Whither Lokpal or Wither Lokpal

I am in favor of a strong and effective Lokpal, but even if we get one, I know, we as Indians excel in destroying and debasing institutions and making them defunct.

Lot of thought has gone in the drafting of the Lokpal bill. There is a version of the civil society and there is a version of the government. The two versions differ but are clearly not dichotomous. Of course the Governments version makes the Lokpal less effective and process of prosecution more tedious and iterative.

But I can tell you, Lokpal is not a panacea for the lot of India. No government, no bill, no measure even of unforeseen authority or independence can cure India from the abjectly abysmal state of systemic rot and dys-functionality that it has reached. I can tell you, only two people can bring about the needed change in this stinking system, one is you and the other is I.

The Constitution of India is one of the best in the world, but what have we made out of it. One of the very unique articles of the Indian Constitution is the Directive Principles. Our constitution enshrines this set of exalted values in addition to the Fundamental Rights, the latter finding a place in most constitutions of the world. But what have we made of them.

The institution of the Governors was purported to be equally exalted. People of eminence, completely non - partisan were supposed to grace this office. The office was accorded all possible immunities to ensure such non-partisan discharge of duty. The office was also integral to the federal architecture of the Indian polity. Look at the stately mansions in which they are housed. Look at the perks that they are entitled to. But what have we made of this institution. This gubernatorial assignment has been reduced to being a stooge of the High Commands, regardless of who the high command of the party in power at the centre is.

Don’t go far, look at the President of India. The largest democracy of the world. The position of the President is so tall, that even the most maverick mind has not demanded to bring it in the purview of the Lokpal. A person of extremely high stature, station and scholarship was supposed to be appointed to this position by an electorate well defined by the Constitution. How are our presidents appointed? Who are appointed? Who appoints them? How independently do they function? All this is a matter of record and may not merit any greater discussion than what I have done here. Pratibha Patil, does India deserve such a controversially tainted president?

We have the uncanny knack to sabotage the sanctity of any institution without much effort. Such is the tyranny of our post independence political acculturation.

Very soon you will see, if the UPA is in power, Rahul Gandhi aka voice of the chairperson will be appointing the Lokpal. The beautiful process enshrined for such appointment will merely adorn the book. If it is the NDA, another coterie could be appointing the Lokpal. May be Ranjan Bhattacharya. The Lokpal will have clearly understood loyalties.

The answer to this is national character and nation building. Two ways that can help us do this, inculcation of good values at home and at school and call to serve the nation before self either by way of an enriched NCC program or something else, that captures the imagination of the children while their value system is still being conceived.

Joining Politics

Joining politics was Faustian. This was the impression that most of us grew up with. Our parents gave us to believe, we must work hard to get good employment, stay away both from police and politicians.

But the Babalog (the scions of political families) not withstanding, there are some good young smart people in local level politics today and this tribe we hope will grow. There are MBAs from good universities abroad and in India who are doing exceptional work at village level, as Sarpanches etc. The media needs to highlight their good work and encourage more such people to come forth and contribute. If democracy is to succeed as a method of governance, more and more good people must come forth to selflessly serve the electorate.

Also, we need more people like Subramanium Swamy in the younger generation also. And the moment I say this, I would invite the wrath of many pseudo intellectuals, who feel impelled to react both with outrage and indignation on his essay that touches such aspects like illegal immigration, purportedly anti-muslim. The voice of these intellectuals will hereon resonate as Havard too has removed Swamy from visiting faculty. But it may be noteworthy, that in 1987 Swamy fasted unto death demanding enquiry into killings of Muslims by police in Meerut. A fact that has received little media coverage.

Deny it if you can, but truly, if India was saved of the PM Ship of Sonia Gandhi, it was due to singular achievement of Swamy. He was also the one to expose the lie about Rahul Gandhi being an alumnus of Havard. It does not matter if Mr TOM DICK HARRY lies about being from Havard. But clearly, if Rahul the PM in waiting or any parliamentarian for that matter lies about his credentials, it should get a treatment worse than perjury. It is quite possible if Swamy's claims about the KJB connections of the Maino family could be overstated. But the fact is, and we all know, politicians of all hues, survive on the tested principle of I scratch your back and you scratch mine. Both their jibes and vendettas are reasonably well calculated and neither the ruling side nor the opposition truly want to expose each other. In hindi it is quite well said -एक ही थाली के चटटे बट्‍टे !

Nobody is right all the time. Nobody is perfect and everyone may not agree to all that Swamy says, but that is not needed also. He can dare those who are in extreme power right in the face. And those who can do that is clearly a dwindling breed and that breed we need to nurture, propagate and bring forward.

Merry Christmas

We booked it because it was cheap, but the hotel that I stayed in Lugano turned out to be a heritage building of late 1800s vintage. The staff too was warm and cordial. The lady at the reception was a German origin polyglot, though the city fell in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland.

Overseeing the lake ensconced in the mountains, the hotel spoke of all that is serene about nature, and being right by the side of the railway track it also bore testimony to ruckus that man has created in his zeal to exploit that nature. Regardless, the room that I had was good size, which itself is a luxury in Europe.

Indeed I am talking about the Continental Park Hotel close to the Train Station of Lugano.

On the eve of Christmas, the mood was surely festive, the sunny weather too did banish a depressive somberness that descends generally during this time of the year, but clearly the absence of snow would make this Christmas not so usual.

Hamburg too, which was the previous halt of this hastily planned troubleshooting trip, too was warmer than what is usual for this part of the year. Though the evening hot wine seasoned with herbs and spice continued to be savored at the Christmas markets with unabated fervor. Luckily here too our hotel Europaeicher Hof was reasonable in price and conveniently located opposite the Main Train Station.

In the city centre of Lugano, every 30 mts was a Christmas show, using projection systems to run animation film on Santa and usual Christmas stuff with carols in the background.

Surprizinly, for the all quirky modernization of the west, and all sexual emancipation that that brings in, all the stories of broken families, with more people living with dogs and cats than human companions, the west has not yet evolved disco version of their religious celebrations. So they don’t have lurid Bollywood numbers like we play during some of our festivals. While the Indian middle class is casting-off ven its most rudimentary connection with the past, the western middleclass seems to preserve their connection more than ever in the past and with ever increasing vehemence.

While we are assimilating all the garbage of the west, like promiscuity in relationships, utter disregard of age and station, impudence and brazenness in public conduct, the west is purportedly imbibing the good elements from the east, like the exalted philosophy of Karma and physical and metaphysical import of Yoga no matter how seemingly esoteric or transcendent for them. Who then is smarter?

Infralapsarianism

Yes this word exists. It has not been coined by me. If this could be true for the Augustinians. This could be true for USA also.

USA is withdrawing from Iraq, and had plans to withdraw from Afghanistan. So its penchant for war, better touted as need for preserving balance of power, actually policing of the world, should seek a new geography for the same.

Hugo Chavez has been lately chattering a lot. Something which only Americans claim to have the right to. He is even trying to collect some of the ‘truant’ countries together under an umbrella – CELAC. Interestingly, China is increasingly figuring as a friend in to many of these rogue republics of Latin America. India as usual is in deep slumber, playing parochial politics of caste equations, while a strident China seeks a larger role on the world stage.

China is doing similar things on our NE Frontier. Since the British left, India has not really been able to integrate this region into mainstream India. The efforts too have been half-hearted and shoddy. Corruption is another factor that delimits the stray measures that a government may take to bring that region into the realm of India. The customs department abets and assists those very activities that they are supposed to reign in. They assist smuggling of drugs and currency both, along with all other contraband. The illegal immigration from Bangladesh is happening in connivance of the BSF. The police, wherever it retains control from the over arching reach of the military and para-military forces, propagates subversion of the very law it is supposed to uphold. If the region is geographically under Indian control, it is because of the plenary presence of the army, which is actually a shame for a democracy.

Should a bipolar order re-emerge, it could well be China against a decadent United States. Perhaps, both would do well to quell each other’s ambition of gobal hegemony.

While Churchill sauntered around on his intermittent successes in war, there was a resurgent USA stealing its place under the sun. While the Americans bandied their military prowess, there was a China controlling the American debt.

While this should happen, India must build its competencies, resurrect its pride, strengthen its institutions, control corruption, prime its economy that now clearly needs a second resuscitation and silently torpedo its way to where it was 300 years ago. In that alone will be its redemption.

WHY THIS KOLAVARI DI

Why this Kolavari Di?

This is a very true reflection of the Indian ethos and mind set. Kolavari D! Which I think in ancient south Indian Language – Tamil - means excessive rage.

Today, 88 people died of asphyxiation from smoke in a Kolkatta hospital. The grassroots special Didi reached the spot earlier than any Italian origin national leader, or dalit messiah or any of the octogenarian rickety gaited yet more virile than any trotful teenager, CM could reach.

The onwers of the hospital, who I believe are also the founders of Emami, were arrested. The arrests would fray tempers temporarily. Then time is a healer. More than time, it is Indian fatalism. Indians take pride in moving on, and they will. Americans did not move on. They got stuck in the wedges of 9/11 and solved it.

Of course hospital owners and authorities are responsible and should be arrested. But what about the fire authorities who would have taken money to certify the hospital fire-safe despite zero compliance? Why should the chief fire officer not be arrested just like the owners were?

It is a fact proven beyond doubt, that private enterprise is profit driven. It is meant to be. Left on its own without regulation, it would turn a nelson’s eye to any measure that would impact its profitability or cashflow.

Union Carbide / BP / Enron all MNCs and all exemplifying culpability for a common reason – compliance - bear eloquent testimony to my claim.

And now my favorite refrain - people get the governance they deserve. The Americans felt that national security was paramount, taking primacy over all other concerns, and re-elected a president who sanitized the country and did not allow another 9/11 to occur on American soil.

When have Indians elected a government which would secure our border or work for economic development or resurrect national pride? When have we chosen politicians who would accord precedence to national interest over petty parochialism. So many educated readers of mine would already start calling me ‘fascist’, ‘rightist’ or overly jingoistic. That is how our mind works.

Mahipal Maderna got a village midwife killed because she was blackmailing him. What impunity? And it was cautioned that his arrest after a furore raised by the media, would upset the Jats. It should have been the Jats who should have disowned such a scoundrel than standby him in support. But in India politics is a caste equation. Admittedly, everywhere in the world, politicians have their vote bank and protected constituencies, but in India, this reality is accentuated.

The rich have always had it good in this country, be they under Moghul or British rule. The poor have always struggled for 2 square meals regardless of who holds the reigns of the nations destiny. So why should they care. The attitudinal callousness is not making of one day, but of generations of misrule, mis-governance and consequential cynicism.

The media would run the hospital fire news bytes incessantly for 24 hours with a high pitched maniacal fervor. An hysterically animated Barkha would hurriedly conjure a panel, comprising a poker faced retired health secretary, a verbose hospital manager, a strident khadi clad NGO/human rights activist to debate real time on how norms are ignored at the cost of human lives. However, the next day it would be a different story brutalizing our sensibilities and dignity - possibly of blast or a rail accident. TV screens would show bytes of another wailing mother being pacified by her sobbing husband!

The next day it would be another story that would rule the byte world. The people also forget. This frailty of public memory politicians recognize all too well, and the bureaucracy of course is cast in a steel frame and escapes any accountability whatsoever. What a scourge?

The peoples’ ire against the politician can still be felt, but the same against the bureaucrat is unknown. Queasily, I wonder why he always goes scot-free. The power that he enjoys, due to our British legacy is enormous. But he just would not use that power against the “people who matter”. The handful few who do, get marginalized by their own creed. Who should we blame but ourselves for this attitude?

A friend of mine narrated a story to me. He went to file an FIR to a police station for theft of his car side view mirrors. The SHO gave him such a sob story about understaffing, and frivolous deployment of his force, and how such things can be prevented by deploying private security, that my friend felt guilty of having wasted time of a helpless state mandarin and came out sympathizing for the force instead. But should he have contacted one of the “people who matter” to put in word to the SHO, his mirrors would have been not only recovered but replaced.

WHY this Kolavari D.