POLITICAL DIARY

NEW DELHI, 11 August 2007

Democracy, Did I Hear Right

……AND WE CALL OURSELVES INDEPENDENT!

By Poonam I Kaushish

Roll out the drums. Uncork the champagne. Independent India will be 60 tomorrow. Why the deafening silence. Where is all the patriotism? The self esteem? The satisfaction of being free and independent? All has evaporated into thin air. Leaving in its wake, a disparate India searching for her soul under the onslaught of immorality, criminalization, caste and creed divide. That dear countrymen, is what 15 August boils down to.

As the Tri-colour flutters aloft from the historic  ramparts of Delhi’s Red Fort and various State Capitals, standing testimony to an end of British ghulami, more and more people are wondering whether the fight for freedom was worth it. Not a few feel we were better off under the Raj. Come of it, things aren’t all that bad. Tragically, they are worse, a lot worse. A travesty of democracy and freedom. Sharp and continuing all-round decline, where things have hit rock bottom. Politically. Administratively. Socially et al. Every which way.

Since everything begins and ends with our polity, the way it is conducting itself we might as well sound the bugle for the beginning of the end. Tellingly encapsulated by outgoing President Kalam, who lashed out at India’s “decision makers with small minds” and deeply grieved over the “shortage of leadership with nobility.” India’s sixtieth year will be remembered not for the fact that we have the first woman Rashtrapati but for how these ‘small minds’ willy nilly succeeded in doing grave injustice to India. Denigrating and destroying the sanctity of the highest bastion of our parliamentary democracy: the President’s office.

The poll dragged the office of the President into an unprecedented cesspool of politics, petty politics, unimaginable till the other day. Replete with shameful games of conmanship and one-upmamship, charges and counter-charges of corruption, court cases, SMS, websites were played out on the political chessboard. More. It was marked by open defiance, abstentions -- individually and group-wise, cross-voting and last minute U-turns. Making one wonder, is the Presidential office sabzi-bhaaji that one buys off the rehriwala on the streets?

What should one say of the UPA Government which boasts of an honest Prime Minister who heads India’s most dishonest Government. For the first time in history, a Union Cabinet Minister is behind bars for allegedly murdering his private secretary, another forced to resign in the Volcker-probed oil-for-food scam. Five tainted Ministers still adorn the Treasury Benches in Parliament. Our Right Honourables have merrily converted offices of public services into playgrounds of private profit and brazenly justify their wrongs as in public interest. What to say of the innumerable criminal netas who strut about in the corridors of power as MLAs and MPs in their ‘bullet-proof’ jackets.

Scams, cash on camera deals have become so routine they no longer shock. Brushed aside as perks of various offices. Even a ration card for a below-poverty line family comes for a price. But that is no guarantee for foodgrains, which are sold in the open market. Nobody has time or the inclination to understand why farmers continue to commit suicide, despite doles by the Prime Minister. Certainly, the aam aadmi had not voted for this.

Against the backdrop of such leadership, any wonder that casualness and indifference has become the touchstone of our culture and attitude. For the last 60 years, real politik is being repeatedly recycled. Like a yo-yo. With its ups and downs. Held together by the nebulous string called democracy. Never mind if in the process it exposes the corruption, adulteration, warts and the ever-increasing rot within. Which our leaders call governance! Exposing how disconnected our rulers are with the reality of Bharat.

Think. What is agitating the people? Terrorism in 15 states, instant killings, price rise, floods and farmer’s suicides. Sadly, our leaders are immune to the cries of distress. Content only in making appropriate noises, expressing hollow concerns but offering no solutions to end the agony. Today, the entire country is inundated by floods. Thousands have died, lakhs have been rendered homeless and property worth crores lost. But it’s like water off a duck’s back. Our leaders go through the disgusting political circus, ritually flood, aerial surveys and relief. All lament the deaths. But the screams of the suffering get gagged by ambitions of the netas.

Does anyone really care?  Not at all. It has never occurred to our polity to donate even a token one day’s salary to show their solidarity with the homeless. Tragically, exposing the political and administrative callousness towards human life. India’s millions, now a billion, don’t seem to count for much apart from a sterile statistic.

It is all about political survival. Their hierarchy of status gauged by the gun-totting commandos around them. Funny isn’t it that our leaders need strong protection from the janata they are supposed to represent and serve. Looking for genuine leaders is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Ask them about the nation. What nation, they ask?

To make matter worse, they are recklessly fragmentising society. Caste and religion are the new bywords to electoral power. And minoritysim and reservation are the flavours of the season. Where people are being compartmentalized for sacrifice at the alter of votes in the name of social upliftment. With our netagan merrily converting positive affirmation into vote percentage.

Rechristened as “humanism”, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently asserted: “A commitment to equity is not appeasement. It is a mark of one’s commitment to humanism.”  His humanism was evident at its emotive best when he spent a sleepless night after watching on TV the mothers of the two Indians behind the Glasgow terrorist attack. And warned against labelling or branding a religion or people.

Unfortunately, secularism has been carried to such absurd limits that the singing of the historic national song Vande Mataram turned behsura in the hands of our political drumbeaters. Recall, when the Government passed an order making its singing in schools compulsory, the Muslims clerics opposed it on the ground that it was anti-Islamic. Clearly, a day is not far when Mahatma Gandhi’s call for establishing Ram Rajya will be dissected and debunked as the outpourings of a rabid Hindu fundamentalist. This, dear reader is the secular reality of India’s “420 secularism”.

Less said the better about equality for all. Jobs, doles, subsidies even bank loans are now going to be given according to our surnames and the religion we practice. Whatever happened to merit and excellence? What happened to the PM’s much-touted Knowledge Commission? What about enforcing humanism in regard to the vast majority of poor for whom roti exists only in the neon lights of McDonalds. Who should they turn to for succur? Where should they go? 

Yet for our polity, India is Incredible! Economically speaking, our cash tellers are overflowing. Multinationals are wooing everything Indian as never before. India is the flavour and toast globally. Indian tycoons are the new international takeover kings. The 200 million rich and powerful exult in the luxury of Brand Reel India. But what about Brand Asli Bharat? The remaining 800 million poor and hungry stomachs who satiate their hunger by feeding on glib promises of a better tomorrow doled out by our netagan that mock their poverty.

Shockingly, one third of our population, namely 394.9 million, lives on just Rs 20 a day or Rs 600 a month. Not only that. A staggering 86 per cent of India’s working population is in the unorganized sector without any security cover.  These scandalous facts have been compiled in a report by Arjun Sengupta’s National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector.

Worse, nearly 44 million children aged 5-14 years are engaged in economic activities and domestic and non-remunerative work. Another 74 million children are neither enrolled in schools nor accounted in the labour force and come under the category of ‘Nowhere Children’. And yet we talk of a good deal for Gen Next? Mera Bharat is indeed Mahan!

Tragically, nobody has time for the common man’s growing disillusionment with the system which explodes in rage. Turn to any mohalla, district, or state in the country, the story is mournfully the same. Resulting in more and more people taking law into their own hands. Borne out by the increasing chakka jams, rioting, looting and burning of buses. Capital Delhi is replete with gory tales of road rage resulting in murders. The system has become so sick that women today are being raped in crowded compartments of running trains with co-passengers as mute spectators. Sporadically converting the country into an Andher Nagri.

At present reckoning India may well remain indefinitely trapped in its divisive rhetoric. It is time for the country to re-think its strategies and approach to the future. A time to recall Ambedkar’s masterly speech on the concluding day of the Constituent Assembly. He pointedly posed a question for the future generations: “Will India lose its independence a second time, through infidelity and treachery of her own people? Will the Indians place the country above their creed or will they place creed above the country? What would happen to her democratic Constitution? Will she be able to maintain it or will she lose it again?” Much-needed food for thought on the day India turns 60! ------ INFA

(Copyright India News and Feature Alliance)

Disaster Management

WHAT, NEVER HEARD OF IT?

By Poonam I Kaushish

Ok, fellow countrymen, it is once again the season to curse all you want. The rain Gods for nature’s fury. The weatherman for getting his predictions all wrong. Our over-worked doctors and overflowing hospitals grappling with disease and death. Our good-for-nothing polity for multiplying our piling miseries. Alas, if only curses could put an end to our miseries one would have no regrets. But year after year, our annoyance falls on deaf ears. Whoever said when it rains miseries, it pours, was dead on!

Take the on-going flood fury which has engulfed the entire country. Andhra, Assam, West Bengal, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Orissa, Karnataka, Bihar and elsewhere are all submerged under the deluge of torrential rain. Raising a moot point. What do people do when confronted with three choices to survive floods? One, die in water? Two, die without water? Three, die after drinking contaminated water? Most opt for the third and suffer. And if they face drought then too they have three options.  One, die of hunger. Two, commit suicide. Three, eat insects, snakes and suffer. This is our India.

Indeed, what’s the big deal? Kahein baarh, kahein sookha. It’s an annual feature. Thousands die, lakhs are rendered homeless and property worth crores is lost. Millions of words have been written on drought and floods and millions more will continue to be written. But it’s like water off a duck’s back. Everyone goes through the stereotype motions---drought, famine, flood and relief---words which are freely bandied about. Appropriate noises, hollow concerns and instant remedies are made at crises time only to be dismissed as a bad dream post crises.

As the people grapple with floods in several States, our netas go through the ritual political circus. All lament the deaths. But their screams are gagged by their ambitions. The Prime Minister makes an aerial survey. The Government sets up a crisis management team. The State Government seeks Central relief. Babudom analyses the flood situation and its aftermath over official lunches and dinners!  Rations are air dropped. So what if half land in water and the remaining spark off food riot and killings. Everyone is satisfied that they have done their bit for the nation.

But the basic question is: does anyone really care?  Not at all. Everything is kaam chalao! Busy as they all are enlarging their respective “relief empires” and pointing accusing fingers at each other. Their ideas and remedies as water logged and diseased as the flood under discussion. Tragically, exposing the political and administrative callousness towards human life. India’s millions, now a billion, don’t seem to count for much apart from a sterile statistic.

Even a cursory glance at the Parliamentary Standing Committee Report on Rural Development, especially housing, is revealing. It is a shocking indictment of our disaster management preparedness. Incredibly enough, over 67.4 per cent area of the country is vulnerable to natural disasters like cyclonic winds, storms and floods. Yet the Government’s approach is one of criminal casualness.

The Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) is a case in point. Its guidelines clearly state that houses should not be located in the disaster prone areas and that the beneficiaries should  construct houses on land available to them. Whenever, land is not available to them, the State Governments are required to provide land in such places which are not disaster prone. Since barely 33 per cent of such land is available, the only way the Government can provide safe havens is by giving them disaster-proof technology. The Committee is appalled that the onus of using this technology has been shifted from the State Government to the beneficiaries!

Further, it points out that the guidelines do not address the disaster issues in the right way. Thus, it insists:  make use of disaster-proof technology “compulsory,” like HUDCO does for houses constructed with its assistance. At the same time, it makes a note of the lack of awareness among masses, especially the rural poor about this technology. It recommends “awareness drives” by HUDCO with the State Governments, local bodies, housing boards etc.

Sadly, why can’t the powers-that-be implement such basic suggestions? Why do they not develop a long-term response to floods, which is an annual predictable crisis?  Why is it that every State Government only reacts after people and cattle have either lost their lives migrated? See the absurdity—food grains and fodder arrive at their destination days after the calamity has struck, thanks to cumbersome bureaucratic procedure. What about the rations which are swept away in the flood waters? Who will be held accountable? And which head will roll?

Moreover, why do politicians feel that mere sanctioning of hundreds of crores will solve the problem? Little do they realize that funds doled out from the Calamity Relief Fund instead of helping the people, are used by most State Governments for purposes other than disaster management. Alarmingly, there is no effective coordination between various rural development programmes.  The Agriculture and Water Resources Ministries work in opposite directions. Each Minister and his babus guard their fiefdom with zealousness. Let alone coordination, every silly information is shrouded in secrecy. Shockingly, in a nation natured on short cuts and quick-fix solutions, none is willing to learn the ABC of disaster management or finding lasting solutions.  It’s not that they have to look far.

Various measures have been mooted since Independence only to be put in the deep freeze. Simply because they don’t translate into votes or add to the polity’s coffers. How many are aware that in 1947 when there was the task of constructing the Bhakra-Nangal Dam, another project for river Kosi was also mooted. In 1950 it was finalized only to be revised in 1953 and divided into two parts. One, construction of a multi-purpose high-level dam. Two, change the course of the river by raising the embankment on both sides to prevent over-flooding. Since then it continues to gather dust in some obscure corner of the Government’s corridors.

Yet another project prepared way back in 1957 never saw the light of day. It was to construct a high dam on the catchment area on Nepal’s side to ensure that the waters of Kamala River did not flood north Bihar and the adjoining areas. Since many Himalayan rivers in the flood-prone areas originated from China, Nepal and Bhutan, New Delhi should have at least worked out adequate water management arrangements with these countries in the event of rivers overflowing. Yet this was not done. In fact, had the Centre taken timely measures, we would not only would we have had no flood miseries, but would also have created enough hydel power to meet the country’s requirement.

Importantly, words like preparedness, mitigation and rehabilitation do not exist in our netagans dictionary. Preparedness entails focusing on the most vulnerable areas, educating the people how to handle a flood, setting up an effective communication network and carrying out a safety drill from time to time. Mitigation involves construction of safe shelters and houses to reduce the effect of the impeding disaster. Moreover, villagers should be made to undergo training at the village centres about safe building procedures. Rehabilitation work entails replacing implements and tools of the artisan and workers to carry on with their life post-disaster.

It is high time our netagan pull up their bootstraps. They need to focus on long-term rather than short-term planning and shed their passion to pander to vote-banks. You need neither a bleeding heart nor blindness to know what should be done. Decisive indecisiveness will not do. It only holds out promises of more misery, more wrenching news bulletins and more cries for the Government to act. The time is far gone for the Government to play the pied piper. And aver, disaster management never heard of it. ---- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

POLITICAL DIARY

NEW DELHI, 27 July 2007

Small Is Beautiful

STOKING SEPARATIST TENDENCIES

By Poonam I Kaushish

How big is big? When does big become small? Does beautiful small make big ugly? Will small fetch better dividends than big? Or vice-versa? Confused? Don’t be. At least not when we are talking about our polity and their vote-bank shenanigans. The latest brainwave to emerge from the political stable is to once again carve big States into small. Obviously, the bigness and smallness of a State has everything to do with massaging the polity’s vote-banks and improving their winability quotient!

Trust the Congress, hurting after its electoral massacre in the UP Assembly poll last May, to reignite the flames of ‘separatist tendencies’ by talking of redrawing the contours of the sprawling State. In the hope that UP carved into smaller units will fetch the Party big political dividends. Camouflaged as imperative for “political stability” in the country (read Party), it has mooted the idea of setting up another States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) to explore the formation of new States. No matter that till its electoral rout in UP, the Party opposed tooth and nail the creation of small States. It even let the Telengana Rashtriya Samiti quit the UPA alliance.

Needless to say, this out-of-the-blue decision to appoint another SRC has opened a Pandora’s Box on the demand for statehood from every nook and cranny of the country. Already, over 10 new entrants are rearing to go. It remains to be seen whether the Congress-led UPA Government will come out smelling of roses or reek of rotten eggs. That the task is tough can be gauged from the fact the issue is both emotive and politically sensitive, against the backdrop of many regions and sub-regions aspiring to be full-fledged States.

Besides Telengana in Andhra Pradesh and Vidarbha in Maharashtra, there is demand for Harit Pradesh out of Western UP, Bundelkhand and Purvanchal out of south-eastern UP, Gondwana from portions of Chhattisgarh, Andhra and Madhya Pradesh, Kodagu in Karnataka’s coffee belt, Bodoland from Assam, Ladakh from Kashmir, Garoland from Meghalaya, Mithilanchal from North Bihar and Gorkhaland in West Bengal. With the state party units divided in Telengana and Vidarbha it would be politically wise to push for reorganisation of the two States. This would force smaller parties align with it.

Nobody can deny that a few States in India are much too large and unwieldy for efficient governance. It takes nearly two days to get to Jhansi from Lucknow by road! Obviously, administrative efficiency is the first casualty. Recent experience shows that smaller States are able to meet the rising expectations and aspirations of their people for speedy development and a responsive and effective administration. Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and, earlier, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh are cases in point. Haryana, a barren backyard of united Punjab largely comprising illiterate jats, was carved out of a prosperous Punjab after a long and patient struggle. So also Himachal. Ditto Uttarakhand from UP, Jharkhand from Bihar and Chhattisgarh from Madhya Pradesh. Today, all are shining examples of “small is beautiful”.

However, protagonists of bigger States disagree. What guarantee, they ask, is there that this will end internal fissures. Make the rivers flow smoothly from one State to another. (Look at the ugly riparian fight between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.) Bring about a synthesis between the haves and the have-nots. A linguistic and cultural affinity. Clinching their arguments by asserting that India is not ready yet for a fresh redrawing of its political and economic map. Further reinforcing that if smaller incisions have to be made as in the USA, then the body politic of India would need to be wholly restructured on that pattern. s

In addition, it could well encourage fissiparous tendencies, ultimately leading to India’s balkanization and stoke the sub-terranean smouldering fires of disputes over borders--- and cities. Both Haryana and Punjab still want Chandigarh. Orissa demands the return of Saraikala and Kharsuan. Nagaland still wants to cut into large chunks of Manipur and certain forest areas of Assam. Bihar yearns desperately for the mineral-rich districts of Jharkhand.

Will not a further partition of the existing States result in an India that would fit Jinnah’s classical description of Pakistan as being “truncated and moth-eaten”? The only purpose it will serve will be to whet regional and separatist appetites, as it happened at the time of the first SRC in the mid-fifties? The very “blackhole” that our past leaders were ever eager to avoid.

The Congress manifesto of 1945-46, no doubt, stridently assured the people that provinces would be restructured on a linguistic and cultural basis. However, the priorities underwent a perceptible change following India’s partition. Speaking before the Constituent Assembly on 27 November 1947, Prime Minister Nehru pleaded: “First things must come first, and the first thing is the security and stability of India.” And, India’s ‘Iron Man’, Sardar Patel, embarked upon his mighty effort to integrate and unite India. More than 560 princely States were merged with the rest of India peacefully without any loss of time---lest India should be broken up into hundreds of smaller States. This was followed by the appointment of the Dar Commission to enquire into and report on the desirability or otherwise of creating any more provinces.

Interestingly, the Dar Commission recommended that no new provinces should be created. India, it said, was burdened with problems more urgent than the problem of redistribution of provinces. Such as defence, food, refugees, inflation and production. Grounds which more than hold true today. Secondly, the country could not afford to add to its anxieties---the heat, controversy and bitterness which the demarcation of boundaries would involve. Lastly, the economic consequences of splitting up existing provinces into several new provinces.

This led to the Congress appointing another Committee, the JVP—Jawaharlal (Nehru), Vallabhbhai (Patel) and Pattabhi (Sitaramayya). The JVP concurred with Dar’s views that reorganisation would divert attention from more vital matters and retard the process of consolidation of the nation’s gains. However, to appease their political supporters, a significant rider was added: “If public sentiment was insistent and overwhelming, the practicability of satisfying public demands with its implications and consequences must be examined.” An innocuously-worded political corollary for which we are having to continue paying a heavy price.

In turn, this resulted in the setting up of the States Reorganisation Commission in December 1953, headed by Justice Fazl Ali, retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. It made its recommendation in September 1955. Whereby the component units of the Indian Union would consist of two categories---“States forming primary federation units of the Indian Union and territories which are centrally administered.”

It recommended the continuance of Hyderabad as a composite State comprising Urdu, Telugu, Marathi and Oriya speaking areas. However, Nehru developed cold feet against the backdrop of a violent agitation for Andhra Pradesh (as “Telugu Desam”) and the self immolation of Potti Sriramulu. He went over All India Radio and, to the shock and surprise of his senior Congress colleagues, expressed “surprise” over the recommendation.

Regional leaders like Charan Singh promptly took advantage of Nehru’s statement and started demanding the liberation of smaller colonies from the ruling classes. Union Home Minister Pant, eager to ensure the clout his State of undivided UP wielded in national affairs, countered the demand for smaller States by talking of zonal States. In fact, he went on shrewdly to turn the tables on those loudly demanding smaller States by cautioning against India’s break-up into hundreds of smaller States. Did the country want to reverse the historic integration brought about by the Sardar?

Typical of India’s political culture, the first SRC and the creation of new States left in its wake more controversies than it sorted out. Assam got carved out into four units, beginning with the promotion of a solitary Naga district into a full-fledged State of Nagaland without much thought to its consequences. Logically, if one district could initially be made Nagaland and another Mizoram, what was the logic to hold back Telengana or Vidarbha? The tragic irony of history is that successive Prime Ministers bought peace at the cost of strong integrated India by carving out new jagirs for acquiring “new chelas” and assured vote banks. Lest history books omitted their “contribution” in the building of a new India.

The controversies and demands generated then continue till date. Unfortunately for the Centre, its policy of going populist time and again and opting for quick-fix remedies has boomeranged. What, one might ask, is the alternative? Statesmanship and sagacity lie in adopting the middle path. The UPA Government should not set up another SRC just to win votes. It needs to learn from the mistakes of the recently carved small States, diagnose the disease afresh and hammer out solutions for better governance. Much can be achieved through meaningful decentralization of administration in these days of computerization, without adding to the cost of governance through top-heavy ministerial baggage.

Let us not allow politicians of all hues to create new pocket boroughs motivated by petty personal interests, undermining national unity. India has just entered its 60th year of Independence with 27 States, a testimony to a free and vibrant democracy. Are we now going to roll back history to pre-Independence days and create 562 States? Let not history record what Conrad Egbert once brilliantly stated: We learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history! ---- INFA

(Copyright India News and Feature Alliance)

POLITICAL DIARY

New Delhi, 14 July 2007

Leaders With Small Minds

LOOKING FOR GIANTS AMONG PYGMIES

By Poonam I Kaushish

Kudos galore to Kalam, our outgoing President for his courage and commitment to India’s well being. For speaking out loud and clear his apolitical and brutally honest observations on our polity. An insider’s view about our top leaders across the board with whom he has inter-acted closely over the last five years of his Presidency. Speaking at the launch of computerization of courts last week in New Delhi, he lashed out at India’s “decision makers with small minds” and deeply grieved over the “shortage of leadership with nobility.” Candidly, the first citizen of our country not only underscored the popular perception of our polity among the people but also gave it the Presidential seal of approval!

Mercifully, his speech was not wholly a distressing dirge. At the same time, Kalam paid glowing tribute to the judiciary in the presence of the Chief Justice of India and the Union Law Minister and asserted: “Our Society is going through a unique dynamics due to the shortage of leadership with nobility. The only hope the nation cherishes and looks to is the judiciary with its excellence and impeccable integrity. We should do everything to make the judicial system succeed. It is said that a nation fails not because of economic progress but because of an increase in decision makers with small minds.”

How have our netagan reacted to this bombshell from the Rashtrapati? Tragically, their response has only confirmed Kalam’s charge of decision makers with small minds and leaders lacking nobility. Instead of sitting up and taking note of the President’s anguish, a majority of our leaders have chosen to completely ignore his torment. Not a few have passed snide comments that the Rashtrapati’s words were a classic case of sour grapes for being denied a second term. Others have rested their case on having to pay the price for getting an ‘outsider’ as the President. Notwithstanding the fact, that it is this ‘outsider’ who has restored glory to the Presidency, endeared himself to the masses and converted the Rashtrapati Bhavan into the People’s Bhavan.

True, it can be argued that we have grown accustomed to a petty self-serving polity, which thinks only of me, mine and myself. Of a political landscape dotted with politico-criminals in their “bullet-proof jackets” ---- MPs and MLAs tag replete with scams and scandals unlimited. Of tainted ministers who continue in office without any sense of shame, of our Right Honourables who have merrily converted offices of public services into private profit and justify their wrongs as in public interest. Failing to realize the disconnect between the jan sevak and the janata.

However, this time round what greatly troubles one is that these ‘small minds’ have willy nilly succeeded in denigrating and destroying the sanctity of the bastion of our parliamentary democracy: the President’s office. The on-going shenanigans over the messy selection and election of Kalam’s successor, ignoring established procedures and precedents, are proof enough. Replete as it is with petty games of conmanship and one-upmamship, charges and counter-charges of corruption, court cases, SMS, websites et al played out on the political chessboard.

Brushing aside the people’s clamour for ‘apolitical’ Kalam, the Congress-led UPA is all set to foist Rajasthan Governor Pratibha Patil, its sixth choice, in Rashtrapati Bhavan. Her USP? Unwavering loyalty to the Nehru dynasty and 10 Janpath. Worse, the poll is characterized by an unprincipalled democracy of concessions and political quid pro quo. We pick the President and you select the Vice-President, coos Sonia Gandhi to her Left comrades. Not to be outdone, the BJP-led NDA is desperately trying to work out its own quid pro quo with the 9-party UNPA on Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. Is the Presidential office sabzi-bhaaji that one buys off the rehriwala on the streets?

Sadly, if only our people had heeded Mahatma Gandhi’s first warning of our polity going awry. Durga Das records in his seminal memoirs, India from Curzon to Nehru and After: “Gandhi was deeply concerned about the rot that set into the Congress Party following Independence. He had received information that some Congress legislators were taking money from businessmen to get them licences, that they were indulging in black-marketing and subverting the judiciary and intimidating top officials to secure transfers and promotions for their protégés in the administration.” He, thereupon, proposed that all Congress candidates for Parliament and the provincial legislatures be screened and certified for integrity and selfless spirit of service by a Committee of leading freedom fighters of absolute probity.

Regrettably, his proposal was not accepted. “Gandhi thereupon felt more isolated than ever from the men who claimed to follow him and practice his precepts. He felt like one exploited by his comrades for their political ends and therefore hit on another revolutionary plan. The Congress must dissolve and a Lok Seva Sangh (Servants of the People Society) take its place. He drew up a constitution for the Sangh and decided to place it before the Congress overlords. But the assassin’s bullet ended Gandhi’s life with two tasks to which he had dedicated himself remaining unfinished. He could neither restore peace and goodwill between India and Pakistan nor could he purge Indian politics of its corrupting influences.”

Most unfortunately, the decline accelerated during the latter half of Nehru’s rule. Sharp differences arose between Nehru and Rajendra Prasad over the powers of the President and his freedom to speak up for the country and its people. (More about this another day) Rajen Babu, as he was popularly called, was crystal clear that the President would have justification for public expressions of presidential disapproval in case a Ministry was mismanaging the affairs. Leading Rajen Babu to meaningfully remind Nehru and his Ministers time and again of the old Sanskrit saying: Yatha Raja tatha Praja. But the leadership was not willing to mend its ways. Instead, it added to the rot without any qualms. There was no Gandhi to whom Nehru and others were answerable.

In fact, President Radhakrishanan went by Rajen Babu’s view and eloquently spotlighted the serious decline in public standards of morality, honesty and integrity and warned of the pitfalls ahead. Addressing the nation on the eve of the Republic Day in 1967 (which Congressmen described as a parting kick) he said: “The feeling should not be encouraged that no change can be brought about, except by violent disorders. We make the prospect of revolution inescapable by acquiescing in such conduct. As dishonesty creeps into every side of public life, we should beware and bring about suitable alternations in our life.”

It has been a steady downhill thereafter. The Mahatma had a genius for building great leaders. In sharp contrast, Nehru believed in lopping off the tall poppies, as reflected in the infamous Kamraj Plan. Nehru’s daughter Indira, who lacked grassroots experience and support, not only followed in her father’s footsteps but went a step further. She chose to control the Congress from New Delhi by converting it into an organization of ‘yes men’ who owed loyalty only to her and her alone. The sole criteria being sycophancy. Thus small and petty leaders were handpicked by her and propelled on to the centrestage. Her son Rajiv carried the family banner forward and now daughter-in-law Sonia has perfected sycophancy and loyalty into Brand Congress.

India today once again stands at the crossroads of destiny. The time has come for its masses and, more especially, its silent majority to think beyond the country’s petty power-at-all-cost polity, throw out the scoundrels and look at the perilous implications for the unity, integrity and the future of the country. A people, no doubt, get the leaders and the Government they deserve. But, at the end of the day, are we going to mortgage our conscience to ‘small minds’? Are we going to allow leaders without nobility to recklessly play havoc with India’s future?  The moot point: How long are we going to continue to look for giants among the pygmies and allow the later to ride-roughshod over us? Time to stand up and be counted. Time also for another Gandhi! ---- INFA

(Copyright India News and Feature Alliance)