POWER & POLITICS

A MEASURE of a leader’s success lies in his choice of a successor. The joint press conference that Lal Krishna Advani addressed along with Narendra Modi in New Delhi last week has the debate reopened within the BJP of who exactly will take over from the 81- year- old leader of the Opposition who I assume will be leading the BJP campaign for the last time next year.

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Snippets /Mail Today, September 08, 2008

FOR YEARS, the late Kamlapati Tripathi, UP chief minister, union minister in the Indira and Rajiv Gandhi regimes and Congress president lived right across 10 Janpath at No 9 but it was more than the wide avenue that kept its occupants at arms length. Relations were really frosty, particularly during Rajiv’s time. But last week, the party’s top brass gathered in homage to commemorate his 103rd birth anniversary. They even got Karan Singh to go up on stage and recite a few Sanskrit slokas which wasn’t a bad things considering that it’s one thing that he is really good at. It’s surprising how people who barely remembered him on his centenary three years ago suddenly discovered virtues in him. Actually it is no surprise. With UP CM Mayawati gobbling up the Congress’ traditional Brahmin vote bank, Congressmen think Tripathi’s brahiminical credentials would do. Panditji must surely have stopped turning in his grave.

Disaster and lack of direction

HOW QUICKLY the times— and our responses— change? On December 26, 2004 one of the worst natural disasters ever struck shores as far apart as Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu and Bali in Indonesia in the form of the tsunami.
Thousands perished in India, lakhs across south and Far East Asia. Yet the response— of the government, NGOs and ordinary citizens— was swift and exemplary.
India showed it can not only take care of itself, but even sent ships with food, medicines and clothes to Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia.
As Indians we felt proud. It’s been more than three weeks since a disaster that was waiting to happen for a long long time, happened. We still can’t put a finger on the numbers that have died, but lakhs have been rendered homeless and each passing day is only a reminder that things are going from bad to worse.
We have a National Disaster Management Authority( NDMA) which functions under the Prime Minister’s Office and is headed by former Chief of Army Staff Nirmal Vij, and a National Disaster Management Centre( NDMC) under the Home Ministry. They sent ships to Bali but couldn’t spare a few hundred boats for the flood struck. You cant stop a natural disaster, but if these agencies had been upto their task, the sufferings could have been contained. Is it a case of too many cooks spoiling? You only have to look up the NDMC website to learn how inept they are.
There’s plenty there about ministerial conferences, national workshops held and even a section under the head “ Foreign Visits” which gives a detailed list of who attended what programme on disaster management in which country and when.
I tried to find out what the NDMC was doing in Bihar and found a report of that read like a babu’s compilation of clippings on the floods from the mornings newspapers duly translated into bureaucratese. Such a shame.

YES, WE all know that elections will soon be upon us and all of you are doing a great job and deserve to be back in power, but do you have to badger us every waking moment to tell us about the great deeds that all of you have been doing? My question is to my many friends in the BJP. The party office and its leaders have become hyperactive and the stream of SMSs that start in the morning turn into a flood of e- mails and fax messages telling journos like us about the day in the life of its leaders. Problem is, there are too many wannabe leaders and they all want you to know what the day meant for them. In the Congress, things are organized. They have one person who does all the talking on any given day. But in the BJP, the media cell handled by a few minions is constantly under pressure from its many leaders to send out SMSs and press releases to the media. I remember once three statements came to me within an hour on the same or similar topics: One was from Advani’s office, one from party president Rajnath Singh’s and third was the party’s official statement. Sometimes, they can really infuriate. As when an Urgent Press Release tells us that “ His Excellency, The Ambassador of Burkino Faso today called on the BJP Leader Mr X” and discussed matters of mutual interest. Which actually leaves you wondering: Is there a Hindu vote bank in Burkina Faso?

Congress at wit’s end over farmers

IT’S BEEN a while since the Congress yielded the main Opposition space to the Trinamool in West Bengal and with time, the Grand Old Party seems to be slipping from obscurity to oblivion. The impasse over the Tata plant in Singur afforded the party a chance to bounce back politically, but save for a march to the Nano factory by a few hundred khadi clad, as against the thousands and lakhs that Mamata mobilizes, the Congress remains a spectator.
Besides the moribund party set up in the state, this exposes the confusion that has gripped the party over the issue of SEZs. In the last four years, the UPA Government has sanctioned nearly 300 SEZs, most of them in Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, all Congress- ruled states. As such it can hardly afford to make noises about farmers’ land being grabbed. Yet politics in the heartland demands that it must now start selectively opposing these. In Uttar Pradesh, it hopes to take on the virtually unassailable Mayawati over land that is being acquired for her pet project, the Noida- Varanasi expressway. Congress leaders even persuaded Sonia Gandhi to lead the protests, but Mayawati in turn taunted them by daring them to hold similar protests at Chakri Dadri where a private power monolith has acquired hundreds of acres of farmland to set up a 3800 megawatt plant. The company has a good rapport with the the UPA’s new found ally who, as we all know, now controls the government, and the consensus in the party seems to be that the risk simply isn’t worth it. So, despite the Rs 60,000 crore bounty to farmers, the party seems to be at its wit’s end, for the moment.

Power & Politics / Mail Today, September 08, 2008

A MEASURE of a leader’s success lies in his choice of a successor. The joint press conference that Lal Krishna Advani addressed along with Narendra Modi in New Delhi last week has the debate reopened within the BJP of who exactly will take over from the 81- year- old leader of the Opposition who I assume will be leading the BJP campaign for the last time next year.
Advani normally does not address joint press conferences and it was perhaps apt that on a day that he chose to speak to the media about internal security, he chose Modi to share the stage with him. Because if there is anything that gets the adrenalin pumping in Modi, it is internal security and to a somewhat lesser extent, minority appeasement, two issues that are expected to form the core of the BJP campaign in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls.

If the Washington Post hadn’t broken the story about the government’s doublespeak on the N- Deal, I have no doubt that the event at the BJP headquarters would have dominated the front pages and TV channels and reams and reams would have been written about Modi’s “ coronation”. Advani had in fact known about the N- deal bomb from the US capital that morning but since he had already committed to the Gujarat Chief Minister to let him have his say on the woeful internal security scenario, he went ahead with the news conference even at the risk of it being relegated to the inside pages.

It was familiar surroundings to which Modi returned: The same room at 11 Ashoka Road where till about a decade ago, as the general secretary of the BJP, he addressed the media on most evenings. For once Advani chose to play second fiddle, letting Modi steal the limelight while answering a volley of questions on the Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Hyderabad and Bangalore bomb blasts and the Amarnath row, now mercifully resolved.

That Modi was the master of ceremonies was evident when he brushed aside two questions relating to economy and foreign policy, saying “ this meet is about internal security, so limit all questions to the subject”. Advani then butted in to say that he would ask Yashwant Sinha and Jaswant Singh to answer queries relating to the economy and foreign affairs.
It set the cat among the pigeons. Was the PM- in- waiting opening up about his shadow cabinet? Since Sinha and Singh had held the finance and external affairs portfolios during the Vajpayee regime, was Advani hinting that in a future BJP government, Modi would be the home minister? Anyone remotely concerned with the pathetic internal situation would wholeheartedly welcome the suggestion.

Modi has one grouse though: that his party did not stand by him when the US State Department recently said it would not give him a visa which he in any case had not applied. He thinks his party seniors, some of whom share an excellent rapport with US lawmakers should have put that to good use to temper them. I think his grouse is unwarranted. Should he become home minister, why some day even prime minister – if IK Gujral and Deve Gowda can be – Washington will not only grant him a visa, but roll out the red carpet for Modi.

POWER & POLITICS

It is often said that you can judge a man by the company he keeps. In the CPI( M) and the BJP, increasingly senior leaders are being judged by the kind of people they are seen with. The two cadre- based parties are as different as chalk and cheese and both are going through a churning that makes nonsense of their claims of tight discipline down the line.

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Snippets / Mail Today, September 01, 2008

Is it a cover-up for RTI not working?

AS A nation, we are not in the habit of preserving history, be it a monument or a document. As a result, there are no records available pertaining to many sensitive subjects, ranging from national to local, from bilateral talks to something as mundane as the ownership records of an important building. But a people suddenly empowered with the right to know are seeking information on a whole range of matters and the government just doesn’t have the answers.
The increasing rate at which ordinary people are invoking the Right to Information Act has put the government in a tizzy. My colleagues at India Today magazine have several RTI’s and while they have been successful in getting information, more often they have been stonewalled as one babu throws the ball into another’s court. Cabinet Secretary KM Chandrashekar recently shot off a missive to secretaries of ministries and departments directing them to shun the “ lackadaisical approach” and to appoint a joint secretary to be Chief Records Officer to maintain “ accountability and transparency.” It will be the CRO’s duty to “ coordinate and supervise all activities relating to management of public records. You may also consider visiting records room of your ministry during this month for an inspection so as to convey the importance of records management”. Ordinarily, Chandrashekhar should have been lauded, only it’s come too late. In a country where nobody bats an eyelid when precious artifacts are allowed to be smuggled abroad by the high and the mighty, records, if not already lost, must be thrown away to save a VIP’s skin. I think the missive is nothing more than a cover- up to later say “ See we did our best”.

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A brain wave to save DRDO

FOR QUITE some time now, we Indians have waxed about our intellectual capital,
of the brain drain being reversed and painting pictures of our countrymen from
California to Canberra returning in droves to ride on ‘ Shining India’. Ask the
fellows at the Defence Research and Development Organisation and they will think
you are an ignoramus. DRDO runs 52 research laboratories in the country and in
the last five years, over 1,200 scientists have left for greener pastures.
Things were bad earlier too, and in the five preceding years, 400 scientists
had quit.
Bad pay, appalling working conditions and a bureaucratic mindset
that is hardly in sync with scientific temperament of the establishment. The
government’s concerns were allayed by the babus who convinced their masters that
once the 6th Pay Commission recommendations were implemented, the scientists
would be happy with the bounty, would fall in line and all would be fine.
Really? The DRDO is taking no chances though. This month, it is organising a
Round Table where HR honchos from the US, UK, Israel as well as top Indian
corporates like Wipro, Infosys and Tata will teach them the art of retaining
talent.
For the sake of our defence forces, let us hope the lessons would be
truly learned.

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WHEN set up, JNU was supposed to be a centre of academic excellence on the lines of the Ivy League colleges in the US. Those dreams died young as it acquired the dubious reputation of being the cradle of arm chair revolutionaries. Last week, JNU once again shamed itself. Richard Boucher, US Assistant Secretary of State was scheduled to address students but the Left Unions would have none of it and the programme was cancelled. Last year, I was in New York when students protested against Columbia University’s decision to invite Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to address them. But they didn’t stop him. Instead, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS were all on hand to show the boys and girls put the Iranian despot through the wringer. The message went all across the US and indeed the world. The JNU protests were limited to a single column on the inside pages. Centre of excellence?

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ABHINAV Bindra, Vijender Singh and Sushil Kumar are suddenly the toast of the
country and more than advertising agencies, it is the political class that seems
determined to milk them dry. The two Kumars arrived last week from Beijing and
did the mandatory photoops with the President, Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi
but before they could be whisked away, the Opposition swung into action. BJP MP
VK Malhotra who heads the country’s Archery Federation, Digvijay Singh, JD( U)
MP who is president of the National Rifle Association and Abhay Chautala, who
heads Boxing, convinced the jet- lagged boys it would be inappropriate not to
call on the PM- in- waiting. So, off they were herded to LK Advani’s Prithviraj
Road residence where they were introduced to Page 3 types who for a change were
washing down lassi. It was no different a fortnight earlier when Abhinav became
India’s first individual gold medalist.
Within five minutes of his feat,
Ambassador Nirupama Rao handed out to Indian journalists copies of
congratulatory messages from the PM and Sonia Gandhi. The PMO even got in touch
with the IOA to convey the PM’s desire to meet him on his return. Again, the
BJP, for ever in agitation rather than congratulatory mood was caught napping
and it fell on Digvijay to turn sharp- shooter for the Opposition. He called up
Abhinav’s father to ensure the young man did not ignore Advani. If you thought
it was Even Stevens and end of matter, there’s more. Last heard, the NDA camp
was claiming that two out of three medal winners came from disciplines whose
associations were headed by their leaders.

POWER & POLITICS / Mail Today, September 01, 2008

It is often said that you can judge a man by the company he keeps. In the CPI( M) and the BJP, increasingly senior leaders are being judged by the kind of people they are seen with. The two cadre- based parties are as different as chalk and cheese and both are going through a churning that makes nonsense of their claims of tight discipline down the line.
The spotlight these days is on West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. Last week, the CPI( M) was squirming in embarrassment after BB said that, left to himself, he would organise protests against the frequent bandhs that turns normal life in his state into a nightmare. He was catering to his audience of the moment, which comprised captains of industry at a FICCI meeting in Kolkata. Coming as it did when the state had virtually been brought to a halt by Mamata Bannerjee over the Tata Nano factory in Singur, it left party leaders, well, Red faced. And that’s where the problems lie.
The people who are lining up behind Mamata Banerjee form the CPI( M) core constituency — the poor, the hungry, the dispossessed. Its leaders feel BB has compromised on the CPI( M)’ s basic credo. That outsiders and not the indoctrinated are dictating its political and social agenda. The fingers that point at BB these days accuse him of being a prisoner what is termed as the “ rattis brigade” — the chatteratti, the glitterati, the corporatti.
Only a fool would expect them to vote the Left, nevertheless they woo the comrades for the power they wield. BB is a willing target.
The fact that the CPI( M) had to issue a “ lifestyle guideline” at its Coimbatore Congress earlier this year is perhaps an admission from the highest levels that a lot is rotten. Its ministers and leaders will baulk at accepting invitations from cadres to address a rally but will grab an invitation to rub shoulders with the Page Three types. The dyed- in- the- wool comrades feel that such sustained familiarity, far from breeding contempt, influences policy making.
Initial reports that BB had been “ publicly censured” were denied by the Politburo which issued a statement that seemed to suggest the chief minister was “ given a public dressing down in private”. There are even demands that BB and other Marxist social butterflies be banned from attending bourgeois dos. But will that change the Marketeer in this Marxist? Jyoti Basu too turned reformer towards the end of his 25- year tenure, but his stature was such that he did have to attend CII meetings and collect certificates from industry titans to prove his reformist credentials.
BB’s style has been different and one which has ensured that the eyebrows of fellow comrades never drop. The Salim Group fiasco, his statements on the N- deal, the red carpets he rolled for US businessmen — all have been frowned upon by his senior colleagues.
Across the political aisle, the BJP is also grappling with similar problems. The much- touted discipline is distant memory with its MPs being indicted in the cash- for- questions scam, the lifestyles of some leaders coming in for scrutiny and the party’s image touching rock bottom when eight of its MPs defied the whip in the trust motion in Parliament on July 22. The temptations are hard to resist. The surprise is that it took the Marxists so long.