UPA Report Card: Nothing to cheer about

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

It was a birthday celebration sans any fanfare as the UPA limped to complete four years in its second avatar. With a series of scams behind it and elections staring it in the face, even the die-hard supporters of Congress wore a forlorn look as the future looks uncertain.

In the last four years, people would be hard pressed to recall any significant policy that would be a game changer for the battle of 2014 which could even be fought towards the end of 2013 given the dynamics of politics at the regional level. The battle of 2009 was fought in the backdrop of schemes like MANREGA and loan waiver to the farmers; schemes which helped consolidate its vote bank in the rural areas.

Now when elections could be held anytime within the next 11 months, all which the government and Congress spokesmen cite as achievement is direct transfer of subsidies. The scheme is yet to take root and the minuses and scams of the last four years simply outweigh this small administrative step. Perhaps a few in the Government think that the proposed Food Security Bill or the Land Acquisition Bill would be a panacea for all the ills plaguing it. But remember, most of the State Governments are already giving rice and wheat at `1 to `2 a kg and the fatigued voters are not going to buy this scheme. Similarly, however liberal the Land Acquisition Bill may be, it will benefit only a small section of the population.

The fourth anniversary bash of the UPA (read Congress) took place at a time when something which everyone suspected all along became public knowledge. Every voter in the country suspected that CBI was used to fix political opponents and help the ruling party members. The affidavit of the CBI chief in the Supreme Court confirmed this and in Law Minister Ashwani Kumar, the government found a scapegoat. He was shown the exit door. But this is not a case of a simple resignation. It was the case of an institution losing its face before the public and a crisis of credibility which the premier investigation agency faces. Now, no one would even ask whether the CBI was taking briefs from the Government all these nine years. People know that this was the case.

They would also suspect the investigations of CBI in each and every case where politicians are involved, mostly of the Opposition parties.

Not only CBI, another institution Railways-came under intense scanner ahead of UPA’s anniversary bash. Earlier, one had heard that posts of clerks and assistant station master were sold to the highest bidder by the Railway Recruitment Boards. But this was the biggest of them all as a member of the Railway Board was caught giving bribe to the nephew of Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal for a choice posting which involved purchases to the tune of crores. As the glare has shifted to corruption and betting in the IPL, there are no updates on the investigations in the Railgate. No one would buy the argument that a board member would deal with a private person and give him money unless he is sure that his work would be done.

Whatever Bansal does and however hard he tries, it will only be CBI’s benevolence which can absolve him from the case. Given the way law enforcement agencies work and the way governments have an influence on it, give the case to Gujarat Police or the Punjab Police, they will immediately find the links reaching up to the former Railway Minister and Chandigarh MP.

When the third birthday bash was organised in 2012 for the UPA, it had three dozen more MPs to count on. A year down the line, big brotherly and arrogant attitude cost it dearly as it lost Trinamool Congress and the DMK in the process without adding any new ally. Samajwadi Party, on whose support the survival of Government depends, is threatening the UPA day in and day out. It did not even take part in the bash. Ruling party bosses know that both SP and the BSP are supporting the government with the stick of the CBI looming large not because of its policies and programmes which they criticise every other day.

After nine years, the Government seems to have lost its way and does not know which way to go. It looks tired and haggard. Fatigue has set in and so has the death wish.

The economist Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is best remembered as Finance Minister of the country in PV Narasimha Rao Government over 20 years ago for bringing radical changes in the economy. For posterity, he would have to explain why his expertise in economics failed to lift the economy of the country in the last few years. Despite being the only economist Prime Minister of the country, he would be hard pressed to list the achievements on the economic front.

The fiasco of the government is on several fronts but undoubtedly corruption tops the list. Bansal episode was only the latest one definitely not the last for the beleaguered Government. Commonwealth Games scam, 2G spectrum allocation, Coal-Gate, Tatra truck scam, helicopter scam, cash-for-vote scam, Adarsh scam, Satyam scam…the list is only growing.

“Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is synonymous with indecision, inability and silence. Never in history has the institution of the Prime Minister been at the receiving end of wit, sarcasm and ridicule. The legitimacy of the office of the Prime Minister has been denuded,” Arun Jaitley, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha said. You may or may not agree with the politics of BJP, but Jaitley hit the bull’s eye with the statement. The term “policy paralysis” for the Government has stuck.

The way the Government handled the protests led by Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev is still fresh in the memory. Then when protests broke out throughout the country, following the brutal rape of a 23-year-old Delhi girl in a bus, the Government was found wanting in the way it dealt with the students and the protesters.

The handling of the Maoists in the last nine years too left a lot to be desired. The confusion was apparent when P Chidambaram was the Home Minister and Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh questioned the tough approach of the Government. The same Maoists, against whom Digvijay Singh wanted a soft approach, have struck with a vengeance, assassinating the top leadership of the party in Chhattisgarh. Soft peddling and speaking with divergent views on the grave problem will only embolden the mass killers. It was time for a decisive action, something a Government undergoing “policy paralysis” won’t undertake. A section of Congress leadership in the Naxal-hit State is trying to politicise the issue, not realising that a national consensus is needed to tackle Naxal and Jehadi terror. 

As the UPA entered election year, the report card has been rather gloomy, bereft of any achievement-anything which the people could remember when they go out to vote in the general elections. Will the Government pull out a rabbit from its hat at the last minute? It seems unlikely. (May 27, 2013) 

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/upa-report-card-nothing-to-cheer-about.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/2013-05-26-9295.html

Time bomb of IPL explodes

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

Early this month, a friend coaxed me to join him in watching an IPL match at Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) stadium in Mohali, just a kilometre from my residence in Chandigarh.

Reluctantly, I agreed — not to watch cricket but to talk about myriad other things with food and drinks thrown in as all inclusive price of the high-end tickets of the corporate boxes. Last year, I watched two games and this year too, I could not gather enough courage to watch more than two of the six matches scheduled in Mohali.

Sitting in the stadium, I realised how little stake and involvement the people had while watching the match. Very few were interested in the cricket being played in the ground and almost everyone was confused as to which team to support. At the end, spectators just clapped  for the good shot, a good ball or a good fielding effort. The team was immaterial. This was not surprising as the so called home team Kings XI Punjab hardly had any Punjabi players with whom the people could associate. It was led by an Australian Adam Gilchrist and another Australian Darren Lehmann was the coach. Apart from the name Punjab suffixed with Kings XI, there was nothing Punjabi about the team.

I wondered why at all people would watch the match and why would they support any team as there was nothing to choose between the two competing teams. I asked my friend about it. “It is unscripted drama. In a movie, you have a script, in a television soap opera you have a script. But here, the cricketing drama is unscripted and that is the real fun,” he told me.

Ten days later, I realised that the script of the IPL match too was written and what came out in the episode of Sreesanth and others of Rajasthan Royals must have been going on ever since the hastily put IPL came on the scene. Remember, IPL was a reaction to the Indian Cricket League (ICL) put up by the Zee group after the World Cup fiasco of India. The BCCI reacted to the ICL in which legends like Kapil Dev were associated and put up IPL under the now disgraced Lalit Modi, safely ensconced in London after a series of cases in India.

As IPL was a reaction to ICL, all norms were thrown to the wind and it started with the trial and error methodology. Some norms, just for the sake for it, were put up to keep the cricketing tamasha going on by the BCCI. It was the cricketing equivalent of a three-hour long formula film to milk the cricket loving nation’s public.

After the spot fixing scandal, that façade which the IPL and its parent body BCCI had built assiduously has gone. Now everything is under scrutiny. Even if a player suffers from some itching problem genuinely and scratches his body, it would be construed as a signal to some bookies. What to say of putting towel in trousers, even if he sneezes, smiles, appeals or ties the laces of his shoes, the action would be scrutinised. The spectators watching the match would find it fishy even if something natural happens in the field. I suspect that the Sreesanth saga is just tip of the iceberg.

Cricket undoubtedly is one game, which triggers myriad feelings among Indians — euphoria when the country wins, jingoism when the victory is against Pakistan, excitement when there is a photo finish and a sense of loss which lingers for days when team India gets beaten in a one-sided match. It is one common thread from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Arunachal Pradesh to Gujarat which brings strangers together and they can break into a conversation on the performance of Sachin Tendulkar or why a particular player has been inducted or kept out of the team.

After watching IPL unfold before me last year and this year, my romance with the game and nostalgia associated with cricket went for a toss. Even without spot or match fixing, I saw the game being reduced to a caricature in which there was no place for emotions, no place for the classical game which cricket is. Instead, it was a big circus, an entertainment and not sports.

After being dropped at the main gate when I started walking towards the entrance of the stadium, instead of getting a feeling of cricket or a sporting event, it seemed as if I was going for a disco or a late night party. Nattily dressed boys and girls, men and women had applied perfumes and cologne liberally. Bouncers of the “Home” team were there all over the place, flexing their biceps and walking with chest pulled up so that the fat around their tummy is not visible.

Socialites of Chandigarh, aspiring models, businessmen from the region, a few bureaucrats and police officers who had obviously been given free passes, moved from the bar to the snacks counter and then to their seats. They were interested in everything else but cricket. It was a social outing for almost all of them. Clearly, the venue was the most happening place of the city that night and the IPL match was incidental.

Some of the spectators had been sponsored by a corporate house and were wearing the T-Shirts of their sponsors after winning a promotional event. When they go back home, they will obviously tell their neighbours that they saw the Sukhna Lake, Rose Garden, Sector 17 market and the IPL match at Mohali stadium. They were clicking frantically and this would be the proof for their neighbours. I wondered how many would remember who was batting or bowling and which team got defeated the next day.

Just to have a feel of the atmosphere, I stepped out on the balcony from the AC lounge. Loud music blared the moment an over was bowled. The cheerleaders were caged in nets and surrounded by policemen in Khaki and bouncers in black so that no one threw bottles or anything at them. Only the portion of the “cage”, facing the playing arena, was not covered with nets to enable the TV cameras film the cheerleaders dancing for the TV viewers in the rest of the country.

Sreesanth, Chavan and Chandila are a timely wake-up call. Make a distinction between cricket and entertainment. As long as you treat cricket as an entertainment and not a sporting event, such incidents would continue to be repeated. (May 20, 2013) 

 http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/time-bomb-of-ipl-explodes.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/2013-05-19-8439.html

Fix tenure of governments at four years

VIEWPOINT 

AMITABH SHUKLA    

When the people of Karnataka went to vote on May 5, they already knew the CBI had arrested the nephew of Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal for bribery and they were aware of the damning expose that highest posts in the railways were up for grabs by those paying the "right money to the right people."

The people of the southern State also knew by then that Law Minister Ashwani Kumar and the PMO had vetted and made changes in the affidavit of the investigating agency in the infamous coal scam, the links of which go up to the highest echelons of government, to the doors of the Prime Minister. People knew that it was the culprit who was changing the discourse to escape the dragnet of law.

Before May 5, not only the people of Karnataka, but also the entire country knew how the son-in-law of the most powerful person in the Congress and indeed the Central government-Sonia Gandhi-had benefited from the land deals in the NCR region of Haryana with the help of a friendly Congress-ruled State government. Whatever the subsequent enquiries, constituted by the State government said, the lingering doubt of the people that there were irregularities, favours and wrong doing can never be obliterated.

Also, do not forget the AgustaWestland helicopter scam which broke out early this year and the government was seen doing precious little to bring the guilty to book. As more scams hit the government, the helicopter scam seems to have been forgotten for a while.

But all this and the series of scams which began in 2009 did not deter the people from voting for the Congress in Karnataka, a party which is at the centre of so many scams in the last four years in its second avatar. Could this be a case of "my corruption versus your corruption?" Were the people weighing on a scale as to who was more corrupt, the bigger villain? 

When people went out to vote for the Karnataka Assembly polls on May 5, perception about corrupt practices and omissions and commissions of B S Yeddyurappa were more important for them than those of the UPA government. Their immediate concern was the issue in hand, change of governance in the State. People saw bigger evil in the way the State was governed in the last five years, the way scams broke out, Chief Minister was removed, the way Reddy brothers held a sway and looted the natural resources of the State. They saw instability and corruption and dumped the BJP government which they thought was responsible. For them, Delhi was too distant and in any case, there is Lok Sabha election too in which they can teach a lesson to the government in Delhi which Narendra Modi often says is "Delhi Sultanate."

Results of some recent Assembly polls have shown that people have delineated local issues and the national issues. They voted for Congress in Lok Sabha elections in UP in 2009 but rejected it lock, stock and barrel in 2012 Assembly polls. They will teach a lesson to the incumbent State Government if they find that their aspirations have not been met and dump the party. They will also give an affirmative vote to those who led the State without any controversy and were scam-free in their tenure.

Before Karnataka, we had Assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. Gujarat was thumbs up for BJP and Narendra Modi while Himachal was thumbs down for BJP and Prem Kumar Dhumal. In fact, in Himachal Pradesh, Dhumal's record was largely unblemished on the corruption front while his rival Virbhadra Singh was embroiled in a controversy and even had to resign as a Union Minister just before the polls. But this had no effect on the outcome as the people felt that their aspirations had not been fulfilled and they expected much more from the BJP government in the State.

The list of states where perceived good governance has paid is quite long and here people have voted the incumbent governments to power. Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh-all have voted for the incumbent government. Of course, elections are not fought only on issues of corruption and governance and a host of micro factors come in the picture, but largely perceived good governance, fulfillment of aspirations of the people do pay.

Given the changing dynamics of the choice of the people and the electoral behavior over a period of time, now I feel that giving five years to an incumbent government is too long and should be reduced so that the government of the day reflects the mood and aspirations of the voters, so that it does not become complacent, outdated and out of tune with what the people want. Nothing could be better if the time of elections is reduced to four years from the five years at present.

The Constitution of the country decided a five-year tenure a long time back-over six decades when the ground realities were entirely different. Much water has flown down the Ganges, Yamuna, Brahmaputra, Narmada and the Cauvery since then. Sticking to a five-year tenure now means that one has to do with a government even if it is out of tune with the aspirations of the people, out of sync with what they want, does not reflect their needs and no longer represents their collective will.

Had the elections of Karnataka been held a year back in May 2012, I don't think the results would have been any different. Yeddyurappa had made a mess of it much earlier. The Congress would still have won. Similarly, had the elections of Gujarat been held in December 2011, the results could have been similar. The Congress stood no chance there with a defeatist attitude and no alternative economic and social policy. If Lok Sabha elections are held now, in May 2013, we would actually see a government which represents the people truly, a government in tune with the aspirations of the people. The discredited would go out and those in tune with the aspirations of the people would get in. Whoever it is, it would be truly representative.

United Progressive Alliance, which is more or less only Congress as of now with most of the allies deserting it, lost the mandate of the people much earlier and not when it entered the fifth year. It frittered the mandate given in 2009. With one scam or the other rocking it every week and month, it no longer represents the aspirations of the people and their collective desire. But the people will have to do with it for five years as that is what the Constitution mandates.

Several State governments lose their steam sooner than the five years for which the voters elected them. They lose their relevance and carry on for the full term as the Constitution mandates even though they become irrelevant and lose focus much earlier. Nothing could be a better example than the Manmohan Singh-led government.

It was time the political parties built a consensus and changed the tenure of the State as well as the central governments for four years instead of the five at present. When a generation changes in ten years, the thought process and aspirations change much more frequently, it would be anachronistic to keep the tenure of the governments at five years.

Moreover, it would benefit all the parties and keep them on their toes and prod them to be pro public and motivate them to keep the aspirations of the people in mind all this while. The debate has to begin now. (May 13, 2013) 

 http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/fix-tenure-of-governments-at-four-years.html

Please define who is a Martyr

VIEWPOINT 

AMITABH SHUKLA

  

Sarabjit Singh has now become a part of history. After a campaign running into several years for his freedom, all his sister Dalbir Kaur could get was his body after the 49-year-old Bhikhiwind resident was brutally assaulted with an intention to kill in Pakistani custody.

There was competitive frenzy all around after the death to eulogize Sarabjit-something which never happened when he was alive and spent most of his adult life in Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore. Had the government shown the same levels of interest in him when he was alive, he could well have escaped the brutal assault and happily ensconced in his newly built house, very close to the international border with Pakistan.

Punjab government has coined the word “national martyr” for him and declared a three-day State mourning and organised a State funeral while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called him “brave son of India who bore his tribulations with valiant fortitude.” Then, there were leaders of all hues and affiliations who hailed him as a hero. All this came even though the Pakistan authorities repeatedly termed him a spy, tried him for serial blasts, held him responsible for the death of 14 people and even the Supreme Court of the country confirmed the death sentence.

This all leaves me very confused. I do not know whether he was a martyr, a spy, a simple farmer tilling someone else’s land, a case of mistaken identity as his family insists, a simple youth who went to Pakistan in an inebriated condition only to be framed later or a hardcore terrorist as Pakistan insists. After coming back from Bhikhiwind and talking to his friends and co-villagers, I am not any wiser.

If we leave apart competitive jingoism of the rival political parties - Congress and the Akali Dal, as Indians, we would first have to define what “martyr” is. Sarabjit never worked for the armed forces, police or the paramilitary forces. That is on record. No Indian agency, RAW, IB or Military Intelligence ever owned him and ever said he was an asset working in a foreign country. In such a situation, how can one assume that he was indeed a “martyr” who died for a national cause?

Even if the Central government knows that he was indeed a spy as all such networks are operated by the Central agencies, how is Punjab government so sure that he was a “national martyr” and gave Rs 1 crore to his family members, announced a State funeral and Government jobs to both his daughters. A State Government never sends spies to foreign countries nor is it privy to the information about Sarabjit, if any, which the Central Government possesses.

In Bhikhiwind, Sarabjit indeed was being hailed as a local hero by the co-villagers. But you ask them, what had he done for the country and they would stare at you blankly. For many, something big was happening in the village as dozens of OB vans showing Live feed were stationed all across and everyone with any connection with Sarabjit was giving an interview.

Now the politics of competitive popularity came in with the two main parties trying to own up Sarabjit. None would have liked to be behind in the game of one upmanship when frenzy was being built. And so, in the process Sarabjit got the status of a martyr with the government not even bothering to find out what the word actually means.

So far, I knew that Bhagat Singh was a martyr. So was Sukhdev, Rajguru, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Subhash Chandra Bose and numerous others who lost their lives fighting the British or died in the jails in Andaman and Nicobar Islands serving life sentence. I also knew that the heroes who fought against the enemies in 1948, 1962, 1965, 1971 and the Kargil conflict and made the supreme sacrifice of their lives are martyrs. Then there were hundreds of those in the police and paramilitary forces who fought insurgency in the north-east, Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab and foiled the designs of the hostile neighbors. No one would dispute that they are martyrs.

All those who guard our borders in inhospitable conditions and die either due to cross firing or bad weather are also martyrs. Somehow, for me, it is indeed difficult to relate Sarabjit to the martyrs of the above category, however hard the government tries or whatever the amount of footage the television channels give to his death and howsoever big attends his funeral. Can anyone in the government explain to me what exactly made him a martyr? In fact, I talked to a few officials and I did not get any answer.

A few weeks before Sarabjit’s death, another Indian prisoner Chamel Singh from the Jammu region too was assaulted in the same jail and killed in a similar manner. Chamel Singh too was accused by the Pakistani establishment to be a spy and his body was returned only after almost two months of his death. His family members are pleading and meeting everyone important urging for the status of martyr to him. But no one is listening. The battle among the parties for competitive populism would not yield anything here. There are no TV channels to take up the cause of the Jammu resident. Can anyone explain how Chamel Singh’s case is different from that of Sarabjit?

Punjab Assembly passed a resolution declaring Sarabjit a “national martyr”. Last year, the same Assembly passed a resolution welcoming Surjeet Singh who was released by Pakistan after spending three decades in a Pakistani jail. After a hero’s welcome, the spy has been left to fend for himself. While Surjeet, a former constable in the Border Security Force, says that he crossed over to Pakistan several times and was a spy, hired by an intelligence agency for the country, Home Secretary Raj Kumar Singh categorically denied the assertions. The Home Secretary then said that India was not into spying and the assertions of Surjeet are not correct.

Surjeet says he was abandoned by the country after being caught and there was no one to own him up all these years when he was in solitary confinement. Even Pakistani authorities had charged him with spying and awarded the death sentence which was commuted to life imprisonment later on.

In fact, there are tales of dozens of former spies in Punjab and the Jammu region who have been abandoned by the agencies and handlers who apparently used them. They claim that they worked for the country but no one ever came forward to own them up or offer any financial or moral support. After spending a time varying from one to three decades in jail, some of them are working as laborers now, some have become too old to take care of themselves, others are mental wreck and some of them question why they took up the profession of James Bond. A couple of them went on hunger strike to press for their demand which fell on deaf ears. Most of the former spies are semi literate, perhaps a qualification for a low-profile and high risk career which they voluntary adopted for a little money, adventure and idealism to serve for the country.

Apart from Surjeet, Gopal Das and Kashmir Singh were the last two spies whose return became a media event. Gopal Das was released in April 2011 after 27 years in jail while Kashmir Singh, who too was initially sentenced to death, like Sarabjit and Surjeet, was released in March 2008. After returning, both of them narrated a tale almost similar to the one which Surjeet has to tell. They admitted to spying and accused the country of doing little to secure their release or help their family while they were incarcerated in the jail.

In fact, the social, cultural and linguistic similarities along with the physical features of people inhabiting India’s Punjab and Jammu region is so similar to that of west Punjab in Pakistan that the agencies found the local youth ideal for the job in the 1960s, 70s and even the 80s.  Things changed in the late 80s and 90s when the fence came up on the international border and one could no longer cross over to the other side at will. Moreover, the role of traditional methods of spying and information gathering was no longer important considering the fact that in the era of technological boom, this was no longer needed. No country or agency needed pictures of vital installations and movement of the armed forces as the satellites captured and beamed the pictures much more effectively. The traditional methods of spying, the one in which Surjeet, Gopal Das and Kashmir Singh and countless others  were involved, had become obsolete and now is completely outdated.

If you recognise Sarabjit, wrongly or rightly, it was time you also recognised the Surjeets, Kashmirs, Gopals and countless others. Turning a deaf ear and a blind eye would not help. (May 6, 2013) 

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/please-define-who-is-a-martyr.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/please-define--who-is-a-martyr.html