Differentiated Voting

As has been proved time and time again, the voter thinks differently about state and national elections. Take the case of  Gujarat, where Narendra Modi holds a vice like grip in the assembly yet the Congress manages to win between 10-14 Lok Sabha seats out of the 26 in the state.

Before we turn to the main topic of this post, let us pause to reflect on how the media, and many “pundits”, in their quest for a snazzy news byte, don’t seem to take this differentiated voting pattern into account when it comes to state and national level elections. Hence, headlines about “is the Gandhi family on the wane?” or “is UP politics now like Tamil Nadu where regional parties will dominate” etc. Of course, admitting that the voter thinks differently about national and state elections would lead them to tacitly admitting the following:

a) the voter is not entirely swayed by caste, community or emotional considerations. These play a part, as do a myriad other factors

b) the voter has a sense of her area, her state and her country and each of these play into her voting choices.

Perhaps many in our media and amongst our intelligentsia are not willing to admit the above.

The cost of 28 seats

Anyway, now that the Congress has managed just 28 seats, in spite of a pre-poll alliance with Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal which was expected to help both parties in western UP (it didn’t – Ajit Singh got one seat less than 2007), and in spite of the tireless campaigning by Rahul Gandhi, let us look at the cost that these 28 seats have extracted from the Congress and its UPA government:

1) Censorship of films

Congress MP, chairman of National Commission for Scheduled Castes and former Mayawati-aide PL Punia led the chorus in demanding a ban on Prakash Jha’s film “Aarakshan” (starring Amitabh Bacchan, Saif Ali Khan, Manoj Bajpai and others). This was before anybody had seen the film, which is good as most of this (utterly unwatchable) film isn’t about reservation but about the hold of tuition centers over our education system.

Given the slippery slope nature of populist politics, as soon as Punia started campaigning against this film on TV, Mayawati who had been content to look at it with a benign gaze, was forced to swing into action and ban it forthwith. This was followed by a ban in a few other states.

Prakash Jha successfully appealed against this ban in the Supreme Court.

The Congress party and the UPA government lost image, especially amongst the influential middle classes, but the party “leadership” kept quiet (an art it has mastered) hoping that Punia will help the party gain dalit votes.

2) Censorship of writers

The Congress governments at the Centre and in Rajasthan jointly enacted a great farce to deny Salman Rushdie a chance to speak at the Jaipur Literature Festival, even through video conferencing. It should be noted that:

- Rushdie holds a person of Indian origin card, so he doesn’t need a visa to enter the country or travel to any part of India.

- He has visited the country many times in the past, even after the infamous fatwa.

-  He has already spoken at the Jaipur Literature Fest in 2007.

What is worse is that the district administration didn’t legally stop Rushdie from entering, but that the Rajashtan police said it could not guarantee his security and that of the event, were he to go and speak at the litfest. An official directive can be challenged in court, but what do you do when the government shirks its responsibility and looks the other way?

This gambit was expected to help the Congress garner muslim votes in UP.

3) Reservation for Muslim OBCs

The logic of this move continues to elude me. Many Muslim communities are already listed as OBC, and are thus eligible for benefits within the 27% earmarked for OBCs in government jobs and educational institutions. It is not as if there is intense competition for OBC seats, as most remain vacant due to the lack of suitable candidates.

In this scenario, what could possibly be gained by earmarking a quota within quota for Muslim OBCs, given they already are the beneficiaires of a quota that is not even filled?!

That didn’t stop the Congress party from making this its flagship promise in the UP elections, with not one but two senior party leaders and union ministers (Salman Khurshid and Beni Prasad Verma) running afoul of the election commission in their haste to announce ever-increasing quotas for Muslim OBCs.

For the record, Mr. Khurshid’s wife Lousie stood fifth in the Farrukhabad assembly constituency. The Congress lost all 5 assembly segments falling within Mr. Verma’s Gonda Parliamentary constituency.

4) Unseemly attacks on the Election Commission

See above. Congress ministers were heard mumbling about how the election commission is getting too big for its boots. How once the assembly polls are over, the power to pull up violators of the model code of conduct shall be taken away from the Election Commission and vested in our courts, which are known worldwide for the fair, speedy and inexpensive justice they dispense.

5) Threats of President’s Rule

Chatterbox Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh announced midway through the election process that in the case of a hung assembly, the Congress shall not consider a tie up with the Samajwadi Party but rather impose President’s rule.

The people got the message, and ensured that the SP gets a full majority. Dr. Manmohan Singh can continue devoting his attention to blaming American NGOs for nuclear protests and the like. The people of UP have ensured that his government, which is already embattled on all sides, would not have to worry about the additional responsibility of running UP by proxy.

But Digvijay Singh’s threat, voiced subsequently by other senior Congress leaders as well, added to the increasingly arrogant image that the party is regaining (after the relative lull of the 90s and 00s) (See: Kapil Sibal’s efforts to censor the internet, attempts to deny Anna Hazare the right to protest etc)

6) Batla House encounter flip-flop

The mass of theories and counter theories regarding the Batla House encounter in Delhi’s Jamia Nagar is enough to give anybody a headache. A dwelling occupied by a few Muslim youths was attacked by a team of the Delhi police led by the late Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, who ostensibly lost his life in the encounter. Sharma was subsequently awarded the Ashok Chakra, India’s highest peacetime gallantry award. Note that this award is given by the Home Ministry, which was under Shivraj Patil at the time, who is a known loyalist of the Gandhi family. In addition, Delhi Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit herself attended Sharma’s memorial service.

Over the years, there has been intense speculation about the genuineness of the encounter. The Supreme Court has dismissed a petititon filed to review the conclusions of the police. The home ministry, controlled by the Congress, has repeatedly refused to relook the matter.

This has not stopped Digvijay Singh from questioning the genuineness of the encounter on multiple fora. He has contradicted the line of his own government, doubtless hoping for a few muslim votes.

Salman Khurshid, union law minister, went a step further, saying at an election meeting recently that Sonia Gandhi “burst into tears” when he told her about the encounter. If this is indeed the case, then the voter can be forgiven for asking, why did she not tell her home ministry to reopen the case?

How could the Congress party believe that this charade will help them gain even one vote, rather than losing many, is beyond my comprehension.

Conclusion

Rahul Gandhi, and his expensive foreign trained image consultants, tried to project Congress as a party of change, of hope, of decisive action in UP. I leave it to the wisdom of the reader to decide whether any of the above is consistent with the image that was sought to be projected. It appears to me that the actions of the party in the last couple of years have rather been populist, oppurtunistic and given to the worst kind of sectarian and votebank politics.

The voter, alas, is neither a fool nor a statistic on an Excel spreadsheet.

2. (Relative) Lack of Hierarchy - To the best of my knowledge, no event apart from the opening had any reservation of seats.  If you are not on time for an event, no matter who you are, you better stand at the back. Similarly the writers’ lounge had no separate enclosure for ‘star’ writers.

3. Variety – Every time slot had a carefully curated set of events,  with at least one serious literary event and one somewhat less than serious one taking place at the same time. Visitors of all hues and literary tastes could find themselves constantly engaged.

4. Organization – There were a few glitches, but on the whole the event was superbly organized with good use of technology to speed things up. Remarkably, only one session began late during the 3 days I was at the festival, and that was because Anthony Grayling’s flight had got delayed. To ensure that each session begins and ends on time, with 4 concurrent sessions over 5 full days, is no mean achievement. Large crowds were managed very efficiently, and there were always plenty of volunteers around to help people.

5. Not in Delhi – Delhi hosts a ridiculously disproportionate number of cultural events as compared to other North Indian cities. This festival is a boon for the people of Jaipur and Rajasthan, especially for students. Of course, it is a boon for the state government as well, when it is not busy applying fascism 101.

6. Price – you can’t beat free!

I have been struck by the complete absence from recent commentary of the reasons for the public support enjoyed by India Against Corruption in August. The huge crowds that were seen at  Ramlila Maidan at that time had not assembled just to protest corruption  and to demand an anti-corruption ombudsman.

Let us not forget that the central government and its agencies had clamped a set of unfair restrictions on the right to assembly and peaceful protest. These included bizarre mandates such as a limit on the number of cars and two-wheelers which could be parked at the protest venue, apart from seeking to limit the number of protesters, as if protests happen by invitation and rsvp.

Following the midnight crackdown on the followers of Ramdev, the government’s high-handed attitude which saw the preventive arrest of Anna Hazare led to great public consternation and resentment. The crowds that gathered in Ramlila Maidan were asserting their right to protest far more than they were uniting against corruption. This is not new. The Indian public has a long history of punishing those who seek to usurp democracy. Even a leader of Indira Gandhi’s stature lost her own Lok Sabha seat due to the excesses of the emergency.

However, this painfully obvious fact was ignored by the much vaunted strategists of ‘Team Anna’ who allowed themselves to believe that the vast crowds were a result of the topicality of Lokpal and Anna Hazare’s magnetism, not to speak of their own skillful organization.

After defusing the crisis in August by passing a meaningless ‘Sense of the House’ resolution the Government  got time to retrace its steps and put its house in order. Having burnt its fingers, the Government learned its lesson from the Anna arrest fiasco and got cracking on taking the wind out of the Lokpal sail through legislative jugglery and good old political drama. The Congress party is a past master at political maneuvering and this is once again in evidence given the sort of Lokpal Bill they have introduced in parliament. Importantly, they did not try and prevent Anna or his team from protesting. By allowing people to protest freely, the Government removed the major cause of people’s anger in August.

The final Lokpal and Lokayukta Bill 2011 introduced by the Government in parliament exhibits the following features -

- It successfully divides the opposition by introducing provision of reservation for minority communities in the proposed Lokpal. Reservations have become a holy cow of Indian politics, with no party daring to bell the cat on this score. The BJP has found itself in all kinds of difficulty by opposing reservation for minorities. Most other parties have to preserve and trumpet their “secular credentials” and hence cannot oppose minority reservation. Thus the government has successfully driven a wedge between the BJP and its NDA partners.

- The bill militates against the federal structure of the Union by mandating each state to have a Lokayukta on the lines of the central Lokpal, thereby taking away the autonomy of states to make their own laws. This is especially piquant as several states like Karnataka, Uttarakhand and Delhi already have Lokayuktas in place through state-level legislation. As such it may be difficult even for UPA partners like Trinamool Congress to pass such a bill. The government wouldn’t be too upset with this scenario – I think the best case scenario for the government [and also for the country] would be if the Lokpal goes into permanent cold storage due to the lack of political consensus.

- The Lokpal as proposed will be little more than yet another body in the vast maze of commissions that already exist in this country. It will make no real difference as far as reducing corruption and penalizing the corrupt goes.  The system will continue to work in the ‘show me the man and I’ll show you the rule’ style that we are are all accustomed to. A few more retired bureaucrats and other eminent citizen types shall gain the benefits of lal-batti etc.

However this does not mean that Team Anna’s Jan Lokpal Bill should be adopted. That is a remedy worse than the cure. The Jan lokpal bill envisages the creation of a super authority which would not be accountable to the people or their elected representatives. That is a recipe for fascism. As has been said, “the way to hell is paved with good intentions” and unfortunately the Jan Lokpal bill is a prime example.

The government has played its cards in a very canny manner. If the Lokpal bill is passed, we will  see a toothless and largely decorative body which will make much noise but business shall go on as usual – somewhat like the minorities, human rights and sundry noise-making but ultimately toothless commissions that we’ve legislated into existence in the last three decades. At the same time, the Congress party and UPA government would be able to claim that they have worked towards tackling corruption.

If, on the other hand, the Lokpal bill is not passed due to a lack of political consensus, the government can palm off blame to the opposition and lose nothing in the process, as nobody in the political class wants any kind of Lokpal in the first place.

Also from this blog:

1. How the Parliamentary Committee has “managed” Lokpal

On the role of CBI and CVC vis-a-vis Lokpal, the report recommends a five-stage mechanism. In the first stage, a complaint must be received by the Lokpal who would hold a preliminary inquiry in stage 2. If a case is made out, it would be referred to CBI in stage 3 which will investigate independently of the Lokpal or ministries. In stage 4, the case would go to the Directorate of Prosecution which will be under the superintendence of Lokpal. In the 5th and last stage, the case would go to a special judge or a Lokpal Judge.

There goes any chance of the Lokpal actually doing any good whatsoever. In true Indian way, it has been “managed” …

Maybe not such a bad thing, as the idea of the Lokpal, particularly the so-called “Jan Lokpal” variety, seems to be a cure worse than the disease.

Also from this blog:

1. 1 lakh people came together for Lokpal? Think again
2. Theatre of the absurd: outcomes of the Lyngdoh Committee Report

From the wikileaks donation page

Censorship, like everything else in the West, has been privatized.

As a result of exposing U.S. embassies from around the world, five major US financial institutions, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, Western Union and the Bank of America, have tried to economically strangle WikiLeaks The attack has blocked over 95% of our donations, costing tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue. The attack is entirely political. In fact, in the only formal review to occur, the US Treasury found that there were no lawful grounds to add WikiLeaks to financial blockade .

Your donations are vital to pay for our fight against this and other kinds of censorship, for Wikileaks’ projects, staff, servers and protective infrastructure. We are entirely supported by the general public.

I for one can’t think of a better way of spending my money this Diwali.

http://www.youtube.com/user/europevfacebook#p/c/8ED10AB2E76CD62E

“1200 pages? No KGB or CIA ever had that much information on a normal citizen”

[click on the small "cc" button on the bottom right to see English subtitles]

Also from this blog:

1. Recent comments on this blog

http://www.petitiononline.com/ramanuj/petition.html

You can access the full text of the essay here: http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3j49n8h7&chunk.id=d0e1254

Also from this blog:

1. A meditation on the plight of MF Husain

I fail to see any logic here. Regardless of whether I buy Coke, Mazaa or Minute Maid, the profits go to the same firm. So how this move achieves anything as far as a “war against corporations” goes eludes me.

Perhaps there is a “health” argument here – since aerated drinks are bad for health they should not be sold in universities. There are many problems with such policing:

1) We are talking not of a school, but of a largely postgraduate research university. Surely the residents should be allowed to decide whether or not and how much of aerated beverages they want to consume? Besides students, the campus also hosts teachers, non teaching staff and their families. It seems excessive to deny them the simple pleasure of buying a bottle of cola.

2) The argument that “let the authorities/students union decide what is good for you” strikes at the heart of the concept of a university, especially one such as JNU. A university is supposed to equip people to make rational and enlightened choices – to be able to determine what sort of life they want to lead and how they intend to go about it, as long as it is not actively harmful to others. Freedom is central to making an enlightened choice.

3) Taking off from the last point, unlike smoking, you are not harming anybody else by drinking a bottle of Coke. And if I need to be protected from myself to such a degree, then all kinds of snacks, oily food etc should be banned – perhaps JNU can be converted into a dharmashala offering only sattvik food and goat’s milk.

I conclude that the move is either mind-numbingly hypocritical or absolutely stupid, or both. This is sad, because at one point in time, things in JNU used to make more sense than this.

“Target” subsidy schemes to the “genuinely” poor – those earning less than Rs. 31/day

Make mandatory “hi-tech” id cards to check “pilferage”. After all the non-poor [those earning >Rs. 31/day] are stealing grains allocated for the poor

Allow millions of tonnes of grains in FCI godowns to go waste, year after year due to lack of storage facilities. While people starve of hunger, year after year.

Acquire cultivable land, and build swanky housing complexes, swanky malls, swanky tanning clubs, and swanky hospitals which cater to “medical tourists”

India is well on its way to achieving a place at the “high table” of the “comity of nations”

However, as John Gruber puts it “Jobs’s greatest creation isn’t any Apple product. It is Apple itself.”

He will continue as Apple’s Chairman, passing on day to day duties to his chosen successor Tim Cook.

A college dropout, Jobs entire career has consisted of taking farsighted decisions that were initially criticized by tech and business  ”pundits”. As one of the titans of silicon valley, Jobs both learnt from and helped create its iconic business culture that constantly fosters innovation. I am attaching a few links which make for good reading on him:

Resignation letter - http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/aug/25/steve-jobs-resignation-letter?CMP=twt_gu

Jobs Departure is the end of an extraordinary era - http://allthingsd.com/20110824/jobs-leave-a-legacy-of-changed-industries/

Here’s what Apple loses - http://finance.yahoo.com/news/What-Happens-To-Apple-siliconalley-735732266.html?x=0