The Scalping of Daljeet Kohli: A Silly and Wasted Effort

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/the-scalping-of-daljeet-kohli-a-silly-and-wasted-effort-1498385.html

In December 1997, this writer had gone to interview Pranab Mukherjee, then an ordinary MP of the Congress Party. The news of a Congressman, Rangarajan Kumaramangalam, joining the Bharatiya Janata Party had broken just an hour earlier. When I mentioned this to Mukherjee, he burst out with an incredulous look on his face: `Mohan-da’s son joining the BJP? How is that possible?’ 
For those who don’t know, Rangarajan (popularly known as Ranga) was the son of Mohan Kumaramangalam, a leading light of the Communist Party of India who joined the Congress in 1967 and became an integral part of Indira Gandhi’s leftist band. He had died in 1973 and so was spared headlines similar to those playing out a day after Manmohan Singh’s half-brother joined the BJP.
Mukherjee’s reaction to Ranga jumping parties and the current buzz over Singh’s brother shows one thing will never change in this country – the typical Indian refusal to see an individual and his or her choices outside of the family context.
Mukherjee’s reaction was not to a Congressman switching sides, but to a left-wing Mohan-da’s son joining a right-wing party. Daljeet Singh Kohli was just another businessman, whose decision to join a party would have been a `non-event’, as finance minister P. Chidambaram quite rightly put it. The only reason the BJP made his entry into its ranks a huge spectacle was his relationship with Manmohan Singh.
Modi’s reported statement on the occasion – `Dr Manmohan Singh’s brother has joined the BJP and this will add to our strength’ – reflects poorly, not on Singh and the Congress, but on himself. Is the BJP in such a bad shape that it requires the entry of a little-known brother of a man whom its leaders have never ceased to mock as the weakest-ever Prime Minister to give it strength? Does a party which is supposedly riding to victory on a Modi wave have to resort to such gimmickry?
Even as a political strategy – to show that everyone from the party to the family is abandoning Singh – it doesn’t make sense. It would have, if Singh was standing for elections and was prime ministerial candidate. He is not; he will retire from active politics and perhaps go into oblivion after his Rajya Sabha term is over. So what is to be achieved by `embarrassing’ him? It will only give a Congress which has already abandoned him a chance to say in private – see, we were right to junk him.
By the way, the Congress too has not shied away from splitting families on political lines, the most famous example being of the Scindia family, where Madhavrao was wooed into the Congress fold, deeply hurting his mother, Vijayaraje Scindia. So let the party not take a moral high ground on the Kohli affair.
The way the media has reported this is also a comment on its intellectual bankruptcy. Why should Kohli joining the BJP be an `embarrassment’ for Singh? Why is one brother said to have `deserted’ another?  Why is this a `psychological boost’ for the BJP? Didn’t the person writing this – and the editors clearing the copy – stop for a moment and think of the inherent contradiction between stories of a BJP on a high and requiring Kohli, of all people, as a psychological boost? Perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of this is Chidambaram being asked about it at a press conference where he was rubbishing Gujarat’s economic model. Shouldn’t the questions have focused on pinning him down on the UPA’s shaky economic performance, instead?
This is not the first time the media has tried to put Singh in a spot over the political leanings of his family members. The fact that his youngest daughter was working for a human rights organization in the Untied States criticizing the government’s counter-terrorism drive after 9/11 was, we were told, certain to embarrass him and affect his equation with the Bush administration. Didn’t it occur to anyone that this would be a non-issue in a culture which celebrates individualism and will not hold family members accountable for each other’s opinions and ideological leanings?
But why this obsession with family at all?
Why is Karuna Shukla quitting the BJP not about a senior party leader being sidelined but about Atal Behari Vajpayee’s niece on being ignored? If she were not Vajpayee’s niece would it have been alright for her to be ignored? Kohli too brings in the family angle. He says he joined the BJP because he was unhappy with the way the Congress treated his brother. So there is no ideological affinity with the party. (The irony of joining a party which has repeatedly mocked his brother in rather insulting terms is probably lost on him.)
Individuals can make choices that are different from that of their families. They are doing that all the time. They break away from the traditional occupations of their families and pursue their own paths. Children rebel against parents. Siblings take different paths. Families break up permanently with a lot of bitterness. And family members may even have irreconcilable ideological differences.
What’s more, this is quite common in Indian politics. Mohan Kumaramangalam’s father, P Subbarayan, who was a Congress leader, was supposed to have cried when his son became a communist. Subbarayan’s daughter, Parvati Krishnan, was also a member of the CPI. Ranga’s sister is in the BJP while his son has joined the Congress.
There are examples galore of families with members in different parties (apart from the Gandhi bahus, of course). Anil Shastri, son of Lal Bahadur Shastri, is in the Congress, while another son, Sunil, was with the BJP for several years before returning to the Congress, and a third son’s widow, Neera, is still with the BJP. One grandson, Siddharth Nath Singh, is in the BJP and another, Adarsh Shastri, has joined the Aam Aadmi Party. Noted lawyer, the late L.M Singhvi was in the BJP and his son Abhishek Manu Singhvi is a leading light of the Congress and was so even when his father was alive. Digvijaya Singh’s brother, Lakshaman Singh, quit the Congress for the BJP where he remained for 10 years before returning after a vituperative personal comment about his brother by Nitin Gadkari.
The ordinary public is quite aware of these differences in political families and their only reaction is one of amusement or cynical taunts about these families having ensured that they will benefit regardless of which party is in power.
How will they view the BJP holding up Kohli as a kind of trophy? There will be a few more jokes about Singh (mostly from die-hard BJP and Gandhi family supporters), some more about Kohli, but many more about the BJP. Is Kohli all that they could get, people are already sniggering. But mostly people will shrug it off. Singh is not even on their radar. That’s why the scalping of Kohli makes no sense at all.

Save the country, Dr Singh

http://www.firstpost.com/economy/stand-up-dr-singh-you-have-only-your-doormat-reputation-to-lose-1279879.html

It is indeed interesting that in all the reactions—solicited and unsolicited—that have come after the drubbing that the Congress party has just got in the assembly elections, one voice has not been heard at all—that of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. That, clearly, is a measure of the man's irrelevance. But what he does in the next few months will become increasingly relevant, by virtue of the office he occupies.
Local factors and the disarray in the Congress party no doubt added damaging volume to the anti-Congress wave, but what led to that wave in the first place? Was it not a complete popular disenchantment with the functioning of the United Progressive Alliance government headed by Singh, whose policies have fuelled inflation, messed up the economy and fostered widespread corruption?
Singh is as responsible as the Gandhis for electoral debacle. Had he refused to be a mere figurehead, quietly rubber-stamping the Sonianomics brand of populism and turning a blind eye to corruption, the country would not have been in the mess it is in and the public would not have been so angry as it is today. As prime minister he could have put his foot down on several issues. He did not.
So what do the next few months hold for the country? Any Congress strategy for 2014 cannot revolve around revamping the party machinery alone. Since the Congress is the main party in the UPA coalition, the Central government’s actions or non-actions will also be part of this. The Congress could play it two ways. It could, for one, decide to get the UPA to do a course correction so as to recover some of the lost ground. What can a lame duck government do will remain a question, but the prime minister’s former press advisor Sanjaya Baru has argued in this piece that quite a bit is possible. 

Inflation—the one issue on which people unforgiving—will obviously top the list. The Congress is now claiming a conspiracy is behind the onion price hike. Perhaps, but let’s not forget that food inflation has remained at elevated levels for over a year. The reasons for these are structural and as Finance Minister P Chidambaram himself admitted recently, there is no easy or quick solution to the problem. "I am afraid it will take some time to contain this inflation. We are paying a political price for that and I acknowledge that, but those are the facts," he said on 15 November.
When the country’s finance minister is throwing in the towel, there is no scope at all for taming the inflation dragon within the next five months.
Reviving an ailing economy should be another priority. Here, too, the scope of easy and early successes is doubtful. There are several reform-oriented legislations that need to be passed but that seems unlikely, with an aggressive opposition and uncooperative allies.
Baru has suggested that the government can address issues like uncertainty over tax policy which could alleviate concerns of investors. While that could help the stock markets, quell the fears of foreign investors and arrest a possible flight of capital, it is hardly likely to bring in electoral gains.
The government could shake off the policy paralysis it is caught in and get into action mode, clearing pending projects, ironing out policy glitches and the like. Plan expenditure is only 43 percent of what is budgeted for the year (of which capital expenditure is only 40 percent of what is scheduled) and it could decide to step this up. All this will revive sentiment and businesses may perhaps not put off their investment plans till after the elections. But it takes several months for investment plans to make their effect felt on the economy. So the benefits are not going to come within five months.
Realising that these steps may not reap the expected gains and that it will face certain defeat in May, the Congress could opt for another strategy – to lay booby-traps for the next government. It will then get a stick to constantly beat that government with. Fortunately, the government won’t be able to push bad legislation like the proposed National Right to Homestead Bill through Parliament (though some good legislation will get hit as well) but that will not stop it from taking decisions that are clearly populist and which will leave an enormous fiscal burden for the next government. Some of that has already started. The June decision on pricing of natural gas (read Firstpost editor-in-chief R Jagannathan's criticism of this) and the early announcement of the Seventh Pay Commission are cases in point.
Using the fact that the fiscal deficit is already at 85 percent of the full year’s target, the government could put a lid on spending on the grounds of wanting to stick to the target of 4.8 percent of GDP. That will leave a lot of the spending for the next government. Already, tax refunds are being delayed and oil companies are not being reimbursed for subsidies in time.
The government could also go on a populist announcements spree. Already, news reports say, Chidambaram is under fire for hard decisions and there is a call for rolling back fuel subsidy cuts. Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh, for example, wants to hike old age pensions paid under social welfare schemes, when there is evidence that much of this is not reaching the intended beneficiaries.
The assembly elections did not give a clear picture on how voters respond to welfare schemes. Welfarism didn't appear to work in Rajasthan and Delhi but seemed to work in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. So, what is there to stop the Congress from announcing schemes? If it brings in the votes, that’s great (and the fiscal bridge will be crossed when it comes); if it doesn't, well, the next government will have to deal with the economic consequences. The only thing that might stop the UPA from doing this will be the fact that many welfare schemes are implemented by the state governments and non-Congress governments may just walk off with the credit.
The first path will put the economy back on the rails, but the gains for the Congress will be uncertain. The second could swing things in favour of the Congress, but will spell ruin for India. It is now up to Singh to choose between the two. As prime minister, he can still has veto power (though some of his ministers may slip things through). 

Dear Manmohan Singh, for the sake of the country, please opt for the former. You have nothing to lose but your reputation as a doormat.

The Morally Upright Aren't Always Right

Like I said in my previous post, I have been observing this current anti-corruption crusade with some amusement and lot of cynicism. But now I am getting a tad worried.
People are just not willing to hear any criticism of Anna Hazare’s fast, the tactics employed by the worthies of the India Against Corruption movement or even objective analyses pointing out flaws in the Jan Lokpal legislation they are proposing. Business Standard carried an editorial, which had what could be called a needlessly provocative (though I found it very clever and apt) headline, The Hazare Hazard. The next day’s papers had three or four letters from readers criticizing the edit. The letters did not go into the merits and de-merits of the idea of ombudsman or of the legislation these activists are proposing, but were shocked that Anna Hazare was being criticised at all. Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s piece in the Indian Express has also invited a lot of flak.
I wonder how many people who are speaking up on social networking sites, fasting in sympathy with Hazare, shaving their heads, demonstrating and much else even know the broad contours of the Bill.
I haven’t and so I am not going into the Bill itself, Mehta’s article, this other piece by Rajiv Desai delve into those aspects.
I’m making a larger point – the unquestioning adulation we have for certain public figures who are either morally upright or highly efficient or both, because of which we are not willing to concede that they could be wrong sometimes. We are just not willing to accept that people we idolize can be flawed or that the wisdom or suitability of their actions can be questioned. And this adulation tends to make some of these public figures believe that what they say or do shouldn’t be criticised at all.
I am not even going into the whole Gandhi phenomenon here (not that I think Gandhi should not be criticised and he himself never wanted to be idolised). I am talking about much lesser mortals.
Take Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. No one doubts that he is honest. He knows that. So that is why he believes he should not be held responsible for all the scams that were taking place under his nose and which he could have, but didn’t, check.
Or take E Sreedharan, chairman of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC). I got this sms from a friend after she saw pictures of Sreedharan with Hazare: “Sridharan in a-c bandwagon. How laughable! How he fought against rti applying to dmrc! How closed his account books r!”
Neither she nor I believe Sreedharan is corrupt. I admire him for his work on the Konkan Railway and then on the Delhi Metro. But I completely agree with the contents of her sms.
How can he cheer for a movement for more transparency when his organization functions with complete lack of it? After the collapse of an under-construction metro pillar in south Delhi in 2009, resulting in the death of six workers, someone filed a Right to Information application seeking details of the design and layout of the structure. DMRC refused to part with the information and took the battle up to the Delhi High Court which finally said it had to supply the information.
I have had personal experience of the complete lack of transparency at DMRC. While working on a story, I had requested some information from DMRC and an interview with Sreedharan. Some of the information I had requested was very basic which should have been there on the website but wasn’t. I was shocked at the kind of stonewalling that ensured. One woman from the public relations team called me and wanted to know whether I was doing a positive or negative story. “Don’t tell me it will be an objective story,” she said with a sarcastic laugh. When I refused to tell her in advance what kind of  a story it would be, the wait for answers got longer and the interview with Sreedharan never materialized. Finally, after much pursuing I got some information but innocuous ones. I never got details on cost overruns (which were reported in the press), cost per km and response to some criticisms by critics of the Metro concept. There was a certain arrogance in the refusal to reply to questions from a journalist who was trying to do a balanced story.
If Sreedharan has become a demi-God of sorts, we are all responsible for it. Remember the shock when he offered to resign in the wake of the pillar collapse? Everybody rushed to stop him and he finally took it back. If the Delhi Metro comes to a standstill without Sreedharan, who is to blame? Shouldn’t it be Sreedharan himself, for not doing proper succession planning?
Also recall the controversy over the model of the Hyderabad Metro project. Sreedharan raised a stink over certain aspects like real estate development. Perhaps he had a point. But I suspect that people got swayed less by the merits of his argument and more by the fact it was Sreedharan who was opposing it. It didn’t help that on the other side was a corporate house.
What puzzles me is that this is happening in India, the cradle of Hinduism which encouraged intellectual debates and questioning of established wisdom. But somewhere along the line, that intellectual tradition has taken backseat to one where you don’t question certain people, especially those who are more educated and knowledgeable than you.
The worst manifestation of it is in the kind of following godmen and godwomen command – blind devotion. I can understand if an illiterate and poorly educated person behaves this way, but why do highly educated people also do the same? Why don’t they read or reflect on things themselves instead of taking as Gospel truth something a morally upright person has said?
Honest and morally upright people can be wrong. It will be better for themselves and for the nation if they and everybody else accepts it.