IndiaProbe

Rahul Gandhi must win battle within Congress

2020-07-17T21:29:00.001-07:00

Rahul Gandhi is back with a Latin American brush of facial touch. Eyes have sunk deep. Curled hair is swept back and oiled. Skin is more tanned. Trademark beard that boasted of careless grey vegetation is gone. Pitch of the voice is moderated. He now looks reflective, with the brash shadow cast off. Gandhi is experimenting, progressing or swinging on the learning curve, amidst wave of personal onslaughts set off from within his party and the outside. He's an enigma that keeps Indian politics enchanted.

RAHUL Gandhi, former Congress president and the Lok Sabha MP from Wayanad, Kerala, has offered another glimpse into his withdrawn world of thoughts. With YouTube debut, Gandhi has worn the creative attire. He has asked questions. He's seen probing the powerful Prime Minister Narendra Modi. There are subtitles and info-graphics to explain the subject. There is an air of a serious discourse. So, there are maps, backgrounders, anecdotes and contexts to put forth his arguments. And, he stays on China, asking why did Xi Jinping send his soldiers in East Ladakh, for Modi had excessively invested his economic capital in Beijing in past six years at the helms in New Delhi while also as the chief minister of Gujarat.

The three minutes and 38 seconds long video invited rebuttal from the Union Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar who argued the case of the Modi dispensation with 10 tweets. Besides, there was an avalanche of derision from top functionaries of the BJP. The volume and intensity of the responses demonstrate indubitably that Gandhi's experiment isn't entirely wasteful.

THE intellectual appearance of a political leader is as good as the depth of the script writers. For past one decade, the script for him and his mother Sonia Gandhi has been written by a former Union Minister who is known for putting his foot in the mouth too often. That script writer had faced the wrath of even his mother for making insensitive comments about Hindu symbols when he was a powerful minister in the Manmohan Singh government. It can be conveniently inferred that the comments, including the poor needs escape velocity to escape poverty, must have been authored by such script writers who delight in pulling the verbal strings of their aka. So, derision thrown at Gandhi must also largely account for the disconnect of his script writers.

Flower of India's foremost political dynasty, Gandhi is principally an experimenter, introducing the borrowed concept of primaries in the Indian Youth Congress and afterwards in the candidate selection for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. The 15th Lok Sabha and the 2009 winning list of the Congress candidates boasted a number of youngsters who rose from the ranks of the Youth Congress. Meenakshi Natarajan, winning Madhya Pradesh's poorest Parliamentary constituency Mandsaur, hogged the limelight, coming to Parliament on an auto-rickshaw. That was a full three years before a policy lobbyist rode piggyback to Anna Hazare to appear as an Aam Admi politician. Rahul Gandhi lacked manpower in salesmanship to allow Arvind Kejriwal to run away with the Aam Admi plot. A dynast would also otherwise have failed to win the plot.

Politics in India since the formation of the Congress in 1885 has been held hostage by the feudal lords. Post-Independence, they conveniently carved out their principalities under the benign patronage of the legacy of Jawahar Lal Nehru. The folly of Rahul Gandhi was that he paid more interests in the politics of the US than the architecture of his party and the Indian politics. His push with primaries to promote youngsters outside the established political families made him an outsider within the Congress. The entrenched had their interests better protected with Sonia Gandhi. She will not speak a word outside the slip given to her.

People will accept Rahul Gandhi if he wins the battle within the Congress. Changing the course of the status quoist blood running in the veins of the Congress is a herculean task. For a change, he should read the Roman mythology more to first take on the feudal lords within his party. Modi can wait for him to win his battle first within the Congress.

Galwan gladiators

2020-06-27T11:22:00.003-07:00

Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted anti-China war theaters in television and print to take a break. That was the basic import of his stunning "no intrusion" remark to political leaders in the all party meeting. His audience listened with devotional silence. But limitations of a video conference didn't work with argumentative Indians. And, thus, followed a clarification within 18 hours. Modi and his men since then are working overtime to push Galwan valley to the exclusive ownership of the Armed Forces, and unleash the politics of economy and trade.

IT has taken the BJP a full six years to know the financial details of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. The Jawahar Bhavan, housing the think tank headed by the first family of the Congress, is at a stone's throw distance from the Parliament of India.

Tales of the Gandhi family and its (mis) deeds in the Indian politics have been told too many times in the recent years. The larger audience has mostly been yawning. People have demonstrated clarity of understanding of the first family of the Congress. That it's most undeserving to lead India.

Yet, whipping a dead horse is the most convenient political craft of the BJP. The demon must remain alive to scare the masses to run to the shelters of the gods. The demon must also be bloated to hide smaller foes who are territory bound. So, the BJP chief J P Nadda has suddenly popped up in the midst of barrage of questions flying post June15/16 violent clash in the Galwan valley and India's raging battle with the Corona virus to turn the spotlight on the Gandhi family.

THE Balakot and surgical strikes in the wake of Pulwama and Pathankot terror attacks respectively whetted the appetite of the popular discourse for instant levelling (gratifications). The 20 brave-hearts of India who fell on the intervening night of June 15/16 set the television studios ablaze with the men of uniform talking war strategies at great lengths.

Similar anguish in China is also apparently spreading after the relatives were finally handed over the bodies of their fallen men. But China is a private limited enterprise where a regime lords over one and a half billion people. The regime has one sentence statecraft -- power flows from barrel of the gun, a copyright of Mao Zedong, ruler of China from 1949-1976.

India is a democracy irrespective of the streaks of a few to lord over the people with iron grips. Democracy entails questions, and plenty of them are being asked now. The Narendra Modi led dispensation knows well that the Galwan valley skirmishes aren't going to go away soon. The foe here is not a moth-eaten Pakistan. The fighter jets cannot just go raiding in the Chinese territory and drop a few bombs. Within the ruling dispensation this reality is well understood.

"It looks like some media houses, so called experts, think tanks & politically loaded ex-defence officers are hell bent on Indo-China war & Indian forces ultimately getting defeated. Commies were doing it in 1962. Left liberals have started it now," tweeted the BJP's organisational secretary B L Santhosh.

Santhosh may not be speaking Modi's mind, as he in the past has let go his frustration on social media, with an illustration of his rant, the tweet was soon deleted, against Bernie Sanders when he was on a roll against India.

INDIA and China have an LAC (line of actual control) of almost about 4000 kms. History has seen many ups and downs in over 100 years. The line of control has been pushed down, deep into Indian territory over the decades, principally on account of the timidity of the Indian leadership.

The adventurous British India of the 19th century had grown weaker at the beginning of the 20th century. Freedom from slavery of centuries led the baton of the leadership pass onto the hands of the pacifists who were more than willing to believe in the virtues of their counterparts in the other countries. India learnt too many lessons of the leaders' follies. Barring 1965 and 1971, India allowed bureaucratic arms to overwhelm strategic urgency to safeguard India's frontiers, which most steadfastly was done in the days of glory of Ashoka, Akbar and the British.

Modi broke the spell of slumber by giving hard slaps to Pakistan after the Pathankot and Pulwama terror attacks. The western foe may not dare for a few years to force its tactical weapon of inflicting 100 cuts onto India. With China, India may need to embark on a journey of decades. Instant gratification is only in the realm of fantasy.

The saffron auxiliary forces have already been let loose to identify the Chinese goods and build the public opinion against them. The Chinese trade surplus of over $48.7 billion annually in bilateral trade with India in the last financial year, which slightly came down, has over the years nourished the muscles of Beijing. The Corona virus may potentially change terms of trade. India will need to make attitudinal and policy changes to become the recipient of the gains.

ON the rocky terrains, the Armed Forces should be allowed full freedom to push back the intruders, and the leadership should unhesitatingly put the facts in the public domain to cut the scope for the Galwan gladiators in the studios dictate the popular narrative. Speculation on the state of affairs of India's frontiers will only harm the national interests.

Let the Chief of Defence Staff CDS) Bipin Rawat give the full accounts of the Galwan valley to the people. Democracy ordains facts of the day in the public domain, not speculation on India's strategic interests.

Delhi Assembly Elections: Prashant Kishor's swing management

2020-01-21T21:03:00.000-08:00

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal waited for seven hours to file his nomination papers from the New Delhi Assembly constituency. That was a day after his roadshow pulled in a large number of cheer crowd to make him skip filing the nomination papers. The simple filing of nomination papers hogged the limelight for two days. The BJP played along, first by floating the strategy to surprise Kejriwal with a heavyweight challenger, only to spring a tame script in Sunil Yadav, who in his only electoral experience has lost councilor's elections. The discourse surrounding the Delhi Assembly elections have so far stayed around Kejriwal, portrayed as an indomitable and sometimes as a victim of the "dirty tricks" of the BJP, in line with Prashant Kishor's election management text book.

THE BJP veteran in Jharkhand Saryu Rai had long been a critic of the party colleague and former chief minister Raghubar Das. Rai would often put down dissent note in the Cabinet decisions. He would even admit lapses in events of alleged hunger deaths in the state. Das had also long been nursing an opportunity to get rid of him and found emboldened with his Maharashtra counterpart Devendra Fadnavis, who had also purged his rivals within the party during ticket distribution. Rai knew his fate, yet patiently awaited the Central leadership to be wiser.

The BJP Central leadership thought of paying a smart game by delaying Rai's candidature from Jamshedpur (West) Assembly seat. The party would have given the nomination by making him seen begging for the ticket, which, in turn, would have pleased Das. Rai didn't play along the script, and drifted away.

An old hand in politics, Rai had rubbed shoulders with the socialists, and counted on Bihar chief

minister Nitish Kumar as his pal. Over the years, he had cultivated an image of an intellectual within the BJP. He was popularly seen honest. In the face of his party insulting him, Rai took flight to an audacious course. He decided to challenge the chief minister Das in his Jamshedpur (West) constituency, which was among the only seven seats in the state in 2014 where the winning candidate had a margin of more than 50,000 votes.

Rai hogged the limelight. He was a victim. People sympathised with an honest and educated man who was dumped by the BJP at the insistence of an arrogant chief minister. Das stayed in Ranchi. He was miser in mixing with the people in his constituency. He was seen distant and inaccessible. The stage was set for the script of a simple man taking on an arrogant drunk on power.

The script needed an able direction to stage the act on a large canvas. The director flew in from Patna with an army of 300 assistants. He was Prashant Kishor. His army brought in posters, leaflets and wrote slogans. They knocked at the doors to tell stories of an honest man fighting a lonely battle against an arrogant chief minister. In a matter of a few days, Rai was the only topic of discussion. The ripple effect soon electrified the whole state. Das had emerged a villain. Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to cut down the damage. He patted his Cabinet colleague Arjun Munda more frequently in his election rallies. But the damage was done beyond the limits of Modi.

IN 2015 the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had turned a BJP foe in the state Assembly elections. The BJP brimmed with an all conquering passion to win elections. The saffron outfit was facing a grand alliance of Nitish Kumar in the company of the Congress and the RJD. Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav had become the best pals. Modi was on an error making spree. He sought to flow the river of funds from the Centre to Patna to turn Bihar into Gujarat. Worse, he hit out at Nitish Kumar, and Prashant Kishor grabbed that to run the campaign to send samples of hair for DNA testing. The BJP's well oiled electoral machinery slipped into the muddy waters of Bihar even before the people cast their votes in the first phase of elections.

Kishor now has perfected text book to turn the victims in politicians to giant killers. His company I-Pac is currently the best political slogan writers. He in the course of a few months can apply smart touches to the images of his pay masters to the liking of the people. Kejriwal is no more seen an anarchist. The Delhi chief minister in the course of a few months, Kishor came on board unofficially with Aam Admi Party (AAP) around August, last year, has been smiling from thousands of his pictures dotting the national capital.

Kishor has worked on the image makeover of Kejriwal. The I-Pac workers are knocking at the doors of the people to sell the story of governance. They are selling the dream that Delhi in another five years would become a place of their aspirations: free of toxic air, classrooms for all the children, and healthcare for patients.

Delhi Assembly elections: Data drift holds cues

2020-01-16T21:57:00.002-08:00

Predicting poll outcomes by all accounts is a perilous job. Elections are analysed on past trends. Electorates have proven wiser than pundits more often. They aren't prisoners of the past, as they script history elections after elections. Amid the maddening electioneering, data stay firm with serenity, inviting political strategists to steer narratives to help their masters for smart politics. Data for Delhi suggest the air in the city smells of a cliffhanger of the poll outcome.

THE ruling Aam Admi Party (AAP) had weaved a magical spell in 2015. Political rivals of the incumbent chief minister Arvind Kejriwal were left shell-shocked with the final scoreboard. That was 67-3 and a naught for the Congress. The BJP had the worst tally. The saffron outfit still bears the taunt. Climbing from an abyss like situation of the single digit figure five years ago to go past the half way mark of 35 would indeed be an unprecedented somersault. For AAP, it will equally be the groundswell of popular anger to slump from the level of 67 to 30s or less would be quite a fall with thud.

The AAP isn't just another political outfit. The party was born after Anna Hazare made the political air of Delhi pregnant with negativism during 2012-13. Negativism midwifed anarchism. Kejriwal proved an undisputed icon of the politics of anarchism. His foes were left guilt-stricken, as they bent backwards to prove their credentials of honesty and probity in public life. They vowed to innovate and herald an honest and people friendly governance. The tribe of Sheila Dikshit, Harsh Vardhan and Kiran Bedi searched for wood when their boats had already sunk.

The 2015 scoreboard read: AAP 54.3 per cent vote share and 67 Assembly seats; BJP 32.3 per cent vote share and 3 Assembly seats; and the Congress 9.7 per cent vote share and zero Assembly seats.

But that wasn't the maiden electoral venture of AAP in politics. Kejriwal cut off his umbilical chord with his godfather Anna Hazare to contest the December 2013 Assembly polls. The cadre of the AAP wasn't yet properly built. The party was still sloganeering.

The 2013 scoreboard read: AAP 29.5 per cent vote share and 28 Assembly seats; BJP 33 per cent vote share and 31 Assembly seats; and the Congress 24.6 per cent vote share and eight Assembly seats.

In span of a few months, Kejriwal built the cadre for AAP, with donations pouring from the affluent class within the country and abroad, helping him to maintain an army of well paid functionaries. With the likes of Kumar Vishwas, Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav leading the most vicious attacks on the mainstream political parties, Kejriwal strode as the alternative politics warrior, swearing to slay the rivals in the electoral battlefield. The Congress fell for the trap, and helped Kejriwal become chief minister. That bloated the persona of Kejriwal further, and soon he didn't need the Congress crutches. He read the politics well, and played the victim card to the hilt.

People flocked to Kejriwal, with 54.3 per cent vote share in 2015. His rivals turned into pygmies. The new political icon was born. But within a few months, drift set in the Kejriwal camp, as all those who bloated him into an extraordinary exponent of alternative politics parted ways after much breast-beating.

TWO years later, the AAP faced the litmus test to repeat the magical spell of 2015. The BJP had been in power in the municipal corporation of Delhi for a decade, completing two full terms. The AAP cadre was mobilised to oust the BJP from the MCD, which, incidentally, has over 90 per cent connect with the people on a daily basis. The BJP was up against significant anti-incumbency. The BJP chief Amit Shah sought shelter in simple strategy; he just told the incumbent Councillors that they should climb the political ladder and focus on contesting the next Assembly elections. The BJP fielded fresh crop of the party workers.

The 2017 municipal elections' scoreboard read: AAP 26 per cent vote share and 49 seats; BJP 37 per cent vote share and 181 seats; and the Congress 21 per cent vote share and 31 seats.

From 54.3 per cent vote share in 2015, AAP came down to 26 per cent; the BJP after staying firm with 33 per cent (2013) and 32.3 per cent (2015) rose to 37 per cent; and the Congress made a smart recovery from an embarrassing 9.7 per cent (2015) to 21 per cent.

In 2017 again the AAP got another jolt. The outfit had found fertile ground in Punjab, and was seen on course to wrest power from Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-BJP combine. The Delhi drift had its own parallel in Punjab for AAP. The Congress' old horse Captain Amarinder Singh strode high to leave AAP huffing and puffing at distant second.

PEOPLE undeniably have made distinctions between local and national elections. Chhatishgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand have shown that the electorate can with ease make distinct choices in Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. In Odisha, the electorate cast votes simultaneously for Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, and showed preferences for Narendra Modi in New Delhi and Navin Patnaik in Bhubaneshwar.

Still, the data are significant, for Delhi appears on a certain course. The BJP swept the Lok Sabha elections in Delhi, with the perfect scoreboard of 7-0. The 2019 endorsed the previous scorecard, with scales going higher.

The 2014 scoreboard read: AAP 32.90 per cent vote share and zero seat; BJP 46.40 per cent vote share and seven Lok Sabha seats; and the Congress 15.10 per cent vote share and zero seat.

The BJP had seen a negative swing of about 14 per cent in the 2015 Assembly elections. The AAP correspondingly registered over 21 per cent of positive swing, mostly gaining at the expense of the Congress.

The 2019 scoreboard read: AAP 18 per cent vote share and zero seat; BJP 56.58 per cent vote share and seven Lok Sabha seats; and the Congress 18 per cent vote share and zero seat.

For BJP, the scores in recent elections are 33 per cent (2013), 46.40 per cent (2014), 32.3 per cent (2015), 37 per cent (2017), 56.58 per cent (2019). In the five recent polls, the BJP hasn't gone down 32.3 per cent even when the party arguably shot in the foot by fielding an ex-cop Kiran Bedi in 2015.

The AAP in contrast has seen wild swing of vote share from 18 per cent (2019) to 54.3 per cent in 2015. The graph is surely not steady. The AAP, in fact, came third in 2019.

The 2015 elections in Delhi was a watershed moment. The BJP saw 14 per cent vote share knocked away in the face of the magical spell of AAP. Delhi was high on romance in 2015. The level of romance was two per cent higher in 2019, with adoration for a different entity.

The BJP's worst case scenario could be another 14 per cent drift, which may leave the saffron outfit still with 42 per cent popular votes. To level, the AAP will need 24 per cent of the positive swing from 2019. And, that would surely be reckoned a daunting task.

Delhi may throw a tantalizingly cliffhanger election outcome on February 11.

Citizenship Amendment Act: Flying embers in times of urban unrest

2020-01-09T22:52:00.001-08:00

Students are swelling in numbers on the streets. They've braved chill in the air. Showers from water canons haven't doused the fire in the bellies of the protestors. Universities, mostly in metropolitan cities, are squirming with angst. Air smells of feverish emotions. The new decade dawned with loud shrieks from the youth, underlining their hatred for the ruling dispensation in India. That Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are no strangers to hatred is not forgotten by those with eyes and ears for the fast changing Indian democratic flavours.

INDIAN Parliament has been seized of the pressing needs for the amendments in the Citizenship Act for a few decades. The voice for amendments in the Parliament began gaining visible strength from 2003. Politicians cutting across party lies made sympathetic overtures for granting citizenship to thousands of refugees. Such refugees who fled neighbouring Islamic countries due to religious persecutions have been spread out in many cities for past three decades, while they continue to seek ways to come to India on the back of radical Islamist choosing them for their bigotry even in the recent times. The influx will not stop of such people even while the Citizenship Amendment Act draws the curtain of December 31, 2014 for them to gain Indian nationality.

Deliberations in the Parliamentary standing committee of the Ministry of Home Affairs largely concurred that the refugees belonging to the majority community in Bangladesh cannot be considered for citizenship. Muslim refugees from Pakistan and Afghanistan aren't in any significant number to warrant attention. Muslims from Bangladesh, popularly called ghuspaithiya (illegal migrants), have, however, been in numbers to polarise election campaigns, with a few political parties vowing to throw them out of the country. Assam has seen riots in areas inhabited by them since 1980s. Assam was torn apart in the face of the swift demographic changes, posing an existential crisis to the Assamese identity.

Demographic changes, substantially altering linguistic and cultural identities of districts bordering West Bengal and Bihar with Bangladesh in the course of 1990s and the first decade of the new millennium, were swift. Waves of illegal migrants from Bangladesh mingled in Indian habitations unhindered and unquestioned. The military dictatorship in Bangladesh after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had co-opted the radical Islamist. The free flow of Saudi money to further the Wahabi stream of militant Islam found fertile grounds in Bangladesh. That the Parliamentary voices underlined security risk from such unabated flow of illegal Bangladeshi migrants indeed reflected the ground realities.

THE National Register for Citizens (NRC), committed in the Assam Accord and implemented under the watch of the Supreme Court, bared the religious fault lines. The cut off date for the people to make into the list was March 25, 1971. Over 19 lakhs were excluded from the final list for which over 3.31 crore people had applied. The BJP was livid, for the party leaders claimed that 12 lakh Bengali Hindus found their claim rejected. The BJP leaders fumed that over 90 per cent of the alleged Bangladeshi illegal migrants actually made into the final list. Predictably, the BJP government in Assam rejected the NRC held in Assam.

Indian Parliament exhaustively debated the draft legislation on the Citizenship Amendment Bill. The BJP also faced internal dissent in its Assam unit, with some expressing that there would be backlash if the Bengali Hindus are granted citizenship. The Central BJP leaders held firm and went ahead with clear intent that the Hindus in Assam would gain citizenship. The Bill excluded the Muslims from the ambit, while other minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan -- Christians, Buddhists, Parsi, Jains and Sikhs -- made into the beneficiary list. Such refugees from Pakistan and Afghanistan are said to be just little over 30,000. The BJP leaders have guessed Bangladesh illegal Muslim migrants in excess of one crore (100 million).

"The Citizenship Amendment Act is meant principally for the Bengali Hindus in Assam," said a senior BJP leader in an informal chat with scribes.

THE BJP chief Amit Shah has rewritten the political script of Indian politics. In Narendra Modi, Shah had a campaigner to allow the BJP to overwhelm inimical political hindrances. Shah rejoices in politics of confrontation. In Parliament, his debates are essentially confined to winning the arguments, with facts and instances from the past, which are uncomfortable to the Opposition. In electoral politics, he demonstrated effortlessly that the age old might of the strategic Muslim voting was just rudderless. He scored the rare triple century for the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, leaving opponents gripped with morbid fear of irrelevance.

Shah was among the first few to occupy the chair in the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan when Modi took oath for his second term. The men and women in the council of ministers largely consisted of the aids of Shah. It was apparent that Modi had chosen his second in command and possibly the heir. Shah proved soon that he was in a hurry. In a swift and sudden move, Shah wrote a new script for Jammu and Kashmir. He made it simple to disbelief of even his supporters that the Article 370 could just be wished away with a Parliamentary resolution. Shah endeared to the Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS) with one bold stroke. To the delight of the RSS, he owned up the moral ownership of the Citizenship Amendment Bill, and grabbed a narrative for the next five years by becoming vocal on the NRC.

In a matter of six months, it's not Modi but Shah who is being talked about in the country. With his alter ego Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in India, accounting for one-sixth population of the country, the BJP-RSS brass know that the Hindutva would stay at the center stage of the popular discourse in the coming years.

Lok Sabha had passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill in 2018. The CPI (M) MP Mohammed Salim and AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi made the obvious noise. There were hardly any noteworthy protests on the streets of New Delhi. The Bill lapsed with the dissolution of the 16th Lok Sabha. The 17th Lok Sabha inaugurated with the BJP led government going in a tearing hurry to gain Parliamentary approvals to host of legislative bills, with government not shying away from pushing the contentious legislation. The NDA being in minority in Rajya Sabha proved no hindrance to Shah. From legislation against the practice of triple talaq (instant divorce) within the Muslim community to the dilution of Article 370, besides the Citizenship Amendment Act, flew with the Parliamentary favours with ease. The BJP under the watch of Shah in the government was seen possessed with the might to rewrite the Constitution o India by the opponents.

The battle lost in Parliament and elections for long have been waged on the streets.

Ayodhya verdict: Epochal leap of faith

2019-11-10T02:03:00.000-08:00

The responsibility laid on man as a rational being, to integrate himself, to relate the present to the past and the future, to live in time as well as eternity has become acute and urgent -- S. Radhakrishnan, The Principal Upanishads.

THE Supreme Court has taken off the poison in the air with its unanimous Ayodhya judgment. The political class had failed in its principal mandate to reconcile social contradictions. The religious leaders lacked mandate to rise above their identities. The politics of India used religion to polarise communities. Minorityism nursed identity politics, while the people were pushed into ghettos. Demographic transformation afterwards transcended identities. Political might of minorityism was firmly put down on the mat. The stage was set for the Supreme Court to shun judicial shyness to tread on the tricky path of faith and pronounce verdict to conclude explicit acrimony of over three decades.

UNION Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi had brought leaders of the Muslim community face to face with a few top functionaries of Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS). The objective was to prepare grounds for the acceptance of the impending Supreme Court verdict on Ramjanmabhoomi title suit. Both sides talked necessities of the co-existence. One Muslim scholar 's word, however, hung on to the ears of the RSS functionaries.

"Mulk bachega to Mazhab bachega (Religion will survive only if the nation stays)," said the Muslim scholar. Four days later, the RSS functionary, while recalling the remark, noted: "The Muslims always professed their religion above the nation. That remark was significant, signalling change in thoughts even if shared by only a few. We've to see how does it go forward," said the RSS functionary.

The saffron outfit would await the Muslims to take further initiatives for dialogue. The RSS and its various socio-cultural-politico wings now genuinely argue that they want dialogue with the Muslim community leaders. It's not that they've just been talking. They have, indeed, been doing this for a while behind the closed doors. They just want that secrecy to go away.

Mohan Bhagwat, RSS supremo, after the Supreme Court verdict.

INDIA'S partition is still fresh in the collective memory of the people. That was on the basis of religion. The liberal politicians of India embraced the Muslims who chose to stay in India. The Congress leadership, drawing from the pool of the battery of freedom struggle leaders, steadied the nation on the path of peaceful coexistence of all communities. The talent pool fast became depleting, and the demise of Lal Bahadur Shastri brought curtains on the golden age of India's selfless politics. The consequent phase saw the birth of self-centred politics. The Muslims harbouring minorityism were the convenient hunting grounds for the proponents of identity politics. The Congress in 1970-80s evolved potent potion to win elections, with Muslims at the core of the social engineering consisting also of the upper castes and Dalits. The 1990s saw the arrival of aggressive politics around social justice. The Congress' potent electoral potion passed on to scores of identity based political outfits. They firmly pushed the Muslims into the ghettos.

The BJP patriarch L K Advani has claimed that the Ramjanmabhoomi movement was the second biggest mass mobilisation after India's freedom struggle. He's seemingly not far from the truth, though JP (Jaiprakash Narayan) may disagree for having given India the third generation of leaders with his clarion call for 'Sampoorna Kranti'.

Yet, the spate of communal riots across the length and breadth of the country for one and a half decades since 1989, with a few sporadic reported from the western Uttar Pradesh very recently, was by all accounts due to the virulent explosion of the politics of exclusion. Both the secularists and the BJP practised the politics of exclusion to perfection. The idea of India conceived by Mahatma Gandhi was unmistakably dead.

LORD Ram is India's foremost cultural icon. He transcended religion. His celebrations in the East Asian culture despite majority Muslim population are loud testimonies to Ram's transcendental appeal. Ram breaths in lives of the people who were shipped to scores of islands by the British for sugarcane cultivation in faraway lands. Thousands of such people clung on to the copy of Ramayana. Indian life is incomplete without Ram.

Ram is an embodiment of supreme sacrifice. He weaves magical spell with His unconditional acceptance of all on the path of Dharma. That man has to coexist in harmony with animal, plants and all is an overwhelming lesson of Ramayana. There's no other cultural icon in India who comes closer to Him in transcending scores of India identities, including caste and creed. Mahatma Gandhi swore by Ram.

If Ram can't have a temple at His birthplace in Ayodhya, then where else was the question which electrified millions of youth across the country in the early 1990s. The Muslims already co-opted by the identity politicians proved myopic. They threw their weight behind Babur, who despite the best efforts of the NCERT book was seen by the majority of the population as an aggressor whose successors unleashed religious persecution of not fully documented proportions. That there stood a mosque in the name of Babur at the birthplace of Ram was seen as an affront to the collective cultural conscience of the Hindu population.

The Muslims in the early 1990s could have owned up India's greatest cultural icon and handed over the land to the Hindus. That would have shut the political shops of many. India wouldn't have missed two decades to the communal embers. They missed the bus in 1990s. Second chance rarely comes in lives of the mortals. The Supreme Court verdict has imposed a choice on the Muslims, which by and large has been accepted by the community. But they can't by a bystander. They must board the bus.

PEOPLE in secular countries don't live in ghettos. Indian interests are harmed by communities embracing exclusion. The Supreme Court has only opened the doors. Hindus and Muslims now must walk in together.

Bravo Kejriwal, but buck stops with you

2019-11-01T21:06:00.003-07:00

DELHI chief minister Arvind Kejriwal deserves all the plaudits, for he's making the right noise against pollution. Union Minister for Environment and Forest Prakash Javdekar is worth yawn, if not derision, for ticking off Kejriwal for doing politics over pollution. Tight lid over Delhi's gas chamber has now firmly been clasped. National Capital Region (NCR) is gasping for breath. Executives have shown thumbs to Supreme Court and Rule of Law. Turning deaf ears to orders of the apex court against instruments of pollution is now a policy and administrative habit. Could the Right to clean air become a clarion call in the mainstream political discourse?

An Una-Delhi journey lasts not more than four hours. Foothills of the mighty Himalaya astonishingly have the worst air. The city spaces soak in fumes and thick dust whipped up by vehicles. Only a few kilometers earlier in the descent, Himachal Pradesh stays in the lap of pristine nature. Slipping into the vast expanse of Punjab and Haryana in the Winter months, farm fields on fire and smouldering embers give a stunning sight shock. A few minutes in the open turn eyes irritable and throat soar even while locals continue their chores nonchalantly. Closer to Delhi border, thick blanket of smog take the horizon with frightening proportions. Possibly, journey from heaven to hell lasts only a few hours.

People in northern parts of India have seemingly made peace with their fate to co-exist in the blanket of dust and fumes. That remains a constant in life notwithstanding change of seasons. Slowing of wind speed and dip in temperature only worsen the prevailing battered air. Stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana coupled with mass hysteria to burn firecrackers sent the air in the NCR to the abyss. Law of hypocrisy shifts focus on others, while dimming own complicity. Farmers, thus, in Haryana and Punjab are currently the whipping boys in the popular narrative of the national capital region.

Stubble burning before the Rabi crop season has defied all measures of the government. Doles of incentives and sticks with police actions have yielded no results. Farmers in Punjab and Haryana have, incidentally, lit more this year than previously. From harvesting of Kharif crops to the onset of Rabi season, farmers have a small window to clear their agricultural land. Mechanised farming isn't yet the hallmark of Indian farmers, with hands in plenty to do the jobs, which could, otherwise, have been done by machines. Subsidies to farmers to buy machines to harvest their crops have found least takers. Farmers feel least enthused with prospects of machines lying unused for most of the year. With 80 per cent of the farm land holding less than four acres, the policy thrust to extend subsidies to individual farmers could only have been worked by the babus in the country.

NITI Aayog had commissioned a study on stubble burning, which three years ago submitted the papers, with recommendations that the farmers be incentivised for not burning crop residues along with long term roadmap for setting up infrastructure to process the biomass with the involvement of the private players. The studied solution roadmap, sadly, remains tucked away from cognitive attention of the policy makers.

The Narendra Modi government only a few weeks ago unveiled enhanced Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) for Rabi crops. The government with MSP increase wants farmers to grow more foodgrains. Ironically, India is a foodgrain surplus country, while there are few takers for the export. A huge pile rots, while rodents feast on them. Intermediaries make fortune out of the MSP driven grain production and its further pushing into the monstrous public food distribution system, accounting one-twentieth of the Budget of the country. Farmers survive for another year, slipping into firm grip of village money-lenders, while intermediaries fatten. If financial strain wasn't enough to break their bones, they also face with the prospects of Haryana and Punjab becoming the cancer bowls of the country.

India Gate lost to smog.

DELHI by all accounts is a policy sterile city. It has exploded with population after India's partition in 1947. First, the city hosted the migrants from eastern and western Pakistan. Later, the Kashmiris descended. Afterwards, the pulls of economy drove millions of people from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and hilly states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh to the national capital. Many came for government and public sector jobs, with Centre anchoring headquarters of almost all the PSUs in the small confines of the city space. Delhi alone, unofficially, is now staring at a population close to 30 million. Rising wave of population drove enterprising builder-politician-bureaucrats nexus to squat on public lands to carve out colonies, which from beginning boasted of sub-human conditions.

Delhi is a city of construction. Buildings get demolished to pave way for fresh constructions. Mass of dusts swirls in the air for want of enforcement of building construction norms. World's most dense city generates more than 10,000 metric tonnes of solid waste daily, half being the organic waste. Only 10 per cent of the waste is processed. Rest is dumped at landfill sites or burnt. Burning of leaves and garbage in Delhi was banned many years ago. But people in Delhi know well that laws are made to be read only in papers.

Vehicular population may, arguably, leave behind its human counterpart. That's incumbent for a city of livelihoods. Yet, Delhi has added least infrastructure after the 2010 Commonwealth games to speed up traffic. The mass transport system, first growing leaps and bounds with whole-hearted support to Delhi Metro by the Sheila Dikshit dispensations till 2013, slowed afterward, with buck largely stopping with the Kejriwal government in the city. Ring Rail in Delhi has now gone idle, with the city government paying no attention to repeated pleas of the Ministry of Railways to provide linkages with Metro stations and Bus stops.

CHILDREN in Delhi schools must write letters to "Captain uncle" and "Khattar Uncle". They should also write letters to Kejriwal uncle, for Delhi government has only taken cosmetic steps to curb causes of pollution in the past few years. Yet, Kejriwal must be lauded for politics over pollution. That helps bring the discourse to the center-stage of popular consciousness.

Assembly elections: Identity slingshot

2019-10-24T21:13:00.000-07:00

Democracy by all accounts is India's greatest sociopolitical leveler. Electorate in Maharashtra and Haryana reassured all that India isn't on a course to turn into a ruthless one party politico-administrative Chinese system. That people have least appetite for vindictive politics has also been loudly told. Drum beating and cult worship aren't essentially preferences of the Indian electorate. The popular verdict in Maharashtra and Haryana is laced with clear message for the Opposition -- Believe in your strengths.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would stay in power in Maharashtra and Haryana. Yet, the outfit isn't exultant. Faces of party leaders turned long, after the full import of the verdict in the two states became clear. It evidently dawned upon BJP leaders that the party cannot dictate the agenda to the people. Democracy is all about the vice versa -- people dictating agenda to parties.

The BJP essentially drummed being the sole custodian of the spirit of nationalism. Dissenting voices on even procedural matters were hurriedly branded anti-national. Leading voices of the BJP displayed penchant to ask for certificate of nationalism from Opposition leaders. The BJP campaign was all about commanding electorate to cast their votes to party's nominees since rivals had suspect nationalistic credentials.

The electorate had grown bored of nationalism shrill. The neighbourhood shops weren't selling enough goods. Youth came home after losing contractual jobs. Farmers still sold produces at one tenths of the market prices. Elders watched over the idling youth spend days and nights staring at mobile phone screens with earplugs stuck in perennial entertainment trance.

Economy has fallen flat. Spin doctors seek succor in food delivery boys running around. A few start ups create "Wows". Policy mandarins in Narendra Modi dispensation talk like business honchos. For them, India is all about a few metropolitan cities. The BJP has to bear the slingshot pain.

Victories mostly sober politicians. V P Singh hadn't sent Rajiv Gandhi to Tihar jail after the 1989 win. Atal Bihari Vajpayee also hadn't shown cells of Tihar jail to the Opposition leaders. But the 2019 Lok Sabha verdict opened the floodgate of vindictive politics. The pack of enforcement directorate (ED), CBI and others were sent on hunting grounds against Opposition leaders. Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar talked ED in his whirlwind rallies, and people said enough is enough. Same goes for Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Dushyant Choutala in Haryana.

Identity politics has demonstratively made a strong comeback in Indian politics. The Lok Sabha verdict had spurred obituaries for identity politics. Politics in regions identified with dominant castes. Smaller castes rode piggyback to partake in the game of power. The BJP's poll mascot Narendra Modi sought to challenge this set political template. The party worked for consolidation of other castes. The ploy paid rich electoral dividends. It turned the political social engineering of a number of regional outfits on its head. But that worked when national narrative found resonance with the electorate.

Tangible gains with welfarism push had cheered the vulnerable. Dominant castes, though, had nothing to gain from Modinomics, which is nothing but targetted delivery of subsidies. They became aware that they are staring at the prospects of a lost decade, with wealth being knocked away and income drying. Dominant castes sought to regain the lost political space. The BJP, indeed, co-opted them. But they were slotted to supporting roles. They, however, sought centrestage.

The Congress stays in defeatist mode. The grand old party of India is yet to come to terms with the political erosion of the clout of the Gandhi family. With Sonia Gandhi back in the saddle, the reigns in regions are slowly being restored to old warhorses. That has been the Congress' political character. But that was also sought to be undone by the Gandhi scion Rahul Gandhi. The Maharashtra and Haryana poll verdict makes it evident that the electorate want the Opposition to believe in their strengths and shun their doubting Thomases.

Jats in Haryana and Maratha in Maharashtra backed their trusted parties to the hilt. They have sent signals to Yadavs in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to flock to caste outfits in the two states. The economic slide may loosen smaller castes from the BJP glue. And that could open up the prospects for revival of regional outfits.

Snails' test for Sino-India ties

2019-10-10T22:47:00.000-07:00

MODERN world often seeks succor in ancient glories. Bridge, if, not laid for centuries to cement links between ancient and modern only leaves momentary jubilation. Hopes fall with thud on hard surface of reality. Mammalpuram or Mahabalipuram near Chennai could well take pride in being China's spiritual Guru -- once upon a time. The seventh century Pallava dynasty sired Bodhi Dharma who sparked spiritual renaissance in China and other east Asian countries. But India's glory of ancient past was sucked in the dark tunnel of medieval period when fear reigned with the advent of murderous Muslim rulers. India subsequently became doubtful and uncertain of own strength. China embarked on contrasting path. Now, gap is too large for trust for two diametrically opposite political systems. Mammalpuram is, thus, a break for Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping to breath in moisture laden sea side air to count missed opportunities.

Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had taken a giant step to open the shut doors on China in 1988. That was a year before he vacated office after a popular negative vote. For more than two decades, India had conducted her world affairs in which China had no space. That was because of the Chinese betrayal in 1962 in which love and affection of New Delhi were paid by Beijing spilling bloods of Indian soldiers and annexing vast tracts of India's landmass. India's popular psyche knows China as a treacherous country.

Beijing hasn't walked even an inch to regain India's trust. India has, however, shown eagerness to forget the past. New Delhi's zeal has always met with Chinese realism. Post-1988, accounts abound to show China as India's numero uno stumbling block on the world affairs. They merit no retelling.

CHINA by all accounts is a brute imperialist, spreading tentacles all around. Beijing has been exploiting her deep pocket to gain economic slavery in African and South Asian countries. China's no holds barred exploitation of human capital to produce goods at unbeatable prices has for long tilted the trade balance in her favour at the cost of other humane and democratic societies. No civilized country in the world, practicing free speech, democracy, liberalism and fair play, can ever compete with China's trade thuggery.

Wearing the facade of Communism, China is essentially a military totalitarian state. And, so Beijing's compulsive imperialism has seen China being the global trespasser, with none of her neighbouring country being exception. India has seen China's economic and geographic imperialism in worst forms, and there's no let down in Beijing's compulsive streak.

Deep pocket has seemingly allowed China to make huge intellectual investment across the world, including the US. India's borrowed economic intellectual wealth from the US, thus, have sought in the past three decades to steer policy directions in Beijing's favour. Lately, Arvind Panagaria, the first vice-chairman of NITI Aayog, was evidently a "China awe-struck policy wonk". During his stint, which coincided with Narendra Modi's first four years, Panagaria tried to open the floodgates for Chinese trade.

In 2014-15, India exported goods and services worth $11.9 billion to China. Import in contrast was $60.4 billion, with the resultant trade deficit of $48.5 billion. In 2017-18, India export rather dipped to $10.3 billion, while Chinese import ballooned to $63.2 billion, with consequent deficit of $52.9 billion. The deficit in 2018-19 was $53.5 billion.

Indian eagerness to forget China's treacherous past has truly been fodder for Chinese imperialism. In contrast, India's insistence on resolution of border disputes has only seen the high Chinese wall. Despite scores of talks, with escalation of the seniority of interlocutors, there has hardly been any headway to talk about. On the contrary, no year goes by without the Chinese trespassing into Indian territories across the length of the Himalayan border.

There shouldn't be any misgivings that India-China relations haven't kept pace with even snails on core Indian interests.

FORMER Prime Minister P V Narsimha was more prescient than Rajiv Gandhi. Rao didn't bother about China. He looked East. Under Rao's stewardship, India found depth in relations and confidence in conduct with deepening of ties with Asean (Association of South-east Asian nations). That paid rich dividends. New Delhi can count on a few friends.

India and China cannot be natural friends as long as Beijing is ruled by a military totalitarian regime. Rest is delusion.

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Diplomatic expert and senior journalist Ramananda Sengupta had this to ask the blogger after reading the above article: "If India cannot be a natural friend with a totalitarian China, then how does New Delhi have good ties with a few similar regimes in Arab and Africa."

The blogger responded: "With Africa and Arab world, India has politico-economic scales to steer diplomatic ties to serve core interests. This is missing in the case of China."

Missing E-factor

2019-10-09T23:10:00.000-07:00

THREE months have gone by since the new government was elected with an unprecedented mandate in the recent years. World's largest democracy, arguably, also has the most costliest electoral exercise. Actual spending is seen dwarfing the official ceiling on expenses by candidates. The first three months after the 2009 and 2014 had shown economy spurting seemingly on the back of asteroid doses of the largess splurged by political parties in the length and breadth of the country. Yet, 2019 strikes a discordant note.

Dismissing a strategy meeting weeks ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP chief Amit Shah was seemingly exasperated. To a question on going big on media blitzkrieg, Shah blurted out to a fellow party leaders -- "First, let Arun ji and Piyush settle their quarrel".

In the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, all knew that the contest would be unequal. Not that the BJP had the greatest of the poll mascot, but for the fact that others had hugely depleted coffers. Loss of key states had, arguably, bled the Congress treasury white. Regional parties weren't better off. The BJP treasury, however, was in its prime pink. It was evidently clear that one political outfit would take the pole position in election spending to swing the outcome of the poll. Others will be bystanders.

The BJP, thus, was deliberating "how and where" to unloosen the fat purse. "Arun Jaitley was firm that the party should give more money in the hands of the block and district level functionaries. Piyush Goyal argued that the BJP should spend more on media blitzkrieg. There was no common ground," said a functionary, who attended such strategy meetings at the BJP headquarters.

Jaitley had been ailing. He seemed fragile. His muscles had loosened. Yet, he stayed put at the BJP headquarters to man his mandate -- strategizing and perception management. "The BJP spent 42 per cent less on media advertisements in 2014 Lok Sabha elections in comparison to 2009 general polls. Jaitley's prescription was accepted, that more funds would go in the hands of foot soldiers of the party across the country than being spent on media and other publicity platforms," added the functionary.

That media is currently bleeding in an affirmation to the changed tack of the political outfit with the most bloated moneybag.

THE 2008-09 financial year was one of the worst for Indian economy. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had slumped to 3.09 per cent on 2011-12 baseline (6.72 per cent under the 2004-05 baseline). The Manmohan Singh led UPA had retained power at the Centre. The Congress ruled in a large number of states. The Congress coffer must have been spilling over the brim. The money was well spent by the party. The 2009-10 fiscal clocked 7.86 per cent GDP growth as per the 2011-12 baseline (8.59 under the 2004-05 series).

Electioneering splurge had seemingly knocked off the slowdown fangs to release adrenaline in the lifeline of the economy. The story re-ran the script in 2014 also with much greater intensity. The first quarter clocked GDP growth of 8.02 per cent under the revised 2011-12 series only to ascend steeply to 8.70 per cent in the second quarter, mapping the first three months after the election results.

The first quarter of the 2019-20 fiscal delivered a fiver for the GDP growth. Five per cent for India is by all accounts a commentary of the economy in the worst health. The first three months of the Narendra Modi government in the second tenure would report the second quarterly growth. That the economy is gasping for breath is affirmed indisputably with the government finally waking up to the deep structural reforms covered by disinvestment.

Dissonance between electioneering largess in the form of arming foot soldiers with party funds and the economy crying erosion of demand is palpable.

The BJP and allies, indeed, put the money in the pockets of the foot soldiers. But the money didn't spread out as intended to a significant extent. The BJP workers are full of tales about their peers pocketing the money but not passing on to the targets. They did so, because they were confident that victory in the elections was already on their side. That they became thrift with the large flow of money in their hands was also on account that Modi was winning them elections.

THE money in place of being in circulation got stuck. And that possibly explains the missing E-factor of the economy. Electioneering splurge too failed to wake up the animal spirits of demands. That the printing of high denomination Rs 2000 currency is no more being printed could also be an after-effect of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The government in an RTI reply has admitted that the Rs 2000 currency hasn't been printed yet in the current financial year. The ATMs running dry in elections times has been pos-2017 phenomenon. Did the availability of Rs 2000 notes help push the cash flow to the electoral agents who in turn sat over the pile of cash to unleash demand depression in the economy? Circumstantial evidences suggest a fair correlation.

Mahatma Gandhi: Talismanic hypocrisy

2019-10-03T21:56:00.002-07:00

Albert Einstein was most prophetic in his one-liner tribute to Mahatma Gandhi. Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth, Einstein had to say on Gandhi. Seventy one years after Gandhi departed, it's indeed a tall order to believe that such a soul led India's greatest ever political movement, with the velvet touch of empathy and simplicity. That within a few decades his political heirs sanctified Gandhi and turned him into oratorical rituals to spread tentacles of the Gandhian anti-thesis is, indubitably, India's monstrous hypocrisy.

There's a certain deluge of commentary on Mahatma Gandhi. That India's commemorating the 150th birth anniversary of the icon befits the occasion. That the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) is in the midst of a process to attain lethal perfection in politics of mass mobilisation makes Gandhi the most convenient icon to bank on. And also for the fact that transportation of a ritual deity to the centre stage of the political discourse perfectly suits the dispensation which seeks to send dynastic demigods into oblivion.

The Mahatma plunged in the Indian freedom movement at a stage when the polity was fragmented. There were scores of streams within the polity and outside against the British rule. Millions of people died of hunger and epidemics. The British lords stayed enmeshed in crony capitalism. Sporadic reprisals amidst episodic bravery marked India's restlessness to throw the foreign yokes. Gandhi weaved magical spell to spearhead a coherent political agitation under the banner of the Congress. Rest is history.

Gandhi has been largely depicted by historians as the man with Midas touch for mass movements. He deftly sought definitive behavioural changes from the masses. He stayed away from power. Yet, he served a talisman to the new elites taking positions of power lest they lost their ways to wilderness.

"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you're in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test -- Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to Swaraj (freedom) for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away," Gandhi read out the moral political mantra to his ardent disciples when they assumed high offices.

The mantra arguably electrified the political class for the first two decades. Afterward, memory of the poorest and weakest started becoming fainter. The convenient escape route for the political class from the moral stigma of failing the Gandhian test was to pass the onus to the children. The Gandhian talisman found its resting place with the NCERT books.

In another one decade, the self in place of melting away was cast in stone for the leading lights of Indian politics, the principal instrument to free the spiritually starving millions. The Congress turned dynastic. Indian polity went into a meltdown. The after effects in the next two decades coalesced into caste based family enterprises. The Gandhian talisman was knocked off of its moral anchor.

The Mahatma practically became distant for the political class. His name didn't fetch votes. In place, Bhim Rao Ambedkar, Ram Manohar Lohiya, Karpoori Thakur, E V Ramasami (Periyar) and a few others became potent political icons who helped their worshipers fetch votes in truck loads.

The Gandhian talisman proved a burden for the policy makers. The poorest and weakest were seen roadblocks to India's "earnest desire to become a developed country like the US". So, ways were (and are being) invented to chase them away from forests, islands, farms to herd the teeming millions into ghettos. The sub-human ghettos proved huge political investments for heirs of Gandhi.

Two-third of the population stays dependent on agriculture. Vast majority of the political class is land owning "agriculturists" after the residual generations of leaders educated professionals were edged out by their anti-thesis. To protect their own interests and milk government doles, the new political class pushed farmers to a never ending poverty.

For Gandhi, Swaraj meant the economic self-sufficiency in such a manner that majority of the needs of the people could be served by enterprises within their surroundings. Now, most of the needs of the people are served by enterprises in China.

The Gandhian talisman by all accounts has been stripped off all the moral and ethical weights.

The ruling elites when they swear by Gandhi, and they do it more often, invite being condemned as bunch of hypocrites. The hypocrisy, sadly, has now acquired monstrous proportions.

Public path for economy

2019-09-06T22:55:00.000-07:00

Indian economy by all accounts has entered self-limiting bind. That the specter of slowdown is looming with cascading effect on unemployment is sharply visible. Economy isn't panting for breath all of a sudden. That the journey down the hill began from policy mishaps since 2008 is told to death. The Narendra Modi government took to "curing" ills of the economy with a number of eventful interventions, which had mighty side effects. Now, the Modi government must look inwardly to kick-start engines of the economy.

THE North block mandarins are searching for clues to steer economy to eight per cent GDP growth trajectory. Flurry of outreach has come on the back of the growth knocking five per cent figure in the last quarter of the current fiscal. Essentially, the North Block policy wizards are asking for clues from those who're tired and fatigued, largely on account of excesses of the government. Nirmala Sitharaman and Anurag Thakur, ministers with principal mandate to steady the economy, with bureaucrats in tow, should, therefore, stay put in their respective holes and indulge in genuine economic crisis-management.

The golden decade of the economic growth (1999-2009) was left on auto-pilot mode somewhere along the journey. The golden touch of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his aides spurted the economy to glorious highs. The mantra was simple -- structural reforms along with aggressive disinvestment programme to spur the consumption demands, which in turn put industries on expansionist path. The Congress, true to its nature of a status quoist outfit, led the UPA, with Left parties keeping hawks' eye in the first term, squandered the opportunity offered by the firm ground work done by the Vajpayee government. The second term of the Manmohan Singh government was comatose.

The Modi government should revisit the Vajpayee mantra. Besides structural reforms and aggressive disinvestment programme, Modi should work with state governments to not just fix economy's self-limiting glitches, but also lay ground for the next golden decade of growth.

Barring western and a few southern regions, finances of majority of the states are in shambles. They are barely surviving, struggling to pay salaries and pensions to their employees. Their scopes of fiscal expansions are limited. Consequently, law and order, education and health have, arguably, taken sever blows in such states.

The Centre should work with states to fix their finances and work within a timeline to expand fiscal strength by 50 per cent with the help of disinvestment programme. The enhanced fiscal capacity must be put to work to spurt the economy.

United Nations mandate 222 police personnel for 1,00,000 population. If all the police vacancies in India are filled, the country would come to the ratio of 185 per lakh population.

Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Odishra, Andhra Pradesh are among the states with police-population ratio in 65-123 range. The police personnel are overworked and stressed. Various police reform recommendations are gathering dusts. That the decades' old weaponry of the state police requires immediate overhauling needs no further arguments.

One year timeline to fill all police vacancies in states could add muscles to the consumption demands.

Ironically, public employment was turned into a policy curse at a time when India under the instructions of IMF (International Monetary Fund) charted on the path of reforms in early 1990s under the stewardship of P V Narsimha Rao and Manmohan Singh. This has outlived its utility. Public employments essential to meet basic norms must be revived.

A developing nation can leave education and health infrastructure space to individual enterprises at its own peril. A large number of states have taken recourse to recruiting contractual teachers, with some of them even sub-letting such employments. That the education sector should firmly remain in the public funded domain is, indeed, basic requirement for a developing nation. And, hence, the expanded fiscal strength of states should fuel expansion of teachers' strength along with expanded schools' networks.

Additionally, Panchayati Raj unveiled in 1980s has become infested with unbridled corruption, exhibited by SUV riding Sarpanch and local bodies' representatives. Institutionalizing, financial and performance audits by Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) is crying need of the hour. This along with institutional capacity building of local bodies, with men and machines, could put India on the path of faster and sustainable growth pedestal.

The three booster doses would require financial infusions of high scales beyond fiscal capacities of state governments. Here, the Centre should deploy resources gained from aggressive disinvestment programme to fund the public employment and curing fiscal health of states.

But the Centre, sadly, has no institutional framework currently to work with state governments to guide them to sound fiscal health. NITI Aayog is beset with policy dwarfs to rise to the occasion. This gaping hole in sound fiscal policy architecture is, indeed, worrisome.

The Modi government has sought to pump prime the economy with infrastructure spending in the first term. The public employment to meet basic minimum strength in various spheres could give fresh legs to the economy for the next decade. This could be the lasting legacy of the Modi government in the second term.

MIGHTY DISGRACE

2019-06-23T05:18:00.001-07:00

Indian Constitution has failed over 100 children in Bihar who died for want of timely medical support. Indian democracy has ruefully demonstrated that it's a system of unaccountable governance. National silence, by and large, over deaths of children has affirmed the worst fears that apathy for poor has grown by leaps and bounds. Naked medical infrastructure in Bihar, which mirrors other states as well, is a warning to all -- citizens of the country are facing a ticking time bomb in imploding health infrastructure. Extent of undernourishment among children is a hard slap on faces of policy makers who have for years written papers on socio-economic planning of the country.

Till the last count, more than 100 children have died at one hospital in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, in a span of about a fortnight. Thick-skinned say, it's an old story, that a mystery illness kills children during the peak summer in parts of Bihar. For years, health babus have called it acute encephalitis; some even ventured to attribute deaths to toxins released by unripe Litchi. Indian Parliament found mention of the deaths, but for maligning Litchi, which is causing hardship to growers. For politicians, deaths may be mystery. But stunted policies over the years had arguably foretold these deaths.

Guess works of medical fraternity converge largely on undernourishment and lack of sanitation as principal culprits. That 44 per cent of children in Bihar are underweight lends credence to the assessments of health professionals. Spectre of filth in Bihar indeed makes the state sitting on pile of garbage. None could, thus, dispute general diagnosis that undernourishment and filth are killing the children.

But National Food Security Act (NFSA) has also completed six years in existence, guaranteeing 25 kgs of foodgrains to each family almost free. The government has been pouring over Rs 1.25 lakh crore every year, principally for the reason that the poor shouldn't suffer from undernourishment and hunger. Bihar is a state, which has been aggressively implementing the mother of all welfare programme. The obvious rationale to pump in over Rs 1.25 lakh crore each year in running the Soviet era public food distribution programme is only to fight undernourishment. Underneath, however, the programme fattens embedded vested interests, who suck the lifeblood of the country, because the political class has no spine to tell that India must stop the political business of a state funded agriculture where only few pocket gains that too in just four to five states.

Thick-skinned Bihar politicians additionally, have bared delusion that the political change in the state was just facile that only the faces changed. The dark age of 1990s had ceded the state seemingly to light at the end of the tunnel in 2005 in the state. White clad thugs hid their guns and only chanted the mantra of their castes day and night in the changed political theater of the state.

Gargantuan corruption in Panchayat and Local Bodies, the third tier of democracy, has shown an insatiable appetite for wealth. Public service, indeed, is least of their priority. That the former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh was awestruck at jewel laden 'Sarpanch and Mukhiya' at Vigyan Bhavan and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad at the scale of SUVs lined up on Tughlaq Road in 2012 when he called meeting of such persons had bared that unbridled corruption rules at the Panchayati Raj, which was thought to be government's channel of delivery of services to people.

NITI Aayog is the new czar of policy making in India. Bereft of genuine talent pool from socio-economic space, the policy think tank has shown masterly hunger for private resources to deal with India's critical issues. It seeks privatisation. Heir to Planning Commission, a few of the interventions of NITI Aayog have shown that it essentially seeks quick fix solutions. And, one such stroke of genius to deal with crippling health infrastructure was Ayushman Bharat -- Rs five lakh medical insurance plan for 10 lakh people in the country.

Heavy stroke of the scheme, amplified politically, sought to to put up a facade on a dilapidated health infrastructure. It was projected as a panacea for the health needs of millions. The Centre for past two years put all efforts to popularise the scheme. That AIIMS in Patna, Bihar, and others too in various state capitals remain works progressing at snail's pace failed attention of the political leadership. That the country is acutely short of qualified doctors failed the attention of the political masters of the country. That upgradation of district hospitals has been crying needs for decades fell on deaf ears.

Policy thrusts, indeed, was to look for solutions from within private hospitals. After education majorly slipping into the private hands, health by all accounts is firmly in grips of private enterprises. And, that profiteering is the only indisputable mantra of private enterprises suggests that the political masters have thrown the public health to the wolves.

Bihar deaths are just warning. The poor have fallen first. Others too will be in the queue.

Lok Sabha elections 2019: One who beats boredom may win.

2019-05-10T03:48:00.000-07:00

India is, arguably, a most lucrative market for tools addressing boredom. A large chunk of population essentially looks bored. Technological advancement added with increased mobility appears to have made the populace more prone to boredom. Irony of the day is the pervasive boredom amongst children; they seem bored even of their parents, teachers and friends. The political space in no way can remain immune to such an all embracing boredom.

SPARKS continue to fly in the last leg of five and a half weeks long elections for the 17th Lok Sabha. Longevity of electioneering has sapped principal generals of political outfits eying seat of power in New Delhi. Boredom has struck poll watchers too. Cues of trends from any source command premiums. With few fence sitters, polarized populace has only scales to climb. That May 23 isn't far away is a relief. Yet, an imminent verdict on perceptions -- held and formed -- could well be pounding millions of hearts.

History at times appears repeating. The 2014 Lok Sabha elections were held five years ago. But it has more immediacy than five years of the BJP led NDA governance. A little attempt to refresh memory of last general elections could well just demonstrate the stark similarities.

A bus driver flips through phone to catch news.

Principal theme of 2014 polls was Narendra Modi bashing. Principal theme of 2019 elections remains Narendra Modi bashing. Intensity of Modi bashing was electrifying in 2014. In 2019, it's no less intense. The theme, indeed, shaped political vision and philosophy of BJP baiters of a multitude of political outfits. The Congress, principal foe of the BJP, wore the blanket of Modi hatred before the people. The cloak remains unchanged.

The BJP yearned to fight elections around Modi. The Opposition obliged. So, the central narrative of 2019 Lok Sabha elections is the choice before the people -- Narendra Modi or Rahul Gandhi or someone from amongst regional satraps. Size of an opponent does make one grander. Modi, thus, delights in rivalry with the Congress.

RAHUL Gandhi has given a full account of his world views in past one and a half decades. From a reluctant politician, Gandhi has graduated to a combative politician, clutching onto an issue and sticking with it to fan out noise. He appears more confident than earlier. That he's interacting with media more often is a sign worth noting.

That politics is an art, however, hasn't struck Gandhi in last 15 years. He's largely a boring politician. That he would appeal to an audience, which is already in a firm grip of boredom, is a hope, which leans heavily on the wall of improbable. His father, Rajiv Gandhi, was an equally boring person thrust onto the political upheaval board by chance. He could win popular endorsement once was for an overwhelming sympathy vote for her mother who had fallen to bullets of terrorists.

Modi in a stark contrast is an entertainer. He's an artist. He entertains. He can force subjects of entertainments by the drop of hat. His entertainment bouquet is deep and rich. And, he has perfected the art of political entertainments in a state where it's daunting to engage people in public meetings. People in Gujarat largely don't have contempt for time.

Entertainment demands full scripts. Story in parts don't appeal to the mass. Issues in elections are indeed multi-layered scripts. Largely, they're academic, and they gain popular acceptance when people have immediacy with them. Also, people in India are largely fearful -- of fate. They would shudder at smallest signs of fear. That political outfits continue to rile them by stoking bogey of "reservation in danger" is a case worth noting. Rumour mongering by the WhatsApp factory too scares people easily.

But people do connect with issues when presented in their entireties. Agrarian distress, specter of unemployment and social discords are indeed issues of grave nature. A layman too can decipher major issues affecting the masses. A few who hammer out solutions are hailed as leaders. Gandhi hasn't yet crossed that bridge.

All that Gandhi could think of was another dole -- Rs 72,000 annual to about five crore poorest of the poor. His prescription to issues of serious discourses betrayed bankruptcy of ideas. This robs him off desired credibility to occupy the high office.

Rahul Gandhi doesn't yet have scripts to win elections. He can't entertain either. His sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, however, has shown hints that she could be an entertainer, while requiring a rigorous training in coming years. But she has the potential to take the stage.

India is also much changed from times of 1990s. Demographic

Mohan Balmiki in Rampur said, he'll vote for Modi

changes coupled with mitigated electoral thuggery have largely turned regional caste and identity satraps into political pygmies in national elections. People since 1998 have gradually been converging for a coherent mandate to back stable government at the Centre. For about 21 years, people of India have pushed likes of HD Deve Gowdas to the margins of national politics.

Entertaining tribe amongst regional satraps is also fast becoming extinct. They have been robbed off entertainers like -- M Karunanidhi, J Jayalalitha, Lalu Prasad, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Bal Thackerey and Devi Lal. Their successors are plastic imitations. Mamata Banerjee is an exception.

There's only one entertainer. He's Narendra Modi. On May 23, people would deliver verdict whether he could go on with his show for another five years. The showman has script and measure of doses to release on times to help people battle their boredom.

Minimum Income Guarantee: Plot to handcuff India

2019-03-25T22:28:00.000-07:00

A fortnight ahead of first ballots to be cast, Congress president Rahul Gandhi unveiled script to thrust his party at the centerstage of 2019 Lok Sabha elections. With promise of Rs 12,000 a month for five crore poor, 20 per cent of the total poverty stricken households, Gandhi ushered in a Rs 3.60 lakh crore annual package to blunt the march of BJP's mascot Narendra Modi. In the absence of repackaging of subsidy programmes, currently implemented worth Rs 7 lakh crore, Gandhi is arguably calling for freezing nearly 40 per cent of India's total annual Budget to stay politically relevant.

ONLY a few days ago, Congress' poll wizardry in unleashing Priyanka Gandhi Vadra wrapped up her Ganga yatra. Ensconced in a customized boat with necessary comforts, she sought to rekindle the old touch of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. But crowd hungry television crews struggled to find thronging mass of people during the course of yatra. The political voyage was scratchy and revealing. The verdict within the Congress was evident, that the magical touch of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is suspect.

The Opposition grand alliances in parts of the country have shown contempt for the Congress. Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati, holding the turf of Uttar Pradesh, found no merit in giving lease of life to the Congress in the state where the grand old party is in prolonged vegetative state. Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal) would not yield an inch to the Congress, which is gasping for breath in the state. The Congress remains a baggage on the back of Lalu Prasad's heirs in Bihar. Regional satraps' shunning Congress robbed the main Opposition party of the political depth to claim the status of a challenger of the ruling BJP.

Former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian in the 'Economic Survey (2016-17)' floated the idea of universal basic income. Early this year, he followed his idea with a book -- Of Counsel: The challenges of the Modi-Jaitely economy -- publicly lobbied for political acceptance of the idea of universal basic income (UBI).

Prime Minister Narendra Modi seemingly has no appetite for doles of universal nature. His statecraft is embedded in targeted welfarism. That he shunned the proposal for a universal farmer income support for small and marginal farmers with an annual cost of Rs 75000 crore is a definitive illustration. So, Modi didn't fall for Subramanian's welfarism prescription, which in some forms are being implemented in China, Germany, Canada, United Kingdom and elsewhere.

THE Congress has principally been slammed by party sympathisers for failure to come out with a narrative to counter Modi. The Congress stayed the course of Modi the person bashing all five years. Sympathisers were rightly alarmed, for knowing well that Modi thrives on negativism. And, consequently, Rahul Gandhi clutched on the Subramanian straw to stay relevant in the elections.

Union Minister Arun Jaitely has said that the NDA government currently is running subsidy programmes worth Rs 7 lakh crores. The annual Budget size of India is about Rs 24 lakh crore. So, Rahul Gandhi's dole could take the subsidy burden to about Rs 11 lakh crore, accounting for almost 40 per cent of the national resources. That the question on how would additional Rs 3.60 lakh crore be mobilized was left unanswered by Gandhi on expected line. That the inflationary impact and the consequent mortal blows to economy weren't worth shedding light by the Congress leadership was also on predictable line. Answers to details would rob the magic of Congress' political art of revisiting 'Garibi Hatao' slogan.

Former vice chairman of NITI Aayog Arvind Panagaria, the only economist worth mentioning in the Modi dispensation for first three years, has reasoned that universal basic income or its any variant would only mean that there would be no incentive for work. All those earning less than Rs 12,000 a month would find incentivized to stay home. The government will pay for their leisure. Agriculture could be denied farm labour. The informal sector's labour cost could go up punitively. That the Congress is brewing a recipe to make India more lazy arguably isn't an outlandish claim.

One doesn't need to be an economist to know that there's no scope for India to expand its resources by additional Rs 3.60 lakh crore imminently. That makes it incumbent that the resources being earmarked for infrastructure upgrade -- rail, road and port -- would face the axe. The spiral effect of mortally wounding developmental resources would unleash wave of employment for the educated youth.

INDIA evidently can ill afford the political expediency of a political outfit scrounging for survival tricks. Economists must come out of their closets to unequivocally condemn Congress' recipe for economic disaster.

Lok Sabha elections: Wilting caste factor

2019-03-05T20:41:00.000-08:00

BETWEEN cheerleaders and naysayers of Indian airstrike against Pakistani terror bases following Pulwama attack lies firming up of electoral narrative, that nationalism is pushing casteism to the margins. With two surgical strikes in BJP's arsenals, the Opposition undeniably has an uphill task to steer public discourse back to issues affecting the masses. Lok Sabha elections, beginning 40 days from now, is pregnant with possibilities to change the future course of Indian politics.

CASTE swept through the political narrative in 1990s. Social justice juggernaut, with firm grip by 1980s, succumbed to mutation within a decade. Personal aspirations of regional political satraps took higher flights on deepening of caste faultlines. The Congress, indeed, commanded caste rainbows in its belt for long, but with a pan-India appeal. The Congress yielded space in state after state to caste leaders soon after the VP Singh led Janata Dal imploded with the might of inner contradictions. Narendra Modi led BJP delivered first mortal blows to caste satraps in 2014 by riding on aspirational plank. The 2019 Lok Sabha elections promises to show if the caste satraps could clutch on to prevailing arithmetic to live another day in Indian politics.

Demography is fast changing. A vast chunk of Indian youth have few recollections of contemporary political history. Growing expanse of education and access to climb social and economic ladders deny alibi to lament lack of opportunity. Nearly 25 crore of Indian electorate are said to be in age group of 18-25. This chunk rubs shoulders in educational and professional institutions with peers of a cross-section of castes. That may be blunting caste consciousness as well. Besides, shrinking of employment opportunities along with a largescale expansion of access to educational institutions are taking the shine out of charm of reservation bogey. The principal anchor of caste satraps could possibly be adrift on high sea. Additionally, family proprietorship of caste based political outfits also ensured that they remained stuck in the narrative of 1990s.

THREE decades are too long a period to milk the same plank. Satraps aged and passed batons to their offspring. Original proponents toiled hard amidst the masses. Their offspring grew up in comforts. Satraps were grounded. Offspring show up at stages. Satraps lorded over a large base of peers. Offspring have few.

Messrs Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad, Om Prakash Choutala, Kansi Ram, Ram Vilas Paswan, and others have faded. They indeed passed batons to their respective heirs. Likes of Akhilesh Yadav, Tejaswi Yadav, Ajay Choutala, Mayawati have reaped gains of last gust of legacies of satraps. They stuck to old plank, and refused to evolve with times. Consequently, they were struck with full might of fast changing demographic profile. Paswan, indeed, survived, but only for reason that he he read the changing weather well to clutch onto season's flavor.

A few other remnants of 1990s, which include the likes of H D Kumaraswamy, stay alive with the power of arithmetic in Indian politics.

Yet, a few of social justice campaigners who branched out of caste satraps remain potent till days by perfecting social welfarism. Navin Patnaik and Nitish Kumar aren't caste satraps, but couched in all pervasive welfarism suited to their turfs abundant with poverty.

Electoral rise of the BJP and Congress would undeniably shrink spaces for casteist political outfits. Not that the BJP and Congress aren't embedded in caste arithmetic, but they stitch broader equations with national narratives. People haven't also shunned casteism in their preferences. Socially caste is arguably more explicit. But political import of caste identities in electoral politics is evidently wilting with emergence of strong leadership at the national level.

That a few of the chief ministers -- Kamal Nath, Devendra Fadanvis, Manohar Lal Khattar, Raghubar Das, Arvind Kejriwal, Vijay Rupani -- come from electorally insignificant caste groups demonstrate that the fast changing demography and their aspirations are guiding Indian politics to an altogether new territory.

Emergence of nationalism on the back of popular fatigue and angst against terror strikes in the country could possibly deliver the knock out punch to already weakened caste politics. The youth, particularly, has explicit aversion to status quoism. What passed on as fatalistic sense of resignation is not popularly accepted. That India struck against sources of terrorism is an undercurrent sweeping through the youth yearning for a collective catharsis from mortal blows of status quoism.

RISK takers, indeed, are rewarded. A Modi led BJP has a rare opportunity to push electoral caste into oblivion. Rahul Gandhi led Congress could also draw a sense of relief, that the lost turf to caste satrap is up for grabs sooner.

Pulwama: India must redeem

2019-02-15T10:00:00.001-08:00

Pulwama attack, snuffing out 40 lives of paramilitary personnel, marks two decades of Pakistan's unequivocal and consistent state policy to bleed India with thousand cuts. India in contrast has been equivocal and willing to fall for guiles of her western neighbor, largely under the influence of Pakistan apologists, who command disproportionate influence over national narrative. And, thus, India sees episodic furore followed by long spell of collective amnesia.

ON Thursday afternoon, India was reminded that the country has a ticking time bomb right at the top of her political map, Jammu and Kashmir. That a local militant in the ranks of Jaish e Mohammed (JeM) slipped away from the watch of hawk's eyes of intelligence sleuths only to blow away a crammed bus carrying the CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) personnel is a deafening slap on the policy of status quoism.

India is mourning brutal killing of 40 of her brave sons in the line of duty. Hundreds of them have laid down their lives bravely in the recent times. The nation is breathing air of revenge. People are on the street. Politicians will flock to the people. And, consequently, political spectrum concurs to back government for any action against the terror attack.

India has withdrawn the most favoured nation (MFN) status to Pakistan. Certainly not the most favoured nation, Pakistan got the status in 1996 for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) obligation. It was never reciprocated, because Pakistan unlike India has clarity of purpose on her relations with the eastern neighbor. That what war couldn't achieve must be gained from Jihadists pushed into India from across the border is cast in the stone for the masters of the theocratic nation.

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi wasn't stricken by New Delhi political bug when he checked in the seven, race course road abode of the most powerful person of the country. But he didn't remain immune for long. Soon, he began day-dreaming to emulate his icon and former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and yearned to finish his unfinished business -- to make friends with Pakistan and trade peace for Kashmir valley.

Recurring Pakistani betrayals didn't affect Vajpayee to cease his yearning for peace with the rogue neighbor. The poet in him made Vajpayee draw the Insaniyat contour for his Kashmir outreach. Both proved mirage. People rejected his dovish outlook. New Delhi's peacenik tribe shoved Vajpayee on to the path of staus quoism.

Vajpayee hadn't politically groomed Modi. The honours would remain with the BJP patriarch L K Advani. Yet, Modi's decisive mandate left Jammu and Kashmir untouched. The foolhardy experiment to share power with PDP (People's Democratic Front) in J&K proved an avoidable political disaster. Neither development nor the iron muscle flexed might in the northern state. Modi only watched from far distance the unabated alienation of the youth in the valley fast accepting pathological Jihadi indoctrination with great help from the social media. The BJP strategist Ram Madhav arguably blunted the Modi mandate for any decisive impact on J&K.

Worse, Modi allowed his business friends like Sajjan Jindal to further loosen screws on Pakistan after the surgical strike in the wake of 2016 Uri terror attack. The opening of Kartarpur Sahib corridor is another example of the willingness of New Delhi to fall for the guiles of Islamabad and her friends across the border. If the pressure cooker steam had boiled uninterruptedly since 2016 Pakistan would have been squirming for breath.

Two years would have been enough time to steam-roast Pakistan -- strategically, militarily, and diplomatically. But the course was allowed to become an event, which is now celebrated in a film.

No punitive action would be enough for Pakistan. The world will not shed a drop of tear if Pakistan is struck off the map. The existence of this nation is a crime against humanity. Afghanistan is bleeding for over a decade due to Pakistan.

Let Pakistan pay for her crimes. Let India perform another surgery on Pakistan.

Narendra Modi: Saving 'Sultanate' in uncertain times

2019-01-15T19:22:00.002-08:00

In another 70 days, Narendra Modi will seek a fresh mandate. Unlike 2013-14, he wouldn't be swimming with anti-Congress tide. That he has kept the people immensely busy with his talks in recent past may make electorate unwilling to look at Congress years before casting votes. And, so, the BJP appears in full grip of doubts at crucial times.

THE Narendra Modi government would be signing off the final financial year 2018-19 with a total allocation of Rs 61,084 crores for rural employment flagship programme Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). The inaugural financial year of the Modi government had seen an allocation of Rs 32,977 crores.

Modi's inaugural speech in Lok Sabha in 2014 had seemingly set the agenda of the government that it wouldn't be like the Congress led UPA which even after 70 years of India's Independence had nothing but to make people dig soil for livelihoods in a veiled mocking of MGNREGS.

Financial allocation for MGNREGS in the last financial year of the UPA government was Rs 33,000 crores. Indeed, wage payouts under MGNREGS were marred with long delays, which are no more the norms in the Modi government on account of the expansion of Jan Dhan coverage (Banking coverage and direct benefit transfer).

Modi had laid siege to "Delhi Sultanate" from Ahmedabad with contrasting governance template. Not digging soil, but the people would be working in big factories, that India would become if not China than at least Gujarat.

But last quarter allocation of about Rs 6,000 crores to MGNREGS in the revised Budget for 2018-19 taking the full allocation to the flagship scheme to the whopping Rs 61,084 crores demonstrated that labour is moving to rural areas in search for unskilled works on account of shrinking base of skilled work demands in urban areas.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may soon have to cut the policy rates. That inflation continues to ebb isn't something to cheer about. Possible collapse of buying appetite of consumers should worry the policy shenanigans. The December inflation at 2.19 per cent is an 18 months' low.

The record high MGNREGS allocation and ebbing inflation together tell the story of Indian economy -- panting for breath. Reverse migration of labour is evident. Declining rural income is indeed the story of India in recent years, which in turn gives no incentive for the private investment to chase business expansion.

Indian economy's journey on jobless growth path surely isn't a phenomenon of the times of Modi. That India embarked on jobless growth is a 2008 story. Yet, the journey only gained more steam in Modi's times is well illustrated with official statistics on specter of unemployment in the country, which remains at 27 months' high, besides logging 11 million jobless in 2018.

IN the bylanes of suburbs around Agra, Jatav youth had bolted the electoral stereotype in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Much to the anger of their elders, they would openly argue that Behenji (Mayawati, the BSP supremo) wouldn't be becoming Prime Minister, but Modi could create jobs for them. The youth cutting across caste lines believed Modi's words.

BJP president Amit Shah during a roadshow.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, there would be roughly 250 million youth votes in the age group of 18-25. This segment's immediate worry is employment. They may even be worried of the scale of reverse migration of labour to the rural areas. The urban centres aren't vibrant enough to pull the rural youth with gainful employments. In 2014, such youth had defied the caste pulls. Do they have enough reasons to do same in 2019?

MODI'S exuberance for his Gujarat model of development had dulled mid-way during the NDA tenure. In the latter half of 2016, Modi was seemingly convinced that his programmes like 'Make in India', "Skill India', etc., were slogans for seminars and Babus to keep them busy in the four walls of New Delhi babudom. He, consequently, had borrowed from Indira Gandhi's electoral book to focus his governance on welfarism. The BJP on purpose, thus, had unveiled the 'Garib kalyan agenda' in 2016.

After wards, Modi government and the BJP worked in tandem to enlist beneficiaries for a host of welfare schemes. The BJP now has a basket of 22 crore beneficiaries of various welfare schemes to count on for votes in 2019 Lok Sabha elections. That the 2014 mandate wasn't for doles and welfarism is well forgotten within the saffron outfit.

Indian jobless growth journey by all accounts is for the reason that the private investment remains elusive in the country. The UPA-II failed to revive the private investment. By the time Modi assumed power, Indian private sector was largely in the bad books of the banks. The public sector banks (PSUs), principal carrier of the private investment fuel, are faced with existential crisis. Modi inherited the economic template with missing private investment.

Not an economist and not even blessed with ears for those with expertise, Modi took a flight for flamboyance. Demonetisation of high value currencies along with unleashing of 'tax terrorism' of greater proportions never seen in the history of Indian economy put the engine of India's economy in deep coma. The windfall gains out of low crude oil helped Modi to enhance public investment in infrastructure. But infrastructure development by nature is of long gestation, yielding benefits in the long run.

Modi may possibly not inspire the youth who seek income opportunities. Those who have gained from welfare schemes aren't sworn either to loyalty of benefactors, for they know that others too would offer doles, which may even be better. Modi has an uphill task in a few weeks to retain his 'Sultanate'.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee: A realist who said "wo wapas aa rahe haen"

2018-08-19T08:27:00.000-07:00

With almost six decades of public life, former Prime Minister and the first from the Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS) to enter Parliament Atal Bihari Vajpayee arguably had been an open book for many to peep in and tell tales for the posterity.

A day before the 2004 Lok Sabha election verdict, Atal Bihari Vajpayee had been surrounded by his party colleagues at the 7, Race Course Road residence of the Prime Minister. The leaders brought out their on-ground assessments of the just concluded voting. The BJP leaders concurred, and so told Vajpayee, exuding confidence of a victorious battalion returning to the base after a successful assault on the enemy front, that a resounding win is just a matter of a few hours.

Listening them all with innocence of a child, Vajpayee was untouched with flow of pride all around. At last, he said, "Wo (Congress) wapas aa rahe haen (The Congress is coming back to power)."

The beaming faces took refuge in somber expressions. His dismissal with trademark sleight of hand had none to contest. Then came the command -- Bhojan kijiye (take meals).

But Vajpayee wasn't a God. He was another mortal. And, so, he too rued till he lost his senses of having erred. "Pramod galat tha (Pramod Mahajan was wrong for persuading in advancing the Lok Sabha elections)," Vajpayee would so afterwards to his audiences.

Vajpayee was just another mortal for the fact that he too fell for the "India Shining" campaign, which any incumbent government would like to believe in having given ears to Babus all five years. He was also just another mortal for the reason that he too rued wrong decisions. All make wrong decisions. And, all rue for rest of life as well. Time is spent, thus, in thinking and sharing about "ifs".

VAJPAYEE was no Gandhian. He was not even a communalist. He was neither a socialist. He was essentially a realist. And, indeed, Vajpayee was a humanist.

Vajpayee was arguably the most pampered protégé of the Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS). He had been hand-picked for political works. With pride, he was hosted in thousands of homes of the RSS functionaries for meals. That he could reason with the leading lights of the Congress, and debated with uncommon élan had an electrifying impact among millions of saffron foot soldiers. They had more reasons to believe in ideologies which had not been accepted in the mainstream of the country.

But Vajpayee was unshackled. Ideology didn't bind him. He was rather evolved. That he never succumbed to rhetoric exemplified his realism.

The Kandahar episode defines Vajpayee. The brief history is thus: An Indian Airlines flight IC 814 (Airbus A300) carrying 176 passengers was hijacked on December 24, 1999 while being en route from Kathmandu to New Delhi by Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. Eventually, it landed in Kandahar. Terrorists sought release of hardened and jailed terrorists in exchange to release the terrorists.

The Winter biting cold was sweating out the strategists. The family members of the passengers had laid siege of the Lutyens' Delhi. Vajpayee's comrade and the then Union Minister Jaswant Singh's landline phone at his residence buzzed all day and night -- some abusing, some pleading.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Sherpa and National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval, who had then been the RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) chief, was aghast at diplomatic failure to allow the ill-fated plane a free fly over the skies of a number of countries.

Years of training of Vajpayee's alma mater -- the RSS -- would have wanted that no hardened terrorists be released, that the government should have taken a leaf out of Israel and ordered commando operation.

Yet, Vajpayee seemingly wilted. He sent emissaries to hold talks with terrorists. And, in the end, he accepted all demands of the Pakistan backed terrorists. He didn't want to be an iron man of India. He just wanted his men and women safe and back in the country. For him, no price was big enough to secure the human lives. And, thus, Vajpayee, baring his soft core, revealed his undying trust in the virtue of humanism, and realism.

IT'S often said that to err is human, and repeating same mistake again and again is a hallmark of the highest order of stupidity. But Vajpayee didn't free himself from succumbing to string of judgmental errors, so as to say, to keep trying for a breakthrough in India's relations with Pakistan.

In contrast, Dr Manmohan Singh displayed a consistent policy of maintaining a long distance with Pakistan, and never fell for any of the trappings, which occasionally blow in with western winds. Dr Singh was unaffected by a posse of intelligentsia in New Delhi, who hop from one event to another to showcase their pipedream for peace with Pakistan.

But Vajpayee fell for such trappings. He hopped on to a bus for trip to Lahore with Shatrughan Sinha as a companion. He hosted General Pervez Musharraff. He allowed safe passage to Pakistani Army regulars trapped on Kargil hills despite hundreds of Indian Jawans laying down their lives to wrest the honour back.

That Vajpayee defied all warnings to connect with Pakistan was ostensibly for the reason that he was a humanist at the core. He, indeed, believed that neighbours must be friends.

VAJAPAYEE could defy protestations from within the saffron camp against privatisation of public sector units -- not just loss making, but even those who made profits. That he could lord over the one and only instance of the government showing spine to put in practice the maxim that "government has no business to be in business" was also for the reason that he had been a realist.

Paying homage to Veer Savarkar once, Vajpayee had given a loud statement of his being a realist. "Kavita aur bhranti to sath sath chal sakti hai, par kavita aur kranti ka sath chalna bahut mushkil hai (Poetry and confusion can go along, but not poetry and revolution)," Vajpayee had said, while describing the multi-faceted personality of Savarkar. He said so at a stage where he had been introduced as a poet.

The revolution that Vajpayee talked about was change in the society which could lead to transformation of the country.

AND, such changes, are most often brought about by a leadership sworn in to realism who painstakingly takes steps with aims to lay bridges for transformation. And, Vajpayee, indeed, took giant steps for India's qualitative transformation.

Gujarat elections: Hopes in saffron angst land

2017-12-16T07:37:00.000-08:00

In 2014, India voted for Gujarat model of development. Three years later, BJP mascot Narendra Modi invented Pakistan's prowess to influence outcome of Gujarat elections. That the Gujarat dream, which swayed India in 2014, seemed dimming in the land of origin was evident in length and breadth of the state. Indeed, the verdict is more than the sum total of issues, and is more subservient to organisational might and pull and pressure of foot soldiers may well be on display again.

CHINTU Patel is an angry man. Two years ago, he was chased by the police. His wife ran for safety. His daughter was awe struck. He bore the blows of sticks. Scars on his body have still remained. Patel has vowed to vote against the BJP.

Agravat Raj is a diploma holder in computer engineering. In Ahmedabad, he couldn't find a job of more than Rs 6000 pacy check a month. So, he became a driver. Hailing from Rajkot, he had to shift base since his wife is pursuing Masters in computer engineering. It was a love marriage, he firmly states. He knows for sure that the BJP would win, and he too would vote for Modi.

Villagers benefited with Narmada waters near Bhuj

The British premier Harold Wilson is credited to have said that a week is a long time in politics. Fifteen years certainly should be quite a long time. The 2002 post-Godhra riots gave Gujarat the defining identity of a saffron laboratory. The state politics has been seen through the Hindu-Muslim prism. The communal polarisation has stayed a constant in the state politics for one and a half decades. Ghosts of Godhra weren't given decisive burials. Past suited the politics. The BJP harvested rich electoral crop.

But Modi moved to New Delhi from Ahmedabad in 2014 to take up a larger responsibilities. Demography too changed. About 52 per cent of the total electorate in Gujarat is stated to be youth. That the youth lives less in the past being more embedded in future is arguably a least contested fact. So, Modi uttered Pakistan word on penultimate day of electioneering. That Kapil Sibal sought Supreme Court adjudication of the Ayodhya Ramjanmbhoomi case's postponement till after 2019 Lok Sabha elections seemingly failed to flare up Gujarati tempers. That a lesser known Congress man demanded an apology from Modi at Babri mosque for Gujarat riots also came as whimper. Demography indeed was dictating the electioneering. And, hence, Modi had to assertively claim that his development credentials had beneficiaries in the poor of the state and not the Ambanis and Tatas.

Chintu Patel was a curious onlooker at a jamboree of Patidars in 2015 in support of reservations for the land owning Patel caste. He empathized with Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) leader Hardik Patel. His daughter had secured 85 per cent marks. yet, she didn't get admission in an MBBS course in a medical college. "Her friend had 75 per cent marks, but she got into an MBBS course," Patel rued, saying he favoured scrapping of reservation policy in the country. If Modi is so decisive, why doesn't he scrap this quota, he asked. He's a Kadawa Patel.

"My forefathers were workers in mills in Ahmedabad. They all were shut long back. They resided inside Ahmedabad. Afterwards, they had to move out of Ahmedabad and live on the margins of the city. Lakhs of Kadawa Patels now are out of the city. Many of them are still fighting to claim their providend funds and gratuity," Patel stated.

Unlike Leva Patels, who have emigrated in a great number to the US and other countries, Kadavas are apparently finding in Hardik's campaign for reservation. Patel says, he would vote against the BJP to teach a lesson to Modi and Amit Shah.

AGRAVAT Raj is in his 20s. I had to come to Ahmedabad because my wife is pursuing masters in computer science, he said, while adding in same breath that it was a love marriage for him. "I was working in Rajkot at a salary of Rs 12000. On Facebook, my wife sent a friend's request. In a span of a few months, we were in love. Her father didn't agree. But mother of his muse was alarmed that any violence against him could harm her son and daughter pursuing MBBS courses," Raj Said. He added that her mother-in-law advised him to elope with her daughter. Thus, they got married.

In Ahmedabad, Raj found that there was no job of more than Rs 6,000 a month salary. "It was

Tobacco cultivation in Anand district

worthless to do such a job," he said. Raj, thus, become an Ola cab driver. After working for more than 14 hours a day, he has Rs 1100 net earnings. "No job can give me Rs 35000 a month. So, I'm now an Ola driver," Raj added.

The young driver said that he would vote for Modi. "You see this Sabarmati riverfront. It was a nullah full of garbage. There used to be long hours of traffic jams. No, we can zip through within minutes. We can earn more. Modi made this happen. I've to work hard to buy more cars which I can give to other drivers. There is no alternative than to work hard," Raj quipped. He hails from an OBC, and is an avowed Modi admirer.

In between Chintu Patel and Agravat Raj, Gujarat has seemingly moved beyond the simmering embers of Godhra.

Yet, the electoral verdict is incumbent upon a well oiled organisational machinery. The BJP may well just be far ahead of its rivals.

Narendra Modi: Messiah mirage

2017-12-02T05:02:00.002-08:00

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is piqued that his government is not yet hailed as messiah of the poor. That the poor have availed benefits of Rs 1400 crores so far from just two schemes of accidental and life insurance should have led to any other government hailed as a messiah, but not his, lamented Modi recently. Exuberant tone and tenor of Modi of the past is indeed betraying whining signs with 2019 date with people approaching quick enough.

INDIAN economy in the last quarter clocked a 6.3 per cent growth. It was on the back of 5.7 per cent shocker of the first quarter of the current fiscal. Within minutes of flash of the number, the Modi Cabinet dawned in full force to force awaken people about the dream run of the economy under the leadership of the Prime Minister. There is no break from the pattern.

National gloom arguably in the last years of the Manmohan Singh led government had been also on account of the economy ebbing, with last growth number registering 4.7 per cent. A few months in power, a prescient Modi government had revised the GDP calculation method in the fag end of 2014. That helped the last UPA growth number swell from 4.7 per cent to 6.5 per cent. If we just forget the prescient revision of norms, the last GDP growth number would come to about 4.5 per cent, which would be lower than the worst of the UPA's. About four and a half years ago, the reason for national gloom is now indeed a cause for national celebrations if the spin doctors of the Modi dispensation are to be believed.

"More than 15 crore poor have benefited from just two schemes of the government, which insure life and accident for 90 paisa a day and Rs 1 a month contributions. The poor have benefited with Rs 1400 crores so far. If any other government had done so much, it would have been hailed as a messiah," Modi gushed at the HT Leadership summit recently.

The media certainly seems at fault to have missed out from hailing Modi as a messiah ! This is the way the BJP looks at the media, that it should blow trumpet and sing paean. But that will be too much for asking, as contemporary history bears an undeniable proof.

Modi had cashed in on the aspirational dreams of the poor to break free from their existing conditions. He sought to pursue Make in India and Skill India with vigour. Both have gone adrift on a high sea now. If dream jobs were not created by the industrialists following the command of Modi, he sought to smoke out the rats sitting on mounds of black money. Demonetisation was unveiled. The Modi managers argue that demonetisation helped informal economy become formal. And, thus, all talks of job loss are hogwash.

"I have a report of the CMIE (Centre for monitoring Indian economy). I can bet you on your claims of job loss," PM's Economic Advisory Council (PM-EAC) chairman Bibek Debroy had blurted out when asked after the first meeting of the panel on concerns of employment loss in the country due to demonetisation. The CMIE within a month came up with its latest data, stating that 15 lakh people lost jobs in immediate months after demonetisation. The NSSO (National Sample Survey Organisation) data would come in after a long time to give an actual picture of employment. Since then the PM-EAC has held two more meetings, but Debroy has not yet come out to face the media. He obviously lost the bet hands down.

FORMER Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, who is wrecker-in-chief of dream world of Modi

government, argues that the only way to find the extent of damage done to the economy on account of demonetisation is to look at anecdotal data in the absence of NSSO statistics. "Post-demonetisation, the small and medium enterprises in the unorganised sector bore the brunt of demonetisation. Those who lost jobs went back to their villages. That becomes evident from the Modi government making additional provision of Rs 11,000 crore under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). Since the MGNREGS is an employment avenue of the last resort, it 's evident that there had been extensive job loss," Sinha told this blogger.

By all accounts, the Modi government in its tenure will not be touching eight per cent GDP growth. Economists agree that India needs to grow at eight per cent growth for 21 years in a row to lift its people out of poverty. By forcing India to a six-seven per cent growth path, Modi has arguably condemned the poor to remain poorer for far long time.

There's, indeed, reason for Modi not yet been declared a messiah.

Rahul Gandhi makeover: Shine in Rahul's shadow

2017-11-25T06:59:00.000-08:00

Bhukh hai to sabra kar, roti nahi to kya hua,

Aajkal Dilli mein hai zere bahas e mudda -- Dushyant Kumar.

CONGRESS vice president Rahul Gandhi suddenly discovered Dushyant Kumar. This claim may be in the realm of suspicion. More apt would be to say that Rahul began dishing out couplets of Dushyant Kumar from his book of Ghazal Saaye mein Dhoop. Rahul, who had been struggling to find a coherent narrative, began hitting headlines by borrowing from the pathos in couplets of Dushyant Kumar.

Dushyant Kumar is hailed as Mirza Ghalib of Hindi. He himself had been a self proclaimed admirer of Ghalib. He admits that he did not have even the hundredth of the talent of Ghalib. Yet, he notes that his pains are no less than that of Ghalib, which made the Urdu poet an immortal for those who feel their hearts beating.

"I don't believe that my pain is less than Ghalib's, or I felt them with lesser passion. It may be possible that each may have such false notion concerning his or her feelings. But history is testimony to all my pains," Dushyant Kumar writes in the introduction to "Saaye mein Dhoop".

Dushyant Kumar had been a favourite for speakers in 80's and 90's, who sought to make an impact with their audiences. Sometimes, it did not matter whether the couplets of Dushyant Kumar related to the topic at hand. But, it had been fashionable to recall a few couplets with flair to convince the audiences of speaker's depth in literature.

Kahan to tay tha chiragan harek ghar ke liye,

kahan chirag mayassar nahi shahar ke liye;

yahan darakhton ke saaye me dhoop lagati hai,

chalo yahan se chalen aur umra bhar ke liye.

Above couplets came out in all flair from a senior IPS officer in 90's, while speaking at an annual function of a local club. Dushyant Kumar's yearnings to run away from the pathos had no relevance with the topic of the evening. Yet, the couplets gave depth to his speech, with all clapping and admiration coming in plenty.

Rahul has dished out many other couplets from "Saaye mein Dhoop" with high stake Gujarat

Assembly elections playing out at a time when he's set on the path to take the baton from his mother Sonia Gandhi for the leadership of the party. Indeed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the source of pathos for the couplets dished out by the Gandhi scion.

Within the BJP, Modi detractors have seemingly refreshed their memories of the lines of "Saaye mein Dhoop". Ab kisi ko bhi nazar aati nahi darar, ghar ki har deewar par chipke haen itne ishthaar came handy for Shatrughan Sinha when he sought to lash out at Modi and his "council of sycophants" while speaking in the company of Sitaram Yechury, Sharad Yadav, Ali Anwar, D Raja and others.

THIS blogger, while mapping the political journey of Rahul, had previously termed him a submarine politician. That adrenaline shoots in his veins in the times of elections followed by long phase of hibernation in cooler chimes had indeed been Rahul's imprints on Indian politics. His arguably incoherent articulation of issues critical to a large number of people had been well documented. He once believed that escape velocity would be required for the people to break off from poverty; or, that power had been poison; or, the Indo-US nuclear deal had been critical to light the bulbs in the huts of Kalawati to ensure her daughters went to schools. His intellectual imprints on India's socio-political canvas have surely left fodder for analysis.

Now that Rahul is diving into the Dushyant Kumar's treasure, it would indeed be key to find if he has begun connecting with the people. Himachal Pradesh is currently one of the few states being ruled by the Congress. Barring Karnataka and Punjab, the Congress could hardly count any other big states in its kitty. Thus, it must have been incumbent upon Rahul to defend Himachal Pradesh fiercely from the BJP chief Amit Shah, who is seeking a literal translation of Congress mukt Bharat.

But the Gandhi scion could spare just one day to address three rallies in the hilly state where the octogenarian Veerbhadra Singh was left to fend with himself against the combined might of Modi-Shah, besides open rebellion from within the party ranks.

Women in Kangra advising Rahul to work on his communication skills

On the campaign trail, this blogger sought out from the locals in the state if they missed Rahul at a time when they had to make the crucial decision to choose party/candidate to vote for. From Kangra to Palampur, from Hamirpur to Dharamshala, the common refrain was that the locals did not miss Rahul in their states. Some had suggestions for Rahul, that he should cease to be in a hurry to explain an issue. He should connect with the people; he seems to be in a great hurry; he's angry most of the times without explaining hos source of anger, opined a section of voters in Himachal Pradesh, which also included a few who hailed from the local Congress units.

"Rahul seems angry all the times. But we don't understand reasons for his anger. He should explain with little more leisure. He needs to improve his communication skills," Ritu Dadhwal (In pix) told this blogger in Jwalamukhi in Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh,

Dushyant Kumar is a literary delight. His pathos survives. But Rahul may need to go beyond quoting from "Saaye mein Dhoop".

Bullet train: Leap of faith

2017-09-16T06:02:00.000-07:00

That the 508-km long Ahmedabad-Mumbai high speed train, which is loosely called a bullet train, will give a negative political dividend to Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a certainty. Yet, this may be the only saving grace for the listless Modi administration on economic fronts in over three years in the office. The cost at Rs 1.10 lakh crore is jaw-dropping, but the spin-offs in a few decades will offset all the financial pain.

THE French Rail Corporation (SNC) in the business viability report had unequivocally stated that a

Shinkansen bullet train

standalone Ahmedabad-Mumbai high speed rail corridor with speed in access of 350 kmph will have to be funded by the government. That it will not make profits for years is certain, which will keep the private investment away, the report submitted to the Ministry of Railways noted, while adding that the world over such endevour has been publicly funded.

Not that the Ahmedabad-Mumbai high speed rail could ever be profitable, the report had stated, and for such a scenario to emerge the Railways would need to spread a garland of inter-connected semi-high speed rail lines to help flow strong traffic. Such garland will surely take a few decades more to become a reality. The SNC report had set the chill in the Ministry of Railways. The enthusiasm for the ambitious project had been dulled.

Japan is battling deflation. The population is aging. The manufacturing capacity there is in access of local and offshore demands. The capital is equally in access. The Japanese industries have to set up shops abroad to stay afloat. The idle Japanese capital needs avenues to sink in and make money. That China has cheap labour with population still younger along with manufacturing base at a scale which still awes the world long put Japan in quandary.

But India and Japan are bound by historical bond of culture, besides absence of even an iota of animosity. Indeed, the high speed rail corridor project had been lying idle since the time of the UPA headed by Manmohan Singh. The first definitive agreement between the two nations had also been inked during the times of Singh. Yet, the Congress which swore by Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to win polls and trumpet its brand of politics could never believe in the capital intensive high speed rail corridor. The Congress knew well, the bullet train will hit with bullet speed in damaging the vote base.

In contrast, Modi believes that the bullet train will help him get votes. And, he's not wrong either.

THE state of economy since 2011 had slipped into a self-limiting warp. The appetite for private investment had been doused. The sword of fiscal deficit launched P Chidambaram and Arun Jaitely

afterwards into obsession for expenditure squeeze. The economy cried for a spark. This is vintage Modi, the Narendra Modi of Gujarat, that has been unveiled by the ground breaking ceremony of the high speed rail corridor project. Modi, the man who could execute expansion of Sardar Sarovar Project which lifts the flow of Narmada river by not less than 25 floor high building in a course of a few Kilometers, is promising to rediscover himself at a time when his government has to bat out the last few over in which he has to score unbelievably large runs.

Undeniably, the faith of rail travellers in the railways has been left shaken due to spare of mishaps in the last two years. Every train journey now looks suspect. Suresh Prabhu, who had been Minister for Railways for almost three years, though of taking up new projects -- new lines, capacity augmentation and fresh products. He forgot that the Kakodkar Committee in its report long back had cried for immediate modernization of at least 19,000 kms of rail tracks. No surprise, that derailments of trains constitute more than 50 per cent of the rail mishaps, which in turn most likely take place due to poor conditions of tracks. Prabhu forgot his basic mandate and lost the job.

In speed, the Railways has traveled least in the last four and a half decades. Premier trains of today -- Rajdhanis -- were launched in 1969. The inaugural Mumbai-Thane had run at a speed of 30 kmph. The average speed of the passenger trains now is just 60 kmph. The goods trains travel at much slower speed. Thus, the Railways could never gain the confidence, capacity and capability (3Cs) to break free from the status quo.

THE Ahmedabad-Mumbai high speed rail corridor will give the Indian railways the 3Cs to give the mobility solution to more than one billion people of the country. That hundreds of high ranking railway officials have already gone leadership training is already part of the India-Japan story. The upcoming high speed rail institute in Gandhinagar should be giving India not one but hundreds of E Sreedharan. The 3Cs will help Indian Railways to compete with China for rail projects in South-east Asia and Africa is another in-built sub-text of the story. That IRCON has already executed a few of the long route rail projects in South-east Asia is well known.

Indian economy in the short term will gain from the pump-priming effect, as Rs 80,000 crores of the total project cost would be spent within the country on civil and associated works, which will generate demands for steel, cement, labour. Unlike the Dadri-JNPT dedicated freight corridor, Indian companies could also be the lead partner for bidding the civil works. Besides, the strong mandate for Make in India will hasten technology transfer in running high speed trains which over the years will have its own spill over effect.

Japan is sinking in Rs 88,000 crores in the Ahmedabad-Mumbail high speed rail corridor. This money is going into a standalone project and it was not available for the existing demands of the Indian Railways. The Ministry of railways will roughly contribute about Rs 20,000 crores in the course of next six years.

That the money in parts will be returned to Japan beginning 15 years later at an interest of 0.1 per cent was the most low-lying fruit that Modi had to pluck to give the spark to the economy with just about 16 months to go for him to seek votes again.

Rising spate of unemployment in India: Is Modi riding a tiger

2017-09-09T06:43:00.000-07:00

BJP top guns are sweating hard to talk gains of demonetization. Hard-selling his book "I do what I do", Raghuram Rajan has emerged within a few days a nemesis of the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Desperation on the back of mainstream media not believing numbers thrown by government to talk achievements is sinking in fast. In three years, Modi seems high on the steroid administered by achievements on borders with China and Pakistan, but quite fragile on domestic front, with unemployment at its peak.

Anand Mahindra is arguably a straight-talking India Inc man. He is also one of a few Indian industrialists who has been expanding his businesses. But he too is not an industrialist who invests in employment intensive sector. He prefers businesses with light manpower. And, so does most of the Indian industrialists, with vision of just immediate future. Expansion of the industry and the consequent job growth happens when industrialists think long into the future with certainty of growth.

India undeniably is caught in a time when vision is short -- ultra short.

"In the special economic zones (SEZs) of Gujarat, most liberal labour laws are in practice backed by

world class infrastructure. yet, I've not seen industrialists taking advantage of facilities to invest in employment intensive industries," first vice-chairman of NITI Aayog Arvind Panagariya told Mahindra in a discussion with an intention to genuinely know why Indian industrialists have aversions about businesses which could trigger employment generation.

Before Mahindra could shed light of his wisdom, a senior officer, betraying a sense of resignation, stated that the ministry of labour had engaged the industry captains and sought to know from them what all changes they wanted so that they could take up businesses with employment generation. She rued that no concrete suggestion came. "We talk of labour regulations impeding on industrial growth. Yet, when asked what all regulations should go, there are no answers from the industry," the officer told Mahindra.

At last Mahindra replied, with an admission that Indian industrialists are only attempting to imitate the outsiders setting up shops in the country. "We are best following others. The foreigners are coming and setting up units in the country. We may be watching them out and follow them in the coming years," Mahindra quipped.

The Economic Survey of 2015-16 pegged unemployment at five per cent, a notch higher than previous year. Subsequently, situations have only worsened. The informal sector accounts for bulk of employment in the country. The construction sector has been the bellwether of employment. They lay battered following demonetization. The result was reflected well in the numbers, as the first quarter gross domestic product (GDP) of 2017-18 slumped to 5.7 per cent. Rating agencies rushed to scale down growth projection to 7 per cent. Growing at 8 or more per cent GDP growth rate is a distant dream for at least a couple of years by all accounts.

So, what happens to employments in a country where 68 per cent of population is in working age group. Number of the working population is on an ascent only. Millions of youth are passing out from schools, colleges and institutes with prospects of job market further squeezing. That they would become employer is looking a crude joke after all the talks of Start Up India, Stand Up India turning out to be all about App and portal makers bottled in Bangalore and Hyderabad.

"We've given 80,000 jobs in various government departments in the last one year. But they youth don't remove their names from the employment exchange till they get the jobs of their choices. That explains why there is not much of change in the job data," the Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani reasoned at unemployment rising to quite high level.

The organizational secretary of Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) Kashmiri Lal claims that the Chinese goods coming in the country account for 50 per cent of the Indian manufacturing outputs. "Chinese firms are making a clean profit of Rs 65,000 crore ($9 billion) annually, besides having a Rs 7 lakh crore trade value. If only we can replace them with our domestic manufacturing capacities, the impact on employment could be evident," Lal opined.

But Lal will not admit that the Indian industrialists long back turned into traders of Chinese goods.

So, what happens to the promise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a rally in Agra in 2013 that if the BJP was to be voted to power 10 million jobs would be created. The BJP chief answers that

historical riddle with number-crunching from Mudra scheme. A month back, he had quipped that 7.28 crore Mudra beneficiaries have gained from the loans, which now has surpassed 8.25 crores. They're employers also, the BJP leaders would make others believe. But the Mudra beneficiaries are mostly in the semi-urban and rural areas, yet the economy hasn't got any evident shot of adrenaline for demands.

Yes, the stock market is at a record high. With banking instruments offering only an inflation neutral returns and the property option flattened, surplus money is pouring in strong stream to the Dalal Street.

With employments on freeze, Modi may well be riding a tiger.

Is genie back in bottle?

2017-07-29T05:56:00.000-07:00

Euphoria over lapping Nitish Kumar in the saffron camp has a subtle hint of faultline in the great Narendra Modi script.

THE BJP chief Amit Shah idolizes India's greatest political strategist Chanakya and Hindu revivalist Veer Savarkar. Chanakya believed in a strong and rigorously trained army to expand frontiers of the kingdom and also to ward off foes. Savarkar envisioned homogenous Hindu society, and mostly undertook covert operations in pursuit of his goals. Shah believes that he's a blend of both the historical icons.

Fired by his expansionist burst of adrenaline, Shah is eyeing to win Odisha and West Bengal. He even thinks that Kerala too will be in saffron kitty at not so distant time. The saffron flag is fluttering all across the North-east. Team Amit Shah is camping determined to uproot Manik Sircar government in Tripura.

Yet, the saffron expansionist zeal was piped to give Nitish Kumar

lease of life to rule Bihar. Fresh from delivering morbid shock to rivals in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP seemingly acted as the henchmen of Bihar chief minister to help him shed the secular skins. From splashing documents of land deeds dating back to 1990s, Nitish's Sherpa and Bihar BJP's sole anchor Sushil Kumar Modi had been a man on a mission. Suddenly, he had all the revenue records to link Lalu Prasad clan in quid pro quo land deals. One may wonder what the duo had been doing with the same set of records in their possession during NDA reign in the state during 2005-13.

Central investigating agencies, the CBI and ED, true to their wont of being more loyal than the king, hunted several locations to add thrill to the political drama. Lalu Prasad, convicted for corruption and barred from contesting election, was again certified corrupt along with all his clan members.

Nitish Kumar and his Sherpa Sushil Kumar Modi delivered the alibi for another dramatic and thrilling swapping of places in the state politics. Kumar is a politician without a party as noted by the historian Ram Chandra Guha. And Sushil Kumar Modi has of late been a politician dumped by his party. Their umbilical cord helps both to remain relevant in the Bihar politics.

That Nitish Kumar could have been a challenger to Narendra Modi had been proven a pipe dream in the course of political events after the 2014 verdict. That Modi with Kumar in saffron camp is running away with the 2019 poll is, thus, a convenient spin to a story palatable to the people.

Despite being the deputy chief minister of Bihar for more than seven years, Sushil Kumar Modi had failed to win Amit Shah's approval to become chief ministerial face of the party in the 2015 state elections. Still, he slogged and logged highest number of manhours to stall the Mandal backlash. Shah, the Chankaya of BJP, schemed from the Chanakya hotel in Patna only to flounder and subsequently sink his party to the humiliating loss in the state. Only a year ago, the BJP had been unstoppable in Bihar, with the party led alliance winning 33 out of the total 40 Lok Sabha seats.

Sushil Kumar Modi had been slighted in the run up of the 2015 Bihar polls and thereafter, with team Amit Shah experimenting with new set of nondescript leaders to stage a comeback in the state. That Shah despite being on a whirlwind intensive tour of several states to deepen the foothold of the BJP failed to make his presence felt in Bihar in the last two years made it evident that he had not yet recovered from the 2015 drubbing.

With the BJP ship adrift on the high sea of Bihar, Sushil Kumar Modi had only to strike at the right time to take full control of the party in the state, and that could have been possible only if his aka, Nitish Kumar, was back on his side.

The Bihar chief minister had teamed up with the BJP to put the genie of social justice in the bottle in 2005. Lalu Prasad, who has been the sole custodian of the politics of social justice in the state, hurtled to the wilderness in the next one decade.

Time seemed to have been ripe for writing political obituary of the messiah of Mandal. But his nemesis only uncorked the bottle to

give him another day to live in 2013. Once out of the bottle, the king of "MY (Muslim-Yadav)" proved his mettle becoming the largest party after the 2015 verdict. Back in power with two sons -- Tej Pratap and Tejashwi Prasad, Lalu Prasad was remote controlling bureaucracy and gaining political strength each day.

Time to put the genie back into the bottle had come again. And bottle was readied, but only the time will tell if the genie actually went inside. That saffron juggernaut prostrated before Nitish Kumar is indeed all to see at a time when Amit Shah is seen unstoppable.