Civil Services Exams: Time for an overhaul

VIEWPOINT 

AMITABH SHUKLA

A well intentioned move to revamp the pattern of civil services examination has been put on hold. Predictably, cutting across party lines, the politicians played spoilsport as the government had to beat a hasty retreat and revert back to the 34-year old pattern of examination in which many loopholes have emerged over the years.

It was the steel frame of the British raj, to some extent it still is in the UPA raj but over a period of time, it has lost some of its sheen. Still, it remains the most coveted job in the government sector. But the examination pattern in practice since 1979 left a lot to be desired and an overhaul was the need of the hour keeping in mind the changing needs of the country, the globalised environment in which the bureaucrats are supposed to work and the flaws which had crept in the existing system. 

The flaws could be several. I will just point out a few. I know of an Electrical Engineer from IIT, who abandoned his subject of graduation (Electrical Engineering) for the Main examination and opted for Sanskrit and Geography. He mugged both the subjects in six months flat and got a decent ranking making it to the IPS. I have nothing against Geography or Sanskrit, but the flaw here was that one could simply mug the syllabus and get through forgetting the basic subject in which you did your graduation. There could be many such cases.

Then when I was studying in Delhi University, I remember students making a beeline for taking Pali language as an Optional to write the main examination. For several years, the subject was considered quite “scoring” and it was believed that if one studied it meticulously for three months, one could get above average marks and make it to the coveted service. The flaw could be detected only later when it was found that a lot of aspirants with Pali language getting in though the language itself was taught in less than half a dozen universities of the country.  

For several years, there was an unusually high percentage of aspirants opting for subjects like Public Administration and Anthropology. Coaching institutes claimed that they will take 2-3 months to make a candidate mug enough to crack the civil services with these optional provided they were good with their primary optional. Ironically, there were a handful of colleges offering these courses at the graduation level but as optional papers in Main examination, there was a time when almost half the candidates chose one of the two subjects.

So flawed was the system for several years that it saw an unusually high percentage of engineers in the civil services. A lot of them opted for Physics which they are taught in their course along with the subject of engineering. So much so that in one year, 19 of the top 20 in the IAS were engineers and in the top 100, over 85 had engineering background. One heard of “moderation” of marks which meant that if aspirants are getting too much marks in a particular subject, the marks were reduced in some proportion. No one knew how it was done and it remained a mystery. All throughout this phase, those from the social sciences found themselves at the receiving end, barely managing to get into the coveted list and eventually when they got through, it was in the Group “B” Services.

When the changes for the Main examination were notified by the government, there were basically two objections. Regional leaders immediately jumped in the fray saying that those from rural background will have a disadvantage as marks in English would be counted and the practice of taking the exams in some the regional languages would be stopped if they had less than 25 candidates.

I would again differ here on making marks in English count in the ranking and this is by personal experience. When I was studying for my post graduation in Delhi University, I remember a brilliant student from Motihari in Bihar who had passed all his exams in Hindi medium and he knew whatever was expected to crack the civil services exam. He cleared the preliminary exams and appeared for the Mains. Later on, instead of the result, a letter came from UPSC that his papers were not evaluated as he could not get pass marks in English. Getting pass marks in English and a regional language was mandatory and only if one passed in these that his other papers were evaluated. After failing in the only attempt, he opted out and instead settled for a job in Bihar through the BPSC. There must have been a lot of such aspirants whose answer sheets could not be evaluated as they could not get pass marks in English.

In the pattern which was announced and now put in abeyance, 100 marks were allocated for English, triggering protests from political quarters. At least, this is better than the system prevalent as even if you get poor marks in the Queen’s language but are good in other subjects, you could get there. And mind, you this is less than 5 per cent of the total marks of 2075 in the exams and the paper is supposed to be of matriculation standard.

I agree with some critics that the medium of examination should not be tampered with and one should be given the opportunity to take the exams in the regional languages of one’s choice till a consensus evolves. Also, the language of essay should be optional and all Indian languages should be included instead of just English and Hindi.

But I fail to understand the knee jerk reaction of the government, keeping in abeyance all proposed changes. It could have easily put on hold the controversial changes like making the marks obtained in English count and proposal which allegedly discriminated against the regional language. But what prevents it from introducing other changes which no one is criticizing like enhancing the importance of General Studies having four papers instead of two earlier and going for only one optional subject instead of two for the Main examination.

Keeping on hold the debatable changes and going for the new pattern should have been the way out. The reform measures which no one is questioning should have been implemented. Ever since the British evolved the civil service, they changed it several times depending on the needs of the raj. It was time, we changed it keeping in view the needs of the new millennium. (March 18, 2013)
http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/civil-services-exams-time-for-an-overhaul.html
http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/2013-03-18-1327.html

Rahul, the bachelor who doesn’t want the PM’s chair

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

So Rahul Gandhi has sort of decided to remain a bachelor like Atal Bihari Vajpayee. This is what he recently indicated saying, “if I get married and have children, then I will become a status quoist and will be concerned about bequeathing my position to my children.”

There could be thousands and millions of bachelors in the country but don’t be surprised at the comparison because both Rahul and Vajpayee are intrinsically connected with politics. For both of them, the bread and butter and their respective career was only politics, nothing else. Though Vajpayee might have retired, but in his heydays, he commanded a large following in his party like Rahul does in his own party now. Also, the comparison is because one became the Prime Minister though after a long waiting period in the opposition benches while the other was born with a silver spoon and has been consistently hailed in his party as “Prime Minister material” and “Prime Minister in-waiting”.

But the similarity between Vajpayee and Rahul ends here as the Congress vice president is also contemplating not to become Prime Minister which Vajpayee eventually became for six years and again wanted to become in 2004 when the BJP lost the polls. “Asking me whether you want to be Prime Minister is a wrong question,” he said on the same day when he spoke about his intentions of not getting married. In fact, Rahul has repeatedly spurned offers from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to join his Cabinet and has never said that becoming the PM was his main objective in politics.

In fact, the role model of Rahul, as he claims, in not nurturing any ambitions for the top political job of the country, is the Father of the Nation-Mahatma Gandhi. But unlike Rahul who does not want to marry, the Mahatma married Kasturba, remained in wedlock for the better part of his life till he became a widower, had children but did not bequeath his position to his children nor did he become the Prime Minister of the country.

No one perhaps seriously asked Vajpayee why he remained a bachelor but by doing so, he did not bequeath his name or status to anyone. It is a different matter that his foster son-in-law was quite influential when he was the Prime Minister of the country. But he has the surname of Bhattacharya and not Vajpayee.

Rahul would turn 43 in another three months. Chroniclers of the family history point out that none in the Nehru-Gandhi family, right from the days of Moti Lal Nehru married so late and there is little chance of the Doon school and St Stephen’s College student and Congress vice president to tie the knot now. Going by the current norms, most of the weddings take place when the bride and groom are in their mid or late 20s and we find rare instances of people marrying in their 40s and 50s unless it is a second or a third marriage for the person concerned. Even his younger sister, Priyanka married almost a decade and half back when she was in her 20s.

But given the fact that Congress is a unique institution of the world, a parallel of which can never be found in modern history, where a dynasty has been running the party for the last almost eight decades, what will happen to the glue which keeps the party together if Rahul does not marry and bequeath his legacy? This is what bothered me last week and I asked a leader of Congress after the statement of Gandhi counting on the virtues of bachelorhood and showing indifference to power. The reply was instant. “Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has two children”.

So, if Rahul Gandhi does not marry and have children, he would not have to bother about bequeathing his position to anyone. It will go to the next generation without him even asking for it. Congress leaders and workers would crown one of them given the fact that only a Gandhi can keep the party united. Remember, how a reluctant Sonia Gandhi was made Congress president by the members of Congress Working Committee, several years after the death of her husband Rajeev Gandhi. The answer given by the Congress functionary explained a lot, making me speechless.

Coming back to what the Congress vice president said, perhaps he has read Mahabharat, like most Indians, and is also inspired by Bhishma Pitamah who vowed not to marry but to protect the throne of Hastinapur. Finally, he found himself on the wrong side of virtue as the protector of the wily Kauravas who were out to negate the rightful claims of the Pandavas. Here, Rahul has the Congress to protect as no party leader has known the party without a Gandhi at the helm. Or does the arrangement which the party has presently, which is enjoying power without being responsible for it, suit the style of Rahul.

As far as bachelorhood in politics is concerned, BJP’s yet to be declared PM candidate, Narendra Modi too is a bachelor though some Congress leaders believe otherwise and have often gone to the extent of inventing the name of his wife and even her profession. But one thing is sure, like Gandhi, Modi too apparently believes that marriage and having children makes one status quoist though he has never said so from any forum or even informal discussions. He too does not have children so there is no question of bequeathing his legacy to anyone.

Of course you have some other famous bachelors in Indian politics like Naveen Patnaik in Odisha, Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal and Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu who are heading the governments there and Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh who has been in and out of government for the last almost two decades. But none of them are the competitors of Rahul in national politics.

The only serious competition which Rahul faces in 2014 will be from a fellow bachelor Narendra Modi. If Rahul indeed thinks that bachelorhood is a virtue in politics, then obviously Modi too has this virtue. If Congress makes bachelorhood as the basic qualification for prime ministership, Modi will get in while his rivals in BJP would have no chance as most of them, including LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley are married. But like Vajpayee, bachelorhood is the only common thing which Modi shares with Rahul. Unlike the Congress vice president, Modi has so far never expressed his abhorrence for the post of Prime Minister. He has been the Chief Minister of Gujarat for over a decade and obviously would want to climb higher in the political journey and considers the desire for prime ministership as legitimate.

So in the run-up to 2014, we may perhaps see a reluctant prime ministerial candidate (Rahul) and a candidate who wants this post (Modi). As both of them are bachelors, none of them have an advantage over each other on that count unless Rahul does a

U-turn in the next 12 months as the campaign for Lok Sabha elections build up. Over to the voters of the country. (March 11, 2013) 

http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/132463-rahul-the-bachelor-who-doesnt-want-the-pms-chair.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/132654-rahul-the-bachelor-who-doesnt-want-the-pms-chair.html

Bajwa in, Amarinder shown the door

Amitabh Shukla / Chandigarh

Politically suffocated by the Shiromani Akali Dal and consistently on the back-foot, Congress finally found an alibi for successive defeats in Punjab and removed Capt Amarinder Singh from the post of state unit President.

With an aim to make Congress fighting fit for the Lok Sabha elections next year, party President Sonia Gandhi and Vice President Rahul Gandhi chose 56-year old Partap Singh Bajwa whose electoral record has been better compared to the 72-year old Capt Amrinder who is on a losing spree ever since the party first lost the 2007 assembly polls and then the 2012 polls which it was widely expected to win. Capt Amarinder was the mascot of the party in both the elections.

The defeat in the Moga by-polls and the accompanying turf war between the state party leaders proved to be the proverbial last straw to break the Camel’s back—the nemesis of the Maharaja of Patiala. Soon after the defeat, he issued notices to some of the MLAs like Brahm Mohindra and Kaka Randeep Singh blaming them for not working for the party candidate in the Moga by-poll. The MLAs retaliated, triggering a full blown war in the state Congress which threatened the façade of unity assiduously built for the by-polls. Senior state Congress leaders rushed to Delhi to appraise the high command that the fratricidal war could have devastating electoral outcome. The high command acted swiftly and Bajwa was appointed with the Captain having no inkling of what was about to happen till the statement issues by AICC General Secretary Janardan Dwivedi in New Delhi.

The countdown for the Captain began soon after the defeat in the Assembly polls in March last year. For the first time in 46 years, an incumbent government won the polls and the blame went to the Captain for his autocratic style, faulty distribution of tickets, two dozen rebels and also underestimating the Manpreet Badal factor. He resigned from his post but was asked to stay put for a while. It took a year for the Congress High command to take a decision which it could have taken just after the defeat in the assembly polls. 

A double whammy awaited the Captain as the Congress badly lost the civic polls in major cities of the state soon after the assembly polls. The cities and urban areas were supposed to be Congress stronghold but here also the BJP and Akali Dal pipped Congress and took away its urban vote base.

Apart from the style of functioning, electoral results too played a role in the removal of the Captain. While Bajwa, the MP from Gurdaspur, managed to get his wife Charanjit Kaur elected in the Assembly polls from Qadian, Amarinder could not ensure the victory of his son from Samana which is part of Patiala, considered for a long time as the pocket borough of the Maharaja. Earlier Raninder had lost from Bathinda Lok Sabha constituency in the 2009 polls. The Captain’s brother, Malwinder also parted company on the eve of the 2012 polls, raising doubts about the former Chief Minister’s ability to keep his own family and the party united.

Given the demographic arithmetic in the state, only a Jat Sikh fitted the space of Capt Amarinder at this point and in such circumstances, Bajwa was hardly a surprise. He is relatively young at 56, has been through the thick and thin, was the President of Punjab Youth Congress and comes from a political family of the Majha (border) region of the state.

This is perhaps the end of the political road for the scion of the erstwhile Patiala princely state as the premium is on youth under Rahul Gandhi and the party is unlikely to make him the chief ministerial candidate for the 2017 polls when he would be 76. As his wife, Preneet Kaur is the Patiala MP and Minister of State in the UPA government, it is again unlikely that he would contest 2014 Lok Sabha polls, relinquishing his Patiala Assembly seat. At best, he could hope to become a Governor or an Ambassador, posts given to retired politicians. (March 7, 2013) 

Roadmap 2014 becomes clear

 VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

In the National Council meet of BJP, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi called Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the “Night Watchman”, who is only warming the seat for Rahul Gandhi as and when the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty decides to assume office.

Though it is difficult to fathom the logic as no one can actually be the “Night Watchman” for almost nine years, the remark nevertheless triggered uproar as everything related to Modi does, with Congress giving it back to Modi in the same language.

Even as the two parties were targeting each other, the sane counsel of LK Advani got drowned in the cacophony and Modi hype. Now, more or less in the role of a patriarch with Prime Ministerial ambitions behind him, Advani counseled the party to reach out to the allies and the minorities apart from zero tolerance towards corruption. In its enthusiasm to project Modi as the undeclared prime ministerial candidate of the party, BJP leaders of late seem to have forgotten how to reach out to the potential allies, something which Advani has suggested and given a timely reminder. It was the USP of Vajpayee who led a 23-party coalition successfully. As Advani was the Number 2 and the man behind many of those decisions, he knows it better. At this point of time, the allies of BJP could be counted on finger tips and in the past several years, it has got no new entrants except little known Haryana Janhit Congress with one member in the Lok Sabha. Those who have walked out are in double digit.

At a time when the vote share of both Congress and the BJP is more or less stagnant with little or no chance of it going drastically up or down, it is the allies who will matter the most in 2014. Whoever gets the maximum allies and support of the regional parties will have a fair chance of getting its nominee as the Prime Minister. If BJP gets most of the regional players in the NDA fold, it could have Modi or whoever it wants as the PM; if not, Congress would surely have Rahul Gandhi this time given the regional arithmetic it has assiduously worked in the past almost nine years ever since it came to power in the 2004 elections.

In the last quarter of a century, ever since the Mandir issue catapulted the BJP as an alternative power Centre and the Mandal issue paved the way for emergence of powerful OBC satraps in North India, the power has decisively shifted to the regional parties and their chieftains. The two national parties have just become the cementing factor whom these parties support for their own regional aspirations and to get their demands met from the Centre.

Even as the BJP has sounded the poll bugle in its Delhi meeting, it has so far not attempted to get Trinamool Congress, AIADMK and Biju Janata Dal in National Democratic Alliance. All the three parties were crucial for the formation of the Atal Bihari government and provided valuable support as allies. Telugu Desham Party too has so far been out of the NDA scheme of things even though it still has a sizeable following in Andhra Pradesh.

Just consider the fact that on its own, BJP does not matter in any of these States —West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Odisha which are headed by Mamata Banerjee, Jayalalitha and Naveen Pattnaik. Add Andhra Pradesh to this list and you get four States which together send almost 140 members to the Lok Sabha where BJP hardly has any presence and so far it has failed to stitch an alliance even when the polls are a little over a year away. Perhaps it wants to do well in the northern States and places where it is strong so that the parties who are watching it from a distance could come to it and join the NDA after the results. But this is not as simple unless the groundwork is done before the polls for a pact or the party gets an assurance of support after the polls.

Then there are States like Uttar Pradesh where none of the two main players — SP and BSP — would support the BJP and on its own, the party cannot repeat the magical numbers it got when Vajpayee formed government.

The BJP meeting in New Delhi, which followed the one of Congress in Jaipur, has clearly set the tone of political discourse in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections. While Jaipur catapulted Rahul Gandhi practically on the throne as the Number two of the party and the prime ministerial candidate, New Delhi did a similar thing to Narendra Modi. It has paved the way for Modi’s prime ministerial ambitions like never before with no serious challenger emerging so far from the party.

Modi played to the gallery well. In his speech, he hit the Congress hard and pointed how it has become a dynastic party. Already, a lot of the leaders and ministers owe their position to their dynasty and now there are several sons of these leaders and ministers who are set to make a political debut. This includes sons of AICC General Secretaries Oscar Fernandes, Digvijay Singh and Janardan Dwivedi. Also the sons of Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot and Himachal Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh are set to follow the footsteps of their father anytime now.

Opposition to dynastic politics could perhaps be the USP of BJP in the run up to the elections as so far the party hardly has any leader whose son or daughter is in serious politics.

Corruption could be another issue which the BJP would hope to bank on with something or the other tumbling out of the cupboard of UPA Government every now or then. But it depends on the Congress how well it defends its scams and on the BJP on how it finds chinks in the armour of the ruling party.

But these are macro issues which are crucial, but not all important when a person goes out to cast his vote. His or her regional aspirations, local issues and factors too count a lot and it is here-in the management of the micro issues where the BJP has found to be lacking.

Getting allies on board on a consistent basis in the run-up to the polls is micro poll management and the BJP will have to show its skills here. Congress has an advantage as apart from the Trinamool Congress it has consistent allies who have been through thick and thin.

It will be Micro poll management which holds the keys for the prime ministerial chair in 2014 as both Congress and BJP are evenly matched so far in the Macro issues on which polls are generally fought. (March 4, 2013)

http://dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/130887-roadmap-2014-becomes-clear.html

 http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/130976-roadmap-2014-becomes-clear.html

SAD humbles Congress in Moga

Amitabh Shukla / Chandigarh

It has been a prolonged victory spree for the Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab with the party crushing the Congress in the Moga by-election reaffirming its credentials as an election winning juggernaut.

The victory by a margin of 18,849 votes is all the more sweeter for SAD as the entire state Congress leadership practically camped in Moga during campaign and the party was banking on a favourable result for its revival in the State before the Lok Sabha elections next year. Congress also pitched Moga as a referendum on the policies of the year-old State government in the second term.

As the victorious Akali candidate, Joginder Pal Jain, was elected on a Congerss ticket in the 2012 polls, had resigned his seat, joined the ruling SAD and contested again, the results could motivate others and hasten the exodus of Congress leaders towards the ruling party in the State. This could further demoralise Congress cadres and PCC president Capt Amarinder Singh could see a renewed and strong challenge to his position, already weakened after successive defeats.

Moga follows the victory of the Akali Dal in the Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee polls earlier this year. In March 2012, the SAD-BJP alliance had created history by becoming the first incumbent government to win an Assembly election in Punjab in 44 years.

While Deputy Chief Minister and SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal led from the front, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal proved to be the guiding force and a reassurance for the voters that their interests would be safe in the hands of the 85-year veteran of many a political battle.

“It is a forceful mandate for the agenda of peace, development and communal harmony, and a victory of clean politics over negative tactics such as mudslinging, character assassination and issue-less policies. The problem with the Congress is that it has no agenda except Akali bashing,” the Chief Minister said after the victory.

A defensive Capt Amarinder took the line which defeated parties often do alleging that “the verdict was manipulated and manufactured by the Akalis by blatant abuse of money, muscle, police and official power.” He maintained that “the outcome of the by-election is no reflector of the popularity of the government.”

Being credited with the induction of Jain and the victory, Sukhbir remained humble terming the bye election as a “referendum on the progressive policies of SAD-BJP alliance.” He saw the result as a “farewell chapter” in the electoral history of Congress and as a warm-up exercise for Akali cadre and trailer for 2014 Lok Sabha election.

So strong was the Akali wave that the label of “turncoat” on Jain for being a party hopper and ditching the voters within a year of being elected, failed to stick as he won by a bigger margin than 2012. Congress plank of law and order collapsed as the plank of development of the Akalis got the approval in both urban as well as rural areas of the constituency.

With the victory, the strength of the Akali Dal has gone up to 57 in the 117-member House. It also enjoys the support of two Independent MLAs in a House where the halfway mark is 59. Its long term ally, BJP has 12 members. (March 1, 2013)

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/130336-sad-humbles-congress-in-moga.html

Cameron and Shinde: Poles apart, same tactics, different results

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

What is the difference between an apology and expressing regret? The question came to dominate after British Prime Minister David Cameron expressed regret for what had happened at Jallianwala Bagh 94 years ago and Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde too took refuge in the same word for his remarks on “Hindu terror”.

Most of us use both the words interchangeably and hardly see a difference except the hard core grammar and literature enthusiasts and the purists. Even the Oxford dictionary uses the word apology for regret seamlessly.

The core of the issue is the message delivered and not the actual meaning, more so when diplomacy and politics are involved rather than a literary expression in a fiction.

Cameron clearly wanted the message to go home in his country, at Amritsar, Punjab and in India that Britain indeed was sorry for what happened in Jallianwala Bagh on the day of Baisakhi in 1919 in which over 1000 people who had assembled for a peaceful protest, died after the troops under General Reginald Dyer fired without any provocation. He might not have used the word apology anywhere in the Visitor’s Book at the memorial in Jallianwala Bagh but by and large it acted as a soothing balm in the holy city where the memories of that day are still vivid amongst the older generation through first hand tales and the younger generation through stories, history books and the physical existence of the memorial and the place where t he tragedy took place.

Cameron was guided by diplomacy and officials of the British foreign office must have advised him to do so and could even have prompted the exact words he chose. But more importantly, it was obviously politics back home which led the British Prime Minister to visit Jallianwala Bagh and also the Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple) in Amritsar. Punjabis constitute an influential and politically active section in countries like Britain, Canada and United States and with this move, Cameron is sure to get a sizeable per cent of their votes when he seeks re-election for the House of Commons in the May 2015 election in his country.

This is precisely what guided the non-gazetted police officer turned Home Minister Shinde when he used the word “Hindu terror” during the Jaipur conclave of the party and how the BJP was running terror camps or so. Cameron faces elections in May 2015, Shinde and his party will have to face it exactly a year earlier, in May 2014. Obviously, the remarks of Shinde were not an innocent one which just slipped out of his mouth but is loaded with meaning. With one stroke, he tried to consolidate the minority vote bank, never mind it helped the terror machines in Pakistan absolve themselves of all responsibilities for the serial terror attacks on India, the latest at Hyderabad. Being the Home Minister of the country, Shinde is supposed to know what he is speaking when the matter pertains to terrorism.

But expressing an apology or regret or whatever you call it for his remarks, clearly shows that politics was writ large on the “Hindu terror” comments of the Home Minister. Why apologise or express regret when you have the facts along with all the investigating and intelligence agencies at your command which can bring out those facts? Once the purpose was served — of playing the so called secular card, the statement was conveniently taken back.

Mr Shinde, please don’t play politics with terrorism. It has no colour or religion. It is simply terror. Punish all those who indulge in terror — Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian or whoever it is whether he or she is an atheist or practices primitive animism. It doesn’t matter. Such crude attempts of classifying terror would boomerang. And it has already boomeranged in a way. Despite the hanging of Afzal Guru, no message has gone to the terrorists as they continue with their attacks and Hyderabad is the latest in the series of attacks which the country had to face in the last two decades or so. Mr Shinde, how would you classify the Hyderabad terror attack? Which colour or religion does this belong to? Obviously you would not answer as you have burnt your fingers and you cannot derive political mileage out of it.

Don’t compromise with the paramount consideration of fighting terror with all the command and force you have. Politicising it is not the solution and after tendering an apology, you have made it clear that the use of “Hindu terror” was political in nature with an eye on the vote bank. Remember, the country comes first and then Congress, BJP or vote bank politics. Don’t put the party and vote bank before the country. This is precisely what you did with the “Hindu terror” comments.

But the problem here is bigger. Congress is so huge and diverse that even if Shinde says something, someone else would disassociate himself or herself from the remarks to pander to another set of vote bank. More or less, this is a calculated exercise. One Shinde or Digvijay Singh says something to pander to a communal interest and one Janardan Dwivedi or Manish Tiwari says something else to pander to another set of vote bank and assuage the feelings of that section which apparently felt hurt by a comment.

Just after Shinde apologised or for that matter said sorry for his “Hindu terror” remarks, you now have Union Minister Kamal Nath saying that Shinde had not apologised for his controversial remarks but only expressed regret. Now, some other leader would say something and the process would continue. Grow out of this habit. For how long would you continue to use the same set of tactics which you have been using for the last 60 years to get votes?

Post Script:  Cameron’s note on the Visitor’s Book would ensure him a place in the history books as the first British Prime Minister who was sorry and expressed regret, almost apologised for a historical blunder which a fellow British citizen committed in 1919.  It would help him get votes of the Punjabis and the Indians living in Britain. What Shinde said and apologised for would neither earn him any accolades or votes for his party. This only showed how immature a politician he is and how the statement was calculated to cater to vote bank politics.  (February 25, 2013)

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/129367-cameron-and-shinde-poles-apart-same-tactics-different-results.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/129396-cameron-and-shinde-poles-apart-same-tactics-different-results-.html

Cameron Apology: Next time maybe something more unequivocal

There is hardly a house in old Amritsar without a connection with that day in Britain’s infamy and for them David Cameron’s equivocity over a true ‘sorry’ was something of a mixed message — chalega, but definitely not the real thing

Amitabh Shukla

British Prime Minister David Cameron was not fulfilling a diplomatic role as Prime Minister of Britain at the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial this week. He was just upholding a tradition of wooing the ethnic vote back home by making solemn declarations of correcting the wrongs of history. Last November, Cameron’s Canadian counterpart, Stephen Harper, visited Takht Keshgarh Sahib and then had dinner at a Punjabi dhaba in Chandigarh in November. The message conveyed by both the Prime Ministers to their expatriate Punjabi voters was simple — “We care for your feelings, so please…your vote.”

Cameron’s message to the half-a-million-strong Punjabi community back home would not be lost when he seeks re-election in May 2015. He did all it required to win their support two years before the polls to the House of Commons — he sported a blue scarf to cover his head; visited the Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple); went to the community kitchen (langar) to see food being prepared where he tried his hand at making a roti; took blessings at the sanctum sanctorum by standing for a while at the Akal Takht and finally took a parikarma (round) of the marbled perimeter of the temple like any other devout.

But people of the city, almost everyone who remembers the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy through tales of their grandparents and elders, folklore and history, wanted more than what he wrote in the Visitor’s Book at the memorial which witnessed the greatest tragedy during the freedom struggle of the country. “Britain apologizes” — this is what the people wanted written there for perpetuity. They nearly got it but not exactly. “This was a deeply shameful event in British history,” Cameron wrote, adding, “One that Winston Churchill rightly described at that time as monstrous. We must never forget what happened here and we must ensure that the UK stands up for the right of peaceful protests around the world”.

“We have waited for an apology for the last 94 years,” said Bhushan Behl, grandson of Lala Hari Ram Behl, a martyr of that infamous act on the day of Baishakhi in 1919 in the holy city. Behl heads an organisation called the Jallianwala Bagh Shahid Parivar Samiti to keep the memory of the martyrs alive and bring together the descendants of the martyrs.

As the tragedy is etched in the collective memory of the people, the organisation still remains relevant in the city. The members of the organisation had sought a meeting with the visiting British PM, but they were simply not allowed free movement for an hour when Cameron was in the walled city.

But the voice of Behl and many others, who wanted an outright apology without mixing the words in diplomatic nuance, was drowned because of the gesture of Cameron in visiting the holiest Sikh shrine. Even the Sikh hardliners and the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee did not demand an outright apology.

“After Winston Churchill in 1920, this is for the first time that a high ranking elected leader of Britain has used words like shameful and monstrous. We are satisfied,” an Akali leader said, adding, “this would help heal the collective psyche of the Amritsar residents”.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who received Cameron at the Golden Temple, was satisfied with the visit and the homage paid to the martyrs. He considered it as a ‘sort of an apology’ for which the people of the country, especially Punjab had been waiting for long.

The caretaker of the Jallianwala Bagh memorial, Sukumar Mukherjee, whose grandfather SC Mukherjee shifted to Amritsar in 1910 and took up the cause of the memorial soon after the tragedy in 1920 with national leaders, was satisfied too. “The British PM was apologetic. A word here or there does not matter, the intent does. Homage has been paid to the martyrs,” Mukherjee said, whose family has not left the city ever since they became the caretakers of the memorial in the early 1920s.

Though the demographic profile of Amritsar has changed like any other city over the past hundred years, what stands out here is the fact that in the walled city almost every family either lost an ancestor or has information of somebody with a forebear killed on the orders of General Reginald Dyer. So the pain associated with the Jallianwala Bagh lingers, even though the mayhem of that afternoon 94 years ago was subsequently overtaken by one of the greatest man-made tragedies in world history — the partition of the sub-continent in 1947 — where the volume of Punjab’s pain was tremendously profound and still overwhelms the national policy on a variety of issues.

Cameron, despite his vote-bank oriented intentions, ended up making a beginning of recognising a historical tragedy during colonial rule and perhaps this was the right way to move forward. Residents believe that the near future could see another Prime Minister, King or Queen of Britain who would not only bow his head before the martyrs’ column, but express something more unequivocal than “regret” so that Britain’s bad name is cleansed. (February 23, 2013) 

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/item/53476-next-time-maybe-something-more-unequivocal.html

Bofors gets a new avatar in AgustaWestland

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

 The VVIP helicopter deal and the associated kickback are set to become a political thriller in the days to come. More so, as it precedes a series of Assembly elections this year and then the Lok Sabha elections in April-May next year.

Could this deal gone horribly wrong become the Bofors of the Manmohan Singh Government? This is precisely what the Congress is thinking and the party managers are correct in their assessment that fire fighting efforts have to be doubled and even trebled. They cannot leave anything to chance as BJP is pressing the accelerator and wants to convert the helicopter deal into the Bofors of UPA-II. You don’t have to be a student of history to recall that VP Singh felled the mighty Rajiv Gandhi Government in 1989, largely on Defence kickbacks and Bofors had become a household name, a name synonymous with high-end corruption in which the big and mighty were involved.

Many in the countryside at that time did not know what Bofors exactly was when the issue rocked the nation. But the way election campaign was run and the issue used, they knew one thing for sure that the word meant that the ruling Congress Government was involved in some murky dealing and had to be taught a lesson for the wrongdoing. This is what they did when the Congress with 400 plus seats was reduced to a figure below 200 in the polls, sending Rajiv Gandhi packing to the Opposition benches of Lok Sabha.

A quarter of a century later, AgustaWestland could be a tongue twister and a difficult name to remember as compared to Bofors, but by and large, the message which VP Singh then conveyed through a series of rallies, has been conveyed instantly by the 24x7 news channels now. The vertical and parallel links, explored so far, point out towards the involvement of ruling political bigwigs apart from those in the command of the Air Force. As the entire plot of the helicopter deal is yet to be unearthed, more skeletons from the cupboard of the ruling party would tumble in the coming days and weeks to come. You cannot keep saying for eternity that the case has been handed over to the CBI for investigations and action would be taken once the investigations are complete. People now know from their experience of high value corruption involving politicians that it is a diversionary tactics, meant to delay and manipulate inconvenient facts.

AgustaWestland is not the last one has heard of big ticket corruption which became a hallmark of the ruling UPA in its second term. More could tumble out in the remaining 14 months of the Government. The Commonwealth Games scandal, 2G Spectrum scam, Coalgate — all saw serious acts of omission and commission by the UPA-led Central Government in which the amount of money involved was astronomical.

Then, there were a host of other cases where a case was made out of misuse of power and authority like the land bought by Robert Vadra in Gurgaon and diverting the funds of the Congress for National Herald.

In fact, people would be wondering how many scams of UPA-II remain “unexposed” as of now. They are wary of anything which the Government purchases or schemes it spends on simply saying that wherever there is money involved, there is invariably a leakage. If the money is big, the leakage is traced to the big and mighty like in the AgustaWestland deal or the 2G and Commonwealth Games scam, if the money involved is small, the leakage is traced to junior officials — lower level revenue and civic officials, clerks, section officers, Under Secretaries and IAS officers.

One could criticise Anna Hazare’s concept of Jan Lokpal as a guardian of checking corruption terming it dictatorial, but the support it got suggests what people genuinely feel about all pervasive corruption and inaction of the Government.

Clearly, there has been a governance deficit in the second term of Manmohan Singh as the economist turned Prime Minister has simply looked the other way even when one issue of corruption to the other rocked the Government for the better part of his tenure. What is the use of hiding behind the guise of “integrity and honesty” when you cannot control colossus corruption all around you? This is what people are asking now at the fag end of the political career of Singh when he is about to complete nine years at the helm. It will indeed be difficult for Rahul Gandhi, Congress vice president and the Number two to carry the legacy of Singh — “tolerance to corruption” — on his soldiers as and when the situation warrants.

CPI (M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury says that UPA-II is the most corrupt regime since Independence. Obviously, Congress would not agree to it. But get a calculator and do a simple sum of adding the amount involved in all the scams which took place in the last 45 months and you would start believing Yechury even if you do not agree with the policies of his party.

By going slow on the helicopter deal, the Congress Government has already triggered speculations that it has a lot to hide and the links could go right up to the top.

BJP has a valid point when it asks that when the bribe giver has been arrested, why can’t the investigating agency arrest the bribe taker in India. As per Indian law, both bribe giver and taker are guilty but everyone knows who carries the bigger guilt in the eyes of the people who vote in elections.

Obviously, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and heir apparent Rahul Gandhi would not take the blame saying that the onus of governance lies at the doors of Manmohan Singh and they never held any Government office.

Last year in May, when UPA completed three years in office, the Congress president said tough action will be taken against all those who are found to be involved in corruption. Does the party believe that transferring a case to CBI is indeed a “tough action”?

I wonder what the Congress would sell in the next election. It has run out of issues to highlight and instead bogged down by a series of corruption at all levels of governance.

Cash transfer of subsidy, being billed as the “game changer” has so many loopholes ingrained in it that it would be foolhardy to believe that it would pay electoral dividends the way NAREGA did in the last tenure of UPA. Bribing the voters work, but not always. (February 18, 2013) 

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/128393-bofors-gets-a-new-avatar-in-agustawestland.html

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/128245-bofors-gets-a-new-avatar-in-agustawestland.html

Afzal Guru, Congress, Rahul and Modi

VIEWPOINT

AMITABH SHUKLA

Politics leads to Government. Every action which the Government takes or intends to take has political overtones and the benefit-loss analysis is carefully calculated to the last electorate.

As that is the case, only the naïve would think that the hanging of Afzal Guru has nothing to do with electoral politics. I am sure the way this is going to play out in the next few months in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections would have been worked out to the minutest details before the Government took a call on hanging Guru after the President rejected the mercy plea of the Parliament House attack convict.

After procrastination and indecision for several years, the execution of Guru comes at a time when national politics is entering a crucial phase in the second month of 2013 with several Assembly elections lined up followed by the battle royale of 2014. As the hanging followed that of the Mumbai butcher Ajmal Kasab, with two strokes, the Congress Government has successfully removed the disgraceful tag of being "soft on terror".

It has also sought to remove the tag of being a "soft state" which could have been an electoral disaster in the long run after Pakistani intruders killed two Indian soldiers and beheaded one of them, leading to a flashpoint on the Line of Control and a diplomatic row.

Its rival BJP will no longer be able to target Congress on the issue of Guru and will lose a vital issue to score brownie points during election campaign. Also, it will be difficult for the opposition party to use the beheading incident of January 8 in election campaign even though the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj wanted India to get at least 10 heads from the other side for that of martyred soldier Hemraj.

Though Congress won in 2009, it was very difficult for the party to answer the questions of BJP on Afzal Guru who had practically become a symbol of "soft state" in that election campaign.

Finally, the Congress had to dig out the Kandahar hijacking case and the release of terrorists in lieu of Indian Airlines passengers to blunt the BJP line of attack. It no longer will have to answer any questions on Guru now in any election. In 2009, Congress used to say "law will take its own course" on Kasab, now it conveniently says "law has taken the full course".

With this move, the Government also silenced the right wing groups who had been baying first for Kasab's blood and then for Guru.

It has also silenced a series of campaigns on the social networking sites for hanging Kasab and Guru, several of which had predicted that both the terrorists would die of old age when they are in their 90s. Now, the campaign of the laptop and Smart Phone generation would end and they will have to find some new cause to rally behind.

The Congress and the Government must also have calculated that they would not lose any minority vote on this count as no Muslim would ever sympathise with Guru.

There could be some sympathies for the hanged terrorist in Kashmir valley but in any case the state is hardly significant for the Congress in the bigger scheme of things when it comes to electoral politics.

Now, we can understand the context of the use of the word "saffron terror" of Home Minister Shushilkumar Shinde during the Jaipur conclave of the Congress aptly. It was not an innocent statement out of nowhere. He obviously wanted to win over the minorities with the slur.

The comment was made in the interregnum after Kasab was hanged and Guru was yet to be hanged. Shinde must be aware what was in fate for Guru in the second week of February and obviously wanted to win over both the Hindus and Muslims.

Though no one would admit it, I suspect that Congress played the communal card deftly here. With the hanging, it wanted to endear itself to a section of the right wing Hindus and with the use of the calculated word "saffron terror", it wanted to pander to the sentiments of naïve Muslims.

How far the party succeeds would be visible only in the polls results, first in a series of Assembly polls this year which would obviously be the semi-final before the battle of 2014. Political observers and senior journalists who have seen the Congress functioning for the last over four decades say

that earlier attempts of the party playing the communal and caste card was quite "crude" and was too obvious even for the common man but now there is a lot more "sophistication" to the exercise.

Also, Congress clearly wants to give leverage to its newly appointed vice president Rahul Gandhi and remove the obstacles in front of him so that he does not face the barbs, likely from Narendra Modi and BJP in the race for prime ministership in 2014.

I am sure, Rahul would never comment on the hanging of the Parliament House convict as he has not spoken on any issue of significance in the last several months. His flag bearers would have to do that on his behalf.

The last he spoke was at Jaipur and it was a "sob story" how his family sacrificed for the country and how as a young child and a teenager he faced the deaths of his grandmother and father.

A few days later after the Jaipur conclave of the Congress, Modi, likely to be his main opponent in 2014, tried to build the India story, show optimism and gave a way forward during his talk at the SRCC, Delhi University.

While Gandhi went back to the past to the days of his grandmother and father, Modi went ahead with a vision of what the country could be in the next few years. In fact, Modi was speaking the language of Rahul's father Rajiv Gandhi when he talked of computers, electronics and the new century when he became the Prime Minister in 1984. It is a different matter that Rajiv could not build on the vision and platform even after getting 4/5th of majority in Parliament, the biggest ever since the country became a Republic.

Rahul will be addressing four public meetings on Monday, February 11 in Tripura. It would be interesting to note the national or the local issues he takes up in the State.

He will have to fight the "voter fatigue" against him which is fast becoming a reality and invent new jargons and methodology to counter Modi amongst the You Tube and Smartphone generation. The party cannot depend on Afzal Guru's hanging to get votes. In any case, the law has taken its own course on the issue. 

(February 11, 2013)

 http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/126815-afzal-guru-congress-rahul-and-modi.html

DSGMC results: Implication in Punjab and Delhi

VIEWPOINT 

AMITABH SHUKLA

The victory of the Shiromani Akali Dal in the Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee (DSGMC) polls sends several political messages loud and clear. The hegemony of the SAD amongst the Sikhs beyond Punjab is no longer a matter of conjecture. It is a reality which the Congress cannot brush aside, however hard it tries and whatever logic it invents.

The process of the dominance of the SAD in elections which are largely religious in nature started with the landslide it got in the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) elections in September 2011. In that election, the SAD wiped out the faction of Haryana SGPC led by Jagdish Singh Jhinda which wanted a separate body to manage the elections in Haryana. Obviously, this group too was aligned to the Congress. By winning most of the SGPC seats in Haryana, the SAD and the Sikhs sent a clear message that there was no need for a separate management committee for the Gurudwaras based in Haryana and the present arrangement was good enough.

With the victory in the DSGMC polls, SAD has emerged as the sole spokesperson of the Sikh community in matters related to religion as well as politics. Remember, miri (politics and political power) and piri (religion or spiritual power) are a part of the Sikh idiom from time immemorial. Also, in between the two elections for the religious bodies, SAD-BJP won Punjab Assembly polls for the second time in a row in March 2012.

Obviously it was the Congress which was at the receiving end more than the SAD (Delhi) of the Sarna brothers – Paramjit Singh and Harvinder Singh – in the DSGMC polls. Though the Congress officially does not participate in the elections of the DSGMC or any religious body, it is an open secret that it was backing the Sarnas with whatever possible way it could. Delhi Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely was the key political strategist of the Sarnas like he was in the last elections in 2007. At that time, Lovely took credit for the victory of the Sarnas, this time he must take the blame too for the defeat. Punjab Congress President Capt Amarinder Singh too campaigned for the SAD (Delhi) and obviously the party cannot claim that it was “neutral” or does not dabble in elections which are religious in nature. If the SAD (Delhi) had won, both Lovely and the Captain would have been the first to claim credit.

So the verdict is as clear as daylight and there is hardly any confusion. It was a Congress backed SAD (Delhi) which lost the polls to the BJP backed SAD (Badal).

The timing of the victory is significant for the father-son duo of Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Singh Badal as it comes 10 months before the Delhi Assembly polls and 15 months before the Lok Sabha elections. The Badals could well get their first MLA in Delhi Assembly later this year and may also bargain for the West Delhi or South Delhi Lok Sabha seat in the 2014 Parliamentary  polls from the BJP. A positive outcome in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls for the BJP-SAD combine could also encourage the senior Badal to move to central politics in a big way, leaving the state to his son Sukhbir. As SAD President, Sukhbir has not lost the habit of winning and his political hegemony within the party remains unchallenged.

Moga bye-poll, scheduled for February 23 is next on the agenda of the Akali Dal. It is indeed a tough election as the entire Congress has united for the first time in recent months, forgetting the turf war of their leaders. A turncoat, Joginder Pal Jain has been fielded as Akali nominee and even the mood amongst the voters, forced for a second election within a year, is not encouraging. If SAD wins it, there is nothing which could stop its juggernaut and the winning habit could continue till the Lok Sabha elections and beyond.

The loss in the DSGMC polls is also a setback and an ominous sign for Sheila Dikshit’s Congress government in Delhi which has been in power for over 14 years and faces Assembly polls later this year in November-December. This is the second successive loss for the Congress in a year in the national Capital after it lost elections to all the three municipal corporations in Delhi in April 2012. The two elections reflected the public mood of the national Capital and definitely it is not pro-Congress at this point of time.

Dikshit is the longest serving woman chief minister, having won three consecutive elections. However, over a period, she has lost her appeal amongst the middle class voters of Delhi. Voter fatigue is evident and the DSGMC result is a harsh wake-up call for the Delhi Chief Minister. 

Anti incumbency of three terms, mega corruption, price rise, scam in the Commonwealth Games—all have now combined and come to haunt the Dikshit government along with repeated onslaught of  BJP, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Arvind Kejriwal against the government. If the AAP contests all the seats and walks away with even a small per cent of votes, the beneficiary would obviously be the BJP. Dikshit now has nothing new to offer to the people of Delhi and the administration and government has been rather lackluster in her third term.

DSGMC result could well be the pointer to the larger political battle in Punjab as well as Delhi. It has given enough indications and the direction in which political wind is blowing.