When Statements Go Unchallenged

Incidents of atrocities against Dalits in Haryana are increasing, says Prakash Javdekar, Rajya Sabha MP and spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party on a television show to discuss the issue in the light of the horrible incident in Hissar, Haryana, where a Dalit girl was gangraped and her father committed suicide because of the humiliation.

He is from the BJP and there is a Congress government in Haryana, so political grandstanding is inevitable.

“Crime being committed per lakh [population of scheduled caste] is the highest in Haryana,” asserts P. L . Punia, Congress MP and head of the National Commission of Scheduled Castes on the same show. Grandstanding on his part is also inevitable, given his official position.

“Why is it that only Dalits get raped by upper castes, whether it is Khairlanji [the 2006 carnage in Mahrashtra] or Haryana?” asks activist Kancha Ilaiah, another participant in the show. He too can be forgiven for being dramatic – he has made a name as a Dalit scholar and activist and is expected to take a certain position.

But is it the job of the media to let all these statements go unchallenged?

NDTV anchor Vishnu Som did not ask any of these worthy gentlemen to substantiate their statements with figures.

Does Javdekar have any firm numbers on the rise in atrocities in Haryana?

We don’t know.

Is Punia basing his statement on some study? Can he give any numbers on how many crimes per lakh of population, which is the state with second highest crimes per lakh population? We don’t know.

Can Ilaiah back his startling claim with data? Are upper caste men really raping only Dalit women? Are they not raping upper caste women? Then what about the cases of rape of upper caste women? Who are the perpetrators?

We don’t know.

Okay, so let us concede that Som, in his hurry to wrap up the programme, forgot to ask follow up questions to the panelists. Here's the link to the show.

But does a newspaper have that same excuse?

Punia repeats the same statement in an interview to Economic Times published the following day (Tuesday) and that is taken as the heading of a five-column anchor on page 2: Maximum Anti-Dalit Crimes in Haryana: Punia. Once again, there is no attempt to ask him to elaborate or any attempt to double check on one’s own. The newspaper adds to the whole campaign by saying “several cases of atrocities on Dalits have taken place in the state,” mentioning the Mirchpur incident as the most serious. The only other anecdotal example it gives (again no numbers) is of a wall being constructed around a Dalit village in Hissar last year.

Som does fall back on one report. He mentions a 2010 report of the ministry of social justice and empowerment (the report is not named), which apparently mentions that there is an increase in crimes against Dalits between 2009 and 2010 in Kerala, Haryana, Bengal, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab. But there is no mention of what is the percentage increase or disaggregated figures on the states, which could, perhaps, show that the increase in Haryana is more alarming than in the rest. In fact, the other figures in the report contradict the thesis that Haryana tops in atrocities. In that report, quoted by Som, Rajasthan tops the list of states with registered crimes against Dalits and five states – Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh – account for 70 per cent of registered crimes.

When my boss got excited by Punia’s statement and wanted me to do a story on this, I took the trouble of checking things out. I downloaded the 2011 statistic of the National Crime Records Bureau. Here’s what I found. In 2011 Uttar Pradesh topped the list of registered crimes against Dalits  with 22 per cent of cases, followed by Rajasthan with 15.4 per cent, Andhra Pradesh 11 per cent, Bihar 10.7 per cent and Karnataka 7.4 per cent. Haryana is only 1.2 per cent.

The only report of the ministry of social justice and empowerment report I could find online was the annual report of 2009-10, which takes figures from the NCRB and that report too showed Haryana was way below several states in terms of Dalit atrocities.

I couldn’t find any report on the website of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes.

Maybe Javdekar and Punia were basing their statements on some other data or reports, which they were privy to. Maybe Som had access to a ministry report which is not online or I couldn’t find it because I didn’t have the name.

Maybe Haryana does, in fact, top in atrocities.

For me, which state tops in atrocities is irrelevant. Would it be better if some other state topped?

What is relevant for me is that people on television discussions and newspaper articles, whom people will believe because they are experts (as my boss did) are allowed to go unchallenged on facts and figures they dish out. By journalists, whose job is to challenge people.

What is also relevant for me is that television and print journalists are not checking facts properly and are satisfied with vague numbers and generalized statements.

Cash over Price Control

I had made an interesting trip to Alwar, the location of a pilot project on direct cash transfer of subsidies that finance minister Pranab Mukherjee mentioned in his budget speech. This one related to kerosene subsidy. The project started only in December so it is probably too early to draw any conclusive lessons from it but it definitely shows a way forward.

I had gone to Alwar to do a story on the project for The Telegraph. Following is the link to the story. I had to stick to a tyrannical word count limit but have the more detailed piece below the link.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120401/jsp/7days/story_15319785.jsp#.T3f5GnqVol8

Sorry, Cash Only

Seetha

There’s a small crowd outside Rohitash Kumar’s fair price shop at Gunsar village in the Kotkasim block of Rajasthan's Alwar district.  The monthly supply of subsidised kerosene has arrived and villagers have come for their quota of three litres each.  

Shyam Lal hands over Rs 135 and gets his can filled -- almost Rs 90 more than what those in other blocks of Alwar pay for the same amount of kerosene. 

No, the tailor with a below poverty line (BPL) ration card can't afford to pay Rs 44.50 for a litre of kerosene, three times more than the Rs 15.25 that people in the rest of Rajasthan pay. It’s just that the district administration refunds the extra money he has paid, directly into his bank account. So he winds up paying the same as others in the district.

In December 2011, a dramatic experiment to deliver subsidies directly to the poor, in cash, started in Kotkasim.  So far, the central government has been subsidising fuel prices by capping the prices at which they are sold in the market.

Kerosene is now sold at Rs 44.50 a litre in all fair price shops in Kotkasim. That’s the open market price set by oil companies. However, it is sold through the public distribution system (PDS) at a highly subsidized price (Rs 15.25 in Rajasthan) and the central government pays the difference to the oil companies. For the pilot project at Kotkasim, the central government gave the subsidy amount to the district administration which transfers it to eligible ration card holders.

Why make a poor person pay extra and then return the amount?  Direct cash transfers are widely believed to be a more efficient way of helping the poor, than prices artificially low. For as the Economic Survey of 2010-2011 points out, government price controls "invites adulteration, pilferage and corruption".

Kerosene is a case in point. The interim report of the government's Task Force on Direct Transfer of Subsidies on Kerosene, LPG and Fertilisers pointed out that the use of kerosene for cooking in urban and rural areas has fallen -- proof that subsidised kerosene was being diverted for other purposes, including to adulterate diesel.  Letting everyone buy at the market rate and then compensating the poor through cash transfers, both documents say, not only checks such diversion but also ensures that only the poor get subsidised goods.

In 2011, the petroleum and natural gas ministry invited state governments to take up direct subsidy experiments. Rajasthan pitched for the project on kerosene subsidy and picked Alwar for the experiment.

Alwar collector Ashutosh A.T. Pednekar and district supply office Lalit Jain spent two months on awareness campaigns, holding lengthy sessions with consumers, ration shop owners, wholesale dealers as well as representatives of rural local bodies. Finally, the backing of the zilla pramukh and the village pradhan – both women – saw the project taking off.

Of the 25,000 ration card holders in Kotkasim, those with a double gas connection were weeded out. The project now covers around 20,000 ration card holders. All of them were told to open zero-balance, no-frills bank accounts into which the subsidy would be deposited (even if they had an existing bank account). Till March end, 16,000 such accounts had been opened.  Interestingly, nearly 90 per cent of the card holders did not have a bank account till then and were brought into mainstream banking. “We never expected that this project would help us in financial inclusion,” says Pednekar.

There are some minor glitches that need ironing out. Bank accounts have to be opened in the name of the ration card holder, who is the head of the household. In a few cases, the head of the household has died and the name has not been changed. Such families cannot avail of the subsidy.

The administration is planning to integrate the smart cards issued under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) with this system. Then the subsidy can be transferred directly into the NREGS accounts, avoiding the need to open new accounts. It is also considering roping in the business correspondents of banks who will come to individual’s homes and operate the accounts, as well as mobile banking, considering the penetration of mobile phones is very high. Hari Prasad, a BPL ration card holder, hasn’t availed of the scheme because he hasn’t had time to go to the bank and see if the advance subsidy has been deposited. The Rajasthan Grameen Bank (which has opened the bulk of the accounts) doesn’t have an sms alert facility, he complains!

Yet the project had to battle with public scepticism. When told they would be compensated after they bought kerosene, people flatly refused to play along. Nor were they confident when told they would be given one month’s subsidy in advance. Pednekar than got the state government’s sanction to give three months’ subsidy in advance. With accounts getting credited with Rs 263 (three months subsidy), resistance from the consumers disappeared. Those with a single gas connection get a lower subsidy.

The extent of diversion of subsidised kerosene earlier soon became evident. The block is allotted 84,000 litres of kerosene a month. Before the project started, the entire stock would get sold. Since December, however, monthly sales have averaged 22,000 litres, around a quarter of the allocation. This brings down the subsidy bill by three-quarters. Currently, though, the saving is only notional as advance subsidy has gone into all bank accounts.

How did this happen? Earlier, people would collect other’s ration cards and use them to buy subsidised kerosene. That’s no longer possible. Anyone going to ration shops in Kotkasim now has to pay Rs 44.50 a litre. But since the subsidy goes into the bank account of the ration card holder, the actual purchaser only gets a higher bill. “Once I get the money, why will I give it to someone else,” laughs Subhash, another Gunsar villager. With the market price of kerosene higher than that of diesel (Rs 42 a litre) it no longer makes sense to buy it as a substitute for the latter.

But the authorities can’t track what happens to the kerosene once it is sold. So, a person buying kerosene for Rs 15.25 can still sell it for, say Rs 25, pocketing both the government subsidy and a Rs 10 profit. That’s possible, admits Jain, but the whole process is more inconvenient. Going to the shop with a bunch of ration cards and a large container is far easier and more cost-effective than collecting three litres each from individuals. What’s more the price difference between kerosene and diesel also comes down, since the ration card holder is selling it at a Rs 10 premium, instead of just handing over his card as he did earlier. “The whole transaction has become less attractive,” he points out.

To be sure, not all the reduced sales are a sign of diversion. Many eligible ration card holders who never took their kerosene quota are not availing of the scheme. The government giving them close to Rs 90 every month is not incentive enough. Others who have got the subsidy in their accounts but are using part of it to pay someone to cut the mustard stalks in their fields for use as fuel! They are pocketing the subsidy and not buying kerosene as well.   Some card holders are migrant labourers working outside Alwar who come home only during the agricultural season. Sales could pick up then.

But there are also people like Rani Devi of Kotkasim village who genuinely need more than the monthly quota of three litres. She used to borrow her neighbours’ cards and buy more than her quota. Since December, however, she hasn’t been able to do so. She now has to pay the market price for the extra kerosene. “How can I afford it,” she laments.

The project, notes Pednekar, has helped the administration sift genuine users from non-users. Since close to 70 per cent of kerosene allocation to Kotkasim is not being sold, the administration is thinking of doubling the monthly allocation to six litres a month, which will help people like Rani. The administration plans to study the kerosene lifting pattern closely, identify the non-users and then ask them why they are not buying kerosene.

The reduced sales have cut the earnings of fair price shop owners. Rohitash and Mahipal, the manager of a fair price shop in Kotkasim village, used to sell close to 3,000 litres a month before the project started. Since December, however, monthly sales have averaged less than 500 litres. With a commission of 90 paise a litre, earnings from kerosene have plunged from Rs 2,700 a month to around Rs 450 a month. Anticipating this, dealers and wholesalers had put up stiff resistance to the project. The administration has now decided to allow them to sell non-PDS commodities like tea, salt, fortified flour under the state government’s Raj brand name. The government, says Pednekar, is planning to add more products and also help spruce up the shops.

Could this become the model for all future subsidy delivery? The initial results are too tentative to base policy decisions on, cautions Rajasthan’s principal secretary, food and civil supplies, J. C. Mohanty. The experience in Alwar, which is a relatively better off district, will be different from some of Rajasthan’s poorer and backward districts, he points out. There may be more ghost customers in Alwar than in some of the poorer districts where the share of genuine customers may be more. The state government will get the project evaluated by a professional research body once it completes a year. It has, however, taken up a petroleum ministry offer for a one-time grant of Rs 100 crore to implement the system state-wide. The petroleum ministry made this offer to the food and civil supplies secretaries of all states at meeting on 16 March. Apart from Rajasthan, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra have also agreed.  

A universal cash transfer scheme has its share of problems. Many poor people don’t have ration cards. Mohammed Ishaq, a roadside tailor in Delhi suburb Dwarka, has been running around for one for two years now. Rekha, a maidservant, has got a ration card but there is no fair price shop in the unauthorised colony in south-west Delhi where she lives. Nor has she been able to open a bank account. A direct cash transfer system will leave such people out of the benefits of subsidy completely.

The pilot project has one universal lesson, though. “The biggest learning is that it is very easy to enlist political and public support for reforms like this once things are explained properly,” says Mohanty. Indeed, now the zilla pramukh is asking for a similar cash transfer for domestic gas cylinders as well.

Change, clearly, is in the air.

Dadagiri in Dwarka

You must have seen countless films with this storyline: one person bullies an entire locality/village; those who he bullies keep quiet, not wanting trouble; others say let’s keep out of his way, or he’ll get after us next; he gets bolder by the day and finally crosses his limits; the victims stand up to him, but the entire locality turns against them and cows down before him. The victims are isolated and harassed in various forms.
Did you think it ever could happen to you?
I didn’t.
But this has happened to me and a couple of others.
And we stand alone.
On November 19 this year, around 9.30 pm, the guard of the gated locality I live in came with a circular. It was from the present Residents Welfare Association (RWAs) and said an emergency meeting the following day (Sunday, 20 November) to discuss some serious issues had been convened and called all present and previous office-bearers to attend. My name was on it, though I had resigned on October 18.
I went to the meeting and what we heard there made our hair stand on end.
Two young men of the locality (one of whom is a major in the army), along with a friend, had been walking around in the campus around 2 am, chatting. The guard came and said he had received complaints and asked them to leave. They asked who had complained and that they would apologise. Meanwhile, one office bearer (let’s call him Mr X) started shouting at them from his house on the top floor, saying he was in charge of the security of the whole campus (there is no circular to that effect, though). There appeared to have been an exchange of words and then the boys started to return to their flat, cutting across the central park. As they reached the end of the park, Mr X (who had come down from his third floor flat) called them back. Let us allow for both sides not being entirely frank about their versions of the sequence of events that followed, but the short point was that Mr X hit the major with a lathi, the other RWA office bearers who had gathered by then rallied around Mr X. The younger boy had called 100 by then and at some point had received a call asking for directions. When they found the office bearers siding openly with Mr X, the younger boy said let us call the police and let them decide, the general secretary apparently said, ‘tum kya police bulaoge, hum bulayenge aur kahenge kit um logon ke gharon mein jaankh rahe the’ (we will call the police and tell them you were peering into people’s houses). (The general secretary completely denied this, but when the boys confronted him, he said it might have come out like that but that is not what I meant!!!) The altercation was somehow ended and one of the office bearers took the major to the hospital where his wound was stitched up.
When the boys’ mother came to know this, she demanded a general body meeting be convened to discuss this. `What wrong did my boys commit,’ she wanted to know. `And if they were up to something wrong, why didn’t the RWA call the police and hand them over?’ The RWA then convened the emergency meeting of only select people. Sixteen people attended that meeting.
When the boys had finished relating their story – Mr X was out of town and had to be called back, so he arrived late – others present at the meeting, feeling slightly emboldened by the mood, came out with more stories about Mr X’s bullying and intimidating ways. This changed the mood of the gathered people who thought what happened that night was a one-off incident involving Mr X.
Someone said this shows the person concerned is a permanent threat; someone else told the RWA office-bearers that if Mr X wasn’t checked he would become a problem even for those who were now backing him.
People discussed various kinds of action that could be taken against him. Finally it was decided that he would be expelled from the RWA and be barred from contesting elections for five years.
Mr X came and his version was heard. With an air of injured innocence, he said the young men were disturbing people at night and that is why he had objected to them and that he had hit them only because he feared that they were three of them and he was alone and he feared that they would assault him. (My comment: this guy is over six feet tall, extremely muscular and goes around flaunting his muscles in tight-fitting tees, while the two young residents were shorter and much slighter in build.) He said he later realized he shouldn’t have hit them and felt very sorry and that he had told his wife immediately on reaching home, and that he felt worse when he was told that the major required stitches for his wound.
Those assembled asked him and the RWA why the police hadn’t been called and the young men handed over in the first place. They demanded that Mr X apologise to the young men, undertake that he would “maintain decency and decorum of conduct” and that the decisions on his expulsion and bar on contesting elections stay. That very night a circular was issued to this effect. Everybody thought that was the end of the matter and the atmosphere within the campus would be peaceful and relations cordial.
Exactly a week later (Sunday 27 November), Mr X’s downstairs neighbour had to call the police at midnight or so. The police came and the case was allegedly turned against the neighbour. Earlier that evening, the Congress MLA had visited the block and Mr X had flaunted his closeness to him.
On November 29, Mr X’s lawyer sends a legal notice to five of those 16 persons present  at the meeting – the general secretary, the two young men, me and a former president of the RWA – leveling various fabricated charges including that of defamation (that is the only charge against me). The former president – an extremely decent, mild-mannered man of high integrity whose views are heard with seriousness in the locality – has been accused of trying to assault Mr X and instigating others to do so. (The only charge that sticks is the one against the RWA general secretary for not following norms in convening the meeting and expelling Mr X from the RWA). We have to unconditionally apologise within 15 days of receiving the notice or pay Rs 21 lakh each to Mr X or else he will file a defamation case against us.
Now an elaborate drama to get the circular withdrawn starts. The young men’s father and the former president approach the RWA asking why only four people who attended a meeting called by the RWA have been targeted and what the RWA is proposing to do. I sense a trap and decide not to speak to the RWA about this. Instead I approach some people who attended the 20 November meeting. They say we are entirely with you, how can this fellow run amok like this, we will call another meeting and take a decision on this. But soon there is a growing mood to take back the circular and the expulsion (this is the trap I feared). People start avoiding us. We hear that others present at the 20 November meeting are being threatened that there are legal notices lined up against them also and will be issued if they come to our help. But nobody will speak openly about this, let alone go to the police.
On 2 December, the RWA writes to the persons named in the legal notice asking for their comments before further action is taken. Acting on legal advice, I respond merely by saying “I have taken a very serious view of the fact that out of 16 people present at the emergency meeting of 20 November 2011 I have been singled out for the said legal notice and am taking appropriate legal action regarding the same.”
(A word about why I was targeted. On 1 November, my car cleaner told me he had been barred from entering the campus by Mr X. I rang up the general secretary (GS) and asked how he could do that. The GS said the cleaner’s work was not satisfactory. I argued that Mr X cannot decide that. The GS called the president and Mr X and there was a heated argument, at which Mr X admitted to slapping an earlier car cleaner because he wasn’t satisfied with the quality of the work and that what he was doing was only to ensure better quality of service. I pointed out then – and later in a long email to the president, GS, joint secretary and a few other residents – that a few RWA members being dissatisfied with the services of someone providing a personal service could not be a reason to bar that service provider from catering to other residents.)
On 3 December the RWA issues another letter to the 16 present at the 20 November meeting asking them to tick on either of two options – whether the RWA go ahead with the court case or whether the case should be amicably resolved by withdrawing the earlier circular. If a majority of the 16 agreed with the second option, another circular withdrawing the first would be issued. This would be done after the legal notice was taken back, those who got the circular were assured.
There was a clear attempt to influence the vote by writing in brackets after the first option (financial implication involved/rift among members may erupt) and after the second (will be able to maintain a harmonious relation). The responses were to be given by the evening of 4 December. There was also no instruction to sign after ticking the option chosen, leaving scope for the vote to be rigged. 

Meanwhile, the father of the young men asked for a copy of the circular dated 19 November convening the 20 November meeting. The RWA has been stalling him.
On 4 December evening, a circular is issued withdrawing the earlier one, saying this was with the consent of the majority of those who had attended the meeting of 20 November. This circular was to be issued after the retraction of the legal notice. It was issued before, with no assurance that it will be withdrawn.
One of those who got the legal notice asked the RWA president why the circular had been issued before the notice was withdrawn. He was told oh, Mr X has assured that it will be withdrawn. The word of a person who promises before an assembly that he will behave himself and then proceeds to revert to his old ways is to be relied upon!
A fraud has been committed on us – those who stood up to be counted.
Thirteen people cowed down.
But there is an upside to everything. Yesterday I returned from the South Asian Bands Festival at 10.30 pm. I passed my next door neighbour and his wife on the staircase. This guy who always asks kahaan jaa rahi hain/kahaan se aa rahi hain) (where are you going/coming from) – to which I always say baahar (out) – didn’t say a word. Oh the joys of social boycott!!

Shooting from the Lip

Has law and justice minister Salman Khurshid done a service to Corporate India by his statement reported in the Indian Express: “If you lock up top businessmen, will investment come?”
He has not.
Worse, he has only ammo to the opponents of liberalization, who will cite this as yet another example of the government caving in to `neo-liberal forces’ and how opening up of the economy has only encouraged big-time corruption.
Remember Arundhati Roy and Prashant Bhushan saying the economic policies post-1991 were the reason for corruption becoming pervasive.
When will these Congress ministers learn to zip their lips?
The following is the exact context of his statement: “What will affect the functioning of the government is if other institutions do not understand the kind of political economy we are faced with today: what is needed to encourage growth and investment? If you lock up top businessmen, will investment come? What optimal structure should be put in place for investment to come?”
Obviously he was talking about corporate biggies – notably Unitech’s Sanjay Chandra and D B Realty’s Shahid Balwa –  currently in Delhi’s Tihar Jail facing trial on corruption charges in the 2G case.
But what does investment or the lack of it have to do with businessmen being in jail for corruption charges? If they are innocent, they will come out free. If they are not, they deserve to be in jail.
The Indian investment scenario isn’t suffering because of corruption charges against businessmen. It is suffering due to a poor investment environment – lack of policy clarity, squabbling ministers affecting both policy and its implementation in areas like mining, red tape, corruption (petty as well as high level) and now rising interest rates.
And, yes, corruption.
India ranks 134 in a list of 183 companies in the World Bank’s annual Doing Business report. Taking action against businessmen for corruption is not a criterion. The categories are starting and closing a business, dealing with construction permits, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders and enforcing contracts.  Go to this link to see how India fares on all this.
And in 2010, India slipped four notches in the global Corruption Perception Index – from 84 to 87. Ask anyone – this is a dampener for foreign investment.
Has no action ever been taken against corrupt businessmen in the United States or the United Kingdom or any other free market economy? Nowhere in the world will a minister go out and say taking action against corruption will discourage investment.
Khurshid will probably come out and clarify that he meant businessmen being jailed without proof. But that is what the trial process is about – to decide on whether someone is guilty or not guilty. Or is it his case that in corruption cases, it is okay for receivers of bribes to be jailed but not those who pay bribes? (I am not pronouncing a verdict on those jailed in the 2G case).
Corporate India can do without such supporters.
Instead of telling the courts to go easy on businessmen facing charges of corruption, it might be better for Khurshid to tell his Prime Minister, his party leader and ministerial colleagues to do something to improve the investment environment.

Act, Mr PM, Act

The Prime Minister has said, yet again, this time in the context of the bomb blast at the Delhi High Court, that "we will not succumb".
So we are expected to go around our usual business - breakfast, office, household chores, school, college, back home, saas-bahu serials, trip to the mall, dinner and bed. Just to tell the terrorists that we are not "cowed down". 
But why not show that we are not "cowed down" - and the steely resolve with which those words are said - by carrying out the death sentence on Afzal Guru, Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar and Rajiv Gandhi's assassins? And fast-tracking the prosecution of Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab?
Wouldn't that be a better way of showing India will not tolerate terrorism in any form? And that terror attacks cannot be used to blackmail us into inaction (in this case stopping the hanging of Afzal Guru)?
In fact the latest terror attacks should be used to tell political and other groups pleading for clemency to these above-mentioned worthies (for that is what they are to these groups, never mind that each of them has indulged in senseless killings) to stop pleading their case. They never showed any mercy to the people they killed, why should they be shown any mercy?
Does this sound churlish, immature? Perhaps.
Should I exhibit more sagacity and moderation? I see no reason to.
I see no reason why India should come across as a soft state, which people can come and bomb at will.
There is a time when sagacity and moderation have to be set aside. This is such a time.
Of course, there will be the usual arguments against death penalty itself. But as many people have pointed out, why does death penalty get debated only when high profile or political convicts are involved?
Perhaps there is a case against death penalty. Perhaps there isn't. Perhaps we need to debate it.
But after Guru, Bhullar, Rajiv Gandhi's killers and Kasab are hanged.

Slander as Rejoinder

If you can't fight activists on an intellectual plane, or if they don't submit to your blandishments, discredit them. Question their integrity. Impute motives. Allege links with fanatical organisations. That is the strategy of the government which flip-flops between ignoring activists, then falling at their feet and then getting firm with them.
When Anna Hazare didn't give up his fast and the government was forced to constitute a drafting committee with civil society activists for the Lokpal Bill, the slander campaign was directed against Shanti Bhushan and his son Prashant, both members of the committee. Allegations about shady land deals and evasion of stamp duty were planted in the media, which was anyway critical of these activists. The Bhushans had a rejoinder but his got much less play than the allegations. Then came a CD which had the father-son duo reportedly speaking to Amar Singh about fixing some judges. The Bhushans got a lab test to show the CD was doctored; the government got another test to show it was genuine. Only a few newspapers carried the Bhushan version. See this story in a media website for more details.
The idea was to show that the crusaders against corruption (the Bhushans have been at the vanguard of the movement against judicial corruption and also behind the public interest litigation on the 2G scam) were not lily white.
Now it is being said that Baba Ramdev has evaded stamp duty of Rs 58 lakh and has grabbed fertile farmland. And Home Minister P Chidamabaram is on television right now, saying that Ramdev is an RSS agent. Questions are now being raised about the extent of his empire and shady deals are being hinted at. Enquiries have been ordered into the medicines and formulations his ashram produces.
Like I have said before in my previous posts, I have huge problems with the Hazare-Ramdev gang. But their analysis of problems and solutions to them can be countered at an intellectual level. Their pronouncements are so ridiculous that it's very easy to do this. They have been able to capture the popular imagination only because of a trivialising, sensation-seeking electronic media.
But that does not justify slander campaigns against them.
If Ramdev is a stamp duty defaulter, why was action not taken all this time? If his empire is involved in shady deals, why had they not been put under the scanner and action taken? If his formulations were suspicious what were the relevant authorities doing all this time? Did his political clout have anything to do with it? And was the government using all this to bargain with him to be its pawn in dividing the anti-corruption movement? Is all this coming out now only because he didn't play ball?
The latest weapon that this government and the Congress deploys against anyone who crosses their path is The RSS Slur. Chidambaram is on CNN-IBN detailing how Ramdev is a front for the RSS. The television media has been going on about it ever since Sadhvi Rithambra appeared on the stage at Ramlila Maidan. There were some Muslim leaders too. Using that same logic, Ramdev should be the front for some hardline Muslim organisation too! Parts of the media have picked this up willingly, with one shrill television anchor writing a column saying this anti-corruption movement is part of India's right-wing nationalist revolution, if you please.
This is meant to scare the urban English-speaking middle classes away from glorifying (deifying, in the case of Hazare) these activists. It is a kind of McCarthyism at work. If you are not with us, you are not just against us, you are also with fanatical organisations.
The fact that this government and the Congress has only this method to counter a bunch of loose cannons shows its utter intellectual bankruptcy.

Your Activist and My Activist

At the risk of being dubbed a RSS person, and without holding any brief for the Anna Hazares and Baba Ramdevs, I have to say this: I totally agree with the RSS  chief Mohan Bhagwat asking if Hazare and Ramdev are outsiders, what about the members of the National Advisory Council (NAC).
I have, in earlier posts, been quite critical of Anna Hazare's fast-unto-death over the Lokpal Bill and of the way his gang of civil society activists were trying to impose an ill-thought law on the country.
I have found Baba Ramdev's pronouncements on black money and corruption highly amusing and I was aghast when I found the government seriously engaging with him. It was a ridiculous attempt to pit one set of loose cannons against another and ultimately it backfired badly.
But when I see the government and the Congress depicting the Hazare-Ramdev bunch as irresponsible and asserting that the government cannot be dictated by them, then I can't help looking at the exalted status that the civil society members of the NAC enjoy.
Now the government and the Congress are saying that law making is the prerogative of the government and Parliament and it cannot be outsourced to civil society. Home Minister P Chidambaram reminds the country that we are a parliamentary democracy and elected representatives should not cede ground to civil society activists. Sure. A very valid point.
So what is the NAC doing, preparing draft legislations and using the clout of its chairperson - Sonia Gandhi - to force the government to accept them? And when the government refuses to accept ill-thought out recommendations, NAC members hold demonstrations.
On 24 May, three NAC worthies - Aruna Roy, Jean Dreze and Harsh Mander - demonstrated outside the Planning Commission along with close to 70 campaigners of the Right to Food Campaign over the definition of poverty.
Is demonstrating wrong? No. Peaceful demonstrations are a vital part of democracy. It is a way of expressing mass sentiment. (It's another matter that often crowds are paid and don't know what they are demonstrating for. Or that participating in demonstrations is just very fashionable these days, as we saw during Hazare's fast.) What raised eyebrows in this case was that the demonstration was led by NAC members. The NAC, after all, is a part of the current political establishment, though it is not a constitutional body and has been set up by an executive order.
The NAC, its website, says, "has been set up as an interface with Civil Society. The NAC would provide policy and legislative inputs to Government with special focus on social policy and the rights of the disadvantaged groups."
The NAC has been trying to dictate the agenda to the government on a range of issues ever since it was set up.  Many of its proposals, especially relating to the social sector, put a demand on fiscal resources that will strain the exchequer to the extreme. It drafts legislations and these are forwarded to the government, which is expected to take its recommendations on board.
So one set of civil society activists get a privileged status, while the rest are pilloried and discredited and set upon by the police.
Doesn't seem very fair to me.