VOXINDICA

What is Salman Khurshid Up To?

2013-05-16T17:54:00.000+05:30

The aphorism ‘No nation has friends, only interests’ and its variations were attributed to the former French President, Charles de Gaulle and the English Statesman Lord Palmerston. Some believe it predates even these politicians. An article in Time Magazine (May 9, 1955) obliquely attributes it to the English Statesman. For now the authorship of the aphorism is not the issue but whether Indian politicians were / are wise enough to pursue the course defined by it. Surprisingly, India’s foreign policy from the days of Jawaharlal Nehru has functioned at complete variance from the wisdom the aphorism advocates. Another interesting feature is that although Indian Prime Ministers in general seem to have a penchant for the foreign ministry, probably because it helps them to frequently fly abroad and rub shoulders with other world leaders, Nehru never let go of the foreign affairs portfolio. He was his Foreign Minister throughout his tenure as Prime Minster from September 2 1946. He relinquished both the posts only when he died on May 27 1964. The following article was originally published in South Asian Idea (SAISA), the official website of the South Asian Institute of Strategic Affairs as, ‘What is Foreign Office Up To?’

Does the Indian government have a strategy to counter the latest Chinese incursion deep into Indian territory on April 15? If it does, it is shrouded in mystery and obfuscation. The first reports indicated that the Chinese penetrated ten kilometres inside from the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and pitched tents. The government finally admitted that they intruded nineteen kilometres. (Dr.!) Salman Khurshid, the dermatologist heading the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) described it as a spot of acne on the India-China relations! Such expressions appear colourful in sophomore essays or university debates. However Khurshid is neither a sophomore nor was he writing an essay for a college magazine.

The recent incursion is not the first (more than 200 Chinese incursions into Indian territory have been reported since 2008) but what made it disturbing was, this time around the Chinese did not indulge in a niggling in-and-out inroad but seemed to have come to stay put. Equally disturbing is the Indian response which seems to be following the disastrous course of the 1962 script.

One would like to forget what happened in 1962 but for the indelible scar that the humiliating defeat left on India’s collective psyche. There were varying versions of what went wrong. There was an extreme view projected by the then undivided Communist Party of India (CPI) which overtly functioned as the Chinese fifth column. The left wing Chinese sympathizers in the academia and their fellow travellers in the media did their bit to cloud the picture. Several generals of the defeated army added to the cacophony by offering self-serving apologias.

Then there are accounts of foreign journalists like Neville Maxwell (1970. India’s China War). An Australian national born in London and educated in Canada, Maxwell was The Times’ foreign correspondent in Washington for three years, before being posted to New Delhi as the paper’s South Asia correspondent. Though extensively researched, the book appears to have been written to absolve Britain of any responsibility for the mess it left behind. In an article he wrote for Rediff in 2002, Maxwell observed that ‘[t]hrough the early 1950’s Nehru’s covertly expansionist policy had been implemented by armed border police…’ (Remembering a War).

Even his worst enemies would not have credited Nehru with an expansionist mindset. Quite the reverse; he was hugely enamoured of China and its culture and wanted its friendship not enmity. (The CIA documents mentioned below confirm this.) He meekly acquiesced when the Chinese usurped Tibet, although Sardar Patel warned him years earlier, about Chinese ambitions over it. Patel foresaw that the disappearance of a buffer state between India and China would only fuel the latter’s expansionist ambitions further. The Chinese proved Patel right. In 1956-57 they quietly built a road to Aksai Chin and occupied it. It was a monumental failure of the Indian intelligence but the Indian government came to know of it only in 1958 according to secret CIA documents declassified in 2007.

Isn’t 2013 a poignant parallel? With all the technology and spy satellites that are available to them, the Indian intelligence agencies (again) failed to notice the Chinese creeping in till they pitched their tents nineteen kilometres inside India. That is not all. There are ground reports that the Chinese have been nibbling at Indian territories for years and altering the contours of the borders.

Nehru first denied the Chinese incursions into Indian territories (as Khurshid now seeks to minimize it) and when it was no longer tenable to do so informed parliament that the Indian army was asked to ‘throw the Chinese out’. The Chinese fifth column in the Indian polity latched on to that phrase and claimed that it hurt the Chinese pride and in a way triggered the war. After the war, the Indians were left with only shame, not pride! There is no dearth of Chinese sympathizers even today. Academics of the JNU variety argue in television debates that the incursions occur because of differing perceptions about the border. They never pause to ponder why, because of similar differing perceptions Indian troops do not wander into China? Isn’t it precisely because, it is not a settled and demarcated border it is called the ‘Line of Actual Control’ and not an international border?

Maxwell had access to the ‘Henderson Brookes-Bhagat Report’, an Operations Review of the debacle, commissioned by Gen. J. N. Chaudhuri, who became the army Chief after the war. The report is still classified and not available to the Indian public. Nehru revealed more about the Indian army’s capabilities to the Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai (trained in military and intelligence matters) by taking him on a conducted tour of Indian ordnance factories than the Henderson Brookes-Bhagat report conceals from the Indian public.

Maxwell and others opine that the Indian army was forced to take on a more superior army in terms of training and equipment. But the war was probably lost in the minds of the generals much before it was on the ground. There is the old saying that ‘The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton!’ (It may be an uncorroborated version but a veteran of the war whom this writer met in a train journey said that the Chinese were not as well equipped as it was made out to be. They carried one rifle for four to six soldiers.) The generals hoped till the end that Nehru would somehow find a diplomatic solution to the vexed border problem. He failed them and they failed him.

Haven’t the Americans met their Waterloo in Vietnam and the Russians in Afghanistan in spite of their vastly superior arms and equipment? Therefore the inferior quality of arms and equipment was not a valid argument for the defeat in 1962. Similarly, China’s numerical superiority of arms and equipment is not a valid argument for inaction in 2013. The rule is to be able to stare the enemy in the face. As an emerging economy and aspiring world power, China has as much at stake as India.

There was a view that Nehru’s overweening ambition to win a Nobel peace prize was at the back many of his political decisions which resulted in disastrous consequences. One hopes the present leadership would not consider trading off national interests for some elusive personal monument for itself! The nation will not approve it. Therefore Salman Khurshid should keep the nation informed about his game plan for securing the safety and integrity of the nation. More importantly the nation would like to have an assurance from the Defence Minister that his armed forces are fully capable of securing the nation’s safety, security and integrity.

Random Reflections On The Karnataka Election 2013

2013-05-09T02:12:00.001+05:30

If one were to name a singular failure of the intelligentsia, the politicians, the sociologists and finally the sanctimonious, ‘know-all’ media that comprise the opinion-shaping organs of the world’s largest democracy, it is its failure to build a cohesive national spirit. For, sixty five years after becoming a democratic polity, we still vote as castes and communities; ethnic and religious groups.

Unlike the Americans, Brits, Chinese, French or Russians we do not think, act or behave as a nation, like Indians. We think as vokkaligas, and lingayats; forward castes and backward castes; Hindus and Muslims; Bengalese and Biharis; Kanndigas and Marathis but certainly not as Indians.

Compared to these considerations, probity in public life or its converse, corruption appears to be a non-issue in Indian elections. This was earlier observed in AP in 2009 when the then YSR government accused of corruption on a gigantic scale not only comfortably returned to power but contributed 33 MPs to his party to form a government at the centre.

The reason could probably be that corruption only affects the middle classes. The poor do not mind whether the government is corrupt or not as in any case their lot remains poor. If someone provides them their daily necessities and a few other freebies, that would be all they want. Throw the poor some crumbs. The late YSR understood this principle and deployed it with great success. His philosophy was ‘I and my cronies would loot the state and none can question me as long as the people vote me back to power.’ He warded off all accusations of corruption with the hide of a hippopotamus. If in the process the government bankrupts, so be it!

His bête noire CBN, left out of power for two terms learnt his predecessor’s lessons well! It is early days yet to predict if he would or could come back to power in 2014 but to service all the freebies he has been promising during his recent 3000-km padayatra the state budget may be woefully inadequate. The freebies he promised would consume the revenues of the entire nation. To be fair to CBN he did not face any corruption charges when in power.

For the rich it is a closed circuit. ‘I can, and pay for services; I recover my costs and some by swindling the public.’ They need corruption and it needs them. It is a self-reinforcing loop.

The BJP, which laid great store by probity in public life, floundered when its tallest leader in the state, B.S. Yeddyurappa blundered. In the 1990s, its leader L. K. Advani, an accused in the Jain Hawala case resigned his parliament membership and stayed out of public life till his name was cleared. Its Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee sacrificed his 13-day government in 1996, by losing a vote of confidence on the floor of the Lok Sabha by a solitary vote. If his floor managers did what the Manmohan Singh government did at the fag end of its first term in 2004, he would not have had to go to the people again. Atal Behari Vajpayee had sacked Buta Singh, a minister from a politically sensitive community when the Supreme Court indicted him in the JMM bribery case.

B.S. Yeddyurappa nullified about forty years’ of hard work and clean public life with greed for some small peanuts. When there was a demand for probing mining licences, in a fit of foolish or inverted bravado, he included his own tenure in the terms of reference he ordered. That was his undoing. He was one of the few Chief Ministers who had to resign on grounds of corruption and sent to jail based on a report filed by the state Lokayukta. The High Court later rubbished the report. For the record, the report of the former Karnataka Lokayukta, Justice Santosh Hegde, also indicted two of Yeddyurappa’s predecessors, S. M. Krishna and Dharam Singh both of the Congress. What was Yeddyurappa charged of in the Lokayukta report? He was charged of allocating a paltry 10 acres of land to his family members. He did it, as many of his predecessors did, under the Chief Minister’s discretionary quota. An indiscretion perhaps, for a leader of a ‘party with a difference’ but it can hardly be termed corruption. His son was accused of accepting a paltry Rs 10 Cr as a donation to a trust he was running as quid pro quo for getting him some mining leases.

The BJP did act by replacing Yeddyurappa as Chief Minister but by the time the damage was done. The anti-BJP media selectively went to town with Yeddyurappa’s alleged corruption and the stigma stuck. The reason for qualifying the media as anti-BJP is because it spared the two former Congress CMs indicted by the same Lokayukta report. The BJP could not effectively counter the campaign. Here is a lesson for the BJP to ruminate on its media management or look for a media organisation of its own.

The lesson: don’t under-estimate the power of media. There is a corollary to the lesson: don’t over-estimate the power of the social media. The social media may be able to discipline the mainstream media to a certain extent but it can’t be a substitute for hard work on the ground.

The manner of his exit rather than the exit per se must have angered Yeddyurappa. A faction within the party which wanted the party to brazen out corruption charges (as the Congress does often) raised false hopes in him. But a more martinet faction within the party wanted him out at least till his name was cleared by due legal processes. A miffed Yeddyurappa walked out of the party, formed his own outfit and proved to be the BJP’s nemesis at the hustings. His exit split the party’s votes and reduced its tally in the Vidhan Sabha to a third of its former strength. In the process, he rendered himself irrelevant in the political scheme of things in the state. He might yet learn his lesson and yearn for a homecoming as many others before him have done both in the BJP and its arch-rival, the Congress. For the nonce, he has had his revenge for a real or imaginary slight he suffered in the party.

Is 2002 a decoy for 1984?

2013-04-13T03:59:00.000+05:30

‘How do you make a line smaller without touching it?’ is a question which kids use while playing games. It is a sort of a children’s equivalent of an IQ test. It would be more appropriate to rephrase it as ‘How do you make a line appear smaller without touching it?’ The answer would of course be ‘by drawing a larger line adjacent to it.’

Why would adults play a kids’ game? But they do. They do. Human rights activists do. Intellectuals do. Media analysts do. Politicians do. Social activists do. They do and have been doing it, in spite of the issue under discussion being, as macabre as the butchering of thousands of men, women and children in the national capital. They do although one unnatural death (death by wanton murder) is one too many.

The riots in Gujarat following the burning of a wagon-load of karsevaks in February 2002 could be discussed as a standalone riot. There is another strange aspect to it. It is as if India had no history before 1992 and no history after 2002. Therefore the demolition of the ‘Sri Rama Janma Bhumi – Babri Masjid’ in 1992 and the riots that followed the burning of a wagon-load of karsevaks in 2002 are discussed ad nauseum as standalone incidents as if they had no context. In the case of 2002, only the riots are discussed. The burning of a wagon-load of karsevaks that preceded them is airbrushed as if it never happened. If it was ever mentioned it was done so, as an after-thought. ‘Yes, it happened. Unfortunate.’

When it comes to discussing the Sikh massacres of 1984 (an inconvenient issue that cannot always be avoided), the issue of 2002 had to be invariably invoked as if it was somehow it was the incident that triggered it. Stranger still, even in a discussion about the massacre of 1984, the riots of 2002 become the focal point and the massacre of 1984 an addendum. These are the ways of our secular polity and objective media!

This was the background for Vivek Kaul’s ‘1984 riots: The original ‘maut ka soudagars’ set tone for future’. The issue came back to limelight after the Delhi High Court ordered reopening the Jagdish Tytler case, which, CBI, India’s premier investigation agency sought to bury umpteen times in the last twenty-eight years. It was not due to its ineptitude that the premier investigation agency sought to bury the case but because the oft-quoted dictum ‘the law will take its course’ is applicable only to ordinary mortals but not to the high and mighty. There is a separate jurisprudence for them!

Kaul relies heavily on Ramachandra Guha's book (India After Gandhi –The History of World’s Largest Democracy) to put across his point of view. There are many inaccuracies - deliberate and mala fide - in both Kaul's and Guha's versions. Guha writes, “…The mobs were led by Hindus who lived in and around Delhi…” That the massacre had nothing to do with Hindus or Hinduism has been conveniently ignored. That it was the private revenge of the Congress party was intentionally ignored. That the Congress party’s most cynical, if not macabre game plan was to use the sad incident to derive political dividends by whipping up public hysteria was deliberately not highlighted.

Guha goes on to say, ‘…in Delhi alone more than a thousand Sikhs perished…’ A deliberate attempt, to use Nixon’s famous phrase, to economize with the truth! The fact was, in Delhi more than 3000 Sikhs were butchered and 5000-7000 more were killed in the other parts of the country.

It is at this point Kaul tries to draw his ‘Gujarat 2002 larger line’ to make ‘the 1984 Sikh massacre, the smaller line’. Kaul doubles the number of deaths in the Gujarat riots – off his own bat without any help from Guha! The number of Muslims killed in Gujarat in the 2002 riots was not 2000. It was 790, according to a reply given by a secular Congress Minister of State for Home (MoS, Home) in the Rajya Sabha. There is more to the inappropriate comparison. The 1984 anti-Sikh carnage was a totally one sided affair, truly a genocide, to use a word often inappropriately applied to the Gujarat 2002 riots. In the riots that followed the burning of a wagon-load of karsevaks, 254 Hindus were killed. The number of Hindus dead is a matter of no consequence for secular writers and hence no mention was ever made of them.

Guha’s specious argument about unnamed Karsevaks ‘getting into a fight with Muslim vendors at the Godhra railway station’ as a reason for burning down a whole compartment of Hindus, more than half of whom were women and children is another spin of sick secular minds. This mauling of facts often resorted to by the secular mob since 2002 is a deliberate insult to the common sense of – well, the common man. Do platform vendors routinely store hundreds of gallons of petrol anticipating altercations over a few rupees with their customers, and do they routinely burn customers to teach them a lesson?

While the central government in Delhi deliberately delayed the deployment of the army in 1984 till the blood-lust of the dynasty was satisfied, the army was called in Gujarat in 2002 within 48 hours. (There were no four days between February 27 and March 1 as some over-zealous, motivated commentators tried to make out!) While the accuracy of Rajiv Gandhi’s ‘the earth trembles when a big tree falls’ statement has been fairly well established, the Gujarat Chief Minister’s statement following the riots was deliberately distorted to paint him as a bloodthirsty tyrant.

Another detail which the article deliberately glosses over was that in the Delhi massacre, senior Congress leaders like H. K. L. Bhagat, Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler led the murderous mobs from the front. The fact that Congress workers were as much part of the Gujarat riots as members of the BJP is too inconvenient for the secular brigade to be bothered about.

Novartis Vs. The People Of India

2013-04-04T15:13:00.000+05:30

Ivan Illich opened his seminal work, Limits to Medicine with the observation that ‘the growth of the medical establishment is a major threat to health.’ A large part of Illich’s work dealt with iatrogenic (meaning physician-induced) diseases. But to Illich, the ‘medical establishment’, also includes the pharmaceutical industry.

The recent Supreme Court verdict in the Novartis’ Gleevec (Glivec) patent case has generated a lot of heat and uninformed debate in the media. Novartis challenged the order of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), for rejecting a patent for its ‘old wine in a new bottle’ first in the Madras High Court and then in the Supreme Court. Novartis filed world-wide patents for its active molecule imatinib in 1993. In India, the company filed patent in 2003 for imatinib mesylate a beta crystalline form of the active ingredient, under the ‘mailbox provision’.

NOVARTIS Vs. PEOPLE OF INDIA

Novartis’ application for a patent for its beta crystalline form was rejected by the IPAB in 2006 on the ground that Novartis’ original patent application covered all forms of imatinib. The Madras High Court decreed that IPAB’s rejection of the application under Sec. 3 (d) of the Indian Patents Act as amended in 2005 did not violate Article 14 of the Indian constitution. This is now upheld by the Supreme Court.

The Indian Patents Act of 1970 did not recognize product patents but only process patents. However India agreed to consider patent applications filed from January 1 1995 for granting product patents pending amendment of its laws in line with the requirements of the WTO. The process was known as the ‘mailbox’ provision. Eventually India amended its patents law in 1999, to grant product patents with effect from January 1, 2005. A patent is an intellectual property which has a life of 20 years from the date of filing and which gives its holder exclusive marketing rights. The actual period of exclusive marketing depends on the company’s ability to develop the product for commercialization.

R&D COSTS

In the pharmaceutical industry, Research and Development (R & D) is of course an expensive and risky process. A company begins with thousands of molecules and narrows down its search to a few (less than a dozen) for further experimentation. After initial animal experimentation to establish efficacy, safety and toxicity a candidate drug (known in the industry as New Chemical Entity or NCE) is selected for human clinical trials. A patent application is generally filed at this stage and approval sought for commencing human clinical trials. These are conducted in four phases before it is submitted for marketing approval by the regulators. It is called filing a New Drug Application (NDA). The process takes quite a few years. This means, although a patent is granted for 20 years a company gets to exclusively market it for the residual period after conducting clinical trials and obtaining marketing approval. Even after a drug is approved for marketing it is still tested in a process called, Post Marketing Surveillance (PMS) every year to find out if any hitherto unnoticed side effects come to light. The company has an obligation to market a product only to be used in conditions for which it is approved. However a physician may use it in other conditions if he finds it suitable. This is known as off-label usage.

There are varying estimates about the cost of research and development of drugs. Several years ago an article in the Readers’ Digest put it at between $ 100 and 200 million. Recent estimates vary from $ 500 million to 1 to 2 billion depending on the therapeutic category and method of calculation used, such as inclusion of capitalization and opportunity costs. This does not mean that the entire amount is spent by a company. There is public funding and tax write-offs on R & D spending, which is a not unlikely incentive for bolstering the figures.

Pharmaceutical companies quite naturally argue that they have to make profit out of successful candidate drugs because they have to incur huge expenditure on R & D, which is a long drawn and uncertain process. This is the reason they claim, new drugs cost so much.

MARKET RISKS

However pharmaceutical companies are aware there is an element of uncertainty in the business. For, even if a company is able to come up with a successful candidate drug, there is no guarantee that a rival company with a competing product might not upstage it. As an illustration, see the case of the first anti-ulcer drug cimetidine. It was introduced by the British multinational, Smith Kline & French (SK&F) in the mid-seventies when the only cure for peptic ulcers was surgery. The drug was indeed a boon for patients as it reduced the necessity for surgery in about 90% of cases. The drug marketed by SK&F as Tagamet entered the Guinness Book of World Records for maximum number of prescriptions received in a year. A few years later another British multinational Glaxo came up with an updated version of the drug ranitidine which it marketed as Zantac. It too entered the Guinness Book of World Records in the year of its introduction, and Tagamet lost 50% of its market share. As a result, many heads rolled in SK&F and its Chairman had to resign. The two companies merged in the mid-nineties to become what is now known as GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). (In its process of mergers and acquisitions, GSK has also absorbed several other companies like Beecham and Burrows Wellcome.)

The success of the first two molecules, in the class of drugs called H2 receptor antagonists, made other companies board the bandwagon and many variations of cimetidine were launched. These include famotidine, loxitidine, nizatidine and roxatidine. Of these molecular variations only ranitidine and famotidine could achieve significant commercial success, while the others remained small players. For the treatment of peptic ulcer, another class of more powerful drugs known as proton-pump inhibitors emerged with members like omeprazole, esomeprazole, lansoprazole, pantoprazole and rabiprazole, a few years later.

Wouldn’t it be unfair for a company marketing, for instance, roxatidine to claim the same pricing privilege as SK&F which has laid the groundwork for finding a drug for peptic ulcer? On the flip side could SK&F claim that, as there was every possibility of its market monopoly being upstaged, it should be permitted to recover its costs at the earliest? In view of this should the company be allowed to price a tablet of cimetidine @ $100?

R&D – WESTERN BIAS

It would be unfair to see the Indian Supreme Court verdict as a triumph of left-liberal altruism against Western capitalism for several reasons. Firstly, US courts too held that derivatives of known substances are not eligible for patent protection under the ‘doctrine of inherent anticipation’. Also in the US a patentee cannot claim rights for more than one substance with identical claims, under the ‘doctrine of double patenting’. The third principle governing US jurisprudence in relation to intellectual property rights is the ‘patent misuse doctrine’, which prevents pharmaceutical companies from extending their patent rights by obtaining multiple patents covering essentially the same invention. In her extensively researched paper, Trials And TRIPS-ulations: Indian Patent Law And Novartis AG v. Union Of India, (Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Vol: 23. Mar 21, 2008. 281-313), Lynda L. Lee opined that the stand of the Indian courts ‘indicates that the objective of India’s Section 3 (d) is not a radical departure from international practices to regulate the patenting of derivatives and new uses.’ It must be noted that the article was based on the Madras High Court judgment and written much before the final verdict of the Supreme Court.

The reaction of Novartis to the Supreme Court judgement appeared a bit peevish. In a press statement, the company’s Vice Chairman warned that it will discourage R&D spending by multinational companies in India. This is a bit surprising as multinational companies may have been using India as low cost hub for manufacturing and conducting clinical trials but never seem to be bothered about diseases specific to India. For a long time the healthcare fraternity has been complaining that multinational companies focus on diseases prevalent in the western world for researching remedies. For example, we have not seen new drugs introduced to combat malaria and tuberculosis which are endemic to countries like India, in years. The incidence of both the diseases is seeing virulent, intractable forms. Today tuberculosis resistant to multiple drugs – multidrug resistant TB or MDRTB is quite prevalent. On the other hand new drugs for cancer, diabetes and hypertension and related diseases are introduced by the dozen every year.

R&D – ALTRUISM OR BUSINESS STRATEGY? THALIDOMIDE TO GATIFLOXACIN

Multinational companies which have been assuming moral high ground for their altruistic R&D efforts ‘to ameliorate pain and suffering of humanity’ have also been guilty of destroying the lives of millions of people for short term gains.

The introduction and withdrawal of thalidomide is a classic example. In the 1950s, Distillers & Co (the makers of Johnnie Walker whisky) purchased Grunenthal, a small German pharmaceutical company. Grunenthal developed a tranquiliser named thalidomide which was then believed to be so safe it could be prescribed to pregnant women to relieve them of morning sickness. It was introduced in several countries in Europe and freely prescribed for pregnant women. In the early sixties a causal link was established between the use of thalidomide and delivery of malformed babies. This property of a drug which causes foetal abnormalities known as teratogenicity, was unknown till then. By 1961 an estimated 10000 to 20000 thalidomide babies were born and the drug was withdrawn.

The thalidomide story should have warned the managements of pharmaceutical companies to be extra careful in vetting and promoting their products. But alas no, drugs with serious adverse effects have been introduced by pharmaceutical companies with unceasing regularity. Here are a few examples, some of which may not be as lethal as thalidomide. Analgin (like penicillin) is known to cause anaphylactic reactions so severe a single tablet could kill a patient. Anti-inflammatory drugs like oxyphenbutazone and phenylbutazone have been known to cause blood disorders. However all these drugs were marketed by multinationals in India for a long time after they were banned in their home countries. The newer pain-relieving drug, nimesulide has been banned in several European countries but is still marketed in India (not by multinationals; by Indian pharmaceutical companies). Terfenedine, introduced as an advanced, non-sedating anti-allergic had to be withdrawn a few years later as it was found to cause heart-problems. The latest in the series of drugs to be withdrawn was the antibiotic gatifloxacin, which was found to cause cardiac problems. Illich mentioned in his book that the American innovator of chloramphenicol (trade name, Chloromycetin) marketed the drug for simple conditions like acne. Originally introduced for treating typhoid, the drug is known to cause bone-marrow depression. (The human body produces red-blood cells in the bone-marrow.)

PRICING DRUGS

An argument that was vociferously voiced in the television debates relates to pricing; especially that pharmaceutical companies which spend millions (billions?) should be allowed the freedom to price their products. And any regulation would be a disincentive for them to introduce newer products. This argument lacks substance because the pricing of drugs is not uniform even in the western world. For example the prices of drugs in Canada are far lower than the corresponding prices of drugs in neighbouring USA. In some cases the Canadian prices are about half of their American counterparts.

The marketing of anti-retroviral drugs (used to treat AIDS) in South Africa offers an object lesson for those who blindly take sides with the advocates of free-pricing. Indian companies like Cipla and Hetero Drugs offered to sell a combination of anti-retroviral drugs @ $350 for a year’s course. Four multinational companies challenged them in the South African Supreme Court, on the ground that these companies were infringing their patent rights. They were selling the drugs @ $10000 for a year’s course. They had to withdraw their suit following worldwide revulsion. For, more than a third of world’s AIDS population lives in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In the television debates, medical doctors representing Novartis claimed that the company has a scheme for providing the medicine free of cost to ‘below poverty line’ patients. This is not entirely true because the company stopped providing imatinib free after two Indian companies were permitted to introduce low cost alternatives in 2006. (See the research paper cited above.) Even if the company has been providing the medicine free to BPL patients, how does one define a BPL patient? Certainly a household with an income of Rs 50000 per month cannot be considered BPL? If the household has a patient who requires imatinib, can it expend Rs 1.20 L a month? Besides, many cancers require multiple regimens of treatment, which include chemotherapy (drugs), radiation and surgery. The latter two are even more expensive than the cost of medicines.

TAILPIECE: By the by, the promotional or marketing budgets of pharmaceutical companies exceed their R&D budgets by a long chalk.

Have political ploys made the law an ass?

2013-03-23T12:38:00.000+05:30

‘Is the law an ass?’ asks a character in Charles Dickens’ famous novel, Oliver Twist. Several incidences over the last few days make ordinary folk wonder whether the law is really an ass?

ITALIAN MARINES CASE The first of these concerns the Italian marines’ case, which raises several questions. Why had the Indian Supreme Court exhibited unseemly generosity in permitting the Italian marines – undergoing trial for first degree murder - to return home first to celebrate Christmas and then to vote in an election?

The Italian marines were undoubtedly undergoing trial for first degree murder as they shot to kill. Their claim that they thought that a pirate ship was closing in and they shot in self-defence does not wash. For, as trained naval officers, could they not distinguish between a pirate ship and a fishing boat? Were the naval officers so scared of a small fishing boat, that they thought that it was closing in to hijack their vessel? If so why did they not fire warning shots to dissuade the boat even assuming that it was closing in, which appears far-fetched?

Could an Indian citizen undergoing trial for first degree murder expect the same treatment from the Indian courts? Had an Indian Court ever permitted a prisoner, undergoing trial for first degree murder, to go home to celebrate Diwali? It would never have occurred to an ordinary citizen in judicial custody, undergoing trial for first degree murder to even pray for such leave. Therefore an ordinary citizen should not be faulted if he wonders why, ‘even for the Indian Supreme Court Italian citizens are more equal than Indian citizens’. On many occasions in the last thirty years, the Indian establishment has demonstrated that for it, Italian citizens are indeed more equal than Indian citizens. The reason for the establishment to bend backwards being the Italian connection of India’s ruling party is quite obvious. But does it matter to the Supreme Court, the highest judicial body and the last arbiter for the ordinary citizen without any clout?

Having blundered twice, the Indian Supreme Court sought to make amends by taking a tough stance in restricting the movements of the Italian ambassador. This put the Indian establishment – especially with its Italian connection – in a quandary. After days of huffing and hawing about Italian perfidy (by the primary and proxy protagonists of the government), the External Affairs Minister grandiosely announced (not without a hint of self-congratulatory glee) that diplomacy succeeded in making the Italians see reason. His tall claims notwithstanding, there are several questions that require answers:

Why did the Indian government sign a treaty with the Italian government in a hurry while the murder trial was under way? Was it not to benefit the two marines? Do sovereign nations sign bilateral treaties to solve instant crises?

How would the Italian government have reacted if two Indian naval officers killed two Italian fishermen and were undergoing trial in an Italian court? Would it have been as generous as the Indian government?

Did the Indian government make a clandestine deal with the Italians to satisfy the Supreme Court and bring back the marines? If this is not so, how could Salman Khurshid assert that the marines ‘will not be awarded death penalty as theirs is not a rarest of rare cases’? If it does not fall in the ‘rarest of the rare cases’ category are Indian fishermen routinely fired at and killed by foreign marines?

Who should decide which case falls under the ‘rarest of the rare cases’ category or not? Is it the judiciary or the External Affairs Ministry?

The upshot of the deal - which the Minister denies was done - is, the marines will not be taken into judicial custody during the course of the trial; they will stay in their embassy; they will not be awarded death penalty as their case is not in the ‘rarest of rare cases’ category; and if awarded a prison sentence, they will serve it in their own country.

SANJAY DUTT CASE The second case is even more bizarre. It is about the sentence the Supreme Court awarded to Sanjay Dutt, famous film personality, son of a famous film personality and former Congress MP and bother of a sitting Congress MP. The four qualifiers deserve to be stressed to put the case in perspective. The 1993 Bombay blasts (in eleven locations) killed 257 people and severely injured 700 people. According to some sources, the number of injured was 1400.

[Sharad Pawar, Chief Minister of Maharashtra (at the time) later confessed that he deliberately misled people by adding Muslim dominated Masjid Bunder to the list blast locations to pacify communal tensions. See: To keep the peace, I misled people on 1993 blasts: Pawar. This secular balancing of terror has been going on since 1993. Pawar’s confession puts the pronouncements of P. Chidambaram, Sushil Kumar Shinde et al., Rahul Gandhi’s whispering to the American ambassador about Hindu Terror and the NIA ‘investigations’ in certain cases, all in perspective. To grab and retain power, secular politicians would go to any extent to appease the minorities, principally the Muslims. The invention of a phantom Hindu terror is part of the game.]

The Supreme Court verdict in the case confirms the role of the ISI and several underworld dons. Sanjay Dutt’s role in the blasts has been known almost since the beginning. He had been known to confer with the dons, converse with them over phone and collect and store arms for the attack. His pedigree and the power of his political connections helped in almost getting him off the hook.

If the CBI could be used to discipline wayward coalition partners to fall in line, it could also be used to save loyal allies. In Sanjay Dutt’s case the CBI did all it could to help him evade the long arm of law. It did not matter to India’s premier investigation agency that it was indeed obstructing the course of justice. It delayed investigation to help Sanjay Dutt destroy evidence, did not pursue leads, presented a weak case in the trial court and did not appeal against the trial court verdict. The CBI did not work for the people, who are its paymasters. It worked against them, and for an individual who declared a clandestine war on the people. Just as in the marines’ case, in Sanjay Dutt’s case too, it has been kinship with the high and mighty that carried the day.

One can understand the clamour of the film fraternity to obtain state pardon for Sanjay Dutt. It has been known for long that the same forces that supplied Sanjay Dutt with prohibited arms and ammunition to wage a war on the Indian state also control the film industry. But why would a retired judge of the Supreme Court and Chairman of the Press Council want to interfere with the administration of justice? That is the sad part.

The highest court in the country has delivered its verdict unambiguously pronouncing Dutt guilty. The Supreme Court has also been magnanimous in awarding the least possible sentence according to law. If in spite of this, as the Law Minister averred, an appeal for pardon is favourably considered, it would amount to subverting the justice system.

An Open Letter To The Organisers Of Wharton India Economic Forum (WIEF) - University Of Pennsylvania

2013-03-05T01:22:00.000+05:30

Dear Sirs,

This refers to your announcement that the invitation earlier extended to Shri Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, India to participate in the Wharton India Economic Forum as a keynote speaker has been cancelled.

1. From information available in the media, Shri Narendra Modi did not seek an invitation from Wharton to participate in the forum. It was the University or a student body of the University that extended the invitation. Therefore it is not only unfortunate but highly inappropriate for you to cancel the invitation at the eleventh hour.

2. Shri Narendra Modi has been elected Chief Minister of an Indian state which has a population of approximately 60 million, for the fourth time in a row. The elections have been supervised by the Election Commission of India (ECI), an independent body constituted under the constitution of India to superintend free and fair elections. May I therefore point out that your action in first inviting and then cancelling the invitation to Shri Narendra Modi to deliver a keynote address was an insult not only to the 60 million people of Gujarat but to the 1.2 billion people of India.

To put things in perspective, may one ask, how would the American public feel if an Indian University (or one of the IITs or IIMs , so respected in the US) were to invite a US State Governor and then tell him in the last minute that his invitation was cancelled?

3. In spite of relentless propaganda by some sections of the Indian media, anti-India leftist elements and foreign-funded NGOs (some of which have reportedly received funding from fundamentalist religious terror-sponsoring countries like Saudi Arabia), there has not been even a shred of evidence that links Shri Narendra Modi with the Gujarat riots of 2002, by any acts of omission or commission.

An Indian Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) has specifically gone into his role if any in the riots and fully exonerated him of any complicity or culpability by acts of omission or commission.

In spite of this if he is constantly needled it was only by his political opponents who have failed to attain power through legal, i.e. electoral means.

During the latest election to the state assembly in December 2012, the principal opposition party (the Indian National Congress or INC) has not even raised the issue of the 2002 riots as an issue for the people to vote on. This was because it realised that the people of the state were in no mood to listen to falsehoods anymore. Therefore the job of raising the bogey of human rights violations (in the 2002 riots) was outsourced to self-serving NGOs who have been making a living off the dead bodies of 2002.

In any case the issues involved are an internal legal matter of a sovereign nation which no other country or a foreign University could and should seek to judge.

4. You will agree that a University is a seat of learning and learning can only be extended by discussion and debate and considering the pros and cons of an issue. But if this paramount objective of a University were to be made subservient to the predilections of minuscule groups based on real or imaginary grievances, does it not amount to Dhimmitude? Should a University stand up for the high ideals it presumably vouches for or should it simply sacrifice its raison d’ etre by succumbing to virulent political ideologies? By shutting off free speech (for whatever political compulsions) hasn’t Wharton/Pennsylvania, (an internationally acclaimed University) turned back the clock to the pre Galileo, pre-Copernicus days?

I am writing this to record my strong protest for the way in which you have treated the democratically elected Chief Minister of an Indian state. It was highly inappropriate, uncivil and insulting.

I call upon you to make amends by immediately apologizing to Shri Narendra Modi for the insult meted out to him and to the people of India. There is no point in calling upon you to restore the invitation as no self-respecting leader, especially one who represents the 60 million people of his state, and respected by a majority of his countrymen would deign to ignore the past and accept it.

Thanking you and hoping wiser counsels would prevail,

Yours faithfully,
Narayanadas Upadhyayula

N. B. : This e-mail was addressed to the organisers of the Wharton India Economic Forum. The contacts were provided by Pamela Geller in her Atlas Shrugs blog post entitled, to Wharton Caves To Muslim Bigotry, Cancels Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s Keynote.

Will Hyderabad Terror Victims Get Justice?

2013-02-25T22:16:00.000+05:30

Or are they cannon-fodder for Congress’ cynical electoral games?

The deadly terrorist strike in Dilsukhnagar, Hyderabad on February 21, left sixteen people dead and 117 injured, of whom 10 are said to be still in a critical condition four days later. Thank God, this time there was no praise for the resilience of the Hyderabadis as it used to be in the case of Mumbaikars.

In his press briefing, the Hon’ble Home Minister declared that states were cautioned about an intelligence input that predicted possible terrorist strikes. Asked whether there was any input specific to AP and whether such a warning was passed on to the AP government, he said ‘he was not certain and would have to check’! This was a full two and a half hours after two of the bombs went off (a third mercifully did not explode)! This was the same Home Minister who emphatically declared only a month ago that the principal opposition party, the BJP and his party’s bête noire, the RSS were running camps for training “Hindu” terrorists.

Where does the “Hindu” terror angle come from? There lies a tale of intrigue, some political chicanery and perhaps an IQ of 180! The Hindu terror angle was first broached by P. Chidambaram sometime in 2009, after the formation of the National Investigation Agency (NIA). It was after this that the Prince Regent, Rahul Gandhi reportedly whispered in the ear of the American ambassador that ‘Hindu terror was far more dangerous than Maoist or Jehadi terrorism’! It has also been since then that lesser mortals like Digvijay Singh picked up the theme and began speaking about “Hindu” terror.

The Malegaon blast of September 8, 2006 was first investigated by the Maharastra anti-terrorism squad (ATS), then by the CBI and was finally handed over to the NIA after its formation in 2009. The Maharastra ATS first suspected that it was a retaliatory strike for the July 11, 2006 Mumbai train blasts in which 209 people were killed and more than 700 injured. Therefore it first detained some Bajrang Dal cadres but as it could not find any evidence against them it switched its probe to investigate the involvement of Laskha-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohamed (JeM).

Home Minister Shivraj Patil had to go following the deadly terror strike on Mumbai on November 26 2008 (in which 182 people were killed), making way for Chidambaram. It was Chidambaram who established the NIA to counter terrorism, and primarily to bring the culprits of 26/11 to book. The NIA however, does not seem to be aware of this. It has also not bothered to investigate the July 2006 Mumbai train blasts, probably because of the resilience of the Mumbaikars.

However other terror cases like Malegaon (2006), Samjhauta Express and Mecca Masjid (2007), were handed over to the NIA. Despite the zeal with which the NIA has been probing and, occasionally leaking snippets to a pliant media, the death toll in all these incidents put together is about half of either the Mumbai (2006) or the Mumbai (2008) terror strikes!

Several columnists including S. Gurumurthy (Samjhauta Blast Case: Counter Investigation To NIA Investiagation) have demolished the NIA’s “Hindu” terror thesis. Vivek Gumaste asks in his Rediff.com piece, ‘is it possible that definite evidence is not forthcoming because none exists?’ (Is Hindu terror is as big as it's made out to be?)

But the most damning indictment of Shinde’s “Hindu” terror theory came from B. Raman, an expert on internal security matters and, no friend of either the BJP or the Sangh Parivar. (Shinde: Prejudiced & Partisan Stewardship of MHA):

“[…] One has a strong suspicion that the NIA is sought to be used not for the investigation and prosecution, but for politically needling the BJP and the RSS by periodically leveling allegations against them. […] Shinde’s statement carefully avoids any condemnation of the on-going activities and conspiracies of the Indian Mujahideen and its links with the LeT. […] His deeply prejudiced and communal stewardship of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs needs to be condemned by all right-thinking persons.”

On June 2009, the UN Security Council Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee added three names to its ‘Consolidated List of individuals and entities subject to the assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo’. (UN Security Council SC9695) According to the UNSC press release, one of them, an Arif Qasmani had close links with Dawood Ibrahim and was the mastermind behind both the July 2006 Mumbai train bombings and the February 2007 Samjhauta Express blast. See box.

A report in today’s newspapers indicates that the state police and the NIA have been vying with each other for investigating the latest Hyderabad blasts. In the past, the state police have been blamed for arresting ‘innocent persons’ in the Mecca Masjid case and keeping them in prison for over a year. The secular media had a field day and has been parading some of the accused in its programmes. In order to prove its secular credentials, the state government paid huge compensations to the accused after the courts acquitted them, a privilege no other accused (under-trials in police lingo) have ever enjoyed. If charged with the investigation how will the state police deal with the case. Will it try to prove its secular credentials?

How will the NIA fare if charged with the investigation? Will it try to score a hit, which so far eluded it? Or will it stick to prove its loyalty to its secular masters?

In either case it is a dicey situation for the victims of the terror attack? Will they get justice or will they become cannon-fodder for Congress’ cynical electoral war games?

Secular History Sabotaging Nationalism? - 1

2013-02-20T14:42:00.000+05:30

The triggers for a relook at some snippets of India’s history are two unrelated speeches, one by K. Rosaiah, former Chief Minister of AP and present Governor of Tamil Nadu and the other, the recent controversial speech by Akabaruddin Owaisi.

Mr. Rosaiah delivered a speech as Chief-guest at a recent meeting organised to commemorate the 150^th birth anniversary of the Telugu social reformer and writer, Gurazada Appa Rao. Appa Rao became famous for his play, Kanyä Sulkam, literally, ‘bride-fee’. The play centred on the practice of buying brides prevalent among some sections of the Brahmin society. The Brahmins were reviled for a variety of ills that plague the society today and many orthodox practices, by the left-liberal intelligentsia. This was despite the fact that it was the Brahmins who not only preserved our cultural traditions through troubles and tribulations for over five thousand years but also initiated many social reform movements.

One of the social ills for which the Brahmins were - unjustly and without any basis in fact - blamed was the treatment they meted out to their women. In spite of the prevalence of such misconceptions, according to scriptures a Brahmin (even today) is ineligible to participate in religious rituals without his woman. Therefore elderly widowers had to remarry in order to be eligible to practise their profession - priesthood. Those families which had the means did not offer their daughters in marriage to elderly widowers but poor families did, sometimes in exchange for money. The money came in handy for performing another girl’s marriage or for other necessities of living. It was a practice born out economic and social necessities. It was a practice of a minuscule section of society, as Brahmins constitute not more than 2% -3% of the population. And only those Brahmins who were into their traditional role as priests had a problem with widower-hood. Nevertheless it was a bad practice which the social reformer Appa Rao sought to highlight through his play.

While eulogizing the social reforming zeal of Appa Rao, Rosaiah made a stunning observation. He said, ‘if we went back a little, the abdominal practice of Sati comes to mind’. This was as if the practice of Sati was an everyday happening in Andhra Pradesh. One needn’t have bothered if some lesser mortal were to make a statement like that. People in public life have to make speeches everyday and quite a few of them are given to uttering gibberish. Either Rosaiah (or his speech writer) might have remembered a snippet from the history textbook of his school days, and used it to enliven the speech. It is in this context that one ponders over questions like ‘why is history taught in schools?’

What are the objectives of teaching history? One would expect that the prime objective of teaching history is to inculcate in the young minds a pride in their glorious past and a spirit of nationalism. At a purely academic level, W. H. Davis listed the following as the three main objectives for teaching history: ‘first, to present the past to the pupil in an intelligible fashion, capable of interpretation; second to inculcate historical-mindedness; and third to inculcate intellectual tastes.’ (‘Some Attainable Objectives in the Teaching of History.’ The High School Journal. Vol. 12. No. 4. Apr. 1929. pp. 132-134. University of North Carolina Press. Accessible from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40363669)

If the objective of teaching history is to ‘present the past in an intelligible fashion, capable of interpretation’, does the history that is taught in our educational institutions factually represent the practice of Sati? Or did the British practice of concocting ‘atrocity literature’ colour our thinking?

‘An Advanced History Of India’ by R. C. Majumdar, H. C. Raychaudhuri and Kalikinkar Datta (1950. Macmillan & Co. Ltd., London) has eleven references in all to ‘Sati’. A reference to the subject of Sati in the early Magadhan epoch, circa sixth century B.C.E. has this to say: ‘Widow marriage and Levirate had not fallen into disuse even in the Ganges valley and burning of widows was not sanctioned by the orthodox lawgivers.’ (p. 75).

After Alä-ud-din Khalji’s expedition against Mewar resulted in the latter’s rout and ‘when further resistance seemed impossible’, the Rajputs of Mewar ‘preferred death to disgrace and performed […] that horrible rite, the Jauhar […] to find security from dishounour in the devouring element.’ (Ibid. p. 302). However the practice of Jauhar consisted of the mass immolation not only of women, but also children, the elderly and the sick, at a time when their fighting men died in battle against the Muslims. It was also pointed out that the practice of Sati was prevalent only among the higher social orders.

We must admit ‘social codes of conduct and honour’ are products of the times. Several examples illustrate this point. The practice of Levirate in which a brother marries the widow of his childless brother (in order to maintain his line) was a Biblical practice and described in the Old Testament. It was common practice in ancient Greece for a king who won a war to kill his opponent and take his wife. The mythological story of Oedipus who, because of a prophesy, ‘kills his father and marries his mother’ was used as a subject by quite a few Greek dramatists like Homer, Aeschylus and Euripides.

At times, ‘social codes of conduct and honour’ can spread horizontally and become contagious. For instance, see this in Majumdar et al.: ‘Some Muslims of aristocratic Hindu origin, or living in a Hindu environment, assimilated the Hindu customs of Sati and Jauhar’ (p. 402).

It is therefore necessary to exercise abundant caution while teaching about such ancient social practices to young minds. They were more an aberration than a norm.

RIP

2013-02-07T18:41:00.001+05:30

Book Review

Deva, Mukul, 2012. RIP. Westland. Chennai. Pages 286. Price: Rs 200/-

RIP is the story of the India of our times. It is the story of corruption of our politicians and civil servants. It holds a mirror to their vulgar greed that makes them stop at nothing including eliminating whistle-blowers, and even partners-in-crime if they were thought to be a 'security risk’. In spite of jumbling locations and people, the scams and the dramatis personae the novel depicts are too recent to be missed. The names were thinly disguised. Then there is the dowager, ruling party president who inherited the mantle from her dead husband, a former prime minister.

From Bofors to Adarsh Society, (through fodder, 2G, CWG et al.) the book weaves every scam and political persona involved in them into its intricate, riveting plot. It includes Anna Hazare’s ‘Indians Against Corruption (IAC)’ movement too. The only surprise perhaps is the title. It does not mean, as one would have thought ‘Rest in Peace’, but ‘Resurgent Indian Patriots’. ‘RIP’ itself may be a take-off from Anna Hazare’s IAC. But unlike Hazare’s docile, middle-class followers who abhor violence and are not given to direct action, Deva’s ‘Resurgent Indian Patriots’ do not baulk at taking direct action and meting out exemplary punishment to the guilty.

The theme is not entirely new. Venality and corruption, or rather meting out vigilante justice to the venal and corrupt in public life has been the subject of several movies. The Hindi movie, Aan, Men in Action portrayed the politician-civil servant-underworld nexus and to some extent the issue of corruption. Movies like Bharatiyudu (Tamil, Telugu and Hindi), Aparichitudu (Tamil and Telugu) and Tagore (Telugu) dealt with the subject of corruption and vigilantism. It was in Aparichitudu, Bharatiyudu and Tagore that retributive justice in a violent form was mooted as an antidote to corruption. If Bharatiyudu and Aparichitudu had one-man vigilante armies, Tagore mooted the idea of an anti-corruption army named ‘Anti Corruption Force (ACF)’, similar to the ‘RIP’ in the novel. The success of these movies reflects the public mood. If the viewing public cheered and approved a violent form of vigilantism it was because they were vexed and saddened by their impotence to rid the society of the scourge of corruption.

In RIP, a team of former army commandos sets out to purge corruption. The corrupt politicians hit back by setting the official law enforcement agencies (isn’t the CBI to do their bidding?) and another set of former army commandos to chase them. Therefore the first set of (vigilante) commandos have the second set of (mercenary) commandos and the official CBI on their back, as they pick and choose targets to strike. Then there is the beautiful woman who links the two commanding officers as they vie for her charms. From the caveman to the modern man, men have been vying for beautiful women and a story which has this element never failed to charm readers. The female protagonist in RIP is a beautiful television anchor, fighting for her divorce, and by chance caught between her former husband and new beau.

The book is peppered with a large number of idioms – disproportionately large number – and appears to be a laboured attempt to write idiomatic English. It is however not devoid of jumbled expressions (calling it a night) and borrowed jargon from SAS, the elite British army commando unit (break a leg).

Mukul Deva strikes a chord with the clichéd common man when he says that his book was ‘[…] born out of an extreme sense of anger and shame. Anger at the appalling, naked greed so shamelessly displayed by the Indian political class. And shame that they happen to be fellow Indians.’ He certainly resonates with a majority of our countrymen (and women) when he says he would ‘certainly not condemn anyone who rid our country of such leaders.’ The book is definitely worth a read and not priced very high either.

This review is a part of the Book Reviews programme at Indian Bloggers

Indian Secularism Islamizing India?

2013-01-17T12:42:00.000+05:30

The phrase, ‘Indian Secularism’ is best recognised though least understood. Like Jawaharlal Nehru’s famous jibe about the ‘Indian Civil Service’, Indian Secularism is neither Indian in ethos nor true to its western definition. Its meaning varies with place, time and context. Its inclusiveness is exclusive! This means members of a minority community are ipso facto deemed secular whereas members of the majority community have to prove themselves at every turn to be eligible for the secular tag.

‘Indian Secularism’ eludes definition! It can only be exemplified and contrasted! For example, its more vocal proponents make a yearly ritual of doing the rounds of television studios for condemning the destruction of an inanimate, disused structure on December 6, 1992. But they are willfully oblivious to the forced exile of 4,00,000 Hindus from Kashmir beginning January 19, 1989. There was not a squeak when the might of the Indian state failed to enforce an arrest warrant against Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid for over twenty years. But ‘the law should take its course’ debates were aplenty in television studios when the Sankaracharya of Kanchi was arrested on Diwali eve in 2004. They were not able to condemn Akbaruddin Owaisi’s seditious speech without in the same breath invoking Praveen Togadia and calling for his arrest. The government of Andhra Pradesh had to arrest Swami Kamalananda Bharathi, the President of Hindu Devalaya Parirakshana Samithi to balance the arrest of Akbaruddin Owaisi, although in his speech the former was only reacting to the latter’s rabid utterances.

If one were to name a remarkable failure of India as a nation, it is its inability to forge a national identity. The more poignant aspect of the failure is that its leaders not just failed to bring about national integration but actually worked to stratify its myriad fragments. Someone said in a lighter vein that Coca Cola and fast food define the cultural identity of American youth. On a more serious note, democracy and free enterprise, innovation and competitiveness, military and scientific achievements define America’s national pride. For the proponents Indian Secularism the concept of national pride is anathema. For them national pride is synonymous with jingoism. For them the antidote for jingoism is an artificial construct called composite culture that negates a glorious past stretching backwards for thousands of years.

The New Indian Express, Hyderabad Edn. Jan 14 2013. p. 7

It is in this context that some recent press reports make for disturbing reading. According to one of the reports, ‘a major chunk of the over 20,000 foreign preachers that descend on Indian shores every year’ preach radical Islam. Organisations like Tableeghi Jamaat Nizamuddin Markaz, which controls the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), Islamic Research Foundation, Ahl-e-Hadis, Jamait Ulema-e Hind invite these preachers from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Further, according to Syed Mohammed Ashraf of the All India Ulema and Mashaikh Board, the lure of petro-dollars and the inability of the government of India to intervene have been contributing to the radicalization of Indian Islam. (“Wahabi Islam Gaining Ground in the Country”. The New Indian Express, Hyderabad. January 14, 2013. p.7). The government’s inaction seems to be particularly surprising because according to Indian laws foreign nationals visiting India on tourist visas are not allowed to preach religion.

The New Indian Express , Hyderabad Edn. Jan 14 2013. p. 2

A second report (“Most Muslims Held for Terrorism are Innocent”. The New Indian Express, Hyderabad. January 14, 2013. p.2) relates to a convention on ‘Politics of Terror Targeting Muslim Youth’ (sic). The convention which has by now become an annual ritual was addressed by the usual suspects, left and left-leaning politicians. That the subject matter of the convention amounts infringement in the activities of the law enforcement agencies is only one aspect. There is a subtle attempt to form a coalition of Muslims, Dalits and Tribals and pit it against the rest of the society, a tactic employed by Western evangelists to weaken the Hindu society. One of the speakers in the convention made an outrageous demand that the Government should issue a ‘conduct certificate’ to those acquitted by the courts to the effect, that they were wrongly arrested in the first place!

Modi sets futuristic agenda. Congress lives in the past. Media parrots Congress!

2012-12-31T00:03:00.000+05:30

‘Black money’ and ‘Corruption’ were the twin themes of 2011. VOXINDICA commented on the black money menace in an article published on December 22-23: How to tackle black money menace? In 2012, neither corruption was curbed nor the government at the centre showed any inclination to reverse illicit outflows and bring back illegally parked moneys abroad. It has sabotaged the enactment of the Lokpal bill with a carefully choreographed midnight drama in the Rajya Sabha. (See Rajya Sabha leaves Lokpal Bill in limbo) It has also sabotaged any hopes that the common man may have had about any future government bringing back illegally hoarded wealth abroad by signing dubious Double Taxation Treaties (DTTs). If the government was really serious about bringing back illegally hoarded wealth abroad it would have declared illegally hoarding money abroad ‘an act of terror’ and not treated it simply as an issue of tax avoidance.

The theme for much of 2012 was the Gujarat election. Every election is important in a democracy. However, the Gujarat 2012 election attained much of its significance because of intense media speculation about whether or not its outcome would propel Narendra Modi on to the national scene. At the time of earlier general elections, it was amusing to hear NDTV anchors enthusiastically querying BJP spokespersons, ‘is Sonia Gandhi setting the agenda?’ It was especially amusing as she has barely improved from reading her Hindi speeches written in Roman script, in an Italian accent.

For much of the current year it was the ‘waiting for Godot’ moment for the media! Would Prince Rahul Gandhi make his debut? Would he come to Gujarat to take Narendra Modi head on? There was intense media speculation about a Prince Rahul who would charge into Gujarat breathing fire and brimstone. And, like the ancient Roman queen Boadicea, he would come with knives sticking out of his chariot wheels to cut off his enemies’ legs! He did come after making his fan club in the media wait almost for an eternity, but when he did, he did neither breathe fire and brimstone nor did he charge like Boadicea. He squeaked in three meetings of ten minutes each. He neither set the agenda nor the Narmada on fire, but sang paeans to his great-great-grandfather and dwelt on the nitty-gritty of potato trading in a state which did not grow potatoes.

The Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project

What of the subject of media’s intense speculation, Narendra Modi? For over ten years, Narendra Modi has been working with a single-minded purpose. For over ten years the polity (except his own party), that includes opposition political parties, hired guns (NGOs), public personae with claims to the label of intelligentsia and large sections of the media fought him with a strange congruence of purpose. His purpose was to improve the lot of his people – all of them irrespective of caste, creed or any other differential. Their purpose was to discredit him, trap him and if possible imprison him for the crimes of commission and omission that existed only in their wild, wanton imagination. Under Narendra Modi Gujarat witnessed a decade of unprecedented growth and development. This has been widely acknowledged both within and outside the country. It is not possible to detail here the entire development story of Gujarat. Therefore let us look at two unusual, and to an extent, creative facets of it.

As Prince Rahul was so much interested in potato farming, it might be instructive to look at some figures relating to agricultural growth in Gujarat. The state has registered an agricultural growth of 12.8% every year for the last five years against the national average of 2% (See Modi woos investors in state, markets brand Gujarat, Para 5) and a decadal growth of 10.97%. The state is drought prone and largely comprises of arid and semiarid land. It was observed for several decades prior to 2001 that the ground water table in large parts of the state was rapidly depleting. How then was it possible to achieve those impressive agricultural growth figures? It was possible because of the use innovative methods to conserve ground water and rainwater harvesting. Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar (no fan of Modi) agrees that the agricultural growth achieved between 2000-01 and 2007-08 was an impressive 9.6% per year, despite a severe drought in 2002. (See Agriculture: Secret of Modi’s success)

Narmada Canal Solar Power Project

The Narmada Canal Solar Project is an innovative project in many ways. The solar panels that were laid along the Narmada canal for a distance of just 750 metres produce 1 MW of power (or 1.6 million units of electricity) and meet the requirements of 16,000 families. It prevents 90,00,000 litres of water from evaporating. The solar electricity plant near Charnaka in north Gujarat produces 214 MW of electricity. In order to produce the same amount of electricity, 9,00,000 tonnes of coal or natural gas are required! The plant prevents 80,00,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere. Gujarat has a canal network that is 85,000 kilometres long. Using only 16.2% of this canal length or 19,000 kilometres for electricity generation is expected to produce 2,200 MW of electricity and save 11,000 acres of cultivable land.

What does the 127-year old party Congress, whose leaders are so grandiosely expected to set national agendas, do to combat Modi politically?

This was what was written about a political manifesto in a different context in an altogether different era: “Under the inspiring title ‘Let us Face the Future’, its authors planned to solve the problems of the past.” Acerbic as usual, that was Northcote Parkinson, on the British Labour Party Manifesto of 1945.

Parkinson elaborates on how they came about with such profound wisdom: “Given no fresh inspiration, the Labour party clung to the doctrines it already had. Reaching for their grubby lecture notes, scribbled at the pre-war London School of Economics, the second-generation socialists went into action.”

In 2012, preparatory to the next general election of 2014, all that the Congress could come up with was providing reservations, more reservations and if they were not enough, offer direct electoral bribes. It has been trying to ‘face the future’ by solving ‘problems of the past’. It has its National Advisory Council (NAC) in place of a pre-war London School of Economics.

Half Empty - Half Full!

2012-12-21T19:52:00.000+05:30

“For the host it is half empty. For the guest it is half full!”*

The outcome of the elections to the two states, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh may be described as ‘half empty’ or ‘half full’ depending on the viewer’s perspective. For the Congress it is half full as it wrested a state from the BJP. For the BJP it is half empty. Infighting within the BJP and many rebel candidates in the fray were explained as causative factors for the defeat. Another reason advanced was that like Tamil Nadu and till recently Punjab, the state never returned the same party twice.

But it would be more instructive to apply the ‘half empty; half full’ test to the Gujarat result as it is perceived to have wider national implications. In an ideal world extrapolation of the results on to the national scene is highly desirable. As this was the first time in several decades an election was fought and won not based on identity politics and freebies, but on a developmental platform.

Even the Congress party which never fails to look for electoral gains in sectarian issues did not invoke the 2002 riots. This does not mean it did not try its sly Machiavellian techniques. Its secular ideals did not deter it from joining hands with Kesubhai Patel with his life-long Sangh Parivar background. Unlike B. S. Yeddyurappa and Kalyan Singh who had suddenly discovered the virtues of secularism after breaking up with the BJP, Kesubhai did not sever relations with the Sangh Parivar organisations even after he quit the BJP. Like Kalyan Singh, Kesubhai and Yeddyurappa too might look for an eventual home-coming after a couple of elections in the wilderness. In his case, if the 80+ Keshubhai survives that long! These are all possibilities for the future. But in this election, some RSS & VHP activists were rumoured to have worked for his nascent GPP, but it did not matter to the Congress.

The implication of this marriage of convenience is that secularism as an ideal is not cast in stone but is quite malleable and ductile! There are a few sub-texts to these covert properties of Indian brand of secularism. First, there were as many Congress workers among the rioters of Gujarat 2002 as those of the BJP and Sangh Parivar. It is only a matter of convenience for all those secularists who claim to champion the Muslim cause to be oblivious to the fact. Second, anyone who quits the BJP and joins a secular party, ipso facto becomes secular, his communal past permanently erased from history! This is a phenomenon only our ‘social scientist geniuses’ can explain. Third, every regional party has done business with the communally tainted BJP in the past and may do so again in the future if the need arises, by providing suitable explanations to its stakeholders.

Before we return to the question as to whether the Gujarat result could indeed be described as ‘half empty’ let us look at what psychologists describe as ‘framing effects’. All those surveys shown on television could be skewed by phrasing questions to obtain pre-determined results. This is easily explained by a small experiment using a tumbler marked by lines to indicate ‘half full’ and ‘full’. If water is poured in an empty tumbler till it fills it to the ‘half full’ mark, and a viewer is asked describe the tumbler, he is more likely to say that it is ‘half full’. On the other hand if water is poured out of a full tumbler till it is emptied to the ‘half full’ mark, the same viewer is more likely to say it is ‘half empty’. The experiment could also be reversed. If a tumbler is described as ‘half empty’, a listener is more likely to infer that it was full earlier. Again if a tumbler is described as ‘half full’, a listener is more likely to infer that it was empty earlier. Therefore if a survey reported by Rajdeep Sardesai says ‘73% of Muslims and 42% of Hindus in Gujarat want Narendra Modi to apologise for the 2002 riots’ we can be certain that the questions were framed in a slanted manner to elicit pre-determined responses.

Why should the Gujarat result be described as ‘half empty’ for the BJP? As Narendra Modi said during his ‘thanks giving’ speech, all that was required for his party to form the government was to win 92 seats in the 182 member assembly. It won considerably more number of seats than the required 92 and for a third consecutive term. But looked at from another angle, it lost about seven seats, two it originally won in 2007 and five it added in by-elections. Even if it was marginal, from 127 in 2002 to 117 in 2007 to 115 in 2012 the trend of its fortunes could only be described as declining. The Congress was not wiped out as many BJP supporters hoped and some psephologists predicted. On the other hand it added two seats to its tally. The Congress was accused of monumental corruption at the national level. It did not matter to the electorate in Himachal Pradesh. But Narendra Modi’s ascetic honesty and integrity too did not dent the fortunes of the Congress in Gujarat. Does it mean that for the electorate, corruption or honesty do not really matter?

There are three more disturbing aspects of this election that deserve consideration and perhaps intense analysis. The first is seven cabinet ministers including the relatively high profile Jaya Narayan Vyas were defeated in the election. The second and more important aspect is that a novice, Swetha Bhatt who swore she would make Narendra Modi ‘dance around her finger’ was not decimated, electorally speaking. One expected that she would at best obtain a few hundred votes against the mighty Chief Minister and lose her deposit. This did not happen. Instead she polled 34,097 votes as against Narendra Modi’s 1, 20, 470. The third is BJP’s defeat in Sanand, where the world famous Nano car is produced.

All this is not to demean the third time victory. As mentioned earlier, a strong and charismatic leader demonstrated that elections could be won based on the record of development and not necessarily identity or caste or creed and electoral bribes.

………………………………………………………………

* This was the copy for an advertisement that regularly appeared in TIME magazine in the eighties. The product advertised was Chivas Regal whisky. The visual in the advertisement showed a half empty (or half full) bottle.

Outsourcing an election campaign: proxies, hired NGOs and snake oil salesmen!

2012-12-14T18:55:00.000+05:30

The second most debated topic this chilly December is the Gujarat assembly election, (the first being the annual ritual about a demolition in Ayodhya twenty years ago) or rather its outcome and impact on national politics. The moot question is not whether Narendra Modi will win the election. Notwithstanding brave posturing by the Congress party and its proxies (in political parties, NGOs and the media) political pundits do not seem to entertain much hope for the party. The question that is endlessly debated is about the number of seats Narendra Modi will win and if he crosses a tipping point, will he move on to the national scene as a Prime Ministerial aspirant. The tipping point is set at 122+, 122* being the number of seats Narendra Modi’s party has in the present assembly. There are some feeble voices that bleat Narendra Modi may not even reach the tipping point but would end up with a simple majority in the 182-member assembly. But these are few and far between. A majority of analysts believes that he will (not would) cross the tipping point.

The putative tipping point for Narendra Modi is the TRP point for television channels. Therefore their endless debates centre on it. (See NarendraModi as Prime Minister in 2014 for a detailed analysis of his qualifications to lead the nation.) The anchors repeatedly ask various panellists about the possibility and implications of Narendra Modi being nominated as the Prime Ministerial candidate by the BJP. They get stock answers in reply.

Can anyone imagine representatives of the ‘secular’ Congress party (which had disowned its most successful Prime Minister, P. V. Narasimha Rao purely based on vote bank calculations) ever saying yes? It would be in the Congress party’s interest if the BJP were to fail to form a government which, would give it a ‘TINA’ (there is no alternative) chance. Alternatively it would be in its interest if an unstable rag-tag formation formed a government. It can then support it from outside and destabilize it as and when it suited it. The Congress is past master in this game as Chandra Sekhar, Charan Singh, Deve Gowda and I. K. Gujral found out. Besides, a stint in the opposition would absolve it of all its sins. A strange feature of Indian democracy is that if a party sits out in the opposition even for a brief while the electorate forgets and forgives its gravest misdemeanours. Remember how Indira Gandhi was reinstated in 1980 after being thrown out in 1977. Could there be anything worse that anyone could do to democracy than what she did between 1975 and 1977?

Can anyone imagine representatives of NGOs (to which the secular Congress party outsourced its hatchet jobs) saying yes? These NGOs have been carping at Narendra Modi accusing him of imaginary sins of omission and commission, for over ten years. It is their raison d’etre. Some of these were financed, certainly by the Congress. There are whispers that some religious fundamentalist groups in Saudi Arabia too fund some of them. One of the NGOs which has been doing a hatchet job for the Congress in legal battles has been asked to sit out this election; another took its place in the television studios.

Then there are Congress web-store operators. Sycophancy is their modus vivendi. Peddling Congress is their principal avocation. These snake oil salesmen often appear in TV debates. One wonders whether some of them pay their way into the debates, a la paid news! Their unctuousness in defending the most indefensible, has to be seen to be believed. Here is a case in point: Rahul Gandhi paradropped into Gujarat on the last day of campaigning for the first phase election. He addressed three meetings, all of ten minutes each. In one of them he elaborated on the sacrifices of long dead Motilal, his great-great-grandfather. In another he spoke about the economics of potato trade which instantly became the butt of dozens of jokes on Twitter (reason enough for Kapil Sibal to seek censorship of social media!). But for our snake oil salesman, ‘Rahul unveiled his vision for the future of the nation’!

Between the two hired assassins (the NGOs and the web-store operated by the snake oil salesmen) are the jokers in the pack, Kesubhai Patel’s Gujarat Parivartan Party (GPP) and Swetha, wife of Narendra Modi’s bête noir and discredited police officer Sanjeev Bhatt. The 80+ year old Kesubhai, a veteran of the BJP and communal Sangh Parivar went into hibernation after he fell out with Narendra Modi some years back. Congress warmed him to life and propped up his GPP with the expectation that he would be able to cut into south Gujarat’s Leuva Patel vote bank. Jagruthi, wife of murdered former minister Haren Pandya has been fielded by Kesubhai’s GPP. Sanjeev Bhatt, the delinquent police officer against whom there were criminal charges has long been suspected to be a Congress mole in one of the NGOs fighting for it. Congress fielded his wife Swetha against Narendra Modi himself more to create media buzz than with any serious intention. Swetha agreed to be the sacrificial goat knowing full well that she would be eventually swept away in the dust storm raised by Narendra Modi’s chariot wheels.

And finally can anyone imagine representatives of the other avowedly secular, non-Congress parties (which have large stakes in Muslim votes) saying yes? (See SecularOpposition to Narendra Modi as P M for an analysis on the interests of possible alliance partners and their political compulsions.)

Even the BJP spokespersons are not very keen on answering the question, for obvious reasons. Firstly, there are many contenders within the party and nobody would like to be ruled out. Who wouldn’t like to have a stab at the nation’s top job? And who knows, in whose lap the coveted apple might eventually fall! Secondly at this stage of the game, nobody would like to tip his hand for fear of alienating possible allies.

Psephology is an inexact social science. Like Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s ‘black swan theory’, it tells us exactly why a political party performed as it did after the results are out. Sometimes, when a prediction is accurate or nearly so, the psephologist who got it right says, ‘I told you so’, looking suitably modest but with ill-concealed smugness. The received wisdom, tempered by a tinge of caution, after the huge 68% turnout in the first phase of the election was that ‘it gives Modi an advantage’. It is not yet time to stick one’s neck out and say he would sweep the election. The ‘I told you so’ moment will come on December 20!

* Newschannels conducting exit poll analyses have been showing 117 as BJP's (or to be more accurate Narendra Modi's) seat tally in the present assemby. But the party gained 5 seats in subsequent by-elections and hence its current tally is 122.

Does secularism mean Hindu subservience?

2012-12-10T23:16:00.000+05:30

The two hot debating topics this December first week were the demolition of a disused building in Ayodhya twenty years ago and the current Gujarat election. The Ayodhya anniversary has by now become an annual ritual which (especially) the English language media religiously (pun intended) runs through, dusting its old footage or commissioning new quotes from old columnists. The debate such as it is, is like a restricted club whose membership is closed to outsiders. It is like the yarn about investigating a murder that occurred during an Italian card game in New York. The investigator asks the first guy, ‘who fired the shot?’ and he replies, ‘I dunno. I didn’t see it. I was sitting with my back to the door, you see.’ The second guy says the same thing and all others say the same thing. It was one card game in which everyone sat on the same side of the table!

As the debate could have only one side, any new columnists would have to conform by spewing old arguments of the old columnists, but if possible, in new a idiom. Or face ostracism from what is known as the mainstream media. Even the few columnists who have a contrary view would have to shroud their views in a lot of verbiage as to practically make them unintelligible or at least sound neutral. Or pass them as social science theories. Columnists with a Hindu moniker have to be doubly careful to pass the test of secularism. Others are not hampered by any such shibboleths. Thus, to be admitted to the club while a columnist with a name like a Misra or a Sarma would have to constantly invoke the dangers posed by the ‘Hindu right’ to the ‘secular fabric’ of the nation, a Manu Joseph could be brazen about his concept of secularism. Joseph first dismissed the notion that India is secular in his December 5 column in the International Herald Tribune (IndiaIs Not A Secular Republic). To make matters clear even for the dimwitted, Joseph elaborated his concept of secularism in his column of the same day in New York Times (Secularismin Search of a Nation):

“…what it really meant, without spelling it out, was that Hindus, who make up the majority of the nation, would have to accommodate themselves to the ways of the other religions, even if this meant taking some cultural blows.”

In order to leave no one in doubt, as to what he meant by ‘taking cultural blows’, Joseph elaborates:

“So, Hindus would have to accept the slaughter of cows, which they consider sacred (some Indian states have banned cow slaughter); …”

For Joseph this was not enough.

“… the Muslim community’s perceived infatuation with Pakistan;”

Having demolished an oft repeated if clichéd ‘the idea of India’, shibboleth chanted by the secular intelligentsia, he comes to the nub:

“…the conversion of poor, low-caste Hindus to Christianity by evangelists; and the near impossibility of getting admitted to some prestigious schools and colleges run by Christian organizations because so many places are reserved for Christian students.”

The last bit about ‘the near impossibility of getting admitted to some prestigious schools and colleges’ is a placebo thrown in to mask his main demand that India be made a grazing ground for number-starved Churches in the west. There was a time when Christian run schools and colleges were in demand but there is no such mad scramble for them now as non-Christian (calling them Hindu might offend secular sensibilities!) institutions offer quality education comparable to or even better than them.

As Joseph was writing in an American newspaper read mainly in America would he consider tendering the same advice to the Americans? For instance, being a secular nation, America should have taken the cultural blow of ‘the World Trade Centre being brought down by a few misguided youth’ and not waged a war first on Afghanistan and then on Iraq. Or that America should really not bother about some of its jobs being Banglored. Or that twenty-first century America should really be not so conservative. If it were not so why would a Bobby Jindal or a Nicky Haley would have had to go to such great lengths to conceal their ethnic identities and fabricate new ones!

After all this din, the Indian mainstream media would have redeemed a bit of its credibility if it expended a wee-bit of its energies in mourning a humanitarian disaster that is comparable only to the holocaust. None bothered (or dared) ask, ‘if the day on which a disused structure was destroyed is to be described a black day and commemorated every year, what about the day on which an estimated 450,000 Hindus were exiled in their own homeland?’ Why do lofty ideals like secularism and composite culture do not have the same connotation in India’s northern-most state? If December 6 is to be celebrated as a ‘black day’ every year why don’t we commemorate January 19 the day on which the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits commenced in 1989 and did not stop till virtually all of them were driven out? By not speaking about it if not against it are not our intelligentsia and media guilty of complicity?

Encounters in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat

2012-12-03T12:05:00.000+05:30

BJP’s re-nomination of former Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah as a candidate for the state assembly from the Naranpura constituency made it to the headlines in the national press, because of his alleged association with police encounters. Shah, who has been facing charges in the Sohrabuddin Sheik encounter case, was jailed and exiled from the state for over a year. Although the CBI charged him recently in another, the Tulsiram Prajapathi encounter case, the SC granted him bail and permitted his return to Gujarat. The professional secularists couldn’t care less if Shah was eventually proved guilty or innocent as their real target is Narendra Modi.

AP POLICE APPLAUDED FOR “ENCOUNTER”!

In December 2008, police in Warangal, Andhra Pradesh killed three young men in an “encounter”. Earlier, K. Swapnika a final year engineering student complained to the police that S. Srinivas a college drop-out was stalking her and demanded action. The police ignored her pleas. On December 10, Srinivas along with two friends, B. Sanjay and P. Hari Krishna waylaid Swapnika as she was returning home on a scooter with her friend T. Pranitha and threw acid on her face. The two girls suffered grievous burn injuries. Swapnika who suffered 60% burn injuries, died twenty days later. The police, who were indifferent to Swapnika’s pleas earlier, arrested the three youths on December 12, took them to a lonely place outside Warangal and shot them dead. They claim the three men ‘attacked them and they had to open fire in self-defence’. A likely story! But a more rational explanation would be, the police overcompensated for their earlier inertia and liquidated the offenders in cold blood, bowing to public outcry.

A few human rights activists – the usual suspects - made feeble noises about police brutality. But sympathy for the victims and anger against the perpetrators was so rife; the public at large welcomed the police action. Students of the Kakatiya Institute of Technology where Swapnika and Pranitha were studying and other colleges in Warangal went in a procession to the district police office and garlanded V. C. Sajjanar, the Superintendent of Police! It was a case of vicarious vigilantism.

FURORE OVER KILLING GANGSTERS

Sohrabuddin Sheik and Tulsiram Prajapathi were not what one would describe as lily-white, innocent citizens who were brutally killed in extra-judicial killings. Sohrabuddin was a known gangster, extortionist, smuggler, gun-runner and was a known hatchet man of Dawood Ibrahim, along with Sharifkhan Pathan and, Abdul Latif and Rasool Parti. He was reported to have had links with terrorist organisations like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and was planning several subversive activities in India. The Gujarat Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) seized 47 AK-47 rifles and other deadly ammunition from his residence in a raid just before he was taken in. At the time of his killing in November 2005 there were 60 criminal cases pending against him in various courts in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. He was picked up from a bus in which he was travelling from Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh to Sangli in Maharastra. Thus police forces of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan where he was engaged in an extortion racket were in the loop when he was picked up for questioning. He had earlier fled Gujarat to escape from the police and hid for a while in Hyderabad. His move to Maharashtra could have been a manoeuvre to confuse and elude the law enforcement agencies. Sohrabuddin’s wife Kausar Bi, who was also picked up from the bus was reportedly killed three days later. Sohrabuddin’s accomplice and hit-man, Tulsiram Prajapathi, an eye witness to Sohrabuddin killing was killed a month later in a separate encounter. The secular media with its special love for Gujarat and Amnesty International clamoured for action. The Supreme Court took cognizance of Sohrabuddin’s brother Rubabuddin’s petition and ordered a CBI enquiry. The case is in trial in the SC.

FEMALE LeT OPERATIVE & ACCOMPLICES KILLED

The Ishrat Jahan encounter case (June 2004) too has had curious twists and turns. Ishrat, a 19 year old second year degree student was picked up from a Mumbai suburb along with three men who had prior criminal records and terrorist antecedents. Pranesh Pillai alias Javed Gulam Sheik was in the fake-currency racket and held two passports one in his original name as Pranesh and the other as Javed after conversion to Islam. Amjad Ali Rana alias Akbar alias Salim was alleged to be a LeT operative from Pakistan. At the time of the encounter he was carrying an AK-56 rifle. The fourth, Zeeshan Johar alias Jisan Johar alias Abdul Ghani carried a Pakistani identity card. The foursome was allegedly involved in a plot to kill the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Several enquiries pointed out that the encounter was fake and the four were killed by the Gujarat police in cold blood. However there are several unanswered questions:

Police could not locate the Pune office of Pranesh alias Javed in which he had purportedly employed Ishrat. Every time she returned home to Mumbai from Pune she would bring money for her family. There was a report at the time that the two had signed in as man and wife when they hired a room in a lodge.

An LeT publication first claimed that Ishrat and the other three were their operatives but later Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the political wing of the LeT disowned it claiming it to be a ‘journalistic mistake’.

Some media reports suggested that David Coleman Hadley, the LeT mastermind behind the November 26, 2008 Mumbai carnage claimed that Ishrat was a LeT operative, but this again was refuted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) that is investigating the case.

The CBI, which was entrusted with further investigation by the Gujarat High Court, which found merit in the accusation that it was a fake encounter, did not make any arrest as of November 2012.

The Andhra Pradesh encounter case did not make waves in the national media and was soon forgotten. The incidents have happened in secular Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s secular Andhra Pradesh. There was no clamour for Rajasekhara Reddy’s or his home minister Savita Indra Reddy’s resignation, then. How many outside the state had heard of this ‘encounter’ in Andhra Pradesh on December 12, 2008? How many in Andhra Pradesh remember it now?

In contrast, by the convoluted logic of India’s secular discourse, even the death of an ant run over by a lorry in Gujarat has to be investigated (if possible under the supervision of the Supreme Court) to find out if Chief Minister Narendra Modi has a role in it. Thus Mr. Modi has been battling to prove his innocence of the killings of (apart from the 2002 riot victims), ants, reptiles, crocodiles, man-eaters (non-human and human) and other predators for over ten years.

Are Sonia & Rahul more venerable than Sita & Saraswati?

2012-11-30T15:48:00.000+05:30

Are Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi more venerable than Sita, Saraswati and other gods and goddesses of the Hindu pantheon? Yes, for members of the Congress party whose performance and continuance in the party is directly indexed to their loyalty to the ‘Dynasty’, it would appear to be so.

For over two decades, when, what the media would like to describe as the ‘Hindu Right’ objected to M. F. Hussain’s sacrilegious paintings of Hindu gods and goddesses, the constant refrain from the secular intelligentsia was that ‘freedom of speech and expression’ was an essential component of democracy and therefore had to be protected at all costs. (See Artistic Freedom & Social Responsibility). Those who were hurt by Hussain’s desecrations could not get in a word edgewise in any debate. Secular politicians and left-liberal, (self-styled) intellectuals organised exhibitions of Hussain’s paintings with a vengeance to cock a snook at the ‘Hindu Right’. Judiciary too bowed to societal pressure and threw out pleas which sought Hussain to be punished. Even with the most elementary knowledge of the Indian constitution and law, one can see Hussain’s misdemeanors were actionable under Article 19 (2) of the constitution and the “Obscene Publications Act”, Sections 292, 294 and 298 of the IPC. Judges delivered homilies to the plaintiffs and caustic obiter dicta during trials. (See Obiter Dicta on Artistic Freedom & Social Responsibility & M. F. Hussain - Secular Holy Cow Or Market Driven Peddler?). English newspapers wrote editorials and television channels conducted (one-sided) debates in support of Hussain’s paintings. Akhil Sibal (son of Kapil Sibal of the ‘zero’ fame) who represented Hussain in the Delhi High Court was the toast of the debates. Has anyone heard of the plaintiff’s counsel, Poornima Sethi? [See also, A Catholic Defends Hindu Deities, & Deccan Chronicle Aplogizes - Hussain Doesn't for more on the subject.]

When the Hussain controversy reached the higher courts, Facebook (2004) and Twitter (2006) were nascent and there were no Internet Hindus yet. The controversial cartoons of Prophet Mohamed, originally published in a Danish newspaper in 2005 and reprinted in many European newspapers in 2006 muddied the waters a bit. The ‘freedom of speech’ brigade was on the back foot but wouldn’t give up on its M. F. Hussain championship.

The Salman Rushidie incident of 2012 saw another somersault by the secular brigade. It was election time in UP in which both the (national) Congress Party and the (regional) Samajawadi Party had a major stake in the Muslim electorate. But it was the Congress that wanted to be seen to be sensitive to Muslim ‘sentiments’. Therefore although Rushidie was to participate in a literary festival in far away Rajasthan (ruled by it) the party actively campaigned to bar his entry into the country.

By now the Internet Hindus were a force that could not be ignored. They are articulate, intelligent, well-informed, tech-savvy and could not be easily hoodwinked. They were able to create for themselves a slot in cyberspace annulling their apartheid status in the left-liberal dominated mainstream media. If the intention of the mainstream media was to jeer them by calling them Internet Hindus, it did not work. The Internet Hindus wore the epithet as a badge of honour on their sleeves. They paid the mainstream media in its own coin by calling it the ‘paid media’ and other variations of the theme. They did it in a million voices, their thundering roar resounding in the cubicles of mainstream media offices.

This was the reason the mainstream media could no longer ignore Congress’ shenanigans especially the dichotomy in its approach to the M. F. Hussain and Salman Rushidie controversies. Their voice might have been feeble and rather apologetic; nevertheless they questioned the Congress spokespersons as to why the ruling party had applied two standards, one for Hussain and another for Rushidie. Our politicians, quite a few of them fought in the gutters to rise to their present exalted position were nothing if they could not take such pinpricks in their stride. A distinction was now sought to be made between Hussain’s desecration of Hindu gods and goddesses and Rushidie’s disrespect to the Prophet. A strange argument was inserted into the debate: ‘The concept of blasphemy did not exist in Hinduism whereas it exists in Islam.’ It is the instinct for self-preservation. Life and limb are dear even for the secular intellectual warriors and they wouldn’t trade it for some abstract principle called ‘freedom of speech’!

After self-preservation comes the craving for political patronage. (The need for social recognition comes after basic human needs in Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’.) Either the need for governmental recognition or greed for pelf rendered our champions of free speech dumb when the Indian government scuttled the production of the movie ‘Indian Summer’ based on the historical work, ‘Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire’ which sought to portray the ‘Jawaharlal Nehru – Edwina Mountbatten’ romance and banned the publication of ‘The Red Sari’, Spanish writer Javier Moro’s unflattering biography of Sonia Gandhi.

The ever loyal puppies of the ruling dynasty could scuttle the production of one movie and ban the publication of one biography, but how could they silence the ever growing numbers of cyber warriors? For what they were doing was too close for comfort. The cyber warriors were waging a Fabian war, chipping away at the credibility of the ruling dispensation and exposing its venality. Unlike the mainstream media the cyber warriors were neither beholden nor intimidated by power wielders. Nor is it true that all of them operate under a cloak of anonymity. While it is true some of them use pert nicknames, many of them use their own names and/or pictures in their profiles. (What you see in VOXINDICA profiles in FB and Twitter are true pictures.)

This appears to be the background for the promulgation of the IT Amendment Act 2009. The same Kapil Sibal who termed as ‘unacceptable’ a cartoon posted on FB lampooning Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi was quiescent when a democratically elected chief minister was described as ‘mass murderer’ and ‘ugly Indian’ by news paper columnists.

A strange feature of the IT Amendment Act is, comments considered ‘annoying’ or ‘inconvenient’ when posted electronically – and cognizable grounds for prosecution - are not so when published in the mainstream media. Therefore the two columnists who used the expressions ‘mass murderer’ and ‘ugly Indian’ could get away with it. If perchance a peeved Internet Hindu called them ‘Niira Radia’s chaprasi’ and ‘India’s Pakistani Columnist’, the columnists have a recourse in the law under the impugned act. By the by, the cartoon that angered Kapil Sibal when posted on FB was reproduced in OUTLOOK along with a number of other seemingly offensive posts. Such are the vagaries of the law!

In addition to loyalty, Sibal has another reason to be chagrined with the cyber warriors, especially the role played by FB and Twitter in bringing the government to heel in the ‘Indians Against Corruption’ (IAC) movement last year.

Much has been already written about the sweeping, draconian nature of Section 66A of the IT Amendment Act 2009. Therefore there is no need to go into it again. The elevation of the status of an investigating officer from a Circle Inspector to DCP or IG following a public outcry about its misuse does not offer much solace to the aam admi. The law could still be misused by the high and mighty. The case in which a Puduchery businessman, Ravi Subramanian was hauled out of bed at 5 AM merely based on a faxed complaint by the son of the Union Finance Minister is ample proof of this.

Therefore Section 66A of the IT Amendment Act 2009 should be repealed lock, stock and barrel. The idiom ‘lock, stock and barrel’ is advisedly used here as the impugned section in the impugned act is like a gun, which in the wrong hands could be deadly.

The Bankster

2012-11-15T00:02:00.001+05:30

Book Review

Subramanian, Ravi. 2012. The Bankster. Rupa Publications. New Delhi. Pages: 358. Price: Rs 250/-

To an Indian, The Wall Street Journal’s commendation of the author, ‘Meet the John Grisham of banking’ might appear a bit patronizing, but it is nevertheless true. In ‘The Bankster’ Ravi Subramanian turned out in every bit, an ‘edge of the seat thriller’ from as wry a subject as banking. For, what would you expect from a bank - its premises buzzing with customers rushing in and out cashing cheques or buying drafts?

Although nationalized banks in the pre-liberalisation, pre-competition era were walled-in by bureaucratic procedures and riven by trade unionism, many of them provided a cordial ambience. Regular customers were recognized and personalized service was the norm. After liberalisation many non-banking financial institutions in India barged into banking. A number of multinational banks too entered the market. The accent of the private players, both national and international is on aggressive marketing. But in spite of their glitzy interiors and automated procedures, somehow the personalized service that one experienced in the banks of an earlier era has been missing.

Subramanian brought out in vivid detail the inner mechanisms of a multinational bank, including internal intrigues, coups and a bit of adultery. One would like to believe the last bit was included in the story only to embellish it and it is not really prevalent on a scale that would subvert the functioning, norms and ethics of the banking sector. The story revolves round a few central characters, Vikram, the head of retail banking, Tanuja the head of HR, Indrani, the president of the bank, Nikhil a branch manager, Harshita a conscientious Relationship Manager and Zinaida her unscrupulous counterpart of the Indian subsidiary of Greater Boston Global Bank known as GB2 within.

The author skillfully wove into the story some contemporary events. Recently a multinational bank has been in the news in the UK and the US for its role in money laundering. The same bank was involved in India in a legal battle for betraying the confidence of a client, who happens to be a popular actress. In the novel, an amoral Relationship Manager sold an unsuspecting customer a unit linked insurance product as a fixed deposit. The same Relationship Manager was also a major conduit in a money laundering operation. Her superiors ignored her malfeasance not only because she was producing results but also because she had no qualms about dangling her charms to seduce them.

In the real life case a Relationship Manager does the client in by investing her money in stocks over and over again to achieve his metrics and making profits for the bank. His indiscriminate and reckless investment of her funds in the stock market not only diminished her net worth because of his poor judgement in picking stocks, but when she actually did make a profit she had to pay a fortune as capital gains tax on short term gains.

By now everyone knows how some commercial interests in the west have been using greedy NGOs in India as Trojans to subvert power and irrigation projects in India. The agitation against the Kudankulam nuclear power project in Tamil Nadu and the one against an irrigation project in Madhya Pradesh are cases in point.

Apart from funneling funds for such subversive activities, some employees of the bank (in the novel) play a part in circulating counterfeit currency using the bank as a conduit. All these illegal activities make for a deadly cocktail for some of its players. There were murders and chases. Technology plays a major role in solving the crimes. The author was successful in keeping a veil over the identity of the villain till the very end. The book is a good read for a cosy weekend or a journey. The only complaint this reviewer has is about is its language. It is full of banking patois and cliché-ridden.

This review is part of the Book Reviews programme at Blogadda.com

Congress’ Communism & Empress SoniaG’s Upkeep

2012-10-25T00:29:00.000+05:30

Cho Ramaswamy's Tuglaq (the protagonist in the eponymous movie) says, ‘It is not possible to make the poor rich. Therefore make the rich poor and all will be equal!’ It is an unstated dictum of the communist proletariat. The communist elite (vlasti in Russian) had a different take on Marxist philosophy as George Orwell so vividly depicted in his Animal Farm. Irrespective of how they live, quite often the vlasti echo the proletarian edict, more to show that their heart is in the right place rather than because of an ardent belief that ‘all men should be equal’. Therefore it is no surprise to hear Mani Sankar Aiyar often cavil about Antilia, Mukesh Ambani’s 27-floor residence in Mumbai’s southern suburbs. Flaunting his knowledge of the Gini coefficient (a measure of inequality of wealth distribution) he often cites Antilia as an example of the deep chasm that exists between the rich and the poor in India. He did so again in the television debate, ‘Is India ripe for a revolution?’ hosted by Tim Sebastian on Bloomberg / Headlines Today recently. (Indian television anchors have much to learn from Sebastian, but that is a different matter altogether.)

Antilia

One way to look at Mukesh’s opulence is to attribute it to his business acumen, hard work and intelligence. For, although he has inherited a large part of his wealth he must have worked hard to grow the rest. In a democratic society which at least theoretically provides equal opportunities to all, one should not grudge Mukesh his success. Much has been said about Mukesh’s father Dhirubhai’s business acumen. His life is the stuff that made it to case studies in business schools. The less uncharitable (but probably more accurate) view is to attribute Dhirubhai Ambani’s success less to business acumen and more to his ability to network with the ruling establishment. Even this may be characterised as business acumen, but to put it bluntly Dhirubai was able bribe his way through the Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi administrations to tweak government policy to suit his business interests. Dhirubhai’s Reliance Industries was perhaps the first example of crony capitalism on a gigantic scale. It had all the ingredients: funnelling funds through invisible sources, stock exchange skirmishes and manipulation of government policy. V. P. Singh who took on Dhirubhai to alter government policy on import of purified terephthalic acid (PTA) lost his job as Finance Minister! (See For this fighter, life was a big battle). On hindsight one might even suspect that the Bofors scam could have been a decoy. This being so, why does Aiyar constantly invoke Mukesh as a negative example of economic distortions knowing fully well that the seeds of the Ambani empire were sown during Congress regimes? More importantly, the Ambani empire reached its exponential growth stage during the regimes of Aiyar’s deities, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.

Be that as it may, if opulent living reflects a ‘vulgarity of greed’ to use an expression coined in the Films Division (of the I & B ministry) documentaries of the emergency era, how much does it cost to put up MPs like Aiyar in Lutyen’s Delhi? How much does empress Sonia’s upkeep cost the people of India?

[N.B.: What follows are only ‘back of the envelope’ calculations based on certain realistic assumptions.]

According to a recent Economic Times report, bungalows in Delhi’s Lutyen’s Bungalow Zone (LBZ) cost between Rs 111 and Rs 170 Crore. (See Delhi's most expensive realty deal: Torrent Group buys bungalow in Lutyen’s Zone for Rs111 crore). As No.10 Janpath is in an even more exclusive zone, it may be safely rated at the top end of the scale, i.e. Rs 170 Crore, assuming of course that it is of the same area and not bigger! At 1% of the price as rental value the bungalow costs Rs 1.7 Crore a year (as rent) to the people of India. [A] One might safely assume an expenditure of Rs 30, 00,000 per annum on staff and maintenance. [B]

Her electricity bills come to Rs 2. 49 Lakh a year. [C] (See Sonia Gandhi's power bill: over Rs. 7 lakh for 3 years). We are relieved to know, that of the Rs 7.47 Lakhs incurred in three years, she herself has paid all of Rs 0.09 Lakh whereas the Lok Sabha Secretariat paid Rs 7.38 Lakh!

As an MP she is eligible to salary and perquisites of Rs 36. 45 Lakh, excluding house rent which is already computed above. [D] (See SALARYOF MP'S - Indian Parliament members salary)

She is entitled to Z+ security which consists of 36 personnel of the NSG. An NSG Z+ team consists of various ranks from IG to constable. Assuming an average salary of Rs 3 Lakh per commando, the team cost Rs 1.08 Crore per annum. [E]

The total of [A]+ [B]+ [C]+ [D]+ [E] = Rs 3.47 Crore per annum. Based on a similar computation, Rahul’s expenditure to the exchequer (only salary and security included) comes to Rs 1. 45 Crore.

It is interesting to note that (if our rental computation is right) Sonia exceeds her rental allowance by 700% and her electricity allowance by 400%.

Is it not pertinent to ask, how many households in India can incur an expenditure of Rs 4.92 Crore per annum, especially in a country in which the BPL is set at just Rs 11, 520?

The Krishna Key

2012-10-10T01:26:00.000+05:30

Book Review

Sanghi, Ashwin. (2012). The Krishna Key. Westland. Chennai. Pages: 475. Price: Rs: 250/-

Indians do not have a sense of history. The ancient rishis did not leave a record of their scientific experiments and achievements. For them science was a philosophical pursuit, an eternal quest for truth and unravelling the mysteries of the universe, and aimed at improving the lot of mankind. (See SCIENCE INANCIENT INDIA).

If the youth of today does not have an understanding of the achievements of their ancestors, there are several reasons for this. One is that the nation was subjugated and ruled by aliens for nearly a thousand years. If the theme of the alien rule during the first six hundred and fifty years was inflicting physical cruelties, the British who ruled next for about three hundred years used a different tactic. Their objective was to keep the Indians physically and psychologically oppressed. By the time the British left in 1947, large numbers of Indians were oblivious of their ancient glory. They were convinced that they were always a backward civilization and that they were civilized by their alien rulers!

The history of India had been often a ‘made to order’ product commissioned to sub-serve the interests of those who did so. History was written to suit the religious and political interests of the rulers. The religious objective was to lower the self-esteem of the people and show India’s indigenous religion as a backward cult. The political objective was to cleave the society vertically and horizontally. It is as a part of this game plan that the ‘Aryan – Dravidian’ bogey and ‘Sanskrit is a dead language’ myth were created. (See Should WeRe-write Indian History?)

Any residual knowledge or achievements that survive were sought to be explained away as relevant only to the upper strata of the society. The caste system that plagues the nation today was in fact congealed into place during the two phases of alien rule mentioned earlier. Originally, it was merely a division of labour and social mobility permitted both upward and downward movement of people. The castes were no more different than the Anglo Saxon surnames like ‘Barber’ or ‘Carpenter’, which only connote the trades the ancestors of these people might have adopted in the past. Any hope that history written during the colonial rule would be corrected and rewritten in the post independence period to project the glories of the ancient civilization was shot down because of the political imperatives of the new rulers and their fellow travellers in the academia. Both the rulers and their fellow travellers, the ‘rootless intellectuals’ (to use Ernest Bevin’s phrase) who occupied the higher echelons of the academia failed to see the role of history as a unifying force and nation building. As a result, we are today not one nation but a loose conglomeration of states held together ironically, by a civilization which the rulers and the academia wish to airbrush. If the ‘official’ academia is unwilling to correct wrong history how do we educate posterity about the grandeur of their ancestry?

It is against this backdrop that ‘The Krishna Key’ assumes significance. The book discusses in great detail the history of the extinct Saraswati River and the civilization that shadowed its growth and decline. Thanks to all the scientific evidence that has come to light in recent decades, the politically motivated ‘Aryan - Dravidian’ theory can at last be laid to rest. (RIP Aryan Invasion / Aryan Migration Theory!) The evidence includes not only new archaeological evidence but dating historical events based on the planetary configurations described in our epics. It would be ridiculous to argue that the writers of the Ithihasas not only exhibited extraordinary skill in creating everlasting stories but went to the extent of calculating planetary configurations that predated them by thousands of years simply to include them in their works. It was not beyond the power of the rishis who created the epics to do so, but it would only be natural for them to describe the planetary positions as they were seen in their time. It is in this context, after demolishing the impugned ‘Aryan - Dravidian’ theory, the book pointed out the possibility of an ancient civilization spreading from east to west instead of west to east as always presumed. Ironically it bases its argument on the same philological logic on which the protagonists of ‘Aryan - Dravidian’ theory based theirs. If ‘Dalton’s atomic theory’ could be rescinded within forty years of its proposition, why should we also not discard the ‘Aryan - Dravidian’ theory in view of mounting evidence to the contrary? There is a lot of discussion in the book about the cryptic symbolism of numbers and various other practices of Hinduism which were originally initiated by the rishis in their scientific wisdom. It is for this wealth of detail that the book should be read by everyone interested ancient Hindu civilisations.

The novel is about the quest of a group of four scholars (a historian, an archaeologist, a marine archaeologist and a geneticist) to unlock the secrets of Krishna’s ancient kingdom of Dwaraka. The storyline is a broth of mythology, history, archaeology and theology cunningly intermingled with the current narrative that makes for compelling reading. The story of Krishna and Mahabharata is used as a backdrop for a story of murder and mystery. The cast of characters includes an intelligent, middle-aged, widower professor and a dutiful (and middle-aged), widowed woman police officer to pair him. There is a beautiful, clever, not so honest (again middle aged) spinster, research scholar and her unquestioning, criminal acolyte. There is a sharp, ruthless criminal lawyer who made his pot of gold representing the criminal underworld (imagine someone like ‘Raj Malhotra’ in the Govinda starrer, ‘Kyonki main jhut nahi bolta ’) and a gangland boss with a hoary ancestry dating all the way back to Sri Krishna. As the narrative picks up speed (it does so right in the beginning) the characters run about from Jaipur to Pune to Delhi to Jodhpur to Dwaraka to Chandigarh via Manasa Sarovar and finally to the Taj Mahal in Agra, the crooked on a murder spree and the righteous in pursuit. As in all virtuous stories, in this novel too good triumphs over evil and the culprits were captured. Giving away more details of the story would be spoiling the thrill of reading it. One can’t help recall Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code after reading all those twists and turns, allusions to mythological events and cryptic puzzles.

Though there are only a few errors in the book, some of them are significant and cannot be ignored. See these examples: There is a story behind Bhima’s slaying of Jarasandha. It was not about Sri Krishna's desire to strengthen his Yadava kingdom by eliminating a potential enemy, as mentioned. (p. 187) According to the Mahabharata, five mahabalas (immensely strong warriors) were born at the same time under a single birth star. They were Bhima, Bakasura, Duryodhana, Keechaka and Jarasandha. According to a divine ordinance, the first to slay any one of the others would also slay the remaining three. Therefore for Bhima to slay Duryodhana at the end of the war according to his vow, it was necessary for him to slay any one of the others first. Yudhisthira’s first Rajasuya Yaga was to make the kings of all those kingdoms through which the horse roamed accept his suzerainty; not as an equal. (p. 187). The raison d’ etre for performing a Rajasuya Yaga was correctly described when Yudhisthira performed it a second time after the war. In line 14, p. 189, it should be Sastra chikitsa or tantra (meaning surgery) and not Sastra karma. In the sentence ‘Some coincided, others differed’ (line 7, p 272), shouldn’t it be ‘concurred’? The Rig Vedic hymn (line 6, p. 293) should read as ‘ekam sat; viprah bahudha vadanti’ (not vidhaante). Isn’t it ‘Rahika and Saini’ and not ‘Priya and Saini’ in p. 301? Prithviraj Chouhan the last Hindu king was killed in 1192 AD and not BCE (p. 328). In line 9 page 330 the sentence should read as ‘… Indian blacksmiths had succeeded’, not ‘succeeding’. Is it necessary to repeat the story of ‘Syamantaka mani’ once told by Sri Krishna and a second time by Sir Khan? The event of Gandhari bestowing Duryodhana with vajra sareera with her fondling touch had occurred in his childhood, not before the war. Sri Krishna prevented Duryodhana’s whole body being bestowed with a vajra sareera by jeering at him for walking naked (p. 372). Sri Krishna thus ensured the upper part of his thighs remained vulnerable, to enable Bhima to hit there and so fulfil his vow which he made when Draupadi was insulted. It should be Saini and Radhika who put their hands up and not Priya and Saini (line 16-17 p. 389). The sastra that dictates temple architecture is the Aagama Sastra and not the Vaastu Sastra. (p. 402). A nerve does not supply blood. It should be a blood vessel (line 13, p. 406). Avoiding these errors would have improved an otherwise excellently researched well-written novel.

This review is part of the Book Reviews programme at Blogadda.com

Will Sonia Gandhi debate with Narendra Modi on TV?

2012-10-05T10:51:00.000+05:30

Dilip Padgaonkar holds the televised debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney as a lesson worthy of emulation for Indian political leaders. (Such glaring contrasts). Although televised debates between American presidential candidates were generally level-headed, their campaigns were not. In 1801, Thomas Jefferson’s supporters called President John Adams a “hermaphrodite, with neither the force and firmness of a man nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” In the 1828 campaign John Quincy Adam’s supporters called his rival Andrew Jackson ‘a murderer, his mother a prostitute and his wife an adulteress’. This year’s campaign between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney has been none too gentle. All the stories of nastiness in previous election campaigns are being dug up by the American media to tell the public that there was nothing new in it. Bob Schieffer cites Laura Brown (in News and World Report) as saying that ‘the role of the media in all this has not been exactly stellar.’ (Nasty campaign ads an American tradition)

In the 1960 election between the Democrat J. F. Kennedy and the Republican Richard Nixon (Eisenhower’s former Vice President), the Democrats put up a poster with the leering form of Richard Nixon holding out a finger and the caption ‘Would you buy a used car from this man?’ It was also in the 1960 election that a televised debate between the candidates was first introduced. The candidate that was able to deliver a knockout punch in the debates usually won. It was so with the Kennedy election of 1960 when the nation saw him as confident and relaxed while Nixon appeared ‘shifty, sweating and badly under the lights.’ The debates too were not devoid of their share of wit at the expense of an opponent and knockout punches. In the 1980 election, Ronald Regan debated Jimmy Carter. Finding Carter’s penchant for manipulating statistics irksome, Reagan taunted him with the humorous line, ‘There you go again!’ (The 10 best US presidential campaigns)

Therefore, if we have nothing to learn from the US Presidential campaigns or the US media, what was Padgaonkar’s point in bringing up the Obama – Romney television debate in his ToI blog? A few minute’s trouble to google would have told Padgaonkar, who once held ‘the second most important job in India’ that he was on a sticky wicket. Well, he has to begin somewhere. But his objective was different. It was to rile Narendra Modi for raising the issue of the alleged expenditure of Rs 1880 crore towards Sonia Gandhi’s foreign travels. Narendra Modi did not refer to her treatment and has repeatedly said so. He tried to convince anyone who would listen that he did not make the statement from first hand knowledge but from newspaper reports that appeared in Gujarat, Haryana and even in the national media like The Indian Express and India Today. BJP’s Menakshi Lekhi who vehemently argued Narendra Modi’s case on national television pointed out that there was not one but several RTI petitions filed from various parts of the country. In spite of all this the media would have none of it. They buy into the versions of the Congress spokespersons, who flitted from one RTI petition to another in a clumsy attempt at bluff, bluster and subterfuge to shroud the issue in secrecy. They wouldn’t even hear the counter argument that if the GoI spent any monies on Sonia Gandhi’s foreign travels the people of the country are entitled to know about it. And that people in public life have to forego some of their privacy. Remember Sanjay Joshi and Abhishek Manu Singhvi? They had a right to their private lives but had to pay a price for being public figures.

It is a strange fact of life that in democratic India where all citizens are presumed to be equal, there is one family that is above the pale of the law and public scrutiny. It is a privilege that is not available even to rulers in traditional monarchies like Britain. Is it a hangover from our colonial past? ‘So be it’, would our Congress politicians with the skin of a hippopotamus, say, without batting an eyelid! The sad part of this drama is that the Indian media, which should have played its role as a bulwark against dictatorial mores has been not only abdicating its responsibility but is willy-nilly conspiring with the unseemly conduct of the ruling politicians.

Now, let us look at a proposition that Dilip Padgaonkar, unconsciously (and perhaps unintentionally) put forth. It is about the televised debate between the two contesting rivals. America introduced these televised debates sixty years ago (with the Kennedy – Nixon debate as mentioned earlier) to enable the voters to understand who they are (or rather their electoral college is) sending to the White House for the next four years to rule them. It helps the nation understand what a candidate stands for, what his understanding of various issues of governance is and how he intends to cope with them. Could a leader who reads her Hindi speeches written for her in Roman script be able to cope with such a debate? Or would the Prince whose understanding of the complexity of Indian politics leaves much to be desired, do?

How would Padgaonkar like Sonia Gandhi to debate with Narendra Modi on national television?

Foreign investment in retail – bane or boon?

2012-09-16T18:54:00.000+05:30

As expected the UPA government’s opening up of the economy has evinced opposition from political parties across the spectrum. Of all the measures announced (79% foreign investment in the broadcasting sector, 51% in retail, 49% in aviation, 49% in power generation and 15,000 crore disinvestment in PSUs), it was the opening up of the retail sector that has become the subject of intense debate. This coupled with the steep increase in the price of diesel and withdrawing of the subsidy on cooking gas has come as a godsend for political parties to agitate as the issue appeals to two large constituencies, the retail traders and the vocal middle-classes.

The increase in diesel price is perhaps inevitable. Although political parties oppose it when they are in opposition, it is only for form and they too would have resorted to it if they were in power. This is because of the economics governing oil prices. Everybody knows taxes levied by the central (customs and excise) and state (sales tax) governments form a large part of the retail prices of petroleum products. In turn these taxes comprise a bulk of governmental revenues. No government can afford to lose the large slice of revenues that the oil economy contributes. How else would they finance all those vote-catching freebies?

The middle-class is of no consequence to the political parties, vocal or otherwise, because it does not vote en bloc and therefore does not make much difference to their political fortunes. However the retail traders (a.k.a. kirana merchants) are not a group which no political party can ignore. Their contribution to the ‘electoral economy’ is twofold. First is the group’s direct financial contribution. Second, the muscle-hire that provides ‘security’ to political parties lives off the ‘indirect taxes’ it collects from the retail traders. The retail traders of course make up for all this and more by under-weighing and over-pricing, but it affects only the consumer, not the political parties. The political parties need their muscle-hire. The muscle-hire needs the retail traders. Ergo the political parties need the retail traders.

Besides all this, it is human nature to resist any new measure. Remember the resistance and protests by trade unions of all hues to office automation during the eighties and nineties. We were told that automation should be resisted at all costs because it would lead to thousands and thousands of people losing their jobs. Today, can the millennium generation ever comprehend how we were able to live lives without computers at homes, offices, movie halls, railway stations and etc?

The phrase ‘economic liberalisation’ is like a ‘red rag to a bull’ to the left parties. They keep seeing conspiracies and a sell-out to big multinationals every time it is mentioned. Remember all the hue and cry that erupted when India signed its nuclear deal with the United States? It was the left parties that were in the forefront of the opposition. As the forces of liberalisation and globalisation have been overhauling economies the world over the left parties have been losing steam over the last decade. It is as if their philosophy is past its sell by date!

The space vacated by the left parties has been increasingly occupied by the regional parties. Unlike the left parties, the regional parties are not burdened by solidified ideological compulsions but are governed only by identity politics that appeal to their core constituents. Remember how Mulayam Singh Yadav first opposed the Indo-US nuclear deal but then made a U-turn, after being arm-twisted. His excuse for the change of heart? Dr. Abdul Kalam, a Muslim intellectual, ‘recommended’ it.

What would our comrades say of ‘economic liberalisation’ in China, when it is such bugbear for them in India? Have they ever given any convincing explanation as to why they believe, what is good for China is bad for India?

THE CHINESE EXAMPLE

In 1992 China has liberalised its regulations on foreign direct investment in the retail sector. On a trial basis FDI was permitted in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Dalian, Qingdao. Foreign investment in the retail sector was also permitted in five Special Economic Zones, set up in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, Xiamen and Hainan. There were more than a score of retail stores set up with foreign equity permitted by the central government by 1997. However between 1992 and 1997 many retail and wholesale enterprises with foreign invest were established having obtained permission from provincial and municipal authorities.

Chinese economic liberalisation process gathered momentum after the nation’s accession to the WTO in 2001. As per the terms of the WTO’s ‘Accession Protocol’, China opened up its retail sector for foreign investment, gradually over the next five years. The process of permitting foreign investment in the retail sector evolved over time and attained greater clarity by 2009. In that year the government promulgated its ‘Administrative Measures for Foreign Enterprises or Individuals Establishing Partnership Enterprises’. Two significant aspects of the policy were, decentralisation of the approval of foreign direct investment and restricting foreign investment to those items not controlled by the state.

As a result of these policy initiatives, 25 of the world’s top 50 retailers have established branches (with Chinese equity partnership) in China. These include Carrefour, Metro, Tesco and Wal-mart. Carrefour has 156 stores. Wal-mart has 146 stores in 89 cities. The policy of opening up the retail sector to foreign equity has helped modernise it. ‘Brand recognition’ has become a significant aspect of retail marketing. (See Retail Sector in China: The Next Big Thing? for more on this.)

AN INDIAN EXAMPLE

ITC’s Agri Business Division (ABD) is one of India’s largest exporters of agricultural commodities. Formerly a British multinational (established in India in 1910) the company was fully Indianised in 1970. The company’s e-Choupal and ‘Choupal Pradarshan Khet’ are initiatives that have been empowering farmers to improve productivity and deriving better returns. The e-Choupal initiative was first implemented in 2000 in Madhya Pradesh to help soya farmers modernise their production capabilities. It now covers 10 states and 4 million farmers. e-Choupal is a supply chain model, ‘aimed at delivering value to its customers around the world on a sustainable basis’. Somewhat similar to the origins of Sears Roebuck, the e-Choupal was aimed at the Indian ‘farmer’. It was intended to unshackle the farmer from a vicious cycle that rendered him uncompetitive in spite of the rich and abundant natural resources that India possesses. The small farmer has low investment capability and low risk taking ability which resulted in low productivity, weak market orientation, low value addition and therefore had to settle for low margins for his produce. ITC-ABD has changed all that. It is also not an entirely new initiative. What AMUL has done for the milk producers in the co-operative sector, ITC-ABD has been doing for the farmers in the corporate sector. (See e-Choupal for more on this.)

What do the two examples teach us? What was the impact of opening up of foreign direct investment in the retail sector in China? It has not, as many in India fear, swamped the indigenous retail trade. By 2011, that is almost a decade after opening up its retail trade for foreign investment, only 5% of retail enterprises in China have some foreign equity. On the other hand, firstly it has increased efficiencies because of the adoption of best practices and state-of-the-art technologies. Secondly, it has increased competitiveness and has helped the consumer by providing her an array of choices at better prices.

Rahul Gandhi, BCG’s ‘problem child’!

2012-09-12T19:53:00.000+05:30

In marketing, Boston Consulting Group’s growth share matrix (or BCG matrix) is an instrument used to assess the current state and predict the future performance of a product (brand) or product line. In marketing parlance, the grid determines a product’s ‘attractiveness’. The grid plots a product’s relative market share against market growth to analyse its current state and predict its future. The four quadrants in the grid which represent the life cycle of a product are named ‘dogs’, ‘question marks (or problem children)’, ‘stars’ and ‘cash cows’. While ‘stars’ and ‘cash cows’ are every marketer’s dream the ‘question marks (or problem children)’ are a real dilemma. This is because if these products make the ‘success test’ in the market place they move into the ‘stars’ category and eventually into the ‘cash cows’ category. But while they consume large amounts of resources for promotion, they do not generate immediate revenues. If they gain market share, they move into the ‘stars’ category but after years of consumption and effort, if they fail, they degenerate into the ‘dogs’ category. Even as ‘dogs’ they pose another dilemma to the marketer. Some marketers believe that although the ‘dogs’ do not generate large net revenues; they are still useful because they split overheads. More importantly, from a human resources standpoint, they help in maintaining employment potential. Occasionally marketers have to choose the hard option – bite the bullet as it were – and shed the ‘dogs’.

What does all this have to do with the politics? Well, political philosophies are like product lines and individual political leaders are like products. Remember, how the ‘India shining’ campaign turned out to be the undoing of the BJP in 2004. Not even its enemies predicted the BJP would lose the election. For the common man, prices were stable and inflation was under control. The era of licences and permits and scarcity was well and truly past. There was an abundance of never before choices in the marketplace. The sun was shining on a billowing economy; presaging increased employment generation. ‘God appeared to be in his heaven and all well with the world!’ Why then did the campaign bounce back? It is perhaps one of those marketing enigmas. The story is quite similar to that of brand Churchill who won the Second World War for Britain with his slogans, ‘All out for England’ and ‘V for victory’, who was then quietly shown the door by the British electorate!

As we advance to 2014, the Congress party wishes to launch brand Rahul. The teasers for brand Rahul have been in the air for far too long, that people wonder whether they would see the première at all. An elementary principle of brand management is that even the fattest advertising budgets or the slickest commercials will not be able to help a marketer if a brand does not have inherent strengths.

In 2008 Barack Obama rode to power on the flood tide of his oratory. One is yet to see Rahul delivering his ‘Gettysburg address’! From what little one has seen Rahul’s oratory does not exactly seem to set the Ganga on fire. In all these years since he came to represent the family fiefdom of Amethi in parliament, one has heard only one ‘Kalavathi’ speech from him and no other intervention, not even to ask a question!

Although according to his sycophants Rahul ostensibly represents youth in spite of his 43 years, he does not seem to inspire the youth brigade of the internet age with his profound wisdom. As students of Mumbai discomfited Barack Obama, their brethren in Patna and Ahmedabad made Rahul squirm. What is the vision he has for the youth of this country? How does he plan to educate and employ them? No one knows, for no one has heard him elaborate. The only solution his party comes up with in times of crises is offering freebies and proposals of reservations and more reservations.

Notwithstanding his pilgrimages to Dalit homes and second class suburban travel, his understanding of men and matters leaves much to be desired. (Gujarat is larger than the European Union!) One fine morning he decided to take up the cause of the victims of Bhatta-Parasul village whose lands were forcibly acquired by the UP state administration. Narrating the horrors he witnessed of people (presumably) killed and burnt, he informed the media that there were ‘70 feet of ashes’, whatever it meant!

If the piece in The Economist (Adams Robert. The Rahul problem. September 10, 2012) is anything to go by, even his biographer (Ramachandran, Aarthi. Decoding Rahul Gandhi) was hard put to paint a colourful portrait of him. AR says, ‘this is the moment for Congress to dare to think of something radical: of reorganizing itself on the basis of policies, ideas and a vision of how India should develop.’ According to his biographer (as cited in the article) Rahul wants to apply the principles of management he learnt from Toyota to modernise the Congress party’s youth organisation.

For brand Rahul the time has come to move from the quadrant of ‘problem children’: up, to the quadrant of ‘stars’ or down, to the quadrant of ‘dogs’, to be dropped eventually. As of now there is nothing to indicate that brand Rahul can become a ‘star’!

The ‘Naroda Patiya’ Judgement in context

2012-09-07T16:28:00.000+05:30

The August 29 judgement of Judge Jyotsna Yagnik in the Naroda Patiya massacre case is as unprecedented as the crime it seeks to adjudicate. It may or may not be the first time in independent India that sentences on several counts in a criminal case were ordered to be run consecutively. The usual practice in India unlike in the US is to order sentences to be run concurrently. That is why we have never heard such bizarre sentences as, for instance, ‘105 years in prison’ as we do from US courts. The judge also dispensed with the definition of ‘life’ imprisonment which in her own words was usually 14 years because she felt that it would be ‘grossly disproportionate and inadequate’. Be that as it may, in the present case, one of the key accused, Maya Kodnani, a BJP MLA was sentenced to 28 years in prison. This in effect means the middle aged Kodnani is unlikely to come out alive from prison. The judgment however mentions that ‘there is no evidence that she, in fact, has physically contributed commission of any offence’. She was punished more for her role in instigating the rioters and abetting the crime. Babu Bajrangi, another key accused was sentenced to life imprisonment with no remission permitted if one understands the judgment correctly. The judge felt that these were the minimum terms that would meet the ends of justice even while keeping in mind the agony the accused suffered with a sword hanging over their heads for ten and a half years. Nowhere in the judgement, which runs to about 2000 pages was there even a hint that links Narendra Modi to the violence.

The secular establishment shrugged off the sentences as their real target is not the 32 convicted, but Narendra Modi. For over ten years, he has been pilloried by the secular establishment, for what he had not done rather than (at least) acknowledging what he had done to contain the 2002 riots.

First, let us see what he had done:

He had had the army deployed in 48 hours. His police fired 10,000 rounds of bullets to quell the mobs. In the process some 77 Hindus and 93 Muslims were killed. 27,901 Hindus and 7,651 Muslims were arrested as a preventive measure. (According to some sources, the number of Hindus arrested was as high as 35,000.) The riots rendered 40,000 Hindus homeless, a fact which was not even whispered by the secular media. They were sheltered in relief camps for a long time alongside the Muslims uprooted from their homes. Finally, one has to keep in view that 254 Hindus were also killed in the riots along with 790 Muslims. Therefore the riots were not as one-sided as they are made out to be.

Let us see what would have satisfied the secular establishment:

1. The bodies of the 59 Hindus (more than half of whom were women and children) who were burnt to death should not have been brought to Ahmedabad to be handed over to their families. Would the secular establishment rather that they were buried in Godhra as orphans? Did they not deserve some consideration in death, of a decent cremation, when they were denied life? Should their kith and kin not be allowed to keen in grief and pay their last respects - to the unfortunate victims of a pernicious ideology, who had to die for no fault of theirs?

2. The police/army should have taken sterner action. It is difficult to comprehend this logic. What could the police or for that matter the army, could have done more? Should the police/army have shot everyone at sight and killed hundreds of people? Had the Gujarat Home Ministry given such an order would it have been obeyed? What would have happened if the police had disobeyed an order of the government? P. V. Narasimha Rao had faced a similar dilemma in 1992 at the time of the ‘Rama Janma Bhumi – Babri Masjid’ demolition. He too had been accused of not calling in the army to shoot the agitators at sight. (What else would he order the army to do?) In the end Narasimha Rao had decided that it would not do for the army to revolt. (This is according to an unimpeachable secular source!)

3. The courts should have worked faster and hanged everyone accused (especially the politicians including Narendra Modi), with the least possible delay. How could the Gujarat government have facilitated this? Why, by somehow rendering the defence of the accused in the courts, ineffective. In other words the state government should have obstructed the course of justice, and do to the Hindus what it has been, though falsely, been accused of doing to the Muslims.

However, a despicable aspect of the saga of (Naroda Patiya) was the conduct of the secular intelligentsia which circulated a story about a womb being ripped open and a foetus gouged out. Arundhati Roy concocted the story in her article in Outlook of May 4, 2002. It was not exactly calculated to bring about harmony between communities at a time when the atmosphere was still rife for another round of explosive violence.Thousands of people from both communities uprooted from homes were still living in camps. In view of the reputation of the 'source' the story was repeated without verification, thousands of times since. Human rights outfits of dubious reputation like New York's Human Rights Watch went to town with it.

Three postscripts with respect to the judgement deserve mention here:

1. This could also be a rare judgement in which the principle of secularism as defined in the Indian constitution was invoked in delivering judgement in a criminal case. (p. 1955)

2. The judge primarily relied on an ‘extra-judicial confession’ (her expression) of a key accused made in a ‘Sting Operation’ to convict him.

3. The judge also dispels the myth about a foetus being gouged out of a womb when a pregnant woman was killed. In her opinion only a trained gynaecologist or someone more experienced in such procedures could perform such an act. (p. 1686-89) The secular establishment perpetuated the myth unmindful or oblivious to the consequences of putting out such a story, especially during the early days of the riots when the atmosphere was palpably incendiary.

Facts are fluid – Comment is sacred!

2012-08-06T22:00:00.000+05:30

During the last couple of days, there has been a buzz on the social networking sites about a ‘prediction’ purportedly made by L. K. Advani of the 2014 general elections. The supporters of Congress gleefully quoted newspaper accounts of how he conceded defeat. While some Hindutwa trolls (isn’t anyone opposed to the self-styled secularists and their media megaphones a troll?) vented their anger on the hapless Advani in colourful language, unencumbered by the 140 character limit.

There is no need to repeat here C. P. Scott’s famous aphorism taught to every media person at the beginning of his/her career. Because they seem to forget it as soon as the teacher’s back is turned.

In a ‘word power made easy’ type of English language manual there is an exercise which urges the learner to rewrite a given passage ‘to give it an opposite meaning.’ The book advises the learner to assume that he is ‘editing a rival newspaper!’ If the learner suffers from any qualms about hurting truthfulness, it helpfully adds, ‘[n]ever mind the ethics. It is purely a technical exercise.’ As most of our rewrite artistes have practised such exercises much more avidly than they minded Scott’s aphorism they are adept at stripping sentences out of context and giving them the opposite meaning. Here is how four leading English newspapers reported Advaniji's comments:

The Times of India has led the pack of disinformation campaigners with this headline:

However, after screaming in bold font that ‘Advani conceded defeat’, the paper hedged its bets by attributing the quote to Congress and SP.

ToI’s competitive cousin Hindustan Times, ever a Congress loyalist did not bother with a retracting position but hollered:

However the paper ‘covered its backside’ by citing Advani’s narration in his blog, of a discussion he had with two senior Cabinet ministers at a dinner (from which the quote was ostensibly extracted not excerpted). HT obviously felt guilty about being disloyal to the Congress by being too truthful. Hence it slipped in this sentence: ‘[…] is likely to be seen as oblique admission that the NDA failed to surge ahead despite graft charges and civil society movements pushing the UPA on the back foot.’ And then it couldn’t resist the temptation of reminding its readers about Nitish Kumar’s objection to Narendra Modi being named the NDA’s prime-ministerial candidate.

The two Express cousins were a bit more charitable to Advani. The northern Express, which only a few months ago ‘set the Indian army on a collision course with the UPA government’, said:

The New Indian Express which was perhaps the least uncharitable had this headline:

What did Advani actually tell his followers in his blog? Firstly it is notable that he was speaking about Congress’ fate (not even prospects) in 2014 and certainly not about BJP’s. He titled his blog:

Advani titled his blog, ‘SPECULATIONS ABOUT CONGRESS’ FATE IN 2014’. He then described an informal chat he had with two senior Congress Cabinet Ministers at a dinner hosted by the Prime Minister a fortnight ago. The ministers, not Advani feared that ‘whenever the Lok Sabha elections take place, the government likely to take shape can be that of the Third Front.’ Further the ministers felt that ‘this [the formation of a Third Front government] would be extremely harmful not only for the stability of Indian politics but also national interests. While Advani did not share the pessimism of the two senior Cabinet Ministers, he told them that ‘[T]he shape which national polity has acquired in the past two and a half decades makes it practically impossible for any government to be formed in New Delhi which does not have the support of the Congress or the BJP. A third front government, therefore, can be ruled out.’ He further informed them that while a ‘non-Congress, non-BJP Prime Minister heading a government supported by one of these two principal parties is however feasible. This happened in the past also. But, as the Prime Ministership of Ch. Charan Singh, Chandrasekharji, Deve Gowdaji and Inder Kumarji Gujral (all supported by Congress) as also of Viswanath Pratap Singhji (supported by BJP) have shown, such governments have never lasted long. He felt the ‘current state of anxiety in the ruling establishment is quite understandable’ but it was due to the fact that ‘[u]nfortunately, the two Governments since 2004, UPA I and UPA II have been so badly mismanaged […]’

Surprisingly the four newspapers have quite conveniently or intentionally edited out Advaniji’s predictions with respect to the Congress party. For the blog was about the Congress’ fate in 2014, to begin with. Advani said that ‘People generally believe that for the Congress Party, the worst phase in so far as Lok Sabha results are concerned, were the post-Emergency election of 1977. It would not at all be surprising if the next Lok Sabha elections yield a result which for the Congress may prove the worst in its history since 1952.’

And then Advani delivered his punch line in bold font: ‘Soothsayers are not wanting who predict that it may be the first time when the Congress Party’s score sinks to just two digits, that is, less than one hundred!’

To support his prediction of Congress’ fate, Advani referred to the party’s miserable performance in Rae Bareilly and Amethi, in both the UP assembly elections and the more recent municipal corporation elections. Whether it was due to a Freudian slip, or Pavlovian conditioning owing to media hype, even a seasoned politician like Advani fell into the trap of referring to the dynasty as the ‘first family’!

As for BJP’s prospects (not fate) Advani has this to say: ‘So far as the BJP is concerned, the bungling in Karnataka notwithstanding, all recent public opinion surveys clearly reveal that the principal beneficiary of the Congress Party’s fast eroding reputation continues to be the BJP.’

When and where did Advani ‘concede defeat’ in all this or predict a ‘non-BJP, non-Congress’ candidate to become PM in 2014?

‘Secular’ Opposition to Narendra Modi as P M

2012-07-03T00:12:00.000+05:30

This is the second and concluding part of the series, ‘Narendra Modi as Prime Minister in 2014’.

The issue of secularism has been debated ad nauseam. There are those who wear their secularism on their sleeve. Some call themselves ‘secular fundamentalists’. It is the ultimate one can achieve in the ‘discipline of secularism’, a Ph. D. degree granted by the ‘University of Secularism’.

Even so a naïve a politician as Chiranjivi claimed his short-lived Praja Rajyam was a secular party. It is no disrespect to Chiranjivi, the man or the film-actor to say that he was politically naïve. It is because during his stint as head of his short-lived political party he exuded no leadership nor expounded on his socio-economic philosophy, if he had any. He jumped into the political fray because his numerically considerable social formation (for some inexplicable reason the word caste is taboo in the vernacular discourse!) egged on him to do so as it wished to wield power through him. And why not? If the Reddys have wielded power for long and the Kamms did so for a while in Andhra Pradesh, why should the Kapus who form the third largest social formation not do so? Chiranjivi attracted leaders from the left and the right, but the ideologically-fired leaders who flocked to him soon found out that his vaunted idealism was a chimera. They deserted him when they realised that far from any ideology, it was Chiranjivi’s family members who called the shots in the party.

Had he been given a third term, Chandrababu Naidu would have evolved into a charismatic leader. Although oratory was not his forte, he had a vision and was seen as a capable administrator.

The boss-man of the Telugu Desam party, who loved it when he was referred to as the CEO rather than the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, had a dream. It was, to establish an IIT at Basara, the home of a Saraswathi temple, one of six such temples in the country. There is nothing strange in this. Naidu may not be an overtly demonstrative Hindu but he is not an atheist. Every Hindu child is initiated into education with the invocation to Saraswathi:

Saraswathi Namastubhyam, Varade Kaamaroopini|

Vidyarambham Karishyami, Siddhir Bhavatu Mey Sada||

Even so, his Education Minister, Pratibha Bharathi walked out of a conference of state education ministers protesting against nothing sinister but something as innocuous as singing ‘Saraswathi Vandana’ at the inaugural of the three day conference. She also opposed the introduction of the Vedas and Upanishads in school curricula. (See Protests force HRD minister to withdraw controversial RSS paper on education) Like Naidu, Pratibha Bharathi too is not an atheist nor could she have walked out of the conference without his express instruction, going by the nature of the party’s functioning.

Every Ramadan season, Naidu may be seen hosting an Iftar dinner playing the gracious host, complete with skull cap. Why does a Hindu who has no qualms about going against the grain of his own religion, be so eager to be demonstrative of the practices of another religion? It may be a contradiction in terms but it precisely defines the nature of Indian secularism: the calculus of electoral politics.

Even a term in political wilderness does things to politicians. Two terms is one too many. A prisoner who undergoes a long prison term is not the same person when he comes out. The long stint in prison does something to the psyche. Similarly the psyche of a politician who is in political wilderness for long also undergoes psychological change. The politician is not the same person as before. It is all the more difficult for a politician who had wielded power before. The hunger for power is such that, cherished principles would appear as impediments. After two terms out of power this was what happened to Naidu.

First, he forgot the raison d’etre of his party. His father-in-law, the late N. T. Rama Rao founded it on the plank of Telugu pride in contradistinction to the Congress which he said had ‘sold the self-respect of the Telugu people in the streets of Delhi’.

Second, Naidu forgot that in 1999 when he had sought re-election, it was his alliance with the BJP-led NDA that saw him coast to victory. One should remember that at the time Naidu had not yet demonstrated his administrative skills, for he was in power for too short a period. On the other hand, he had to fight the stigma ‘of stabbing his father-in-law in the back’ for usurping power. He now attributes his loss in 2004 to his alliance with the NDA. He lost in 2009 too although he did not have an explicit alliance with the NDA. If he refuses to align with it in 2014 as he steadfastly refuses to do - as of now – he would be willy-nilly handing victory to the Congress.

In 2004, the NDA lost due to a number of factors, one of which could be the communal stigma attached to it after Gujarat 2002. Or it could be because of the perceived insensitivity of the ‘India shining’ campaign. In either case the margin of difference between the Congress and the BJP, leaders of the two formations was just 7 seats. It is true the Congress improved its tally to cross the 200 mark in 2009. Congress’ stunning performance could be at least in part due to Naidu’s inability to regain lost ground. Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy repeated his 2004 performance of sending 33 MPs to the Lok Sbaha.

It was not the perceived communalism of the NDA that was Naidu’s undoing in 2004 but another kind of leadership offered by his bete noir YSR. YSR offered a sop for every numerically strong group of supporters in the state. His profligacy depleted the state’s coffers but it was his hapless successors that were left holding the baby. Another factor that some analysts believe has gone against Chandrababu Naidu was his attempt to discipline the state’s 9,46,000 government employees (see AP Factfile - Employee Census), who with their families formed a formidable block that voted against his party.

The elusive third front is of course every non-Congress, non-BJP politician’s dream. Who knows ‘he / she’ might be the ‘chosen monkey that arbiters between the two cats’? In the absence of such a possibility, Naidu cannot but support BJP for no other reason than his political survival. He simply cannot allow a Congress government to come back to power. The shrewd Naidu is not unaware of these facts in spite of his ‘secular’ posturing for public consumption. In neighbouring Tamil Nadu, both the DMK and the AIADMK have done business with the BJP-led NDA in the past. For them their state’s interest comes first; ‘secularism’ is a slogan.

As in Andhra Pradesh (whether it goes to the hustings as one state or two is anybody’s guess), in Maharashtra too a change of guard could be expected after two successive terms of the Congress-led coalition and all the scams and sandals that riddled it. That brings us to the three large states (those excepting the BJP-ruled states like Chattishgarh, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh), with large Muslim populations. They are Bengal (why do we persist with ‘West’ when there is only one Bengal in India?), Bihar and UP. BJP does not have a presence in Bengal nor does it expect to significantly improve it in the immediate future. In UP, the BJP may not have done well in the recent assembly polls but is likely to make significant gains in the national election. For one thing, electorates are generally able to discern between state and national elections. Second, with both the SP and the BSP having pandered to ‘minority vote-banks’ (for far too long), it may not be unreasonable to expect a Hindu backlash.

The same dynamics that apply to Chandrababu Naidu apply to Nitish Kumar too. He might do all the huffing and hawing but in the end, will not be able to do business with the Congress for fear of erosion of his vote bank; the target vote-bank being the same for both the parties. In the case of Mamata Banerjee, she has to contend with two enemies at the state level: the Communists and the Congress. If she leaves her flank unguarded, either of them might usurp her electoral space.

That brings us to the question as to who would lead the NDA. It would be naive to expect the dominant party in a coalition would allow a smaller partner to head the government, irrespective of whether or not Nitish Kumar harbours any such ambitions. If the BJP will be able to retain its current tally and make incremental gains in states like Maharashtra and UP as it most likely will, and acquire a critical mass of about 200 seats then the allies may not be in a position to dictate who its leader should be.