Red-flagging Kejriwal’s politics

By Swapan Dasgupta

There is little doubt that for the moment Arvind Kejriwal has created panic in the cosy world of politics. His well-publicised and seemingly relentless pursuit of big ticket corruption has unsettled the arrangement whereby electoral politics, while fiercely competitive, are also friendly matches. With all the understandable over-zealousness of a newcomer determined to make his mark, he has tried to transform politics into a gladiatorial face-off where only the winner lives to fight another day.  

That Kejriwal and his very determined band of supporters are punching well above their weight is well known. This is privately conceded by sober members of India Against Corruption. There is no evidence so far that the promoters of ‘new politics’ have penetrated the grassroots and forged a cadre capable of managing elections. As behoves a body that is disproportionately dependant on the media for its publicity and sustenance, the IAC’s influence is, for the present, confined to Delhi.

This is, of course, not to suggest, that its geographical spread will continue to remain confined to India’s version of the Beltway. It is only a matter of time before the new party enters into working relationship with disparate ‘people’s movements’ that have mushroomed all India in opposition to nuclear reactors, steel plants and human rights violations. There are many ideologically-driven activists in the IAC who seek to emulate the experience of the Green Party and the boisterous anti-globalisation movements in Europe and Latin America. If their project to link the anger against corruption, capitalism and globalisation is even partially successful, the real catchment area for Kejriwal’s party will not be the BJP-inclined lower middle classes of urban India but those who, in another age, kept the Red Flag flying in many pockets of India.

There has always been a space for the organised Left in India. However, over the past decade the two main Communist parties have ossified and ceased to be points of inspiration. To some extent the vacated space has been occupied by the Maoists who are waging war on the state. Kejriwal’s new alliance of the fragments has the potential of creating an alternative pole of attraction.

In the long-term, an IAC-inspired cluster poses no real challenge to the Congress, BJP, the caste parties and the regional parties. It, however, constitutes a serious intervention within the domain of what is loosely called Left politics. But this in turn is likely to jeopardise the unity of the movement. Once the novelty of Kejriwal’s interventions wears off and the new force shifts attention to issues other than corruption, it is quite possible that cracks in the IAC will appear. Indeed, if other opposition parties, particularly the BJP, take corrective action and are seen to get real about corruption, it is entirely possible that the middle class support for electoral interventions by Kejriwal’s party will shrink.

It would, however, be extremely short-sighted for the mainstream parties to take comfort from the inherent limitations of the new movement. The burst of activism that began with Anna Hazare’s fasts and included Baba Ramdev’s short-lived intervention has brought anti-corruption to the forefront of the political agenda. Insofar as the instances of corruption by public figures have also involved corporate houses, the movement has also called into question the moral credentials of India Inc. There is visible divide that has emerged between those who see tough economic reforms as inevitable if India is to live up to its potential and the great mass of people who resent having to pay more by way of taxes, fuel and cooking gas prices, electricity charges and housing because of the sheer immorality of decision-making India. Those who charge—and often quite rightly—Kejriwal of injecting public life with a lynch mob mentality overlook the fact that it is a venal dysfunctional state that has enhanced the appeal of direct action using unorthodox means. In particular, the Congress has reason to rue its own short-sightedness that led to the needless political assault on institutions that in more settled times cushioned the country against rampant venality.

There is a common project before all political parties, including those who have either been burnt or singed by Kejriwal’s anti-corruption crusade. First, it is important that a message is sent out that all those who have been tainted by corruption and cronyism should be allowed to fade away from political life. This involves taking awkward decisions and often going against the principle of ‘winnability’ that determines ticket distribution during elections. But the systemic crisis is so deep that half-way, cosmetic measures will no longer suffice. People have detected rotten elements in the system and these must be seen to be discarded.

Secondly, it is clear that corruption is invariably the consequence of the misuse of discretionary powers. It is imperative that decision-making of the government is made rule-based and completely transparent.

Finally, it is important to send a clear message to India Inc that it too is part of the problem and that its commitment to ethical business practices has been uneven. In future, the priority of government must not be special concessions to corporates but the creation of an environment where there is fair competition and a level playing field for all. India needs a leader with the ability to spray the government and the political system with weed killers.

As of now, only one leader fits the bill.

Asian Age/ Deccan Chronicle, October 19, 2012 

Why is ‘First Family' a hush-hush affair?

By Swapan Dasgupta

Dr Ram Manohar Lohia was one of the most outstanding politicians of post-Independence. At a time when the Congress was the dominant party he, along with other stalwarts such as Acharya Kriplani, Atal Behari Vajpayee and Minoo Masani, contributed immeasurably towards keeping anti-Congressism alive. Lohia was a profound and original thinker but his fame rested on the notoriety he earned as an unrelenting agitator and oppositionist.

In 1963, Lohia moved the first and only no-confidence motion against the Government of Jawaharlal Nehru. In his robust and flamboyant intervention, Lohia argued that the average citizen of India lived on three annas (roughly 18 paise) a day—a sum he compared to the Rs 25,000 spent on the upkeep of the Prime Minister each day. Nehru, otherwise a great one for the thrust and parry of Parliament was both livid and exasperated. Replying to the debate, he charged the Honourable Member of lowering parliamentary discourse to the “level of the bazaar.”

In the Nehruvian Establishment of the day, which, naturally enough, included the print media, Lohia was debunked as a lowly demagogue and even a vulgarian, abuses that Lohia took as compliments. So intense was his hatred of everything Nehru stood for that when the Prime Minister died in May 1964 and was accorded a grand state funeral, Lohia intervened with a cutting remark: “Nehru left his jewels to his daughter and his ashes to the country.”

In a week that has witnessed breathless talk in a section of the Lutyens’ Delhi aristocracy over “bad taste” in politics, it is pertinent to re-open the Lohia debate. Did Lohia indeed lower the level of political discourse by rubbishing the Planning Commission’s figure of 15 annas as the average earning and positing a three-anna figure? More to the point, was he guilty of astonishing bad taste by juxtaposing this paltry sum with the Rs 25,000 (a considerable sum those days) spent by the taxpayer keeping Nehru in the style he was accustomed to? Remember, in those days debunking Nehru was almost akin to cheering a bowler who had just taken Sachin Tendulkar’s wicket. Were those who debunked Lohia doing so because his imagery was stark or were they doing so because he had dared question the sincerity of a man who could do no wrong?

There is a grey area of subjectivity we must necessarily enter to find a credible answer. Was Mamata Banerjee completely out of order when she mimicked the whispering indecisiveness of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh—also a decent and honourable man—during the course of a TV interview? More to the point, was Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi being crude when he hollered the allegation that Rs 1,880 crore of taxpayers’ money had been spent on bankrolling the foreign visits of Sonia Gandhi whose only official position is Chairperson of the National Advisory Council, a body that has no locus standi in the Constitution?

It is always possible to see Modi’s intervention through the prism of TV talk shows. But frankly, whether the Gujarat leader wanted to use the dramatic revelation to trap the Congress into some tactical indiscretion is not a very interesting angle. Nor is the air cleared by the revelation that a Central Information Commissioner had ruled last May during the course of a RTI hearing that Sonia Gandhi had submitted no medical bills relating to her month-long treatment at some unknown hospital overseas. Having made this the official version, it will be difficult for the Government to renege on this position. In this age of openness, cover-ups can be very messy.

There was always an official cost to every foreign visit undertaken by the Congress President in the past eight years. If it wasn’t Rs 1,880 crore or Rs 235 crore annually, as the press report Modi quoted, what was it?

Even if the medical treatment was free or paid for by either the family or some unnamed benefactor, the fact is that the Congress President is always accompanied by a large SPG entourage whose air tickets, hotel bills and daily allowances have to be paid for by the government. How much did that cost?

There is a larger question at stake here which goes beyond Modi and the Gujarat Assembly election. Does the citizenry of India have the right to know how much public money is being spent on individual leaders, purely as a matter of information? Or, as Nehru perhaps imagined, is asking the question in the first place indicative of insolence? Will it also be construed as an unwarranted invasion of privacy if someone asks: who paid?

When it comes to the ‘first family’ there is a spectacular degree of non-questioning. No one asks why the Home Minister, the Defence Minister and even the Prime Minister are forced to undertake visits so that one special passenger can be accommodated and the official bandobast made? Why does this passenger carrying facility also extend to the backbench MP for Amethi? Why does the Congress President never offer herself for a non-scripted interaction with the media? Why is everything relating to that family such a big secret? After all, they are not private individuals but public figures.

Lohia made a nuisance of himself by asking impertinent questions that others were too inhibited or too frightened to ask. Isn’t it time India produced many more Lohias?

Sunday Pioneer, October 7, 2012