Snippets / Mail Today, August 11, 2008

Amar Singh’s MYTH making factory

SEVERAL myths surround Amar Singh butthis one is for real. Now that it is certain thatnothing but the right caste combinations willdecide who will rule India next year, the SamajwadiParty general secretary has come up withone more MYTH: Muslim, Yadav, Thakur, Harijan.
This electoral acronym is the latest in theendless repertoire of tricks that Singh seemsto pull off every now and then. Even a monthago, if anyone had suggested that Lalu PrasadYadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Ram VilasPaswan would break bread, he would havebeen laughed off. The two Yadavs have beendaggers drawn since they parted ways in 1990after the breakup of Janata Dal which sawMulayam going with Rajiv Gandhi and Lalugoing on to mesmerise Bihar on his own. Relationsbetween Lalu and Paswan have beeneven worse, with each refusing to acknowledgethe other at the meetings of the Union Cabinetof which both are members. But last week, theywere seen eating from the same plate at a hurriedlycalled joint Press conference that addedyet another twist to the unending string of CDstings. That they are all together now isbecause of the M-factor – Mayawati. Taking aleaf out of her social engineering formula, thetrio is now working out a new grand coalition ofcaste forces. The MYTH factor accounts forabout 35 per cent of the votes in Bihar andUttar Pradesh, the two largest states in thecountry. If they can make it work, there is nothingto stop them from becoming a powerfulgroup which will not only dictate the formationof the next government at the Centre but alsodemand the best portfolios. That’s no myth.

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FOR THE Gen Next in theBJP and the Congress, theproblems are so similar theycould even be interchangeable. Several young Congress MPsare in a dilemma. They haven’tdecided whether to fight theelections or not from whatwere once considered pocketboroughs. The reasons for theirreluctance though are different.
After Rajesh Pilot’s deathin a motor accident, SachinPilot didn’t have to campaignhard to take his dad’s seat inthe Lok Sabha, but the delimitationexercise which has foreverchanged its demographicsmeans that the young Sachincan no more take Dausa forgranted. The Gujjar-Meenadivide which saw severalflare-ups over the last fewmonths has made it evenworse for him.
Ditto for Jitin Prasada inShahjahanpur which was earlierrepresented by his father,the affable Jitendra Prasada,and Milind Deora, son of PetroleumMinister Murli Deora,who started his parliamentarycareer as the youngest memberof the 14th Lok Sabha.
Naveen Jindal’s task is a bittougher. The MP from Kurukshetrain Haryana who alsoinherited his father’s seat willhave the toughest battleagainst anti-incumbency. Ifthey do decide to contest, theywill have to seek the help ofexternal forces. Nothing to beashamed about that sinceRahul Gandhi himself mayneed help from theSamajwadi Party to retainhis Amethi seat.

Reluctant GenNext runners
IT WAS just a couple of monthsago that in its efforts to presentitself as a frontrunner, the BJPreleased its first list of candidatesfor the Lok Sabha election,though nobody, not even theChief Election Commissioner, issure when it will happen. Therest of the candidates, we weretold, would soon follow. But afterall the hoopla, the process seemsto have been put in limbo. Officially,the party says that a“Search Committee” headed bySushma Swaraj is in the processof identifying the right candidatesbut I gather that after thefiasco of the trust vote whichsaw as many as eight MPs of this“highly disciplined party with adifference” scooting to the otherside, the party leadership isfighting a case of nerves.
A top party functionaryadmitted to me that after thehappenings of July 22, nobodybut a handful at the very top isabove suspicion. Of its 135MPs, many are known to beseeking greener pastures andentering into deals with otherparties while several others aredestined to face the wrath ofanti-incumbency.
I am told that LK Advani andparty chief Rajnath Singh havefirmly told the party’s Gen Next,which is known to prefer thecomfort of the Rajya Sabha, toget ready for the real battle outsidethe cosy confines of thebackrooms.
In 2004, most of them shiedaway opting for the “biggerresponsibility” of managing thecampaign; others claimed theywere “denied” tickets thoughthe reality was they rejectedthem fearing defeat. Now thatthe Gen Next has proved itsincompetence in managing evena parliamentary vote, the wordhas gone out from the top tothe star backroom boys: Ticketsare yours for the taking, butif you don’t want them, thencome out of the closet and sayso. For those who opt out, noloss will be greater than that oftheir faces.

MAYAWATI / COVER STORY, India Today, August 18, 2008

CAN SHE RULE INDIA?

Ma…Maya…Mayawati. This is one incantation that, in its audibility and audacity, rises above the usual din of desperation in Indian politics today.
Believers blinded by her halo-or by the flash of her diamond rings?-are convinced that her day has come and only she can remove the curse of bipolarity that keeps the dispossessed away from the highest seat of power. She, at her imperious and benevolent best, plays the role of Our Lady of Deliverance to perfection, all set to take that revolutionary leap from Kalidas Marg in Lucknow to Race Course Road in Delhi. As her spell spreads, guess who're falling at her feet with total submission.
Among the growing legion of salvation seekers are chieftains from regional satrapies, newly disarmed Stalinists who still blame it all on proofing errors in the Book, and sundry freelancers from the fringe-all characters in search of a winning plot and a director. She knows that the final victory will be a subversion of the established hierarchy of power. So her destination is history itself.
That is why when the prime minister won the trust vote on the nuclear deal, Mayawati refused to see it as a long-term political setback. In that moment of adversity, she saw an opportunity.
Overnight, the chief minister of India's most influential state became the third pillar of Indian politics-Sonia Gandhi and L.K. Advani being the other two.
Courtesy the nuclear deal, the non-Congress, non-BJP political alignment got a mascot, and mind you, this one is not a mere decorative piece, in spite of all that bling. Her politics is her biography, a narrative that combines the worst impulses of Indian society and the best of Indian democracy.
Her ambition broke the barriers of castiest India, and at 39, she became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, where politics is nasty, masculine and violent. And the state is also India's most productive prime-minister factory.
Today, Mayawati, at 52, is a four-time chief minister, the highest diva of Dalits, one of the country's smartest politicians with a direct access to her voters' conscience, and one of the most powerful women in the world.
It is pretty natural for such a politician to tap the possibilities of Indian democracy, which is elastic enough to accommodate almost every type. She asks: "If I am fit to rule the largest state of India, why can't I run the whole country?" (See interview)
Fortunately for her, there is now a confluence of her ambition and her allies' desperation. Her ambition is sustained by arithmetic: it was a record of sorts when she won 206 seats in the last Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, that too against such formidable opponents like Samajwadi Party, BJP and Congress, and all of them know that losing the heart of the heartland means only one thing; diminishing national clout.
She is a natural born winner, and those who have made a career out of parasitic power quickly acknowledged her market value when politics turned sharply triangular on the eve of the infamous trust vote.
Prakash Karat, the apparatchik-in-chief, who aspired to be the unofficial arbiter of the Government but humbled by a newly aggressive Manmohan Singh, was the first to see the revolutionary potential of caste.
Banished from the court of Sonia, he took refuge in the shadow of the next powerful woman. It was not that Mayawati was looking for companionship. The comrade was investing in the future. He was not alone.
Mayawati has left Kanshi Ram behind in terms of electoral achievementsJostling for space in her durbar were such big daddies of co-habitation politics as H.D. Deve Gowda, a former prime minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, a proven kingmaker, and Ajit Singh, a Jat leader.
When CPI's A.B. Bardhan declared, "Mayawati is fit to be the Prime Minister of India", he was echoing the sentiment of all those leaders who have suddenly discovered encashable virtues in behenji who began her journey from the back alleys of west Delhi.
What is it that makes her irresistible to such disparate leaders? There is hardly anyone like her in Indian politics today. She is the party, the policy; she is the me-alone leader whose power is absolute.
Her appeal is no longer regional: her fan club constitutes almost 10 per cent of Indian voters. Who else can boast of such singular star appeal across the nation?
She may be the Great Helmswoman of Dalits, and her electoral achievement greater than what Ambedkar or Jagjivan Ram or her mentor Kanshi Ram could do in their lifetime, but she refuses to be trapped in her own identity.
She wants to be inclusive in her own way. Gone is the Mayawati of the "tilak, taraju aur talwar/maro inko jute char" era. Brahmins, baniyas and thakurs are unlikely to get such a treatment in Mayadom.
The Manuvadi tirade is no longer in vogue. Brahmins, Muslims, traders…all are welcome. The social base is expanding, and there is a slogan to match: sarvajan hitaya/sarvajan sukhai. Earlier it was "bahujan hitaya/bahujan sukhai."
The sociology of Mayawati cannot be straitjacketed. It is reflected within her own party. Satish Mishra, confidant and chief social engineer, is the Brahmin face of the party. Akhilesh Das, a defector from the Congress and a former minister at the Centre, represents the Baniyas. Akbar Ahmed and Shahid Siddiqui are the Muslim faces.
Her social adaptability is matched by her ruthless pragmatism. In 1993, she supported the Mulayam Singh Yadav Government. She ditched him within 18 months. She struck an alliance with the Congress only to break it later and took BJP as her coalition supporter.

Mayawati Interview /India Today, August 18, 2008

'No force can stop me from

becoming PM'

After her surprise anointment as the UNPA's prime ministerial candidate, BSP supremo Mayawati's confidence levels have reached a new high. She told (watch video) me that she is destined to become the country's prime minister. Excerpts:

Q. Finally a Dalit's daughter's name has been finalised for prime minister. How did this happen?
A. Apart from being a Dalit's daughter, I am also the daughter of India. Don't forget that India's highest populated state has given me four chances to be CM. I have worked not just for the Dalits but for all sections of the society. I am born in India so I am not just Dalit ki beti but also Hindustan ki beti.
Q. You said there was a conspiracy against a Dalit's daughter becoming PM.
A. Everyone saw it. And they (my political rivals) have seen what a good government I have given in UP, so they are scared that if the BSP forms a government at the Centre and Mayawati becomes PM, they will have to wait for a long time to come back to power at the Centre.
That is why they thought it is better we don't let her come to power at all. Moreover, the BJP and the Congress I think are alike—whether at the Centre or at the state, their governments have economic policies that make rich industrialists richer and the poor poorer. So they know that once they are removed from power, all their rich industrialist friends will suffer while the poor, the farmers and small industrialists will benefit, and they don't want that.
Q. So they won't let you become the PM?
A. This kind of question was raised even when the BSP was improving in UP and there was a chance that I could become chief minister. But I did become UP chief minister, and I think a day will come when the wishes of the oppressed, the poor, the downtrodden and beloved Dr Ambedkar will come true. One day, this section will get political power. If I can become UP chief minister, then I think a day will surely come when the dreams of our people will come true.
Q. Will the dream be realised through Mayawati?
A. Definitely, it will come true.
Q. So you think that your becoming PM is only a matter of time. Nothing can stop you now.

A. A movement has begun. When the time comes, no one can stop. No one could stop me from becoming the chief minister of UP.
Q. Will you be able to run the government? Can you rule India?
A. This question was also raised in UP before I became chief minister. But from Independence till today, if you compare all the sarkars to my government and ask the aam janta of UP, they will tell you that Mayawati is the best. So if I can give UP-which is India's largest state—the best sarkar, why can't I do the same at the Centre?
Q. Do you have an agenda for governance?
A. Of course I have.
Q. But until now you were limited to UP and you didn't even meet leaders of other parties.
A. I did meet other leaders, but I also had to run my party. I did both.
Q. If you do become the PM, what is your agenda for governance? What are your views on privatisation and economic reforms that Manmohan Singh started?
A. Our sarkar's economic agenda will benefit the country's poor and weaker sections. It will benefit all sections of the society.
Q. You are talking like Indira Gandhi, "Gareebi hatao, desh bachao".
A. My party is not against privatisation. Like we have done in UP, at the Centre too we will see that the country's Scheduled Castes have the benefits of reservations. When a government office is privatised, reservation rights should be protected as I have done in UP. Apart from the Scheduled Castes, we will take care of the minorities, Backward Classes and also the economically poor among the upper castes. I have written to the Centre about reservation in government jobs for the economically poor among upper castes.
Q. Should there be foreign investment in retail?
A. There are different castes and religions in India, lots of poor and jobless, so we will take all this into account.
Q. Should there be FDI in retail?A. The interests of the small shopkeepers must be protected.
Q. So you are not against FDI in retail?A. No I am not.
Q. What about the nuclear deal?
A. The Congress is claiming that because of this deal we will get cheap electricity. This is wrong. Whatever electricity we get will be much more expensive and it will take 10-15 years to get it. And the output will be only 8-10 per cent more than what we are getting. It will be so expensive that neither the poor nor the small industrialists will be able to use it.
Q. So will you cancel the nuclear deal?
A. When my government is formed, we will rethink this deal and examine if it's in the nation's interests or not. We are told that America has put conditions on India, like if they attack Iran, India will have to offer support. Such conditions are meant to make India a slave.
Q. Before opposing this deal, you must have read it.
A. We do not agree with this deal. We will rethink it.
Q. But the Left is totally opposed to America and they are supporting you.
A. Whenever we do a deal with any country, we must first take into account the country's interests. When my party comes to power at the Centre, we will take into account all sections of the society while making policies.
Q. Opposition parties claim that your politics is caste-based. Does this suit a prime minister?
A. The people who make such allegations are the ones who are indulging in caste politics. The BSP has finished jaativaad in this country and wants to bring together all sections of the society. The charge that the BSP is jaativaadi is false.

Seedhi Baat: Mayawati/Aajtak, August 03, 2008

In Seedhi Baat, BSP supremo and UP Chief Minister speaks on prime ministership, governance, privatisation and casteism.

watch video

Listen to Mayawati (audio) part 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

Power & Politics / Mail Today, August 04, 2008

IT’S becoming all too familiar now and the Congress Party has reason to be concerned about the total collapse of internal security, which has left the citizens of this country feeling insecure as they have never felt before. More than 1,100 people have died in terrorist attacks since the UPA came to power and that’s not counting Kashmir. Yet not a single arrest has been made. And they are laying the blame squarely at the doors of Home Minister Shivraj Patil and National Security Advisor MK Narayanan.

I will come to Patil later. We have seen in the past officers wield power not quite commensurate with their duties and responsibilities but never in this country’s history has a police officer risen so fast, fallen equally rapidly and then risen again to wield the power he has. I am talking of Mayankote Kelath Narayanan, the 74- year- old NSA. Last week, after bomb blasts ripped Bangalore and Ahmedabad, Manmohan Singh and LK Advani set aside the bad blood of the no- trust vote to take stock. Narayanan was present too.

This came as something of a surprise since in the last three years, when Mumbai, Jaipur, Hyderabad and many other cities and towns burned, the NSA was mostly not around, busy as he was trying to salvage the nuclear deal. Police officers as we know are more comfortable wielding the baton, but Mike, as he is popularily known, is one of those rare officers who is vested with the delicate and persuasive task of diplomacy. The post of NSA was created by the Vajpayee governmment, during which Brijesh Mishra held it alongside his job as the PM’s Principal Secretary. Manmohan bifurcated the posts, made TKA Nair his PS and JN Dixit his NSA. On Dixit’s passing away in 2005, Mike took over as NSA. As NSA, his job is to review internal and external security with chiefs of the IB, RAW, state police, and brief the government. But apart from the worsening internal situation, the region itself is in doldrums. Nepal is going the Maoist way, problems have escalated in Sri Lanka, and Burma and Indo- Pak relations are on the boil. Mike is handling a job he is not quite up to.

Like any good cop, he excels at gathering information, specially for his political bosses about their opponents. He has excellent support from the IB and CBI chiefs, who have been busy these past few months tallying up the numbers for the government. Worse case scenarios exist.

After Pokhran II, the Vajpayee government set up the Nuclear Command Chain with two wings, one headed by the PM and other by the executive. The latter is now vested with Narayanan. Imagine a cop trained to defuse bombs actually in possession of a N- BOMB. It would have been laughable if it were not so serious. He takes his external security job seriously and visits foreign capitals, but ignores the other half which involves internal security and travelling to state capitals which he is loathe to do. Raisina Hill abounds with stories about the frequent flyer miles Mike has accumulated in his nuclear pursuit. I tried to take the RTI route to find out the truth, but was stonewalled all the way. I am told that roughly for every day he has been at home, he has spent three abroad. No wonder they say of the NSA: Normally Stationed Abroad.

Snippets / Mail Today, August 04, 2008

UPA’s Captain Clueless IF an abundance of style and utter lack of substance could make a politician, it must be Shivraj Patil. His image of a man in charge of the country’s internal security has taken quite a few hard knocks of late, prompting rumours of him being dropped, which is what it should be or worse still, transferred out of the sensitive post to another, which I think will be a tragedy because some other ministry will have to suffer his incompetence. He seems clueless about what’s happening and makes it worse by appearing on TV so that the whole country gets to see how clueless he is. The Union Home Minister is considered the No 2 in the Union Cabinet, so it was pathetic to see pictures of the white safari suited, white- booted, white- socked Patil guiding Sonia Gandhi to a blast area in Ahmedabad. Almost like the darwan at the star hotel who receives a VIP guest and puts his hand out to say “ This way Maam”. It’s black but the joke in North Block is that the man doesn’t mind a few bombs going off once in a while as it affords him the opportunity to fly Sonia in his ministry’s special plane. A senior minister informs me that last Thursday’s Cabinet meeting to take stock of the Bangalore- Ahmedabad bombings was reduced to a farce because, as he said, “ Patil’s briefing read like an All- India Radio bulletin”. Is it any wonder that even his prime minister doesn’t take him seriously. When bombs go off in Bangalore or Ahmedabad, Manmohan Singh chooses to call BS Yedyurappa or Narendra Modi. When Patil called the chief ministers for a meeting last week to discuss internal security, few showed up. The man is truly Home and Alone.

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FOR the BJP, it is the best and worst of times. The UPA Government’s image and morale couldn’t be lower, the Congress has never had so many back to back electoral defeats, the economy is on a downhill spiral. Tailormade for the Opposition to make the best of it. But they botched up. If the trust vote fiasco wasn’t bad enough, the party now has to grapple with the fratricidal tendencies of its GenNext leaders who, instead of fighting the enemies — Congress, SP, CPI( M) et al — seem more keen to fight each other. Last week, Sushma Swaraj made a reprehensible charge against the government and when it boomeranged, instead of standing by her, the troika at 11 Ashoka Road went on TV to disown her. At this rate, the future of the BJP’s GenNext may well be behind it. A worrying prospect indeed for LK Advani.

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THE appointment of the new CBI Director is something that generates almost as much interest as the appointment of the new Indian cricket coach and early last week, babus blessed with the gambler’s instinct were waging bets on who would succeed Vijay Shankar as the new CBI boss. ML Sharma, CBI Special Director was widely tipped to take over. Not only was he most senior, being from the 1972 batch, the Rajasthan cadre officer also had impeccable credentials. I thought all speculation had been laid to rest when mid- week, Sharma was unofficially informed the job was his. Last Thursday, the PM had even cleared his papers making the transition a mere formality. Suddenly emerged a dark horse in the form of Ashwani Kumar, Director General of Police in Himachal Pradesh. His orderlies must have been steam- ironing his khakis when Sharma was suddenly called to the PMO and told that the job was not going to be his. What followed is perhaps the most unseemly succession ever seen in officialdom in the country, with Kumar’s formal anointment delayed leaving the agency virtually headless for a couple of hours. The government’s spin doctors are now trying to lay the blame for this needless embarrassment on its new found allies, saying it was pressure from them that forced the last minute switch. But that’s at best a cover- up. The real reason, I suspect, is this: Unlike Sharma, Kumar has had a stint in the Special Protection Group, a job that has given him proximity to the ruling family. With general elections due soon and friends and foes switching roles frequently, the establishment needs the handy tool that is the CBI to keep its opponents within the party and outside in check.

Musical spin doctors

FEW campaign slogans in recent times have been as effective as the one coined by Narendra Modi during the Gujarat Assembly polls last year. While “ Jeetega Gujarat” capsuled the impressive strides that Gujarat was making in the sphere of industrial development over the last two decades, it also harped on the pride of the state. The subtle sub- text was: The people of Gujarat want me back, the rest of India that has no voting rights in these elections and that can’t seem to stand the sight of me can go to hell. Now the chief ministers of three BJP- ruled states that are due for polls later this year are taking a leaf out of the Modi campaign strategy. It’s no easy task considering they will all be fighting the antiincumbency factor. But while Shivraj Chauhan in Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh’s Raman Singh are still searching for the right slogan, Rajasthan’s Vasundhara Raje Scindia is already off the block. The lyrics for “ Jiyo Jiyo Rajasthan ” have been set to tune by some musically inclined well- wishers and in a few weeks from now, lakhs of cellphones in the Rajasthan circle will buzz to the ring tune with a chorus of “ Rajasthan ka Abhiman ”. Already, among the committed it’s a hot ringtone and more are expected to opt for it as their favourite one. My advice to Chauhan and Raman: Take the help of Vasundhara Raje’s spin doctor and if he is too busy, settle for her music composer- director.