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Communal designs Rain of misery |
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Reduced to a number
The unrest in Kashmir
Enigma of the end
The increasing role of money power in elections
is cause for serious concern. The menace has spread even to the Rajya
Sabha elections. There is a need to tackle it to ensure free and fair
elections and save democracy. Trilochan Sastry THE emerging trend of spiraling amounts spent on elections is a grave danger to our democracy. In the last decade, elections have become a high stakes game where candidates, political parties or their leaders spend crores of rupees in each constituency. This is true not only for Lok Sabha seats but also for Assembly and Panchayat elections. A threat to
democracy Promise of TV sets
in polls is bribery
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Rain of misery
When
a normal monsoon has caused so much devastation, imagine what would happen if the rains were a little excessive? Blame the flood ruin on poor governance, low expectations from the elected representatives or plain public indifference. Politicians care more for their own well-being or comforts than the citizens’ basic needs. They survey flood damage from helicopters and carry media photographers along. The sight of river waters submerging villages gives them an opportunity to play politics rather than prod them to do some constructive action. First, the Ghaggar played havoc in large areas of Haryana and Punjab. Now the Satluj is giving people sleepless nights. Given the neglect of the rivers and canals, the flood threat always looms in nearby villages. Year after year civic mismanagement has stood exposed and urban infrastructure proved inadequate. Power switches off the moment it rains, bringing industrial and domestic activity to a halt apart from adding to the woes of citizens coping with the hot and humid weather. The sewerage is either non-existent or non-functional. If Chandigarh roads can get flooded by rain, the desperation of people in old, unplanned towns is understandable. It is urban chaos all over. Villages are simply left at the mercy of rain gods. Roads and even railway tracks get submerged by some brisk showers, disrupting the transportation of people and essential supplies. It is amazing how the apathetic, non-governing leaders at the village, town and state levels get elected time and again. The municipalities do not deliver. Yet citizens do not hold anyone from top to bottom accountable for their misery. Political and bureaucratic greed and corruption know no limits. Bridges built a year or two ago have collapsed. Roads develop potholes soon after the first rain. From shopkeepers, traders to airlines jack up prices to cash in on victims’ helplessness. The flood fury in Leh was caused by an unexpected cloudburst and it is understandable if the state machinery was caught unprepared for the disaster. But elsewhere the rains are an annual occurrence and yet the administration is caught sleeping. And it is not just this year only. |
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Reduced to a number
You are a person, you have your own identity and the one thing that you never wanted to do was to be reduced to a number. Yet, you are governed by labels and identifiers which are nothing but a string of digits. You have a phone number, you have a PAN number, you have the PIN you use in your ATM, you have your bank account number — in fact, you are now reduced to a number. Numbers are not only becoming ubiquitous, these are also spreading in our lives at a swift clip. The telecom regulator, TRAI, is advocating the use of 10-digit numbers for fixed lines by December 2011. Now, this is the nearest that most Indians are going to get to being an arabpati, but this is one time they would rather be lakhpatis or less. In fact, they are ready to pay lakhs to get the Number 1 for their car licence plates. Yet, surely, we can’t blame TRAI. The existing system, which was supposed to last till 2030, is under strain as more and more Indians reach out to each other through telecom devices, more mobile than fixed ones, though. Thus, 750 million connections are not enough; we have to plan for over a billion by 2014. Now, surely the mind can only absorb so much. When we talk of ‘memory’, young people think in terms of gigabytes, whereas the older generation harks back to the original concept of the human organism’s ability to store, retain, and recall information. We are overwhelmed with the need to recollect an assortment of strings of digits that govern our lives, and often are reduced to jotting them down on a piece of paper, which gradually takes the shape of an ever-growing notebook. The maze of numbers through which the modern homo sapien has to negotiate has now become even more daunting, but then the key to the theory of evolution is the ability to adapt, and those who don’t will devolve into the antediluvian ancestors who could only handle six to eight digits at a time. |
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This modern efficiency you are hearing about is the same old hard work your grandfather dreaded. — E. W. Howe
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The unrest in Kashmir It
was the winter of 1963 when the holy relic at the Hazratbal Shrine in Srinagar went missing. News spread like wildfire and a huge crowd assembled in Srinagar town. A police station, tehsil headquarters and Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed’s hotel, then under construction, were set on fire. The fire-fighting vehicles that were called to the scene were also attacked. Then the military’s fire-fighting vehicles accompanied by a fully armed platoon were sent to the area. The civil administration simply panicked and handed over the city of Srinagar to the Army. The Army moved two of its battalions from Baramullah and made them camp at the centre of the town. The 300-odd vehicles which had only recently returned from Ladakh were moved at midnight towards Baramullah and then brought back at day-break, giving the impression that the whole division had been moved to Srinagar. While crowds continued to gather in the town for the next couple of days, no untoward incident took place. Troops with their officers were out day and night to show their presence and appeared determined to take firm action to deal with any mischief. Till then the military’s presence had a salutary effect on the mobs, which unfortunately has been eroded due to its excessive use for such tasks. Since then much water has flowed down the Jhelum; the political scene, too, has undergone a sea change; crowds have become more restive, and hardliners multiplied. Politics in the valley has become of the very base variety. There is no apparent reason or rationale for the present turmoil in the valley. There is a functional government, as caring and efficient as any in the country. Unemployment is a permanent feature all across India, more in many other parts of the country. Employment opportunities everywhere have not been able to keep pace with population explosion. Two decades of violence is not the state’s doing but that of Pakistan and the hardliner separatists. Frustration in the ranks of the political parties now out of power and others who stoke fires of discontent at every turn of events, aided and abetted by Pakistan, is the primary cause of the ongoing trouble. In crowd control, when all other means fail and fire has to be opened as a last resort, the governing principal is to shoot to incapacitate, not to kill. How then has the police and the CRPF been shooting to kill? This form of fire has been leading to a cascading cycle of protests and more killings. Police officers who should be there to ensure that policemen exercise restrain are not to be seen and have left the field to hawaldars and inspectors. Intelligence agencies, whose performance has invariably been poor, failed to gather information concerning stone pelting, a new form of protest involving young men and others behind this nefarious activity. There are reports of regular payments having been made to stone-pelters. It is likely that quite a few killings are the result of fire from terrorists hiding in the surrounding buildings. Ingenious are the ways of mischief-makers. While India has poured hundreds of millions of rupees into the state and is continuing with the practice, most of it has been finding its way into corrupt pockets and the balance mainly deployed in the valley. Thus, people below poverty line in the valley are only 4 to 5 per cent. There has been complete political freedom, and free and fair elections have been regularly held. Yet thousands have died at the hands of terrorists. Fathers of both Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Sajjad Lone were murdered by terrorists. Mehbooba Mufti’s sister was kidnapped, and her rescue in exchange for the release of some terrorists was the starting point of the turmoil in the valley. Yet they have never uttered a word against the terrorists and insurgents. It is only the security forces who are the whipping boys for them. Those of us who have spent many years in J and K, both at the grassroots level and among higher echelons, have maintained that there are no moderates in the valley. On August 13, after the Friday prayers, the Mirwaiz realised that it was an opportune moment to take off the moderate mask and declared that he wanted no financial package, no jobs, no autonomy and no Indian military, but only “azadi”! Farooq Kathwari, a US-based Indian, was invited to India in 1999 to put forward his proposal for the “way forward”, thus indicating a change in the Indian strategic perspective. The Kathwari Plan pointed to a quasi-independent state, which eventually would have led to independent Greater Muslim Kashmir. The Regional Autonomy Report of the National Conference envisaged a division of the state along the same lines as General Musharraf did later on. However, such a proposal is incompatible with the secular character of India. That is why Article 370 remains a transitory provision. Considering the stand taken by the desparate groups in the valley, no useful talks are possible. Nor can the sops being offered by the Prime Minister work. It is time New Delhi got real and dealt firmly with the situation. We have allowed this problem to simmer for too long. The idea of open or soft borders in
J and K is fraught with serious security implications, more so when the Americans pull out of Afghanistan and the Taliban regain their foothold in that country. Thereafter their focus, that of jihadi groups and the ISI will shift to
J and K. Soft borders in J and K can only be considered when we have soft borders elsewhere with Pakistan. Equally, the proposal for greater autonomy or quasi-independence will have a domino effect elsewhere in India and may eventually lead to Balkanisation of the country: a long-term aim of some of our adversaries. India has failed to draw the people of the valley into the national mainstream and this has been the principal failure at the political level. Article 370 has been the main stumbling block towards this assimilation. If hardliners and other anti-national elements do not give up their nefarious activities, then India must seriously consider abrogation of Article 370. The nation must show the resolve to bite the bullet and integrate the people of J and K into the national mainstream. Attempts are on to water down the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). The Army Chief has already expressed his views on the subject, and the others who have a long experience of counter-insurgency operations warn us that this watering down of the Act will render the military ineffective. We must keep in view the long-term implications of any step that we
take.
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Enigma of the end
It
was one of those long nights that would not end to see the light of day again. Sitting on the floor of a local hospital, sharing space with attendants of other patients, I was contemplating what the morning might have in store for me. For, over six months had elapsed without my father opening his eyes even once. He was, apparently, in the last stage of his life and the curtain of his life’s drama could fall any moment. I distinctly recollect that Sunday afternoon, when I was summoned to the ICU of the hospital, after my father was shifted from the ward, allowing me a mere glimpse of the saga of his battle with death. I could witness the doctors and the nurses working frantically on his emaciated body. His face all wrapped up in tubes of variegated dimensions, body covered in thick blankets. I could discern only his heaving breast. A chill ran down my spine as I felt the world spinning around. Unable to stand any longer, I reclined on a dilapidated chair. As time rolled by, I found myself dozing off and my father’s last words came to memory. “Son,” he had said, “When I am gone, you will be left all by yourself.” He was crying inconsolably as he was being hauled into an ambulance for what turned out to be his “last ride”. My father was suffering from a debilitating condition of the brain, which had rendered him bed-ridden for months. Gradually, his brain deteriorated further and he slipped into a coma. Six months’ stay at the hospital couldn’t revive his consciousness. Death was imminent and I was a mere spectator. At such a moment, I wondered the futility of egotism and all of my idiosyncrasies, in the face of harsh realities of life. Death is no respecter of status, tutoring all alike to be humble. The rich wail their dead as much as the poor. No wonder, the great warrior Alexander understood the futility of his sprawling kingdom only at the point of death. As for my father, the end came in the wee hours of the morning. When the news broke upon me like a thunderbolt, my eyes were piercing through the misty hospital window, beholding the pre-dawn sky dotted with innumerable stars. I was then, reminiscent of the words of my father which he would often repeat when I was a child, “Somewhere in the starlight, you’ll find me when I’m gone.” I still look nostalgically at the stars in search of the father who is no
more.
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The increasing role of money power in elections is cause for serious concern. The menace has spread even to the Rajya Sabha elections. There is a need to tackle it to ensure free and fair elections and save democracy. Trilochan Sastry
THE emerging trend of spiraling amounts spent on elections is a grave danger to our democracy. In the last decade, elections have become a high stakes game where candidates, political parties or their leaders spend crores of rupees in each constituency. This is true not only for Lok Sabha seats but also for Assembly and Panchayat elections. Apart from the moral issue, there is a clear connection with good governance — anyone who spends crores of rupees in an election will focus on recouping his or her investment after winning. Governance and public interest will take a back seat. Now we see rich industrialists joining this bandwagon through the Rajya Sabha where they bribe MLAs up to a crore of rupees for their votes. From the civil society perspective, several citizen groups have emerged to confront this issue. Perhaps the most prominent among them is the National Election Watch (NEW) network of over 1200 NGOs from all the states in India (see www.adrindia.org, www.myneta.info, www.nationalelectionwatch.org). Data gathered over the years from this network shows a variety of innovative methods used to buy voters — from door to door distribution, to mass weddings where gifts are distributed, to coupon systems where voters can get liquor or meat from designated shops, to a complex network of middlemen who buy block votes in return for money, vehicles, and even real estate. Even women’s Self-Help Groups (SHGs) have not been spared and their leaders have sometimes been bought. The latest trend in this cynical game is the misuse of public funds and resources to buy votes by the party in power. Two arguments need to be confronted here. One is that voters take money from everyone and so the outcome of the election is not affected. That may or may not be true, but good governance definitely suffers as stated earlier. The second argument that politicians usually give is that if voters are ready to take money, and in fact demand money, why blame us? In a by-election in Thirumangalam, some voters surrounded a vehicle containing wads of notes seized by the Election Commission, and demanded the money saying it was meant for them. Earlier, corruption was spreading into various activities, particularly in the government. If it creeps into the entire society, we will not be able to solve the problem in the foreseeable future. Why are voters so cynical? Perhaps they feel there is no connection between their vote and good governance. If all political parties deliver bad governance, voters will cynically take money during elections. The buck stops with the political leadership. When politicians start blaming voters, we are really in trouble as a society. The trend clearly shows an increasing number of our elected representatives come from the rich. The number of people with assets of a crore or more increased from 156 in the last Lok Sabha to 315 in the current one. The average declared assets of MPs in the current Lok Sabha is Rs 4.5 crore. Meanwhile, election campaigns have got more and more divorced from the people with buying of votes, media-based campaigns and almost no direct contact with voters. So elected politicians are doubly insulated from the concerns of the poor — they can buy their votes, and do not interact with them often enough. While being well off or rich is not a crime, there is no one to represent the interests of the poor. Recent trends in legislation also reflect this where we take care of vested interests more than the interests of people. Money-based elections inevitably leads to a political system up for sale, and it is the moneyed who can buy governments. The ordinary citizen can only watch helplessly. In this high stakes electoral game, the ordinary public-minded aspiring politician with little or no assets has no chance. He cannot get a ticket, cannot fight a fair election and cannot win, rare exceptions apart. Other democracies have passed through this kind of votes-for-cash system. In the 19th century, votes were, apparently, bought for as much as $30 in New York City. Starting with Watergate, a set of legislations to control election spending has been put in place. Germany, Japan, the UK and France have laws to govern campaign spending. None of these countries have perfect laws, but we have to learn from them. Our own legislation on this count is still weak. That is not for want of expertise. The Law Commission’s report has a set of laws that address this and other related issues. At the same time, laws will only go so far. Eternal vigilance on the part of citizens along with the good work done by the Election Commission has to go hand in hand to stamp out this menace to
democracy.
The writer is Dean, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, and
Founder Member, Association for Democratic Reforms
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A threat to democracy THE role of money power has been increasing in elections to the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies over the years. Disturbingly, this malaise has now spread even to the Rajya Sabha. Reports of some Jharkhand MLAs caught on camera in a sting operation while selling their votes during the recent Rajya Sabha elections are a sad reflection of the quality and integrity of some politicians. It would be unfair to blame the entire political class for the malady, but it is because of these few rotten apples that the world’s largest democracy is getting a bad name. Significantly, the Election Commission has taken serious note of the episode. Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi had promptly convened a meeting of the commission which, in turn, directed the Jharkhand government to file first information reports (FIRs) against the four MLAs involved in the episode — Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s Tek Lal Mahto and Simon Marandi, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Umashankar Akela and the Congress’ Rajesh Ranjan. These MLAs were demanding between Rs 50 lakh and one crore to vote in favour of a particular candidate in the Rajya Sabha election. Their boast that on payment they could get their and their colleagues’ first and second preference votes in the Rajya Sabha elections amounts to an offence of bribery at an election under Section 171 of the Indian Penal Code, the commission said. The sale of votes amounts to an offence under Section 8 and 9 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, it said. While the Election Commission’s prompt response is commendable, it deserves to be given more teeth to tackle this problem. At the same time, the onus for the malady lies on the political parties. Surprisingly, they are yet to take action against those caught on camera. The Rajya Sabha’s Ethics Committee and the Jharkhand Assembly should take the initiative to stem the rot. Parliament did show the way forward in 2005. It took cognisance of a sting operation in the Cash-for-questions scandal and expelled 11 MPs (10 from the Lok Sabha and one from the Rajya Sabha). The Supreme Court upheld Parliament’s power to expel MPs. In a representative democracy, political parties are an essential concomitant of elections. The ills confronting the system are due largely to our failure to elect men and women of calibre, integrity, probity and rectitude in public life. Parliament needs to enact a comprehensive law regulating the registration and functioning of political parties. The law should provide for regulation of their funding and the scrutiny of audited accounts by the Election Commission. Criminalisation of politics is another issue of major concern as it is directly linked to the role of money power in elections. Political parties should refuse to give tickets to history sheeters and those with criminal antecedents. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that the Standing Committee of Parliament is examining the Election Commission’s recommendations on electoral reforms. The committee should hasten its report to help the Union Cabinet and Parliament debate it thoroughly for early legislative enactment. Implementation of other reports such as the Law Commission’s 170th Report, the Dinesh Goswami Bill, the Indrajit Gupta Committee Report and the Second Administrative Reforms Commission Report, too, brook no delay. Political will is imperative to check the money menace. |
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Promise of TV sets in polls is bribery
Even promises of free colour TVs and other articles should be treated as bribe to voters and candidates of such parties should be disqualified from contesting elections. An independent monitoring committee should be appointed for each Lok Sabha and Assembly constituency to keep a watch on the expenses of contesting candidates, their relatives, friends and other supporters. According to an estimate, every serious candidate spends Rs 5 crore for an Assembly election and Rs 20 crore for the Lok Sabha poll. The government should create a fund for financing the reasonable expenditure of eligible candidates. Funding of political parties by all sources should be stopped one year before the election. As of now, only the rich can stand for elections. Consequently, the electoral process needs to be “purified” for ensuring a level-playing field. — M.N. Krishnamani, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court and former President, the Supreme Court Bar Association Corporate donations must go
Corporate donations should be stopped. Donation by any individual to a political party should be capped at Rs one lakh. The 1975 amendment to the Representation of the People Act, 1951, to save the election of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi should be deleted. Under this change, the expenditure incurred by the political parties is not treated as the candidates’ expenditure. Accounts of political parties must be rigorously audited and that of the candidates be subjected to “investigative auditing”. Candidates should be given equal and free time on the state-owned national media — radio and television.
— Prashant Bhushan, Advocate, Supreme Court
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Paid news is a big problem and this should be made a very serious offence. The Press Council of India should be empowered to prosecute the offending publication.