Portraying Pranab Departure as Good Riddance.../Power & Politics/ The Sunday Standard, July 01, 2012

POWER & POLITICS

Portraying Pranab Departure as Good Riddance May be a Costly Mistake

Logic and consistency are not virtues in politics. Changing their response in accordance with the varying tunes of political music is a popular vice with most politicians. Judging from the dialectical response to Pranab Mukherjee’s three-year tenure as finance minister, it is evident that the UPA leadership — including the prime minister — would like to forget his “valuable contribution” to the government. Ever since he demitted office, Pranabda is being dubbed as the destroyer of the India Growth story. Rarely in Indian political history have both Marxists and markets cheered a minister’s exit. In Pranab’s case, elation reigned both in Gopalan Bhavan and Dalal Street.

What is striking is the attempts on part of the Prime Minister’s Office, corporate leaders and promoters of foreign investors to form a coalition of Pranabda baiters. Once they lived in awe of the man who listened to them patiently, but refused to be led by them. Pranabda as finance minister stood his ground with conviction. He followed the concept of collective responsibility of the Cabinet, both in spirit and in law. Now, Congress spokespersons have invented a fancy lexicon to disown his legacy. The articulate Manish Tewari coined a phrase to redefine the principle of collective responsibility; when asked to explain why the PM also shouldn’t share the blame for unpalatable decisions taken by Pranab, he admitted that though it was a matter of collective responsibility, there was also something known as “differentiated responsibility” which held the Prime Minister back from interfering in finance ministry matters.

Nothing could have been more damning for the UPA’s presidential candidate than being held directly responsible for leaving the country in an economic mess. If there weren’t a captive electoral college, P A Sangma wouldn’t need to speak on the intellectual infirmity of his opponent. The backers and the promoters of the new, though temporary, finance minister are doing it in abundance. Instead of being projected as the most ideal and iconic choice for the country’s highest post, Pranabda is being painted with two different brushes. The Prime Minister, in a letter to the former finance minister, said: “We are confident that our country and the people will continue to benefit from your wisdom, knowledge and decades of experience in public life.” Within 24 hours of writing it, the PMO and other babus made official and unofficial comments that left none is doubt that Pranab would be made the scapegoat for an ailing economy. For the Congress and the PMO, the former finance minister was a master of good politics but the villain of bad economics.

The conflict between the PM and his former finance minister has been a matter of speculation so far. But now, when Pranabda is set to become the constitutional head of the country, the current strategy of the powers-that-be to downsize his stature and ability is fraught with dangerous consequences. According to sources close to him, Pranab will not be a pushover President. If he was assertive about his powers as finance minister, he is going to be even firmer while performing his constitutional responsibilities. He enjoys more numerical support from political parties than the UPA and the Prime Minister himself. He may not have had the trappings and authority of a prime minister, but Pranabda always behaved like one for the past eight years. Unlike previous ministers who have been elevated to the Rashtrapati Bhavan— besides being both more experienced as well as a maverick — Pranab is not one of those faceless sycophants who can easily be bulldozed by the Prime Minister. If some ministers or Congress leaders continue to paint Pranab as an incompetent minister, he may carry the ignominy with him to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The relationship between the Prime Minister and the President is so delicate that its continuity depends on respect and full faith in each other. Even the best of political friends like Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajendra Prasad fell out because of ego issues. The Rajiv Gandhi-Zail Singh confrontation almost created a constitutional crisis because Rajiv didn’t give Zail Singh the respect which he expected from the prime minister. Fortunately for Indian democracy, barring the exception of Rajendra Prasad, all previous Presidents have been either outstanding individuals or weak politicians. All of them bowed to the advice and suggestions of prime ministers, who have either been popular leaders or were backed by powerful parties. But Pranabda will be the exception. Not only does he enjoy vast political support cutting across ideological boundaries, he has also been the boss of the current Prime Minister and many others in the government. If Pranab, after moving into the Raisina Hills palace, decides to prove once again that he is the wisest of them all, it will be an ominous signal for the government. It is better to send him to Rashrapati Bhavan as a guide, friend and philosopher of the government, rather than portraying him as good riddance.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

Diplomacy is More than just a Great Lunch/Power & Politics/ The Sunday Standard, April 8, 2012

India must realise that Diplomacy is more than Just a Great Lunch

When it comes to Pakistan leaders, India chooses to forget that country’s blood-stained politics and deathly diplomacy. Our fawning political leaders and cultural czars compete with each other in portraying visitors from Pakistan as our only hope for peaceful co-existence. President Asif Ali Zardari’s first trip to India with his son Bilal is billed as a turning point in Indo-Pak relations. South and North Block mandarins have been spending sleepless nights over the 20-hour visit of a head of state who has no control over even the geographical boundaries of his presidential palace. None of them were aware of the agenda or direction of discussion between Manmohan Singh and Zardari. The joke doing the rounds in South Block is that the discussion points for any meeting with a visiting dignitary from Pakistan can be found in the manifesto of political parties. The covers change during each election, but the contents remain the same. The Indian Prime Minister and Pakistan’s President have met over a dozen times in the past nine years. The venues may have changed. So have the costumes. But Pakistan has never delivered on the promises its leaders make to India. On the contrary, Pakistan-sponsored terrorists made Indian cities their killing fields, with Zardari and his army extending them safe haven. It would be an irony if India expects results from the visit of a person against whom the local judiciary has opened up many fronts, and is seen as the unauthorised occupant of an office which he doesn’t deserve and from where he can be ejected any day without fuss.

India is known for treating her guests as representatives of God. Zardari represents a country that does everything the Almighty never preaches. There are many in India who believe he represents the US which keeps him in power. Zardari’s visit makes a great event for those who are building castles of peace in sand dunes on the border, but in reality, is only a purposeless picnic by a powerless President of a failed state. Yet, Pakistan has many people in India who speak for its cause and interests.

Zardari is entitled to make a religious trip to any part of India. The government is expected to extend all the courtesies, which a visiting head of state deserves. But the government has nothing to gain by legitimising and raising expectations from the visit of a leader who can’t speak his own mind, leave alone deliver on anything. If key Union ministers and officials holding sensitive posts are in attendance for a one-on-one meeting, the country expects some tangible results. Already peaceniks and US-sponsored opinion-makers have declared that the visit would reduce the trust deficit between the two countries. If the track record of the Zardari regime is any indication, India would be wasting its time and energies on hosting a captive President. His government refuses to acknowledge the existence of terrorists and terror camps in Pakistan. It questions the meticulous evidence provided by the home ministry against Hafiz Saeed and his accomplices in carrying out the 26/11 terror attacks in which 166 people were slaughtered. It refuses to hand over 20 other fugitives responsible for murdering hundreds of innocent people in various parts of India.

Pakistan has been in denial for the past three decades. Undoubtedly, the country and its elitist establishment lay out the best of cuisine and seductive ambience to all important leaders visiting from India. They engage mehmans from Hindustan in 12-course dinners where music lasts till dawn. They send them home with expensive gifts. The same hosts also have powerful connections in the Washington establishment. Their only mandate is to manufacture confidential measures whereby Pakistan gets away with its murderous machinations against India while we keep living on false hope. There is no doubt that a politically stable and economically strong Pakistan is good not only for India but for entire Asia. The majority of Pakistanis would like to live peacefully and prosper but they have been suffering a military leadership that survives and thrives only on a hate-India agenda. On the other hand, the Indian leadership first talks tough following a terror incident only to later become a nation of peace lovers.

A luxurious lunch will not persuade Zardari or his controllers in Pakistan or elsewhere to dismantle the instruments and institutions of terror and hate. On the other hand, a red carpet rolled out for him by the Indian establishment will weaken his position further. In good diplomacy, results are never achieved through widely publicised luncheon meets. They are gained through hidden means and methods. India is yet to acquire and master that art. Pakistan has lost two wars, but it keeps chalking up decisive victories in the game of deceptive diplomacy.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

POWER & POLITICS/ The Sunday Standard, October 2, 2011

MANMOHAN'S WOUNDED CABINET HAS GONE BEYOND THE POINT OF RECOVERY

Classical liberalist Earnest Benn once said, “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.” It aptly describes the current state of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government. His singular success in the past few months has been looking for trouble, making an incorrect diagnosis and worse, opting for the wrong remedy. Last week, when he forced Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to distance himself from a mischievously timed but wisely worded note, the Prime Minister added yet another minister to the long list of senior colleagues who have lost their credibility. As one wicked leak after another tumbled out of the closets of power, Manmohan and his A-Team couldn’t find a mechanism to plug or prevent them from damaging the Government’s image. Instead of burying their personal or ideological differences and facing all attacks in a united fashion, the ministers resorted to the time-tested technique of passing the buck. But since so many bucks were moving around, every one of them stopped at the desk of one minister or the other.

Home Minister P Chidambaram, and Mukherjee have been the most productive and effective ministers of the UPA government. Both are members of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs which takes all crucial political and administrative decisions. Last week, they lost most of their hard-earned reputations. Corporates hastily distanced themselves. Political followers of the ministers were feeling let down. It is perhaps for the first time that a government had to defend its own home minister in court. For over a week, Manmohan chose the seemingly best option of not taking a decision, expecting the issue would become irrelevant with time. It proved disastrous. While Chidambaram’s personal integrity was being questioned, so was the motive behind the Finmin note. When the Prime Minister showed no hurry in resolving the crisis, it was left to Sonia Gandhi to crack the whip and direct the duelling duo to sort things out or face the consequences. She also conveyed to Manmohan in unequivocal terms that the mess in the Government has to be managed immediately. Within hours, they all fell in line. Since it was wholly a politico-legal issue, Manmohan deputed Law Minister Salman Khurshid and Communication Minister Kapil Sibal to help Mukherjee find a face-saving device. The Three Wise Men met in the PMO premises and drafted a statement that brought truce. But this only hastened the erosion of their credibility.

Mukherjee and Chidambaram are not the only ones who have suffered a plausibility crisis. The first casualty was Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar. When anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare made fun of Pawar’s membership of the GoM dealing with black money and corruption, he instantly resigned. Instead of backing his efficient colleague, the Prime Minister accepted his resignation, signalling the victory of Civil Society and the fall of a Titan. A few weeks later, the Minister of Heavy Industries Praful Patel was accused of destroying Air India and promoting private airlines. Earlier, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna was the object of ridicule for defending the Sharm el-Sheikh fiasco, pleading for favourable treatment for Pakistan. If that wasn’t embarrassing enough, he read the wrong speech at an international forum. A few months later, a question mark was raised on Sibal’s credibility when he famously commented on a no-loss in the 2G scam. Minister of Science and Technology Vilasrao Deshmukh and Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde were linked to the Adarsh Society scam. More recently, all political parties in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have stopped trusting Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad for failing to deliver on the creation of a separate Telangana and fighting for the Sri Lankan Tamils.

Various sections of society are losing confidence in the UPA government because it is reneging on its promises. Industry is upset because the Cabinet succumbed to a junior minister’s pressure and delayed the new manufacturing policy that was drafted after consulting all stakeholders. Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh authored a Land Acquisition Bill which, if passed, will make it almost impossible for any new industry to come up in the private sector. Powerful ministers in the presence of the Prime Minister foiled Sports Minister Ajay Maken, who is now roaming around like a wounded tiger after his attempt to rid the sports bodies of the sports mafia failed. The state of the UPA Cabinet is exactly similar to that of the Indian cricket team. All top players, including the captain, are either hurt or have lost their playing skills. Now India is led by an under-performing political skipper who leads a group of wounded colleagues. Team Manmohan is unlikely to recover because their injuries are caused mainly by their leader’s inability to provide the needed safety cover.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com

Race Course Road/The Sunday Standard Magazine, October 2, 2011

Sonia Leaves Cabinet Illness to the Doctor

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may pooh pooh all charges of growing dissension within his Cabinet, but the conduct of his senior colleagues leaves little to the imagination. Most are not on speaking terms; they communicate only during Cabinet meetings or through written notes opposing each other. Last week, the Congress party was pushed into a corner when a note written by a junior finance ministry official—concerning Home Minister P Chidambaram and spectrum pricing—to the Prime Minister was leaked. Both Manmohan and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee made all the right noises defending Chidambaram. Pranabda even called his “valued colleague” Chidambaram from the US, as well as from New Delhi after he returned, but apparently did not have the inclination or time for a face-to-face meeting. He refused to make any statement on the note, even as other ministers and Congress functionary came out openly in the beleaguered home minister’s support. It was evident that even Congress President Sonia Gandhi is aware of the soured chemistry between the two UPA top guns. When matters careened out of control, she decided to play mediator. But Sonia discovered it would be calamitous to summon both to discuss the contentious note together. Perhaps she knew confabulations would be impossible with both Mukherjee and Chidambaram present at the same meeting. She didn’t want a third party around either. So, she decided to listen to each one individually. It is not clear whether Sonia was already in possession of the voluminous correspondence between the PMO and the finance ministry on the issue because both Chidambaram and Pranabda spent hardly 20 minutes each with her. It was their first meeting with Sonia after her surgery. According to insiders, both exchanged pleasantries with her and gave a short brief on the controversy. Chidambaram insisted that the finance ministry take some sort of action to remove the cloud of suspicion hanging over him. But Pranabda did not budge. Instead, he sent a long letter to the PMO supporting his ministry. Sensing a major confrontation, Sonia has now left it to the Prime Minister to clean up the mess and restrain his ministers from washing dirty linen in public.

Steel frame on show in America

PMO officials were baffled to see former foreign secretary and now India’s ambassador to the US, Nirupama Rao, in New York during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit. Rao was not only present at the airport to welcome Manmohan, she also made it a point to attend all non-official functions held for the Prime Minister or External Affairs Minister S M Krishna. Normally, the Indian ambassador is not a part of India’s official UN delegation during the visit of the Prime Minister. Rao may not have contributed to the deliberations on Manmohan’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly, but she did provide gracious company to Gursharan Kaur, the Prime Minister’s wife. Rao sat next to her all through the Prime Minister’s speech. Along with her husband, Rao also checked into the same hotel in which other dignitaries were staying. She wasn’t the only senior Indian official hanging around in New York; around six Cabinet ministers also were present. Around half a dozen senior babus also found their way into Manhattan on one pretext or the other. It is evident that as the political leadership gets weaker, bureaucracy is regaining its steel frame once again.

Rahul sticks to comfort zone

Rahul Gandhi’s final destination may be 7 Race Course Road, but for the time being he has decided to stay away from India’s great plains after the rather rowdy welcome he received at a Delhi hospital following the High Court blasts. Instead, he has chosen to visit only those states which have Baba-friendly chief ministers. After keeping a low-profile for a few weeks, Rahul surfaced in Gangtok, Sikkim, last week to meet earthquake victims. Since he wasn’t entitled to official transport for what was a purely political visit, it was left to Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Chamling to organise a helicopter for Rahul’s visit to the forward areas. Normally, the Prime Minister or Sonia Gandhi visits areas hit by natural calamities. Since neither could go, the Gandhi scion stood in. But Rahul sprang another surprise by landing in Srinagar without a formal programme. He visited the university in jeans and a kurta. He also followed the age-old Gandhi tradition of paying a visit to Hazratbal shrine. Rahul was the first Gandhi to go to the shrine after his father Rajiv visited Hazratbal in 1986. There is no record of Sonia ever having gone there. But Rahul wasn’t able to visit the Kheer Bhawani temple where his grandmother Indira Gandhi would pray without fail. But Rahul’s Kashmiri pedigree did help him in connecting with the local youth.

All leaks and no work in UPA

With the wicked leaks on the 2G Scam inflicting serious wounds on many UPA ministers, their babus have chosen to remain totally neutral and stay away from the corridors of power. For the past few weeks, no bureaucrat has sent any important file to their ministers for a decision, only routine files. Even senior secretaries have stopped looking at the Congress manifesto to draw up notes for legislation promised by the party. Over a dozen important ministers dealing with key social and infrastructure ministries haven’t been able to finalise a single note for the Cabinet to take a final call. Most of them don’t even go to work, visiting office only to meet important visitors. Chief ministers have stopped calling on Union ministers, including the Prime Minister, because they don’t get any response. Even the meetings of the Committee of Secretaries that handles inter-ministerial disputes have been rare as nothing is brought for discussion. The agenda for the Cabinet is shrinking faster than the image of the UPA government.

Power & Politics / The Sunday Standard Magazine/ August 21, 2011

No Government, Lost Opposition, but Mera Bharat Mahan

It may sound a trifle absurd, but the person who coined the slogan ‘Mera Bharat Mahaan’ deserves a Noble prize for fiction. For the past few months, each and every institution of good governance has been systematically demolished. The legitimate authority of the state has been compromised. The credibility of the Prime Minister has been eroded, and his personal integrity has come under political scrutiny. The opposition has failed miserably to offer alternative leadership or a credible agenda. Yet, this nation of 1.2 billion people hasn’t lost its collective sanity. Betrayed by the leaders it elected and let down by the institutions it created, Bharat is battling with two crises: non-governance and an isolated leadership. The UPA command is suffering from a pass-the-buck syndrome: the CWG scam is exposed, Suresh Kalmadi gets the blame. When the Government suffers a huge loss of revenue in the 2G licence swindle, A Raja is identified as the villain. And finally when questions are raised about the atrocities perpetrated on Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare, Delhi Police is the scapegoat.

With the administration changing its strategy on an hourly basis, people are wondering whether the Government itself is an illusion. Who is leading the country? Or running the Government? Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the AICC president, Rahul Gandhi, an empowered Group of Ministers, civil society leaders or some invisible hand? Something is rotten in the state of India. Its leadership can’t differentiate between the beautiful and the ugly; between what’s good or bad for the country and between the corrupt and the clean. The Government takes one decision in the morning, which is revised by the afternoon and finally reversed by the evening. Funny; no one knows who took what decision.

First, the UPA leadership chose to extend Team Anna a red carpet welcome. In Baba Ramdev’s case, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, accompanied by two colleagues and the cabinet secretary, drove all the way to the airport to woo him. Two days later, the Government unleashed the police on the Baba and spirited him out of the city. He was labelled one of the country’s worst economic offenders. All investigation agencies were activated to open each and every page of his account books. Ramdev was silenced by a slew of administrative bullying that surfaced again when the Hazare tsunami hit the capital.

It was the Prime Minister who first instructed his ministers to open a dialogue with Team Hazare to draft an acceptable Lokpal Bill. A few days later, the same ministers were raising questions about Anna’s integrity because he refused to accept their dictates. A Congress spokesperson even went to the extent of calling Hazare one of the most corrupt persons in the country. Pranabda, one of the saner voices of the UPA, also changed his tune according to the need of the times. On certain occasions, he sounded more authoritarian than some of his other colleagues. With all allies keeping a cryptic yet meaningful silence, various factions of the Congress party were indulging in competitive mudslinging at civil society. There was a visible disconnect between its mouth and its mind. The Congress establishment was spouting views that were totally at variance with the minds of people.

Home Minister P Chidambaram sounded unconvincing when he told the media that it was Delhi Police’s decision to deny Hazare permission to fast and to send him to judicial custody. Technically, the police commissioner and his deputies take independent decisions. But keeping in view the political implications of their actions regarding Hazare, they would have kept their political masters, including the home minister and the Lt. governor, informed of their line of action. Contrary to general perception, the decision to send Anna to a seven-day judicial custody wasn’t taken by a judicial magistrate. It was an assistant commissioner of police who passed the order after Anna refused to give an undertaking for good behaviour. It was a local police inspector who detained Hazare and his followers on the grounds that they were posing a threat to peace. And it is the same police team that withdrew the charges later in the evening, and ordered Anna’s unconditional release.

Imagine. Can a lowly inspector arrest and release India’s tallest civil society leader like Hazare without orders from the top? Since the Prime Minister defended the police action against Hazare, it was evident that Delhi Police was assured of protection from the top. Even the sequence of events that led to the Anna fiasco clearly indicates the absence of cohesive planning to handle civil society’s demands.

The theatre of the absurd concluded with some Congress leaders sending out clear signals that the party had nothing to do with the Government’s decisions. The media was told that Rahul Gandhi is against personal attacks on opponents, and it was he who advised the Government to release Hazare. How come a Government, aided and advised by eminent leaders, couldn’t devise and implement a plan that could prevent the demolition of its only icon—Prime Minister Manmohan Singh? Obviously, Bharat is mightier than India.

prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com