Electoral Power Curbed So Rowdyism Reigns

The opposition justifies its boorish behaviour in parliament during this Monsoon Session 2022 by saying it is only following the BJP lead when it was in the opposition.

But unlike the BJP, that captured power in 2014 with no sign of letting go eight years on, the opposition is in an existential crisis, and likely to be further diminished in forthcoming state assembly elections and at the next general election in 2024.

It is demoralised, fragmented, and on the political run from corruption investigations being followed vigorously by the ruling dispensation.

It is true that the NDA in opposition, between mid 2004 and 2014 did not have the seats, or the leverage, to actually influence decision making via reasoned debate. So, it was roundly ignored as defeated ‘communalists’, name- called- ‘knickerwalas’, and ridiculed as obscurantists, even when it made a good point. 

British style parliamentary democracy and indeed even the American presidential system has this flaw, when the ruling party or parties have a majority on their own.

No one has found a solution to it, except in weak unstable coalitions as in Italy, Japan and Israel, and national governments, drawn from parties on both sides of the aisle, when, of course, there is no choice but to cooperate.

A combination of otherwise excellent debating parliamentarians, the late Shrimati Sushma Swaraj, leading the opposition NDA in the Lok Sabha, and the late Shri Arun Jaitley, leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, drove the productivity of the 15^th Lok Sabha (2009-2014) to its worst in 50 years. The Lok Sabha worked, most wastefully for the tax payer, for 61% of the time allocated, and  in the Rajya Sabha, for 66% of the time, in all those years.

 The BJP disrupted parliament over the 2G scam in 2010, the CVC’s appointment in 2011, and the coal block allocation scam in 2012. The disruptions and baying calls for ousters, may have also catalysed a slew of  ministerial resignations in the ruling UPA II. For an opposition bloc it was most effective.

Arun Jaitley famously said disruptions of parliament sometimes brought  ‘greater benefits to the country’, and, ‘we do not want to give the government an escape route via debate’.

Of course, those dismal statistics are not repeated in Modi 1.0 and Modi 2.0 because of the BJP’s brute majority, on its own, in the Lok Sabha, through 2014 and again in 2019. This accompanied by very good management and creeping increase in bench strength in the Rajya Sabha as well.

This NDA government can pass legislation even without opposition cooperation. This, albeit with little or no discussion, after many sessions are adjourned due to disruptions, with the legislative business of the house pending well into the half way mark.It can also prevent bills being sent to the Siberia of joint parliamentary committees.

The UPA in its ten-year run, also had a habit of passing seemingly reformist bills that played well with the gallery, but were deliberately riddled with escape clauses. This has necessitated the introduction of amendments, to give some of the earlier legislation the teeth they need to be effective.

A good current example is the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), which now allows for the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to arrest suspects caught with unaccounted for cash and assets, after an amendment to the earlier act. This Act has been upheld in its entirety very recently by the Supreme Court’s (SC) three-judge bench, in the face of a large number of plaints against it.

 But the new parliament building, which will soon have a larger number of MPs to reflect the increased population, may have mutated into a gladiatorial arena for good.

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is likely to win a large majority in 2024 and 2029 as well. The voting public has moved on from the earlier ‘Idea of India’, seen as minority appeasement, towards a bold ‘New India’, with Hindu Nationalist overtones, promoted vigorously by this government.

This will not only further pauperise the opposition’s finances because of reduced donations to its coffers, but also its ability to conduct itself successfully at election time.

The BJP has also mounted a campaign to wean away, with considerable success, the Dalits, OBCs and Tribals, thereby transforming their party from its erstwhile Brahmin-Baniya profile, to a much broader based juggernaut.

Now it is going after the Pasmanda (Left Behind) low-caste Muslims, that compose 85% of the more than 200 million Indian Muslim population. This has been occasioned, post Muslim women votes after the abolition of instant Triple Talaq. There have been signal successes in attracting Pasmanda votes in Rampur and Azamgarh, in the very heart of the Samajwadi Party (SP) strongholds. The reason being attributed is proper and even-handed disbursement of government welfare benefits under the ‘Sabka Vikas’ banner.

By implication, the Pasmanda seems to be turning its back on the Sayeds or the high-caste Muslims, not converts like the mass, who do not share benefits with the majority in their community, and allegedly scorn it for being poor, illiterate and downtrodden.

It also indicts the exploitation of poor Muslims for votes alone by parties like the Congress, TMC, AAP, TRS, DMK, YSR Congress,SP, AIMIM, indeed almost all the ones dependent on Muslim vote banks.

If this works for the BJP, it will storm into the last citadel of the opposition, and break the back of Islamic terrorism as well. Muslims will not pursue the chimera of Ghazwa-e-Hind being pushed by Pakistan’s ISI, and other external Islamic/Chinese groups. The communal tensions will ease. The bulk of the Muslims will prosper alongside other communities.

Further campaigns are underway by the BJP to break into more states in South India after Karnataka. Telangana is most likely next on the anvil, and on its own, after encouraging success in the local elections there. Kerala, a troubling opposition enclave, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, are still works in progress.

Being outmanoeuvred by such ruling government long-term strategy developments, and bereft of new ideas, or leadership that can revive its fortunes, the present opposition resorts to a more crass form of disruption.

This includes physical fights, tearing and throwing of papers, breaking of furniture and equipment, insulting ruling party members and institutions of government, both at parliament, and in the state assemblies.

The Congress leader of the Lok Sabha insulted the newly elected 15^th president madame Droupadi Murmu by ‘accidentally’ referring to her as ‘Rastrapatni’ and apologising for it only in the face of a ruling party uproar.

There are increasing numbers of suspensions of opposition members in both houses, sometimes for the entire session, and at other times for a week. This is becoming commonplace in every session of parliament in order to get any work done at all.

The Gandhi statue in the parliament grounds is semi-permanently occupied by protesting parliamentarians from the noisier opposition parties such as the Congress, the TMC and the DMK, during the session, with some staying on,  stretched out on mattresses for all day and night lately. 

The protests under the statue started with issues like price rise, but have degenerated to protests at being expelled. Soon there may be protests about protests!

The angry opposition cannot gain anything by reasoned debate as the late Arun Jaitley pointed out, and so this situation is only controllable with even stricter management.

If members are expelled at the first sign of unparliamentary behaviour, for the entire session, with fines, they may think again.

The tantalising thing in their minds is the perception that this government can be pushed around. Didn’t it roll back the Farm Laws and hasn’t it failed to implement CAA and NRC? If that was accomplished on the streets and mohallahs instead of parliament, then that should be the preferred strategy.

The government, on its part, will have to crack down on street protests as effectively as it quelled the violation of Section 144 during the questioning of the Gandhis, mother and son, by the ED. The public is strongly in support on this, except for those allied with the opposition.

The government might be one step ahead. It seems to have shifted gear in favour of a more muscular, if non-violent assertion, of law and order. That is where the use of the tear gas and water cannons have come in.

The opposition will now see more arrests. It will not be able to exercise a street veto as easily as in the past.

(1,408 words)

July 28^th, 2022

For; Firstpost/News18

Gautam Mukherjee

 

National Herald’s Associated Journals Turned Into Young Indian: Signatures Do Not Lie

This is a season of previous alleged wrong-doings coming home to roost for many prominent persons in the Opposition. At least three political parties are in focus, as it happens, simultaneously.

Parliament and the streets of India are disrupted with cries that allege misuse of government agencies such as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

The images of sloganeering, scuffling with the police, barriers over-turned, arson, purple prose from friendly journalists on websites and print media, indignant pro-opposition panellists and spokespersons on prime-time debates, fill our TV screens. This is on all the news channels.

It looks like a tough moment of reckoning in all three political parties, though how the judiciary will view the charges and the evidence presented in due course is anybody’s guess.

It is a hot, humid, monsoon season of exposure, embarrassment, and political damage for some. Congress is busy trying to deflect attention and play victim. It calls its political stir on the streets a Satyagraha, invokes Mahatma Gandhi and the freedom movement. It sits on the road outside the All India Congress Committee (AICC) HQ, courting arrest. In the states, it gheraos the offices of the ED and menaces its officials.

The convenor of the Aam Aadmi Party and Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal calls the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ‘Savarkar Ke Aulad’ with accompanying sneer. He dares the government to find any wrongdoing in an alleged liquor scam presided over by his Education and Deputy Chief Minister. This, after his Health Minister has recently been detained for alleged money laundering, and other prominent MLAs for instigating riots, grabbing property, etc.

Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata avers she has zero tolerance for corruption even as one of her former senior-most ministers is hauled away for questioning after more than Rs. 20 crores in cash plus gold worth Rs. 70 lakhs is found by the ED in the flat of his close associate. The discovery of a series of shell companies associated with the former minister suggest the scam is about to get very much bigger.

Her nephew and heir apparent in the TMC, is also under the CBI/ED scanner for money laundering in a coal scam, along with his wife. Here too, in an attempt to obstruct, the investigating officers were gheraoed in Kolkata.

The Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Trinamool Congress (TMC), members of which are all under investigation, have promptly accused the Government of India of political vendetta.

It is the end of democracy, they scream. Our members are being expelled from parliament for protesting trumped up corruption charges. Why don’t you debate all this, asks the media. But why spoil a perfectly good uproar, the opposition must be thinking. Perhaps we can extract some political sympathy from the electorate.

We are not afraid, says its leadership, looking angry, cornered, and truth be told, very afraid. It is a crackdown by the brute majority in the house.

To the viewing public, it is as if a number of sizeable bandicoots have simultaneously been ensnared in traps, screeching for dear life. The underlying theme is how dare the Modi government catch us at all for questioning.

The latest Congress leadership scam in the eye of the lens however is so blatantly and carelessly executed, that it is representative of an imperial attitude.

One that says we own this country, let alone a few buildings, and there is no power on earth that can dare to point a finger at us. And that we will always be in power, as we have been for more than five decades already. When we were not in government, we still controlled the government of the day. Today, you may have the government and most of the states, but we still own the ecosystem. Nothing can happen in this country without our consent.

To illustrate this attitude further, the top leaders, rank and file of the Congress Party protest noisily whenever the Gandhis are called in for questioning. The protests are in violation of Section 144 imposed, which seeks to prevent a gathering of more than four people on the streets and public spaces it covers.  Tear gas, water cannons, and mass arrests in busloads have had to be resorted to by the government to impose its will, even as the Congress hordes have chosen to ignore the law.

Not only have the mother-son duo of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, at the helm of the Congress Party, allegedly usurped the property of the National Herald newspaper, but have been enjoying control over the commercial rent on them for several years already.

The properties were built on land leased to National Herald decades ago by various Congress central and state governments at highly concessional rates. Others have been purchased since, ostensibly to support publishing, but actually as commercial properties to earn more rent.

In a sleight-of-hand set of actions, in 2010, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi became owners of the shares in the company (Young Indian), that has beneficial ownership of all National Herald properties as of 2011. They own the shares 38% each, totalling to 76% between themselves. The balance shareholding is held by others drawn from the Congress Party, including Oscar Fernandes and Motilal Vora.  

 The properties involved are worth between Rs.2,000 and Rs. 5,000 crores according to varied estimates. Young Indian is a ‘Section 25 not-for-profit company’ with an initial corpus of just Rs. 5 lakhs. It is tax exempt provided it does not pursue commercial activity and puts its profit, if any, towards charitable purposes. It cannot even pay dividends.

However, the commercial rent exacted at market rates on them, from properties in Delhi, Mumbai, Panchkula, Lucknow, Patna, Indore etc. has run into hundreds of crores. This rent received, and allegedly transferred clandestinely to the Gandhis in turn, plus the takeover of AJL shares into Young Indian without paying stamp duty or taxes, has attracted an income tax bill running into about Rs 250 crores so far. All efforts at getting this demand squashed have failed.

The present case is largely to do with Rs. 1 crore obtained as a loan via an alleged cash transaction and fraudulent ‘entry’ obtained from a foreign exchange dealer cum hawala operator in Kolkata. This attracts the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the violation of which is a criminal act, unlike, for example, the tax evasion, which is classified as a civil offence.

This Rs. 1 crore, the source of its funding being a mystery, was used by the Gandhi duo to take over 100% of the beneficial ownership of the shares in AJL which owned the National Herald and its assets. The Gandhis ended up owning 76% of the thousands of crores of National Herald property, effectively for this payment of Rs. 1 crore.  

AJL also had a liability of Rs. 90 crores on its books, built up over the years as the National Herald lay defunct from 2008. To clear this, the Congress Party allegedly infused a loan of Rs. 90 crores into AJL, interest free.

There is no evidence of this money actually coming into the books of AJL however, apart from a general entry. It was this Rs. 90 crores that purportedly allowed it to convert AJL debt into equity so that it could be purchased by Young Indian subsequently in 2011.

This is problematic, even if true, as political parties are not allowed to give loans, and it is certainly unusual for a political party to clear the debt of a newspaper like this.

The net result was Young Indian, the new company formed, was able to take over the shares of AJL free of all liabilities. One of the other shareholders of both AJL and Young Indian was Motilal Vora, the now deceased Treasurer of the Congress Party.

Both Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi during their questioning by the ED have claimed to have no knowledge of the legal and financial transactions involved, because they were handled exclusively by the deceased Motilal Vora.

However, the signatures of both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi appear prominently wherever the paper work needed it. It is therefore not unreasonable to infer they knew what they were signing for.

Here the first order of batting is to do with the PMLA violation and the criminal charge it carries. Meanwhile, the lease on Herald House in New Delhi and the land in Panchkula have reportedly been revoked for violation of terms.

It remains to be seen whether the judiciary accepts the defence that the Gandhi mother and son duo knew nothing about the whole thing, particularly the money laundering in this instance, because it was handled by Vora.

If it accepts this, the Gandhis could go scott-free despite their signatures on every document and their beneficial ownership of the properties. The fraudulent acquisition process and use of the rent has a bearing, but the key thing is the Rs. 1 crore obtained from the hawala operator in Kolkata.

But all in all, the ED has revived the investigation after a long lull from 2015 when the Gandhis obtained bail in the matter. It seems to feel that it has a good case that will stick.

(1,538 words)

July 27^th, 2022

For: Firstpost/News18

Gautam Mukherjee

 

Droupadi Murmu  Trounces  Yashwant Sinha In Presidential Polls

Even as counting of votes of MPs from seven states was completed by late afternoon on the 21^st of July 2022, it became evident that the NDA candidate for president of India, Mrs. Droupadi Murmu, had achieved a very substantial win. Projections gave her 70% of the vote at close.

Tribals from multiple states all over the country, particularly from Murmu’s Santhal community, people from her home town in Odisha, dressed in traditional finery, were first off the mark, dancing and celebrating in front of her New Delhi residence.

The BJP HQ in New Delhi too was a sea of national and BJP flags and cries of Vande Mataram. As presidential elections to India’s highest constitutional office go, this one appears to be exhibiting a special excitement and a strong  Hindu nationalist fervour. The BJP, expecting an electoral dividend from installing the first Hindu tribal in Rashtrapati Bhavan, indicated that nation-wide celebrations in tribal areas, in multiple states, were going to follow this win.

The opposition candidate, Yashwant Sinha, a bureacrat from Bihar, erstwhile a union minister of the BJP from the Vajpayee era, turned virulent critic of the Modi government, was promising an activist, politicised avatar during his campaigning that had never been exhibited before. In fact, the kind of attitude he displayed could probably not be contained in the largely ceremonial, diplomatic, and constitutional office, without causing a crisis in governance.

As it turns out, his personal ambitions, and that of the opposition parties that supported his candidature, have had to bite the dust.

If these presidential elections, and the vice-presidential ones to follow shortly, are any indication of relative strengths of the NDA versus the opposition, the electoral war against the ruling parties is lost before it has truly begun.

The vaunted opposition unity is in tatters on multiple counts, largely on questions of its leadership and clashing egos. The TMC has just announced, for example, that it will abstain from voting in the vice-presidential elections, because it was not consulted in the selection of the opposition candidate, Congress veteran Margaret Alva, standing against current Governor of West Bengal, Jagdeep Dhankar, who is the NDA vice-presidential candidate.  Again, Dhankar is expected to win easily, and being projected as a Jat farmer’s son, is likely to also garner an electoral dividend for the NDA.

Contests in coming assembly elections through 2022 and 2023 in a number of important states, as well as the general election in 2024, are looking like foregone conclusions, overwhelmingly in favour of the ruling dispensation.

Part of the opposition, led by Congress and the TMC from West Bengal, have adopted a highly confrontationist stance in parliament, in the states they control, and in the media. A disruption a day is the method being used in the ongoing Monsoon Session, replete with sloganeering, placards, and demands of all kinds, but without coming to the house for a reasoned debate.

This irresponsible methodology is not working well with the watching electorate, but the parties involved seem oblivious.  

In ironic juxtaposition, as it happens, on the same day as this thumping win for candidate Murmu, interim president of the Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi, is being questioned by the Enforcement Directorate on money laundering charges in the National Herald/Young Indian case.

It is a study in contrasts. The Congress leadership, accompanied by the rank and file, have been courting arrest in defiance of Section 144 applied, tear gas and water cannons. The Congress, and the Gandhis at the helm, have exhausted multiple appeals at various  tribunals and courts, including the Supreme Court, to squash these proceedings but to no avail.

Other charges, pertaining to income tax evasion in hundreds of crores in the same matter are also pending final resolution. It was as if the whole murky set of arrogant transactions were done at a time when the Congress Party assumed, so very wrongly as it turned out, that it would never be out of power. This sense of entitlement, being above the law, is totally out of place in 2022 given the prevailing political wind.

The media devoted the morning to covering this event at the AICC HQ and the ED, likely to play out similarly over the several days of questioning, and the afternoon to the presidential elections, with its evident jubilation in the government camp.

One was about anger, frustration and victimhood, the discomfort of wriggling on the end of a hook, a repeat of the days when Rahul Gandhi was being similarly questioned by the ED in the same matter, and the other was representative of a victorious prevailing trend.

Not only does the Murmu win celebrate the win of a tribal woman to the highest constitutional office in the land, but the fact that it had the backing, including rampant cross-voting, from 70% of the legislators in the country. This is notable.

The glaring exceptionalism of the Congress Party when it comes to its high command is anachronistic, and thought to be bizarre, particularly when they have lost most of their electoral power. And eight years of the Modi administration has not allowed their fortunes to revive. Their association with forces abroad out to create law and order confusion in the country is also a sinister add on.

Droupadi Murmu is the 15^th president, elected to office in India’s 75^th year of independence, and when the country is on the march towards great power status. Not only will she be expected to showcase India’s abiding and ancient value systems in the international arena, but preside over momentous events and achievements to come.

In that sense, her presidency will carve out new territory as this country continually gains in modernity, technological excellence, stature, and heft. Her presidency marks a departure from all except the three presidents that preceded her, namely APJ Abdul Kalam, Pranab Mukherjee, and Ram Nath Kovind. All three were willy-nilly part of the New India ushered in by the present regime and themselves had an attitude that was in tune with India’s  growing aspirations.

It is Murmu’s good fortune that, over the next five years, she will preside over a ship-of-state that has gained momentum over the last eight years. She will witness many changes that are transformative in nature, ones that will further distance India from the struggles of its uncertain past, a small economy, very little international influence, and the  neo-colonial hangovers of a previous order that was reluctant to find its proud and confident new voice.

It is an India that has broken away now from the old pseudo-secularist manner that was a formula for state administered discrimination against the majority of its people. It is now inclusive, but with a strong emphasis on its Hindu mainstays.

The economic growth that will take it to No.3 in the world shortly, the military  aatmanirbharta that is proceeding apace, has greatly reduced vulnerabilities.

Droupadi Murmu, an educated,  experienced tribal woman, is a symbol of all this, and destined to conduct an exemplary presidency going forward.

(1,165 words)

July 21^st, 2022

For: Firstpost/News18

Gautam Mukherjee

 

India Needs Its Own Patriot Act

After 9/11, which took place in the George W Bush presidency, over two decades ago, in 2001, America has not had any Islamic terrorist attacks or incidents within its land mass.

This is mostly thanks to the stringent Patriot Act which was passed just two months after the warlike attack that killed thousands, destroyed two high rise towers at the World Trade Centre in New York, destroyed part of the Pentagon, brought down three fully laden passenger planes, even as one of them was headed for the Capitol in Washington DC, or possibly the White House itself.

The Patriot Act, as it is popularly known, practically bypassed the normal legal system in the US, to crack down hard on suspected terrorists, their sympathisers and supporters, their sources of funds and their flows, both at home and abroad.

This, alongside very strict and ruthless covert action to foil and nip terror plots in the bud with extreme prejudice. It was designed to intercept, obstruct and prevent another terror attack, big or small in the US.

It held in abeyance most of the provisions of the American Bill of Rights. It could jail anybody on mere suspicion, even if there was no criminal action or record. It could access all public and private documents, tap phones, confiscate funds, blend intelligence and law enforcement, pretty much as the people working under it saw fit.

It worked in tandem with Guantanamo Bay jail outside the jurisdiction entirely of the American legal system. This place, still operational, despite promises to close it down by President Obama, is notorious for its third-degree methods to extract information and confessions. The jail was located in Cuba and housed terrorists captured, quite often, in Afghanistan.

The Patriot Act attacked international terrorism as it affected America, head on, without apology.

The law was allowed to lapse in 2020 when the US House of Representatives (Congress), did not extend its provisions. It was modified in 2015, loosening some of its draconian provisions, most notably its powers to invade privacy.

The Patriot Act internally, was combined with massive US and NATO military action against Afghanistan (purportedly the home of the Al Qaeda) though parts of it were also based in Sudan. There was military action also against Iraq (where a bogus WMD charge, as it turned out subsequently, was levelled). All of this did not however result in the destruction of terrorism internationally.

This was mainly because the fountainhead of terrorism, namely Pakistan, was not harmed in any way. Even today, Pakistan enjoys covert support from America which sees it as a geo-strategic asset in the region. This, despite multiple and clear links of the 9/11 attackers to it. The attackers were mostly Saudi nationals radicalised by Al Qaeda, but trained and indoctrinated in Pakistan by the ISI and its agents.

 India is suffering every day because of the work being done out of Pakistan. But the only way India can comprehensively attack and destroy terrorist infrastructure and personnel, including that of the ISI, within Pakistan, is with American permission.  A Balakot strike or covert Research & Analysis Wing action is surely not enough. But with US support, the implied diplomatic and military backing, it would stop China/Pakistan from acting injudiciously.

This nod may be forthcoming, in stages, as we go forward, starting with permission to reclaim PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan. Back-channel talks are said to be ongoing. This action on India’s part would at once put a severe crimp in Chinese and Pakistani hegemony in the area.

 The reason for this changed perception and stance is American strategic backing for a free Tibet, and a push back against an economically weakened China at this time.

In the meantime, as it will surely result in a multiple-front limited war, India is busy building up its military muscle.

The head of Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, who admitted to being the inspiration for 9/11, if not its chief planner, was sheltered for years in Abbottabad in Pakistan, next door to a Pakistani military base. It was almost as if Bin Laden enjoyed Pakistani protection, with the US in the know.

He was eventually eliminated by a US helicopter-borne covert commando action, just before President Barack Obama won his second term in office. Was this too agreed by Pakistan? It probably was, given its meek acceptance of the violation of its sovereignty. This sort of intrusion was overlooked, not only in this instance, but in multiple drone strikes against terrorists within Pakistan territory, carried out by the Americans from within Afghanistan.  

In the case of America, with a miniscule native Muslim population of some 4% of its own, the Islamic terror threat is essentially from imported actors and foreign funding. However, random shootings of innocents and children by the natives themselves, some actions with political and white supremacist overtones, have become rampant lately. America is a highly armed society, the right to own and bear firearms of various kinds, is protected by law.

In India, as the ascendancy of the Hindu Nationalist BJP seems never-ending going forward to the 200 million plus Muslims, more and more bloody attacks against the Hindu majority are becoming commonplace.

This includes desecration of mandirs, and attacks against Hindu religious processions as they pass through Muslim heavy areas. These, in turn, lead quite often to riots, arson, loot, rape, murder, mainly in states not run by the BJP. The Hindu abhorrence to cow slaughter is openly provoked, and sometimes raw meat is flung into mandir courtyards. The powers that be in opposition states generally attempt to gloss over such open hostility, often aided by sections of the Liberal-Left media.

But, with the proliferation of an organised series of movements such as the PFI and erstwhile SIMI, sponsored by the Pakistani ISI and other leading terror groups from Pakistan and Syria, groups of radicals are now openly threatening anyone they wish to target. These range from ordinary Hindus like a recently beheaded tailor in Udaipur, and another victim in Amravati, Maharashtra, to BJP MPs, journalists, businessmen, and even the prime minister.

 The by-and-large non-violent Hindu population still constitutes nearly 80% of India’s 1.44 billion. It is influenced by the Gandhian notions of Ahimsa that has been widely publicised ever since the days of pre-independence. But even this docile population is now moving towards shunning Muslim employees, businesses, and places of Sufi worship, once generously patronised by Hindus.

The Muslims who have chosen to stay on in India after the creation of Pakistan in 1947, have been left alone by the State, only to be incited by radical Maulanas and Muftis. They are trained to see all others as Kafirs, in the mosques, dargahs, seminaries and madrassas, as well as the tight-knit mohallahs the community  generally inhabits.

In this age of multiple TV news channels and social media, all this is neither hidden nor appreciated by the Hindu majority. The price of Muslim incitement, using agent provocateurs, foreign hands, money, opposition politicians, is almost instant exposure and Hindu voter consolidation in favour of the BJP.

The Government of India meanwhile is making great strides in improving its ties and commerce with important Islamic countries in the Arabian /Persian Gulf, North Africa, the Asia-Pacific, Africa. These nations understand India as a tolerant multi-ethnic and religious country, and are not taken in by Pakistani/Left-Liberal propaganda, aided sporadically by Turkey.

This has resulted in the Islamist onslaught we are experiencing in India, threatening and bloody as it is, being regarded internationally as a localised affair that has no legs or future.

But, as a consequence of this diplomatic gain, the Indian State is reluctant to crack down on radical elements domestically. The Pakistani ISI is, in fact, taking advantage of this, and also the emphasis on irrefutably proving guilt in the Indian judiciary. Even tough laws like UAPA end up unable to hold terrorists after a single court-hearing. Jihadists laugh at the system and game it shamelessly.

Therefore, the need is rife for an Indian Patriot Act that the judiciary cannot interfere with. An insurgency with war-like features cannot be treated as if it is business as usual.

Political parties who regard Muslims as their reliable vote banks have pampered and appeased the community over the years, and continue to do so to this day.  They seek to manufacture an equivalence between militant Muslim organisations that openly promote jihad and the creation of a Ghazwa-e-Hind by 2047, and a bogus Hindu Terror. They encourage a radicalised mass of violent Muslims and call them no more than the equivalent of the RSS. This is outrageous because not only is the RSS the ideological parent of the vastly membered BJP, but a most benevolent social working NGO, the largest in the world.

But where is the violence emanating from the RSS? There is not even a provocative statement, legion from the Islamists. Even laying the assassination of MK Gandhi at its doorstep is in effect, a lie.  

Nathuram Godse had his own convictions apart from those espoused by the RSS of his day, and today, when we see the result of not insisting all Muslims vacate India at partition, his views are being appreciated by many.  

Still, some opposition political parties, the Congress prominent amongst them, try to counter the charges of motivated and financed Islamic aggression by citing a fictional Hindu Terror. So much so, that it tried to fabricate a Hindu Terror hand, probably in cahoots with Pakistan, to the ghastly events of 26/11. If it were not for a Kasab, caught alive, they might have made it stick, particularly as the UPA led by Congress was ruling at the time.

Trading charges of communalism and culpability is now an insufficient method to take care of a serious internal security threat. It is on par if not greater than that posed by Maoists in the forests of the Indian Deccan and the East.

There is an urgent need to treat seditionists, traitors, terrorists and their ilk as separate from the masses of ordinary law-abiding Muslims. This, before the propagandists of the radical fringe, out to destroy the law and order situation and the fabric of the nation, identify all Muslims as the victims of a Hindu Statist oppression. To an extent this has happened already as the government failed to make the distinction between the two with emphasis. Instead, it chose to ignore the growing problem.

Like the Naxalite movement before this, that originated in the 1970s, and the Maoist/Urban Maoist movement ongoing, the only way to quell it is through determined force applied accurately.

The same determined force broke the back of the separatist movements in Punjab and in the North East. It is not something the government can shy away from, and leaving it for later is only making the problem worse.

It is not enough to take cosmetic action like banning the SFI, like the SIMI before it. This results in its reappearance in different forms and clusters, and does not tackle the menace. The people involved in this form of warfare, because that is what it is, must be rounded up and punished on an urgent basis.

(1,856 words)

July 19^th, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

 

India’s Population Growth: Boon Or Bane

Of the current world population of 8 billion in 2022, India and China account for roughly 2.8 billion, on a more or less equal basis. The Chinese, thanks to their recently reversed One Child Policy introduced in the 1970s, are distinctly ageing, even as they will have 1.37 billion people in 2050, to India’s 1.66 billion.

But to get a shift towards younger Chinese, it will take two to three decades. How will they manage in between? And that is provided economically hard-pressed young people actually decide to have more children. When the One Child Policy was introduced, people longed for more children. But now, a lot of young people simply don’t.  The Western trend has also long reversed. Europe, America and the developed world are having very few children, and the native population is shrinking. Many places have a negative growth rate now. Parts, near forests in Germany, have ghost villages, and wolves reclaiming them.

Immigration, refugees, and guest workers, cause social pressures owing to clash of cultures, colour and religion. This is in addition to racial tensions inherited from the importation of various ethnicities as labourers in earlier generations. Even with progressive and enlightened policies, most countries have an uneasy ‘melting pot’ scenario, particularly when debts have spiralled, the economies are not growing as before, and present circumstances threaten a recession.

A war in Ukraine, prosecuted by Russia, has nearly derailed the US, EU and British economies in  just a few months, following on from the ravages of Covid.

In India, our birth rates have certainly moderated since the seventies, and we are just below the replacement rate of 2.1 at 2.0 for the first time. However, because of a huge base population, the numbers will rise by 2050 to nearly 1.70 billion from some 1.4 billion at present.

By 2070, a further decline in the average birth rate towards 1.0 will see the Indian population actually shrinking at last. The good thing is, about a third of the Indian population is under 35, and this statistic will sustain for the next 15 years, even as the rest of the population ages, with burdensome costs and higher life expectancy.

However, providing jobs for many millions is outside the scope of any government in the 21^st century. This, more so because of increasing mechanisation that calls for less labour in order to be efficient and competitive. Entrepreneurship, start-ups, self-employment of various kinds, is the only answer, alongside the service industry that accounts for more than 50% of the economy.

But this calls for skilling and reskilling all the time. The government is aware of this, and is cooperating with industry to provide avenues for skilling, vocational training and refresher courses. The old university degree route to a job is largely out-of-date, at least for the masses.

In absolute numbers then, since we are able to feed this gargantuan population by growing all our own food, and creating a surplus for export, things are good enough for the moment. This is unlike China, that imports a good deal of its food and is suffering shortages.

However, the greatest growth in population in India, higher than the national average, is taking place amongst the poorest, in the least developed states, amongst the uneducated and malnourished.

There is a growing urban-rural divide as well, with urban India voluntarily controlling its population growth, fuelled by higher incomes, better awareness and adoption of contraception, education, health and aspiration. Most families do not exceed two children.

Rural India is seeing a steady migration to the towns, cities and metro cities as the constant sub-division of inherited land holdings into ever smaller parcels makes it unsustainable. Many landless labourers also go to the cities to find work, quite often in construction. The number of B, C, D, category towns and cities have mushroomed into their hundreds.

Others have migrated abroad for a time, particularly to the Arabian Gulf. Indian expatriates in their millions work abroad and send back handsome remittances to the home country.

The service economy in rural areas is quite often self-employed, and higher rural incomes in good harvest years fuel mechanisation, sale of vehicles and farming inputs, trade with a range of goods to rival urban areas, and growing consumption. In fact, many FMCG companies now have greater aggregated sales in rural areas than they do in urban clusters. Part of this is due to lack of rural taxation and MSP regimes. Internet connectivity has been empowering, and opened up the entire country and markets abroad.

The advent of satellite TV, social media and much better connectivity in terms of road, rail and water borne infrastructure has made the rural populations more sophisticated, demanding and mobile. This too is a sort of continuous urbanisation of the hinterland that will grow further with the uptake of 5G. Already the landscape has changed beyond recognition from a decade ago.

There is a possibility therefore that the UN projections and our own survey in 2021 plus the upcoming census, the first after 2011, may be favourably impacted by these modernising forces.

However, per capita income cannot grow appreciably unless overall population numbers come down, even if none are pushed down below the poverty line.

This per capita income is the vast gap between India and the developed world even as India’s GDP grows at the fastest amongst all major economies. At $5 trillion GDP, expected to come as soon as 2026-27, the pressure on our much improved infrastructure will not ease significantly. Neither will a per capita grow from around $ 2,000 to the developed world’s $ 50,000 odd.

But then, the developed world has not seen a population increase at all, let alone a quintupling in the last 75 years, along with an impressive rise in life expectancy into an average of 73, up to 83 years, because of improved nutrition and health care.

Still, because India enjoys a purchase power parity (PPP) standing that places it at No.3 globally, we are able to manage. This despite our share of inflation and rising prices in a expensive imported  fossil fuel environment.

Population density is another problem that puts immense loads on natural resources, utilities, land prices, educational and health facilities. China has three times our land mass, but a lot of it comes from underpopulated parts of that country such as Tibet. Most Han Chinese are also concentrated in an area roughly defined by the Great Wall of China and the Pacific Ocean.

China is now facing headwinds of below par growth of around 4% in a $ 15 trillion economy.Its export economy of many years has been ravaged. Low demand and offtake in the domestic market is another problem because of vanishing incomes, and the collapse of its foreign infrastructure building. Domestic infrastructure is already over-built, and there are no buyers for thousands of apartments. The construction industry is collapsing. China is suffering food shortages, social unrest, and is reeling under a massive debt pile of external and internal borrowings. It cannot look at going back to the double digit growth rates of the 80s that sustained its rise for 30 years. Its militarism is hampered by inferior, largely copied, military equipment and conscripted soldiers.

India, on the other hand is coming into its own, with upwards of 7% growth on a smaller GDP base of $ 3.5 trillion. This nevertheless puts it at No. 5 amongst the major economies, just ahead of Britain, and behind Germany, Japan , China and the US. At $ 5 trillion it will overtake both Germany and Japan.

India has great sophistication at one end, with ships, aircraft carriers, diesel-electric submarines, nuclear powered submarines, rockets, satellites, missiles, bombs, ammunition, fighter aircraft, helicopters, jet engines, vehicles, drones, radars, cyber warfare blockers, howitzers, machine guns, rifles, bullet-proof vests, all manufactured in-country. Its uptake of digitisation has been more widespread and faster than most other countries. It is a world leader in information Technology. We have one of the best Armed Forces in the world. There are many other achievements in multiple fields like electronics, textiles, garments, automobiles,art, architecture, design, craft, stone-carving, music, sport, many other things, all too numerous to list.

At the same time, it has masses at the vulnerable bottom of the population pyramid, as many as 500 million people, more than the population of most countries. And these are the ones producing the maximum number of children. The people here seem untouched by the 21^st century in their attitudes and views. Disincentives including a population control bill are unlikely to deter people who are neither candidates for government jobs, nor seeking education or health care. Only aspirational awareness can work, as it already has with so many others to a great extent. Religious and Community leaders can certainly help by exhorting their followers not to have children they cannot provide for.

There is a very useful population dividend in India, even a significant number of  highly talented millionaires and billionaires, but it is held back by hordes of people with low exposure to the growth matrix.

We have succeeded at becoming a global force within 75 years in field after field, along with a vibrant democracy. But we could all grow better and faster if those with narrow vision could be transformed into upwardly mobile citizens like the others.

 (1,552 words)

July 12^th, 2022

For Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee

 

 

Dynastic Politics Is Wrong When It Becomes a Hereditary Monarchy

In the recently concluded two-day BJP national executive jamboree held in Hyderabad, it vowed to uproot ‘dynastic politics’ from the country. What exactly did it mean? Was it sniping at K Chandrasekhar Rao( KCR’s) son, KT Rama Rao (KTR), tipped to be the next CM by the party founder?

And let us remember KCR made it his life’s mission to split the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh and carve Telangana out of it. He is no ordinary family party oriented politician with a private limited political party, but one with intense grass roots identification. However, his long innings in power, with dark accusations of corruption, has blunted his appeal with the masses, and he could be suffering from strong anti-incumbency at present.

Hyderabad, hinted Prime Minister Modi, might undergo a name change. He called it Bhagyanagar, casually, as if the name had already been changed, and BJP was already ruling in Telangana. Given that the BJP runs only one state, Karnataka, in the South, it is very keen to enlarge its footprint in the region.

Other big wigs, including Amit Shah and JP Nadda made raucous calls to throw out KCR and Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and install the BJP in the coming assembly elections of 2023. Some other BJP leaders even threatened a Maharashtra style power grab. KCR responded by saying the BJP had already collapsed nine state governments so far, without elaborating further.

BJP’s new confidence is based on the fact that it has bagged 48 seats, up from just 4, in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) recently. And this in direct competition with All India Majlis e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and TRS. Some of these BJP seats are in Muslim majority areas around the Charminar, previously held by AIMIM. The overall BJP tally has now exceeded than that of the AIMIM’s in Hyderabad. TRS seats in GHMC, which went largely to the BJP, fell drastically to just 55.

BJP taunts for the TRS were a-plenty in multiple televised speeches. It said that KCR was CM, but Asaduddin Owaisi, with 44 seats in the GHMC, via his party AIMIM, effectively ran the government, and not son KTR.

This despite AIMIM having just seven seats in the assembly. In addition, to be fair, AIMIM has 67 municipal corporators across the state, including the 44 in Hyderabad, and 70 councillors in Telangana. Owaisi himself occupies the sole Lok Sabha seat that has been with the party, and its predecessor under Asaduddin’s father, since 1956.

A livid KCR stopped just short of fulsome abuse in response. His twenty questions for Prime Minister Modi in rousing Hindi went unanswered. KCR made a great show of refusing the receive the prime minister at Begumpet Airport, now for the third time, in favour of the Opposition candidate for president, Yashwant Sinha. And the GHMC roundly fined the BJP for putting up unauthorised hoardings.

Dynasts are common enough in Indian politics. There are scions of known political dynasties sprinkled liberally all over the BJP power structure, both in the party and the government. But none at the very top, and none in a position to install his son or daughter in the chief minister or prime minister’s gaddi or in the president of the party’s chair when he retires.

However, in TRS, it is a near certainty that KCR’s son will inherit the top job, if the party wins another term. BJP’s immediate declared mission is to garner 100 Lok Sabha wins from the five southern states in 2024. Some of these could well come from Telangana, particularly if the assembly elections deliver gains for the BJP, or even an upset win. However, like Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, KCR is well entrenched, and has directed a satisfying amount of welfare for the poor and impoverished.

The dynastic politics trope fits in Telangana, and as elsewhere, it tends to stunt party performance as the top job is pre-booked. Ditto in most of the regional political parties such as the DMK, TMC, SP, SAD, RJD.

In the BJD of Odisha, Navin Patnaik seems to have no heir-apparent as yet. Will Odisha fall to the BJP after him? Likewise, none in the AIADMK, after the passing of Jayalalitha. Will they be the battering ram for BJP to dislodge a dynastic DMK in Tamil Nadu? CPI(M) does not have hereditary supremos, but it is in power only in the troubled state of Kerala. It is too early to say whether AAP will install Kejriwal’s son after him.

Many in the remaining opposition states are feeling cornered and making quite a few intemperate remarks, ranging from a half serious call to secede from A Raja in Tamil Nadu, to a jihad against the BJP from Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal. KCR himself, angry for a long time at the central government not taking up Telangana parboiled rice for MSP, listed afresh the alleged failings of the Modi administration from demonetisation onwards.

The Congress, reduced to ruling in just two states, will still not countenance anybody at the helm except a Gandhi or a Vadra.

The argument to justify hereditary succession works in some places. The son of a doctor becomes a doctor (unless he wants to be a dancer). The son of a lawyer becomes one too. This argument holds good in the professions, business, and acting to a large extent. It makes the passage of the next generation towards success easier. With inherited capital, assets, property, goodwill, knowledge, hard-work, reputation, standing, stature, charisma, connections, clients, products, staff. In short, the success kit and caboodle of the parent or grand-parent.

Junior still needs acumen, ability, luck, pomp and circumstance to succeed, and make his own mark. But the initial few crucial doors and breaks are delivered on a platter.

This doesn’t work so well in a political party which has to earn its votes in a parliamentary democracy. And this, with relentless regularity. Yesterday’s success weighs as if nothing against today’s failure. We can see how the mighty have fallen. But then, perhaps Rahul Gandhi’s heart is not in politics.

Dynastic politics sometimes does not work in a monarchy either. Monarchy, that power device of the past. Most are now constitutional and ceremonial. But there are absolute monarchies left in West Asia. Even in such absolute monarchies, the new king has to eliminate rivals successfully and quickly to assert his ascendancy. And then promptly demonstrate that he can indeed rule.

The problem being that a bad unelected head of a political party takes it down. Just as an incompetent hereditary king cannot save his crown.

In a democracy, to create a bottleneck in family run political parties tends to breed complacency. This is what saw Uddhav Thackeray out of power, along with his son Aditya and other constituents of the Aghadi government.

Mamata Banerjee, speaking at a media enclave recently, refused to regard herself and her nephew as an example of dynastic politics. She has her own peculiar logic.  Working at politics on the streets is not dynastic politics she said. My whole family is in politics but not in positions of power, ignoring the succession plan via the nephew that no one in the TMC can challenge. She cited Amit Shah’s son parachuted into a top job at the BCCI as a good example of dynastic politics instead. That Amit Shah is not in the BCCI did not make any difference to her.

The problem will come nevertheless in TMC if nephew Abhishek Banerjee cannot demonstrate the necessary acumen, grit and intelligence to devise ways to stay in power and carry the flock. Mamata Banerjee, unlike Rahul Gandhi or Stalin, is a first-generation politician who has built her political base  by herself. This is not true of the silver-spoon that goes with being a second generation heir-apparent.

The BJP implies that dynastic politics like this not blocks inner-party growth, setting it up for raids or worse, but that it saps the vitality and initiative of the organisation. It is this that a partially cadre-based party like the BJP hopes to exploit.

With the failure of the nearly four-decade old Anti-defection Law, even in its amended form, to prevent party faithful from leaving its ranks, there is no effective way for dynasts to keep control. Inner party democracy may be the answer, with regular internal elections, but what tends to stop this is the control over the finances of the party. The money is often in the custody of the dynastic head and he or she does not wish to part with either the perch or the money.

There is no guarantee that even elected office bearers won’t at any time start new dynasties to control both the party and its coffers. Cadre-based parties that regularly change top office-bearers can, to an extent, buck this trend.

As BJP is a dominant party like this, that has enjoyed enormous electoral success with its largely Hindutva based politics, it seeks to make further gains with this new perspective. Can they uproot dynastic politics wherever they find it, in the political hustings and via other means? In some cases yes, but we must recognise it is as much a justification as a crusade. Besides, dynasties that oppose  will be targeted, not those that ally themselves.

 

(1,541 words)

July 5^th, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee