The most remarkable product of this age of instant gratification has been Team Anna and its movement to rid India of corruption. Despite being panned widely for its flawed institutional vision, its political naiveté and the questionable company it sometimes kept, Team Anna struck a chord with a people fed up with governmental corruption and apathy because it promised a readymade solution to corruption in the form of the Jan Lokpal, an all-powerful ombudsman who would potentially instil fear into the hearts and minds of corrupt public servants and cow them into honesty. Not only was this simplistic solution made an article of faith for the movement, but it was also sought to be made actionable through an ultimatum to the government: fail to instantly gratify the movement and risk Anna fasting to death, a rallying call that resonated amongst large sections of India sick of corruption and looking for an instant, no-jhanjhat solution for it.

Several other factors too worked in its favour: a shocking series of scams that the government was directly or indirectly involved in, a string of governmental blunders and miscalculations in dealing with its protests in the initial stages, a Gandhian icon whose personal probity and integrity was an ideal rallying point, and a diverse backroom team comprising a widely respected former judge, two senior lawyers passionately committed to the cause, an astute mass mobiliser and a populist, flag-waving former police officer. But above all it worked because it was a movement which demanded instant gratification from the government: a sentiment that middle-class India could identify with from their daily lives, even if it meant equating ridding the country of corruption with ordering a home-delivered Domino’s pizza when the craving for a change from the roti-sabji routine struck.

Unfortunately, the perils of founding a political movement on instant gratification is that one is subject to the same standards that one expects. Having promised a Jan Lokpal Bill, but after a year of coaxing, debating, arm-twisting and protesting, failing to deliver it meant that Team Anna was unsurprisingly hoist on its own petard. Seeking instant gratification but failing to gratify its supporters instantly (over a year literally) meant that time for Team Anna was always running out. So it was not entirely unexpected that the steady stream of supporters would one day dwindle, the continual tactic of fasts would have to come to an end, internal dissensions within the team would surface and Anna Hazare would return to Ralegan Siddhi as its keeper of virtue. But does this mean that the movement has been a failure as many have suggested? Could it have strategised differently in order to sustain longer?

Those who suggest that the movement has failed and have penned obituaries for it, are unconsciously subject to the same desire for instant gratification that they accuse the movement and its middle class support base of. The protests to have India against Corruption’s Jan Lokpal Bill enacted in Parliament have undoubtedly failed because the fact of the matter is that the Bill has not been enacted. But to infer  from this that the movement itself has failed is entirely fallacious. First, the protests ensured that for the first time a public debate on reforming the CBI has taken place, the need for an anti-corruption ombudsman unanimously accepted and corruption firmly established as a key electoral issue henceforth. More crucially, middle class India has come out of its happy closeted existences to the streets concerning an issue of national interest, a development whose significance cannot be understated. As I wrote at the time,

 “Vast numbers of people coming together in Delhi, even more pledging their solidarity and support by organising their own protests in cities across the world, the chaos, the frenzy, the disagreements about next steps, the patent flaws in the drafted statute, everything about the protest conveys the simple human emotion of standing up for what one thinks is right, without sophistry, nuance, or caveats.”

This promise of an easy solution to corruption, without sophistry, nuance or caveats, in the form of a Jan Lokpal may have been a key spur for such spontaneous protests. I doubt deeply the feasibility of a sophisticated, rationalised protest movement at the time, in terms of both its composition and functioning, being able to galvanise the masses the way in which Team Anna did. Paradoxically however, the recipe for its success—the promise of easy-to-grasp instant results—proved to be its undoing; the solution wasn’t as simple as suggested, and even the suggested solution wasn’t very simply achievable. But, on a balance of factors, that was a risk most definitely worth taking, if not taking it meant that the movement couldn’t be kickstarted in the first place.

Second, the movement against corruption is more than, and must be more than protests about the enactment of a Jan Lokpal Bill. It ought to be a wide-ranging effort directed not just at institutional reform but civic reform as well. It requires a much more clever, sustained and long-drawn out struggle than a year-long protest for a legislative enactment. It’s a struggle that doesn’t promise ready answers or instant solutions. But at the same time it’s a struggle that requires mass participation to succeed. Instant gratification-hungry India must be brought on board the politics of patient struggle. If India against Corruption is serious about this task, the ending of the year-long protests came at the right time. The past provides a perfect prelude that guarantees extensive media coverage, funding sources and a degree of public sympathy, if not support.  Attention now turns to the more serious business of finding constructive ways and means to rid the country of corruption. A task that requires all of us to not just to look at our leaders, but at ourselves. And reserve our desires to be instantly gratified to the local pizza delivery company.

[Cover Picture Attribution: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license from Author Hindustanilanguage].

]]> http://www.criticaltwenties.in/nationalpolitics/the-age-of-instant-gratification/feed 0 http://www.criticaltwenties.in/nationalpolitics/talking-politics-indian-mps-excite-and-frustrate-oxford-audience http://www.criticaltwenties.in/nationalpolitics/talking-politics-indian-mps-excite-and-frustrate-oxford-audience#comments Tue, 08 May 2012 22:25:47 +0000 Arghya http://www.criticaltwenties.in/?p=4909 [A guest post by Anup Surendranath and Dhvani Mehta on a fascinating tete-a-tete with a delegation of visiting Indian MPs in Oxford on 16th April 2012]

Apparently when Devi Lal, the ‘tau’ of Indian politics, was asked why he had made his son, Om Prakash Chautala, the Chief Minister of Haryana on becoming the Deputy Prime Minister of India himself in 1989, he crudely responded  –‘aur kya, Bhajan Lal ke chhore ko banauu?’ That level of arrogance may not inform contemporary Indian politics but responses from a delegation of Indian MPs to a question on dynastic politics indicated that the tau’s ghost might linger for a while.

Responses from Supriya Sule (LS, NCP), Piyush Goyal (RS, BJP) and Deepender Hooda(LS, INC), who were part of a panel that also included Chandan Mitra (RS, BJP), Asaduddin Owaisi (LS, All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen), Jayant Chaudhary (LS, RLD) and Rajagopal Lagadapati (LS, INC), made it clear that solving the problem of entry barriers into Indian politics was far from being a priority. Their focus, as has very often been the case on this issue, was on justifying why positions of privilege do not prevent them from being sincere and hardworking MPs. The democratic deficit caused by the entry barriers hardly found any mention in the responses. Supriya Sule’s passionate declaration of the personal sacrifices she was making, Piyush Goyal’s treatment of his political lineage as an advantage and Deepender Hooda’s assertion that election victories (after the first one) were all about individual merit reeked of a power elite determined to hold on to its position of political privilege. Perhaps the question stood no chance given that it was being put to a panel where 6 out of 7 speakers were inheriting the political legacies of their families.

The panelists seemed more willing to introspect when posed a question on the institutional reforms needed to make Parliament functional again. They acknowledged problems with the system, and stated that attempts were being made to forge solutions across party lines. Details however were scant, apart from the mention of a proposal to introduce an annual minimum of parliamentary sittings. Chandan Mitra was of the view that, contrary to public perception, Parliament achieved significant results through consensus in its standing committees.

Given the history of the Third Front in Indian politics, it was surprising to see the degree of optimism amongst non-Congress/BJP panellists about the possibility of such a government in 2014. Perhaps the most enduring account of the problems surrounding the formation of a Third Front government is Devi Lal’s insistence on taking the oath as Deputy Prime Ministerin 1989 despite President Venkataraman’s strong suggestion during the ceremony that the Constitution permitted him to take oath only as a Minister (And well, it took a decision of the Supreme Court to finally resolve the issue). Supriya Sule’s answer, if implemented, might well be a way to counter such deep levels of suspicion and discord – she emphasised the necessity of presenting a pre-poll Common Minimum Programme to the electorate, rather than cobbling together a post-poll alliance. If voted to power, Asaduddin Owaisi was of the view that the economic and foreign policies of a Third Front government would be substantially different from the largely indistinguishable policies of the two national parties. However, Piyush Goyal believed that a government dominated by regional parties might be ill-suited to address national issues. In a polity that is increasingly dominated by regional parties, Deepender Hooda acknowledged the need to address regional aspirations and strengthen leadership in the States.

The responses to a question on whether identity politics impeded or enabled democracy were predictable. Chandan Mitra promptly held up the examples of Nitish Kumar and Narendra Modi and their brand of politics as moving away from the fixation with identity. Rebutting the mainstream discourse about Nitish Kumar’s development agenda, Asaduddin Owaisi claimed that the Bihar Chief Minister had merely got his religion and caste permutations right by carving out Maha-Dalits and Most Backward Classes from the Scheduled Castes and OBC categories respectively. While the jury might still be out on the political feasibility of Nitish Kumar’s strategy in other parts of the country, it certainly represents the next level of legal challenges for reservation policies. While courts have been willing to uphold the sub-classification of OBCs along economic lines, the constitutional fate of Nitish Kumar’s reservation policies for Scheduled Castes remains uncertain, especially in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in EV Chinnaiah v State of AP & Ors.

Being rather dismissive of Narendra Modi’s model of development, Asaduddin Owaisi asserted that it was too high a price to pay. He delivered an impassioned justification for identity politics, especially in the context of safeguarding minority rights. The reactions from Mr. Owaisi and other Muslim MPs to the Supreme Court’s observations on the Haj subsidy have been interesting. Neatly capturing the benefits of identity politics, he concluded his remarks with a poetical flourish- ‘phool nahin toh phool ki patti hi sahi’ [if we can’t have the flower, then we may as well have the petals].

If one were to attempt to roughly label the responses, arrogance, predictability, lack of nuance and evasiveness would be good candidates, typical of so much of Indian political discourse. While some of the responses to questions on climate change, reservations based on economic criteria, and the Gujarat riots betrayed the latter two characteristics, other answers on the same issues were certainly more measured and reasoned. When asked whether India could afford not to transition immediately to a low-carbon economy, Piyush Goyal attempted to portray India as the victim in global negotiations and seemed to suggest that development and environmental protection were antithetical. In contrast, Mr Chaudhary remarked that this distinction was counter-productive, and that moves to adopt low-carbon measures ought not to be viewed as a conspiracy of the developed world. Instead, it was in India’s self-interest to move towards sustainable growth particularly in the light of our vulnerability to the effects of climate change.

Supriya Sule also displayed a lack of nuance when she cited the Right to Education Act as an example of affirmative action based on economic criteria without any reference whatsoever to the manner in which various State governments had, under their respective rules, divided up the 25% quota.

This lack of nuance is particularly ironic given that politicians are quick to accuse civil society of failing to appreciate the complexity of political challenges, the India Against Corruption movement being a case in point (Chandan Mitra couldn’t resist a self-congratulatory pat on the back as he reminded the audience of the high quality of parliamentary debate on the Lokpal bill).

The BJP’s defensiveness over Narendra Modi is evident in its reaction to the report submitted by the Supreme Court appointed amicus, Raju Ramachandran, on the Zakia Jafri case. It was also evident when, on being asked whether there would be adverse political consequences if Narendra Modi apologised for his moral culpability (rather than legal) for the Gujarat riots, Chandan Mitra’s initial reaction was a refusal to answer the question. It took him very little provocation to respond when Asaduddin Owaisi responded to a question on whether such an apology would suffice for the Muslim community. He said that Narendra Modi would never apologise because an apology for such an act required a ‘human heart.’ He asserted that all legal proceedings would have to continue, and indicated that a Truth and Reconciliation Commission based on the South African model might be acceptable. This response was sufficient for Chandan Mitra to spout the BJP line on Narendra Modi that there was no question of an apology, since no legal culpability had been established.

The session was a unique opportunity to interact with parliamentarians from across the political spectrum and although several trite responses were duly parroted, there were some well-articulated positions along with encouraging passion for convictions. It gave us a taste of what makes Indian politics exciting and frustrating at the same time.

Only time will tell if India is indeed changing, or if the last two months represented merely a mirage of change that was seen briefly and which is going to pass us by very soon. And only time will tell if the recent ‘hardening in stance’ will end up costing the Congress as dearly as it should. But there is absolutely no doubt in my mind, that far from being an astute and divisive political move- as it is made out to be in ‘Swami and his Friends’- this barbaric, unconstitutional and totally needless police action taken by the government has actually served to unify and strengthen the attack against them. In fact, the only thing which can prevent this government from being thrown out in the near future- and at the very latest by the next election- is the pitiable state of the BJP and the complete lack of any credible and intelligent leadership therein.

Let me start first by refuting the claim that the police action on the night of 4th June at the Ramlila maidan has divided the civil society movement against corruption which was completely amorphous and multi-lingual to begin with. As late as the evening of 4th June, the civil society representatives on the Joint Lokpal Drafting Committee were appearing on news channels and vehemently criticizing the presence of Sadhvi Rithambara- an accused in the Babri masjid demolition case- on the same stage as Baba Ramdev. They were expressing their deep discomfort even at the risk of giving our controversy-hungry 24×7 media another opportunity to say “look, look civil society is divided”. However, on the morning of 5th June, when news of a sleeping crowd of men, women and children being subjected to a lathi-charge and teargas shells in the middle of the night started pouring in, even those civil society members who have had a long history of opposing communal activities of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar and who had been trying to distance themselves from the Baba for some time now, came out strongly in support of many of Baba Ramdev’s demands and his right to protest peacefully for them.

The Congress has in fact committed the same error that it committed immediately after the notification of the Lokpal drafting committee, when it decided that the best way to diffuse the popular movement led by Anna was to orchestrate a smear campaign against the members of the drafting committee and hence discredit the movement. In the run-up and aftermath of the Jantar Mantar agitation, there were several highly respected voices from civil society itself who were extremely unhappy with the developments and who were also principally opposed to various aspects of the Lokpal bill being proposed by Anna’s civil society. However, instead of exploiting these rifts within civil society and negotiating a weak bill which it could take the credit for- which was the government’s intention all along- it decided to manufacture fake CDs, make false allegations and unleash thugs (to use Mr. Digvijay Singh’s own language) like Digvijay and Amar Singh who expectedly brought down the level of the debate to a street brawl. Just as that move had served to unite previously opposing voices and coerce the severest critics of the Lokpal Bill and the Hazare movement into expressing solidarity and support for the same, the Ramlila maidan fiasco has united a diverse and inherently fractured group of voices against the arrogance and moral bankruptcy of the government.

The most distressing part of ‘Swami and his Friends’ for me is the part where the author ridicules the protestors for their cowardice by stating that “a few threats, a lathi-charge and a few teargas shells were all it took for for the supposed 1 lakh committed satyagrahis to empty the pandal”. Many critics have dismissed the statements made by various political and civil society leaders comparing Saturday night’s action to the Emergency and to the Independence movement as mere hyperbole, and although I find comparisons with Jallianwala Bagh quite ridiculous myself, I still cannot recall a single instance from either of these historic time-periods when teargas and lathi-charge had been used against a group of sleeping families in the middle of the night without any prior warning or ultimatum. What imminent threat did this group pose which could not have waited until morning to be resolved? And since when does “minimal use of force” entail having to beat up women and children and even cause one women to be paralysed and three men to have skull fractures? And although I would be the first to describe Baba Ramdev as naive at best and completely crazy at worst, does that imply that he does not have the same rights and privileges as Team Anna’s intellectual and comparatively high-society members? Even if we assume that his motives are suspect and that he is a front for the Sangh Parivar, does that give the government a right to crush his movement and followers in such a draconian manner? And let us remind ourselves that most of Baba Ramdev’s demands- such as bringing back black money stored in foreign accounts and demonetizing higher currency notes- are undoubtedly in national interest and perfectly legitimate. Further, just because the ED, the CBI and various other law-enforcement agencies are suddenly probing every aspect of Ramdev’s background, and the media has chosen to forget the doctrine of ‘Innocent until proven guilty’, it does not mean that we as a society should succumb to every piece of propoganda that the government puts in front of us.

The Congress has been following a two-point strategy to deal with all the controversies that have plagued its current term in office- be it Naxalism, the Lokpal bill or Baba Ramdev. First, one or more of the Royal family’s chosen butlers (Sibal, Chidambaram or Digvijay) goes on the offensive and takes whatever action they deem necessary- whether it’s a paramilitary action, police action or a more sophisticated smear campaign- to thwart the enemy of the moment. Then the rest of the party, led by the Queen, feign ignorance and hide behind the “unimpeachable integrity” of the spineless or complicit Prime Minister. Finally, everyone seeks refuge in the smoke and confusion created by the mixture of voices emanating from India’s oldest political party and calls it a celebration of democracy. Let us make no bones about this- the mixture of voices within the Congress, when heard in the backdrop of unilateral action taken by a few individuals to protect and further their own vested interests is not a celebration, but in fact a mockery of democracy. The only hope is that the citizens of this country are getting tired of seeing repeats of the same play and will soon find the will and courage to bring the curtain down on this theatre of the absurd.

]]> http://www.criticaltwenties.in/nationalpolitics/by-crook-or-by-crook-a-response-to-swami-and-friends-c-2011/feed 2 http://www.criticaltwenties.in/nationalpolitics/swami-and-friends-c-2011 http://www.criticaltwenties.in/nationalpolitics/swami-and-friends-c-2011#comments Tue, 07 Jun 2011 06:41:59 +0000 Arghya http://www.criticaltwenties.in/?p=3265 If anyone was ever in doubt that India is changing, this should put the thought to rest. To most of us growing up in eighties India, Swami and Friends signified a most enjoyable half an hour in the week where we would be transported to the innocence of RK Narayan’s Malgudi and the antics of ten-year old Swami, his wealthy friend Rajam and the ever-likeable Mani. For impressionable minds today, you wouldn’t be surprised if Swami and friends mean Ramdev and his purported satyagrahis, political machinations, reneged deals, midnight confrontations, far from innocent and farther still from enjoyable.

The jury is out regarding the wisdom of the government’s crackdown on Swami Ramdev’s hunger strike at Ram Lila Maidan. The opposition has likened it to the Emergency, newspaper columnists, with the odd exception, have condemned it for its illiberality and civil society, at least certain sections of it, have questioned the consistency of the government’s resolve in fighting corruption with its inclination to suppress a peaceful anti-corruption protest by force. Having looked carefully at the reactions for the last two days, I will argue in this piece that the government’s action in forcibly breaking up the mass hunger strike at Ram Lila Maidan and dispersing the protesters, in the circumstances that have prevailed since Anna Hazare’s fast, was a politically astute move. By making a controversial religious godman a symbol of the anti-corruption movement, it has fractured civil society forces introducing a communal element within their ranks, saddled the opposition with a divisive sadhu whose popularity is far from widespread and has attempted to restore a semblance of order in political activism in India which was slowly but surely going out of hand.

Let me preface the argument with a caveat. Ideally, the government should have ignored the hunger strike by Swami Ramdev. Protests such as these are common in a democracy and more often than not key to its vitality and good health. And a protest by a divisive godman regarding black money in an air-conditioned pandal in Delhi ought hardly to have caused more than a flutter. But having made extraordinary concessions to its predecessor hunger striker, bent over backwards in placating the Swami when he announced his fast and then struck a purported deal with him, ignoring the fast was never a real option for this government; a pity since that would have been an ideal way to disincentivise future hunger strikers without undue fuss. But the government’s Plan B, of forcibly breaking up the strike, while questionable in principle, was undoubtedly a politically clever strategy, whose benefits far outweigh its costs.

Its biggest and easiest achievement was to expose the Swami and his friends as faux satyagrahis. All it took was a few threats, a lathi charge and a few tear gas shells for the supposed 1 lakh committed satyagrahis to empty the pandal. Not to speak of Swami Ramdev himself. Whether he actually attempted to escape disguised as a woman is debatable; what is certainly true is that he made offered little actual resistance on refusing to be led away. Historical evidence of satyagrahas, in pre-independence India and elsewhere, clearly indicate the incidence of violence when satyagrahis resist. The fact that the violence was minimal and the pandal was emptied expeditiously clearly demonstrate that there was little resistance offered. Swami Ramdev and his friends wanted black money stashed in tax havens abroad to be confiscated, but certainly not at the cost of physical injury to themselves, let alone at the cost of their lives which is purportedly what they were engaged in doing by fasting-unto-death in the first place.

Second, the crackdown has ensured maximum publicity for Swami Ramdev and his anti-corruption crusade, and by doing so has made the divisive Swami the latest face of civil society. Now ‘civil society’ in India is an amorphous term. Its traits are broadly understood as middle and upper middle class, liberal, secular and urban. Now Swami Ramdev is not the most natural poster boy for civil society. He is a Hindu Swami in saffron, which per se raises hackles in such circles; he is distinctly anti-modern and nativist in his outlook, swearing blindly by Swadeshi and the pride of Indian nationhood; and to top it all is clearly anti-intellectual, as is evident from the statements he makes on national television. However the issue of corruption which he is championing is certainly a live issue in civil society. This has put its members in a bind—the civil society members of the Lokpal Bill Drafting Committee have talked tough and stalled talks, whereas other vocal members of civil society have been conspicuously silent. This is unsurprising since public opinion, while firmly in favour of steps to tackle corruption, is more equivocal regarding Swami Ramdev’s role in it. This is partly due to Ramdev himself and the views he holds, and partly due to the fear that with his emergence, the civil society movement against corruption would be conspicuously supported by communal forces, an uneasy alliance for most. Hence with one broad brush, the police action has forced civil society’s strange bedfellows, former police officers and saffron saints, kar sevaks and senior counsels in the Supreme Court to choose between coming together over their deeply held ideological differences or not doing so, fracturing the hitherto united face of civil society; a veritable trap between a rock and a hard place.

Third, the crackdown has cut the Swami down to size from a larger-than-life conscience of the nation to a political activist of questionable integrity, with none of the calmness and the tranquillity that men of God are supposed to possess. Of course much of the moral highground was accorded to Swami Ramdev by the government itself, laying out the red carpet and attempting to strike a deal with him to call off the fast. But the crackdown represents a course correction, and an important one, which both deals with the Swami as a recalcitrant political activist, while bringing out the deep double standards that characterise his position. Since the crackdown, the Swami has brought up Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin issue and alleged that she does not feel the pulse of the ordinary Indian because the Indian soil has not nourished her, in the same breath lavished fulsome praise on statue-happy (and corruption-happy?) Mayawati and requested his ‘adarniya behn’ to give him permission to continue his fast in Noida, and claimed as most politicians do that he never agreed to the purported deal that the government says had been breached and that his representative had been forced to acquiesce. The crackdown has thus brought out the politician in the Swami, and by painting him as a political opponent, sponsored by communal forces and supported by Mayawati, the government has put its rival political parties on the backfoot, saddling them with the task of defending an itinerant Swami, a loose cannon, who divides India as much as fighting corruption unites it.

Finally, with Swami Ramdev’s fast, hunger-striking-at-a-whim was fast becoming an easy way to gain publicity and the favourable attention of the government. The crackdown has made the issue significantly more complex for such potential protesters, since they now know the possibility of police action is imminent and likely. While this would not be a deterrent to those fasting for legitimate issues, members of civil society, both celebrities as well as non-celebrities, who lead and join such fasts for publicity, kicks and camera time, would now have to think closely before taking their decision. A natural fast-filtering process, essential to restore the order of political activism seems to have been put in place as a result of the action, much-needed today in an India where satyagraha, once the byword for courage and bravery, is on the verge of becoming a political joke.

Almost as I write this, another Karnataka-related crisis turns up out of nowhere to torment the BJP.

In this case, Sushma Swaraj couldn’t be more wrong about who’s responsible for the rise of the Reddy Brothers. We have pictorial evidence as well.

(c) Outlook Magazine

The story goes something like this.

Circa 1999, in a moment of empty bravado, Sushma Swaraj decided to challenge Sonia Gandhi in the Lok Sabha elections when the latter contested from the hitherto Congress safe seat, Bellary. While the announcement sounded grand and daring, it slowly dawned on the BJP that they risked humiliation for one of their national leaders by letting her contest elections in what was essentially a Congress family fiefdom. She couldn’t obviously back out from this, so a solution had to be found.

Around the same time, the Reddy Brothers (G. Janardhana Reddy and G. Karunakara Reddy) were looking to enter politics in Karnataka, to help expand their growing iron ore mining business. They had been rebuffed by the Congress already, and the Janata Dal really did not have a significant presence in North Karnataka. So, they went for the next best thing. The BJP.

The Reddy Brothers bankrolled Sushma Swaraj’s 1999 election campaign against Sonia Gandhi. It was a losing cause, but the 50,000 vote margin was actually considered respectable given that it was Bellary, Sushma Swaraj was a nobody in Karnataka, and one of the Gandhi family were standing elections. More importantly, the Reddy Brothers had found a way into State politics in Karnataka and they’ve never looked back since. Nor has the BJP. It has since won every election in Bellary, Lok Sabha and State Assembly.

It was no surprise that when the Reddy Brothers sought to rid themselves of BS Yeddyurappa, they went to the friendliest face in Delhi: Sushma Swaraj.

So why did this “crisis” suddenly crop up in the middle of May, with no apparent trigger?

The “trigger” as it were, was actually pushed sometime back, by the Supreme Court of India. This was in fact a delayed reaction, an attempt to minimize losses and a damage-containment exercise on the part of someone who’s being spoken of the next Prime Ministerial candidate of the BJP.

This “crisis” is just another instance of the truism that in politics, success has many parents, but failure is an orphan.

Contrast this though, with something quite the opposite when Yeddyurappa faced a grave threat to his position. As he was summoned to Delhi, ostensibly to be removed as Karnataka’s CM for the corruption charges levelled at him, Yeddyurappa received staunch support, from what would, to the untrained observer, seem like an unlikely quarter; the heads of the Lingayat mathas (pronounced muTT-HA in the singular) or monasteries who came out expressing total confidence in his leadership. Even when it seemed that the RSS itself had washed its hands off one of its own, the Lingayat mathas came out in full strength to back Yeddyurappa.

The message was clear. And it worked.

It is important to understand that the gesture was more than just a symbolic show of support. It was rather, a show of strength and commitment that could not be taken lightly by the mandarins in Delhi. The reasons why lie in the nature of the Lingayat community and the manner in which they have been courted by Yeddyruppa.

Strictly speaking, Lingayats are not a “caste”. They do not fall under any of the four varnas, and are more properly a sect, started by the 12th century socio-religious reformer, Basaveshwara. Veerashaivism (which is the correct technical name for the set of precepts he preached) emerged in opposition to the caste system and was part of the larger Bhakti movement active in various parts of the country then, challenging the rigid, Brahminical view of Hinduism. Basaveshwara’s teachings sought to impress upon his followers the importance of worshipping one God and the equality of all before the one God. His idea of the one God was the ishtalinga or the linga of one’s choice which everyone was free to wear as a mark of devotion, irrespective of caste or for that matter, religion. Mathas were started by his followers across the length and breadth of India to spread the teachings of Veerashaivism and a lot of them grew into influential bodies in their local communities. In that sense, Lingayats tend to belong to a matha, in somewhat the same sense as Christians can be said to belong to a certain parish or diocese.

Part of Yeddyruppa’s strategy in consolidating the Lingayat vote in North Karnataka has been the consistent courting of the Lingayat mathas. Himself a Lingayat, he has also assiduously kept the Mathas happy with generous grants from the coffers of the State and elsewhere. The flow of money from the State Government to the mathas started when Yeddyurappa, as Finance Minister in the ill-fated coalition with the JD(S) in 2007-08, increased the grants made to the mathas manifold. 130 crore rupees was earmarked for the mutts, from the State Government budget last year itself.

Aha! So Yeddyurappa worked his way up by bribing the swamijis of the mathas!

Not quite.

Mathas are not just centres for religious learning and spiritual education but also the providers of vital social needs in communities forgotten by the State. Mathas run schools, colleges, hospitals and nursing homes in the most backward of areas in North Karanataka and the swamijis wield enormous power and influence in the lives of people, not just as religious or spiritual potentates. The mathas are, in effect, a tool to distribute patronage on behalf of the State.

Such caste/religion based distribution is, of course, hugely problematic, but in the context of South India, not unprecedented. Renowned South Indian historian Burton Stein has shown how rulers of all religious persuasions, from Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagara to Tipu Sultan of Mysore, routinely donated money to temples and mathas to achieve two goals; firstly to enhance their prestige as rulers who command great wealth, and secondly, to give a boost to the local economy around the temple. (for more details and instances, see Burton Stein’s excellent book on Vijayanagara)

It is important to understand that mathas and temples in South India served many vital secular functions, apart from their religious and spiritual roles, as Burton Stein points out in his work. They were of course, centres of learning and preserving knowledge, but they also functioned as strongholds to keep the treasury in, markets for the exchange of goods over a large area, and as important landlords providing employment, food, and economic security to thousands. Donations to temples were not necessarily in cash, but also included grants of lands that only increased the role of the temple in the local economy. It is not surprising therefore, that the Tirumala Venkateswara Temple in Tirupathi in existence and receiving grants for centuries now, is one of the richest religious bodies in the world.

[An aside: Regulation of the administration of temples by South Indian state Governments (i.e., Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka) has been the subject of litigation and challenge in Constitutional courts and an interesting jurisprudence, Constitutional and statutory, has evolved out of the same. It is a fit subject for a lengthy piece in the Law and Judiciary section, but alas, not in this series.]

To conclude the point, BS Yeddyurappa has followed the path that rulers of South Indian states have done over the last few centuries to build up their strength and consolidate their position; donate to the temples and spruce up the local economy. His strategy has also been to tie up the Lingayat mathas in a network of patronage to consolidate the Lingayat vote in North Karnataka. His support among the community, is not just based on pure identity and socio-economic factors, but a combination of the two that have been adroitly exploited to attain the top post in the State.

**********

Bookanakere Siddalingaiah Yeddyurappa has come to the Chief Minister’s post in Karnataka after twenty years of painstaking effort, make no mistake about it. His path has been anything but smooth, but the progress has been steady. Along the way, he’s picked up friends, enemies and frenemies galore.

I remember distinctly, a few days after he was sworn in as Chief Minister in 2008, a family friend and someone with his ear to the ground on political developments, confidently predicted that Yeddyurappa will not last six months in office as Chief Minister. I disagreed, eyeing BJP’s success in the polls and the disarray in which the opposition Congress and JD(S) found themselves in at that moment. We were both partly right and partly wrong. Yeddyruppa has survived, so far, but not without an attempt being made to remove him from office, every three months or so.

While his weaknesses, namely the Reddy Brothers, corruption allegations, a terrible temper and a poor track record of administration are quite evident for all to see, the sources of his strength, as I’ve tried to make clear in this series of posts, have not always been so obvious, at least to those outside Karnataka.

As of now, the momentum is with BS Yeddyurappa, and by extension, the BJP. Election results at every level from Taluk Panchayat upwards have been good for the BJP and from the looks of it, despite himself, BS Yeddyurappa will complete his first term of five years. If the disarray in the Congress ranks continues, expect a second term as well.

What does this mean for national politics? or, why is an ostensibly regional issue finding so much space in the “National Politics” section of Critical Twenties?

Strong regional leaders are the order of the day in India’s bigger States. Yeddyurappa is just one example. To him, one can add J Jayalalithaa, Mamata Bannerjee, Tarun Gogoi, Narendra Modi, Mayawati, Nitish Kumar, Raman Singh, Naveen Patnaik, SS Chouhan, Sheila Dixit, and till recently, the Late YS Rajashekhara Reddy. The only exception to this seems to be in Maharashtra (I’m not sure either way about Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan.) A different combination of factors have contributed in each of their ascents to power. They are not just leaders of regional parties, but also regional leaders of national parties. Their appeal is non-transferable to any other State. Their success or failure is not determined solely by their relations with Delhi (party High Command or Central Government). In many instances, Delhi’s success depends on their success and support. And not just in the narrow coalition-politics sense. Yeddyurappa is one example of that.

“National politics” (and not just the C20s category!) maybe becoming a bit of a misnomer. We are moving towards a phase in India’s political history when political power at the national level is wielded by those who enjoy the favour of regional satraps, and not the other way around. It is likely that in the next stage in coalition politics, the coalitions are within parties and bottom up, and not just those outside parties and top down, as they are now.

Will it be a good thing or a bad thing?

I could tell you, but my palantir just ran out of battery power, so I guess I’ll have to do what everyone else is going to do:

Wait and see.

Part I | Part II | Part III

In 2010, when the BJP’s campaign to oust Ashok Chavan as Chief Minister of Maharashtra for his role in the Adarsh Society scam was in full swing, a small, potentially embarrassing fact was brought to its notice. It’s own Chief Minister in Karnataka, Yeddyruppa, stood accused in a scam related to land in Bangalore just as large. Hoping not to derail the campaign, an attempt was made, (in true Congress style!) to summon Yeddyurappa to Delhi and have him resign.

It failed. Miserably.

If one were a fly on the wall, in the room where the conversation between the BJP Party Chairman, Nitin Gadkari (NG) and BS Yeddyruppa (BSY) took place, one would have probably heard something to this effect:

NG: “Yeddyruppa-ji, our national campaign against corruption is being derailed by these charges against you! Political mileage will be lost if you don’t resign.”

BSY: “No.”

NG: “No? No to what?”

BSY: “I’m not going to resign.”

NG: “No no please, don’t misunderstand me. This is not an indictment of you. You are very important to our party. We will not abandon you. We will find you an important post in the Central leadership of the party.”

BS: “No. I don’t want it.”

NG: “Not just some post, Yeddyurappa-ji. If you give up your CM-ship, we’ll ensure you’ll have an important say in all six BJP run States. How does an advisory post for the six BJP run states sound?”

BS: “Five.”

NG: “What?”

BS: “If I resign as CM, you will have only five BJP ruled states. Either I stay CM or you can forget about forming another Government in Karnataka for another two decades”

NG: …

Of course, we know the rest. The Central leadership caved in, and BJP’s inglorious attempt at Congress-style High Command politics ended ignominiously.

The reason is not hard to see. Yeddyurappa did have the numbers to carry out his threat. He had sixty MLAs from North Karnataka who would walk out with him if he was removed. The BJP’s two decade plan to become a big player in Karnataka politics would be back to square zero.

Delhi politicians are not used to having regional satraps dictate terms to them. Witness the Congress’ predicament with Jaganmohan Reddy, and contrast it with the way Ashok Chavan was dropped like a hot potato and replaced with whatsisname Chavan in Maharashtra. The BJP too despatched BC Khanduri from the Chief Minister-ship in Uttarakhand due to a local revolt (ostensibly as a scapegoat for Lok Sabha losses), and even the Left indulged in this most recently when they denied VS Achchuthandand a ticket in the recently concluded polls.

Yet, the question remains: How did he do it? How was he able to defy the party bosses in Delhi and hold on to his Chief Minister gaddi?

The answer lies in the manner in which Yeddyruppa built up the BJP in Karnataka, literally from scratch.

Successful politicians (as defined as those who come to hold the highest posts in State and Central Governments) in a multi-party Parliamentary democracy like India seem to follow one of two paths: they either inherit/takeover an existing party political machine, or build their own. (This point is not original, Bertrand Russell made this point as well in his book “Power: A new Social Analysis”). This seems trite and obvious, but the kind of politician who does either is quite different, and part of the difference is explained in the manner of their route to power. An Indira Gandhi or a Naveen Patnaik (or for that matter J Jayalalitha) inherits the party machine, while a Buddhadeb Bhattacharya or a Nitish Kumar takes over an existing party machine. On the other hand, someone like NT Rama Rao (Telugu Desam Party) or MG Ramachandran (Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), create their own. BS Yeddyruppa, in as much as he lacks the obvious charisma (and fan-club network of the two examplars), nevertheless belongs to the latter category.

The success or failure of the “inheritors” depends on how well they can prove their necessity to the party machine while in power. This is done by removing peers and competitors from contention and ingratiating oneself with the base. Indira Gandhi’s first two terms as PM is a classic example.

The success of the “creators” depends on how much they can create the party machine in their “image”. As far as the “creators” are concerned, the party machine is them and they are the party machine. This is usually done by tapping into regional/linguistic/caste/religious/ethnic sentiment (i.e., they are the embodiment of the linguistic aspirations of say, the Telugu speakers or the caste identity of particular castes). In this sense, Yeddyruppa built his machine around the North Karnataka Lingayat vote.

If you are an avid reader of M.N. Srinivas would have instantly recognized the Lingayats as one of the “dominant castes” of Northern Karnataka whom politicians would treat as a vote-bank.
The analysis almost writes itself from here on.
Yeddyruppa, being Lingayat, built the BJP to be the party of the Lingayat aspirations and himself, the saviour of his fellow Lingayats, and successfully playing vote-bank politics, walked into the CM’s seat on the basis of his strong Lingayat vote. So neat and tidy.

So wrong and incomplete.

Actually, not wrong, but definitely incomplete. See, BS Yeddyurappa was only the hundredth or so politician to understand the importance of the Lingayat vote. Long before the letters B, J or P featured on Karnataka’s electoral map, the Congress had had a lockdown on the Lingayat vote. BD Jatti and S Nijalingappa were Lingayat Chief Ministers who also had a strong political following in the community and almost inevitably, delivered the Lingayat vote to the Congress. The importance of the Lingayat vote for the Congress can also be seen in the fact that the next two Chief Ministers, SR Kanthi and Veerendra Patil, were also from North Karnataka

Yet, how did the Congress lose its hold over the Lingayat vote?

Undeniably, one contributing factor was the continued socio-economic stagnation of North Karnataka.

From http://blog.lookindia.in/2010/03/24/demand-for-new-states-in-india/

North Karnataka is not just a geographic description. Karnataka itself was assembled out of bits of five different geographic entities; the only common factor of these areas being the preponderance of Kannada speaking peoples (at least according to the States Reorganization Commission in 1956). In that sense, Karnataka is composed of the erstwhile princely states of Mysore and Coorg, the Kannada speaking districts of the Bombay and Madras Presidencies and the Kannada speaking parts of the erstwhile Princely State of Hyderabad. While the areas under the Mysore state and the Madras Presidency were among the better governed parts, (even Mahatma Gandhi himself called it a “Ramrajya“), Bombay-Karnataka and Hyderabad-Karnataka, specifically the districts of Bidar, Gulbarga, and Raichur were the undeveloped hinterland as far a Bombay Presidency and the Hyderabad State were concerned.

Although North Karnataka has produced some of the finest exponents of Kannada literature and poetry, and was also, arguably, the birthplace of the movement to create a State for Kannada speaking peoples, post-Independence, it continued to lag behind South and Coastal Karnataka in terms of economic development and human development indices. The indicators are stark.

In North Karnataka this was attributed it to the Congress’ efforts to consolidate the Vokkaliga vote in South Karnataka (the other “dominant caste” of Karnataka) in the face of the threat from the Janata Dal in the 80s and 90s. People of North Karnataka in general, and Lingayats in particular, felt betrayed by the party that they had supported wholeheartedly for so long and began to look for other options. The Janata Dal, content in its hold over the Vokkaliga vote because of a strong pantheon of Vokkaliga leaders did not make any serious efforts to tap into this feeling of betrayal and desertion in North Karnataka.

This is where Yeddyurappa stepped in and turned the BJP (of which he was President in 1988) from being a minor player in North Karnataka to the dominant force in Karnataka politics. He pitched the BJP as the party that would remedy the long standing grievances of the people of North Karnataka, and by judiciously courting the Lingayat vote, built up a strong base in North Karnataka. The party, which had something of a presence in North Karnataka, began to expand and throw down deeper roots under Yeddyurappa’s leadership. The aggressive expansion was well under way, and received a dramatic boost from the pockets of the (now infamous) Reddy Brothers when they joined the party fold in 1998. To use a motor racing metaphor, Yeddyurappa was the engine, and the Reddy brothers’ the fuel in the BJP party machine in Karnataka.

Whereas the Congress and the JD (and its myriad split-offs) have had an ever changing roster of leaders in Karnataka, Yeddyurappa has, by far, has been the most dominant face of the BJP in the State for the longest time. It’s true that the BJP has had some local leaders of standing in Karnataka, especially in urban areas, but in terms of influence and support within the State party, Yeddyurappa stands well clear of any of them. When he told Nitin Gadkari and the rest of the BJP Executive Committee that he built the party in the State, he was referring to the twenty or so years of consolidation that the BJP undertook under Yeddyurappa’s leadership in North Karnataka, and it was not something that the party mandarins in Delhi could ill scoff at.

But surely, poor governance, highly criticized flood relief in North Karnataka, and the highly publicized iron ore theft should have seriously dented his image, even in his base right? “Sure, we gave him the chance, and look what he’s done with it” is not a sentiment to be easily dismissed and that should have made Yeddyruppa’s position weaker. A man notorious for his temper and public displays of emotion, he couldn’t have made too many friends in high places and his foes (within and without the party) should have been seriously been able to undermine him by now. MLAs with their ears to the ground would have picked up the sentiment and jumped ship when they had the chance. Yet, he seems stronger than ever.
So what keeps him in place then?

The answer to this lies in the manner in which the Lingayat vote was consolidated, both before coming to power, and upon coming to power.

I will deal with that in the next post.

Part I | Part II | Part III

The Congress has displayed some very astute political tightrope walking over the past few years. To the casual observer, it would appear that the grand old party of India, with its sage like prime minister, benevolent high priestess and army of clean-shaven young leaders represents the ‘clean’ face of new Indian politics.  Most scams and embarrassments have been associated with its allies – the 2G Spectrum Scam with A Raja of the DMK, the rotting grains in FCI godowns with Sharad Pawar of the NCP. The Congress has easily been able to project an image of having to live with murky allies due to political realities, while being above them.   A quick review of the UPA’s record, however, will show that the Congress has been complicit, or even instrumental, in a process of systematically destroying democratic institutions – a process which in the long run could have far greater ramifications for democracy and governance in India than individual acts of corruption that its allies have indulged in.

It started with the office of the President. Pratibha Patil’s main qualification for the job was her unquestioned loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi family.  However, numerous reports of corruption and even complicity in murder against her and her family were hastily swept under the carpet. It is easy in the political world to dig out dirt against any one, and allegations cannot be taken as proof of guilt. However, the crux of the problem lay in the complete refusal by the Congress to engage with any objections against the proposed candidate. The sanctity of the office of the President suffered as a result.

The pattern has been repeated with alarming regularity. The appointment of Navin Chawla as the Chief Election Commissioner despite allegations of partisanship and objections from the highly respected incumbent, smacked of complete disregard for the importance of the office. Similarly, last week the Congress pressed on with (and indeed justified), the appointment of PJ Thomas as the Central Vigilance Commissioner despite his possible involvement in the palm oil scam in Kerala, and association with the 2G Spectrum scam.  The result was a complete mockery of the bipartisan process of appointment, with objections from Sushma Swaraj of the BJP being rubbished by the Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari on prime time television.  Examples abound – take the continued support to Kalmadi in the face of widespread corruption and mismanagement of the Commonwealth Games, or the interference by the Finance Ministry against all precedent in the extension of the Deputy RBI Governor’s term of office.  Nothing has been done to remedy the CBI’s reputation of being a stooge of the Congress either – in fact, the party appears to be reveling in the image.

The importance of the independence of bipartisan institutions cannot be overstated. To take just a single instance, the Election Commission is among the few bodies in the country which has the confidence of the public as being a democratic institution beyond reproach. Past chiefs have shown themselves to be equal to the task of taking on political heavyweights and goons to ensure that elections in India are free and fair.  It is the existence of institutions such as these that have kept India from teetering into chaos unlike other fledgling democracies such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and a multitude of African countries.  Just one stint by a politically partisan appointee could effectively destroy the reputation that the institution has created for itself against numerous odds.

It is unfortunate that these incidents do not carry the eyeball grabbing power of a grisly 1000 crore scam. The opposition has also shown incapacity to run with the theme and give it the necessary political traction. Murmurs of dissent by the BJP can be heard every so often, but no concerted attack has emerged.

The solution can and must be found through soul searching within the Congress itself. After the struggles of the nineties, the Congress is a party that seemed to have finally come to its own. It has the political clout and growing mass popularity to be in a position to really transform the fundamentals of governance in the country.  Appointment of loyalists at the helm of every institution designed to function as a counterweight to government power, perhaps stems from a deep seated insecurity within the party.  I believe that this insecurity is misplaced. By delivering on the promises of good governance that brought the party to power, the Congress can cement gains already made.  This makes strategic sense as well – independent institutions can help to keep allies in check without eroding the goodwill of the Congress with these parties.

Most importantly, for a party whose fate has been closely bound with the fortunes of the country since its birth, history’s judgment must carry some weight. The country is at a crossroads of sorts, and the Congress, once again, has the steer. Meddling with democratic institutions that could help India to realize its ambition of becoming a healthy, vibrant democracy will do neither the party, nor the country any favours.

Do not listen to music while studying. Don’t turn on the computer while you do your homework. No watching TV while eating. How often have we heard our parents tell us that we should stop doing many things at a time? The new technologies have made it more possible to do more and more things simultaneously. Is that good or bad?

An interesting post on MindHacks argued against Maggie Jackson‘s recent book Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age. Maggie claims that with the development of many new technologies that enable us to multi-task, we are getting more stressed and less creative. Vaughan Bell on MindHacks says that the argument is short-sighted and that even before the digital-age we were people who multi-tasked. At least now we have the ability of turning off the devices and thus, turn off the interruptions.

I like some of Vaughan’s argument. He starts by giving example of a woman from a poor neighbourhood who needs to tend to her four children, maintain the house (shopping, cleaning) and take care of a business she runs from the household. The majority of the people in the world who are still not part of the digital age are in one way or the other in that woman’s situation. And thus, saying that multi-tasking is a relatively new thing is not done with.

But he misses to counter some important points from Maggie’s argument. According, to Vaughan it’s easy to see that women may have gotten their brains wired to multi-task but exactly the opposite  can then be assumed to be true for men. Men were primarily, hunters and/or gatherers, they had a single objective: feed the family. Thus, they must have got their brains wired to focus on a single task, no?

I’d like to refute an argument which Maggie makes:

When you’re scattered and diffuse, you’re less creative. When your times of reflection are always punctured, it’s hard to go deeply into problem-solving, into relating, into thinking.

Creativity is the capacity to put together two or more ideas (or things) in a way that no one has before. In that respect, in the digital age I’d say that we have more opportunities to be creative but at the same time, because the same resources are available to a greater audience we have to think much harder and more often about  a ‘new way’. That may translate into more time devoted to thinking about the problem but there it doesn’t mean that that time must be all together. I can think of many instances where punctuated thought has brought me more ideas than hours of contemplation.

Today science has come to a point where one needs to be able to think about many things (and use the many resources/tools) at a time to be able to solve the highly complex (and inter-disciplinary) problems. In this case, I’d say that the better we may get at multi-tasking (with or without the help of the new technology) the better it may be for the scientists.

Even then, I have to agree to a few arguments that Maggie makes:

We are programmed to be interrupted. We get an adrenalin jolt when orienting to new stimuli: Our body actually rewards us for paying attention to the new. So in this very fast-paced world, it’s easy and tempting to always react to the new thing. But when we live in a reactive way, we minimize our capacity to pursue goals.

That makes sense. Yes, the multi-tasking on the internet (email, facebook, twitter) might be reducing our capacity to pursue goals. I think we should realise this in our browsing habits and avoid those distractions. But  other than those distractions, that very habit of multi-tasking can prove to be a boon for many researchers, writers, readers or anyone who needs to be able to deal with a lot of data (opinions, facts, ideas) that keeps coming their way during their browsing experience.

Maggie’s comment on Vaughan’s article is a good way of summing things up:

The “concentration oasis” is a myth I don’t subscribe to. And yet it’s truly short-sighted to fail to consider the costs of cultivating a culture of distraction and inattention.

A culture of distraction and inattention can breed from multi-tasking if a kid is left to himself. I think there is value in multi-tasking but one must teach the kids how to multi-task in a sensible way. Why am I restricting myself to just kids, even adults can learn how to multi-task, right? May be not. It has been shown (Human multi-tasking research links) that after the early 20’s it’s very hard to change the networks that have been developed in the brain. But that does not mean that adults who multi-task cannot learn to do it in a better way.