Congress and BJP: comrades- in- arms!

Which is the better of the two? Congress or BJP? I wonder people would struggle if somebody poses this question to them. As far as I can see, there is only one difference: one is in power for almost eight years and so is arrogant and blind, and the other one is without power and constantly reminds us of the meaning of proverbial sour grapes. Modi or Rahul as next PM? Foolish question! Are they the only two persons to lead our country? Don’t we have an alternative? I pity Digvijay Singh’s attempt to project Rahul a mass hero. Of course, he knows the benefit of being an ardent Nehru clan fan! Oops! Here is the saffron brigade. One Yeddy from the south damaged their reputation beyond repair. The Congressmen must be feeling jealous (even Bhardwaj in Governor’s attire) because Yeddy did in no time what they could not do for several years. Corruption! What corruption? We always think of the monetary benefits our politicians and bureaucrats receive (a few lump sum millions in dollars) for delivering social benefits. What about their attempt to corrupt the minds of our countrymen by attempting to divide them on religious lines?

Thank God! No one is lagging behind. For every Raja, there is a Yeddyurappa! For every Karunanidhi, we have a Mayawati! Wow! What about the government attempts to spend millions apparently to help the poor and downtrodden? Pity, we miss one point. From the moment they assume power to the moment they leave it, they are in election mode……. The difference is that now they spend taxpayers’ money; for real elections, they will spend party money! Magnanimous, indeed!

One thing is sure. One Hazare or one Lokpal bill cannot cure the deep-rooted political malady! Only some kind of divine intervention something as big as a planetary collision or powerful earthquake that could wipe out this planet (along with this nation) could save our nation from these sincere public servants. I don’t these things to happen because I love to live, but I am ready to sacrifice my life if it can cure my country from these gentlemen.

Team India goes down, Team Anna rises

If you think it is the razor-sharp English bowling and their hurricane batting helped them dethrone India from No.1 Test ranking, I have a different opinion. I am sure the meek surrender of Team India should be looked at in a different perspective. It was Team India’s way of declaring solidarity with Team Anna’s efforts for a strong Lokpal Bill. Through their defeat, they tell Indians that they will not win a single match until Jan Lokpal Bill is passed in the Parliament.

Hard to believe! The grapevine is that senior Cabinet ministers (Led by Sharad Pawarji) huddled inside Manmohan’s room to find a way out to arrest further degradation of Team India’s name. (Oops! There is nothing more to erode now.) It is learned that Sharad Pawar has asked Singhvi (the legal, constitutional, bombastic, diplomatic, aristocratic, methodological, phenomenal-these are some of the words often used by this leader on TV shows) parliamentary standing committee panel chief to speed up the process before the ODI series begin.

Cricket experts may find many technical flaws for the lackluster performance of Team India in England. Poor chaps! They don’t have even have an iota of idea about Team India’s patriotic credentials. How could they perform to their fullest potential when back home, thousands of their countrymen fight for a genuine cause? Take a look at Sachin’s feat. Do you think Bresnan could trap him LBW when he was at 91, closer to his 100th century? I think Sachin deliberately got himself trapped because he knows his countrymen are not in a mood to celebrate his colossal feat under the prevailing circumstances. Or did he feel his century would distract people’s attention from Jank Lokpal bill stir? Then, how could Dravid remain unaffected among the debris? Come on, he thinks the Lokayukta had already claimed one victim (a powerful victim, of course) in his home state. So, he was not as perturbed as his other countrymen.

Guys, they should thank Team Anna for one thing. Now, the nation is engrossed in Lokpal stir. Or, our countrymen wouldn’t have minded our cricketers were World champions a few months before. An entire brigade of our army could not have protected their properties or guarantee their safety when they come home after their English Waterloo.
Hope our champions would join Anna Hazare when they come back home. For them, that is the only way out!

AN unending Indian political satire

Home Minister Chidambaram says it is government’s duty to protect the life of Gandhian Anna Hazare! True? (Comment on Hazare’s proposed fast in Delhi against the government version of Lokpal Bill) Mr. HM, don’t you think it is your duty to respect his ideology?

Mr. Chandy, Kerala Chief Minister, gives up vigilance portfolio. A vigilance court has directed a probe against Chandy to bring out his alleged involvement in the Kerala palmolein scam. Good, he assigns the vigilance portfolio to one of his cabinet ministers! Why couldn’t he ask the court to supervise the probe as in the case of the SC-supervised probe into the 2G scam? Also, another matter that disturbs my commonsense is how could the finance minister be absolved even when the then CM Karunakaran and the finance secretary PJ Thomas were named in the probe report? Do you want me to believe the secretary bypassed the finance minister when the decision to import palmolein was taken?

Then, one of the Kerala minister says he or his team of ministers are not cowards to resign. Cowards to resign? I don’t understand this phrase. One needs to be courageous and statesman-like to resign in the face of an indictment, Mr. Minister!

One scion of a political party says he is ashamed to be an Indian. (In the backdrop of the alleged police brutality against peasants during protests against land acquisition) Interestingly, a leading TV channel says 43% of the Indians prefer him to be the next prime minister! Alas! Where are we heading to?

Attention! If our government response to the Anna Hazare's agitationto cleanse our stinking political and social system is illogical and bullying, how could the Maoists respond to government's call to join mainstream politics? They might be laughing and asking us, "See, what is happening to a Gandhian? Don't you see the same fate happening to us if we join the mainstream and raise our voice against our system?"

What happened to our leaders?

I was laughing silently when I read the following in the newspapers. See how you felt about them.

Chidambaram countering BJP allegations
I believe our home minister is a capable person. I also believe he is capable of delivering as home minister. However, his statement countering BJP's allegations of his involvement in the 2G scam (in his capacity as former finance minister) looked childish and silly.
He said he is being targeted (he had bracketed himself with the prime minister of course) by the saffron brigade because he had initative probe into suspected 'saffron' terror links. I felt this statement very silly. It reminded me of my childhood when I used to tell my furious parents that I kicked my younger brother because he, who is many years younger to me, pinched me.

Congress asking Hazare to contest against Kapil Sibal
What a funny and childish statement from a grand old partyI Anyone in the country knows Anna cannot win an election against Sibal (or against any politicians) from anywhere in the country. Our old poor Gandhian does not understand the permutations and combinations of our politicians' strategic calculations. (or he knows them better!) Why Hazare! Even our real Gandhi (I mean Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) cannot win an election now even if he is fielded against R Raja. (You have to see the caste factor)

Yeddyurappa's Karnataka comedy!
I know this man cries for everything. Poor chap, he is very sentimental. The BJP should have considered this before asking him to quit as CM. I read he cried that loudly in a meeting after his return from Delhi. Interestingly, all his men cried with him. Alas! I missed that great comic scene. (Yeddy had reportedly asked his MLAs to switch off the mobile phone before his action.)

The comedy I missed
I was expecting another comedy last month. Sadly, that was not the right time to expect a comedy. It was during the Mumbai bomb blasts! I was expecting a statement from senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh accusing saffron brigade for the terror attack. He came very close, though. Wonder he did not say that he received a call from one of the victims (most probably a diamond vendor from Zaveri Bazar) that he was under saffron threat.

Isn't the so called Mumbai ‘resilience’ its helplessness?

After every terror attack in this maximum city, I hear political leaders and mediamen  repeating, "Mumbai will overcome", "Mumbaiites are resilient", "Mumbai has withstood such attacks in the past" etc. Wow! What a flattery! Or, is it the secret way of assuaging Mumbaiites’ wounded feelings by injecting a kind of false pride in their resilience? I am not a Mumbaikar, but like any other countryman, I feel when something happens in this wonderful city that feeds millions of people both locals and immigrants.

Is it their resilience or helplessness? I am sure it is the latter. What do you expect them to do when a tragedy strikes? Do you expect them to mourn for weeks? Come on, don’t be silly. Every human being is resilient. However, we have to respect Mumbaikars’ patience. Even after facing tragedies after tragedies and losing many of their loved ones, they never protested in a big way. After every tragedy, they are back to their usual self the next morning because they have to work. Do you expect a tea vendor or a diamond merchant to close their shops and lament loss of lives in the tragedy? I don’t think so because they have to earn to support their families. This is the harsh reality. And it is not the resilience stuff that guides them.

I feel for my countrymen there. They have to bear the brunt of all the terror attacks directed at our nation. They alone bear the pain…I know they do it for their countrymen. Don’t you think so? Or, by circumstances, they are alone forced to bear the sufferings. The terror attacks are not directed at Mumbai; it is directed at India.  Everyone from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, or Arunachal Pradesh to Gujarat should know this. Mumbaikars suffer for other Indians.  So, we have to be with them.

So, please don’t repeat the phrase “Mumbaikars’ resilience”. It is their helplessness. It is the same everywhere, be it in any other city in the country or anywhere in the world. Let us pray for our countrymen who lost their lives in the terror attacks.

Rahul Gandhi says all terror attacks cannot be stopped. Was he right?

The Congress scion remark in the aftermath of the 13/7 Mumbai blasts that all terror attacks cannot be stopped has naturally stoked controversy. The opposition has upped their ante condemning such “irresponsible” statement by the prime minister-in-waiting.  Was Rahul right? Perhaps the statement was untimely in the sense it comes at a time when the nation is mourning loss of precious lives. Hold on. Don’t dismiss his statement as his usual blabbering without any factual content. I feel he is right to a great extent. (Sorry, I am not an avid fan of this man.)
Is effective policing possible in a country without effective intelligence backup? Our crowded cities and market places are simple sitting ducks. I don’t think effective policing would not be that possible in a nation of billion people. I wonder if it is possible to watch out each and every person and single out terrorists from among the crowds. After all, terrorists take advantage of this precarious situation to their benefits. They can simply remain among our crowd without being noticed and get their acts together.  I don’t mean proper supervision and effective policing is an impossible mission. It is possible. But there are difficulties.

Can you imagine police rounding up suspects without being labeled anti-minority or anti-majority in the country? I am sure even if a genuine suspect is arrested, there will be political hue and cry. (Blame it on our vote bank politics.) If a person from minority community is rounded up, he will be projected innocent and such acts will be termed machinations against minorities. (Remember the infamous Batla encounter. Even now, a so-called secular politician claims it to be an encounter. Remember a great police official’s life was lost in the action.) In the same way, when a person from the majority community is suspected, it will be projected as an attack on majority community. (Remember the Samjhauta Express tragedy.) I don’t think it will be easy for our valiant security forces to enforce strict policing after such allegations. They pay a heavy price in the form of their lives in their efforts to make our country secure, but they are finally rewarded with ungrateful comments.

Then, there are people who say, “Look, there are no major terrorist strikes in the US or the UK after the September 11 attacks.” I agree with them. The Western nations were able to thwart major terrorist strikes for a long time thanks to their effective intelligence mechanism and counter-terror operations. Even then, are they completely safe? They live every moment in the shadow of terror. They can only prolong it. Only time will tell whether they could stop such attacks forever.  And alas! India is not America or Britain. They were never surrounded by hostile neighbours like India is. We are facing terror from our own neighbour or elements planted within the country in connivance of forces loyal to our enemy.  Our intelligence mechanism can collect terror inputs and work on them, but they don’t have the power or resources to preempt them.

Rahul might not have considered these points before making such a statement. However, I feel he is right. In a country where politicians are working their way through victims of terror attacks for their personal glory and power, nothing more can be expected.

Who failed our constitution?

I am always proud of our vibrant, liberal and in more than one way, a unique constitution.  Also, I always believed we can find solution to many the problems confronting the nation today by applying the constitutional provisions liberally and judicially. I also believe it is the fundamental duty of every citizen, be he an official or a common man, to protect the integrity and purity of our constitution. The responsibility should be more if one is a person in power. Sadly, I would like to draw your attention to two recent incidents which radically shook my belief in the effectiveness of constitutional provisions. I must admit it is not due to any inherent weakness of the constitution. It is being weakened by those very persons who are supposed to protect it.

The first incident is regarding the PAC report on the infamous 2G spectrum scam. I was taught that the institution of CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General of India) is one of the marvelous creations of our constitution to effectively check financial misappropriation by those who are in power. And my belief in that institution was always strengthened by its findings and adverse comments against those who are in power at times whenever a financial misappropriation was noticed. However, the CAG report would not have brought about any desired change in the system unless it is brought before the parliament. Parliament is the authority where the report is discussed and suitable corrective actions will be recommended. Unfortunately, the recent controversy over MM Joshi’s PAC report indicting many powerful personalities in the current regime for the 2G scam was scrupulously sidelined by MPs representing the ruling party and its allies. I am not looking into the merits and demerits of the report. And also, to be neutral, let me not get into the political angles of the report. However, we should see that if we have enough power to manipulate things and capacity to garner enough support, we can override even a PAC report. I am not sure if the report will be tabled in parliament. I await the decision of the Speaker. However, I want to highlight mere violation of one of the provisions of our constitution.

The other one comes from Kerala. During the recent assembly poll campaign, our defence minister canvassed for the Opposition UDF in Kerala. One of his statements seemingly violates the federal principles of our constitution. Though the word “federal’ is not specifically mention in the constitution, it envisages for a quasi-federal set up for India. During the campaign, Mr Antony urged the people to vote for the UDF government so that both the state and the Centre will have governments ruled by the Congress. His statement apparently suggests that the Centre will help the states only if they are ruled by the Congress. This is blatant violation of the federal spirit of our constitution. He should have understood that the states are not seeking arms when they seek central assistance for developmental projects in states.
Both these incidents have shaken my belief in the effectiveness in implementing the constitutional provisions in their true spirit. Sadly, it comes from those people who are supposed to protect it and lead the nation by example. It is time for us to think who failed us? Constitution failed us or we failed the constitution?