There is something hubristic about the outcome of the stand-off between Anna Hazare and the government. It was just two years ago, when the United Progressive Alliance won the general elections and formed its second government. Shorn of the Left’s embrace, and buoyant over the handling of the global economic crisis, there were expectations that we were in some kind of a take-off stage. Today, we know better.
Actually, the Hazare stand-off represents the failure of the entire political class in the country, not just that of the UPA. And this crisis is manifested most by the functioning of the institution that has been shown up in the process— Parliament. Indeed, the government may have lost face and credibility, but so has Parliament. A measure of its irrelevance was the fact that while the nation was riveted by the drama taking place in Ramlila Maidan, a bipartisan effort was being made by our parliamentarians to award themselves a “lal batti”, or red light beacon, for their cars on the pretext that it will enable them to carry out visits to natural calamities and accident sites.
Record
Doctors attending on Anna Hazare may say that he needs to be put on a drip, but actually, it is Parliament, not that old man in Ramlila Maidan who needs a life-support system. We are not talking about the criminals who populate the two Houses, or their increasingly plutocratic composition, but their very centrality to the political and governmental system of the country.
In his Tuesday letter, marking a conciliatory shift towards Mr Hazare, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, somewhat nostalgically perhaps, declared that “we will have to keep in mind Parliamentary supremacy and constitutional obligations in matters of legislation. As a Government we respect and are responsible to the Will of the Indian People as represented by Parliament.” The United Progressive Alliance’s attitude towards Parliament is, of course, well known in the short shrift it gave to the monsoon session of 2008 where, at one point, it was alleged that cash was distributed by supporters of the ruling party to win a crucial no-confidence motion vote.
A new low of sorts was reached when, in the winter session of 2010, relations between the government and Opposition broke down. The government insisted that the PAC was good enough to examine the 2G issue, while the Opposition demanded a JPC, even though the chair of the PAC was a leading light of the BJP. According to PRS Legislative Research figures, the Lok Sabha worked for just 7 hrs and 37 min, 5.5 per cent of the available time and the Rajya Sabha for 2 hrs and 44 min, a measly 2.4 per cent of the available time.
Actually, the budget session of Parliament this year began with promise. But in no time it got embroiled with the 2G issue and the demand for a JPC again. Then, it was cut short because of the state assembly elections in five states.
The figures from PRS Legislative Research on the current session of Parliament are striking. Half the monsoon session is over and the score goes this way: Bills listed for introduction, 32. Bills introduced, 7. Bills listed for passing, 35, bills passed, 2.
What did the Opposition achieve by disrupting Parliament? It achieved nothing. In taking a nihilist stance on the Lokpal-Jan Lokpal bill issue, the BJP has also been outflanked by the Anna Hazare movement, though they do not seem to realise it. For its part the government has managed to claw back into the game by doing what it should have done in the first place—appointing a heavyweight political negotiator, Pranab Mukherjee, to deal with Mr Hazare’s demands.
Hollowing
The issue is not merely Parliament’s sorry inability to get its act together, but the abdication of its constitutional responsibilities. According to the PRS, in the 15th Lok Sabha, only 13 per cent of the bills have been discussed for more than three hours. The majority, 48 per cent, were discussed for periods of 1-3 hours. Some 11 per cent of the legislation was discussed for between 30 minutes and an hour, while an astonishing 28 per cent of the legislation was given short shrift by being discussed for less than 30 minutes.
Now, of course, legislators will say that often a great deal of the work is done by the standing committees, and therefore there is no need for intense discussion on the issues in a particular legislation. But that would, in actual fact, be a travesty of the truth.
The problem, however, is that Parliament only stands at the head of an entire chain of devaluation of politics in the country—of the party, the government, the Cabinet and the Prime Minister. It affects the BJP as much as it does the Congress. After all, weren’t the leaders of the party humiliated by the RSS which decided to foist Nitin Gadkari as its head after the 2009 election debacle? Had the party run the government, it, too, would have met the same fate as the Congress.
The Congress party’s hollowing has a long history which goes back to Indira Gandhi’s times. It routinely selected Chief Ministers who have little authority and now a Prime Minister who was nominated to office by the party president, not freely chosen by the Congress parliamentary party. The party president, who should have been the prime minister, calls the real shots and has put in place a National Advisory Council of the unelected, and possibly unelectable, to oversee the Union Council of Ministers.
Repair
The real challenge, then, is to rework the politics of the country and to do this, it would be a good idea to start from that key institution— Parliament. The people who can take the lead in doing the needful are our Parliamentarians themselves. Though populated in increasing measure by the criminal and the venal, the institution has enough authority and history to begin the process of self-repair. But for this, there is need for bipartisanship and a generous dose of introspection.
Perhaps after the Anna storm has blown over, the politicians may like to reflect on just why and how some people calling themselves “civil society” managed to interpose themselves between the people and the elected house of the people (Lok Sabha) that is supposed to represent them.
The one lesson they may learn is that Parliament is a place for discussion, negotiation and compromise, not confrontation and empty theatrics. That it is not the formal law of the Constitution, or the Speaker’s handbook, that can make Parliament supreme, but those who uphold its spirit through genuine public service.
Mail Today September 2, 2011
Friday, September 02, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Congress is at war with institutions
What is it about the contemporary Congress party, that it has a penchant for undermining and destroying institutions, rather than creating and nurturing them? The attack on the Comptroller and Auditor General is of a piece, as is its earlier strike on the venerable, if ineffectual, Public Accounts Committee.
If the Congress party had its back to the wall, it would have been understandable. But currently neither is any state assembly election due, nor does the Opposition have the numbers to seriously worry the government. Yet the UPA seems determined to destroy anything and anyone that questions its policies, whether it is the CAG established in 1950, the PAC which has been around since 1921, or the 74-year old Anna Hazare who says that the Congress is trying to dig out dirt on his past.
Emergency
An abiding feature of a great power is its ability to shape global institutions. In the decade after World War II, as it assumed world power status, the United States helped create the United Nations, the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development aka the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. It is another matter that in our times, the US has sometimes sought to undermine these very institutions.
In India, the Congress party has always had the kind of dominance the US has had in the global system. The party played a key role in the freedom struggle, the writing of the Constitution and the establishment of the Republic under its laws. More than that, in the first decade, the great leader of the party, Jawaharlal Nehru, shaped the key national institutions— Parliament, the Supreme Court, the Planning Commission, and so on. He left his imprint on the secular and progressive politics of the nation which remains a benchmark of sorts to this day.
In all this the Jana Sangh and its successor the Bharatiya Janata Party has not mattered much. For one thing, it did not, and many of its members still do not, accept the notion of the nation that the present Constitution has given us. Their politics has often been about undermining this concept of the nation. Arguably, their aim, or at least that of their controlling authority, the Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh, is to take over the government, capture all its organs and overthrow it. Most think this can be done peacefully, but we have also seen that the Sangh Parivar has elements who think that a bit of a violent push may not be such a bad idea.
Given its role in national politics, it is the system destructive propensities of the Congress party— which accompanied the reconstruction of the Grand Old Party in the image of Indira Gandhi in the 1970s— is more worrisome. That was the era when the Congress actually sought to overthrow Constitutional law, or to amend it to the point where it would reflect their party’s view, rather than that of the country. The party called for a “committed” judiciary and as for the bureaucracy, there was little problem. To quote L.K. Advani, when asked to bend, they crawled.
The party’s attitude today, then, is not the reaction to some crisis or situation, but is part of the DNA of the Indiraite Congress.
A look at its appointments to key institutional positions will tell you that. Take the one institution that has shone in the bleak landscape of the politics of the country in the past two decades—the Election Commission.
Infamy
Ever since T.N. Seshan somewhat surprisingly empowered the body, it has gone from strength to strength. The election process has become more stringent and this year in the assembly elections of Tamil Nadu, the EC began the much needed crackdown on the movement of large volumes of cash. The routine claims of rigging after a lost election have gone, simply because they no longer hold any credibility.
Yet, what did the UPA do? They actually put forward as the EC, a person who was a close family retainer of the Gandhi clan. We can only speculate as to the motive, but you can be sure it was not benign.
A similarly casual approach has been taken to the office of the Central Information Commission where a ministerial adviser was parked on the eve of the 2009 general elections as a means of providing her job security during the government turnover. Since the Congress won that election, she promptly abandoned the commissionership and got new advisory appointment.
In all fairness, it needs to be pointed out that the UPA has given us a new institution through the workings of the Right to Information Act. But the success of the Act was in great measure due to the decisions taken by the first Chief Information Commissioner, Wajahat Habibullah. Ever since he has left, efforts are being made to dilute the Act.
Another instance was the appointment of a tainted Central Vigilance Commissioner whose appointment was quashed by the Supreme Court.
Another manifestation of this tendency was revealed in the whole episode relating to the Lokpal Bill. The consultation with Anna Hazare and his crew was a positive action on the part of the government, but the summary manner in which his suggestions were thrown out points to the government’s aim of ensuring that the Lokpal does not emerge as an office of any consequence and its determination to keep in its own hands the power to misuse the state machinery to harass political opponents and others on the issue of corruption.
Momentum
In the post-Independence era, the party had leaders like Nehru, Patel, Rajendra Prasad, S. Radhakrishnan and others to set its moral compass. The party no longer boasts of such leaders, probably because there would be no place for them in the party.
Fortunately, the country has attained a critical mass which will prevent its regression. We have an odd alliance here of civil society activists and former, and in some cases serving, bureaucrats willing to do the needful. Their power comes from the anger of the middle classes who are fed up with the poor governance, official lawlessness and corruption.
In this, the huge media apparatus that has emerged has played an invaluable role in amplifying their concerns and creating a national platform outside the party system. In this, no one bothers about where the true division of authority between Parliament and judiciary lies, or that between the CAG and the PAC. Anyone willing to fill the vacuum is welcome; this has its dangers, but anything is better than the alternative. We can’t really wait for the country’s largest party to rediscover its glorious past.
Mail Today August 11, 2011
If the Congress party had its back to the wall, it would have been understandable. But currently neither is any state assembly election due, nor does the Opposition have the numbers to seriously worry the government. Yet the UPA seems determined to destroy anything and anyone that questions its policies, whether it is the CAG established in 1950, the PAC which has been around since 1921, or the 74-year old Anna Hazare who says that the Congress is trying to dig out dirt on his past.
Emergency
An abiding feature of a great power is its ability to shape global institutions. In the decade after World War II, as it assumed world power status, the United States helped create the United Nations, the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development aka the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. It is another matter that in our times, the US has sometimes sought to undermine these very institutions.
In India, the Congress party has always had the kind of dominance the US has had in the global system. The party played a key role in the freedom struggle, the writing of the Constitution and the establishment of the Republic under its laws. More than that, in the first decade, the great leader of the party, Jawaharlal Nehru, shaped the key national institutions— Parliament, the Supreme Court, the Planning Commission, and so on. He left his imprint on the secular and progressive politics of the nation which remains a benchmark of sorts to this day.
In all this the Jana Sangh and its successor the Bharatiya Janata Party has not mattered much. For one thing, it did not, and many of its members still do not, accept the notion of the nation that the present Constitution has given us. Their politics has often been about undermining this concept of the nation. Arguably, their aim, or at least that of their controlling authority, the Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh, is to take over the government, capture all its organs and overthrow it. Most think this can be done peacefully, but we have also seen that the Sangh Parivar has elements who think that a bit of a violent push may not be such a bad idea.
Given its role in national politics, it is the system destructive propensities of the Congress party— which accompanied the reconstruction of the Grand Old Party in the image of Indira Gandhi in the 1970s— is more worrisome. That was the era when the Congress actually sought to overthrow Constitutional law, or to amend it to the point where it would reflect their party’s view, rather than that of the country. The party called for a “committed” judiciary and as for the bureaucracy, there was little problem. To quote L.K. Advani, when asked to bend, they crawled.
The party’s attitude today, then, is not the reaction to some crisis or situation, but is part of the DNA of the Indiraite Congress.
A look at its appointments to key institutional positions will tell you that. Take the one institution that has shone in the bleak landscape of the politics of the country in the past two decades—the Election Commission.
Infamy
Ever since T.N. Seshan somewhat surprisingly empowered the body, it has gone from strength to strength. The election process has become more stringent and this year in the assembly elections of Tamil Nadu, the EC began the much needed crackdown on the movement of large volumes of cash. The routine claims of rigging after a lost election have gone, simply because they no longer hold any credibility.
Yet, what did the UPA do? They actually put forward as the EC, a person who was a close family retainer of the Gandhi clan. We can only speculate as to the motive, but you can be sure it was not benign.
A similarly casual approach has been taken to the office of the Central Information Commission where a ministerial adviser was parked on the eve of the 2009 general elections as a means of providing her job security during the government turnover. Since the Congress won that election, she promptly abandoned the commissionership and got new advisory appointment.
In all fairness, it needs to be pointed out that the UPA has given us a new institution through the workings of the Right to Information Act. But the success of the Act was in great measure due to the decisions taken by the first Chief Information Commissioner, Wajahat Habibullah. Ever since he has left, efforts are being made to dilute the Act.
Another instance was the appointment of a tainted Central Vigilance Commissioner whose appointment was quashed by the Supreme Court.
Another manifestation of this tendency was revealed in the whole episode relating to the Lokpal Bill. The consultation with Anna Hazare and his crew was a positive action on the part of the government, but the summary manner in which his suggestions were thrown out points to the government’s aim of ensuring that the Lokpal does not emerge as an office of any consequence and its determination to keep in its own hands the power to misuse the state machinery to harass political opponents and others on the issue of corruption.
Momentum
In the post-Independence era, the party had leaders like Nehru, Patel, Rajendra Prasad, S. Radhakrishnan and others to set its moral compass. The party no longer boasts of such leaders, probably because there would be no place for them in the party.
Fortunately, the country has attained a critical mass which will prevent its regression. We have an odd alliance here of civil society activists and former, and in some cases serving, bureaucrats willing to do the needful. Their power comes from the anger of the middle classes who are fed up with the poor governance, official lawlessness and corruption.
In this, the huge media apparatus that has emerged has played an invaluable role in amplifying their concerns and creating a national platform outside the party system. In this, no one bothers about where the true division of authority between Parliament and judiciary lies, or that between the CAG and the PAC. Anyone willing to fill the vacuum is welcome; this has its dangers, but anything is better than the alternative. We can’t really wait for the country’s largest party to rediscover its glorious past.
Mail Today August 11, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
India is courting a political default
So, the United States has managed to escape a default by a whisker. With the extreme liberals and the Tea Party hawks holding out, the centre of the US political system had to unite to ensure that a measured, though interim, solution was put in place to cope with the country’s massive debt. Closer home, however, India, too, is close to default, but of a political kind.
After the washed out winter session of parliament of 2010 and the anemic budget session, the question in many minds is whether the political system can correct its course which, as of now, seems to be heading straight for a train wreck.
Some commentators are seeing in the BJP’s decision to permit a debate on price rise as a sign that the political centre is willing to moderate the Opposition campaign against the government on the issue of corruption. But that may be too optimistic interpretation. In India, political competition seems to have gridlocked the system to the point where it is unable to think about short and long-term issues in any but the most confrontationist and unproductive ways.
Momentum
Take the short-term: On Monday, the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council said in its report on the Economic Outlook for 2011/12 that the government had lost valuable momentum in the period 2009 to the present. This period could have been fruitfully employed in “rolling out physical infrastructure, pushing through reforms and improving efficiency in public expenditure in the social sector.”
The report cited four issues that led to this. First, hubris arising from the successful handling of the 2008-2009 global economic crisis, compounded by fears arising from a weak monsoon. Second, a disinclination to roll back monetary and stimulus measures quickly. Third, the rise of food, followed by non-food, inflation and fourth, the corruption related controversies “that consumed the energies of the government and has led to an unintended slowing down of initiatives to restore investment and economic confidence.”
The PMEAC has listed a set of key issues that need to be addressed to regain the lost time— remove bottlenecks in physical infrastructure, enhance the pace of capital investment dependent on government decisions, create a corporate debt market to finance infrastructure and provide speedier environment clearance. In addition, bring in GST, end the regime of administered prices, control inflation and modernise the retail sector.
But there are other jokers in the pack that have stymied the government as well. The Supreme Court’s activism on the many scams that have hit the government have had their own set of consequences. Anna Hazare continues to dog the system and is scheduled to re-launch his movement against the government later this month. Telangana remains a festering self-created sore, as do Kashmir, the North-east and the Maoist affected regions. The monsoons, too, have decided to act up. India was able to withstand the 2009 shortfall with greater ease than it had anticipated. But in the current inflationary climate, things could well go in another less comfortable direction.
Long-term
Finally, of course there is the global outlook which is even gloomier than India’s. The US has escaped default. But its high unemployment rates and poor growth are becoming a drag not only on its economy, but on global demand. As for Europe, its fiscal health is none too good. Oil prices remain uncomfortably high and if they increase, it will only add to the inflationary pressures on the economy.
The longer term issues are in many ways connected to the short-term ones. But the scale of the challenge becomes apparent when you view them at a macro level. They relate to feeding and keeping a population of a billion plus healthy, providing them gainful employment and undertaking policy measures that will shift large numbers of them— hundreds of millions— from marginal agriculture to manufacturing and services.
The problem takes a sharper edge when you look at it from the demographic point of view. India currently has a population of 1.2 billion of which some 770 million are in the age group of 15-64 and are considered to be the working age population; the balance, some 410 million, are seen as the “dependent population” of people who are either too young or too old to work. The country’s dependency ratio—that of the dependent population to the working age population is around 0.5 which is the norm for many developing countries, but in the coming decades this could decline further, meaning we will have proportionately even more working age people. This is considered a good thing, because these are the people who are economically productive, who earn, save and consume.
But obviously for this future to become a reality, we have to ensure that these young people are healthy and educated, and that we have an economic system which has jobs for them. And this is what the challenge of the coming two decades is all about—feeding, educating and keeping hundreds of millions healthy and ensuring that they have productive employment.
Few observers of the Indian scene will deny the PMEAC’s blunt observation that the worries about success and failure in this country are centred on the “uncertainty arising from political developments [which] has a very negative impact on business confidence and investment outlook.” Here many will agree that it is not just the UPA that has lost its way, but the entire political system itself. The UPA which has been in power since 2004 may bear the primary responsibility for the state of affairs, but the Opposition, cannot shirk its share of the blame.
The system needs to differentiate between legitimate protest and jockeying for political advantage— which must be part of any democratic politics— and petty barracking of the kind witnessed in parliamentary proceedings these days where entire sessions are being wasted because the Opposition parties think that that is what politics is all about.
Disrupting the monsoon session and showing that the government is unable to function is risky strategy. Bringing the government down now will not be a particularly smart thing to do since the numbers ensure that no combination of the Opposition can take its place. This could actually have the unintended consequence of giving the coup de grâce to a dying government and enable a new UPA team to take office, with enough time on hand for the 2014 general elections. Preventing the government from functioning is a short-sighted policy which only degrades our political system and extracts a long-term price from all those involved and, of course, the country.
UPA
In the decades to come, historians will wonder just why a government that had beaten back a massive political challenge on the Indo-US nuclear deal, overcome the turbulence of the world economic crisis of 2008, won a substantial victory in the general election of 2009, became rudderless in the stormy waters of 2010-11. It is not as though its leaders—Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh—faced any allegations of personal impropriety. Neither was there any serious challenge to their leadership from within the UPA.
One big problem is that it is not easy to forecast outcomes of phenomena that are happening even as you try and understand them. So it is with the seemingly dismal future that we seem to be drifting towards.
Viewed from an admittedly short perspective, it would appear that the monsoon session of parliament could well be a sort of last chance for the system to avoid political default, and for the UPA to recover its lost balance.
Mail Today August 4, 2011
After the washed out winter session of parliament of 2010 and the anemic budget session, the question in many minds is whether the political system can correct its course which, as of now, seems to be heading straight for a train wreck.
Some commentators are seeing in the BJP’s decision to permit a debate on price rise as a sign that the political centre is willing to moderate the Opposition campaign against the government on the issue of corruption. But that may be too optimistic interpretation. In India, political competition seems to have gridlocked the system to the point where it is unable to think about short and long-term issues in any but the most confrontationist and unproductive ways.
Momentum
Take the short-term: On Monday, the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council said in its report on the Economic Outlook for 2011/12 that the government had lost valuable momentum in the period 2009 to the present. This period could have been fruitfully employed in “rolling out physical infrastructure, pushing through reforms and improving efficiency in public expenditure in the social sector.”
The report cited four issues that led to this. First, hubris arising from the successful handling of the 2008-2009 global economic crisis, compounded by fears arising from a weak monsoon. Second, a disinclination to roll back monetary and stimulus measures quickly. Third, the rise of food, followed by non-food, inflation and fourth, the corruption related controversies “that consumed the energies of the government and has led to an unintended slowing down of initiatives to restore investment and economic confidence.”
The PMEAC has listed a set of key issues that need to be addressed to regain the lost time— remove bottlenecks in physical infrastructure, enhance the pace of capital investment dependent on government decisions, create a corporate debt market to finance infrastructure and provide speedier environment clearance. In addition, bring in GST, end the regime of administered prices, control inflation and modernise the retail sector.
But there are other jokers in the pack that have stymied the government as well. The Supreme Court’s activism on the many scams that have hit the government have had their own set of consequences. Anna Hazare continues to dog the system and is scheduled to re-launch his movement against the government later this month. Telangana remains a festering self-created sore, as do Kashmir, the North-east and the Maoist affected regions. The monsoons, too, have decided to act up. India was able to withstand the 2009 shortfall with greater ease than it had anticipated. But in the current inflationary climate, things could well go in another less comfortable direction.
Long-term
Finally, of course there is the global outlook which is even gloomier than India’s. The US has escaped default. But its high unemployment rates and poor growth are becoming a drag not only on its economy, but on global demand. As for Europe, its fiscal health is none too good. Oil prices remain uncomfortably high and if they increase, it will only add to the inflationary pressures on the economy.
The longer term issues are in many ways connected to the short-term ones. But the scale of the challenge becomes apparent when you view them at a macro level. They relate to feeding and keeping a population of a billion plus healthy, providing them gainful employment and undertaking policy measures that will shift large numbers of them— hundreds of millions— from marginal agriculture to manufacturing and services.
The problem takes a sharper edge when you look at it from the demographic point of view. India currently has a population of 1.2 billion of which some 770 million are in the age group of 15-64 and are considered to be the working age population; the balance, some 410 million, are seen as the “dependent population” of people who are either too young or too old to work. The country’s dependency ratio—that of the dependent population to the working age population is around 0.5 which is the norm for many developing countries, but in the coming decades this could decline further, meaning we will have proportionately even more working age people. This is considered a good thing, because these are the people who are economically productive, who earn, save and consume.
But obviously for this future to become a reality, we have to ensure that these young people are healthy and educated, and that we have an economic system which has jobs for them. And this is what the challenge of the coming two decades is all about—feeding, educating and keeping hundreds of millions healthy and ensuring that they have productive employment.
Few observers of the Indian scene will deny the PMEAC’s blunt observation that the worries about success and failure in this country are centred on the “uncertainty arising from political developments [which] has a very negative impact on business confidence and investment outlook.” Here many will agree that it is not just the UPA that has lost its way, but the entire political system itself. The UPA which has been in power since 2004 may bear the primary responsibility for the state of affairs, but the Opposition, cannot shirk its share of the blame.
The system needs to differentiate between legitimate protest and jockeying for political advantage— which must be part of any democratic politics— and petty barracking of the kind witnessed in parliamentary proceedings these days where entire sessions are being wasted because the Opposition parties think that that is what politics is all about.
Disrupting the monsoon session and showing that the government is unable to function is risky strategy. Bringing the government down now will not be a particularly smart thing to do since the numbers ensure that no combination of the Opposition can take its place. This could actually have the unintended consequence of giving the coup de grâce to a dying government and enable a new UPA team to take office, with enough time on hand for the 2014 general elections. Preventing the government from functioning is a short-sighted policy which only degrades our political system and extracts a long-term price from all those involved and, of course, the country.
UPA
In the decades to come, historians will wonder just why a government that had beaten back a massive political challenge on the Indo-US nuclear deal, overcome the turbulence of the world economic crisis of 2008, won a substantial victory in the general election of 2009, became rudderless in the stormy waters of 2010-11. It is not as though its leaders—Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh—faced any allegations of personal impropriety. Neither was there any serious challenge to their leadership from within the UPA.
One big problem is that it is not easy to forecast outcomes of phenomena that are happening even as you try and understand them. So it is with the seemingly dismal future that we seem to be drifting towards.
Viewed from an admittedly short perspective, it would appear that the monsoon session of parliament could well be a sort of last chance for the system to avoid political default, and for the UPA to recover its lost balance.
Mail Today August 4, 2011
Monday, August 01, 2011
Dirty bombs remain a big worry in terrorism
The recent bomb blasts in Mumbai and last Friday’s terrible carnage in Oslo show that the plague of terrorism is, if anything, intensifying. Sooner, unfortunately, rather than later, the world community must confront the possibility of the use of nuclear, chemical or biological agents in a terrorist act. Counter-terrorism experts, whether in India, or abroad, worry a great deal about the possible use of a “dirty bomb,” even though as of now this remains a fear, and it has not quite translated itself into a threat. But the logic of terrorism is such that it pushes the terrorists to think up of newer ways of shocking their victims and achieving their ends.
While at one level, the use of Radiological Dispersal Devices (RDD)— another name for a dirty bomb — appears easy, no terrorist group has actually used such a device as yet. In his rambling manifesto Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik referred to the use of radiological weapons. Dhiren Barot, a Hindu convert to Islam in UK, plotted to use a radioactive dirty bomb for attacks in the US. Chechen separatists and the Al Qaeda have experimented with such devices, though it is clear that they face difficulties that have not been overcome. These could relate to handling radioactive material, the lack of expertise in shaping a device, and the enhanced security over radiological material.
Method
One of the features of modern terrorism — which is a method, rather than an ideology — is the ruthless manner in which non-combatants are targeted to make a political statement. There is not much different in Al Qaeda’s targeting the World Trade Center tower, or the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba hitting the Mumbai hotels and the act of Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik who first set off a big explosion in central Oslo to distract the police, and then carried out a systematic massacre of defenceless young boys and girls at Uteoya island nearby. The claim of insanity made by his lawyer is only proforma.
By the standards of normal human beings, all terrorist acts can appear insane, but that does not mean that they are so. In Breivik’s case, this was not just a random act of violence such as one carried out by people who run amok; he systematically targeted the government of Norway in his bomb blast, and the ruling Labour party, whose youth wing was holding the rally in Uteoya island.
For Norway this is a hugely destructive first, an event which will no doubt become part of national memory. But in India, this month’s blasts were only one in a long line of terrorist incidents that go back to the mid-1980s with acts like the Dhilwan massacre of October 1983 when six Hindu bus passengers were taken out of a bus by radical Sikh terrorists and executed. This was the first of a series of incidents in Punjab over the next five years when Hindus were selectively targeted by Sikh extremists in a bid to divide the Hindu and Sikh communities. There were other incidents, too, even more horrific, such as the blowing up of the Air India aircraft Kanishka, killing all 329 aboard.
In the 1990s, there were more terrifying events — the first Bombay blasts, those of 1993 carried out by the Muslim underworld, taking the lives of some 257 persons, the attack on the Parliament House in New Delhi in December 2001 and the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba attack on Mumbai in November 2008. And, of course, there were the bomb blasts — in Mumbai local trains in July 2006, in Delhi during the festive season in 2005 and then again in 2008, and those at Ahmedabad and Jaipur in 2008 as well.
Radiological
Most security officials in the country believe that the most recent Mumbai blast is merely a forerunner of more serious strikes in the country. The reason is that on one hand, the local cells of the so-called Indian Mujahideen seem to have reconstituted, and on the other, in Pakistan, the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba has, if anything, become stronger in relation to the Pakistan government and the army. But even as of now these attacks appear to be unstoppable, there are people who are worrying about the possible use of a radiological weapon in the country.
There has been talk of radiological dispersal devices (RDDs) for quite some time now. It is not easy to access the radionuclides that could be used as a weapon. Of 16 radionuclides, only four are widely used in biomedical research and industry — Cobalt 60, cesium 137, iridium 192 and americium 241. Most are made in specialised nuclear reactors and so terrorist access to them could come through theft, illegal purchase, or through sympathetic insiders.
The RDD is very different from a nuclear weapon. In RDD’s radioactive material is dispersed, and it can be done by exploding a conventional bomb or, a crop spraying aircraft. An RDD can be simply placed at a strategic location and do its work. This material can be from diverted from industrial or medical sources. Last year in Mayapuri, Delhi, an irradiator with Cobalt 60 sold as scrap came apart, killing one person through radiating sickness and injuring six.
On the other hand a nuclear weapon will have the enhanced blast and heat effects of a fission or fusion reaction, as well as the radiation associated with it. In the former case, the casualties would be fewer, though the psychological effects could be quite severe.
As of now, no group has really succeeded and the threat remains somewhat remote. But for India there is little comfort, primarily because its threat perceptions relate to Pakistan. In fact, in relation to India, not only do we confront a RDD threat, but one relating to nuclear weapons as well.
Coping
Pakistan says that its nuclear arsenal is secure and this position is broadly accepted by most observers. As far as RDDs are concerned, Islamabad says that the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority is implementing a National Nuclear Security Action plan in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to manage high risk radioactive sources and provide a monitoring mechanism to take care of any emergencies. Indeed, speaking at the Nuclear Security Summit of April 2010 aimed at highlighting the threat of terrorist use of nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani of Pakistan noted that the threat of terrorist acts involving “dirty bombs is real and it has global dimensions.”
But that is the theory, the practice in Pakistan is likely to be quite different. The attack on the Pakistani Navy facility at Mehran in Karachi rang alarm bells around the world. But the more insidious danger is of scientific and technical personnel smuggling out material from seemingly well-guarded facilities.
India’s record in coping with the conventional terrorist threat has not been particularly impressive. There is all the more reason that it needs to be prepared for the threat of a “dirty bomb.” Preventing the RDD attack is, of course, the most important thing.
But equally germane is the need to cope with an attack, should one occur. The way the authorities reacted to the most recent Mumbai bomb attack does not inspire much confidence in the government’s ability to cope with the psychological and physical outcome of an RDD attack.
Mail Today July 28, 2011
While at one level, the use of Radiological Dispersal Devices (RDD)— another name for a dirty bomb — appears easy, no terrorist group has actually used such a device as yet. In his rambling manifesto Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik referred to the use of radiological weapons. Dhiren Barot, a Hindu convert to Islam in UK, plotted to use a radioactive dirty bomb for attacks in the US. Chechen separatists and the Al Qaeda have experimented with such devices, though it is clear that they face difficulties that have not been overcome. These could relate to handling radioactive material, the lack of expertise in shaping a device, and the enhanced security over radiological material.
Method
One of the features of modern terrorism — which is a method, rather than an ideology — is the ruthless manner in which non-combatants are targeted to make a political statement. There is not much different in Al Qaeda’s targeting the World Trade Center tower, or the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba hitting the Mumbai hotels and the act of Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik who first set off a big explosion in central Oslo to distract the police, and then carried out a systematic massacre of defenceless young boys and girls at Uteoya island nearby. The claim of insanity made by his lawyer is only proforma.
By the standards of normal human beings, all terrorist acts can appear insane, but that does not mean that they are so. In Breivik’s case, this was not just a random act of violence such as one carried out by people who run amok; he systematically targeted the government of Norway in his bomb blast, and the ruling Labour party, whose youth wing was holding the rally in Uteoya island.
For Norway this is a hugely destructive first, an event which will no doubt become part of national memory. But in India, this month’s blasts were only one in a long line of terrorist incidents that go back to the mid-1980s with acts like the Dhilwan massacre of October 1983 when six Hindu bus passengers were taken out of a bus by radical Sikh terrorists and executed. This was the first of a series of incidents in Punjab over the next five years when Hindus were selectively targeted by Sikh extremists in a bid to divide the Hindu and Sikh communities. There were other incidents, too, even more horrific, such as the blowing up of the Air India aircraft Kanishka, killing all 329 aboard.
In the 1990s, there were more terrifying events — the first Bombay blasts, those of 1993 carried out by the Muslim underworld, taking the lives of some 257 persons, the attack on the Parliament House in New Delhi in December 2001 and the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba attack on Mumbai in November 2008. And, of course, there were the bomb blasts — in Mumbai local trains in July 2006, in Delhi during the festive season in 2005 and then again in 2008, and those at Ahmedabad and Jaipur in 2008 as well.
Radiological
Most security officials in the country believe that the most recent Mumbai blast is merely a forerunner of more serious strikes in the country. The reason is that on one hand, the local cells of the so-called Indian Mujahideen seem to have reconstituted, and on the other, in Pakistan, the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba has, if anything, become stronger in relation to the Pakistan government and the army. But even as of now these attacks appear to be unstoppable, there are people who are worrying about the possible use of a radiological weapon in the country.
There has been talk of radiological dispersal devices (RDDs) for quite some time now. It is not easy to access the radionuclides that could be used as a weapon. Of 16 radionuclides, only four are widely used in biomedical research and industry — Cobalt 60, cesium 137, iridium 192 and americium 241. Most are made in specialised nuclear reactors and so terrorist access to them could come through theft, illegal purchase, or through sympathetic insiders.
The RDD is very different from a nuclear weapon. In RDD’s radioactive material is dispersed, and it can be done by exploding a conventional bomb or, a crop spraying aircraft. An RDD can be simply placed at a strategic location and do its work. This material can be from diverted from industrial or medical sources. Last year in Mayapuri, Delhi, an irradiator with Cobalt 60 sold as scrap came apart, killing one person through radiating sickness and injuring six.
On the other hand a nuclear weapon will have the enhanced blast and heat effects of a fission or fusion reaction, as well as the radiation associated with it. In the former case, the casualties would be fewer, though the psychological effects could be quite severe.
As of now, no group has really succeeded and the threat remains somewhat remote. But for India there is little comfort, primarily because its threat perceptions relate to Pakistan. In fact, in relation to India, not only do we confront a RDD threat, but one relating to nuclear weapons as well.
Coping
Pakistan says that its nuclear arsenal is secure and this position is broadly accepted by most observers. As far as RDDs are concerned, Islamabad says that the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority is implementing a National Nuclear Security Action plan in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to manage high risk radioactive sources and provide a monitoring mechanism to take care of any emergencies. Indeed, speaking at the Nuclear Security Summit of April 2010 aimed at highlighting the threat of terrorist use of nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani of Pakistan noted that the threat of terrorist acts involving “dirty bombs is real and it has global dimensions.”
But that is the theory, the practice in Pakistan is likely to be quite different. The attack on the Pakistani Navy facility at Mehran in Karachi rang alarm bells around the world. But the more insidious danger is of scientific and technical personnel smuggling out material from seemingly well-guarded facilities.
India’s record in coping with the conventional terrorist threat has not been particularly impressive. There is all the more reason that it needs to be prepared for the threat of a “dirty bomb.” Preventing the RDD attack is, of course, the most important thing.
But equally germane is the need to cope with an attack, should one occur. The way the authorities reacted to the most recent Mumbai bomb attack does not inspire much confidence in the government’s ability to cope with the psychological and physical outcome of an RDD attack.
Mail Today July 28, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Fortress India stands on a foundation of sand
The Lashkar-e-Tayyeba’s attack on Mumbai in November 2008 is a watershed in the history of India’s efforts to fight terrorism. The Bombay blasts of 1993 had been facilitated by the landing of RDX and weapons off the Konkan coast, yet it was only after 26/11 that the issue of coastal security was seriously addressed.
At the central level, there was a flurry of activity as a new and ambitious Union Home Minister quickly got a multi-agency centre for sharing terrorism-related information going, pushed ahead with the coastal security scheme and conceived a large computer grid to tap into existing data bases to track suspects. Even more ambitiously, the Ministry began to hard-sell its bowdlerised version of a National Counter Terrorism Center to be placed under its command.
But, the whole can only be equal to the sum of its parts. And, in the case of counter-terrorism, the hopeless condition of our state police machinery makes it clear that howsoever impressive the MHA efforts may appear, they will come to a naught, unless it is able to push the states into overhauling their medieval police forces.
Mumbai
The state of affairs in the Mumbai police is merely a metaphor for the prevailing ethos in the other police forces of the land. The rivalry between the offices of the police commissioner, the anti-terrorism squad and the crime branch, all headed by Additional Director-General of Police level officers, is legendary. A great deal of the muck became public knowledge during 26/11 and in the investigations in its wake. Besides the inter-personal issues, is the more serious issue of corruption, often in association with the underworld. As part of its job, the police needs to keep tabs on the underworld, but some of the associations go way beyond the call of duty. Indeed, several police personnel are on the payrolls of known dons like Chhota Shakeel and Dawood Ibrahim.
As much was acknowledged by the police brass when they launched “Operation Clean House” in the wake of journalist Jyotirmoy Dey’s sensational killing recently. Over the years, the police had built up a core of personnel whose specialty was to gun down criminals. Though most were shot after they were arrested and disarmed, a cult of “encounter specialists” was built up to portray these people as brave officers ready to risk their lives in shootouts with the bad guys, whereas they were, in fact, carrying out illegal and extra-judicial killings.
Not surprisingly, some of these officers became heroes of the counter-terror effort, ever ready to gun down the dreaded Pakistani terrorist, even if it never became clear whether the person killed was even a Pakistani, leave alone a terrorist. Its star, Pradeep Sharma, with a “score” of 103 killed, was dismissed from the force two years ago for links with the underworld, but reinstated by an administrative tribunal. Sharma claimed he had been framed by the Chhota Rajan gang.
Earlier, in July 2005, Inspector Aslam Momin was sacked for his alleged nexus with the Dawood Ibrahim gang. Another “encounter specialist” Daya Nayak, an aide of Sharma, had been suspended for several years by the Mumbai police on corruption charges, but he, too, has since been reinstated. The so-called specialist officers of other cities, too, have been corrupted by power and money. In Delhi, “encounter killer” Inspector Rajbir Singh was himself shot dead by a property dealer in 2008.
The condition of the police in India’s vast hinterland is even worse. Where the encounter specialist delivers—usually an alleged criminal or terrorist’s head—the mofussil police gives back nothing. In fact it takes what it can from everyone—the landless peasant, the landlord, shop-keeper, rickshawallah, you name it. The idea of a scientific investigation is completely alien to them.
Incompetence
In a recent book, Shishir Gupta has pointed out that the police were unable to get on to the trail of the so-called Indian Mujahideen terrorist group because of the shoddy manner in which the UP police dismissed the Dashashwamedh Ghat blast of 2005 as a gas cylinder blast. Amazingly, Gupta says that another bomb which was planted in a pressure cooker failed to go off, and a police inspector who seized it, threw away its innards and took the utensil home for use in his kitchen.
Such forces botch up investigation to the point where it is difficult to separate truth from falsehood and the guilty from the innocent. This is the way the police has made a hash of the investigation into the Diwali serial blasts of October 2005 in Delhi, and the July 2006 train blasts in Mumbai.
According to a report, the same seems to have happened with the Varanasi blast of December 2010 where the police has not been able to obtain the electronic trail of the suspects. An email sent minutes after the blast in the name of
Al Fateh and two calls made through a cell phone by a person near the Sheetla Ghat were traced to Mumbai. This could have provided a lead to the most recent incident in Mumbai.
In all this the Union government has taken a peculiar stand. In the wake of 26/11 it created the National Investigation Agency to look into cases of terrorism since they often had ramifications across state lines. But now it seems to have developed cold feet. In Mumbai, it has forced the NIA to play second fiddle to the Maharashtra ATS headed by Rakesh Maria. It has also gone along with the idea that the “first responder”, the UP Police, would be a better bet in investigating the 2010 Varanasi blast than the NIA. This flies in the face of evidence that both forces have seriously blotted their copybooks in terrorist investigations.
Requirement
The forensic investigation of terrorist attacks, especially bomb blasts, is a difficult affair which requires an enormous amount of expertise and time. Ideally every bit of the improvised explosive device that has not vapourised is collected for analysis that can lead to the unique “fingerprint” of its fabricator. Unfortunately, anyone who has witnessed the aftermath of a post-bombing scene in India will realise that in the crush of humanity—police, rescuers and do-gooders and onlookers—evidence is often rubbed out. This is not to say that the police makes an effort to preserve the evidence; it does not. In any case it lacks the expertise and culture of patient investigation and usually collects its evidence through arrests and “sustained interrogation” of suspects. In this, things have changed little from the working style of the police in the Mughal times.
Equally specialised is the issue of preventing terrorist attacks. While there is a good case for sound conventional policing and the activisation of the beat system, there is also the fact that connecting the dots to prevent a terrorist attack requires a different mind-set and training. It is for this reason that metropolitan cities like London and New York have embedded specialists in their police stations. In fact the counter-terrorism efforts of these two cities would be instructive for the manner in which they not only look at current threats, but ahead into that very real future where you can be hit by a chemical, biological or nuclear weapon. In the meantime, we flounder along building castles of sand and impress no one but ourselves with our sterling efforts.
Mail Today July 22, 2011
At the central level, there was a flurry of activity as a new and ambitious Union Home Minister quickly got a multi-agency centre for sharing terrorism-related information going, pushed ahead with the coastal security scheme and conceived a large computer grid to tap into existing data bases to track suspects. Even more ambitiously, the Ministry began to hard-sell its bowdlerised version of a National Counter Terrorism Center to be placed under its command.
But, the whole can only be equal to the sum of its parts. And, in the case of counter-terrorism, the hopeless condition of our state police machinery makes it clear that howsoever impressive the MHA efforts may appear, they will come to a naught, unless it is able to push the states into overhauling their medieval police forces.
Mumbai
The state of affairs in the Mumbai police is merely a metaphor for the prevailing ethos in the other police forces of the land. The rivalry between the offices of the police commissioner, the anti-terrorism squad and the crime branch, all headed by Additional Director-General of Police level officers, is legendary. A great deal of the muck became public knowledge during 26/11 and in the investigations in its wake. Besides the inter-personal issues, is the more serious issue of corruption, often in association with the underworld. As part of its job, the police needs to keep tabs on the underworld, but some of the associations go way beyond the call of duty. Indeed, several police personnel are on the payrolls of known dons like Chhota Shakeel and Dawood Ibrahim.
As much was acknowledged by the police brass when they launched “Operation Clean House” in the wake of journalist Jyotirmoy Dey’s sensational killing recently. Over the years, the police had built up a core of personnel whose specialty was to gun down criminals. Though most were shot after they were arrested and disarmed, a cult of “encounter specialists” was built up to portray these people as brave officers ready to risk their lives in shootouts with the bad guys, whereas they were, in fact, carrying out illegal and extra-judicial killings.
Not surprisingly, some of these officers became heroes of the counter-terror effort, ever ready to gun down the dreaded Pakistani terrorist, even if it never became clear whether the person killed was even a Pakistani, leave alone a terrorist. Its star, Pradeep Sharma, with a “score” of 103 killed, was dismissed from the force two years ago for links with the underworld, but reinstated by an administrative tribunal. Sharma claimed he had been framed by the Chhota Rajan gang.
Earlier, in July 2005, Inspector Aslam Momin was sacked for his alleged nexus with the Dawood Ibrahim gang. Another “encounter specialist” Daya Nayak, an aide of Sharma, had been suspended for several years by the Mumbai police on corruption charges, but he, too, has since been reinstated. The so-called specialist officers of other cities, too, have been corrupted by power and money. In Delhi, “encounter killer” Inspector Rajbir Singh was himself shot dead by a property dealer in 2008.
The condition of the police in India’s vast hinterland is even worse. Where the encounter specialist delivers—usually an alleged criminal or terrorist’s head—the mofussil police gives back nothing. In fact it takes what it can from everyone—the landless peasant, the landlord, shop-keeper, rickshawallah, you name it. The idea of a scientific investigation is completely alien to them.
Incompetence
In a recent book, Shishir Gupta has pointed out that the police were unable to get on to the trail of the so-called Indian Mujahideen terrorist group because of the shoddy manner in which the UP police dismissed the Dashashwamedh Ghat blast of 2005 as a gas cylinder blast. Amazingly, Gupta says that another bomb which was planted in a pressure cooker failed to go off, and a police inspector who seized it, threw away its innards and took the utensil home for use in his kitchen.
Such forces botch up investigation to the point where it is difficult to separate truth from falsehood and the guilty from the innocent. This is the way the police has made a hash of the investigation into the Diwali serial blasts of October 2005 in Delhi, and the July 2006 train blasts in Mumbai.
According to a report, the same seems to have happened with the Varanasi blast of December 2010 where the police has not been able to obtain the electronic trail of the suspects. An email sent minutes after the blast in the name of
Al Fateh and two calls made through a cell phone by a person near the Sheetla Ghat were traced to Mumbai. This could have provided a lead to the most recent incident in Mumbai.
In all this the Union government has taken a peculiar stand. In the wake of 26/11 it created the National Investigation Agency to look into cases of terrorism since they often had ramifications across state lines. But now it seems to have developed cold feet. In Mumbai, it has forced the NIA to play second fiddle to the Maharashtra ATS headed by Rakesh Maria. It has also gone along with the idea that the “first responder”, the UP Police, would be a better bet in investigating the 2010 Varanasi blast than the NIA. This flies in the face of evidence that both forces have seriously blotted their copybooks in terrorist investigations.
Requirement
The forensic investigation of terrorist attacks, especially bomb blasts, is a difficult affair which requires an enormous amount of expertise and time. Ideally every bit of the improvised explosive device that has not vapourised is collected for analysis that can lead to the unique “fingerprint” of its fabricator. Unfortunately, anyone who has witnessed the aftermath of a post-bombing scene in India will realise that in the crush of humanity—police, rescuers and do-gooders and onlookers—evidence is often rubbed out. This is not to say that the police makes an effort to preserve the evidence; it does not. In any case it lacks the expertise and culture of patient investigation and usually collects its evidence through arrests and “sustained interrogation” of suspects. In this, things have changed little from the working style of the police in the Mughal times.
Equally specialised is the issue of preventing terrorist attacks. While there is a good case for sound conventional policing and the activisation of the beat system, there is also the fact that connecting the dots to prevent a terrorist attack requires a different mind-set and training. It is for this reason that metropolitan cities like London and New York have embedded specialists in their police stations. In fact the counter-terrorism efforts of these two cities would be instructive for the manner in which they not only look at current threats, but ahead into that very real future where you can be hit by a chemical, biological or nuclear weapon. In the meantime, we flounder along building castles of sand and impress no one but ourselves with our sterling efforts.
Mail Today July 22, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Pills that won't cure the government's ills
When the body, as much as the body politic, is ill, it sometimes needs to take a bitter medicine. With apologies to those who believe in alternative medicine, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has, in the anodyne reshuffle he has conducted, taken recourse to passing out those little sweet pills that homeopaths are known to dish out. They can, at best, be a placebo, but they are unlikely to cure the disease.
Who can deny the seriousness of the Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance’s illness? There is something epic in the hubris that the party displayed in the face of repeated instances of malfeasance and corruption that came to light in the last two years. In the short span of one year from its excellent showing in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, it was reduced to a rudderless hulk that has been floating in the political seas, open to pot-shots from everyone— enemies, allies and even its own party members. Just yesterday, the Prime Minister had the ignominy of being talked back to by a junior minister whom he had asked to proceed to the site of Sunday’s railway accident. And, not surprisingly, that minister was not dropped in Tuesday’s reshuffle.
The Prime Minister missed his big opportunity when he did not act against Suresh Kalmadi and his coterie in the wake of the rumblings on the Commonwealth Games preparations.
Scandals
Just how wrong the PM and Sonia Gandhi’s political judgment was is evident from the fact that Mr Kalmadi has been sitting in jail for months now. Even as the CWG issue died down, the government was hit by an even bigger tsunami— the 2G spectrum scam. Insiders knew of its existence two years earlier, and it is unpardonable that the government either did not know about it, or, more likely refused to act on the charges. It took a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General to set the law and order machinery rolling.
And once again we see just how poorly the Singh-Sonia duo misjudged the issue—the main accused, former telecom minister A Raja and no less a person than the daughter of a close ally of the UPA, Kanimozhi, are both in jail. In March, Wikileaks raised the ghost of the original scandal—the alleged bribery that enabled the first UPA government headed by Singh to win a crucial trust vote linked with the Indo-US nuclear deal. A US diplomat reported home in a cable that was leaked that he had seen chests of cash that a senior Congress leader said were being used for the purpose.
The other scandals—the Sukhna land scam, the Adarsh housing scam and the loan-bribery scam affecting LIC Housing Finance and several banks—cannot be directly attributed to the UPA, but they speak of the breakdown of governance in the country. On Tuesday, Mail Today carried an investigative report by Headlines Today revealing how the cancer of corruption has spread to the very constituent cells of the country— government functionaries demanding bribes from people at the very bottom of the social and economic pyramid in the country in Bundelkhand.
When Singh began his second term as the Prime Minister, there were expectations that freed from the barracking tactics of the Left, the government would move swiftly to push a series of reforms that were needed at the infrastructural level to unleash the Indian economy. UPA I had, to its credit, managed the economic crisis of 2008 well and there was every reason to believe that it would do what was promised. But early on, within a matter of months the government appeared to have lost its way, and it never really found it again.
Rejig
This is the reason why a great deal was set by Tuesday’s reshuffle. From February onwards, when the government had the ignominy of its former minister A Raja being carted off to jail, Dr Singh put out word that once the budget session was over, he would take drastic steps to overhaul his government and make a new beginning. It did not take a genius to realise that the government was in serious need of a makeover. The session got over in May and then we had June and finally in mid-July the reshuffle and in the end it has come to what can, at best, be called a re-jig of the middle levels of the government. Ministers, some of them very senior, who are known to be corrupt remain within the government, others who have proved to be incompetent and actually injurious to the UPA II, too, flourish.
The reshuffle has seen some three or four people associated with Rahul Gandhi enter the Union Council of Ministers. This is too little and too late. Given the dire straits the UPA is in, the time has come for Mr Gandhi to play a far more assertive hand. The few acolytes he has in government, all but Jairam Ramesh having Minister of State rank, are unlikely to make any significant difference to the quality of the government. On the other hand, they risk being tainted by association with a government that does not work.
Leadership
The one big problem that the UPA confronts is that it is the government of a party which, even more desperately than the government, needs a makeover. The governmental system we have inherited from the British has always put politics and politicians in the leadership role of the system. More so than the United States where Cabinet members can be experts and non-politicians, the Westminster system demands a government where ministers are active politicians who are accountable in real terms in the House of Commons, with the Prime Minister himself answering questions from parliamentarians once a week during the period that the house is in session. In the case of the UPA, the Prime Minister himself and his four principal ministers are political light-weights. They may, like the PM, be experts in their subjects, but the Westminster system demands that they be politically savvy, rather than expert.
At the end of the day, of course, it is
Dr Singh and Ms Gandhi’s prerogative to shape their government the way they desire. No doubt they have consulted widely and have had intense discussions before the exercise was undertaken. For reasons best known to them, a minimalist procedure was undertaken. Perhaps they feared that too much energy may bring the ramshackle structure down. Or they were not confident that the UPA would be able to withstand a burst of acceleration.
Remarkably, the prime minister has underscored the status quoist nature of Tuesday’s exercise by emphasising that this is likely to be the last reshuffle of his government whose term ends some two years from now. This is either a brave attempt to impart stability to a shaky vehicle, or yet another manifestation of the hubris that the Congress party seems to be so assiduous in courting.
Mail Today July 13, 2011
Who can deny the seriousness of the Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance’s illness? There is something epic in the hubris that the party displayed in the face of repeated instances of malfeasance and corruption that came to light in the last two years. In the short span of one year from its excellent showing in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, it was reduced to a rudderless hulk that has been floating in the political seas, open to pot-shots from everyone— enemies, allies and even its own party members. Just yesterday, the Prime Minister had the ignominy of being talked back to by a junior minister whom he had asked to proceed to the site of Sunday’s railway accident. And, not surprisingly, that minister was not dropped in Tuesday’s reshuffle.
The Prime Minister missed his big opportunity when he did not act against Suresh Kalmadi and his coterie in the wake of the rumblings on the Commonwealth Games preparations.
Scandals
Just how wrong the PM and Sonia Gandhi’s political judgment was is evident from the fact that Mr Kalmadi has been sitting in jail for months now. Even as the CWG issue died down, the government was hit by an even bigger tsunami— the 2G spectrum scam. Insiders knew of its existence two years earlier, and it is unpardonable that the government either did not know about it, or, more likely refused to act on the charges. It took a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General to set the law and order machinery rolling.
And once again we see just how poorly the Singh-Sonia duo misjudged the issue—the main accused, former telecom minister A Raja and no less a person than the daughter of a close ally of the UPA, Kanimozhi, are both in jail. In March, Wikileaks raised the ghost of the original scandal—the alleged bribery that enabled the first UPA government headed by Singh to win a crucial trust vote linked with the Indo-US nuclear deal. A US diplomat reported home in a cable that was leaked that he had seen chests of cash that a senior Congress leader said were being used for the purpose.
The other scandals—the Sukhna land scam, the Adarsh housing scam and the loan-bribery scam affecting LIC Housing Finance and several banks—cannot be directly attributed to the UPA, but they speak of the breakdown of governance in the country. On Tuesday, Mail Today carried an investigative report by Headlines Today revealing how the cancer of corruption has spread to the very constituent cells of the country— government functionaries demanding bribes from people at the very bottom of the social and economic pyramid in the country in Bundelkhand.
When Singh began his second term as the Prime Minister, there were expectations that freed from the barracking tactics of the Left, the government would move swiftly to push a series of reforms that were needed at the infrastructural level to unleash the Indian economy. UPA I had, to its credit, managed the economic crisis of 2008 well and there was every reason to believe that it would do what was promised. But early on, within a matter of months the government appeared to have lost its way, and it never really found it again.
Rejig
This is the reason why a great deal was set by Tuesday’s reshuffle. From February onwards, when the government had the ignominy of its former minister A Raja being carted off to jail, Dr Singh put out word that once the budget session was over, he would take drastic steps to overhaul his government and make a new beginning. It did not take a genius to realise that the government was in serious need of a makeover. The session got over in May and then we had June and finally in mid-July the reshuffle and in the end it has come to what can, at best, be called a re-jig of the middle levels of the government. Ministers, some of them very senior, who are known to be corrupt remain within the government, others who have proved to be incompetent and actually injurious to the UPA II, too, flourish.
The reshuffle has seen some three or four people associated with Rahul Gandhi enter the Union Council of Ministers. This is too little and too late. Given the dire straits the UPA is in, the time has come for Mr Gandhi to play a far more assertive hand. The few acolytes he has in government, all but Jairam Ramesh having Minister of State rank, are unlikely to make any significant difference to the quality of the government. On the other hand, they risk being tainted by association with a government that does not work.
Leadership
The one big problem that the UPA confronts is that it is the government of a party which, even more desperately than the government, needs a makeover. The governmental system we have inherited from the British has always put politics and politicians in the leadership role of the system. More so than the United States where Cabinet members can be experts and non-politicians, the Westminster system demands a government where ministers are active politicians who are accountable in real terms in the House of Commons, with the Prime Minister himself answering questions from parliamentarians once a week during the period that the house is in session. In the case of the UPA, the Prime Minister himself and his four principal ministers are political light-weights. They may, like the PM, be experts in their subjects, but the Westminster system demands that they be politically savvy, rather than expert.
At the end of the day, of course, it is
Dr Singh and Ms Gandhi’s prerogative to shape their government the way they desire. No doubt they have consulted widely and have had intense discussions before the exercise was undertaken. For reasons best known to them, a minimalist procedure was undertaken. Perhaps they feared that too much energy may bring the ramshackle structure down. Or they were not confident that the UPA would be able to withstand a burst of acceleration.
Remarkably, the prime minister has underscored the status quoist nature of Tuesday’s exercise by emphasising that this is likely to be the last reshuffle of his government whose term ends some two years from now. This is either a brave attempt to impart stability to a shaky vehicle, or yet another manifestation of the hubris that the Congress party seems to be so assiduous in courting.
Mail Today July 13, 2011
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