not surprisingly, there has plenty of chest-thumping, especially from the UPA, about the reference to “Shikhandi” to describe the PM. In fact, this entire episode has been replete with Bollywood-style melodrama. First, the allegation from the relentless Team Anna. Then, the counter allegations from the UPA combined with innuendos about cracks in Team Anna. And finally, the punchline from the PM himself (“I will give up my public life if allegations are proved against me….). What is missing now are signs of a filmy happy ending!

Firstly, we need to thank Mr. Bhushan for putting Shikhandi on the map and giving us a quick refresher on one of our great epics (Justice Katju should have something to cheer about?). I asked at least five highly educated people about Shikhandi and all of them confessed ignorance. A couple of those who hail from the south with limited knowledge of Hindi did a quick mental pattern match for similar sounding terms and wondered if it was some kind of “Shikanji!” (lime juice). So much for the pervasive power of our mythological metaphors.

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In the state of Kerala, leader of the Revolutionary Marxist Party, T P Chandrasekharan, who was expelled from CPI(M) a few years back, was attacked and killed by unidentified assailants. According to police, 50-year-old Chandrasekharan was attacked by assailants who came by a car while he was riding a motorcycle alone. Country-made bombs were hurled at him and when he fell off the motorcycle, he was hacked to death with sharp weapons. His face was completely disfigured. Sadly, this is not the first incident of its kind in Kerala. The true criminals behind similar incidents in the past have not been identified either. Arresting a low level thug does not strike at the heart of the problem. The “big fish” behind such crimes are almost never held accountable and the problem of extreme, brutal, and barbaric violence just continues to grow unchecked. If this is the state of politics in India’s most literate state, what hope does this hold for the rest of the country?

Move up north to India’s capital, and an RTI activist, Ravinder Balwani, was killed after a mysterious hit-and-run incident. He now joins the ever-growing list of slain RTI activists. Take the case of Shehla Masood, another RTI activist, who was gunned down last August. The investigations continue but there is no closure in sight.

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In response to my recent article on Parliament vs. Team Anna, some readers responded by expressing their sense of despair and helplessness over the failure of the anti-corruption struggle in achieving a strong Lokpal bill. “Our corrupt political system is not going to change overnight. Our politicians are not going to turn righteous and pass a strong Lokpal bill. How do we get to our desired end-goal?” This seems to be the popular sentiment among those who genuinely care about change and reform. At the other extreme are the pessimists who say without mincing words, “This country will never improve for the next several generations!”

Sri Sri Ravishankar, in a recent article in the Huffington Post, advocated a two pronged approach. To pass the Jan Lokpal bill, on the one hand, and to create awareness among public about ethical and moral values against corruption, on the other. He rightly says, “An individual alone cannot fight the menace of corruption. Without strong community support, individuals are likely to succumb to corruption. Strong community which would help the weak and vulnerable is most essential.” This sounds like a worthy plan, but getting past the first hurdle of passing strong anti-corruption laws still seems insurmountable.

 Click here to read the rest of the article in The Economic Times

In a rare moment of bi-partisanship, the entire Indian Parliament joined hands to condemn Team Anna for its attack on the political class. Interestingly, Sushma Swaraj of the BJP, unwittingly highlighted the irony of the predicament when she said, “If MPs were looters, corrupt and rapists, then why did Team Anna send three of its demands to be incorporated in a resolution passed by Parliament.” The answer to this question says it all. The civil society has no other option but to “beg and plead” before an institution which is home to many who have serious cases against them and would be directly affected should Lokpal become a reality.

Arguing about the “who said what” and whether it was appropriate would be case of not seeing the forest for the tress. Clearly, this Parliament vs. Team Anna struggle has wider implications for India’s future. If you disregard for a moment the individual players in this struggle, their motivations and their allegiances, it does raise some very important issues that warrant significant public debate. Over the last sixteen months, the anti-corruption movement has been a major part of the public’s pre-occupation and a primary cause for an overall sense of dissatisfaction. Despite this, thanks to coalition politics, lack of leadership, and political will, virtually nothing has been accomplished to address these legitimate concerns of the people. Sadly, cases of corruption continue to be unearthed, the most recent being the one involving our Army. On the law and order front, RTI activists have been routinely killed over the years and most recently, Narendra Singh, an IPS officer, was crushed to death supposedly by the mining mafia in MP. Our Parliament has little to show in terms of concrete action on any of these fronts.

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he recent assembly elections have, as always, thrown up some surprises. The biggest among them is the sweep by the Samajwadi party led by Mulayam Singh Yadav in UP and the complete rout of the Rahul Gandhi led Congress. Mayawati, another victim of the SP wave, who spent the better part of her tenure as CM erecting statues of herself and her elephants, is now plotting her next move towards the Rajya Sabha. Meanwhile, the Congress government in Uttarakhand is going to be led by Vijay Bahuguna, whose sister Rita Bahuguna heads up the Congress in neighboring UP. We have barely skimmed the surface of politics in two states and you have deeply entrenched political families—the Gandhis, the Yadavs, the Bahugunas, and Mayawati (who is more than a handful all by herself!)—battling it out for supremacy.

There has been plenty of optimism-laden talk about the passing of the baton to a new generation in UP, as Netaji Mulayam Singh Yadav makes way for son Akhilesh Yadav. No matter who is in charge, the pedigree is impossible to change and so is the baggage of history. The Samajwadi party is known for its “goondagiri.” This was apparent almost immediately after the victory, when SP supporters went berserk and assaulted their opponents. Mulayam Singh Yadav is possibly headed for a plum role in the UPA government, emboldened by his mandate at the state-level.

Are all these signs of progress? Is this state of our democracy supposed to make us proud? If you disregard the fact that we have elections today, how different is this from the days when Kings and Queens ruled different parts of our country? The headlines could very well have been, “Queen Mayawati voted out of power, King Mulayam crowns young Prince to be King and heads to Delhi.”

Click here to read the rest of the article in The Economic Times