One more State. One less Pradesh.

The manner in which the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Bill was passed in the Parliament is unprecedented and obnoxious. For all these ten years that the UPA government has been in office, little has been done to work out an amicable and acceptable solution to the decades old demand for a separate state within Andhra Pradesh. Most of the political parties have offered uncanny flip-flops in their position on the Telangana issue. The election year has always been one when mountains could be moved and icebergs melted. All for electoral considerations though.

The Congress has been, for some time now, staring at an imminent defeat in the Lok Sabha elections. There’s little they could do to revitalize voters and their own party cadres. Andhra Pradesh was kind to the party in the last Lok Sabha polls. With all the turmoil in the state in the last few years and with the emergence of Jagan Reddy’s (who was ironically bailed out by the Congress in an apparent move to woo him) YSR Congress, the grand old party realized curving out Telangana could be a last-ditch effort for them to salvage some electoral pride in the region by capitalizing on the ‘look I did it all for you’ claim. Never mind a Chief Minister and his cabinet that wage a war against the party ‘high command’. Never mind the BJP that is yet to be born in Andhra Pradesh and therefore voters of the state don’t really matter to it. Nevertheless, the race to the ‘who done it’ podium has already begun.

Let’s leave aside the politics for a moment, and turn our focus to the two new states and the people. One of the bones of contention between Telangana and Seemandhra will continue to be Hyderabad, a city that had become synonymous to Andhra Pradesh. Except for the pharmaceutical hub that Vizag is today, most of the Andhra business might and pride is concentrated in Hyderabad, and to some extent, in Secunderabad. Hyderabad as a joint capital for ten years is like sharing a piece of land between two halves of a joint family after a bitter split. There is bound to be fight, confrontation, and still worse, string of lawsuits. Sadly, it would be the same people pitted against each other in a court of law for something they once proudly shared with each other. Building a new state from the word ‘go’ isn’t child’s play, especially when what is involved in the process include building infrastructure, schools, hospitals, courts, offices, creating jobs and so on. Along with the euphoric ecstasy of a ‘new state’ will come the challenges of governance. The natural resources of Telangana shouldn’t fall prey to the Naxals who enjoy quite a foothold along the border areas.

The demand for a separate state of Telangana has been almost as old as independent India is. Ease of governance and uniform development of all the regions of Andhra Pradesh have been among the front-ending arguments in favor of the bifurcation. Now that it’s a reality, I’m sure a large section of the people who wanted this to happen will be extremely happy with the development. What must not however happen is the fabric of Andhra Pradesh getting diluted in all of this frenzy. I hope people will remember who they were is who they are even today. My best wishes are with the people of both the states.   

I grew up learning that India had 25 states out of which 5 had a common word ‘Pradesh’ in their names. As Andhra Pradesh slips into nomenclature oblivion, India has one more state and one less Pradesh! 

Whose dynasty is it?

‘Dynasty’ has been a buzzword in the Indian political circles for a long time. The Gandhis have been at the center of lot of snarl, ridicule and attack for decades now. If you’ve read my earlier blogs, you perhaps know that I, like most of us, condemn dynastical representation at the political arena. Through this column today, I’ll try to understand who is to blame for this rot and if it’s limited only to the Nehru-Gandhi family.

India is an erstwhile colonial state which prior to that had been ruled by ruthless kings. While our ancestors spread the message of love to the world through spiritual discourse, they have for centuries been repeatedly invaded by emperors from various parts of the world. Although we’ve championed the cause of freedom in many ways, we’ve also developed fondness to the idea of being ‘ruled’. We’ve known for long that it was okay to be presided over; it was alright to have the control of our fate in someone else’s hands. We started perceiving it as normal to have someone who shall be more powerful than us to boss us. We decided not to take charge of our life!

Vacuum is a myth. If we don’t rule ourselves, someone else will. That’s what has happened to us. Why blame a particular family when it’s us who gave them the power to exercise it on us? We made them what they are made out to be today. It’s a monster that’s been crafted by us, year after year. Nobody who gets accustomed to infinite privileges shall ever forfeit those. That’s human nature! If we believe we’ve brought down curtains on monarchy and replaced it with democracy, then why do we still have that undying yarning to be ruled by the mighty? Why do the people of Amethi and Rae Bareli, who are as poor a constituency as any other in India, still send the Gandhis to the parliament? Who is it that has times without count likened the Gandhi daughter to Indira and the crown prince to Rajiv? Isn’t that us? Let’s admit we get thrilled by the very thought of a charming young ‘descendant’ of the dynasty who would re-write our fate. That’s really not them, that’s us!

Let’s now broaden our prism. Isn’t politics all over India run as a family enterprise, from the DMK to the SP to the RJD to Shiv Sena to Biju Janata Dal to National Conference? Wasn’t Akhilesh Yadav one of the most ineligible candidates to run Uttar Pradesh after Mulayam decided to step aside? Don’t we know about the grand family feud in the DMK where the old father cannot officially give up the reins because his two sons have been throwing hand grenade at each other? Haven’t we heard how Omar Abdullah was anyway going to take over from Farooq in Jammu & Kashmir? Is Shiv Sena any different when it comes to inheritance of power? Dynasty in our political system has always been a reality. While electoral oblivion of one family in Delhi may be a symbolic ‘win’ of sorts to many, let’s be cognizant of the bigger picture and understand that it will not cure the root cause of the problem. 

I’m for a system that prefers merit to surname. I’m for an institution of polity that thrives on participation and creation of value. To consider the battle as one against a family would be a significant compromise with its true potential. The real fight is against the secret corner of our mind that still romanticizes kings and queens and succumbs to a superficial glory that does not exist. Democracy after all is by the people, for the people and of the people!

An open letter to Arvind Kejriwal

Dear Mr. Kejriwal,

I am an aam aadmi. Let me begin by congratulating you on the impressive political debut your party has had in the state of Delhi. It’s not been an easy state to contest in, and we know that. Your government has been in power in the state for just over half a month. I know yours is a rookie party and you guys hardly have any administrative or governance experience. That is definitely a big negative for you and you unfortunately cannot change it. You’ve generated a lot of hysteria in the voters of this country, which is why you’re right in the middle of the media glare, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Every little thing your government or any office bearer does becomes news. I know you’re aware of the tremendous public scrutiny your team will now have to live with. Some of your party leaders – at the time when you stormed into the power corridors of Delhi – had asked the media to follow your government and criticize whenever necessary. The media, I must say, hasn’t disappointed you. You have all of a sudden eaten up much of the Modi-space in the media coverage. You’re suddenly someone people want to get more of. I know these are early days and hence I shouldn’t apply the ‘morning shows the day’ proverb just yet. In this letter, however, I want to talk about your national ambition, and what I as an aam aadmi think of it.

I don’t care about the freebies you’ve distributed in the form of electricity or water. I’ll not judge you by that. In the context of the Lok Sabha elections, this doesn’t matter simply because you cannot run India on freebies. Consumption of natural resources should be backed by strong pro-people policies, and we don’t know even a single policy or strategy that your party has vis-à-vis what matters to India in 2014 and beyond. You going national is not as much the concern as is the timing. I agree, if you don’t jump into the electoral pool right now, you may have to wait for another five years. But why should the people of India trust your ability? Wasn’t Delhi supposed to be your laboratory where you ‘experiment’ and prove to us that you’ve delivered? You’ve not yet understood the problems of the state, you’ve hardly had the time to demonstrate administrative acumen, you’re going to the public for just about everything fueling speculations that you don’t know how to govern and what to do!

A more alarming development is your vision of expanding the party cadre base across the country with an eye on the Lok Sabha polls. Surely, elections are all about numbers. But what about the ethos and ideology of your party? When you go on such a frantic ‘mass recruitment’ drive, can you assure why the quality of the people coming in to your party will not be compromised with? You have a member of your party, Captain Gopinath, who’s been fiercely protesting against some of your policy decisions of late, and he says he hasn’t even read the party manifesto! That is such a laughable tragedy; how could the party in the first place offer him membership if he hadn’t read the manifesto? You’ve recently been joined by many prominent personalities from various cross sections of the society. The only factor that has united them is your anti-corruption plank. I hope you realize that is just one of a hundred things you should be clear about when you dream of governance or serving India. Each of these new entrants hails from a different school of thought. While they’ll agree with you on your anti-corruption stands, you’ll find it impossible to contain them to your party’s position on issues concerning India, be it economy, foreign affairs, national security, jobs etc.

I’ve been a proud aam aadmi for whom your Delhi victory was more his than yours. I’ve supported you in every way I could, from exercising my franchise to coming out to the streets. I nearly gave you a mandate to govern my state. For a party which is still being born, how do you convince me that your national aspiration will not kill Delhi’s desires? You and I have dreamt of a corruption-free India; but should it not be at a sustainable pace? Why do I believe that you’re not in a mad hurry to grow inorganically? If you’re still on a learning curve, how do you justify the timing of your Lok Sabha plans especially when your government clearly has been struggling every day to deliver even simple office work?

In the end, Mr Kejriwal, I’m an aam aadmi, and I believe in cause and effect. I understand you’re dying to capitalize on the mass frenzy all over India, but please remember that if you fail to govern Delhi to the satisfaction of its residents, you’ll not only not be forgiven, you’ll soon become part of yesterday even before you could properly script your today. I want you to ponder upon your priorities and act accordingly. All the best!

Truly,

An aam aadmi

What I learned from the Anti-Corruption Movement

Joining politics has never been so cool. It’s like the new ‘in’ thing. Politics for long in India has been perceived largely as a corrupt bastion, a space that did not belong to you and me. Political activism by the huge apolitical class has mostly been limited to bashing up of politicians and their policies. Politicians have so far represented the lucrative yet untouchable strata of the society. Things have all of a sudden started to change. Names you hardly imagined to be associated to any form of active politics have started coming under political affiliations. Is it then the beginning of a new dawn? Or is it, like a wind, just a passing time we’ll soon be done with?

We don’t know that yet. What we do know however is that it is a collective pent up manifestation of decades of the ‘them and us’ syndrome. They’ve been the rulers and we’ve been misruled. The anti-corruption movement in the last few years hasn’t been an ordinary movement; it’s not been spearheaded by a galaxy of star politicians; except for occasional guest appearances on stage by some popular names, the movement has self-sustained, without big people and big money. It’s been a vehicle for people who for decades have been unheard, unattended to, and whose plight has been anything but humane. The elected governments have only been ‘by the people’, not ‘for the people’ and definitely not ‘of the people’!

Every night – however dark it is – ends and is followed by sunrise. The night we’re in is like a tunnel; it is so long we don’t remember when we got into it, and we don’t seem to know how far the end of it is. We’ve however seen occasional rays of light. The new government in the state of Delhi is just a catalyst. It doesn’t matter whether it succeeds or fails, sustains or perishes, delivers or fizzles. What matters is that it is possible to dream big, challenge the conventional, scare organized institutions, and make a difference. People have suddenly woken up and realized that the real power lies with them. The cry for transparent administration and clean governance is here to stay. This movement has shattered the doubt we have had for our fellow humans with respect to their honesty and integrity. We’d started to believe that everyone is corrupt and dishonest. It’s now been proved that the majority wants to still live a life of uncompromising dignity. It is the ‘system’ we ourselves had built around us that started questioning our intrinsic humanly attributes.

I don’t believe I’m stretching the truth way too much and I also don’t think I’m amplifying the significance of this movement when I say that it’s a victory for the common man and woman. Today’s voter is here to not only vote, but also participate, question, scrutinize, demand, and if necessary, call back the elected representative.

As a citizen of India, I want to heartily congratulate everyone involved physically or ideologically with the recent anti-corruption movement. I wish to thank all of them for re-instating my faith in the power of the masses. The movement has not been limited only to the Ramlila ground in Delhi or the Freedom park in Bangalore. The movement truly has penetrated deep inside you and me. It has harped the right chord in all of us who believed in endless possibilities and triumph of the right over wrong. 

I’m glad niceness again is nice and cool! 

The Curious Case of the Communist Movement in India

Growing up in a strong Communist family environment as a child, I was exposed to names like Karl Marx, Lenin, Mao Zedong and many more at a very early stage of my life. I started flirting with ideologies and philosophies my friends either didn’t know of or didn’t understand. That sure put me in a minority bracket. The stage was set for me to forever look at human beings differently, to always protest against suppression and oppression of all kinds, to stand by the truth. I was, mind you, way too young for all of this; but my mind would think of all humans as equals even though at that tender age, I didn’t know what equality in this world full of grey matters could be like. Then I started growing up!

The Leftist movement in India was pioneered by some of the stalwarts of our times. They stood for principles, they were mass leaders and they sacrificed their lives to bring equality into the society, to do away with ‘classes’ and above all to establish the dignity of human rights. The movement, quite sadly, however remained confined to only specific pockets of India, namely West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. The popularity amongst and the mass acceptance of the ideology by people of these regions could be attributed to a cluster of socio-cultural parameters. I still remember a series of conversations with my father dating back fifteen years or so about the imminent state of stagnancy the movement in India was poised to head to.

While there has been wide-spread criticism of the ideology itself for decades across the world and theories for and against the Communist principles have emerged, it in the context of parliamentary democracy has not been able to leverage itself outside of the rule book. While we’ll continue to debate Communism versus Imperialism, the sad truth that we’ve all observed but have not been able to do much about, is that the ideology has steadily been reduced to a bookish space, one that is good to talk about, but difficult to comprehend and apply. In a democratic structure like ours, translating ideology into votes and thereby capturing the power corridors is the most effective mechanism to script a positive impact of permanence for the society. The stark reality however is that Communism has failed to capture the imagination of the young India. Today’s youth simply doesn’t understand what the movement stands for and what voting for them in an election would yield. I’ve observed for many years now that the youth of the country doesn’t anymore identify with this belief. For them, this is something that has largely lost its relevance.

The question therefore is: are the Leftist parties in India working on modernizing and simplifying their ideologies to make them attractive to the people? Are they trying to bridge the gap between the Marxist principles and the reality of an electoral polity? Do they realize that electoral oblivion could soon be a reality, scary enough to shake up the collective wisdom of the Left top brass?

The ouster of the Left government in West Bengal – I had hoped – would act as the final wakeup call for them. Has it really? I, as a socio-political observer, do not find too many glaring evidences to suggest it has. The movement in Tripura is a classic case study of how to balance the equation between a principled position and governance through participative democracy of the masses. While I’m certain the custodians of the Left movement in India would love to emulate the Tripura model outside of the tiny state, I’m not convinced they have a practical long term strategy to achieve that and remain relevant to the changing times. Tripura – however great its governance model is – will fail to orchestrate the electoral gyration at a national scale. 

Time is the wisest entity known to humans. And the best way to honor that perhaps is to remain true to the winds of change. I know it’s a mammoth uphill task, dangerously close to be potentially branded as impossible. When the history of the Communist movement in India is written, the chapters from this point onwards could be the turning point in the curious case of Leftism. 

Catch Twenty Two for Congress

Such is the sorry state of the Congress party, it can neither swallow nor spit Rahul Gandhi out; he’s like a thorn stuck right in the middle of the neck.

Rahul has been at the helm of his party affairs for a decade now, and yet he’s not able to shed the cocoon of a reluctant, confused and unpredictable leader. He’s repeatedly declined offers made to him by many including his own Prime Minister to become an office-bearer, in an apparent bid to strengthen the grass root administration and the youth wing of the Congress party. He’s hardly been seen participating in debates in the Parliament, nor has he been forthcoming to discuss issues concerning the youth of the country. Sure, every leader has a different style of functioning. But then, a perpetual absence from the political stage doesn’t go down well with the voters of today. Certainly not anymore! Gone are the days when you could win elections and get elected time and again from the same constituency only by the power of rhetoric. While Rahul has demonstrated his mediocrity as a public speaker who often exhibits a lack of end-to-end understanding of social issues, there’s been an upsurge of sorts among people to seek more transparency with respect to political ideology, strategy and potential solutions to the country’s problems. Rahul clearly finds himself struggling to cope up with the mounting pressure of he needing to deliver.

He campaigned aggressively in Uttar Pradesh before the assembly elections with a view to bring back some luster to the Congress fortune in the state. The pathetic poll drubbing for the Congress was not only alarming, it was also a question mark against the charisma of being Rahul Gandhi. When he was parachute-landed into the Indian political arena, there was a lot of frenzy around him with villagers even thinking he was a reincarnation of the slain Rajiv Gandhi. But such has been the frustration level of people of this country with his back-to-back failure to deliver whatever he tried his hands on, Rahul for the first time in as many years as he’s been in politics, finds himself a partially unwanted man in his own constituency of Amethi.  To say this is unprecedented would be an understatement. Priyanka Gandhi is more than likely to intensify her presence in the constituency and woo the voters, if the Congress wants to avoid a possible humiliating defeat in its own backyard! 

The big catch twenty two situation for the party is that it can neither declare Rahul as its PM candidate as it could well be his political funeral, nor can it justify to the voters of the country as to why at a time when India needs decisive leadership, Congress is keeping mum and trying to postpone the embarrassment of naming a captain for a series already lost! The message is clear: no matter how Congress attempts to sort out this leadership vacuum, today’s voter knows there is chaos, and this in a parliamentary democracy may spell doom for the grand old party! 

The Big Run Up to 2014 LS Elections

(07 Jan 2013)

These are exciting times for the country as it gears up to elect lawmakers who will script the story of India over the next five years. If what has been transpiring in the political circles off late is anything to go by, the Lok Sabha elections promise to be one hell of a cliffhanger.

The recently held Assembly elections in few states have been dubbed by many as the semifinals before the big match. While the anti-Congress wave clearly has been felt sweeping across these states, and while the BJP hasn’t spared any opportunity to attribute their triumph to the Narendra Modi factor, it is also true that a new kid named AAP has been born. This wonder kid is now aspiring to go national.

AAP has overwhelmingly surprised their own calculation, and they have reluctantly or otherwise been given the power to rule the state of Delhi. While they’re constantly being criticized for a clear lack of executable strategies and plans, many feel despite the absence of their national level vision, they could manage to dent a hole in the traditional BJP urban pockets and make their presence – however insignificant it is – felt. With political pundits almost writing Congress off and with BJP riding high on Modi-wings, one would have expected a relatively smoother run for the saffron party, but for the emergence of Kejriwal’s AAP. The problem with the magic number is that we live in times of coalition politics. And even as less as 25 seats for the AAP may stir up the coalition arithmetic. They’ll however be faced with a mammoth ideological dilemma, not knowing what to do with the seats they’ll win. They’ve openly and rather brazenly many times declared every political party but themselves as corrupt. Clearly, a possible ‘third front’ shouldn’t be an option they’d like to be seen as contemplating. After all, such a front may comprise the likes of Jayalalitha and Mulayam – people AAP will struggle to team up with.

In a recent TV debate, senior Congress leader Manishankar Iyer repeatedly said his party was only concerned about ensuring Modi didn’t come to power at the Centre and he hoped that AAP would play a pivotal role in that. That’s widely seen as a proof of the grand old party’s helpless state of affairs. They know they’re all but over as far as their political fortunes this year are concerned.

My prediction is that in the coming weeks, we’ll see an intense level of media and political scrutiny of every move AAP makes. Political parties can’t openly question its motives out of a fear of becoming unpopular with the voters, which is all the more why its methods are going to be acid tested every day. As for Kejriwal’s government in Delhi, this is perhaps the only time they have to prove that in addition to distributing freebies, they do have implementation blueprints vis-à-vis governance and policies.

Nevertheless, we’ll be glued to the political arena as we follow the race to the Parliament!