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No bilateral deal Exit in disgrace |
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Honour for Dev Saheb
India’s degenerated polity
Your obedient maid servant
News analysis News analysis
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No bilateral deal AS expected, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee refrained from saying anything in favour of or against the tainted Mr Dilip Singh Judeo in his statement before Parliament on Wednesday and confined himself to defending the CBI which is investigating the case. He did not even go into the question of why the then Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests resigned and on what grounds his resignation was accepted. That there are many misgivings about the role of the agency is clear from the fact Mr Vajpayee had to forcefully underline its full functional autonomy and assert that the government does not interfere in its work. The Opposition is apparently not satisfied with the statement. The Ajit Jogi case has greatly complicated matters. The government cannot take recourse to questioning the motive of those who recorded a video film showing Mr Judeo accepting cash from Rahul, purportedly a representative of an Australian mining company, in the presence of his former Assistant Private Secretary Natwar Rateria. If those who made the recording are held in the wrong, the same rule will have to be applied to those who recorded Mr Jogi’s cash-for-MLAs offer. While trying to deny the Opposition charge that his government was interfering with the CBI inquiry, Mr Vajpayee hedged several uncomfortable posers. One, why is that the CBI is still in the process of completing its preliminary report whereas in the Jogi case, an FIR was lodged within a day? Two, what action has been taken in the case of the then BJP president, Mr Bangaru Laxman, who was similarly caught on the video accepting money more than two years ago? The issues arising out of the Judeo and Jogi cases are of concern to all people and should not be left to political parties alone to decide. The real issue is: should the political corrupt be allowed to get away at all? The BJP and the Opposition cannot be permitted to buy each other’s silence on these two cases in a bilateral deal. |
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Exit in disgrace FINALLY, the Himachal Pradesh University Vice-Chancellor, Dr S.D. Sharma, has resigned, much to the relief of many on the campus and outside. For too long he had resisted the attempts to remove him and denied the charges levelled against him. He had no alternative left after the two sets of inquiry ordered separately by the Chancellor and the state government had indicted him for financial and administrative irregularities. Not only the august office of Vice-Chancellor, but also the university has suffered a loss of reputation. An institution is bigger than an individual. One expects the head of an institution, as prestigious as HPU, to conduct himself with grace and dignity. And one also expects the selectors to choose the right candidate for the post of Vice-Chancellor. A VC is expected to provide intellectual leadership to his family of academics and students, apart from leading the university to play the role expected from an institution of higher learning. The appointment of a VC, therefore, has to be on merit alone. Political interference has to be resisted. Dr Sharma was seen as a political appointee, who was given the job for political reasons by the erstwhile BJP government. When the Congress assumed power in Himachal Pradesh, the BJP appointees in the university, including the Pro-VC, quit, but not Dr Sharma. He asserted that the university was an autonomous body and only the Chancellor could remove him. The Virbhadra Singh government amended the university Act to arm itself with powers to inquire into the alleged malfunctioning of the university. The two inquiry reports demolished the high moral platform from which Dr Sharma projected himself as a champion of university autonomy. The Governor, who is also the Chancellor of HPU, needs to ensure that now the Congress government does not play havoc with the university. |
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Honour for Dev Saheb DEV ANAND has no time to see the sun set. For him it has been shining brightly ever since he got his first break as an actor in 1946. The film "Hum Ek Hain" sank without a trace. But it failed to diminish Devdutt Pishorimal Anand's interest in films. He was a bundle of energy then and he is a bundle of energy even today. The evergreen actor-cum-film-maker was in the middle of working on his next project, "Beauty Queen", when he received the news of having been nominated for the prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke Award for 2002. The still young-at-heart actor from Gurdaspur did not jump with joy because "my biggest reward has come from the people". Only film historians can explain how and why less gifted persons associated with the evolution of Indian cinema were nominated for the Phalke Award before someone noticed the serious lapse. Dev himself is too much of a gentleman to make a fuss about having been ignored for so long for the film industry's highest honour. Surely, he belongs right up there, along with Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar, in laying the foundations of Indian cinema. The era between the 50s and the 70s was dominated by the famous trio. While Dilip Kumar followed Paul Muni's style of method acting, Raj Kapoor modelled himself after Charlie Chaplin. Dev Anand evolved his own style. However, his stunning good looks saw him being recognised as the Gregory Peck of Indian cinema. It was "Ziddi"(1948) that helped him establish himself in the film industry. But it was the depth of acting in "Guide" (1965) that saw him scale the height of cinematic glory. He can still come out with more films and spring surprises. |
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Ill health, of body or of mind, is defeat ... health alone is victory. Let all men, if they can manage it, contrive to be healthy. — Thomas Carlyle |
India’s degenerated polity WEIRD are the ways of the wonder that is India, especially of its steadily degenerating polity that, having embarked on the downward slope way back at the end of the sixties, is now dangerously close to rock bottom. No wonder, therefore, that the shameful shenanigans of Mr. Ajit Jogi, Chhattisgarh’s defeated Congress Chief Minister — preceded by those of the BJP stalwart in the same state, Mr Dilip Singh Judeo — have overshadowed even the sensational results of the assembly elections in the four states. Indeed, come to think of it, Mr Judeo, until recently Union Minister of State for Environment, and Mr Jogi together have become telling symbols of the scourge that threatens to devour every essential element of democratic propriety and decency. There are important differences between the two cases, no doubt, but these do not bespeak of any great virtue on the part of either of the two competing mainstream parties. About the Judeo affair the surprise was not that it had hit the country with the force of a bombshell but that the initial reaction of the BJP bigwig to it was so nonchalant. Here was a member of the Central Council of Ministers clearly seen on videotape enjoying his drink, accepting a bag of cash, touching it to his forehead and repeating an Amitabh Bachchan film epigram that exalts money to the status to God. And yet the initial impulse of top BJP leaders was to make light of the stinking episode; to pretend that their man, lily-white innocent, was being framed by a band of “fraudulent conspirators”, led by Mr Jogi; and to brazen out the blizzard of condemnation by the public. The Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was out of the country at the time. It was he alone who insisted that the errant minister must resign. However, no sooner had Mr Judeo tendered his resignation than he was flown to Raipur where senior BJP leaders vied with one another in so lionising him as to make him out to be not only a triumphant Caesar but also a demigod. The man himself let them down by virtually admitting that he had indeed taken the tainted money from the agent of an Australian mining firm. He also had the effrontery to compare his misdeed with Mahatma Gandhi’s acceptance of funds from G.D. Birla. Not a single worthy from the party hierarchy said boo to him. On the contrary, the BJP leaders and spin-doctors poured all their venom on those who had allegedly “framed him out of sheer malice”. Meanwhile, the CBI did not even record a FIR against the ousted minister but started investigations against Mr Jogi and his son, Mr Amit Jogi, for having masterminded the “sting” operation to expose Mr Judeo. It is against this backdrop that the Congress is crowing about its respect for morality in suspending Mr Ajit Jogi from the party’s membership immediately after hearing about his attempt to bribe some BJP MLAs with a view to preventing the formation of a BJP ministry in Chhattisgarh. The reality, however, is more complex than what the party spokespersons and propagandists are pretending it is. Ms Ambika Soni, the beleaguered party general secretary because of her failure as the person in charge of elections, was the first to announce the action against Mr Jogi. She had then categorically stated that he was being disciplined for “having invoked the name of Mrs Sonia Gandhi” in pursuance of his dubious game plan. Not a word was uttered about the astounding immorality, indeed downright criminality, of his alleged acts. The country understandably laughed at this, and it took the wise Congress leaders a seven-hour meeting of their Working Committee to revise their reasoning for the action against the defeated Chief Minister. The Congress now said that Mr Jogi had been suspended for having written a letter to the state Governor, offering to support a ministry that might be formed by defectors from the BJP, “without authorisation”. Once again the principal Opposition party in Parliament, still ruling 11 of the 14 states it controlled earlier, had nothing to say about the shocking political impropriety. What makes this state of affairs altogether bizarre, if also lamentable, is that while Mr Jogi and Mr Judeo may be bitter political and personal foes, they are, in another sense, brothers under the skin. In fact, it can be argued that each is a mirror image of the other. When the former Union Minister was caught in the act, he had fumed that the videotape of him was a forgery and a “hi-tech hocus-pocus”, whatever that might mean. Now, Mr Jogi is screaming that the tape recording his conversation with BJP MLAs he was allegedly trying to “buy out” was a “fake”. “The whole world knows my voice,” he declaimed. Through modern technology anyone could fake this voice and say what they liked. He and his cohorts are clamouring for immediate action against the “conspirators” who have “framed” him and among them are included the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr L.K. Advani, and the BJP’s voluble president, Mr Venkaiah Naidu. Ironically, the jubilant BJP MLAs in Raipur were the first to announce that both Mr Advani and Mr Naidu were “in the know” of all that was going on in Chhattisgarh’s capital between Mr Jogi, then still caretaker Chief Minister, and the MLAs ostensibly willing to defect for a consideration. The crowning tragedy is that no one is prepared frontally to face the menace that haunts the country. To win elections by hook or by crook or to capture power through murky manipulation has become the be-all and end-all of democracy in this country. Once in power, almost everyone tries to make maximum money in minimum possible time. All essential, indeed inescapable, attributes of democracy — the rule of law, equality of all citizens, purity of public life and so on, are being thrown to the winds. If the disruption of Parliament on Monday is any guide, any hope of a fair and constructive discussion on the depressing subject must be given up. The game of one-upmanship and an acrimonious exchange of insults and charges are all. One of the great American presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, did many things that India could have adopted or adapted. But these are ignored. Indian politicians have heartily embraced, however, his dubious doctrine that a “difference must be made between our s.o.bs and their s.o.bs”. |
Your obedient maid servant ALMOST two decades before the independence of India, Vijay Laxmi Ramgoolam from Karnataka worked in All India Radio and by dint of sheer hard work, she rose to number two position, as number one always had to be an English boss. Her master’s degree in English language had earned her the job in this leading organisation of those days. She was an ordinary looking young lady, who always wore a silk saree, with her thick long hair rolled into a bun, bedecked with a red rose. Those were the days of British Raj, when sons and daughters of the educated affluent families acquired education with ultimate aim to get into ‘Indian Civil Service’ known as ICS. Those who hit the top grades, were absorbed into top positions, and the second raters staffed the second layer of bureaucracy in government offices. Yet, some with a clout, whose wards could not make a grade, would explore a connection for a job in companies like Burmah Shell etc. In keeping with the Indian culture of worshipping the rising sun, several Indians — businessmen and bureaucrats alike — vied with each other in ways to curry favour with the British masters. The more apt the ways of demonstrating your loyalty to the British were the higher were the titles like “Rai Sahib”, ‘Sardar Bahadur’ “Khan Bahadur”, ‘Babu’, “Sir”, and “Knight”, conferred on you. To earn the title of the “Babu”, a rich “Bhadralok” of Calcutta once had almost overnight converted his Indian toilet into “European Style” for the convenience of “Sahibs and Mem Sahibs” coming to dinner to his house. Also with the exception of a few like Netaji Subhas Bose, who kicked his ICS job, many big and small time civil servants, invented a vocabulary of their own, to eulogise and pamper the English bosses. The height of such sychophancy is reflected in the innovation by some Indians in addressing the East India company as “Company Bahadur” or may be the Britishers themselves injected such decorations for themselves in the Indian ethos, through their henchmen. However, the trends were set, and the diction and decorations, that followed top down, smacked of a high order of slavery or “chamchagiri” which might shock and surprise many in the free world like America where even an ordinary citizen has the liberty to address Bush as ‘Hi George!’. Lord Macauley, who by some is considered the father of the Indian education system, and whose main aim was to create a band of “Babus” to perpetrate British Raj, would be having his last laugh, if he read some of the suffixes and prefixes, used by the Indians, as a standard practice to address the British and no one dare to change or flout the norms. An old petition pulled out of the files should surprise and shock many of the new generation of free Indians. “Your Excellency, Deputy Commissioner Sahib Bahadur, Honourable Sir: Most humbly and respectfully, I beg to submit my appeal to your goodself for your kind consideration”. And while expressing even a slight disagreement, it would be expected of an Indian to moderate decently; “If I may be permitted to submit, most humbly and politely, I wish to state that the facts of the matter are slightly different, for which your kind consideration and patient hearing is solicited.” The petition will then end with salutations like “Your loyal subject to the Crown”. Even a simple leave application by some would perhaps read: “To the Director General, Government of India: respected Sir, Most humbly and respectfully, I beg to say, Sir, that I am suffering from fever for the last two days. Therefore, I shall be grateful if you will kindly grant me leave for these two days for which act of kindness I myself and my family will pray for your long life, good health of your most charming wife and prosperity for your children. I remain, Your most obedient servant”. So dedicated was Vijay Laxmi to her job that she had not taken any leave even to romance around and get married. She was a broadcaster par excellence and her British boss had tacitly admired her for her simplicity and ordinary beauty, which she was perhaps only a little aware of. She even never wasted her time in the nitty gritty of “Babudom”. But one day she needed leave, and as the practice was, she asked her “Babu” to put up a leave application. He was prompt enough to cast the document in the set mould, with usual start, middle and salutation. Vijay Laxmi was just about to sign the paper, when the words, “Your obedient servant” hit her in the eye, and unwittingly enough, she inserted the word “Maid” to mark presence for her ladyhood. The salutation thus read: ‘Your Obedient Maid Servant’. The paper, on presentation, evoked the male ego of the English Director, who twirled his ginger whiskers in amusement and then burst into laughter, perhaps, to construe that the “ultimate was about to happen”.
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News analysis
POLITICAL players in Chhattisgarh had one nagging question in their minds before the results of the assembly elections were announced: what would happen to Mr Ajit Jogi if the Congress lost the poll? The answer, as it turned out, did not take long to come. Ousted Chief Minister Ajit Jogi had created such an image for himself that it was difficult to imagine him working as the Leader of the Opposition in the state. He seemed desperate to remain in power and to win the assembly elections in the newly created state. Mr Jogi had strained relations with his political adversaries. Though many in the party resented Mr Jogi’s style of functioning, no group emerged in the state Congress to oppose him due to his perceived closeness with Congress President Sonia Gandhi. He seemed to run the administration and the party according to his whims. Many of Mr Jogi’s dream projects, including that of a new capital, now face an uncertain future. Ms Gandhi had laid the foundation stone of the new capital which Mr Jogi wanted to be the best in the country. His government has spent lakhs on the design of the proposed capital. Ms Gandhi picked up Mr Jogi over other contenders for the post of Chief Minister when Chhattisgarh was formed. She has now lost confidence in him. As expected, Chhattisgarh is determining the agenda for the political battle between the BJP and the Congress for the Lok Sabha elections. The CBI is in the initial stage of investigating the forged document case and the cash-on-tapes case involving former Union Minister Dilip Singh Judeo. It has been assigned the sensational case of Mr Jogi’s alleged bribe to break the BJP legislature party on the eve of the swearing-in ceremony. Mr Jogi is drawing flak from all sides. The Speaker of the outgoing assembly has taken exception to the allusion in the audio tapes about his likely role in the “defection drama.” The CRPF, whom Mr Jogi accused of being partial in the elections, has conveyed its sense of hurt. The Congress in Chhattisgarh is now at the crossroads. Though the party has suspended Mr Jogi, it will have to bear the fallout of some his actions. It will also have to decide on Mr Jogi’s pleas for re-admission. The BJP was taken by surprise by its victory in Chhattisgarh. What paid dividends to the party was the work its sister organisations did in the tribal areas. The party did well in the tribal seats. The RSS cadres were particularly motivated in the elections due to the reported desire of veteran BJP leader Kushabhau Thakre to see the party governments in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh “as a last wish.’’ Even Congress workers were aware of Mr Thakre’s “wish.’’ The BJP leader has been working in Chhattisgarh for the past several decades and has built the BJP’s team in the region. The BJP, which is no less divided than the Congress in Chhattisgarh, did not let differences among its leaders affect its poll efforts. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who had to publicly face the ire of party workers when he was in charge of Chhattisgarh, campaigned extensively in the state. Other senior state leaders of the BJP, including Mr Lakhi Ram Aggarwal, Mr Raman Singh, Mr Ramesh Bais and Mr Nand Kumar Sai alternatively accompanied Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani during their campaign tours of the state. Mr Dilip Singh Judeo’s evident popularity was encashed by the BJP by portraying him as a victim of “Mr Jogi’s machinations.’’ The BJP fought the elections with a well thought-out strategy. Its cadres were well spread out. The party’s canvassing picked up momentum as the campaign progressed and peaked in the final days. Mr Vajpayee’s posters were all over Chhattisgarh and the BJP gained from his evident popularity. The BJP prepared a populist manifesto for the new state and distributed lakhs of leaflets of its promises. The party launched an aggressive attack on Mr Jogi and countered all issues raised by him. Compared to the Congress, the BJP was more effective in tackling the problem of rebels. It had the added advantage of having the Nationalist Congress Party on its side in taking on Mr Jogi. The NCP damaged the Congress in nearly a third of the state’s 90 constituencies. |
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News analysis The saffron brigade did not have the services of Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, a giant in Rajasthan politics, under whom the party had ruled the state twice. The victory becomes all the more creditable as the party really did not have any critical issues to play on and it depended heavily on the manoeuvres of the backroom boys led by laptop savvy BJP General Secretary Pramod Mahajan and the charisma of Ms Vasundhara Raje. The latter was thrown into the cauldron of the politics of the desert state about a year back. With the Rajasthan unit of the BJP in a coma in the absence of any real issue and a charismatic leader, Ms Vasundhara Raje had nothing to lose when she took over the reigns. But with the “Parivartan Yatra” that she undertook the party suddenly started to breathe easily and gained vital ground. It was an uphill task due to the constant beating the party image got at the Centre due to various scandals. But Ms Vasundhara Raje worked hard in her Parivartan Yatra and reached out to the people of almost all the areas of Rajasthan. Rajasthan was the only state where the central leaders concentrated the most without reflecting any factionalism or dissension. Although Mr Ashok Gehlot of the Congress had a clean image and there was a good impression about his governance, the BJP managed to expand its base in Rajasthan by projecting Ms Vasudhara Raje. For the first time a woman was being projected as Chief Minister in a state which has a strong caste bias coupled with male domination. For the first time women found a voice to support and work for them, facilitating the BJP to expand its base beyond caste calculations. It was, therefore, no surprise that the turnout of women voters touched an all-time high in Rajasthan. Ms Vasundhara Raje’s projection also helped the BJP get the support of the erstwhile Swatantra Party, which is ostensibly backed by the Rajwaras. The Congress campaign, on the other hand, was centred only on Mr Gehlot and party President Sonia Gandhi with national leaders from the State not coming out in the open. Most of them were too busy trying to secure votes for their own kin and least bothered about the party’s overall performance. The “rebel” factor also went against the Congress. With Mr Ashok Gehlot and some of the Central leaders ignoring the claims of local Congress workers, party rebels were strongly in the fray and adversely affected its prospects. There were 60 rebels who contested the elections as independents or as candidates of other parties, mainly the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), which while opening its tally in Rajasthan also pulled away votes in the Jat belt. The low-profile Ashok Gehlot took up campaigning very seriously. With a bumper monsoon to back him, he went to all the regions of the state, talking of his government’s achievements and refused to be drawn into any controversy or personal attacks. But he looked quite abandoned as far as the campaigning went. There were hardly any big names to back him and with the pre-poll surveys pointing to a Congress victory there was an element of complacency in the party’s approach. By the time the party realised that it was not so rosy a picture, it was too late. The Jats, having a strong presence in Rajasthan’s caste structure, pledged their support to the BJP. Even government servants, having a major role to play, went happily into the BJP arms being upset with the Gehlot government. More than eight lakh government employees were seething with anger that the Gehlot government had dealt sternly with their strike, forcing a cut in their salary for the strike period. Government employees were also highly agitated that no fresh recruitment was taking place at the lower levels while new officers were joining the government every year. With the BJP promising redressal of their problems, the government employees readily shifted allegiance, bringing down the Congress government.
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Whenever there is decay of righteousness, O Bharata, and there is exaltation of unrighteousness, then I Myself come forth. — Lord Shri Krishna There are pearls in the deep sea, but you must hazard all perils to get them. If you fail to get them by a single dive, do not conclude that the sea is without them. Dive again and again, and you are sure to be rewarded in the end. — Sri Ramakrishna By merely calling one self excellent, one does not become excellent. — Guru Nanak |
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THE BJP victory in Rajasthan is spectacular in more than one way and credit for it must go not only to Ms Vasundhara Raje but also to the entire party which went about demolishing the Congress myth in the state in a systematic, scientific and disciplined manner.
Neither the clean image of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot nor the good monsoon helped the Congress.