Looking for a miracle in 2014

A year is a long time in politics, two years is an infinity. That is the time the Congress party has to refurbish its tattered image and seek a renewed mandate to rule by 2014. Whether or not this happens depends on whether the party leader, Ms Sonia Gandhi, has learnt the right lessons from the debacle in Uttar Pradesh. And whether she is willing to allow Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to unleash the 'animal spirits' of the economic system which remains inherently sound, albeit under functioning. The real issue, of course, is whether the PM can infuse "animal spirits" - confidence, and in the case of the United Progressive Alliance, selfconfidence- in the government.

Bureaucracy
Just how difficult that task is going to be was apparent last week when the Ministry of Finance bureaucracy sought to undermine the PM's efforts to rationalise the tax avoidance rules. Instead of hearing what the PMO was saying, the MoF decided to run with the disastrous agenda that it had set for itself at the time of the budget.
The one lesson that emerges from the experience is that if you leave bureaucrats to run things for themselves, they tend towards arbitrariness and authoritarianism. The essence of the budget proposals on tax compliance meant a return to the 'inspector raj' of the V.P. Singh era, and no one thought twice about imposing it on the country in the year of 2012.
The Congress should thank its stars that the CWG and 2G corruption bombs exploded when they did in 2009 and 2011, and that the Anna Hazare movement emerged, grew and imploded in 2011. A great deal of passion on the issue has already been spent. In that sense the latter half of 2012 and the coming year offers a clean slate as it were upon which the Congress should be rewriting its future.
But, if two years is a long time in politics, so is the distance between a wishful thought and its realisation. And one of the big problems that the UPA confronts is that it is a divided house and that the division goes to its very apex. Party supremo Sonia Gandhi believes that the only way to attract voters is by doling out food, healthcare, jobs and education. This is a monstrous perversion of what people really want- equality of opportunity to get ahead in life, a life of dignity where you get reasonable recompense for your labour and a hand up in times of distress.

Understanding
 On the other hand, you have the "trickle down" specialists who believe that economic growth is everything and if you are chugging along at 9 or 10 per cent rate, there will be sufficient trickling down to the aam admi, along with a vast amount of revenue to the government coffers, to politically benefit the party.
In a certain way this is true. It is on the basis of the high growth rates of the period 2002-2008 that the country was able to afford NREGA, the farm loan waiver and, social welfare schemes, as well as a high level of investment in infrastructure and defence.
The dissonance at the top reflects itself in the working of the government with ministers hedging every decision with an eye on 10 Janpath.
To move ahead now and to restore the rhythm of the economy and self-confidence to its politics is the task the government confronts. To do this requires a clear understanding between the party supremo and the prime minister. There is little space left for the older, UPA-1, style of functioning where each deferred to each other's pet schemes and proposals, and tried to stay out of the other's way. There is need now for a unified sense of purpose and effort.

Deliverance
Ms Gandhi needs to ask herself hard questions about the electoral outcome in UP. Essentially it brought out the hollowness of the kind of long-distance entitlement politics that the Gandhi family espouses, but it also undermined her systematic plan to bring her son into the centre stage. Today when people do sums, they find it difficult to believe that the Congress will even cobble up triple digit numbers in the next Lok Sabha. And this from a party which was able to increase its tally from 145 to 206.
So what the party and the government require in the next 20 months is to act with a united purpose. The overall responsibility for this lies with Sonia Gandhi. But the task of delivering on policy belongs to the PM. No one doubts that he has one of the finest teams of economists advising him on the steps that need to be taken to move ahead.
But this huge structure of the government of India cannot be moved by just dreaming up schemes and proposals. Things must happen on the ground- whether it is the speeding up of the roadconstruction schemes, delivering coal from the pitheads to the power stations, getting the private sector to put down money on new projects or attracting foreign direct investment.
Is this doable? The record of the UPA-2 would suggest no, indeed, many people would say that only a miracle can now revive the UPA's fortunes. But politics is full of miracles and turnaround stories. That is because politicians have a very sharp survival instinct. An inadvertent consequence of the recent political upheavals-the UP election and Pranab Mukherjee's presidential venture- has been that it has ensured that Dr Singh will be the prime minister till the next election. Even he knows that a term beyond that is not feasible.
The survival we are talking about is that of the Gandhi dynasty. What is at stake really is their future, and hopefully they have understood that by now.
Mail Today July 3, 2012

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/looking-for-a-miracle-in-2014/1/203568.html

The importance of Abu Jundal

The arrest of Zabiuddin Ansari, aka Abu Jundal, is a significant victory in the long war against terrorism.

Even so, we should be clear that nothing he reveals in his interrogation will nudge the Pakistani authorities to accelerate their investigation into the Mumbai attack case.
His great value will be in helping the Indian and American investigators to connect many of the dots that remain in their understanding of the case and of its planners and perpetrators.
But Ansari's greatest value to us is that his arrest has, in all likelihood, disrupted the next major Lashkar-e- Tayyeba attack against India.
As the newspapers have reported, Ansari was not your run-of-the-mill terrorist. He was a trainer, motivator and planner and, in that sense, is a far more useful catch than even Ajmal Qasab.
The latter's value is that he was caught alive after killing scores of people giving us direct evidence of Pakistani complicity in the Mumbai attack, and that his execution will provide some legal retribution for the 166 persons who died. But Ansari's worth is multi-layered.
One of the revelations of the Mumbai attacks had been the enormous effort and planning that went into a successful mass killing strike.
The Lashkar planners used the services of Daood Gilani aka David Coleman Headley to make repeated trips to India to conduct a reconnaissance of the targets.
They then selected a team of terrorists and trained them for the job and reportedly even used a mockup of the targets.
They arranged for the capture of the Kuber so as to be able to land the terrorists in Mumbai.
Thereafter, using VOIP systems, they guided their men at every turn of the operation from a control room in Karachi. Even as the Mumbai operation was on, it was clear that the Lashkar was already shifting tracks. They were on to getting radicalised Indian Muslims to do their work so as to maintain plausible deniability.
That is why, the cover story of the attackers was that they were the 'Deccan Mujahideen'. Ansari's key role was to convince the Indian media that the attackers were Indians, and for that they also carried false identity cards, credit cards and even wore the sacred red thread many Indians have around their hands. 

This is where the link with the Indian Mujahideen, which was responsible for a spate of bombings across various Indian cities, including Delhi, in 2008, comes in.
The tightly recruited IM cells had an Azamgarh connection and its leaders, Amir Raza Khan came from Kolkata and the Bhatkal brothers from Karnataka.
All are currently in Pakistan and there is a high probability that Lashkar coordinates their operations.
The chances are that ever since he mysteriously managed to escape from a Pakistani jail in 2009, and his arrest by Saudis last year, Ansari was busy with the next conspiracy.
This could have involved recruiting Indians, planning, reconnaissance and raising funds, as well as maintaining liaison with sleeper cells already established.
Zabiuddin Ansari's arrest has Islamabad on the defensive. Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik has already shot off a letter to his Indian counterpart P Chidambaram requesting India to share information provided by Ansari. This seems to be a defensive ploy to deflect pressure from the Ansari revelations, none of which are expected to be good for Pakistan.

Zabiuddin Ansari, alias Abu Jundal

The power of the extremist lobby, as well as the possible role of the Pakistan Army personnel in the Mumbai attacks makes it certain that there will be no help forthcoming from Pakistan. Islamabad has learnt not just the art of double-dealing, but also to compartmentalise its own mind on terrorism.
Earlier this week, 7 Pakistani soldiers were beheaded by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan militants, and it created little stir in the Pakistani media which is otherwise ready to take affront at any perception that its sovereignty has been breached.
So it will suffer terrorist attacks on one side, and on the other, permit terrorists like Hafiz Muhammad Saeed to conspire against India. But what ought to make some difference here is the possible Saudi signal to Islamabad in the very fact of handing over Ansari to the Indian authorities. Reportedly, the Saudis had held Ansari for some months and no doubt knew of his value.
Yet, they decided to turn him over to New Delhi.
Saudi Arabia's Wahabbism is what the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba follows and it is the place where it raises funds and does its Indian recruitment.
A Saudi shift here could whisk the carpet from under the Lashkar feet. We should be careful in our analysis based on a single action of the Saudis.
Yet, this could be part of a larger realignment that is taking place whose one manifestation is the Arab spring, and the other the emerging estrangement of the Shia and Sunni worlds.
In this contest, the Saudis may see some value in making overtures to India which is traditionally seen as being friendly with Teheran.
Conventional wisdom would be that the Ansari revelations, especially those relating to possible official complicity in the Mumbai attack, would call for a fundamental rethink of Manmohan Singh's Pakistan policy of insisting on the continuance of a dialogue on all outstanding issues.
That would be a wrong assessment. That is because given the steady decline of its institutions, it is not clear which Pakistan was behind Mumbai-the military deep establishment, a rogue ISIjihadi setup, or the state that Asif Zardari supposedly heads.
It remains our long term interest to weaken the first two and strengthen the third. To that end we need to continue to follow a strategy of flexible engagement- or if you prefer- flexible containment, a policy that requires great skill, patience and even, restraint.

Mail Today June 27, 2012

Life after Pakistan's judicial coup

On Tuesday, Foreign Policy and Fund for Peace published their fourth annual failed states index. The good news was that Pakistan had moved from the 12th position to the 13th in the rankings.
The bad was that on the same day, the Supreme Court of Pakistan had conducted a judicial coup and declared that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani stood dismissed from his office.
The celebrations in the ranks of Imran Khan's Tehreek-e-Insaf and Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League can attest to the fact that the Pakistan Supreme Court's decision was a political one. In democracies, constitutional bodies give each other a respectably wide berth. 

Pakistanis dance as they celebrate a Supreme Court's decision to disqualify former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, in Multan

Courts avoid politically loaded petitions, while the executive usually honours the decisions of the judiciary.
There are obvious infirmities in the Pakistan Supreme Court's position, not least being its decision to disqualify a representative of the people on the basis of civil contempt. But that is not what concerns us here in India.
What matters for us are the consequences of the verdict on India-Pakistan relations. Gilani was not a flamboyant politician, and neither was he- in the context of the Pakistan People's Party he represented- all powerful. But he had the virtue of possessing political skills that enabled him to be the second longest serving prime minister of Pakistan.
In other words, despite heading a government, marred by charges of corruption and incompetence, he did provide a measure of stability to the governance of the country. Gilani's tenure was eventful.
He had to contend with an ongoing Tehreek-e-Taliban insurgency, the unprecedented floods and in his last year, the precipitous decline of US-Pakistan relations.
And he had to function between the Scylla of the Pakistan Army GHQ and the Charybdis of his boss, President Asif Ali Zardari.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani waves upon his arrival at the Supreme Court

If you take 2011 as an example, you will get what I mean. In January Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, was assassinated and the lawyers of Lahore who had played a huge role in overthrowing Musharraf, showered rose petals on his assassin.
On May 2, Osama bin Laden was killed by US Seals while hiding in plain sight in a huge house at Abbotabad, a hill station near Islamabad which also houses the Pakistan Military Academy.
The fallout of that event has been long and complex. It first led to the firing of the Pakistani ambassador in the US who is accused of having attempted a 'coup', if it can be called that, against the military in Pakistan.
Second, in conjunction with an incident in November that led to the death of 24 Pakistani soldiers in a NATO airstrike at a Pakistani border post, Pakistan blocked all US and NATO supplies from transiting through its territory.
As if this was not enough, the city of Karachi went through one of its regular bloodbaths with hundreds of people dying in targeted killings in July and August.
Yet, Gilani was also, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has acknowledged, a sound interlocutor in relation to New Delhi, especially since he had to deal with India in the wake of the Mumbai terror attack. This does not mean that we were able to get our way with Pakistan or move the dialogue agenda forward, leave alone lay our hands on the terrorists who perpetrated the Mumbai attacks.
But it did mean that the always fraught relationship was conducted with an element of civility and purpose.
Last year, despite all the problems, the two countries resumed their stalled dialogue, identifying the Siachen and the Sir Creek issues as the ones that could possibly be settled in quick time. Pakistan's decision to accord Most Favoured Nation Status to India and to normalise trade over the next two years marked a high point of sorts. What happens now?
The crisis in Pakistan, where the judiciary seems determined to pin down President Asif Zardari, has not ended.
That will happen either if the new prime minister is willing to write a letter to the Swiss authorities to reopen the corruption cases against Zardari, or if the government collapses and fresh elections take place. In any case elections are due and must take place in the next six to seven months.
It is unlikely that the PPP will win any election at this juncture.
This means that once again, the India- Pakistan issues must mark time. While we may go through the motions, as indeed we seem to be doing, of discussing the issues, there is little chance of any kind of a breakthrough.
Once the celebrations die down in the Opposition camp, they will have to confront the issues surrounding the Gilani verdict. If an elected Prime Minister can be deposed by a judicial verdict, then the supremacy of parliament will forever remain in question.
But the joker in the pack remains the military. Many people suspect that the Chief Justice, who has taken a tough line with the civilian government, and has gone easy on cases related to the military, is playing the game of the deep establishment in the country which has never trusted the Bhuttos and the Zardaris.
There will be many who argue that the lesson of Gilani's departure is that there is little point dealing with civilian governments in Islamabad, prone as they seem to be to coups, earlier military and now judicial.
That would be wrong. Pakistan is not a failed state, but a failing one. To know what a failed state is, just look at Somalia.
As for a failing state, its key characteristic is that it gives rise to multiple centres of power, in this case, the military, the civilian political system, the judiciary and the assorted militant groups.
Any country which must cope with such a state- and India is one that cannot avoid dealing with Pakistan- must learn to handle several, or all these elements at the same time.
Mail Today June 21, 2012

Lost window of opportunity for India

The numbers have spoken for themselves, and now, after Standard & Poor's, we have Azim Premji and N R Narayanmurthy chip in on the theme: Political stasis is ruining the country's prospects. Actually, it is not just paralysis, but active mismanagement, poor judgment, bloody-mindedness and sheer incompetence. It is sometimes difficult to understand why the United Progressive Alliance government is functioning the way it is. 

Standard & Poor's analysts warn India could fall from BRICS heaven

All this is even more striking, because the fundamentals of the country remain remarkably strong, and with the deepening crisis in Europe, the anaemic recovery in the US and the slowdown in China, this could have been the moment when India consolidated itself and accelerated to the next higher level of growth.
There is a popular culture cliché which says that the Chinese character for 'danger' can also be used to mean 'opportunity.'
Certainly, the manner in which the Chinese saw the danger of the 2008 economic crisis and took the opportunity, through their bold moves which included a massive stimulus package, to come out ahead, was striking. But we do not want to dwell on the many achievements of the Middle Kingdom and focus instead on how New Delhi is flubbing its test.
The Indian economy, as is well known, is largely dependent on domestic consumption and investment.
With oil prices set to remain around $90-100 per barrel, global commodity inflation easing, India should be taking the high road, but for its ham-handed government. Instead we have landed at an unsweet spot where S&P tells us, we are on the verge of falling, presumably like Lucifer, from the BRICS heaven. What has upset S&P analysts is what is bothering many in India: the dysfunctional ways of the UPA government.

 

 

The steps that could have been taken, but have not, are obvious-making Indian industry more competitive by enhancing the infrastructure, removing archaic rules that inhibited investment; attacking the stagnation afflicting Indian agriculture through measures that would mean better water management, storage and distribution of agricultural products; boosting the quality of Indian education so that Indian industry, agriculture and services sector would have the benefit of better skilled individuals, and higher quality R&D support.
India needed to tackle its dependence on imported hydrocarbon fuel. This meant a boosting of domestic production if possible, and if not, developing alternate energy sources.
Even today, there are no signs that the government wants to deal with the vexing problem of India not having significant oil resources. Indeed, if the performance of the coal sector is anything to go by, even with the resource, New Delhi would have messed up things.
Despite huge reserves, we are importing up to 20 per cent of our coal and many of our power stations are running on minimum stocks. Neither has any real effort been made to change the profile of our oil-dependent transportation network.
The contrast with China could not be more obvious. In 20 years China has overtaken our venerable railway system, and at the same time, it has emerged as a significant player in the renewable energy market.
Beijing's key approach has been to work out big solutions to big problems while in India, all that has been achieved is a nibbling at their edges, and a confused and confusing approach to them.
Another set of issues relate to the challenge of persistent food inflation.
We have been told that this was because rising incomes had led to a changed pattern of consumption.
But a study by S.R. Nair and L.M. Eapen in the Economic & Political Weekly has pointed out that the food price inflation in the 2008-2010 period was primarily due to supply-side constraints- shortfalls in the production of pulses, fruits and vegetables, meat, fish, spices, coffee and sugar.
In other words, the problem was amenable to efficacious policy measures. Indeed, high rice prices, the researchers noted, also arose from poor policy choices where the government keeps on raising the MSP, piling up grain which it is not able to effectively store or distribute.
To blame one or the other politician for this state of affairs is unfair. The BJP which cynically opposed FDI in retail, or the Trinamool and AIADMK who cannot see beyond the crassest self-interest cannot avoid blame for this state of affairs. Even so, the leadership of the Union government rests with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress party president Sonia Gandhi. They cannot but be held as primarily responsible.
There is a point in Ms Gandhi's thrust on 'inclusive growth'. The country's economy will only benefit if the indigent are also brought into the scope of the consumption economy.
However, it is one thing to help the poor to move up the economic ladder, and quite another to make them dependent on schemes like MNREGA which has no productive end, or to make them recipients of food subsidy, instead of ensuring that they have better education to get well paying jobs which will enable them to buy more nutritious food.
Actually, the paralysis of governance affects even areas where there is no issue of principle or ideology involved.
Take Air India. The era of state-owned flag carriers is over, yet the babus and ministers refuse to let go of the airline afraid that they will lose their petty perks.
So, even as our decade of opportunity swirls around us, we drift. Conventional wisdom would suggest that we will do so till the next general election in 2014. But given our national bad luck even that may not happen.
As of now, at least, the ruling party and the principal Opposition seem to be hit by the same muscle wasting disease at the same time.
As for the 'Third Front', the prospect of any government led by Mamata Banerjee, Jayalalithaa or Mulayam Singh Yadav would be akin to jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
Mail Today, June 14, 2012

America's hand of friendship

Almost all commentary on US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta's visit to New Delhi speaks of India's reluctance to engage the US beyond a point.
While India has been importing ever larger quantities of US military equipment, there is, it is said, a reluctance to play the role of America's surrogate in the region.
This is understandable; the US 'friendship' with Western Europe or Japan, Australia and Pakistan have been military alliances, where it is clear that America is the leader or pivot. India has sought an independent course through the difficult years of the Cold War, so why should it change track now? 

U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta shakes hands with Defence Minister A K Antony before inspecting a guard of honour at South Block in New Delhi

Actually there are sound pragmatic reasons for India to align, or appear to be aligned to the US for the present.
The reason is China and that is why in his talks with Panetta, Union Defence Minister A.K. Antony flagged the border dispute with Beijing as a high strategic priority. Contrary to first impressions, the US does not want India as a military ally against China.
New Delhi would make a poor ally, considering its inability to even keep order across the length and breadth of its own territory.
What Washington is looking for is an entity which would by its sheer presence and dynamism countervail the massive attraction of China.
In Asia, there is only one country with the size, population, military power, and a measure of soft power, which can do that and it is India.
The combined strength of Japan, Vietnam, Southeast Asia and Australia, and India- backed by the US- do constitute an effective pole of the Asia Pacific region. For India, the attraction of the US is more complex.
At one level, closer ties with Washington have helped New Delhi build good ties with countries like Japan, Australia, and Singapore. This is not insignificant from the economic point of view.
But there is a more important reason for India to keep Washington close.
This is its current military vulnerability. It is no secret that all three Indian military services are behind in their modernisation programmes.
The Army has severe shortages in the area of artillery and air defence systems and so on. Its plans to create a mountain strike corps armed with ultralight howitzers and Apache attack helicopters are still in the future.
The Air Force will see its squadron strength coming down in the next couple of years and this will pick up only by the end of the decade.
As for the Navy, its submarine fleet is depleting and it has not been able to stabilise its conventional submarine production.
While it will receive the Vikramaditya by the end of this year, it is still some distance away from being able to field a balanced fleet in the Indian Ocean.
This weakness must be taken in conjunction with the regional challenges that India confronts. Pakistan remains a challenge, though it is distracted by its own internal problems and with its obsession with emerging as the dominant actor in post-US Afghanistan.
The real headache is China. The PLA's modernisation continues apace, as well as the growth of its infrastructure in Tibet. More important is China's posture on the disputed border with India.
Though the two countries have several agreements to promote 'peace and tranquillity' in the region, there have been disquieting signals from Beijing about its attitude to a border settlement since 2009.
At the same time, China continues to press the military component of its relationship with Islamabad with a commitment to provide Pakistan everything- from nuclear capable missiles to building up its conventional capabilities.
With the leadership change in Beijing, there is a period of uncertainty looming ahead. The Bo Xilai episode brings out the inherently unpredictable nature of China's power dynamics.
On the surface we have a Communist Party firmly in charge of the country, but under the surface there are dangerously destabilising tensions. The ones that concern India relate to Chinese behaviour with regard to its border disputes.
China has made it clear that the status of Taiwan and Tibet form its core interests in relation to its sovereignty. Some observers say that since 2009, it has added its South China Sea claims to this. What rung alarm bells in New Delhi is the Chinese reference to Arunachal Pradesh as 'southern Tibet' in its writings since 2009.
In these circumstances, and in the context of China's growing power, it is important for New Delhi to cleverly hedge its 'multi-aligned' strategy. We learnt a bitter lesson in 1962 when we found that not a single of our non-aligned friends sided with us in our war with China. India should carefully build military-tomilitary ties with the US, even as it avoids formal commitments.
We must take into account the huge asymmetry between India and the US in terms of economic and military power and understand that the Americans do not find it easy to befriend countries that are not part of its alliance system. In terms of their world view, shared interests and values, the two countries are close enough as it is. We need to do much more work to build congruence in areas that are difficult and where we share national interests. There is opportunity in Afghanistan where the US, after keeping us at an arm's length because of Pakistani sensitivities, wants us to play a greater role in training and assisting the Afghan Security Forces. More complicated challenges lie in the case of Iran and, above all, Pakistan. India must take a leaf out of Vietnam's book. After defeating the US in a war in which it suffered greatly, Hanoi is pragmatically reaching out to the US. Only one thing guides Vietnam: a ruthless pursuit of its national interest.

Mail Today June 7, 2012

Corruption is not everyone's cause

The Jaganmohan Reddy episode brings out the ambivalence of the people of this country with the issue of corruption. It is difficult to go against the facts of the matter as laid out by the CBI-that Jagan's wealth is grossly disproportionate to his means. It is true that this charge must be confirmed by the courts of the land. But it would be naïve to ignore the compelling evidence that has been laid out. 

What is interesting, however, is that as far as the people of his state go, these charges are like water off a duck's back. Jagan's party is expected to sweep the upcoming by-elections, and any other elections that may be held in the near future.

YSR Congress party Chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy outside his home

Yet, for the past year and more, in New Delhi, at least, the issue of corruption has brought the Union government to a state of paralysis. Adarsh, Commonwealth Games, 2G, and now Coalgate, are potholes that have ruined UPA II's ride.
Yet, Jagan seems to go from strength to strength. And he is not the only one. In Tamil Nadu we have in Jayalalithaa, a chief minister returned to power for the third time, despite the slew of corruption charges that she has faced through her political career.
Though she has been acquitted in a number of them, she still has a disproportionate assets case going against her and the record of her associate Sasikala and the Mannargudi mafia is another story.
And in parallel, as it were, is the record of the first family of TN- headed by M. Karunanidhi. A great deal of that was made public by the arrest of his daughter Kanimozhi and associate A Raja in the 2G case, but TN insiders will tell you that this is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Besides the scams in the state, for years DMK ministers presided over the so-called ATM ministries in Delhi extracting rent, as if it was their due.
Just a random sample of recent chief ministers will bring up a record of corruption and misgovernment and so-called 'disproportionate assets' (DA) cases. In Bihar we had Lalu and then Rabri Devi, in Jharkhand Shibu Soren and then Madhu Koda, in UP Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav and in Haryana Om Prakash Chauthala.
These are people who have actually been charged in some case, either relating to disproportionate assets or corruption. In Maharashtra, the politician-builder nexus has milked Mumbai for all it is worth.
There are, of course, honest politicians and ministers and then there are those who fly free because they have a fool-proof system to hide their illgotten gains. We all know who they are, but there is little we can do about it. Mayawati may represent one extreme in the loot by claiming that moneys have been 'gifted' to her, but that same brazenness is visible elsewhere as well.
After all, when did you ever hear a politician who was charged with corruption express contrition for their action?
There has been no apology by Raja, Kanimozhi or anyone, and there is not likely to be one.
This is because of the original fiction that the enormous sums of money looted by the politicians are used to fight elections in the country. There may have been a time when politicians collected money to contest elections, but that era is long gone.
Today the goal seems to be to build up enormous personal fortunes which requires participation in politics as an act of self-protection. While the election commission has curbed the most ostentatious costs, the reality is otherwise. A tough election may set back a candidate several crore rupees.
But the era where the primary motive of the politician was to collect money so that he could run his political machine or party is long gone. Today, given the fractured nature of the polity, the money collection is for running a personal empire or faction, with little or nothing going to the party treasury.
The only place where indignation against corruption flourishes is in middleclass gatherings. But as of 2011, this has led to some organisation and has found expression in public protests. It is not as though the people have not risen against corruption in the past. One feature of Gujarat's Navnirman movement of the early 1970s was the attack on Chimanbhai Patel as 'Chimanchor' or 'Chiman thief'.
But, despite its magnification by the media, the anti-corruption movement remains a middle class phenomenon.
Sadly, middle class anti-corruption crusaders become victims of their own hubris. The self-righteous Arvind Kejriwal, the Bhushans, Kiran Bedi and, above all, Anna Hazare were able to tap the public anger against corruption for a while, but they seem to have lost their edge.
As for Baba Ramdev, his personal wealth and the circumstances he came into it, have made him a deeply flawed asset to any anti-corruption crusade.
Team Anna's latest-the attack, for the first time, on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee for corruption suffers from its chronic problem- hyperbolic over-reach. The inclination to grand-stand, rather than to patiently build up an anti-corruption movement has characterised Team Anna's approach. There is no doubt that the issues they have raised-the allotment of coal blocks by the government, the Scorpene deal, and some of the other transactions deserve to be investigated.
But by attacking a patently honest Dr Singh for deliberately shielding a corrupt government, Team Anna has scored a self goal.
As we have seen, corruption is a complex issue in the country. It is widespread, affects all classes and is sapping the vitals of the nation.
Yet, as election outcomes show, it does not seem to be an issue with a large number of people, not because they are corrupt or support corruption, but because they are part of a political dynamic that shrugs off any negative association with it.
This does not mean we accept the situation, only that those who would fight corruption need to fight in a much harder, and indeed much smarter manner.

Mail Today May 30, 2012