O P I N I O N S

PERSPECTIVE

AN OPPORTUNITY LOST
The lokpal bill mired in Politics of Fighting Corruption
By Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey
History books will say that the tumultuous Rajya Sabha session on 29th December 2011, ran out of time and was adjourned, before the contentious Lokpal Bill could be passed. Historians and analysts will record that the Rajya Sabha was forced to run out of time. But what prevails in the end, is a state of confusion. In the "Rajya Sabha adjourned sine die" hangs the fate of a Bill that has preoccupied the national discourse as no other legislation has before. What sense can we make of all this?

OPED

THE CURIOUS ART OF TINO SEHGAL
A situation, a conversation, the human voice, movement and interaction constitute Sehgal’s art form, a form which lives only in memory
In the iconic TS Eliot poem, The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock, the vapidity of modern culture-vultures is captured in these memorable lines: ‘And in the room, women come and go/Talking of Michelangelo…'

PROFILE
Wordsmith of unusual tales
by Harihar Swarup
When he is not teaching management and marketing at Oxford University, or conducting or attending workshops for business leaders, Kunal Basu loves to write short stories and historical novels. He has carved out a niche for himself by writing some very unusual stories. His short story, The Japanese Wife, has been turned into a screenplay and film by Aparna Sen while his novels, The Opium Clerk, The Miniaturist and Racist, have received critical acclaim.

On the record
Widows face similar problems all over the world
by Man Mohan
To Lord Raj Loomba (68), a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, goes the credit of persuading the United Nations last year to declare June 23 as the 'International Widows Day.'

PERSPECTIVE

AN OPPORTUNITY LOST
The lokpal bill mired in Politics of Fighting Corruption
By Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey

History books will say that the tumultuous Rajya Sabha session on 29th December 2011, ran out of time and was adjourned, before the contentious Lokpal Bill could be passed. Historians and analysts will record that the Rajya Sabha was forced to run out of time. But what prevails in the end, is a state of confusion. In the "Rajya Sabha adjourned sine die" hangs the fate of a Bill that has preoccupied the national discourse as no other legislation has before. What sense can we make of all this?

Mounting anger against corruption was harnessed by the civil society in 2011. Reuters

Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal at a rally

The truth is that the Lokpal had become too contentious an issue, for the major political parties to get this bill passed without far greater and cohesive dialogue between them. The three days of the extended session was indeed inadequate, given the history of the debate.

The unity displayed, when the Lok Sabha unanimously passed the "sense of the house" resolution, in August 2011 was absent throughout the debate in both houses. What is the "sense of the house" then and now? What is the distance travelled from August to December, and now from the Lok Sabha to the Rajya Sabha?

It is important to examine the recent turn of events against the backdrop of the political unanimity displayed by Parliament just six months ago. We must remember that Parliament was at that moment, responding to an attack on its institutional credibility and existence. The short memory of the political parties has short changed that action with electoral and other interests.

In August, public protests not only brought the Lokpal issue to a boiling point, but Parliament as an institution was under attack. Politicians were derided on and off the dias at Jantar Mantar and Ramlila grounds. Assertions were being made that laws would now be formulated by "the people" and deadlines and non negotiable formulations were being presented for Parliament to pass into law. There was no answer as to "who" and "how" this determination of "the people" would be made.

The winter session was the deadline set for the passage of this most debated but complex piece of legislation. The fact that the Rajya Sabha ended in chaos, with 187 amendments being presented for consideration is an indication of how illusory this sense of unity was. While the parties will go into the elections in the five states blaming each other, there is no doubt that a great opportunity to seize the moment by the political class was lost to narrower electoral interests. The statesmanship often required to think beyond immediate interests was just not there.

The implications of a Constitutional amendment was not properly explained and placed in the public domain. Once again the media carried opinions and positions where substantive information was less important than allegations and counter allegations based on personalities. The Constitutional Amendment itself was important as it laid down minimum standards for an independent and autonomous Lokpal. It would have given Constitutional status to the Lokpal, established at the very least, its autonomy and effectively established its power to ‘direct investigation’ and exercise ‘superintendence’ over investigating agencies.

It would not have prevented a stronger Bill from being enacted, but it would have given the people of India a chance to approach the courts to make these concepts a reality. In fact even the Congress Party, that mooted the idea, faced the inexplicable ignominy of having 12 of its members being absent when it was brought to vote in the Lok Sabha ! The BJP, that had claimed to support it, has been unable to present a credible reason for its opposition when it was brought to vote. The reason proffered was that it was not the BJP’s duty to support a pet idea of Rahul Gandhi, nor did it see the meaning of passing a constitutional amendment without a strong Lokpal Bill being passed. However, it was also clear that the BJP and the NDA had themselves moved away from basic commitments made in the sense of the house resolution and from the stage in Jantar Mantar.

Lokayuktas

One of the strengths of the draft Lokpal and Lokayukta Bill as presented in Parliament, was the fact that a uniform architecture for investigating corruption would have been put in place across the country. Considering how difficult it would be to enact strong laws in many states, this is again an opportunity lost.

While federalism is an important concept, it should not be an argument to derail basic minimum structures of accountability, that should be a part of the basic legal framework. In any case, the Prevention Of Corruption Act is a central law, and the Criminal Procedure Code is in the concurrent list, so there is no real legal bar on what was a very progressive provision. It is telling perhaps, that the Bill eventually failed through opposition to one of its strongest provisions. The government was held to ransom by both the major opposition party and a regional ally in the "House of the States".

Throughout the arguments about federalism, there was no case made for amendments that would enable States to fine tune and strengthen the national law in their own contexts. The TMC demanded that the chapter on the Lokayuktas be completely removed. This, more than any other step would make this law far less meaningful to the common citizen.

Freeing Investigation

It is obvious that the government was unwilling to completely give up control over the CBI, or allow the Lokpal to have its own investigating agency.

Nevertheless, in the present draft some significant progress had been made in removing the stranglehold government had on the investigating process. The infamous ‘single directive’ and other provisions that required government sanction before investigation and prosecution have been comprehensively removed. The selection of the post of Director, CBI has been made far more balanced and bipartisan. And the concept of superintendence of the Lokpal over the investigating process had yet to be put to the test.

There was even a possibility, that like in the case of selection of the Director of the CBI, where the Government accepted the BJP’s suggestion, competitive political rivalry would finally lead to an ‘agreement’ of greater benefit to all. However, the tone and tenor of the debate made it clear that the ‘sense of the house’ this time, was not to enact a law. As a result, some of the other progressive measures such as the provision for compulsory declaration of assets of all government servants at all levels, and confiscation of ill gotten wealth hardly received a mention from anyone except the ruling party.

Marginalising other Bills

At least two other bills were the immediate victims of the ‘politics’ of the Lokpal. Protection to be provided to Whistleblowers was not discussed, and not put to vote despite the fact that, as the debate continues, people continued to be attacked and killed for asking for information and blowing the whistle on corruption. The Whistleblower protection Bill should have been discussed and passed in this session itself.

The Judicial Accountability Bill also should have been examined as there are some very serious objections that have been raised about its provisions, and the Standing Committee has recommended the establishment of a National judicial Commission for the appointment, transfers and criminal investigation of the higher judiciary. The progressive Grievance Redress law that will give citizens a chance to enforce accountability was also introduced. However, it has been discussed less on merit, and more on whether the sense of the house required the whole enforcement of the citizens’ charter to be done by the Lokpal.

So where next ? The political parties will go to the five states where elections are on, and blame each other. As citizens, we need to ask questions of and get answers from all parties, with substantive reasons for whatever positions they take. Campaigns and citizens’ groups need to start focussing on ways to ensure that some of the contentious issues can be resolved before the budget session.

It is not just the Lokpal, but the whole basket of measures that are under consideration. As a part of people’s movement, sustained dialogue and pressure can be used to make sure the momentum is not lost. We need to start focussing on the specific cases of corruption that surround us, and demonstrate that anti- corruption is a movement that is not just about the technicalities of a law, but also about changing power relationships in India. The next chapter of the history book must record that it is sustained movements for justice and democracy that can overcome the narrow politics of self interest.

In the final analysis, between the "sense of the house", and the lack of sense of the Rajya Sabha discussions, hangs the credibility of the parliamentarians themselves. Political parties can only salvage themselves from the confusion if they show, by their action in the forthcoming session, that they can act together to take issues of corruption and accountability seriously. The responsibility for effective enactments on this range of issues lies with Parliament as a whole.

Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey are social activists associated with the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information and Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan

OPED

THE CURIOUS ART OF TINO SEHGAL
A situation, a conversation, the human voice, movement and interaction constitute Sehgal’s art form, a form which lives only in memory

In the iconic TS Eliot poem, The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock, the vapidity of modern culture-vultures is captured in these memorable lines: ‘And in the room, women come and go/Talking of Michelangelo…'

Delhi’s art scene reflects this mood so perfectly that it is almost as if they were written for some of the art events here. In most art exhibition openings, a majority of the guests come just to meet each other and to be seen. Concentrating on how to make it to the Page Three pictures the following day, these leggy young things (who look, as a friend once remarked, like ostriches on steroids) are often blissfully unaware of the artist or his work for this is their first stop in a voyage in search of exciting events. Others follow the canapes and the wine waiters with a hawk’s eye, still others trash the event to sound learned.

Situational art or accidental encounters, Germany based Tino Sehgal’s work never ceases to surprise.

Whatever the reason, no one can escape noticing the heavy sense of boredom that has now begun to hang over most art events. There are some stunning exceptions, of course, and one that comes to mind is Nilima Sheikh’s ‘Each Night Put Kashmir in Your Dreams', which was a set of panels displayed in the Lalit Kala Akademi earlier this year. It brought the pain, beauty and history of Kashmir so vividly into the room that it was truly difficult to forget Kashmir in one’s dreams for several weeks.

A few months later, her husband, Ghulam Sheikh, displayed his work in the same gallery. Based on the traditional kavad, a painted story box, Ghulam Sheikh’s world showed another vision with sufi saints and interesting puzzles and mazes. On display now, once again at the Lalit Kala Akademi, are Vivan Sunderam’s ‘fashion garments'. Vivan Sunderam has for some time moved away from conventional art on canvas and devoted his attention to creating art installations. The garments on display at this latest exhibition -- fashioned from the most unlikely material, including motor tyres - speak at several levels of irony and experiment.

Yet no matter how bizarre and shocking, artists still need props to make a statement. It can be even a dead foetus (if you are a Damien Hirst), a can of coke (Andy Warhol), an unmade bed, a urinal - anything goes.

Art with no props

But never, as I long as I can remember, has an artist created art with no props at all, except conversation. Meet Tino Sehgal, among the most avant-garde artists of the Western world today, whose ‘work’ sells for colossal figures at some of the most prestigious are galleries: the New York’s MoMA (Museum of Modern Art), the Guggenheim, London’s Tate Modern to name a few avant-garde museums.

Based mainly in Berlin, Tino is the child of mixed parentage: an Indian father and a German mother. He is notoriously phobic about air travel, which is probably why we in India may never have the honour of meeting him personally. His ‘art situations’ are, therefore, choreographed and discussed with a trusted collaborators. The participants are also short listed with care from different backgrounds and avoid using the usual art critics and reviewers.

A Tino Sehgal ‘situation’ (note the word) was held last weekend at the Max Mueller Bhawan. Remember that the only prop he uses is the human voice and conversation. Naturally, I was curious and decided to see this novel ‘art form’ for myself, so I went across.

Entering a large hall, stark and austere, I saw a few visitors seated on the floor, while some were propped against the walls. Five people were standing in the performance area, poised like statues. As soon as a new visitor entered, they all took a collective sigh and greeted the visitor with a, ‘Welcome to this situation.' What followed was certainly the most memorable and unexpected hour.

A conversation was structured around a thought, delivered by one of the performers. And when it seemed to have exhausted its possibility of comment, the performers moved on to the next. This, in essence, was the mode of the experience. There were reflective pauses and a conscious effort made to prevent the conversation from descending into chatter or irrelevance. All I can say to elaborate what I experienced is that the artwork seemed to be contained in the constructed situation which arises between the audience and the interpreters of the piece.

Radical art

What all of Sehgal’s works have in common is that they reside only in the space and time they occupy, and in the memory of the work and its reception. The artist himself describes his works as ‘constructed situations', whose materials are the human voice, language, movement, and interaction, without the production of physical objects. His pieces are choreographies that are regularly staged in museums or galleries, and continuously executed for the entire duration of a show. The reaction or even participation of the spectator gives the possibility for the work to actually happen.

If all this sounds over the top, well, yes it was in a sense. Tino also stipulates that no photography or recording will document the situation. He does not even sign a contract and a ‘sale’ of his work to a gallery or museum is conducted verbally between him and the ‘buyer’ in the presence of a notary.

Perhaps I can end this by echoing what the New York Times observed: that Tino’s point is to free art from the glut of over-production and to somehow isolate that intangible quality that makes it art in the first place. As a novel and radical way of thinking about art, Tino is in a class by himself.

PROFILE
Wordsmith of unusual tales
by Harihar Swarup

When he is not teaching management and marketing at Oxford University, or conducting or attending workshops for business leaders, Kunal Basu loves to write short stories and historical novels. He has carved out a niche for himself by writing some very unusual stories. His short story, The Japanese Wife, has been turned into a screenplay and film by Aparna Sen while his novels, The Opium Clerk, The Miniaturist and Racist, have received critical acclaim.

Basu brings to fiction a great degree of research and naturally so, given his fascination for the past. His training in both engineering and management have apparently helped him bring a certain discipline into his craft. But while writing, he believes, trying too hard to recreate the past can be counter-productive. So, while he researches meticulously the facts about people and places, the conversations or dialogues he conjures up are almost always instinctive.

Remarkably, he does not write about the Indian diaspora or contemporary issues, at least not yet. Instead, he has written about an unremarkable clerk and the shady, opium trade or about a brilliant and gay miniaturist painter and about a White child and a Black child forced to grow up together with a nurse, who happens to be mute, all as part of a scientific project.

The author returns to Kolkata, his city of birth, every winter. And this time he has dropped hints that his next novel is based on characters in a 'very dangerous place' in India. Unlike Amitav Ghosh or Jhumpa Lahiri, Basu first began to write in his mother-tongue Bengali and took to writing in English much later. Claiming to be the only 'bilingual' Bengali writer, he acknowledges being influenced by historical novels written in Bengali, specially by Bankim Chattopadhyay.

Kunal likes to set himself apart from NRI writers.. "Don't call me an Indo- Anglian author. I think I am one of the few Indian authors, who does not write about the diaspora-that is if the diaspora means non-resident Indians and cross over culture."

" None of my protagonists are NRIs or people of Indian origin living abroad. I think I am a complete Indian when it comes to writing about India and a (complete) foreigner when the story is set outside India", he says.

" I put great value to belonging as well as distancing-both capable of endowing an author with rare insights. It is a necessary tension, painful at times…even after 31 years of living abroad, I suffer routinely from culture shock when I arrive at a Western airport…"

Basu claims his biggest challenge as a writer is to please himself---a reader, who is "wondrous and willing to go on a heart-rending adventure, ready to feel the surge of civilisations in his veins." He fondly recalls an encounter with a young boy, a vendor of pirated books, on a train journey. The boy tried to sell him 'The Japanese Wife' ( Basu's collection of short stories) and told the writer that he must read the beautiful story about 'waiting'. Although he does not consciously think of an audience, on some days he thinks he is writing for his hawker on the train, he adds.

It is easier to write about male characters, he concedes. Mature female characters are more complex and more nuanced. " An author must have sharp ears to listen, as each woman sighs differently," quipped the wordsmith.

On the record
Widows face similar problems all over the world
by Man Mohan

Lord Raj Loomba

To Lord Raj Loomba (68), a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, goes the credit of persuading the United Nations last year to declare June 23 as the 'International Widows Day.'

He lives in London with his wife and two daughters. He is an executive chairman of the family's fashion and import business, a member of the Board of Governors of the University of East London, founder-patron of the World Punjabi Organisation (UK) and a member of the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Trust (India). He is also the Founder and Chairman Trustee of the Shrimati Pushpa Wati Loomba Memorial Foundation (set up in the memory of his late mother).

How many get your attention?

In the beginning, there was an acute dearth of information. The Loomba Foundation commissioned a global study. This first-ever global study - 'Invisible, Forgotten Sufferers: The Plight of Widows Around the World' - revealed that there are 245 million widows in the world who are suffering silently through poverty, illiteracy, HIV/AIDS, malaria, conflict and social injustice.

Do widows the world over face similar problems?

Economically and socially weaker widows experience targeted murder, rape, prostitution, begging, forced marriage, property eviction, social isolation and physical and psychological abuse.

In an African country, when a woman loses her husband, she is ritually forced to have sex with her brother-in-law or father-in-law, and, if they are not there, with anybody in the street - she has to go through this process for a week to 'cleanse' herself. The children of widows also face horrors such as child marriage, illiteracy, forced labour, trafficking, homelessness and rape.

What did the study say about widows in India?

Over 42 million widows and around 100 million children of widows suffer in silence. In many eastern states, widows are accused of practising witchcraft and killed, most of the time by their own family members with an aim to grab their property.

What have you done so far in India ?

We have educated 6,221 children of widows across India by giving them scholarships and supported 27,000 family members. In 2012, we will be educating over 3,000 children in 18 states.

How much money was raised at the fund raising dinner in New Delhi?

The Foundation's international Ambassadors, Ajay Devgan and his wife Kajol, were there. We auctioned a book with rare pictures of Mahatma Gandhi titled 'History in the Making' for Rs. two lakhs, a champagne bottle with signatures of British Prime Minister David Cameron and the Deputy PM Nick Clegg for Rs. one lakh and a ticket of a Rajasthan luxury train for Rs. 2.7 lakh. We also received sponsorships totalling over Rs. 1.10 crore. But it was Chris Parsons, a senior partner at a leading international law firm Herbert Smith, who took the cake. He alone raised Rs. 1 crore by cycling over 2,000 Kms from London to Gibraltar in September. He was amongst us that day to support us and celebrate his 50th birthday.

What really prompted you to take up the cause ?

I was about 10 years old, when my father, a successful businessman in Kapurthala died in 1954. His body had not even been cremated when my grandmother ordered my mother to remove her bangles, jewellery and bindi and commanded her not to wear colourful clothes ever again.

It was again at my marriage ceremony when I was reminded of the plight of widows. The priest asked my mother to move away from the altar as she was a widow and her shadow could bring bad luck to me. I was very angry. How could a mother, who gave birth to me, brought me up and always wished well for me, bring me bad luck?

What happened then?

This incident has always haunted me. She was a woman of great vision. She invested the entire money she inherited in educating her seven young children. She sent me to America for higher studies. She sacrificed her life to make her children's tomorrow better.

Not all widows have resources like your mother.

When my mother died in 1992, it struck me what would have happened if I had been the son of a poorer widow. I might have grown up as an illiterate man and would possibly be plying a cycle-rickshaw in some suburban Punjab town. So, I resolved to dedicate myself to educating the children of poor widows so that they could stand on their feet.