Theatre Of The Absurd

We Indians love our theatre. The interminable sitcoms on television are testimony to that. But tastes in theatre are evolving, just like tastes in cinema. The public can no longer be hoped to be satisfied with the hero and heroine dancing around old banyan and peepal trees, with birds chirping away. Awakened tastes today demand something different -- pines and poplar -- to dance around. And to really make the feel-good sink in, the birds chirping away should also be of some endangered species, so that it can be a statement for a 'cause'.

Witness the latest avant garde theatre being played out, starring Anna Hazare and cast. How it has taken the middle classes by storm! Running to packed halls across the country, with more and more threatening to gatecrash if not permitted into the party. The government is all at sea, floundering for breath, as everyone and his grandmother wants to be a part of the crusade that's guaranteed to deliver the coup de grace to knock the monster of corruption once and for all. The iPad-esque formula has been such a hit that copycats have already thrown their hats in, in the form of His Holiness Baba Ramdev and disciplehood. Never mind if the government forcibly brought the shutters down on that one in an act that was widely condemned (and condemnable). So long as one show goes on, it should make the feel-good continue. (India Whining, anyone...?). After all, when it's going to deliver us from this plague which we have nurtured over decades, what's a small sacrifice -- like taking a day off from work wearing black armbands -- to make for it?

You want freedom from the voluntary bribe you paid to get your job done yesterday...? Support Jan Lokpal Bill. You want to reclaim the land in front of your house where you've traditionally dumped your garbage for years -- municipal laws be damned -- which was snatched away by a corrupt Commonwealth Games operator...? Support Jan Lokpal Bill. You are still smarting from the loss you faced due to that traffic cop who caught you - what injustice, only you --when you were jumping the red signal along with so many others, and who simply refused to be put away without being paid half your due fine as his cut...? Support Jan Lokpal Bill. You are outraged by the guy who paid the ticket collector more than you could afford to pay and got the railway berth reserved ahead of you...? Support Jan Lokpal Bill. You want to teach a lesson to the neighborhood pharmacist who keeps demanding more and more to issue you false medical bills to help you save on taxes...? Support Jan Lokpal Bill.

The phenomenon has gathered such TRP ratings that it has forced protesters of all other hues to cool their heels till the event gets over. It has effectively postponed the launch of the latest rounds of agitation that Geelani and company were planning, come this August, to bring Kashmir to a boil once again. Neither are the Maoists killing any policemen while it lasts. Medha Patkar and Arundhati Roy too decided to take a welcome break, and keep their next round of agitation and protest on hold, while TV cameras are all busy shuttling between Ramlila Maidan and Jantar Mantar and Tihar Jail (or has that now become Tihar Hotel, from which you check out at your own will...?). The anti-corruption movement in its popularity now threatens to derail every other form of protesting art, much like a mega cricket event swamps out every other sporting event in the country.

Creativity has been lent a fresh new lease of life, thanks to Anna. Supermarkets are stocking up on Anna paraphernalia as the latest hot cake. Depending on your predilections you can pick up an Anna Bhajan, Anna Hard Rock, or Anna Chalisa, which are all being offered free teaser previews on national television. Tee-shirt companies are promising new Anna designs every fortnight, and chances are unless you hurry they'll all be gone before you land up to buy them. Movie stars are making a beeline to sign up for Anna, lest their rivals capture the returning Anna fan base first and their own movies are left high and dry. (Clever folks that they are, they've realized that sex and violence are now passe, it's anti-corruption that sells now!) ShahRukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra have promised to hold a free fundraising show in support of Anna, and have roped in Karim Morani of Cineyug to organize the grand event. Morani has promised to contribute 15% of the loan returned by DMK's Kalaignar TV, and also an additional amount per ticket sold, to the Anna fund. Mammooty and Mohanlal had agreed to lead the march in support of Anna down south, but they got held back at the last moment because of income tax raids on their undeclared properties. Chetan Bhagat has found it an auspicious moment to announce his next novel -- 'One Fortnight @ The Anti-Corruption Center', and has promised not to lift any page from Life of Pi this time, to keep it clean. Last heard, Apple Store has announced the latest set of funky Anna Anti-corruption Apps (AAAs), which are available for immediate download. Gadget makers are scrambling to get their smartphones and other gizmos certified as Anna-compatible, and offering free Anna merchandise with every purchase. Offer valid till stocks last.

Anna-mania has gripped the nation this year with the same virally infectious vehemence as Swine Flu had last August. People are seeing the Jan Lokpal Bill as their last chance of deliverance from corruption, and will not budge without Anna's bill being tabled in Parliament, and getting the government's version being discarded lock, stock and barrel. Anyone drawing attention to the glaring defects of the Anna bill, and the gross unimplementability of his proposals will be consigned to face the firing squad as a cynical cribber at best, and active promoter of corruption at worst. Much like in the heat of the Kashmir stone-throwing frenzy, anyone who spoke about the illogicality of stone-pelting as a device for achieving any goal would have been branded an imperialist tyrant and a traitor to the cause of oppressed Kashmiris. Such is the force of the fashionable hysteria in town that an ear-ring sporting, goatee-brandishing hippie who seems like having spent more of his life in a discotheque than at work can have the cheek to question a social worker who has spent twenty five years of his life among rural masses -- 'What is your credibility?' -- when he points out that we need to examine the merits of the Anna proposals and consider the implications and practicability of a body which's mandated to handle a Prime Minister's corruption together with fifty rupees bribe taken by the village patwari.

When hope rules, reason can't find a place to hide.

Which is why the din for 'Bring on Jan Lokpal' has totally drowned any need to examine the actual proposals made by Team Anna, and to see what will be their implications. Currently, the mood on the street is: 'Let's teach the elected representatives, and especially the government, a lesson and show them who's the boss.' Anna and team have been bandying about results of referendums that they have held privately which apparently show that 95% of the people want their version of the bill. Never mind the results of the survey carried out by CNN-IBN that shows that two-thirds of the people of India have either not heard about Lokpal at all, or have no opinion on it. That 95% of people have understood the differences between the two drafts and have developed a strong opinion in favor of one version (Team Anna's version) is an astonishing claim to make. But it's being peddled day in and day out, presumably because of SMS-happy pollers on television, without so much as raising an eyebrow. Leave alone the question of whether 95% of the masses are qualified enough to arbitrate on matters concerning the finer points of law.

Right now, a mass hysteria has been whipped up, which has simply tried to exploit the frustration of the people with corruption at every level of societal and governmental functioning, as also the TRP-driven media obsession with a 'scam'. People have been given two choices as black and white: either you support corruption(and are for the government-introduced bill) , or you are against corruption (and therefore in support of Anna's bill). Most people have ignored the part in the parenthesis, or have been led to believe that it follows as an inevitable consequence, and simply chosen the second one. There isn't much difference between this and what George Bush propounded as well: either you are for terror (and therefore advise considered action) or you are against terror and for democracy (in which case you allow me to start as many wars as I want). Don't miss out on the overwhelming choice that Americans made, and where it led them to.

Let's check out a couple of the things being proposed by Team Anna in their draft:

1. Who will come under Lokpal's ambit?
   
   All central government servants. Government Servant includes "any person who is or was any time appointed to a civil service or post in connection with the affairs of the Central Government or High Courts or Supreme Court either on deputation or permanent or temporary or on contractual employment but would not include the judges." Additionally, any public servant who is or was at any time,-
   (a) the Prime Minister;
   (b) a Minister;
   (c) a Member of Parliament;
   (d) Judges of High Courts and Supreme Court;
   (e) Any member of government instituted corporations, cooperative bodies etc
2. How big will Lokpal be?
   
   Lokpal shall consist of one Chairperson and ten members along with its officers and employees.



From the two above, it's clear that an eleven-member Lokpal is supposed to oversee what would easily be hundreds of thousands of employees, given that government servant includes not only serving employees but also all past ones, that too not just permanent employees but all temporary and contractual ones too. In India, even by conservative estimates at least a hundred thousand bribes will be asked for by central government employees every day (half of that could easily be from railway TTEs alone, and another quarter from court clerks).

Could Team Anna explain what'll need to be the administrative size of the Lokpal? How many officers and employees will it need to even accept so many complaints every day, forget investigation and prosecution of each? What'll be the expenses burden on the government to maintain this behemoth? Are we proposing here that we wind up all vigilance wings which each government department maintains? Will all those people who man those wings be laid off? Or are the same people going to sit all together inside the Lokpal building now?

Or are we going to limit the number of complaints by issuing a public advisory that 'Guys, please continue with your current practice of not making any written complaints, since you can obviously see that we are in no position to handle all of them. Please send us only those ones which'll create the best media-circus experience for all of us." Or are we proposing to have a lottery system whereby, say, a hundred lucky winners every day will have their complaints investigated?

Will each complaint be given the investigative approval of the eleven-member team, or will lower level staff decide on it?

3. What will Lokpal do?
   
   Lokpal shall be responsible for receiving:
   (a) Complaints where there are allegations of such acts of omission or commission which are punishable under Prevention of Corruption Act
   (b) Complaints where there are allegations of misconduct by a government servant
   (c) Grievances
   (d) Complaints from whistleblowers



So we are saying that citizens of India are free to submit their grievances to Lokpal, regardless of whether corruption is involved or not? I have a grievance against BSNL (which is a central government corporation) for improper broadband billing, which has had no resolution despite escalation to state-level and central-level authorities. Am I encouraged now to post this to Lokpal? Or are citizens supposed to engage a lawyer first, to decide whether or not the grievance that they have can be posted to Lokpal?

What are your scalability limits? -- how many millions of such grievances can you accept each year before you blow up? And are you really promising to resolve each of these within a month? Anna, are you sober still, or has the hypoglycemia started to take a toll on your thinking capacity...? Or did you never believe that thought really has a place, so long as one is free to raise slogans...?

4. What will be the Lokpal's powers?
   
   Here's a sampler:

a)For the purposes of section 36 of Criminal Procedure Code, the Chairperson, members of Lokpal and the officers in investigation wing of Lokpal shall be deemed to be police officers.

b)For the purpose of any such investigation (including the preliminary inquiry) the Lokpal shall have all the powers of a civil court while trying a suit under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.

c)In order to get its orders complied with, the Lokpal shall have, and exercise the same jurisdiction powers and authority in respect of contempt of itself as a High court has and may exercise, and, for this purpose, the provisions of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971.

d)No proceedings of the Lokpal shall be held to be bad for want of form and except on the ground of jurisdiction, no proceedings or decision of the Lokpal shall be liable to be challenged, reviewed, quashed or called in question in any court of ordinary Civil Jurisdiction.

e)This Act shall override the provisions of all other laws.

So, the Lokpal will be a police officer, who'll have the powers of a Civil Court for adjudication, powers of a High Court for enforcing contempt of itself, whose verdict shall be final and unchallengeable (making it the Supreme Court), and also the Lokpal Act will supersede the provision of every other law and thus be the ultimate Master Law which'll govern India. Is this really the product of your luminous legal minds Messrs Prashant and Shanti Bhushan...? How come you forgot to put in a clause saying that: 'Lokpal shall be the sole competent authority to act as the defence lawyer for the accused' as well? That would probably complete the full circle -- the circle of laughable nonsense.

May be China should draw inspiration, take their 'catch and shoot' methodology of eliminating the corrupt, and rechristen it Chinese Lokpal.

5. What'll Lokpal mean for other government agencies?

Lokpal shall have the powers to choose its own officials. Lokpal may enlist officials on deputation from other government agencies for a fixed tenure or it may enlist officials on permanent basis from other government agencies or it may appoint people from outside on permanent basis or on a fixed tenure basis.

So, the Lokpal could simply pick any officer from any department it wants, and that department's boss will have no way but to let him go? So, we'll filter out efficient, upright officers from other government agencies and put them into Lokpal, and that'll be the way to ensure that those agencies run in the best, most corruption-free way. I'm getting it Anna, I'm getting it...

If an officer is given permanent posting in Lokpal, can he expect to get promoted to Cabinet Secretary rank ever? Can he expect to be rotated out to other departments, if he gets bored at some point? Mind you, these gentlemen or ladies can never hope to be promoted to the Team of Eleven, because by definition those who are in government service for the past two years are disqualified.

And, not just that, Lokpal can appoint officials from anywhere outside the government service too. Great. Will Lokpal now start conducting its own LPSC examination too? (That's Lokpal Service Commission examination, if you didn't get it. Only honest people with no blemish whatsoever will be allowed to sit for it.) For the sake of advance information, will that examination be multiple-choice type or essay-type, Anna...? Will the question papers be set by the Team of Eleven, or will other Lokpal staff do it? Will final appointment interviews at least be conducted by the Team of Eleven? What kind of social-justice principles be applicable to it, that is, what sort of reservation policies will it have...? What sort of other agitations will it spawn, in case some groups feel left out, especially since the Lokpal jobs are supposed to have higher emoluments than other equivalent government jobs...?

6. What happens to existing vigilance wings of departments?



a)The posts of the Secretary and other Officers and Employees of the Central Vigilance Commission are hereby abolished and they are hereby appointed as the Secretary and other officers and employees of the Lokpal.


b)All vigilance administration under the control of all Departments of Central Government, Ministries of the Central Government, corporations established by or under any Central Act, Government companies, societies and local authorities owned or controlled by the Central Government shall stand transferred, alongwith its personnel, assets and liabilities to Lokpal for all purposes.

c)That Department from where any personnel have been transferred to Lokpal under sub-section (5), shall cease to have any control over the administration and functions of transferred personnel.

d)That part of Delhi Special Police Establishment, in so far as it relates to investigation and prosecution of offences alleged to have been committed under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, shall stand transferred, alongwith its employees, assets and liabilities to Lokpal for all purposes. (-- This is the anti-corruption wing of the CBI.)

This is a stroke of genius! All vigilance wings of all departments are hereafter abolished. In one fell swoop, it absolves any departmental Minister or Principal Secretary of being answerable for the wrong-doings of any other member in their department. It gives them the freedom to show the door of Lokpal whenever any instance of corruption or misconduct is brought to their notice -- with the simple excuse that 'I have no powers to investigate since my investigative wing has been dismantled. Please take your complaint to Lokpal.' If I were any such minister or secretary, I'll throw a celebratory party -- imagine what load it takes off my shoulder, and with how much peace I can go to bed now.

This is an astounding piece of invention, unbelievable in its glory! What hundreds of departments with thousands of their own dedicated staff could not achieve separately, the Lokpal will now be able to take over all of it single-handed and deliver! And you know what? -- Lokpal will be able to do it with exactly the same personnel as the departments already had over so many years, who'll now be transferred to it. That such a phenomenal transformation can be brought about simply by moving personnel from one building to another, and changing the signboard from one to another, is a discovery which political and administrative scientists should feel ashamed of for not having figured out in all these centuries.

Thank you for showing us the way, Anna -- thank you very much for this earth-changing insight!

No, wait. It's not going to be exactly the same people. Only impeccably honest personnel will be allowed into the Lokpal, remember...? I'm sure Anna will install robust 'Dishonesty Detectors' (like metal detectors) at the Lokpal entrance, and ensure that all corrupt folks from the vigilance wings can be stopped right at the door. Don't forget to patent your device Anna -- a number of our inventions are lost because of lack of awareness of the filing process.

7. Whom will the Lokpal be accountable to?

(1) The Chairperson of Lokpal shall present annually a consolidated report in prescribed format on its performance to the President.


(2) On receipt of the annual report, the President shall cause a copy thereof together with an explanatory memorandum to be laid before each House of the Parliament.

(3) The Lokpal shall publish every month on its website the list of cases disposed with brief details of each such case, outcome and action taken or proposed to be taken in that case. It shall also publish lists of all cases received by the Lokpal during the previous month, cases disposed and cases which are pending.

So, if I read it correctly, we're saying that the Lokpal will be accountable to its own website. I do not see a genuine value-add of the report submitted annually to the President and which is supposed to be tabled in Parliament too. It's a read-only feature, because neither the President nor the Parliament has been entrusted with any power of doing anything with the performance report other than to read it. And since it's already available on the Lokpal website on a monthly basis, by the time it reaches the President/Parliament it's already stale news.

Wouldn't other bodies too rejoice were they to be allowed this luxury? Imagine, if the government were to be accountable, not to Parliament, but to its own website, on which it'll upload its monthly performance report. Would one ever see a better performing government on this planet?

Mind-boggling isn't it? -- if appointed apparatchiks, who never have to answer anyone, could be such wonderful performers, why on earth do we have any problem at all...?

8. Who'll be on the selection committee for Lokpal?

The Chairpersons of both Houses of Parliament
Two senior most judges of Supreme Court
Two senior most Chief Justices of High Courts.
All Nobel Laureates of Indian Origin
Chairperson of National Human Rights Commission
Last two Magsaysay Award winners of Indian origin
Comptroller and Auditor General of India
Chief Election Commissioner
Bharat Ratna Award winners
After the first set of selection process, the outgoing members and Chairperson of Lokpal





Again, the attempt to play to the gallery is plain enough. All Nobel Laureates of Indian origin, Magsaysay Award winners (only last two, mind you) and Bharat Ratna award winners...? Have these people really expressed any desire to be on such committees? What about Dada Saheb Phalke winners, Sahitya Academy winners, Jnanpeeth Award winners, Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Prize winners, Olympic Medal winners, and World Champion title holders...? Why have they not been offered a pride of place on this august committee...? After all, the flag-waving swarms on the streets could only increase if these too graced the committee, isn't it...?

9. What'll Lokpal do with public-funded NGOs?

No mention in the draft. But verbal positions are known from Team Anna -- NGOs shouldn't be touched with a barge pole. Reason? -- the government will victimize NGOs to cover its own corruption. How does that follow, Mr Kejriwal...? Haven't you already built in enough safeguards and penalties against false allegations? The government has already proposed two years' minimum imprisonment for false complaints. If you do believe the government itself will file false complaints with Lokpal to victimize your beloved NGOs, why do you oppose that then? Shouldn't you be all for it?

The latest report of the RTI activist Shehla Masood who was killed in Bhopal last week shows that she had controversially inquired about the assets accumulated by an MP from the local ruling dispensation who runs an NGO, and she had expressly notified of a threat to her life. Just what makes NGOs so sacrosanct, Mr Kejriwal, and why should they be excluded even though they are receiving public funds? Just because some members of your team may be sitting on them?

Nevertheless, if one is interested in exploring the differences between the government draft and the Team Anna draft one can check this and this. Looking at the two drafts, they look about 85-90% the same to me. The differences are few, some of which are negotiable, and some on which there is a difference in principle. But none of it is such that merits the hullaballoo that is being perpetrated on the streets today in the name of a 'second freedom struggle'.

It's somehow being assumed that the more the number of people that you can assemble, the weightier your argument becomes. That's never true. No Justice Hegde -- you are flat out wrong. The public is not supreme. Only reason is. Never underestimate the capacity of large masses to be completely wrong and delusional in their thinking. If that weren't true, you won't see the Bengal public up in arms against and kicking Nano out, thereby destroying their own economic prospects. If that weren't true, you won't find the millions who swear that Sai Baba's bhabhoot does indeed cure all ills, no matter of what variety. If the subscription of millions were to be justification, then SpeakAsia would have indeed been the money-making opportunity of the millennium. And just because the Taliban can boast of an even bigger and more dedicated, fight-to-death clientele than even you have, doesn't mean that Islamic Fundamentalist Rule is the best form of government.

Like they say of the stock markets -- in the short run it's a popularity contest, but in the long run it's a weighing machine. It's the same of ideas and bills.

To conclude, here are the objectives we must keep in mind:

1. Have no illusions of removing all corruption with one law and one statutory body, no matter what its name and composition. It's a pipedream.


2. Don't give too large a mandate to the Lokpal. Let us first concentrate on controlling conspicuous corruption in the higher echelons of power, and only then think of levels further down. A cut-off limit at the level of Joint Secretaries as proposed by the government is a very pragmatic decision. It doesn't amount to declaring open season for all lower levels. It merely focuses the Lokpal on something that it can concentrate on and deliver. Let us eliminate 20% of the corruption first, which is in the higher executive, and then think about the remaining 80%.


3. Anna's bill is sweepingly ambitious, to the point of being ridiculous. It's unimplementable. It's very easy to ignore that when merely waving flags in a protest carnival. But the reality will come crashing down on you later. Without fail. Please don't invite disaster knowingly -- you'll only end up with disillusionment with one more body when reality dawns. Anna is making huge, huge overpromises. And, guess what, that's a sure recipe for huge, huge underdelivery.


4. The country doesn't suffer from the corruption of prime ministers. But it sure can cost a lot to the taxpayers' money to destabilize governments through motivated accusations. When Lal Krishna Advani alleges that Sonia Gandhi has Swiss-Bank accounts, he's not whistleblowing. He has merely read Wikipedia -- that's his evidence. Don't bring the country to a boil on a point which has no practical significance. While there is no doubt that not including the sitting PM does indeed reduce the moral weight of the bill, there are still many across the political spectrum who have valid arguments for keeping the PM excluded. Let's just park this debate for a later point and move on. It doesn't merit a standoff of the kind Anna is creating.


5. On the question of the CBI, even Anna's bill has asked for only one division of the CBI to be brought under its control -- the anti-corruption division. The CBI has six other divisions within its fold -- Economic Offences Division, Special Crimes Division, Directorate of Prosecution, Administration Division, Policy & Coordination Division and Central Forensic Science Laboratory. Those remaining ones continuing to be under government supervision is not under dispute. The government has already proposed a fresh new investigative agency entirely under the Lokpal. Just what is wrong with that? In the worst case, are you ok if you are given the used-car in the form of the existing CBI anti-corruption wing, and the government gets a new car in the form of a freshly constituted one to backfill the outgoing one? It doesn't make any difference to my eyes, but if you are going to keep crying over it, please negotiate with the government and get your lollipop.


6. And no, there is no question of the judiciary being brought under any kind of non-judicial control. Whatever problems they have, they'll have to be equipped on their own to deal with it. Please provide inputs for the Judicial Administrative Reforms bill, if you have any concrete, substantial proposals.


7. The Lokpal can only be an investigative and prosecuting agency. It cannot pass any verdicts. Only the independent Special Court designated for the Lokpal will have the power to deliver a verdict. That'll without fail have to be subject to appeal in a higher court. The people of India have no need for any kala kanoons. Please don't mislead them by proposing and advocating such things. The Lokpal will be under the High Court and the Supreme Court, and never the other way round.


8. You are not doing away with retail corruption till there is limited resources, and innumerable hands to lay demand on those limited resources. Please wake up to the fact. If you want to solve the problem, reduce the hands and increase the resource creation and utilization. There is no other way. The rest is all cheap showmanship.


9. In the meantime, go for strong bodies but which'll work collaboratively and produce some results instead of needless and time-wasting clashes. Don't root for Greg Chappell-esque solutions. A huge number of people had gloated that Chappell was the right medicine that Indian cricket infested with the so-called cancers of that time needed. Don't forget the outcome. And don't forget the latest to happen.


10. Think solutions. Not emotions.

Please don't assume that oceans of protesters landing on streets adds even a fig to the real weight of Anna's proposals. They have good company in the form of a convicted murderer like Pappu Yadav who too has started a fast unto death for Anna inside the jail. Kalmadi and Raja too would soon want to join the bandwagon. The multitudes that are descending on the streets are doing so because they've figured out it's a free lunch. There's no cost to it, and they get relieved of corruption automagically. Corruption is not a symptom of the lack of anti-corruption laws. It's an invention that Indians have made in their infinite capacity for jugaad. It emerges from the same wellspring.

The government needs to show spine. It must not buckle down under this blackmail, no matter what the consequences. Fasting to death repeatedly is no manner of democratic dialogue.There is no dialogue here, anyway -- it's a one-way monologue by Anna. Just like when faced with an airplane hijack the best policy is to refuse to engage the hijackers, even if you may incur loss of lives, similarly, if someone wants to hijack the due political and legislative process by threatening endless street agitations, the government must not genuflect. If that means fall of the government, well, then so be it. It's important to retain authority, not merely power. If Anna threatens a further countrywide agitation to bring down the government unless his version of the bill is accepted -- just call his bluff. Let him go ahead. And mobilize for a political counterattack. Not the kind of puerile personal attack that you've recently resorted to, but an organized and massive political counterattack. If fasting is allowed legitimacy today, tomorrow someone may also say that unless his demands are accepted in toto, he'll do indefinite sheershana. Day after somebody may claim his democratic right to indefinitely walk on hot charcoal to get his way. And the next day, somebody will claim his democratic right to commit suicide to get his demands met, like so many Telangana agitators, and earlier anti-reservation agitators. Such things are completely in defiance of democracy and must not be legitimized in any way. By all means negotiate and be accommodative of reasonable demands, but don't capitulate. If you be a wimp, be prepared to forever be run over in the future too.

Corruption isn't there despite 95% being against it, as it's being bandied about. It exists because a very large majority of Indians do want it, and actively promote it. You won't be able to figure that out if you ask the wrong questions. If you ask -- 'Are you in favor of corruption?' -- the answer is a no-brainer. If you really want to know the real story, here's what you should be asking (representative answers included):

• Do you find it awfully bothersome to face the exceedingly long queues that you have to face in every sphere of life? --Yes.

• Do you think it wastes a lot of time, creates a lot of trouble, and causes a huge amount of inconvenience? --Yes.

• Would you appreciate having a way to circumvent this queue so that you can really put the short life that you have to more productive and pleasurable use? --Of course.

• Would you mind incurring a small, very affordable expense to avail of this facility, if it were to be offered to you? --Think not.

There is a name for a cure for all ills. It's called: snake oil. Anna is selling it by the truckloads on Ramlila Ground at a great price (free). Don't miss out on your share!

Kashmir - A Failure of Imagination

A numbing sensation of bewilderment and helplessness overwhelms the nation as every passing day brings news of further lengthening of the death toll in the Kashmir valley. Over one hundred dead since the disturbance erupted three months ago, and it'll only be a miracle if that is the last word we have heard on it. A hundred needless deaths -- deaths which should have been preventable at least ninety-percent of the time. Though everybody is grieving, both in and out of the valley, nobody seems to have any clue as to what can be done, or should have been done, to put a lid on it. The only thing one gets to hear are flogging of the dead horses, regurgitations of the same age-old positions -- 'constitutional framework' on the part of the Indian administration, 'self-determination' on the part of the separatists -- with the inevitable outcome being the continuing logjam, and the flowing blood. The distrust between the parties is at its peak, nervous stability at its lowest, the urge to continue to pander to one's own local constituencies regardless of what the situation today demands ruling the roost. There is complete paralysis on the matter of trying to carve out a creative solution -- something which can only be achieved by agreeing to yield on one's stated grounds. The thing uppermost on everyone's minds is fear - the fear of backlash from the home constituency in case one even so much as budges a little. And that fear is what plunges the situation inexorably on its downward spiral.

A number of Indians will actually be puzzled as to what was the trigger for all of this to start. It was not as if some catastrophe happened which caused everybody to be up in arms, protesting on the streets with stone-throwing. In fact, a new government was sworn in barely two years back, with an expression of democratic power witnessed in the overthrowing of the previous PDP-INC government. More than 60% of the electorate actually voted, higher than the national average, in what was widely acknowledged to be fair elections. People defied calls by the separatist Hurriyat Conference to boycott the elections, as also threats by militants. The separatists seemed to be on a downward slide, with erosion of influence markedly evident. Though, post facto, they had tried to reclaim face by declaring that people voted only on local matters of everyday governance, and not on the question of azaadi, on which their support is based. India had urged the Hurriyat to participate in the elections, and to form the government if they win. The Hurriyat excused itself. Not for the first time. They have always claimed to be the true representatives of the people, but haven't on a single occasion established what their support base is in an election - that is beneath their dignity to do. Kashmir seemed to be on the way to normalcy after the elections, with militancy largely shorn, large masses of tourists restarting their visits, the agricultural economy improving. Then all of a sudden, the protests started, weren't paid due attention, kept flaring up, and then got caught in a vicious cycle of stone-pelting and arsoning protesters, deaths in police firing, and then further violent protests.

The seed for the protests was the killing of three Kashmiri youths in an alleged fake encounter in Kupwara in June. It's perfectly legitimate for people to protest if indeed such a gross violation occurs. Some months back too there were televised reports of three ordinary civilian youths picked up on suspicion of being militants, taken to remote forests and about to be killed in a fake encounter when an army officer himself intervened and freed them. These are criminal incidents, and even if the army soldiers were involved, who normally risk their lives in fighting armed militants and the steady stream of Pakistan-pushed infiltrators, these cannot be overlooked. These encounters are completely arbitrary and illegal. They should have been met with the full force of law, as murders or attempted murders, and vigorously prosecuted. The transgressions of a few besmirch the entire nation, and in fact undoes all the good work the security forces do under trying circumstances. Instead, the government merely drags its feet, constitutes some eyewash commissions, and normally waits for the people to just forget it in time. And that is what stokes the fires which finally burn on the streets. If only people would learn the merits of putting a stitch in time...

However, it'll not be very fair to heap all blame on the Omar Abdullah government for the current crisis, though he has evidently become everybody's favorite whipping boy. From the very beginning, when the deaths could still be counted on one hand, he was issuing appeals to all political parties to help build a political environment for de-escalating tensions, instead of adding fuel to the fire. But the PDP was steadfast in its opposition, in and out of the Legislative Assembly, and looked hell-bent upon not losing the opportunity to malign the National Conference government. Mehbooba Mufti probably never wanted the deaths to be so high in number, but she definitely wanted to milk the early few ones to the maximum effect, to prop up her own fortunes, after having been roundly beaten at the last hustings. In fact, this kind of brinkmanship is hardly a new phenomenon. We have seen that already in Bengal, with Mamata Banerjee cocking a snook at ordinary civilians lives, instigating them to violence in Nandigram so that she could reap the political rewards of any deaths that happen in police firing. No less than nineteen lives were lost there too, with weeks of charged atmosphere ensuing, but Mamata's fortunes steadily climbed. Evidently, the lesson was not lost out on others across the nation.

Of course, for the separatists this has come as a windfall. After seeing the ground slip beneath their feet in most steady fashion, they suddenly can hog all the limelight again, as the messiahs of human rights, and the sentiment of Azaadi. Never mind that till a few years ago they were fighting among themselves, and even shooting each other down for taking a softer stance with respect to India. Hurriyat leader Abdul Ghani Lone was shot dead by militants for favoring a peaceful solution to the Kashmir issue, through a negotiated settlement and internal autonomy -- a fate shared by many other leaders too sharing the same set of opinions. Today his son Sajjad Lone blames the Government of India for not granting Azaadi, which forced the militants to shoot down his father. Never assume that ridiculousness knows any bounds in the political arena.

Everybody has an axe to grind here. And that axe is being ground on the heads of the ordinary citizens of Kashmir. It would be plain to anybody with any shred of sense that stone-throwing, burning government vehicles and buildings, and facing police reprisals leading to deaths would help solve no problem at all. But that'd assume that what is being sought is a solution. That, unfortunately, is quite far from the reality. In fact, the calculation is that the unrest should continue and proliferate at least till President Obama visits India next month, so that international attention can be focussed on Kashmir. The same phenomenon was observed on the eve of President Clinton's visit to India as well, one decade back. Violence had escalated, and in one incident on the day of his arrival, thirty-six Sikhs were massacred in Kashmir by the Lashkar-e-Toiba.

Which brings to focus the fact that Kashmir is a political problem that needs to be solved and not merely kept pending. The Indian state has to acknowledge this and not merely stay caught up in its own self-delusion that Kashmir is like any other Indian state. If large masses of people refuse to accept themselves as citizens of India, and make it their fundamental grievance, you've got to heed it. Either take steps to get Kashmiris on board of their own volition, or give them the right to self-determination as they want. For how long can you make people stay at gunpoint? Talking of "constitutional framework" achieves merely one thing -- scuttling the chances of having a meaningful dialogue with the separatists -- with the only result that the sentiments of alienation are kept simmering forever, ready to be exploited at every opportunity. The basic premise of negotiating your way out of a situation is that you've got to be prepared to yield something, in exchange for something else. Parking away this ruse of "constitutional framework" is a small price to pay. Just hold dialogue, keeping aside any other considerations as secondary. Doesn't mean that you cannot still do things perfectly within the limits of the Indian Constitution, provided you're a skillful negotiator. What is to be achieved by merely going to town about it, thereby just making it an insurmountable impediment to dialogue?

Acceding to this demand doesn't mean you've allowed the state to secede. That's still a very far way off. Geopolitics doesn't get resolved overnight. Even China does not attack Taiwan to reclaim what it calls its own territory, but is prepared to wait. But it can buy you a promise of shunning all forms of violence till the negotiations are over. Utilize that time for a vigorous political and developmental offensive, demilitarize the area and let the people breathe a bit easier. That in fact will help the people of Kashmir to gather their wits, and think rationally about where their future lies. And then suddenly the prospect of Azaadi may not look all that rosy to them.

Practically speaking, Kashmir has no option but to remain a part of India. Even a fool can see that joining Pakistan is the road going straight down to hell. With Kashmir having hardly an economy of its own, and Pakistan's own economy on the brink of collapse, saved only by the perpetual oxygen supplied by the West in the form of aid, who is going to foot the bill of Kashmir's development? And once they sit down to reflect, with no other agitation of the mind, it'll not be lost out on them what the condition of Indian-emigrant Mohajir Muslims is over there, and the kind of treatment they get. And as bad as the situation today in Kashmir is, you still have your telephone lines working. Just pick up the phone, and talk to your brethren in PoK to know how they are enjoying over there. And an indepedent Kashmir nation is practically a pipedream -- you can last about fifteen minutes before being served a notice by China that it's all Chinese territory based on some twist of history. Pakistan has already bargained Kashmiri land with China in exchange of nuclear weapons, in the shape of Aksai Chin. And won't bat another eyelid before sacrificing the rest of Kashmir too for more. With Chinese settlers pouring in -- see Tibet -- there goes your Kashmiriyat.

There is a long-standing feeling of grievance in Kashmir. And very bold steps will have to be taken to assuage it. It has to be driven home loud and clear first of all that Kashmiris enjoy the same rights in India as any other Indian citizen. The claims of a parallel with British rule in India have to be roundly rebuffed. Just last year the top ranker in the Indian civil service was a Kashmiri doctor (whose father incidentally was killed by militants). If he continues to do well, he may well rise to be the Cabinet Secretary of India - the topmost bureaucratic position. It'll not happen tomorrow, he'll have to put in a couple of decades of stellar service before that happens, just like any other incumbent. Mehbooba Mufti's father himself has been a Home Minister at the center - not the Home Minister of Kashmir mind you, the Home Minister of India -- ostensibly the second most powerful political post after the Prime Minister. And if a good enough poltical leader emerges from Kashmir tomorrow, he may well rise to be the Prime Minister of India too. Nobody from the rest of India will have even the slightest of objection to it. So where is the parallel with British rule? Were Indians allowed to head the British Government? And the Congress and other freedom-fighting parties always swept whatever polls were held in India. When have we seen the Hurriyat winning even a municipal election?

India has already seen militancy and secessionism of the same kind in Punjab earlier. But it took the successive elected governments, and the stellar service of top cop KPS Gill to quash it. At the peak of the Khalistan movement, many if not most aggrieved Punjabis too would have voted for Azaadi, especially after the anti-Sikh riots after Indira Gandhi's assassination. But after Manmohan Singh's ascension to the PM's job, I guess there are zero takers today for the idea of an independent Khalistan. India was fortunate in some ways that a person of Manmohan Singh's caliber appeared on the scene, who helped in thoroughly burying the sentiments of grievance on the part of the Sikhs. Not all feeling of injustice -- evidently a lot needs to be done still to bring the perpetrators of the Sikh pogrom to justice, but at least the grievance against the Indian state has been quelled. Gyani Zail Singh has been President already, but then everybody knows that that's only ceremonial, not the real center of power.

It'll probably need a Kashmiri as the Indian Prime Minister to do the same trick there too. Of course, people may remind that the first PM Jawaharlal Nehru himself was a Kashmiri, but apparently, it does not cut because he was not a Muslim. So having a Muslim Kashmiri at the top job may kill two birds with one stone (no pun intended!) -- assuage the Kashmiris, and also reassure the rest of the Muslims in India that they too have got their due, and are being treated fairly and equally. Time for the Indian political establishment to give it a serious thought. If not the PM, at least a President should come from Kashmir. Symbolism has its value -- having a woman as the President for the first time in Indian history has apparently gone down well with my mother. (Though I wonder why it should, given that Indira Gandhi has already been PM, but then...)

It may well be that the obnoxiousness of everyday life under constant military and paramilitary presence, and curbing of civil liberties, is what is getting translated to the calls of Azaadi in Kashmir. The steady stream of deaths also adds to the repugnance. India must take steps to push all army towards the border, and scrap all arbitrary powers that violate fundamental rights. It's one thing to have special powers for a short duration, and another to have them ad infinitum. The same needs to be done in the Northeast too. However, the people of the state too must help to make that a reality. And not give in to clever exploitation in the form of orchestrated protests which probably do serve some people like Geelani, who apparently can't imagine Muslims living under Hindus, and is waiting for his day in the paradise of Pakistan, but does little for improving the lives and lots of the ordinary Kashmiri. They have to see through the designs of those who are intercepted as talking on the telephone as needing 'at least fifteen martyrs today' when the death toll was still four or five. Yes you paid with your lives, but who gained, did you? If not, who did...?

However, if at the end of the day Kashmiris still don't want to be part of India, then they should be allowed to have a referendum and go away if they desire. But with it having been made clear that don't come to us when you face the next invasion from a foreign army. And please, hereafter take care of all your other bills too (paid in your own shining currency if you please, which you so desire). You can't have your cake, and eat it too. India will have to take care of sealing the borders down the line in that scenario, for then the aggression posts will shift. And no, you are not taking Jammu and Ladakh with you too -- those people definitely call themselves Indian citizens. And if instead of a hundred deaths in three months of police firing, you start seeing so many deaths in every weekly suicide attack, do well to remember that you chose it on your own. Oh yeah, you resent the fact that the Indian government sends the army. Cool, go to Pakistan and have the army send you the government. 

As they say, one should beware of what one wishes for. For one may get it, and then live to regret it more.

Rolling Stones Gather Animus...?

That certainly has been the case for General Stanley McChrystal the last week. Having served for about a year as the head of the NATO led operations in Afghanistan -- a task which he carried out with much distinction -- he found himself at the gathering end of a freak 'article' in the Rolling Stone magazine, which was somehow made up to be his declaration of open defiance of the civilian leadership. President Obama duly bowed to the pressure of the chatterati, and fired the general to reassert "civilian supremacy over the armed forces". He thus hoped to make his prowess of "decisiveness" known to the public.

Except that it was only a display of decisiveness in playing to the gallery. Perhaps the President didn't bother to ask himself -- What are the criteria to qualify a general for his position, and whether writing magazine articles that sing high praises of the civilian talking heads is one of them? Should the continuance or otherwise of a captain be decided by whether he can rally his men around, and deliver the goods, or by whether he can show his selectors in good light in every interview he gives?

The President paid no heed to the cries from everyone who's on the ground, who clamored for McChrystal's continuance. And that included fellow NATO commanders of all hues and the Afghan President Karzai himself. In a situation where the NATO troop presence is severely detested by the Afghan populace, Gen. McChrystal showed remarkable sensitivity to the sufferings and losses of the Afghan civilians, even at the cost of making himself unpopular with his own troops. That Karzai in fact argued for McChrystal, showed how well the general has been walking this difficult tightrope.

It'd have been easy for Karzai to heap the blame of any civilian casualties on the NATO leader, castigate him at every opportunity, and shore up his own popularity among the Afghans by claiming the high, people's-leader ground. As it'd have been easy for McChrystal to allow his troops to shoot at will anyone under suspicion. That would have looked like minimizing his own casualties, and won him greater plaudits among the American masses, who are reeling from their own losses. Sure, that would have botched up the situation further, but it would hardly look so, from a political correctness point of view. After all, it's common perception among American masses that there is nothing to be gained out of the expensive and bleeding misadventure. And the soldiers themselves would like nothing better than being ordered by the civilian masters to pack up and return home. Contributing to the failure of the mission while looking perfectly unimpeachable would have been easy for the general. Just follow what the political masters say to the letter, and let them be the one to dig themselves into a hole.

But that's not what the general did. Instead, he made it a point to keep meeting Afghan leaders and commoners, hearing out their grievances and apologizing for any excesses that happened. He also articulated a stricter code of conduct for operations in civilian areas, for being respectful towards the local residents, and to cap nighttime raids which were thoroughly resented by the people. Karzai's brother often invited him to explain policy in Afghan bodies. And the general also did have to explain his policies to his own troops which didn't quite understand why the general wants to endanger their own lives by advocating restraint. He faced allegations for not caring about his own men's lives. To which the general responded by going out on combat missions himself with his men. Even before Afghanistan, he had headed Special Ops in Iraq where he himself had been on the ground on many a mission to eliminate terrorist insurgents -- quite unusual for a commander of his rank. He wasn't quite used to being an armchair policymaker and talking head. And that indeed proved to be his undoing in the end. For it left him blindsided and vulnerable to media gaffes. He didn't learn the first principle of career growth -- what matters is what you say, not what you do.

For all his merits, General McChrystal proved to be a poor career manager. He should have taken a few lessons from his erstwhile commander Karl Eikenberry, who also served in Afghanistan a few years back. He got himself promoted very well, dons his military outfit no more, proved himself capable of "higher responsibilities", and is now serving as Ambassador to Afghanistan. He's safely out of the dangerous activities now, and concentrates more on writing performance appraisals of the likes of General McChrystal, expressing disapproval of his methods in secret missives to the government (which are also sometimes leaked very auspiciously). It's another matter that he's not even on talking terms with Karzai and others in the Afghan government, who simply loathe him. He makes a better career out of spreading the message of freedom and democracy among the Afghans, as desired by his bosses, and declaring that Karzai is not quite a suitable ally for the United States. As an Ambassador he has taken upon himself to educate the Afghans on how to elect a leader who can be a better and more reliable ally for the United States. A better ally would free up the NATO forces and allow them to return home, presumably furnishing Eikenberry his next round of promotion, once accomplished. One hears that Eikenberry was dissatisfied at not being made the Viceroy to Afghanistan, instead of merely the American Ambassador, a post which would have given him the political overseer capacity for the entire NATO presence. Eikenberry need not be disheartened. If he writes his magazine articles well, and makes sure that his stones don't roll too much, he'll pretty soon be rewarded.

And what did McChrystal do? Whoa, he asked for thirty thousand additional troops. Troops whom he wanted to indulge not in lethal ops (and deliver a quick victory!), but to act as security forces in policing the Afghan provinces. His counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy, formulated with General Petraeus himself, another four-star general who now replaces him, instead calls for a prolonged engagement, where the military does not just do combat duty, but also "lights up the lamps" by building infrastructure, overseeing electricity and water supply, and helping to raise the Afghan army and paramilitary forces to the size of a couple of hundred thousand each. It's a huge wastage of American taxpayer money, when he cannot even guarantee a victory at the end of it. Nay, by all indications, everybody in America is convinced that they are actually losing the war in Afghanistan. And here is this nasty, arrogant general, who just lives in the barracks, and knows nothing about media-management, diplomatic and political finesse, the economy, or public sentiment and tells the President in unequivocal terms that the Afghan mission is gonna fail if another thirty thousand troops are not sent in. What if not outrageous is this! A man in uniform, who sleeps four hours a day and runs seven miles every morning, and doing nothing but fighting a losing war -- is he the one to tell Joe Biden and John Kerry what military strategy to follow? Are these such trivialities as can be decided in the trenches instead of on the dinner tables and high-powered conferences?

Was McChrystal fired for his incompetence whether in formulating the right strategy or in its execution? President Obama has himself said that the policies are going to continue just the same way. So it's not a question of the COIN (counterinsurgency) strategy that McChrystal advocated. Indeed it was formulated by General Petraeus himself, another distinguished general, who had quite a lot of success with it in Iraq. The generals having fought for years have recognized very well the nature of this beast -- that it's no longer winnable by laser-guided-munition and indiscriminate use of lethal force. As General McChrystal says, for every innocent killed you give birth to ten more enemies. Which compounds the problem ten more times. As ready example, he quotes that the Russians killed a million in Afghanistan, but could do nothing more than leave the place in disgrace.

And if it were a question of his failure to execute the strategy that was approved by the political leadership of Obama, then he should have been thrown out much earlier. But so far there hasn't been a single accusation that the general failed to be a leader of his men. In fact, that a retinue of military commanders are expected to quit in solidarity with General McChrystal shows that he was well-respected and well-loved by his team.

So all he was fired for is the publication of an article by a sneaky journalist, who simply indulged in breach of trust by laying bare what was pretty clearly insider talk, never meant to be on record. Put on record what the political classes say about each other in private, and soon you'll have to dismiss the entire senate. That is, if you agree to discount what the political classes say even on record, on national television -- things which are of a far viler and meaner nature than what General McChrystal and his fellow officers said to each other, oblivious to the dangers of having an alien eavesdropping on them. Lesson for General Petraeus now: next time a third-party is around (or even when not around), make it a point to declare ad-infinitum that it's the vision of the boss that you hold dearest and believe in most (after Christ, if you please).

If somebody wants to say that those utterances by the General amounts to challenging civilian control of the military, then that person must have very poor self-esteem. Indeed, that the General immediately called up every civilian leader who was mentioned, and apologized unconditionally without trying to explain or extenuate things, and offering to resign, shows amply that the General was never in defiance of the principle of civilian control. The singular mistake here is confusing the chair with its occupant, a confusion which the occupant will only be too willing to promote.

Not to suggest that the General was at no fault whatsoever. It's very dangerous to allow access to a reporter to inner circles. He could very well be a spy, and from the enemy camp. That is a serious slip-up. But that some bitching over beer at the end of a frustrating day amounts to defiance of civilian control is nothing but a bagful of hot air. Except that in General McChrystal's case, the storm in the beer-glass was enough to blow him over.

And what really did Obama's "decisiveness" buy? He simply disturbed the already tumultuous situation in Afghanistan over what is essentially a complete non-issue. Now with the flux in the ranks of the commanders, General Petraeus would have it difficult to get the stones (err..ball) rolling again. It'll also improve the morale of the Taliban and lower that of his own men. If you doubt that, check whether any team revels in the discomfiture of the opponent captain or not. If Obama was really in control of the situation, he'd have got a younger leader in place -- someone more capable, and likely to deliver better. That'd show whether he was aware of the talent available within his ranks. Obama showed none of it. He simply had to go back to the old-hand Petraeus! So much for Obama's selection capability! And what indeed is General Petraeus expected to do now -- do the same as McChrystal was doing, with greater political correctness? And what if the day he lands in Afghanistan he gets blown up by a Taliban suicide squad? Will his team be up to the chase two wickets down? Since when has war become a matter of niceties?

If Obama wanted to be really decisive, he should have simply said that my job doesn't allow me the luxury of having the time to read Rolling Stone. I know what's going on in Afghanistan, and General McChrystal and his men are doing sterling service. It's a difficult and stressful job, and every soldier out there deserves our full backing, so that they can concentrate on the job at hand, and that includes soldier McChrystal too. When the general has to be removed, and if he has to be removed, is for me to decide, not the media. Right now he's doing what I asked him to do, and doing it well -- other things don't matter. And he could have called McChrystal aside and told him -- don't let this indiscretion happen again. Thirty minutes of private talk was not needed -- twenty seconds would have been enough.

That would have been decisiveness. That would have shown that he knows where the bull's eye is, and would not let egos deflect his attention. A commander's job is to put his men before himself. McChrystal knew that -- we don't hear him firing his junior officers for insubordination when they question his COIN strategy. He explains at length, and joins them in their work. Obama, sadly, proved himself unaware of the principle.

There are two grounds for dismissal -- incompetence, and lack of integrity. Of which the former deserves a second chance, and the latter none. Neither was present in General McChrystal's case.

And if Obama really wanted a change of guard, and McChrystal was not up to the task, he should have found out who the best man is from lower down the ranks, and given him charge. Like Roosevelt did before the second World-War picking up George Marshall bypassing several other seniors. (And Marshall in turn dug out Dwight Eisenhower.)

Obama's decision is the second blunder of his presidentship. The first was when he ordered fire to be opened on Somali pirates who had captured an American merchant-navalite. They were only pirates that far, who were after ransom money. In getting them killed Obama gave them the motivation to become murderers, next time they captured another American. Needless to say, Obama is in no position to guarantee the security of trader navymen on the vast expanses of the seas.

There is a very thin line between decisiveness and foolhardiness. A good batsman stays indecisive and plays his shot late, having judged well both the nature of the pitch, and the nature of the delivery. Those who play premeditated shots never last long. Let's wait to see how it unfolds, now that change has come also to Afghanistan.

Indian Politics Comes A Full Circle

Pollsters again came second in the game of guessing the mind of the Indian electorate. The prophecies of neck-and-neck photofinishes with Third umpires holding sway, all melted in the swelter of the summer of 2009. All would-be PMs turned out wouldn't-be's, except the one who would be! Some dreams came crashing, some got exposed to be the daydreams that they were, and some got what they couldn't even dream. Thus unfolded the drama of the dreams of a people aspiring to democratic bliss.

Well, take a bow, India! The democracy keeps taking baby steps forward toward eliminating its flaws and deficiencies, hoping for the strides to happen some day. The stolen footages of captured booths and serial-stamping by goons have been largely conspicuous by their absence. The electronic voting machines (EVMs) didn't tank in India, though they had in Norway a few weeks ago necessitating a return to paper ballots, despite being deployed on a scale a hundred times larger here. Remember that those were not made in China -- a resounding testimony to India's manufacturing prowess, what say! From the fumbling footsteps of Peri Sastry in the late eighties, to the strident swagger of T. N. Seshan in the nineties, to the tangled tango of Gopalaswamy-Chawla in the Y2K9s-- the frowning degeneration of the Election Commission (and the electoral process it oversees), has given way to a reassuringly smiling regeneration.

A successful completion of the quintennial national festival whose popularity transcends all social, religious, and political divisions. A sense of relief and happiness in the midst of dire situations on all sides of the border -- with Pakistan a cauldron, Nepal a dogfight-house teetering on the brink of militancy, Bangladesh in the grip of mutinous brutalities stoked by fundamentalists, and Srilanka trying to douse the flames of a long-standing civil-war resulting in a grim humanitarian situation. A stable India, as mandated by the current election results, can be the only antidote to the dangerous situation all around, and act as a regional as well as global stabilizer.

As much as there are sighs of relief over the certainty after the results, through the run up to it, it was just a nightmare. Internal security in the doldrums thanks to the dismal inefficiency of the policing and intelligence apparatus which resulted in terrorist attacks becoming a monthly affair, political debate nosediving to personal slanging matches, every second leader aspiring to be a kingmaker if not king, the tearing pulls of social and regional divisions in all directions, neighborhood Talibanic menace threatening to plunge us into a deadly battle with medievalists, parties resembling molecular Brownian Motion as to their allegiances and alliances, the economy gradually getting infected with the crippling global flus and salvaging measures in the danger of being turned turtle through the efforts of bankrupt ideologues frozen in time -- it had all the makings of an impending Greek tragedy. There was widespread anticipation of a looming second election within another year because of the ruptured nature of the polity. It's a tribute to the sagacity of the electorate that it circumvented the pitfalls, to present a cohesive face and allowing the rollout of a resolute response to the challenges in a united manner.

For the first time in four or five general elections one party has got a 200+ strength in a house of 543, and a pre-poll alliance has got within striking distance of a majority on its own. Otherwise, people were getting habituated to the sights of minority governments running from pillar to post, conceding to the armtwisting of criminal elements who made it to the Lok Sabha, and forging understandings with strange bedfellows who'd support from outside and subvert from inside. With the Congress-led UPA bucking the trends and gaining near-majority, the electorate has mandated a return to a strong center, clipping the wings of fragmentary forces.

Was it all by design? I'd probably prefer to hold that back. Certainly there is a perceptible thrust towards a unified response-system (read government). An element of conscious choice is evidently there. But it was also a happenstance, of certain things coming together in unexpected ways at unexpected times, some perhaps even through the seasonality of things. Let's look at some of those factors.

The foremost was the return of the Muslim vote to the Congress coffers after almost a decade-and-half. The Muslim vote had largely deserted the Congress in the seatwise-numerically-significant Hindi heartland states after the Babri Masjid demolition. Although the handiwork of fundamentalist forces and their political front-piece, the BJP, the Muslims in large numbers held the Congress to be significantly responsible for it, and its riotous consequences. The Muslim votebank had drifted towards all and sundry, who masqueraded as the saviors of Muslims, albeit only to cynically exploit them and other socially backward classes, in order to hide their ability to deliver on the governance front. The Lalus and Mulayams of the world had a field day banking on this sentiment, conveniently using their social-engineering prowess to keep their developmental failures and widespread corruption under the carpet.

Muslims acually realized that their allowing themselves to be taken for a ride and backing of fragmentary forces (read incompetent regional parties) was actually backfiring on two fronts -- first, it was depriving them of good governance and development, perpetuating and worsening their underdog status, and second, it was facilitating the upsurge of the same forces which threatened them the most. They'd probably still have remained divided, were it not for the openly threatening posture of a rookie BJP contestant just before the elections who saw his route to glory through demagoguery. That was probably the last straw which made the Muslims shake off their indecisiveness and cluelessness, and return to the Congress fold.

The second reason was that it providentially became the final moment of disenchantment with the Left of the people in Bengal, who had bolstered it for three long decades. The Left had scored resoundingly even as close as a couple of years back and returned to power in the state. They had two things to thank for their endless rule despite the absence of anything that can be called as overwhelming support -- i) deft electoral engineering which made sure that their minimal one-percent lead in vote share was enough to decimate the opposition who fought among (and against) each other, and ii) a party machinery which held a vice-like grip on all institutions, forcing people to toe the party line for illusory favors, and also using largescale electoral malpractices, intimidation and violence to distort the electoral outcome. With progressive improvement in oversight and policing leading to the elections becoming freer and fairer, and ultimately the opposition parties joining hands, they bridged the one-percent gap, and the Left citadel crumbled. This brought a straight 30+ seats to the UPA. "Inside" seats, rather than disruptive "outside support" that it had been in the last house.

The third was the disharmony within the ranks of the parties in opposition of the UPA. They lost a lot of ground because of the internal squabbles, whereas for a long time they were the beneficiary of the exact same phenomenon within the Congress ranks, which had been going to the last few polls fighting both against their main opponent (BJP, Left, TDP, SAD etc) and also against a local, "Disgruntled Congress" (with different names). The BJP had gained a lot because of this phenomenon, in many cases by themselves aligning with the disgruntled elements. This time around, it became payback time for the BJP/Sena who were undercut in a significant way through their own dissidents like MNS in Maharashtra, Kalyan Singh in UP, and perhaps through Keshubhai Patel in Gujarat. Factionalism in the Rajasthan unit also contributed to a large extent to the BJP getting routed there. Widespread differences amongst their national executives, in full glare of the media, also exposed their fissures, which despite a patch-up job later, could not really redeem the lost ground at the grassroots. Similarly, a hopelessly divided Left house in Kerala also helped the Congress romp home.

To add to their disharmony was also their directionlessness. The BJP never really could digest that they got defeated in 2004 after being in power for six years. They convinced themselves that it was an aberration, caused largely by their own overconfidence rather than the electorate rejecting them or their opponents outdoing them, and always thought that their rightful place was in the treasury benches rather than the opposition ones. They approached parliamentary proceedings with the motivation of a player dropped from the national side and forced to play domestic cricket. For three years they simply boycotted every session in sight on one frivolous ground after another, and believed that the role of the opposition is merely to badmouth those in power, many times in the vilest language possible. Just like a player who ascribes his dismissals to poor umpiring and bad luck refuses to see any reason to improve his technique, the BJP too believed that all it had to do was show up on the pitch once more, and a hundred was guaranteed. If only...

The BJP has never understood that it suffers from serious inadequacies. Nay, it sees its inadequacies as its USP. To start with, it rests on a very narrow support base -- the Hindu insecure voter. It unendingly panders to the same clientele, which, while it does keep it as a core, committed votebank, does nothing to expand the popular support base. In fact, it alienates wide sections of the people, and parties, who become determined to keep their communally divisive policies at bay. The BJP has failed to realize that its customer base has hit a ceiling, and unless it can attract newer customers by offering a newer menu, it's doomed to stagnation and gradual contraction, because the core customers too would get jaded with the old offering.  Can somebody tell what new shots the BJP has learnt in five years? They are still playing i) POTA ii) personal attacks (first against Sonia and this time against Manmohan Singh iii) black money (which is basically Bofors repackaged).  They were so short of a programme to offer, that they decided to jump on to the opportunity presented by the terrible Mumbai terrorist attacks, by placing full-page vote-seeking ads in the newspapers the very next day. Their declared programme for the first hundred days in office is -- hold your breath -- hanging Afzal Guru.
 
The other opposition parties too were equally bankrupt in terms of their offering. The Left is selling -- hold your breath again -- anti-imperialism. No wonder, everybody's salivating -- they could as well sell dhotis in a fashion show. Prakash Karat's invention of an "all-stick, no carrot" policy on the nuclear deal proved quite par for the crash.  He also had the blockbuster idea of creating a "We are all Prime Ministers" club as the Third Front, which saw the electorate running for cover. TDP offered a "cash-transfer-scheme", overturning the milleania-old wisdom of a government taking money from those it rules. He promised that he has developed a secret formula for paying everyone money every month, if he's brought to power. People saw through this quackery as a cure for their ailments...

The fourth incidental cause was probably the most unexpected one -- economic growth and rural prosperity. A large number of politicians and parties who made hay on the issue of reservation of government jobs, have in this election seen their support eroding siginificantly. A strong contributor to this could be the availability of alternate means of employment, mostly engendered by economic reforms, higher crop support prices, and things like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Rural prosperity is reflected in things like sales of motorbikes, and consumer goods, which has bucked the economic downturn. So a sizable votebank which was probably going the fragmentary way a decade back has probably now gone mainstream with the Congress.

Anyway, the new government with its newfound strength has its task cut out. It has to tackle economic issues resolutely by bringing in reforms, beef up the internal security apparatus, work towards a greater spread of prosperity among all sections of the people, give boost to infrastructure in a huge way, and strengthen cooperation with other countries towards the resolution of global challenges -- economic, geopolitical and environmental. Complacency and arrogance emanating from unbridled power must be religiously kept at a distance -- the electorate is unforgiving, otherwise. Fetters removed, nobody will brook excuses any more, either.

What about the opposition? The BJP has a responsibility to give the nation a credible alternative. Every democracy needs a viable alternative. But the alternative has to be such as will be acceptable to all quarters and not merely to its core, fanatical constituency. It hardly has much time, though. If the new central government keeps performing like Shiela Dixit's, the BJP will soon discover that warming the reserve bench is the recipe for taking the flight back home. It has to stop its Gandhaari act, and smell the coffee. Else it'll pretty soon have to wind up and make way for an altogether different dispensation as the national alternative. If a house wants to rest on just one pillar, it's only so tall it can be.

Will the BJP be able to reinvent itself and expand its appeal? Or will it remain stuck in its Adv-ennui-itva?  

The Greatest Inferiority Complex On Earth?

The imperative for political correctness often serves as an excuse for refusing to take the bull by its horns. It's often believed that addressing the manifestation is an adequate response and we don't really have to bother about addressing the cause. To our own detriment. Let's just try to treat the patients who are showing signs of rabies, and keep them in isolation. There is no danger to public health to let the latent carriers be at large. They can freely intermingle, be welcome, be given no instruction to sanitize up, be given a carte blanche for living eternally in denial - of being carriers, be at liberty to keep infecting others with their virus knowingly or unknowingly, till their own immune system collapses and they become fully blown instances of rabies themselves. And then we can go back to our business-as-usual response of treating them as isolani, quarantining them, while assuring ourselves and everybody else that it was just one-off, and there is nothing wrong with anybody else, and nothing to require a mass-level fumigation programme to disinfect.

And that's what Islam and Muslim society today is all about.

A religion that has practically become synonymous with mindless terrorism. Of attacking with arms those who are unarmed, and proclaiming the glory of their religion and their Prophet in butchering the helpless. Bravehearts those -- Peace Be Upon Them, and their inspirers. They never dare to face anyone in an equal battle. Why would they? Have they not been the universally downtrodden, the universally victimized? No matter which corner of the world they live in, no matter what privileges and luxuries they have enjoyed without having to earn them, they are the perennially victimized souls. Shouldn't they have the right to avenge themselves, the poor souls, a right solemnized by the teachings in their scriptures which are nothing but the Word Of God, and which gives them the right to kill and maim the infidels, in return for a cozy afterlife in heaven?

Muslim society is what they come from. But whose members do nothing more than a post-facto disowning of the individual few, and huddle up together to claim that there is nothing wrong with the rest of us. Agreed, it could not but be a distortion of colossal magnitude for anybody to turn religious edicts into a license to kill. Agreed, it's not what Islam preaches, or any religion in the world preaches, for that matter. Agreed, it horrifies and pains all civil-minded Muslims too, to see the name of their religion being so tarnished. But what solution do they offer? They disown those who have got caught red-handed, after the fact. And say that they have nothing to do with us, or our religion. Mind you, disown only those who have got caught red-handed and beyond any chance of doubt. Every single other carrier amidst them is blamelessly, spotlessly innocent. 

Have you ever heard anybody being detected as a terrorist-to-be by the Muslims before they have actually had the chance of committing their depravity? They are never depraved till they are caught in the act. They are all angels. And we'll never believe anything could ever be wrong with the way we approach our religion, with the way we practise our religion, with the way we teach our children what the fundamental tenets of our religion are. Those are unimpeachably correct. Only when one of our brethren exposes the stink of it to the rest of the world, exposes it undeniably, in broad daylight, will we just wash our hands of them, and be done with. Excommunication is expiation. Nothing more needed. Everything before and after is faultless.

Yes, we'll grieve when we find one of our own sons indulging in such heinous act. We'll be shocked, and unable to believe it. We would never have thought that one of our dearest could have gone so outrageously wayward. And bringing horror and shame to all the rest of us. But we'll just treat it as an aberration. Occurring just out of the blue. Without anything being there to lead its way. Let's just get on with our lives. Let's just keep our eyes closed, like cats, and assume that no problem would be able to stare at us.

Is violence a Muslim invention? By no chance. It has been on earth since ages before Islam came into being. Is violence against innocents a Muslim invention? By no chance. The Nazis were not Muslims. Is violence for a cause a Muslim invention? No. From the Indian Revolutionaries, to the Irish Republican Army, to LTTE, political violence, sometimes of the most reprehensible kind, is a frequent enough occurrence that can easily refute any association of violence with Islam as such. But one must note -- none of the other examples are of violence for a global agenda. The Irish Army doesn't go and kill people in Russia for their cause. The LTTE does not go and kill in Australia for their cause. Those are all localized, and with specific objectives in mind. That is where the latest genre of violence perpetrated by Islamists stands apart. 

Islamic terrorism is not for defence. It's an offensive posture. With an offensive goal in mind. Of establishing the rule of Islam, however flawed their brand be, on all terra firma. Is that an objective espoused only by the terrorists among the Muslims? You'll be surprised by the answer. Absolutely not. Talk to any Muslim on this topic, and engage them for an hour or two. And you'll see that they are all unequivocally behind this. It does not matter whether you are talking to an illiterate Muslim, or a highly educated one -- you'll find that they are unanimous on this question. That Islam is infallible, and therefore has to rule on the earth. Openly or surreptitiously, they are all behind that.

Would they ever accept that there are any flaws in Islam? The only flaws they'll admit to are flaws of interpretation. The written verses are correct. Somebody just misunderstood them. I have been surprised to see that even folks who come to the best of universities, come to learn science and technology, and who are quite liberal and tolerant in general, are absolutely determined that if anything is found to be insulting to the Prophet or his purported sayings, it deserves to be annihilated. There are no two opinions on it.

Check with the followers of any other religion -- Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, anything. You'll find some or more folks among them who'll be willing to accept the shortcomings, and admit to rooms for improvement. They can absorb criticism and sarcasm. But among Muslims, you'll see that it's an absolute impossibility. No matter how genial the Muslim is in general, when it comes to anything against the Prophet or his words, the verdict is unanimous -- "Kaat ke fenk denge" ("we'll cut you to pieces and throw away"). And that thinking has universal support, whether overt or covert. You only have to persist a bit to unearth it.

Look at the progression and evolution of religious following the world over. Christianity was among the first to establish a separation among the Church and the State. I don't mean this was a separation brought about by the Church, but it certainly was effected by followers of Christianity. And that led to the growth of the scientific spirit and paved the way for innumerable discoveries and inventions which forged the technological world we live in today. You could find a Galileo defying the version of the Church as to cosmology, and a Darwin defying the version of the Church as to the birth of species. Hinduism too, after an initial period of brilliance and openness, had got itself tied to a prolonged period of dogma in the middle ages. That is when they fell to conquerors from the Persian region, and later Europeans. The Persians at that time, were less dogmatic than the Hindus, and their Islam had still the vibrancy of youth. The Islam of the times of Mahmud Ghazni was still producing the likes of Omar Khayyam and Al-Beruni. When they came to conquer India they could veritably claim to be the superior race, beset as Hinduism at that time was with dogma.

In Al-Beruni's words (describing India of the middle ages):

"The Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no kings like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs. They are haughty, foolishly vain, self-conceited, and stolid. They are by nature niggardly in communicating that which they know, and they take the greatest possible care to withhold it from men of another caste among their own people, still much more, of course, from any foreigner ... Their haughtiness is such that, if you tell them of any science or scholar in Khorasan and Persis, they will think you to be both an ignoramus and a liar. If they traveled and mixed with other nations, they would soon change their mind, for their ancestors were not as narrow-minded as the present generation is."

But then, Hinduism extricated itself from that morass through the efforts of numerous reformers, who challenged dogma, vanquished degenerate rituals and social practices, and led to a modern and progressive, forward-looking version of the religion. Of course, there are still many deficiencies to be plugged, many aberrations to be nipped. But on the whole stability has been established and there is no danger of tipping over. There are challenges from pockets of fundamentalists, which keep rearing their ugly heads. But Hindu society as a whole is capable of dealing with those in a resolute way. It's modernized and roundly in agreement with the value systems of the modern, democratic, secular, scientific world order.

But one could only wish if the same could be said of Muslim society today. And, yes, Muslim society as it cuts across national boundaries. Of course, cultural and ideological differences do exist even among Muslim societies separated by geographical boundaries. An Iranian coming from a more prosperous and culturally thriving society is less given to destructive thought, than a Pakistani or a Sudanese, who have less to show. But the phenomenon of dogma is universal among Muslim society.

A child born into a Muslim family is not brought up with the notion that "Look son, you are to be guided by reason in all matters. Not dogma. And there are NO exceptions to that." He is brought up with the idea that "Trust the Prophet no matter what. Subjugate reason to that, if need be, because the Prophet is infallible, and you aren't. Lay down your life if need be for the Prophet, because that's a noble cause." And along the way the child forgets that there is no way he could know what the Prophet said. What he hears of the Prophet is only through what other people tell he said, or write he said. But the child has never got his instincts developed for discriminating. He got his instincts developed for blind belief. And from "laying down your life for the Prophet" to terrorism, is only the journey of one block. You can always find one verse from the Quran which you can read as giving you the license to kill, so long as you can invent a cause. And you can be smug. Because you've mortgaged your own capacity to discriminate. And that's because your parents always inculcated that in you, telling you it was a virtue. Except that it was NO virtue. In fact, it's the fundamental vice, the root of all evil.

If you could see the point of Al-Beruni's -- "If they traveled and mixed with other nations, they would soon change their mind, for their ancestors were not as narrow-minded as the present generation is." -- you could easily understand why the Muslim world is stuck in such a rut for the whole of the last century and going only from bad to worse. They just can't see the need for a comprehensive reform in their value systems and their thought processes. They don't wear the same cloth that they did in the ninth century, they don't use the same camels for transportation today as they did in the ninth century, they don't gather their food and rear cattle in the same way as they used to do in the ninth century. But they want to keep their religion the same as it was in the ninth century. To say nothing of the fact that in the ninth century the followers were far more intelligent than you are today. They were breaking ground with novelty in their religious thought -- Islam was a new concept and they had the head to understand and adopt it, discarding the common beliefs of that time. Today you are trying to cook your meal with the same harvest that you made twelve centuries ago. Your food will not smell fresh.

And the Muslim today is incapable of realizing that the Muslim world lately has had no achievements to offer to the world. None of the inventions -- from television to automobiles, from aircraft to spacecraft, from penicillin to immunization, from wireless telegraphy to the internet, from the discovery of electromagnetism to quantum physics -- have had their origins in the Muslim world. No they haven't. They have all come from people who have learnt how to keep the secular and the religious aspects of their life separate, and not make their religion the center of their existence. The only thing you've achieved in doing, and to which you owe all your riches, is dig some oil. And that's your only export to the world (apart from terrorism). And what is oil? -- nothing but remains of the dead. And your conceit is such, that with this full a bag, you want to establish your own order all over the world.

The Muslim wants secularism wherever he goes, but does he have any secularism in his own backyard -- the cherished land of the Arabs? Can secularism be considered a Muslim value-system at all? It's only something that they expect from others, but not something they offer others. The hypocrisy is mind-boggling. You want to turn the whole world Muslim? For what? So that they could turn into the same ghettos that your Arab brothers have produced in the name of a state? Are you even aware of how derelict and repugnant they are to the rest of the world? You don't even have the mind to realize that religion exists in the personal domain. There is no religion that a state can believe in. And you have established grand Islamic states. Apart from Turkey, which is secular thanks to its military vehemently defending those principles, and which owes that to its proximity to Europe, there is no other state that Muslims have formed which is secular in nature. And in your brilliant Muslim eyes, Turkey happens to be a reprobate, not a model.

It's not that there aren't legitimate grievances in the Muslim world. Of course, if six hundred thousand Iraqis are killed for flimsy reasons, obviously a lot of anger is going to fester, and at some point it'll cost others. If riots kill thousands, and the system of justice is not perceived to be fair, a lot of grudge is waiting to explode. If the minority instead of being protected by the majority is threatened by its doings, obviously they'll respond with revenge by stealth. There is no alternative to having a world order that is respectful and reverent to others, if violence is to be kept off. You cannot walk over others when they are weak, and expect them not to ever retaliate.

But the Muslim world has to introspect and ask itself why it is at the bottom of the pyramid today? Why is the rest of the world so far ahead that you are always getting trampled upon, whether that be a correct perception or otherwise, a fact that you always claim to be avenging? Sure, you didn't have any WMDs in Iraq, and you were attacked for an invalid reason. But can you tell why you don't have an acceptable system of government that keeps pace and integrates with the rest of the world in a responsible way? Why do you have military dictatorships for a regime for decades on end, which crushes your own society and acts violently against other states? Why is there an absence of a civil system of governance, gross gender inequality, and why do you have barbarism in the name of laws? Why you create a Taliban for your ruling class, folks who can't even cross high-school, but rule at gunpoint? Why you can't learn from your Jewish neighbors, who so clearly have so much greater ability than you have, and emulate them? Your only response is to envy them, and wish their destruction. Why is it that your problems are always a creation of others, and you have no role in it yourself? You've surely had as much time and resources as the rest of the world. Why is it that you are so retrograde, with nothing that the rest of the world finds emulatable? Why can't you see the need for reform to pull yourself out of your pit, a need which is painfully obvious to others? 

Before you think of ruling the world, try to grow up to the rest of the world first. And have something to offer. Without that your assertions of superiority and desperate attempts to establish it -- attempts that you are using only to deceive yourself and nobody else -- will smack of nothing but a deep seated inferiority complex in you. As is well known, a person suffering from an inferiority complex does not regard himself as inferior. He instead uses aggression to establish his superiority. The Islamic terrorist today blasts bombs and sprays bullets to establish the "superiority" of his religion. Without realizing that a bus falling off a bridge kills more than your best coordinated attempt at terrorism, and an earthquake kills a thousand times more, without cowing any civilization down. You issue a fatwa to kill if someone writes a book that you consider offensive, or if somebody draws a cartoon of your Prophet. When have we seen you issue a fatwa against someone who starts a terrorist organization and naming it after your Prophet as Jaish-e-Muhammad? Sure you issue voluble denouncements, but where is the action? If you can't realize your shortcomings and modernize your religion you'll only succeed in bringing further disrepute to the great religion founded by the Prophet, and no glory. And your inferiority complex will only bring about your own downfall, and nobody else's.

The grave danger that your own religion is in today, for want of modernization, is proving to be a grave danger to the rest of the world too. But overwhelmingly you choose to live in denial of the fact. You've almost turned denial into your very reason for existence. It's not that there aren't sane elements among the Muslim world today. But their voice is too weak, and they are too cowardly. They allow themselves to be repressed by the militant sections and have clearly been taken hostage by them. 

But it was the voice of just one such sane element, an Egyptian cleric whom Thomas Friedman quotes in his book, that said: "They want to bring down towers. Because they know that they can't build them."