POLITICAL DIARY

New Delhi, 22 September 2007

System Under Attack

SLOW ADMINISTRATIVE COLLAPSE

By Poonam I Kaushish

India’s much-maligned and decrepit “administrative system” is in the throes of two political crises. One, precipitated by the Indo-US ‘nuclear’ tug-of-war between the Congress-led UPA Government and the Left. Two, triggered by the faith vs  myth war of words on the Ram Setu between the Saffron Parivar, DMK and the Congress. At stake is the silly chair called India Raj. No matter that both the crisis may end up driving one more nail in the coffin of India’s decaying democratic system and the rule of law.

Sadly, in this acerbic warring, the delicate balance between Parliament, the Executive and the Judiciary has been disturbed. If yesterday we were busy shedding tears over the withering of Parliament, today we should be preparing to weep for our increasingly debased Executive. Not only have the powers-that-be become all powerful, causing grave concern all round, but their feudal ad hocism and rule by law has become the bane of our democratic set up.

Uttar Pradesh or should one say Ulta Pradesh, today represents the ugly truism of India’s executive and administrative system gone horribly wrong. Chief Minister Mayawati’s melodramatic sacking of over 10,000 policemen recruited during the erstwhile Mulayam Singh rule is symptomatic of the rot that is afflicting the Executive today and how it is spreading thick and fast.

Mayawati’s excuse for the mass cancellation is that the recruitment was done without proper selection and purely on the basis of caste and creed ---- Yadavs, Muslims and Thakurs. The issue is not whether Mayawati was justified in taking the action she did. Nor is it about her action smacking of vendetta against her bete noir Mulayam Singh.

Either way, in this termination nautanki the hapless aam aadmi and his ilk have got screwed.  What was their fault? That they believed in their mai-baap Sarkar? Sincerely went through the recruitment drill. Even paid hefty bribes, which they could ill afford, to the babu to do his job for which he gets his salary. Swore by scraps of papers confirming their appointment as policemen. Raising the point: Who should bear the cross?

Obviously, the Executive comprising the political masters and the bureaucracy. Remember, this is not the first time that allegations of misdemeanour have been levelled by a new Chief Minister against his of her predecessor. Should not the Chief Minister have first taken strong action against the officials who comprised the recruitment board? Instead of cancelling the appointments en masse? Merely, suspending a few officials, who will be reinstated later is not good enough.

This incident has once again brought us face to face with one ugly truth. The politician and the bureaucrat are both hand in glove and working in tandem to mutual advantage. Why blame Mayawati? It is a given that with every change of political guard, babudom goes through an upheaval of transfers. Wherein powerful and lucrative slots are given to the chamchas.

In this scenario, a majority of babudom is more than happy in going along merrily with their political bosses. This enables them not only to secure speedy promotions without any regard to seniority or merit but also join the politician in looting the country. Rooted in the firm belief that, like their masters, they too are a law unto themselves.  Bringing matters to a pass where caste, corruption and chamchagiri alone count.

Over the years, officials have become used to dispensing patronage and not a few love the colour of money. Resulting in no accountability, no fear of removal, arrogantly earning big pay packets for non-productive work. Consequently, most babus have little interest in taking any initiatives and are willing to make self and boss-serving compromises with the fundamentals of administration.

This treacherous politician-official nexus was lucidly portrayed in the Vohra Committee report which, tragically continues to gather dust. Even Vohra as Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Gujral conveniently forgot his own report and did nothing to implement any of its recommendations! The net result? The civil service today has no commitment to either the country or the people they are supposed to serve. Self is shamelessly placed before all else.

Is this what the founding fathers of our Republic had in mind?  Absolutely not. India’s first Home Minister, Sardar Patel, was happy to inherit from the Raj its “steel frame” of ICS officers fully believing that they would ensure the country’s unity and, as patriots, serve their own people even better. In fact, he prevailed upon Nehru not only to keep the steel frame intact but give the country an all-India Administrative Service along the same lines. The all-India services were intended to provide an institutional and reliable link between the Centre and the State administrations and ensure the country’s unity and integrity.

Sadly, the steel frame that we inherited from the British has been vandalized beyond recognition.  Right from the administration at the district level to the top of the ladder at the Centre --- Cabinet Secretary. Top slots in the administration are now filled in accordance with the whims and fancies of the political masters, contrary to established norms and practices in the civil services of leading democracies.

A cursory glance at New Delhi’s bureaucratic wonderland would have made Alice exclaim: “Who needs rabbits; bureaucrats will do!” Shockingly, the Cabinet Secretary and the other Secretaries are appointed courtesy the Prime Minister, not the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet in accordance with healthy practices.

Those favoured seldom retire. A recent example. The former Cabinet Secretary BK Chaturvedi, hand-picked by Manmohan Singh, was given an extension for a year and has now has been ‘accommodated’ in the Planning Commission. The list is endless.

If such is the condition at the Centre, can the States be far behind. In fact, matters there are worse. The plight of not only the All India Service officers, but also those of the Provincial and Subordinate Services can well be imagined. The Chief Secretary was once supposed to head the civil services in the State and place officers in the best interest of probity and efficiency. But he has progressively surrendered this right to the ruling politicians.

A case in point. In UP, Mayawati has created a history of sorts. For the first time a Cabinet Secretary has been appointed over and above the Chief Secretary. Naturally, handpicked by her. The reason forwarded is that if a Cabinet Secretary heads the bureaucracy at the Centre, why can’t she appoint one of her favourites to head the State administration?   

Lamented U.C. Agarwal, who was Secretary, Personnel under Indira Gandhi and thereafter Central Vigilance Commissioner: “Nearly every change of political guard leads to a large reshuffle of top officials in most States.  In fact, the political identification of officials is becoming so marked that even the bureaucracy itself is able to predict as to who will occupy which top post, if ‘X’, ‘Y’ or ‘Z’ political party or individual comes to power!”

What kind of governance lies ahead? A clue can be found in a recent survey of the probationers at the National Academy of Administration, which trains the IAS and other all-India services. It stated that only 32 per cent of the new recruits condemned corruption in the civil services. Only five per cent believed in harsh measures to reduce corruption.  Another 45 per cent believed that they were above the law. Cold statistics that mirror the harsh reality of how debased our system has become.

Clearly, the time has come to give serious thought to a qualitative change in the functioning of the Executive. If it is to be nursed back to health, we need better people, with good educational qualifications, wider exposure and sound moral values. Why the West lays great emphasis on background, upbringing, and education. Alternatively, follow the Chinese model and set an example in “eliminating” corruption. All it takes is one single bullet.

It would, indeed, be a great pity if India is deprived of one of the principal pillars of democratic governance and recklessly pushed towards unabashed feudalism. The writing is on the wall. The bureaucracy must shrug off its inertia and get back its professionalism based on absolute, not obsolete principles.

Civil servants need to give serious thought to their basic commitment to the country and collectively not allow the political bosses to play ducks and drakes with the system. They must restore the system to the glorious days of “I Command Service” (ICS). After all, Prime Ministers will come and Prime Ministers will go, but the Government will go on for ever. Or else they will end up debasing the IAS from the once respected Indian Administrative Service to “I Am Sorry” service! The country will not forgive them. ----- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)    

POLITICAL DIARY

New Delhi, 1 September 2007

India Soft On Terror

SET WONKY PRIORITIES RIGHT

By Poonam I Kaushish

This is a tragic tale of the myth and reality of mounting terror in India. Circa 1993-2007. The story of a Government that meekly looks at violence as no more then someone playing dirty tricks. That hot air and empty rhetoric will take care of it. Oblivious that the horror is for real and the dead and maimed are not mere statistics. Wallowing in the false belief that wars are games born in the minds of men which can be won peacefully by waving the white flag. A war can be won only by war!

Over a year after Mumbai went down the suburban railway in seven serial blasts that hit the heart of the city on Black. Tuesday 7/11 and barely three months after the blasts at Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, India’s cyber city was once again rudely jolted by the icy harsh reality of terror, terror and still more terror. When the city was ‘lasered out’ by two gift-wrapped bombs. Which left over 40 innocents dead and 60 injured.

The irony of India’s myth and reality was on full display when VVIP after VVIP fell over one another in condemning the perpetrators ‘cowardly’ (sic) act. Followed by a series of high-profile appear-and-vanish visits to the city to profess their angst and, hopefully, extract political mileage. The Opposition seized the opportunity to blast the UPA Government for its failure to combat terrorism by moving an adjournment motion in the Lok Sabha. The Union Home Minister reiterated what the Prime Minster has repeated ad nauseum: “No one can make India kneel. We will win this war against terror.” He also announced grandiosely: “We will look at setting up a federal agency to combat terrorism.”

Needless to say, it was mostly myth and little reality. A make-believe that has no co-relation to the fact that India is in the crosshairs of terrorists, serious and deadly terrorists. Please think. Of the 670 districts in the country as many as 270 are terror-prone of which 70 districts have already been ravaged by terrorists. Terror has already cost India more than 72000 civilians and 12000 security personnel. In fact, since 2004 the country has lost more lives to terrorist incidents than North, South and Central America, Europe and Eurasia put together. So much for fighting terror!

Besides terror today has become a big yawn. Our polity cocoons itself in the mistaken belief that terrorism has seeped into our psyche so deeply that it no longer scares. Reduced to becoming an inane excuse for incompetence and dubbed as an intelligence failure a la Kargil. Or the Centre and the affected State conveniently fobbing off their responsibility on the other. Never mind the guns that send a chilling reminder that all is not well with India.

Forgetting that the problem of dealing with terror is not merely limited to cracking the Hyderabad blasts, the Mecca Masjid strike, the attack on the Samjhauta Express train, Delhi’s serial blasts in October 2005, the twin blasts in Varanasi in March 2006 and the Mumbai carnage. The malaise is infinitely deeper and widespread. Thanks to New Delhi’s continuing short-sightedness and half-baked measures.

Each terror attack elicits a predictable and misdirected State response. Pakistan’s ISI and their jehadi cahoots within India and elsewhere are accused of the dastardly attacks, followed by a slew of VVIP visits. Knee-jerk reactions are then announced with dollops of false bravado. A ritual drama whose script is familiar and draws the same cynical reaction ---- more and more of the same.

Fire-fighting measures and quick-fix solutions are put into force without either understanding the issues involved or any comprehensive plan to resolve the crisis. Myopic in its introspection, the Centre unfortunately ends up mostly reacting, instead of looking ahead and acting. Crisis over the State is soon forgotten like a bad dream till another crisis erupts. Merely curing the symptoms, not the disease.

Interestingly, a former Director of the Intelligence Bureau, Ajit Doval, has blasted as “a myth the widespread belief that the terrorists strike anywhere, at any time and any target.” In his view, they strike where their intentions and capabilities meet the opportunities. Hence, the success of counter-terrorism lies in degrading their capabilities, forcing them to change their intentions and denying them opportunities to strike. New Delhi, he feels needs to think of ways and means to neutralise their fast-growing domestic base, availability of hardware and human resource, collaborative linkages with organized crime, gun runners, drug syndicates, hawala operators, subversive radical groups et al.

That is not all. He then spells out what he believes should be the broad approach: “For any anti-terrorist operation to succeed one needs to be focused on the vitals, keeping a watch on the essentials and leaving the desirables till the vitals have been achieved and essentials addressed.” He also has a timely message for India’s polity. “For those who govern, let political interests, at best, fall in the category of desirables.”

Doval is dead on. The tragedy of India is that we have our priorities badly mixed up, indeed, upside- down. Today what may be viewed by some as “desirable” (read minority appeasement) have become vital and essential and what should be “vital and essential” (read eliminating terrorism) has been relegated to merely desirable. Thus, the country’s basic security imperatives and supreme sovereign interests play second fiddle to political interests and electoral considerations. Concurred another security expert B. Raman: “The problem is that our polity is not concerned with the lives of people. They are concerned only with their votes”. Thus, more and more are aggressively pandering to the Muslim voters, a la Sachar report.

Only in India terror is being compartmentalized on the basis of caste and creed for the sake of votes. Only in India can we think of pushing for granting pardon to those who dared to attack India’s high temple of democracy ---- Parliament. Recall, seven brave men and women gave their lives to protect Parliament in 2001. Six years on, the UPA’s secular Government is virtually pleading for clemency for the terrorist Mohammed Afzal Guru. Despite the Supreme Court awarding him the death penalty for his heinous role in the attack.

Most sadly, the Government has callously ignored the strong signal it would send to the Muslims that the Government will not do anything which may even remotely hurt the Muslim sentiment. Plainly, this is appeasement at its crassest worst. More. There is no sense of shame or remorse that the families of those who laid down their lives to defend Parliament have returned the gallantry medals and monies in sheer and understandable disgust.

No amount of appeasement will change the intentions of the terrorists who are determined to bleed India whatever it takes. Remember a terrorist has no caste or creed. For him terrorism is the religion. Be it a Hindu, a Muslim or a Sikh. He is an invisible enemy who uses our resources and freedom to hit us. Adept in exploiting the latest technologies, he identifies and exploits our weaknesses. While we talk, he acts. Inflicting maximum loss at minimum cost.

Clearly, the time has come that our polity should shed and shed fast its blinkered communal approach. If the battle against terror has to be won, terrorism will have to be de-communalised. Political considerations, communal pressures, administrative and police lethargy and a weak legal-judicial regime will have to be negated. New Delhi must realize that normal deterrence doesn’t work against a faceless and fearless enemy. Specially when terror comes packaged as a suicide bomber as in the case of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

When the State’s existence is in peril, the only way to strike back is to carry the fight into the enemy camp effectively. It is not enough to assert “we have might and muscle.” One has to display that power. The Government desperately needs to restore its Iqbal, the shining authority that ensures respect for law and order. The British did. Under the Raj no one dared to even touch the uniform of a policeman.

We need to give sharp teeth to our anti-terror laws. Top experts are agreed that we need stringent laws like the defunct POTA which provided for all the safeguards suggested by the Supreme Court in TADA. True, POTA was not able to end terrorism. Parliament was attacked when it was in operation. Nevertheless, POTA helped in speedily tackling cases of terrorism and bringing the culprits like Afzal Guru to book. Such a revamped anti-terror law would send a much needed signal down the rank and file of terrorists that India is no longer soft.

What next? Much will depend upon the Government’s willingness to acknowledge without any sugar-coating that India is ensnared in the vicious grip of terror. Already prolonged inaction has proved much too costly. The Centre may have to launch major offensives to drive home the message that terror is not a zero-sum game and that India has no use for a live terrorist.  Self-serving decisions of minority appeasement may feed the polity’s vote-banks temporarily. Ultimately, it will only fuel discord and spell double disaster. Enough of self-invited terrorism and self-seeking vote-bank politics. India’s freedom and unity is at stake. ----- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance

POLITICAL DIARY

NEW DELHI, 17 August 2007

Corruption, What’s That?

NO LOK PAL AND MR Q WALKS FREE….

By Poonam I Kaushish

Phew? It has been a real busy week for the media. Keeping track of the tamashas of the poweratti, glitterati and chatteratti. Forget the Congress-CPM jhagra over the Indo-US nuclear deal. Or the first ‘At Home’ of our new lady Rashtrapati that left many Union Ministers fuming. And the scandalous spectacle of Mr Q (Quottrocchi) walking away a free man. What to say of the razzmatazz Independence Day celebration in Parliament’s Central Hall which saw our President Pratibha Patil and the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh play party-pooppers by raising the bogey of corruption, so grating to the ears. Didn’t anyone tell them that as far as our polity is concerned it’s akin to flogging a dead horse!

Never mind, the show must go on. Asserted the President: “Corruption today poses a grave challenge to our system and it is time the nation begins to determinedly combat this menace.” Really? Echoed the Prime Minister, “For all the benefits of development to reach the poor it is essential that the delivery systems of the Government at all levels, are more efficient and purged of corruption. The cancer of corruption must be extinguished if democracy and development have to have a real meaning for our people.” 

Brave words, indeed. Which have been repeated ad nauseum year after year. The moot point is what has the UPA Government done so far and is doing to eradicate this cancer? Zilch, if its track record is anything to go by. In fact, like many Government’s before it, there is a lot of empty rhetoric, convenient amnesia but when push comes to shove to act, it falls flat on its face. Three examples out of many which expose the Government’s serious intent or shall we say indifference to corruption. The implementation of the much-promised Lok Pal Bill. The latest ignominious chapter of the Bofor’s gun saga. The Government’s adamant opposition to pursuing the Taj corridor scam.

Take the Lok Pal Bill. It has been hanging fire for over 37 long years, pending Parliamentary approval since 1977. It was expected to go a long way in curbing corruption and making our netagan accountable. Alas, this has turned out to be easier said than done. The last one heard of it was three years ago, when the Union Cabinet, presided over by Singh took it up for consideration. But nothing came of it as the Cabinet was divided on the issue. Some favoured it. Most others sought clarifications. Not a few simply trashed it as useless. The main stumbling block was whether the Prime Minister should be included in its purview. Predictably, the exercise turned out to be still born, and the draft Bill was referred to a Group of Ministers. And it remains there till date. Dumped and conveniently forgotten.

Early this year, amidst a slew of scandals, the Government once again talked about introducing a liberal dose of “Ethics in Governance”. The institution of the Lok Pal was suddenly rediscovered when the five-member Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC), headed by senior Congress leader and former Karnataka Chief Minister Veerappa Moily pushed for many constitutional amendments to put an end to corruption which, it felt, was not only an ethical issue but one that was “hindering our growth and seriously hurting social services which are critical for the poor.” It also wanted a stop to “collusive bribery” which resulted in a loss to the state, public or public interest.

One recommendation stood out among the many path-breaking measures that the ARC proposed to ensure a clean and transparent executive, an honest polity and an accountable judiciary. It wanted soonest the setting-up of a long-discussed and eagerly awaited Rashtriya Lokayukta at the Centre and in the States but excluding the Prime Minister, once again, from its ambit.

That apart, nothing epitomizes corrupt India more than the Bofors scandal. True, the kick-back of Rs 64 crore in the Howitzer gun scandal is a pittance in an era when scams run into mind-boggling thousands of crores. Nevertheless, it exposed as never before the rot, deceit and collusion at the highest level of Government and led to the fall of the Rajiv Gandhi Government. It still raises a basic question: Can Government leaders and functionaries continue to play ducks and drakes with national security. Not surprisingly, the scandal continues to have the UPA Government scurrying for cover, makes the Congress see red and even brings Parliament to a grinding halt. 

Call it a twist of irony or whatever else, the Bofors ghost, spanning over 27 years, was virtually laid to rest on 15 August. As India celebrated its 60th Independence, the main accused Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi was gifted out-of-the-blue his own freedom. All thanks to the bungling or connivance of the two arms of the Government --- the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Law Ministry. For reasons best known to the two, the Government shockingly withdrew its appeal in Argentina’s Supreme Court challenging the Federal Court’s order rejecting its plea for Quattrochhi’s extradition.

Recall, the Italian businessman accused of receiving $7 million in bribe as a middleman in the $1.2 billion purchase of the Bofors gun from Sweden was arrested in Argentina in February last based on an Interpol Red Corner alert. One presumed the CBI would rejoice over this unexpected windfall and would go all out to seek Quattrocchi’s extradition having failed to extradite him from Malaysia two years ago. More so, after the sharp flak it justifiably received for having allowed the defreezing of his accounts before the UK Crown Prosecution Service on the ground that there was no case against him.

Wrong. One has only to see the sordid somersaults by the Government from the Prime Minister downwards, the Congress and the CBI in la affaire Quattrocchi to know that all talk of morality, accountability and honesty is essentially public posturing and making the right noises. By Government after Government. All setting up Committee after Committee. All tom-toming their intentions. The net result? A big, big zero.

What else can one expect from a polity which rationalizes the irrational and even tries to justify the inclusion of tainted ministers in the Cabinet by arguing that there is no such law or any Parliamentary convention that bars them from holding office. And deplores the expulsion of 18 errant MPs in the cash-for-question scandal and the MPLADS (Local Area Development Fund) as an attack on the poor-have-nots and illiterate MPs.

Whats new? Aren’t we accustomed to an immoral, corrupt, criminal and unaccountable polity who could stoop to anything for paisa and gaddi. Wherein a ghotala of few thousand crores is not worthy of feeding the chara of morality. To quote former Prime Minister Vajpayee’s speech in the Lok Sabha during the debate in the Hawala scam in 1996: “Politics has become a way of making money.”

What troubles one is the new dimension to this age-old malaise. That it does not strike any chord among our leaders who have reduced graft to a farcical political pantomime. They conveniently wash their hands off corruption by calling it a “systematic failure.” Or cursorily dismiss it as one of the ‘unlisted’ perks of their jobs. Are they kidding? In plain English this translates into a fig leaf to cover their shocking incompetence and scandalous failure.

Most distressing is that there is no sense of outrage or shame. Now corruption is naked, unashamed, public and brazen. Sanjiva Reddy’s words haunt and taunt us. On the eve of laying down his office as the President of India he told INFA years ago that public morality has sunk so low that “anyone who has opportunity to make money and doesn’t do so is a bloody fool.” How true.

Tragically, India’s downslide has been rapid. With every passing year and election, the barometer of corruption and immorality is steadily rising wherein it no longer shocks or causes mass protests. It is slowly becoming an accepted norm, part of one’s routine. Curse all, but the majority willingly has come to lump it. Shrugged off as a price one has to pay for democracy.

How does one eradicate this scourge? There are many remedies if one is dead serious. Remember, what the people ultimately want is transparency and accountability. That is the crux of the problem of our polity. Alas, this has so far been only preached ad nauseum but seldom practiced. The top has to be clean to make the lower levels clean. Yatha raja tatha praja. The harsh truth is that no politician has till date been able to overcome his greed and bell the big fat cat of corruption. All have reduced it to merely chasing a mirage and indulging in shameless hypocrisy and humbug.

All in all, the UPA and its leaders, especially Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chairman Sonia Gandhi, are clearly on test. Are they really serious about combating corruption or have they willy nilly decided to surrender shamelessly to horrendous corruption? In case they are serious, the Government must finalise the Lok Pal Bill without delay and ensure that it is enacted latest in Parliament’s winter session. Else, an increasingly agitated and restive public will be justified in concluding that honesty is only a fallacy of imagination and no longer the best policy! ---- INFA

(Copyright India News and Feature Alliance)