A new Center Right Think Tank – Parts 3 & 4

Continuing the debate on the proposal from Rajesh Jain and Amit Malviya of Friends of BJP for a new Center Right Think Tank called the new India Policy Foundation. (Parts 1 & 2).

The Objectives and Activities

The two main objectives of the Foundation are:

• Research and propose new policy alternatives to address pressing national issues.
• Disseminate the work of the Foundation widely, especially with a view to directly impacting the course and content of national policy.

The Foundation will take up a number of activities:

• Undertake research studies on existing policies of the government, both at the central and state level, with a view to examining the impact of such policies, and suggest alternative approaches where such policies are not delivering in the desired manner.
• Initiate studies to propose new policies over and above what governments might have so far considered. This is expected to address the problem of short term thinking that is often prevalent in governments, at the cost of long term strategic planning.
• Hold consultations, seminars, closed door sessions with policy makers, conferences on important national issues to stimulate debate and guide the policy process. Engage with formal (TV shows / appearances etc) and informal media for large scale dissemination and outreach.
• Engage with and convene meetings with key policy makers (MPs / MLAs & beauracracy) and opinion leaders to shape national policy.

The Foundation expects to demonstrate tangible results within the first few years of its operation. The Foundation will try and forge links with like-minded individuals and institutions globally.

The Differentiation

The Foundation will be different from existing think tanks in at least two different ways: (a) It will focus on developing policy ideas for practical real-life issues, rather than engage in mere theoretical pursuits, and (b) Engaging with policy makers and opinion leaders will be an integral part of its mandate, and it will be judged by the direct impact it will make in shaping the policy discourse in the country.

This Foundation will institutionalise the process of public policy research and intervention outside of the Government machinery. It will do so by employing and engaging the best minds under one umbrella, aggregating valuable information and ideas relevant for India, initiating debates in the intelligentsia and civil society and influencing the collective conscious of legislators and bureaucrats. It will be intellectually best in class and a constructive source of inputs on all important areas of legislation and policy making. It will aim to become the fountain head of all policy research and decision making in this country.

It will distinguish itself from other Think Tanks by its “result-oriented” (outcome focused) approach to policy intervention. The effectiveness of its output will be measured in a scientific manner and employee benefits will be linked to it. It will only have a guiding philosophy, and will have no pre-defined political affiliation. It will be accountable to its trustees and the country.

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Arun Shourie on BJP – Final Part

Arun Shourie brings to closure his multi-part analysis of the rot within the BJP in an Op-ed series in the Indian Express (previous posts on Parts 1 , 2, 3)

The final part is titled “Ring out the Old, ring in the new“.

AMBITION TO GREED TO JEALOUSY TO UNSCRUPULOUSNESSAs the circle narrows, animosities within it become sharper. Rivalries become more intense: for now, all that each has to do is to do two or three in, and he has the top job. Lust is rationalised: “But you have to have fire in the belly. Otherwise you shouldn’t be in this game.”

Insatiable ambition triggers unquenchable greed.

That greed incites unremitting jealousy.

And that compels ruthless maneuvers.

As others play by the rules, the one who has shed all scruple triumphs. A vital resource turns out to be the rivals’ respective reach into cabals beyond the party. The one who can garner more money from prospectors; the ventriloquist who can malign through surrogates and thereby frighten others in the circle — as he has a mass-base among half a dozen journalists; this kind of reach proves decisive.

Two consequences follow. Cunning, jealousy, unscrupulousness at the top permeate to every pore of the organisation. The party becomes, to pluck Toynbee’s words, “a moral slum”. True, some young idealists still join it. But by the time they rise to any position of authority, their edges have been rounded off, they have been fully domesticated — look not just at our political parties, look at the civil services. And this is the character of the whole that the people see. The party is thus delegitimised.

The process is hastened if by chance the party is swept into office. For such a bunch cannot but be venal and corrupt in office. But there is a twofold difference. When some individual is picking pockets at a railway platform, little happens even if he is caught: he is an individual; the infamy is confined to him. But when, as member of a party and government, he is caught, the entire party and government are tarnished. Second, we are all judged by the ideals we proclaim. As this party and government have come out of a crusade, as they have come to office proclaiming that they will clean up the mess, the stain is that much deeper.

All this is brought to the attention of the leader. In fact, there is little need to bring it to his attention — the facts burst out day after day, even the cloistered leader cannot miss them. But as these concern his appointees, he is the indulgent father: “You may be right about him,” he says, “but many say that if one becomes a minister and does not do these things, then where was the point of becoming a minister?”

The example spreads. The exemplars become bold. The bold become brazen.

Seeing the party out of office — with its knifing and defaming of each other; seeing the party in office — venal and corrupt even if less than its rivals, the people conclude, “They are all the same. This party is no different.”

Its USP gone, the party continues to lose ground. The cries to stem the rot become shriller. They demand that responsibility be fixed. But the decision to fix responsibility is in the hands of the very ones who have brought the organisation to that pass.  

 

THE FOOLS, AND THE REAL FOOLS

The leader steps forth. Told by his henchmen that, once the process starts, the clamour will reach up to him, he insists that no individual is responsible, that the tradition of the party has always been “collective responsibility” — but was the “collective” at all involved in decisions? the laity demand. The leader raises the ante: if any one person is responsible, I alone am responsible. That silences calls for accountability — for who can say that, as, on his own telling, he is responsible, he make way for others?

He and his circle have little difficulty. Each post at every level in the party has been packed with weak men or henchmen. When the voices for change become shrill, all that the leader has to do is to signal the office holders to “give their views”. Who can say that their opinion is worth less than of the deviants? After all, they are the ones who are general secretaries and secretaries, presidents and vice presidents of state units.

Nor is that “strength” confined to the immediate present. The leader and his coterie control the loaves for tomorrow too: who will get tickets for elections in the future, who will get inducted into posts within the party— All these are the prerogative of the leader and his circle. They proffer these, and thus buy prospective silence.

That he is in total control of the organisation dooms the leader and the organisation with him all the more certainly: precisely because Rajiv Gandhi so completely controlled the situation within Parliament, he did not see that the situation outside had slipped completely out of his hands.

The lay-members run from one mansabdaar in the inner circle to another. The latter are bitter rivals of each other, no doubt — and it is in this that the lay members rest their hopes. But those in the inner circle are one against the outsiders. Moreover, there is a certain naivety in that running: the followers are appealing to these worthies in the name of values and ideals which those in the circle have long abandoned. They listen politely. They insinuate that the other member is responsible. As the followers leave, they exhale, “The fools….”

In turn, the followers — steeped by now in the same deviousness and hypocrisy — also learn to just listen politely. And go on doing exactly what they were doing. Solely to advance their personal fortunes.

The real fools — the ones who still adhere to the original ideals — try once more to salvage the party. To no more effect than they would were they “to try and dam a river with their bare hands.”

The hangers-on in the inner circle have no difficulty in undermining the counsel and warnings of these fools: they smear them with motives. The challenge that has been mounted is to the culture of intrigue, of personal aggrandisement, of contracts and nepotism, of cabalism. But the henchmen drown it in smears: “He is saying all this only because he is frustrated…. Only because he has not been given the post that he thought is his by right….” Actually, the hangers-on have even less than no difficulty for the leader is only too eager to believe that the warnings are impelled by base motive. 

 

MEN OF LITTLE FAITH

The defeats and setbacks about which these would-be reformers are wailing become tests of faith. Instead of instituting remedies, the leader proffers homilies: “Ups and downs are a part of life,” he intones. “We have gone down earlier also. But we have always risen again. Put what has happened behind you. Brace yourselves for the next battle.” That would be fine if, and only if, in the meanwhile the factors, the personnel and culture which had brought about the defeat have been changed. The fact, of course, is that these declamations are hurled at the members for the opposite purpose: to smother the demands for change, to kill every proposal for reform. For reform, the time is never right. When the party wins, there is obviously no need to change — after all, the leader, his team, the ideology have brought victory. When the party loses, casting blame is destructive, it is defeatist. One must unite, look ahead.

The declamations become sharper, they now aim not at the proposals but at the ones advancing the proposals. “We have seen days that were so much worse. But never did we lose heart. Never did we hear such voices of defeatism. Now we can see who has faith in the party and who does not.”

Nor is it just a question of faith in some abstraction, the so-called party. The point at issue is faith in the leader. This is tested not when the leader is triumphant and right — after all, everyone will hail the leader when he is triumphant and right. The real test is when the party has fallen into a ditch, when the leader has made a blunder. Only the one who stands by him at such times has faith in him!

That is the new thesis.

As a result, everyone who points to errors that need rectification has not just lost faith in the party, he is, by definition, personally disloyal to the leader. “What I have heard today, has pained me,” the leader tells the assembly — that is, the one who was making suggestions has inflicted pain on the exalted leader, the kul devta. 

 

TO BEGIN AGAIN

It is most certainly not the case that the organisation, in this case the political party must inevitably descend and disintegrate. Nor is it “fate”, or some external “law of nature” on account of which the political party goes down.  Of course, external factors may accelerate its decline: we noticed, for instance, that the decline is made more likely and is hastened when the political culture itself has become such that all other political parties are also proceeding along the same sequence. But such facilitation, so to say, by external factors apart, the reasons on account of which the political party declines are internal to it. In particular, they concern the deterioration of the political party as an organisation.

And the reason why it becomes almost impossible to stem the deterioration of the party is that its organisation is at all times in the hands of persons who would be most inconvenienced, who would almost certainly be dislocated were the changes which are necessary for its survival to actually come about. The key to turning it around, to arresting its descent, therefore, lies in the organisation somehow getting liberated from this handful.

This can happen, it can be brought about in several ways:

n For instance, a leader may acquire control of the organisation by accident, but, having acquired control, may feel himself to be so hemmed in by the continuance of persons who have dominated the organization till then, that he or she throws them out and reconstitutes the top leadership of the party. Recall, as an instance, the way Mrs. Indira Gandhi  threw out the “Syndicate” in 1969.

n It may happen by control falling into the hands of a new princeling who has yet not been domesticated by the organisation, who still retains some of the idealism of youth, some of the ideals and goals that originally inspired the party and the movement out of which the party was born:  recall, for instance, Rajiv Gandhi at the time that he gives his speech in Bombay against the sway that “power brokers” have acquired over the Congress. But in such an instance, as Rajiv Gandhi’s own example shows, the princeling must persevere. In Rajiv’s case, the establishment soon domesticated him and his initial impulses for reform were successfully neutralised.

n Or it may be that the world moves so swiftly and so completely away from the party and its ethos and it becomes so totally irrelevant that the irrelevance bursts even upon those who have been blinded by its hierarchies, its rituals, who have remained hitherto in the thrall of the leader and his henchmen. They rise, “We have nothing more to lose. Let us make one final effort.”

Only when the ordinary members or at least a significant minority among them are prepared to risk being cast in the wilderness once again — a risk that will become easier for them to grasp if some catastrophe befalls the organisation and it loses so completely that there is no option than to begin again — it is only in such an eventuality that reconstruction can begin. In such a circumstance, it is almost as if a new organisation is being started.

One way or another, the organisation has to be liberated from the vice of the leader and his henchmen, and the organisation has to be rebuilt anew. And for that to commence, the entire leadership at the top, as well as every nominee of it at every level has to be thrown out and a new lot put in place. That is the first step.

It is the necessary step, of course. But, as we have seen, it is not a sufficient step. The cycle can commence again, and very soon, unless some novel ways are instituted by which the leadership is perpetually renewed; unless those little circles that are certain to form are broken again and again; unless ways are instituted so that advancement comes to depend on work, on competence and integrity, on dedication to the original goals of the party than on the new virtues — intrigue, cunning, unscrupulousness.

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Arun Shourie on withering BJP – Part 3

Arun Shourie continues with his multi-part analysis of the rot within the BJP in an Op-ed series in the Indian Express (previous posts on Parts 1 & 2).

The fundamental reasonThis is the crucial factor: the decision to reform or not has come to vest in the hands of the very persons who will be finished were the reform to take place — recall the two examples we encountered at the beginning: the civil service that stymies every commission’s recommendations, and the legislators who do not rectify the manifest lacuna in the law which allows those convicted of murder to continue as members. Hence the paradox: the stronger that the leader and his circle appear, the weaker the organisation.

Factions mushroom

As ‘power’ now flows solely from the Leader, factions sprout even within this circle — tiny though it is — around him. All the more so because the only glue now is lucre, pelf. The courtiers are now an ever-changing kaleidoscope of ‘tactical alliances’: three join, get the fourth; then two of the three join and get the first. To each, the nearest neighbour is the greatest enemy. At every turn, each of the sudden allies prides himself on being clever, he preens himself on being successful. In fact, even as they succeed against each other, they are undermining the esteem of the people and the workers of the party itself for the circle as well as the leader who presides over it.

The leader frowns, but inwardly foments the factions; at the least, he does not scotch them. As each subaltern jostles to be closer to him, he feels important, indeed he feels indispensable — “They are not yet mature enough to manage on their own.” He preens himself as arbiter, as the dispenser of favour and frown.

But the jostling, the ever-shifting alliances and ruptures among the courtiers break through the curtains of the court. Three consequences follow. The character of the leader is soon evident to all: that he is the one who is fomenting factions, that he is the one who is playing favourites. Second, the courtiers defame each other successively: soon enough, people know enough about each of them to believe the worst of all of them. Third, both because the leader has been seen for what he is and because each of the subalterns has shown himself to be but a schemer and plotter, the whole — the so-called party — loses the esteem of the people.

As factions fight, as subalterns spread stories about each other, the leader moans, “The party was never like this… When we began, we toiled without any expectation at all that we would ever be in power. We just toiled. Today, everyone expects rewards, office, perks. The simplicity of our leader of the time, his utter selflessness, his humility…And this business of factions, and backbiting — it was unheard of.”

Each time he invokes that distant leader, he reminds the listeners how far he has himself come from that sainted person. He reminds listeners how, under his direct stewardship, the party has been converted from being a crusade to becoming an instrument for his aggrandisement and that of his chosen handful.

The slide accelerates

Cleverness in the leader produces cunning and deviousness among his henchmen. Cleverness, cunning, deviousness at the top produce feigned loyalty among followers. The followers stick to the party only in the expectation that their chance to grab the goodies will also come one day. But as the party suffers successive defeats, that prospect recedes. Seeing that this is not the vehicle to lucre that they had imagined, the followers lose enthusiasm. Chunks break away. To other parties — where, of course, the same sequence is in progress.

That the same sequence is being enacted in other parties makes it that much more difficult to arrest it in this party. The rival party is fielding a criminal. Only a more audacious, a more resourceful criminal can defeat him. As winning the requisite numbers is all, those who urge that tickets be given only to persons of integrity and competence are easily shoved aside as unpractical ‘idealists’ — in the very party that had been founded and nurtured by idealists, the word becomes a pejorative.

Such adoption of what is common to others is triply harmful to a party that grew out of a movement, that has sworn fidelity to ideals. To start with, it loses its claim to being different from the others. Next, its culture, its very character changes. And third, if by chance and for reasons that have little to do with its new character, it wins, its members are not able to handle the complex tasks of governance — any more than those ‘boors in office’ were able to manage the states they founded after destroying Rome.

These accidental victories, however, have consequences for the party itself also. The victories come about from time to time, for reasons that are independent of the drift in the party — the strength in an area of the candidates as individuals, the particularly perfidious conduct of opponents. But the consequence is that the leader and his coterie feel vindicated in their ways. Those who had been warning of what will befall the party should it continue in the direction it has been proceeding are now even more easily put down as the perpetual whiners, the disgruntled, frustrated alarmists, the congenital pessimists.

Even as the party wins the odd contest, it continues to lose that vital intangible — esteem among the people. It is seen as being more and more like any other conglomeration. Every memory of the movement from which it had originated, every memory of its original leaders only reinforces this inference. The party no longer claims that it is different from the others. On the contrary, the other parties hurl that erstwhile claim at it — as a taunt.

The party which was a movement has become routine. Routinisation robs every abhiyaan it launches of meaning. It dwarfs everyone. How true the lesson that historians hold out:

“Early Roman history has been described as the history of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. In the later Empire it took an extraordinary man to do anything at all except carry on a routine; and, as the Empire had devoted itself for centuries to the breeding and training of ordinary men, the extraordinary men of its last ages — Stilicho, Aetius, and their like — were increasingly drawn from the Barbarian world.”*

But the other parties are enacting the same sequence. They don’t have any extraordinary men either that this party may swear in. Yet something has to be done to shore up its fortunes. The party knows its own too well. They have been around, and have not brought victory. Those in rival parties may not be extraordinary, but they have the attraction of being in other parties. The party, therefore, inducts persons who are like members and leaders of the parties it has hitherto denounced. Better still, it inducts persons who are still members and leaders of those parties. To little avail. The entrants are seen as turncoats. That the party’s claim to being different is fake is reinforced. Those who have served it loyally for decades are incensed.

The clever spinners

The leader, cocooned, does not notice the ground slipping away, in part because he is by now surrounded by clever courtiers. The moment a victory turns up, they are able to produce a dozen reasons to show that it is due to the leader, and, incidentally, themselves. The moment a defeat occurs, they are able to produce two dozen reasons to prove that it is due to others. And another score why the defeat is due to special, transient, exceptional, local circumstances, and, therefore, is no cause for worry.

The party’s electoral losses resume. They accelerate. Fewer and fewer new recruits join the organisation. Those who join, join for reasons other than the ideas and ideals for which that party or organisation once stood — they do so, for instance, in the belief that doing so will get them jobs, posts, contracts.

The leader and his circle could easily see the portent, if only they would. Are only the already-converted coming to our meetings? Are they coming spontaneously, or do wehave to bus them? How many uncommitted, new listeners are coming to our meetings? Indeed, the leader and his circle do not have to go even that far. They just have to look only at their own diaries: how many persons outside our circle have we met in the last week? But they don’t see. The organisation is busy talking to itself. Those within the circle are busy knifing each other. And the leader? He is enveloped in an impenetrable fog of self-satisfaction: the day’s photo-opportunity, the day’s conclave, the day’s meeting of the ‘core group’, the day’s meeting of ‘office-bearers’, the day’s meeting of ‘allies’ — what a fulfilling day…

The party stops hearing those outside the party. The leader stops hearing those outside his circle — of weak men and henchmen.

Many factors continue to obscure the fact that the ground is shifting from underneath the party. For a while, to cite one factor, the ‘core constituency’ continues to support it: out of habit; out of loyalty to the old ideals; out of an obstinate consistency. But the leader and his circle reassure themselves, “Our core constituency is intact.”

They draw an operational inference: in the belief that doing so will solidify the support of this core constituency, they reinforce earlier slogans so as to demonstrate that they remain committed to their original ideology. But each time they proclaim the slogans, they remind listeners — all the more so, this core constituency as it remains truly committed to what those slogans had promised — that, when they had the opportunity, they did nothing for those promises to materialise. Regurgitating the slogans thus does little to mobilise the core constituency. On the other hand, it consolidates the opponents. And another thing has happened in the meantime: a host of new elements have entered the arena — for instance, the young. Each time the leader and his coterie proclaim those old slogans — ‘socialism’ of the Congress; ‘Hindutva’ of the BJP; ‘Marxism-Leninism’ of the assorted Communists — they remind these new entrants that they and their party are an obsolete bunch. And then, suddenly, one day, a day like any other, that ‘core constituency’ also walks away.

Kafirs and apostates

At each turn, well-wishers counsel reform, they counsel that the party change course. But by now the leader is the party, most certainly in his eyes. Therefore, he takes every suggestion to be a rebuke, an assault on him personally for conducting the affairs of the party as he has been conducting them. When the suggestion-which-is-censure comes from an outsider, the leader rejects it as the ranting of a kafir, of one who has never believed, who has never committed himself to the cause. When it comes from one who undeniably has been part of the crusade, the leader dismisses it as being the rant of a murtad, an apostate — as the rant of one ‘who has crossed the barricade’. His reflex is to insulate himself even more into an even tighter circle.

The leader whose example used to be the goad; whose mere presence induced attention; whose glance, whose whispered suggestion used to ensure compliance, he now stands on office, on rank, on the years he has spent ‘in the service of the party’. He demands respect — a sure sign that he no longer commands it. Another sign, a sure one that what, in the infinitely vaster context of civilisations, Arnold Toynbee had called ‘the creative minority’ — the small group that brought the civilisation into being, and presided over its flourishing — has become ‘the dominant minority’ — the small group that chokes, and presides over the ultimate disintegration of the civilisation.

The circle becomes tighter and more and more homogenous, more and more subservient and sycophantic.

As the leader and his cohorts move within this ever-narrower circle, they see less and less of what is going on without the circle, they hear less and less. This blindness and loss of hearing are brought about all the more swiftly the more hierarchical is the organisation — for the greater the respect for hierarchy, the more the leader and his circle are not just looked up to, they are venerated, they are treated as oracles, as paragons of virtue and dedication; and the more disciplined the organisation is — for the more disciplined it is, the less do subordinates speak the whole truth to their seniors, the less they think for themselves: “Sir, hamare yahaan to soochnaa aayi, sochnaa band,” a stalwart once explained to me.

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Arun Shourie on rot within BJP – Part 2

For the first part of this series by Arun Shourie on the BJP click here.

Reproducing the rest from the Indian Express today titled “The end of Ideology“.

After the others on whom blame may be pinned are exhausted, the leader and his circle turn on the ideals on which, on the ‘ideology’ for the realisation of which the movement had commenced and the party had been founded. So, one day they lunge for a ‘hard’ formulation — to win back the ‘core constituency’, they reason. The next, they lunge for a ‘soft’ formulation; one day they are stressing ‘our religion’, the next ‘our culture’; one day it is ‘return to basics’, the next ‘changing with the times’; one day they are declaring their faith in our history castigating persecutors of the past and their current heirs and apparitions, the next they are swearing by inclusiveness and geography¿ One day it is ‘reforms’, the next ‘Reforms with a human face’… One day it is ‘peasants’, the next ‘workers’, the third the inclusive ‘toiling masses’. And they are never short of quotations from the original leaders to justify each twist.

What the leader and his speechwriters convince themselves are sparkling new formulations, are, in fact, just clichés. “The party stands for a strong and prosperous India” — but which party doesn’t? “The party will make the 21st century, India’s century” — but which party says it won’t? Can one not go on adding to that declaration, and it would be just as acceptable? “The party stands for a strong and prosperous India, an India at peace with itself and the world”? “The party stands for a strong and prosperous India, an India at peace with itself and the world, an India in which no one goes to bed hungry”? “The party stands for a strong and prosperous India, an India at peace with itself and the world, an India in which no one goes to bed hungry, one in which the benefits of growth are shared by all”?

The leader and his circle convince themselves that they are making their party current, that, by the new formulation, they are going to attract new chunks. In fact, they convince the people at large that they believe in nothing; that their proclamations have all along been just opportunism dressed up; that they have no core — there is nothing that they will desist from doing if they see some advantage to themselves in doing it, that there are several things that just must be done but which they will not do lest some slight, momentary disadvantage befall them.

The people put no store by the words of these persons. They want to know, “Can this lot bring these goals to fruition any better than the other lot? Is the leader, are members of his circle living these ideals?” The ideas and ideology of this lot, rather the ideas on which, the ideals for the attainment of which this lot was founded no longer permeate or radiate into those who are outside the party or organisation. Even when they accept those ideas and ideals, those outside strain to hide their original source. Recall the net effect of the innumerable gurus and organisations that have been speaking for Hinduism in the last fifty years, or Marxism-Leninism and social justice for that matter: how well the words of Toynbee fit those who, almost furtively, live Hinduism today or do their bit for a more just society — “Under these sinister auspices, such selective mimesis [imitation, adoption] as occurs takes place on the barbarians’ own initiative [in our context, on that of those outside the party or organisation]. They show their initiative in imitating those elements which they accept in a manner which will disguise the disgraceful source of what has been imitated.”*

Character changes, relations are transformed

By such twists and turns, the leader and his circle, far from inducting new adherents, discredit ideology itself; they turn people off even the talk of ideals. Another factor smothers ideals and ideology. The movement became a party. That party has since become a mere electoral machine. But as general standards deteriorate, the party has to ‘adjust’; it has to effect ‘compromises’. The sole object is to attain office. And the sole criterion for that is numbers. Hence, winnability is all. Whoever can win a seat, be he a criminal or blackguard who has just deserted from the rival camp, is the one whom the party fields. Three consequences follow at once and inevitably. First, the proclamations of the party — ideals, ideology — reek more and more of hypocrisy. Second, the people at large see that this party is no different from any other. Third, and this is what has the deepest consequences for the future, the character of the party changes forever. Everyone above and below comes to rely on the clever strategist, on the deceitful, for he leads them to victories. Either that clever person or someone even more deceitful rises to the top. Gandhiji’s warning comes true — “An organisation that relies on rogues to do its work shall soon have rogues at its helm.”

But the transformation doesn’t stop there. Indeed, it has just begun. For the character of the one who has wrested the top stamps itself on the entire organisation, on every level of the entire organisation. His very ‘success’ legitimises ambition, greed, intrigue, double-dealing. “If he doesn’t have what it takes to capture even a party,” the thesis runs, “if he doesn’t have enough fire in his belly to capture even a party, how in hell is he going to lead the party to capture the country?” Ambition, greed, intrigue legitimised, every one becomes every one’s rival. Every one comes to suspect every one. That irreplaceable adhesive — Ibn Khaldun’s ‘group spirit’ — is rent asunder.

Both relationships — the one of the leader with his circle, as well as that of members of the circle with each other — are transformed. Every relationship is now pure and simple barter. The leader seeks out not colleagues but clients, not partners but dependents, not associates but instruments. He uses the henchmen, of course. But they also use him. They are nobodies without him. But with him, even with the rumour that they are close to him, they can strut around, and rake in the perks. They strain to be useful to the leader: helping one relative of his out of a difficulty, helping another relative set up a business… The leader demurs, “Is this really right?” They say what he wants to hear: “But why should he suffer just because he is your son?” The leader allows himself to be persuaded, after making sure that everyone has seen him hesitate. They now have him entangled into those “interlocking webs of mutual complicity.” He is as dependent on them, as they on him. Recall the cow-and-calf symbol of the Congress[I], and what the then chief minister of Haryana, Bansi Lal said during the Emergency, after he had helped ram through Sanjay’s Maruti plant, “Jab bachchda mere haath mein hai, gayiyaa kahaan jaayegi?”

But, of course, henchmen don’t just work to ingratiate themselves with the leader. They use their proximity to him to seize spoils for themselves. Indeed, in the organisation — and the more ‘disciplined’ and hierarchical the organisation, the more certain this is — they are the ones who are liable to make a grab for the riches because, even if evidence were to erupt in the public domain, the leader is least likely to act against them. They are the ones he is certain to shield.

What had begun as a relationship of devotees who had gravitated to an idol, of persons who had gravitated to the leader because he was devoted to a mission, because he personified ideals, becomes a purely transactional relationship. The first to erode is reverence for the leader. Next, the fear of him. That has but to happen and anarchy breaks out in the organisation, a free-for-all. The leader lectures, he admonishes, he threatens ‘disciplinary action’. Members listen. They even make a show of cowering. And resume their skirmishes. The leader wrings his hands, “The party was never like this…Nobody listens… Indiscipline…” Even as he does so, he is externalising the state of affairs — as if he himself has nothing to do with what has come about.

The Zulu proverb

As relatives and henchmen acquire properties on the sly, as they run businesses benami, the party loses its ability to fight the rulers. The leader knows, the henchmen know that the rulers know. So, they take up ‘issues’, but never push them to the point where the rulers will be really inconvenienced. As the Zulu proverb has it, “A dog with a bone in its mouth, can’t bark”.

Indeed, they go farther. They cultivate links sub rosa with opponents, in particular with rulers. They say this is so as to give the country ‘a constructive alternative’. In fact, it is for getting a few crumbs from the rulers’ table, at the least to keep out of trouble. Rulers readily flatter them by making a show of paying attention, they readily steer a few contracts their way — and thereby gain control over the very party that was to watch over them. The sequence weakens the leader vis a vis the rulers. It weakens him as much within the party: no leader who is crooked can straighten others.

The henchmen

These henchmen become the leader’s eyes and ears. Indeed, his ‘reference group’, they function as the pliable conscience he now wants. They feast off him when he is in office. They dissuade him from quitting when he clearly should. Truth be told, that takes less doing than one might imagine: at such turns, the leader is only waiting to be ‘persuaded’. They pander to his vanity exactly as Ibn Khaldun describes: by heightening the pretences of authority around him, even as they rake up the fruits for themselves.

But the henchmen don’t try just to be useful to the leader. Their power, their indispensability depends on making the leader feel insecure. So, they are always conjuring up news of conspiracies. They are forever isolating the leader — sowing doubts in the leader’s mind about one and all, in particular about his former comrades.

It is not that the leader never sees the cost these henchmen are bringing upon him. From time to time, evidence bursts forth that makes the continuance of some one of the henchmen completely untenable. The clamour against him becomes so insistent that the leader is brought to the brink of sending him away. Quite apart from the danger that exiling one who knows so much may entail, the leader is easily persuaded to hold his hand: “But they are not after me. Their real target is you. The moment you show that you can be pressurised, they will come after you” — recall the time it took for Indira Gandhi to act against Antulay; recall how Rajiv hung on to Ottavio Quattrochi.

The ordinary members watch with dismay as the sway of these henchmen envelops the leader, and, just as much, as their pillage begins to discredit the party. But at this stage they shiver at doing anything: they do not speak out; they do not collect evidence. They wait for something to turn up. They wait for someone else to expose and nail the henchmen: Ibn Insha was right, Haq achcha, iske liye Koi aur mare, to aur achcha

They wait for the leader to do something — “At least in his own interest.” Of course, the leader does nothing. He is immersed in his interests of the moment, and, the henchmen are useful agents.

Precisely because his failure to act against the henchman who is causing him so much avoidable trouble makes him seem weak, the leader just has to act against others: to show that he is strong, that he will not tolerate “indiscipline”, that he can and will quell “insubordination”. He lashes out — naturally at persons outside his circle. What were mere suggestions from them are projected as criticism; what was criticism merely to arrest the decline is projected as disloyalty. Everyone sees through the vehemence: everyone sees that the leader has an elastic ruler — a long one for his cabal, his instruments, a much shorter one for others.

The transformation cannot be hidden from the people any more than a grating cough. The group begins to lose legitimacy. Constitution? What Constitution? One norm after another, one rule after another is set aside. The so-called constitution of the party provides that posts — every post at every level — be filled by elections. In fact, at each level, each gathering hails the leader, and ‘unanimously resolves’ to leave the choice of office-bearers to him.

The party hierarchy comes to consist entirely of nominees — of the leader, and of those who, for the moment, have managed to insinuate themselves into the good books of the leader. Tickets have to be distributed for the forthcoming elections? The ‘state leaders’ — nominees all — ‘recommend’ some names. Neither the leader nor his nominees in the central organs have any system of independent verification. Lobbying, insinuation, come to count more than analysis; collateral ‘persuasion’ more than evidence; bargaining more than deliberation. The nominees don’t do well? There was dhaandali in the selection of candidates, someone shouts. He is smeared with motives, drowned with innuendo.

Meetings follow meetings. In each, ritual replaces substance. But the rituals, the routine are not for nothing. The ritual — the same “state-wise” reporting — is a device: a device to dodge the issues that are on everyone’s mind. Abhiyaans follow abhiyaans. They too become just routine.

The losses mount. Calls for honest examination. For accountability. The leader and his circle swing into action. They galvanise their nominees in the states. “No, no. We can’t afford any witch-hunts,” these nominees of nominees declaim. “Elections are coming up in our state. Inquiry-shinquiry will cause all sorts of mud to be hurled. The media will be full of it. Our chances will be destroyed.”

As further losses occur, an inquiry to fix responsibility is at last instituted. But who is to inquire? The leader and his circle — who, after all, are responsible for all the decisions that have led the organisation to this pass — are the ones who alone can decide. They pick from among themselves, or, if the façade of ‘independence’, of ‘objectivity’ has to be maintained, their weak men and henchmen.

The inquiry never sees the light of day. In any case, no reform that may have resulted from the inquiry is ever visible. Perhaps for good reason: in all probability, each inquiry has concluded that no individual was responsible. The shortcomings were ‘systemic’!

Filed under: Guest Posts, Offstumped Community, Offstumped Community Posts, Uncategorized

Rail Budget – Is IR set to move forward or backward?

The major highlight of the recent railway budget was the following

“Inclusive growth” and expansion of rail network to reach development to every corner of the country is core to developmental approach.

Economically unviable projects need to be viewed with social perspective being economic necessity for backward areas and under privileged.

Expert committee to advise on innovative financing and implementation of such projects.

One would like the railway minister to define what she means by inclusive growth here. Indian railways ever since independence has viewed projects only with a social perspective.

If economic viability alone was the criterion, none of the projects launched in last eight years would have got approved by the planning commission.

At the same time one need to keep in mind that railway is for mass transport and cannot connect every village with every other village and it is the buses which act as feeder to the trains. What is required is rationalization of trains and buses to provide the passengers from every corner of the country a comfortable journey option.

The operating ratio which represents the efficiency of the railways(the lower the better) reached all time high of 98.5% from 93% during the period 2000 to 2001.

 During 2001, IR was able to allot only 350 cr towards capital fund for new projects. The Mohan committee in 2001 had noted that IR was terminally in a debt trap.

In the year 1987 IR launched the Project Unigauge, to increase the capacity, as well as have seamless connectivity and open different routes. 22 years on, 1000’s of km across many states are still left to be converted.

Infact by year 2000 (a well documented list is maintained by IRFCA community). IR had 17000 route km still left in MG.

The reason these projects moved slow, was IR had not much fund to speed up many of these projects. They dragged on for eternity. Passengers were put to difficulty. They have lost the numerous connections and trains they enjoyed.

Even when the lines were opened, IR was not able to operate even a fraction of the original trains in these routes and also connect all places that were connected before.

The main reason again was, it needed mammoth number of BG coaches. Only RCF and ICF produced these coaches. Most of the coaches being produced were only enough to introduce new trains in BG lines, and replace existing ones.

As a result the towns previously served by MG were left with few trains than when in MG. This is at a time when traveling public volume increased beyond imagination with state and city borders becoming irrelevant.

Many times, though not officially stated, one clearly got a clue that projects requiring only a few months to complete were dragged on for want of coches to form the rakes. Neither the expansion of RCF or ICF was done. No plans for new coach factories were firmed up despite being in proposal for a good time. The reason again was want of funds. That these projects took eternity meant that many island MG sections were created. Their maintenance, periodic overhauling, manufacture of new locos, all became problem.

MG track renewals and acquisition of MG wagons and coaches has been stopped since several years ago. Many sections ended up having token services for years.

It so happens that many of the MG and NG lines cut through India’s tribal heartland. IR continues to operate the NG trains for the sake of these poor people with tickets rates being very cheap. As discussed above, with IR not even able to convert the main trunk MG route till now, these routes still lie untouched, leaving the tribal with lesser connectivity and comfortable travel that most of India enjoys.

Not only, this IR was hardly able to add any new lines to the network, but many lines were condemned during 1970 and in the year 1987, as it became impossible for the sagging IR to operate services in these lines.

Doubling, signaling works, ROB/RUB , electrification all moved slowly. It was not able to take up new projects even when they were economically viable or strategically important. IR literally was not able to meet the aspiration of its customers. IR was in an era of shortages on every front. It was also draining the finance ministry, the money which could have been used for other purposes.

During this period IR freight share came down. Yet IR always did its social obligation. Passenger fares were always cheaper than any developed country. Infact passenger operations were loss making venture for IR. There was no economic viability in it.

In 1970 the salary of a class IV employee( more than 80% belong to bottom layer) was 100. It has now increased to 100 times. The diesel was 30 paise a litre and we know the rate today. The diesel consumption is also almost 5 times more than what it was in 1970(569,025 kilo litres).

Yet the passenger rates have seen only a less than five fold increase during this period. And think of the fares in slow passenger trains and second sitting fares which are still very low. The AC fares too are just a ninth of those in Europe. All passenger train operations are loss making for IR except the AC travel.

So is it that railways were so far, only looking at economic viability or an exclusive growth?

After 2001, the railway ministers esp Lalu allowed greater freedom to the officials. The staff came up with innovative ways to shore up the efficiency thanks to the freedom they enjoyed except with respect to Bihar. The operating ratio was brought down to 76 by the time the 2008 budget was presented.

This was due to the way passenger operations was streamline. Rake sharing options were explored to the fullest. With minimum rakes more trains were operated.

Even a day of idling of a rake in a zone even not its home zone was used to operate specials and increase the revenue. Line capacity was being increased by strengthening tracks, increasing the sectional maximum speed, signaling changes by doing away with the sophomore ones.

Officials were encouraged to explore innovative ways to increase revenue. Trains names were allowed to be branded. The famous example of kurkure express of SWR. Trains rakes were also thrown open for advt.

The famous Airtel branded coaches of kovai express in SR and the Vodafone coaches again in SR was classic example. The railways lands available in plenty, levels above passenger area in stations were allowed to develop budget hotels, convention centre and mall through IRCTC.

A station or even all the stations in entire division was thrown open for branding. Officials were allowed to directly contact the corporates for raking in the revenue.

 On the freight front which was the cash cow of IR and one that subsidized the passenger operation, again innovative ways were explored to increase efficiency and revenue. Stainless steel wagons were explored, attempts were made to increase volumes of freight transported to reduce unit cost, contracts that ensured minimum amount of tonnage were signed with corporates and turn around time for wagons were reduced drastically.

The general managers of zone were given the freedom to actively attract freight volume by vesting them with powers to offer rebates of upto 30%. Minimum period of run for wagons without maintenance were increased. All and many more of these efforts thanks to the freedom enjoyed by officials resulted in OR dropping, cash surplus increasing and the turnaround happened.

Even a loss making zone like SR that just depended on passenger operations for revenue reduced its OR from 120% to 102% in a few years time, while it was expected to increase.

What did all these mean to the passengers?

The IR was able to dream.

 All measures at increasing capacity were carried out.

This meant more trains for the passengers.

Gauge conversion was speeded up.

Many may not know. there existed a MG network that extended from Rameshwaram/Tirunelveli/Kollam in south to Delhi in North. This network was broken up in 1995 in Andhra and rest was almost taken up only after 2004. The southern portion till Madhya Pradesh is to get over now and in 2008 budget the northern portions remaining half was given the approval at an estimate of 1400 cr.

Think how long it would have taken had it not been for this balanced approach of railways. Still there is a good amount of MG and NG left over in the always ill-treated states of Gujarat, Rajashthan and Madhya Pradesh. Expansion of ICF and RCF was sanctioned.

New coach factories and loco factories were given the go ahead. Doubling and electrification moved at greater speed. Many new line projects were taken up, many economically non viable and those that had been crawling for years speeded up.

Infact almost all new line are not viable but for freight routes and this was the reason planning commission looked at rate of return. Stations were renovated to hold 24 coach trains, with vision statement even aiming 26 coach trains.

The vision statement even looked at increasing slow passenger speed to allow for increasing capacity. Many stations were also converted to crossing stations to increase capacity. Freight corridor similar to golden quad road corridor was planned. This would provide the cash cow – the freight quicker service, handle greater volumes and also free up the much needed space on passenger front for increased capacity.

Amenities like LED coach indicators were made available to even small stations. Not only in station, LED display was made available in trains of SCR, automated announcements inside train were introduced, stations were renovated, escalators for passengers in many stations were installed, automated ticket vending machine and smart cards were introduced, the internet booking was simplified, and many options were provided for passengers, resulting in over 50% of bookings being made by internet in many zones.

It also allowed private agents to open centres with bare minimum investment in remote areas for booking tickets against a minimum commission.

Unreserved ticketing centre or UTS counters were opened at many places and passengers were allowed to buy unreserved tickets three days in advance. Even season tickets went online. E-tickets were issued through state governments, petrol pumps, post offices, ATM. Infotainment services like DTH, internet were introduced to begin with in premium trains with plans for roll out across the network. IR even drew up 1 lakh crore worth of modernization of signaling, track, rolling stock and station for passenger sake.

On the freight front Goods yards were set for modernization and expansion. Even loss making zone SR has started the use of disposable take home bed rolls and pillows to make it more comfortable for passengers.

On the safety front many ROB/RUB were approved and works started, satellite based anti collision devices were installed in many sections. CCTV cameras were proposed to be installed in ac coaches’ corridor. Public grievances department was made friendlier. I can vouch for this.

Any suggestions, even on operating front received a prompt reply even if it was silly. One may not like the answer, but the effort was clear on the IR part to address the concerns of it customers. Hospitals and colleges were proposed to be developed in railway hospital area along with private partners. The Perambur railway hospital in Chennai was among the first under this scheme.

Lastly, the catering services, kitchens were also set for an overhaul. In these five years slowly but steadily, all aspirations of public over the last 30 years were slowly getting addressed. I am not saying everything was perfect, but this was a huge leap forward compared to the status pre 2001.

IR was dreaming big, not only dreaming big but also now had the capacity to realize its dreams. It was able to meet passenger aspiration of increased capacity, improved amenities and at low cost. All these aspirations were met while keeping the passenger fare constant. It was only possible because IR thought of profit and went ahead and took all actions for achieving it. The kind of growth needed to benefit passenger cutting across social spectrum was impossible without this approach. Not only was there growth in the dead IR, it was a growth that benefited people across the spectrum.

How were all these passenger friendly measures possible – Concentrating efforts on efficiency and providing actual succor to passengers, rather than on dole outs. Dignity lies in facilitating and meeting aspirations of passengers than in these dole outs. These dole out are the one that really question their dignity. They want a comfortable ride, not traveling by sitting and sleeping in the floors or cramping themselves in the unreserved coaches or by inviting the wrath of fellow travelers. It is this dignity in travel they expect.

The public want more capacity, more trains, better amenities and a feel that makes them proud of their very own IR. The rates are already so less that they are prepared to pay it if given these facilities. Not the kind of free passes and dole outs, train schemes aimed at votes that will once again eventually lead the IR to a stage that it can offer nothing to the passengers.

Many such similar passes existed in the 90’s and whether they benefited the travelers or not, the administration was only concentrating on introducing such schemes and the result was for all to see. When rates are so less and the media personnel have a comfortable living, where is the need for such passes for media. Such passes could instead be provided to teachers who are willing to serve in remote locations away from comfort of their home.

A lot has been discussed here, and when we take a look at the budget speech conveying the vision of new minister, there is nothing new in it. Most of what was mentioned in budget has been discussed above and it is being passed off as something new. Even trains and extensions announced in interim budget were announced as if it was a new one.

Thus the three statements which were the highlight of this budget have been achieved more than ever in last 8 years and is not something of a new vision, except for that obfuscating term inclusive. When was the railway exclusive to be inclusive suddenly? So does the term inclusive means catering to religions specifically and not to the cross section of social spectrum? It would be welcome if the ‘real’ connotation of this word is made clear to the nation. And when officials with greater freedom have turned it around and found innovative ways of increasing revenue to meet passenger aspiration, where is the need for an expert committee robbing the employees of the freedom to think out of box?

The only vision of this budget has been some passes and some trains announced with much hoopla.

Let’s look at some of the schemes introduced. The izzat scheme as demonstrated above is nothing but a beizzat scheme. The eastern railway around Kolkata is known for maximum losses due to ticketless travel. It is perhaps these acts that have been legalized in this budget. The aam aadmi has the dignity to travel by paying for his tickets and by treating him like a ticketless traveller, this scheme has only questioned their dignity.

This very blog during elections debate witnessed a comment. One of the commentators had relayed his conversation with a small time vendor who depended on the railways, in a remote station in Andhra. He aspired for revolutionizing the way tickets were issued using modern technology, innovative schemes for travel and did not talk of legalizing free passes. This saga of free passes is taking the country and its people back to the nineties when they want to move forward, move forward with dignity and pride.

The next big drainer is the YUVA train ac scheme. As we have seen earlier passenger train operations are a loss making venture and only the AC fares end up being profitable. This was the basis for the Garib rath trains that allowed many a lower middle class to experience AC travel while also being profitable for railways. When the sector of its run was correctly targeted, it was mutually beneficial. What fares does this YUVA scheme propose? RS 299 for travel upto 1500 km. The SL fare, which is loss making for 978 km is 331 and in GR the fare for CC which is seated acco as mentioned in this scheme, for just 1000 km is 499. On the face of it, this scheme is sure to take the IR down with it.

Then coming to double decker trains, these were in the consideration for good time. Infact one among the 14 types coaches propsed for Rae bareily factory is SC double decker day cars. Why was it not announced before- there is a good number of design issues involved. Also these are not new to IR. Some used to run on the Mumbai surat and pune sector, but had issues due to cramping and suffocation. (image)

The catenary posts, locos all are major issues before this gets implemented. This will take some time and has been announced as a fancy.

The non stop trains are another attempt at fooling people. This is just a combination of Sampark kranti and garib rath. The Sampark kranti when introduced by Nitish in his last budget was a similar concept and it was to have min stops in the state of orgin and only technical halts elsewhere. But its status 5 years down the line is very well known.

Same is the status of many prestigious trains of past which were introduced with just a handful of stops and had average speed ranging in the 65 km/hr when even modern day superfast definition is 55km/hr. There just cannot be a train without stop from say Chennai to delhi, because it needs to have its technical halts for loco reversals, loco change, crew change etc.

In course of time these technical stops would become official stops. And with increasing demand for trains from every station in the country, slowly demand for stoppage will come up and trains will be stopped. One can be sure that even before introduction there will be demands for extension, and stoppages.

One only hopes that instead of indulging in such gimmicks, passenger’s real aspirations are met and IR is taken down the path of becoming the No1 in world while offering the passenger the best facilities at lowest cost. Only if IR remains healthy can it meet the passenger’s aspirations.

On the evidence of previous tenure till 2001 and the gimmicks involved in not coming out with any new vision but passing off the existing vision as new vision and only coming out with measures bound to take IR down the Air India way in the name of inclusiveness, one is circumspect and worried for the pride of the nation – IR.

Already OR has increased from 89( increased to 89 due to doubling of 20000 cr wage bill in 2009) to 92.5 from interim budget to current budget. It is surprising that UPA govt wants to unnecessarily fiddle its crowning jewel from its first tenure. Usually one will be proud of it, but I see petty Bihar politics instead. If they though that these steps were part of progressive agenda, I am sorry it looks to be a regressive agenda.

The actions so far are mixed and only give signs of taking IR back to its dark days, while the real need is further tweaking and finally a restructuring of the railways into a regional, inter-state, networking&operations and freight subsidiaries with minimum government interference.

The 2010 budget will give us more definite clues of IR’s path in the next five years.

Filed under: Guest Posts, Offstumped Community, Offstumped Community Posts, UPA-II Critical Appraisal

Guest Post – IndiaBanao

Another one in continuation of ideas for channelizing and sustaining Citizen Action.

For all right-thinking Indians, it is important to note the arrival of www.indiabanao.org. Please do visit the site and register. Its charter, goals and mission statement are laudable (in my view):

The India Banao! platform is oriented around a right-of-center political philosophy. We believe in a market-based economy, strong governance, effective regulatory institutions, and a liberal society. We are absolutely clear and transparent about our views and welcome a chance to engage with those who have different political philosophies. However we are not a political organization, and have no intention of becoming one.

India Banao! has three primary goals:

Provide opportunities for young people to participate in public life.
Engage India’s political leaders to address the key issues facing young people today.
Raise general awareness on youth issues such as higher education reform, job creation, and safer cities.

The people behind it are noteworthy. One is Mr. Jayant Sinha. He is the son of the former FM of India, Mr. Yashwant Sinha. For many and in my book too, he is a highly under-rated FM compared to you-know-who. He did more for Indian economic reforms than others whose reputations now dwarf their real achievements in reforming the economy in India.

The other protagonist is Sanjeev Sanyal, former Southeast and South Asia Senior Economist at Deutsche Bank in Singapore, Rhodes Scholar, winner of Eisenhower fellowship and author of “India’s transformation”. What is highly commendable about what Sanjeev and Jayant have set out to do is that Sanjeev recently relocated to India. He decided to walk the talk. Rest of us write emails and Op-Eds

I have read Sanjeev’s book “India’s transformation” in full. Whether one likes or hates a book can only be said after one reads it. It means that the book has to be read-able. Sanjeev’s book passes that test wonderfully and easily. It is eminently and easily readable. It has an easy and flowing style, a good sense of humour and is laced with personal anecdotes.

The book does slow a bit in the second half and that is only because Sanjeev tackles some weighty matters such as reforms and the crisis in higher education. Yes, that is interesting. Contrary to oft-repeated claims that India has enough trained engineers and scientists, Sanjiv argues cogently that primary education is now on a stronger wicket and that higher education is not. It is important for Indophiles to think about.

Sanjeev would find very few arguing with him when he lays out the case for legal reforms in the country. It is an area along with education where the windows have been firmly shut to reforms by lawyers and by bureaucrats respectively. Unsurprisingly, both are State subjects (as opposed to Federal) in more ways than one.

What is missing from the book is a more substantive elaboration and establishment of the case for India’s transformation. The case for that could be made through observation of what is happening in grass-roots experiments, in citizen experiments and governance initiatives such as RTI, etc.

Perhaps, Sanjeev has decided to write a sequel to his first book – a teaser – by setting out to contribute to India’s transformation by being present in India. All strength to him.

Liberal right-of-centre movement in India is almost non-existent. It needs all the support it can get, to counter the pseudo-secular, divisive, inefficient and ultimately communal Leftist and socialist agenda. More importantly, India Banao! starts at the right end of the continuum. It does not start as a political party but as a movement. Politics should be its culmination and not its origin.

We should enroll in the site and keep visiting it. Pl. do provide them ideas and spread the word around.

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V. Anantha Nageswaran

The capacity to wreak destruction with your models provides the ultimate respectability
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Filed under: Guest Posts

Guest Post – Channelizing Sustaining Citizen Action

In general, a lot of the impulse to act on the part of Indians is emotional and it is understandable. That should find its outlet in candlelight vigil and signature campaigns. That is fine.

As ordinary citizens, we cannot do much about the gaps in intelligence, security, co-ordination, nodal agency establishment, etc. They are known issues.  Intelligence tips had been received and ignored. So, it is about lethargy, bureaucratic indifference and an unaccountable political establishment.

So, it boils down to good governance and accountability. These are old issues. This tragedy has crystallised these longstanding lacunae dramatically. That is because the upper-income and the well-heeled felt the failure of governance and failure of accountability more directly and dreadfully than even the poor have.

That is actually a good thing to come out of this tragedy.

The solution is not to record our protest through non-existent constitutional provisions and not to pay taxes.

I guess if our politicians are all about enjoying rights without responsibilities, a process of change that wants to restore the balance between the two cannot succeed with us abdicating our responsibilities. That won’t set a good example.

The process of improving governance has been underway for a long time but in fits and starts and through individual and isolated initiatives.

Association for Democratic Reforms in India (www.adrindia.org) has been doing some excellent work in this area. We had forgotten the election officer in Bihar who conducted the first possibly clean elections in which Lalu Prasad Yadav lost. ADR India felicitated him. 

How about replicating it in other states? How?

One answer is for us to vote. It might sound too simple and might appear as a letdown considering the agitation and frenzied state of our minds now. Believe me, it is effective.

Dr. Arun Shourie has mentioned it repeatedly in recent speeches.

A hypothetical example makes the point well.

In a constituency of 4 million people with 70% eligible voters, 70% participation in voting and a minimum of 52% of votes polled secured by the winning candidate would make for an inclusive MP.

What we have is this:
70% eligible voters; 40% votes polled and 30% won at most by the winning candidates. 70% of votes polled goes to other candidates.

So, the winning candidate has 336,000 votes out of the eligible 2, 800, 000 votes. Just over one-tenth (12%). Naturally, all our politics is divisive, pitting Indians against Indians.

So, it is about participation in the process to make it inclusive.  That alone has the potential to change a lot of things about the manner in which these guys (MPs) conduct themselves.

Then, one can ask for accounts of the expenditure under the Member of Parliament Local Area Development (MPLAD) schemes.

That brings me to the “Right to Information” legislation – RTI.

For now, we have RTI in many states. But, it is still an imperfect and under-development tool. We just need to focus on using it like never before. For now, that is the best way to ensure accountability.
We need to get more sectors, departments covered under RTI, exceptions list pruned and stringent punishments given for violation. More importantly, the availability of RTI has to be publicised widely to all Indians.

One could use Internet technology combined with RTI to achieve this. If some is interested and has the resources (time, some money and skills in internet applications), I can put them in touch with others who had done some preparatory work in this area already.

One of the most tangible reductions in public expenditure, divisiveness and improvement in public policy can come from the simultaneous conduct of State and Central elections.

It is such a logistical thing that one cannot fathom why politicians are opposing it. Too many right things are not done and even wrong and divisive agenda pursued because of the election cycle. It takes long to undo these, if at all.

Together with likeminded people like ADR India or constitutional lawyers, one should pursue this relentlessly until political parties agree. This would have enormous benefits in my view.

Direct participation in politics can be an end-goal not the first goal, in my view. But, it requires lots of money, organisational abilities and a charismatic leader. If we can find some one who has all three, it can be fast-forwarded. Otherwise, it would be a wrong thing to pursue now.

In addition to the above, serious folks should seriously think of funding a national interest think-tank. Not just in foreign policy but also in any policy area, education of the public and politicians on the issues in an objective and non narrow-interest driven manner is absent. We have proposals with us from good people. It can be set up. Funding is a key constraint.

If some one with serious commitment, network and connections is interested, I can put him/her in touch with the people who have given a lot of thought to it and are quite advanced in their mental road map, already.

We need to keep this issue alive in people’s minds. Intensity is the key. Jihadists do the brainwashing and constant reinforcement through use of DVDs. One possibility is to have a good creative director (I know of a few in Chennai) put together a 5-minute ‘documentary’ on this through a collage of shots. Most TV networks would air that for free.

We can think of sponsoring one such enterprise. This would keep up the intensity.

I know that I had not come up with any one “Aaha” initiative. Perhaps, Tom Friedman’s suggestion in his New York Times column is one such “aaha” suggestion. If we can suggest that idea to the Pakistanis through some Pakistani friends, that would be a real healer. But, it is up to us to embark on any thing based on a clear assessment of ex-ante probability.

In sum, the urge to act is natural, spontaneous and huge. The challenge is to channelize it, sustain it and to leave India better off than before we began to change it.

V. Anantha Nageswaran

Actions of people premised on unchanged history change history

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