Desicritics Category: Politics: Corruption

India - Winter in August

Shantanu Dutta — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:41:18 EDT

The loud euphoria that we experienced when Abhinav Bindra won the Gold medal made me wonder about what might be the level of excitement that one might expect in countries where winning medals is a little more common. Are they the same? How is it in China where at this time, they are leading the United States. Long considered the lead medal winner in the Olympics. When some in say the US or South Korea wins a model what would it be like? I am sure that victory is cherished every where but do things go berserk as they seemed to do in India?

Watching the television channels meant going through the usual inane experience of the breathless and overwhelmed anchors grabbing the parents of the shooter and discussing his status on being further elevated among the ranks of the eligible bachelors of India.

It probably reveals the levels of pain in the nation that we are happy and ready and willing the tiniest wisp of good news that comes around. After all every morning’s news just makes for escalating bad news. Every one seems to be holding on mere shreds of hope. Even the Olympics have been stained. Witness the upheaval for example when Monika Devi of Manipur was subjected to a dope test and implicated only to be told too late that the test was flawed. That agony has been drowned by the rapidly escalating violence in Jammu and Kashmir.

Ever since the early days of the New Year when first the stock market started crashing, it would seem that nothing has gone right for India. The rising crude oil prices, the accompanying inflation, the rising interest rates on loans, particularly housing loans, the continuing terrorist attacks, instability in the Central Government, numerous incidents have rocked the nation, literally leaving it battered and bruised.

This Independence Day that will be upon us in a couple of days will be the bleakest in years. Most parts of the country are disturbed and traumatized in one way or the other. The situation in Jammu and Kashmir looks to be so bad that the government is short of its weapon of last resort – the armed forces are in short supply and there is talk of shifting troops from the Line of Control into areas like Kishtwar in J&K.

The newspapers are running advertisements that trains are being “regulated” in Assam. Night running of trains is being halted and when they do run they will run with bullet proof coating as befits a country and a railway system in siege. Because this year likes many others, the ULFA is bleeding Assam to death. Any one else calling a bundh on Independence Day would have run the risk of being accused of sedition but not them.

In Jharkhand, Shibu Soren is proclaiming openly that he should be made the chief minister of Jharkhand replacing the present incumbent practically overnight or else like a petulant child, he would again withdraw support potentially plunging the beleaguered central government into yet another crisis and in the process reducing the already polluted market place politics to the haggling and bargaining that goes on in the village haat. In every place there is nothing but gloom except in that one gold medal that was our destiny this year. Even the silver medalist of the last Olympics, Lt.Col. Rathode failed to qualify for the finals in his particular shooting event. Meanwhile, in Delhi, the skies are often overcast in that broody way, that casts a pall of gloom every where. The rains have ensured that there is a slight nip in the air and the temperature is many degrees below the normal. May be it is time to get the sweaters out….. it looks like it might be winter in August…..

Do You Know Filmmaker, Activist Ajay TG?

Sakshi Juneja — Tue, 5 Aug 2008 14:23:40 EDT

No? Neither did I until yesterday.

There I was sitting at Juhu's Prithvi Theatre watching a compilation of short documentary films, organized by an NGO called Vikalp (formed in 2003, a group of documentary film makers fighting against censorship) and all I could think of was Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag.

Though the film turned out to be the biggest box-office failure of 2007, to me the film's depiction — of modern day daaku raj (Babban Singh) vs. the Ex-Police Chief and his hired goons Heroo & Raj – seem perfectly in sync with the Naxalite situation in the State of Chhattisgarh. No laughing matter this, the reality is as dark and horrifying. However, unlike the movie, the Naxalite condition doesn't have as clear a hero-villain divide.

In order to free the state's people from the tortures of the rebellious Naxalities (dakku raj), the government put in action the Special Public Security Act (SPS, 2005), and have also created an army of villagers called the Salwa Judum giving them bows arrows and guns, under the pretext of self-protection against the bad guys. The Chhattisgarh government wants us to look up to them in the same way as the villagers regarded the Ex-Police Chief in the film. Their life-savior, their messiah.

According to the Planning Commission 2008 report, that is not only unconstitutional, but also a form of state sponsored terror. So, no happy ending in sight here, only a spiral result of violence and more of it.

And this is where filmmaker Ajay TG's story comes in.

On 4th May 2008, Chhattisgarh police arrested Ajay, a filmmaker by profession and human rights activist working in Raipur. He also happens to be an active member of The People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), a human rights organization aggressively protesting against the Salwa Judum and the SPS.

Ajay was detained under the Act, which is nothing more than a façade to brand human rights activists/organizations as "terrorists". Shockingly, until this date the State police have found no hard evidence against the filmmaker except what it claims to be a letter allegedly written to him to by a Maoist leader. This old letter was actually written to Ajay before the Naxalites were banned. And it only asked him the price of a piece of equipment that they had confiscated from him, wanting to pay him back.

A few days before he was arrested, Ajay was making a film on another activist Dr Binayak Sen (General Secretary, Chhattisgarh PUCL and like Ajay detained by the State Police since May 2007) and happened to enter, with a penknife, the courtroom in which Sen was being tried. Ajay didn't even remember he had in his rucksack. He of course issued a formal apology to the court, calling it a human error, and the court forgave him. Nonetheless, the next day, papers carried stories of the filmmaker having carried a 'modern and deadly weapon' into the court of law.

Those who have worked with Ajay think this is a tactic employed by the State government to suppress the efforts made by PUCL members and supporters of Dr. Sen.

Last night along with 20 or so other people, I watched a couple of documentaries on the people of Chhatisgarh – some directed by Ajay himself and others where he assisted as an editor and/or cameraman – Safar, Anjam, Aisa Kyun? being the most discomforting of the lot. Oddly enough only a handful of mainstream media publications have bothered to put across Ajay and PUCL's struggle to the masses; after all where is there any time or space left to report about selfless human efforts when the nation prefers to lap up gossips involving Bollywood starlets.

Anyway, if anything mentioned here interests or manages to pinch the humanity within you, even to the slightest – I request you to visit Release Ajay TG and show your support.

CPM Expels Speaker Somnath Chaterjee

Ashish — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:46:19 EDT

This was one of the most anticipated news in recent times on an individual politician level. The Speaker, Somnath Chaterjee has been a member of the CPM for over 40 years, having been a Member of Parliament from the party for 10 times now. From all appearances, he has been an articulate and devoted member for the party. At the same time, as the party drew up its leadership over a period of time, it was clear that Somnath Chaterjee was not going to be a candidate in the succession chain, and given that he is 79 years, not likely to happen in the future also.

There was a lot of buzz that he wanted to the President, but the CPM did not agree to this (leading to some disappointment with the party politburo). At the same time, even though the BJP keeps on accusing him of acting in a biased manner, he seems to have given the office of the Speaker his best effort. It was a familiar sight of the Speaker trying his best to bring an unruly house to control (and mostly failing). So, there must have been the feeling that he enjoyed a constitutional post, with the prestige associated with it, and above the dictates of any party.

Even then, it was a matter of surprise that he refused to obey the diktat of the CPM that he quit the office of the Speaker and became defiant in his attitude.

This must have been very unsettling for the party; a Communist party likes to believe that once the Politburo has spoken, then there is no cause for dissent; even if it is the holder of a constitutional post. So, the party backed down a bit, keeping his name off the whip, but the action was predicted. It was the timing that was to be considered, and it was fast:

Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee was on Wednesday expelled by CPM climaxing a fortnight-long defiance of the veteran parliamentarian to quit at the call of the party with which he was associated for four decades. The party invoked Article 19 (13) of its constitution to expel him under summary procedures without any notice on the charge of "seriously compromising" the party position.
The 79-year old barrister and ten-time MP, Chatterjee rejected both subtle and explicit hints from the party leadership, which asked him to quit the post to which he was elected unanimously after the 2004 elections, saying he was above party politics given the post he held.

Somehow, this action also gives a hint of the anger that is bubbling within the CPM over the vote loss and consequent loss of influence, that it took a fast and quick action against a leader who has been with the party for long.

Cash For Votes Allegations - No Surprises

BangaloreGuy — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:18:45 EDT

When Desicritics invited opinions on the "cash for votes" scam - my internet search engines hadn't picked up on the one crore rupees displayed by BJP MPs in Parliament for apparently abstaining from the Trust vote on the UPA Government - still a small sum, going by the recent talk of an MP's or an MLA's worth in the Karnataka Assembly.

That said, I think the average Indian is probably resigned to it - the horse trading, the relatively large sums of money exchanged etc; Shibu Soren, who got convicted for one such act for Narasimha Rao's government is still around, still an MP - and is being promised ministries while in the process of deciding this government's fate as well.

I don't see why people would be surprised about Horse-trading when we see murderers, rapists, arsonists and rioters as MLAs/MPs. At least 4 of those are prominently highlighted in the media with 3 currently in jail. Why would one expect any of those members not to be available for cash/positions - after all, those would help "cement" their illegal lifestyles. (Only self-interest, no national interest)

Even the not-so-tainted MPs would be available for sale, wouldn't they? After all, the honourable PMO no less sent 8 letters for a specific company's profit to one PSU oil company - there was nary a trust vote over that - some edits, some TV debates, Karan Thapar haranguing a couple of "TV politicians" (politicians with little other political 'base') - and that was about it.

On the specific issue that this trust vote is over, I can count on my fingers the number of times it came up for debate in Parliament, and the clarifications issued by the PM - twice that is, excluding the current debate. If my Prime Minister cannot brief Parliament on what is referred to as a "game-changing" agreement more than twice, or create a consensus why advocate for it - or go to a trust vote over it?

Another reason for actually needing to curry the MP's favour with cash is the ridiculous laws governing defection, lack of inner party democracy/meritocracy and the so-called "party whip". What's the point of the "party whip" - I mean, come on, if you need a "whip" to convince your party members that they need to vote for your government (or against the other party's government) - surely something's wrong there?

UPA Wins Confidence Vote - Cash For Votes Allegations Scar House

Aaman Lamba — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:55:07 EDT

In a tumultuous debate that made Lok Sabha TV the most watched channel in India, the lower house of the Indian Parliament debated the confidence motion in the ruling UPA Alliance government, moved by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after the Left Front withdrew support over the India-US nuclear deal.

The debate had the usual grandstanding and suave allusions amidst much heat and noise. It might have been a regular day with the vote mostly expected to go closely in favour of the government had the BJP not pulled a large green rabbit out of the proverbial hat. Three BJP MPs - Ashok Argal, Faggan Singh Kulasthe, and Mahavir Arora - brought out large wads of cash, apparently totalling Rs. 1 crore and claimed they had been given this money as a bribe in exchange for their votes in favour of the motion. They claimed that Amar Singh, the general secretary of the Samajwadi Party had allegedly given them the money and that they had a video recording of the same.

This predictably led to pandemonium and jolted the talking heads out of their stupor to rush to the well of the house. The BJP demanded the resignation of the Prime Minister. The Speaker of the House, Somnath Chatterjee, after he had restored order following much brouhaha, asked the Delhi Police chief to carry out an investigation. The Congress Party rejected the allegations and asked for an investigation themselves. They said that Ashok Argal, having accepted the supposed bribe was himself liable. Laloo Prasad Yadav demanded a narco-analysis test be carried out on the three BJP MPs who had raised the allegation.

The resumption of proceeding after a temporary adjournment saw impassioned criticism and alternately support of the government. Omar Abdullah called the attempts to shout down protesters and move motions against the vote itself the 'death of democracy'. Somnath Chatterjee maintained a tenuous decorum with aplomb. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attempted to make a statement in his soft voice before he was harangued and drowned out by a tumult of voices. He finally submitted his statement in writing.

The vote was finally called and a voice vote appeared to have gone the government's way. A division of the house was called for and initial voting came across as 253 to 232 in favour of the motion, with 2 abstaining. Many MPs indicated they had been unable to vote. The final tally was 275 to 256 - Singh is king, at least for the day.

The allegations raised will take a long time to die down, and the government's functioning will take a knock until the issue is settled.

Dr. Rajesh Talwar - Still In Custody

Shantanu Dutta — Thu, 3 Jul 2008 11:36:39 EDT

Dr. Rajesh Talwar, one of the accused in the now famous NOIDA double murder case was arrested on May 23rd and has since then been in custody. Although he is produced in court every now and then, bail is always denied on the pretext that further questioning is needed or various tests still need to be done. Guilty or not, even before anything is conclusively pinned on him, he has spent a month and more in jail and who knows how long he will have to stay.

What is worrisome is the manner in which he has been detained for so long a time. Dr. Talwar’s situation is not a tangled web full of complexities and spanning counties and continents like say Charles Sobhraj. Till the day of his death, he was living a very typical normal and middle class life. There is no criminal record that he had from past days that needs looking into. Dr. Talwar is no hardened criminal who would have learned the art of handling tough interrogation – as police clients go, he would have been among the softest they would have handled, and yet between the NOIDA police and the CBI, his questioning and interrogation seems to be dragging on forever.

We have been fixated on mostly on the human rights violations that the police and other Paramilitary forces supposedly carry out in the form of encounter killings of terrorists and under world dons. These have been even glamorized in ways with Bollywood basing many of their scripts on real life police “encounter specialists” with very little attempts at disguise. Closely related is the phenomenon of torture, custodial deaths and sub human treatment. Largely this happens to people for whom there is little public sympathy or to the anonymous and impoverished delinquent; again some one who has no one to defend them. Dr. Talwar’s case is an interesting one where he has no criminal record, no hardened criminal, not much of a likelihood of him absconding or scooting off to another country. Even so he continues in jail seemingly forever. Even the CBI who are supposedly the wizards in crime investigation are sweating and struggling to question and make sense of the answers of a man like Dr. Talwar who probably had never even seen the inside of a police lock up till now beats reason.

A recent campaign that originated in Mumbai and is now aiming to spread else where to expose inappropriate practices in the police including corruption was started by I K Chuggani. A retired man himself, he began harnessing the potential, energy and the connections of many other retired people in Mumbai to start a campaign against rogue elements in the police. They have a web site, a very strong Facebook presence as well as the infrastructure of a registered non profit based in Mumbai. It is truly a citizens’ movement and one that is looking not merely for money but active involvement and volunteerism, more actively on their Facebook group. Do look them up and join in. Looking at the predicament of Dr. Talwar, I for one paused to wonder for a moment as to what my coping mechanism might be if I were in a situation similar to his and sadly enough, I found none.

Dangers of Exercising the Right to Information

Ashish — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 10:42:36 EDT

The RTI Act was supposed to provide an inexpensive way for people to get more empowered, and to be able to exercise their right to get more openness into the Government machinery. This would be a sword in the fight to expose corruption and mis-governance; and the RTI Act has brought about some changes in this regard. There have been many cases where people have used RTI to either get more information about cases where they have fighting with babudom; or there have been cases where people (and many organizations fighting for more openness) have used the power of the RTI Act to expose corruption or other such problems that used to remain hidden earlier.

However, this is not to say that the Government bureaucracy is not fighting back. There have been all sorts of attempts made to stone-wall queries, or to question as to why people need the information that they have requested. In some cases, these attempts to prevent disclosure of such information has lead to fines on the concerned officials. However, the method used below was something that I had not read of earlier, and seems to use normal Government channels to punish a Government employee trying to expose corruption:

DEWAS (MP): Information comes at a price, and who can know this better than a Kendriya Vidyalaya teacher who has been transferred to Kargil in Jammu and Kashmir for seeking information about alleged corruption.

"I was transferred to Kargil and was also relieved by the school administration here the day they received an order in this regard as I have exposed corruption in purchase of books, construction of playground and illegal felling of trees among others and sought information about it under RTI," Manjulal Kajodia said after beginning his protest against his transfer.

Such measures to victimize a RTI applicant need to be condemned across the board. Exposing corruption within your own department is even more risky since you can get targeted more easily (there are specific whistle-blower laws that try to protect people exposing wrong-doing within their own area.)

Keeping An Eye on Government Spending

Ashish — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 06:17:11 EDT

It is an established fact that a significant majority of money devoted to social programmes, such as the National Employment Guarantee, Anti-poverty programmes, targeted food subsidy, and many others, are heavily flawed in terms of the actual money that reach the poor.

There have studies over the past, there have been admissions by the Government in the past (such as Rajiv Gandhi's famous statement made way back in 1985 about only 15% of the money reaching the intended). Money is siphoned off through middle-men, local politicians, workers, and the entrenched mafia. This has happened for a long time now, and it would seem that people have accepted this as a normal thing.

From time to time, the Government announces that there will be much greater inspection of the implementation to ensure that leakages are stopped. But more than the Government, there are social activists who are encouraging villages and the logical recipients of such aid to be more vigilant, to use laws such as RTI, and other measures such as social audits.

It is the duty of the state to protect such audits and awareness, to provide all security measures, from policy statements by ministers at all levels and messaging through the arms of the state (babus, local politicians), and act strictly and firmly against people who seek to subvert such acts. But consider this article, and see whether the Government is doing things in the right manner:

The thousand-strong gathering at the Theological College grounds in Ranchi on June 10 had no doubts over why Lalit Mehta was killed. The 36-year-old engineer turned activist, had no personal enemies or battles. All he had done was access National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) expenditure records for researchers verifying official records against field data. On May 14, a day before the planned Social Audit of those works, he was brutally murdered.

The NREGA has provided an entitlement for the first time. The RTI has given a tool to uncover corrupt practices. The Social Audit is a mandatory process, under the NREGA Act, giving the people a chance to establish the truth and push for change. For the first time a corrupt mafia is threatened by a legally mandated process, which looks at details and places irrefutable documentary proof in the public domain. The corrupt nexus is reacting with pre-meditated, calculated violence.

If you read the article by Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey, this will leave you shaking in disbelief. There are incidents where the local administration (influenced no doubt by vested interests), is acting against people who are trying to create the awareness, and the Government, with all its statements for the aam admi, is standing still and refusing to take the measures that are subverting its own political campaigns.

In the end, when people see corruption and do not see measures reaching them, they blame the political party. Does it not surprise the Congress that all these measures are not getting them political votes ?

Indian Prime Minister Calls for Austerity Measures

Ashish — Sat, 7 Jun 2008 05:27:41 EDT

When he became the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh was supposed to be a smart economist, and a non-practicing politician; now it seems that things are totally reversed. For a long time, the Prime Minister kept off raising the price of fuel even though the international price of oil had gone up tremendously, this was a political decision. At the same time, since the Government has committed vast sums of money to its social welfare schemes, it cannot afford to significantly reduce the duties on oil; hence it refused to accept the Left dictated measure to reduce duty to absorb the price hike.

Now that the Government was finally forced to increase the price of petrol, diesel and LPG, there has been a whole gamut of measures to try and reduce the political cost. So the Prime Minister comes on TV to declare his helplessness at this hike, this being a global increase in fuel. In addition, the Prime Minister and the Congress tried to push some of the cost onto local State Governments by asking the state Governments to reduce duties from their side (and promptly, some state Governments ruled by the Congress did so).

In addition, the Prime Minister called for austerity measures as a way to demonstrate the Government's resolve to control its expenditure. And promptly, the various Ministers announced that they will now not go for foreign junkets, or now travel by economy instead of first class, and so on. This is political posturing at its worst, instead of actual measures to reduce wastage and expenditure.

Here are some examples:

1. The newspaper today had an article about the Delhi Government absorbing Rs. 40 of the Rs. 50 hike in LPG. Now, a significant amount of the LPG sold in Delhi is absorbed by commercial enterprises, mostly eateries. They are supposed to buy commercial LPG, but instead buy diverted residential LPG with the connivance of distributors. This is a direct wastage that would be carried out throughout the country; this is also the case where vehicles use residential LPG cylinders.

2. From time immemorial, but announced by Rajiv Gandhi more than 20 years back, most of the money spent for anti-poverty measures gets diverted, with very little money actually reaching the poor. This gets highlighted from time to time, but there has been almost no measure by the Government to reduce this leakage. And the high profile new policies that seek to spend a massive sum are going the same way (such as the National Employment Guarantee Scheme). A lot of this diversion happens at the local politician level, and hence the parties do not attack this corruption.

3. Large construction projects are announced, and then due to bad supervision, these projects get delayed and the costs mount like anything.

4. There is hardly any national critical level project such as a national focus to go in for alternative energy projects to reduce our dependence on oil. Projects to introduce more of ethanol and biofuel (from non food crops) are very slow.
There can be many such examples, but the net effect is that the Government can do a significant amount to both reduce its expenditure as well as decrease India's increase in oil consumption.

The Builders' Banditry

Shantanu Dutta — Wed, 4 Jun 2008 09:55:44 EDT

Some time back some of us looking to buy property in Delhi, made a round of Dwarka, the only place in the city where we had some hope of buying property within our means. Although the place is filled with flats –occupied and unoccupied, it was nearly impossible to identify any property based on newspaper advertisements. So we did the next best thing, approached property dealers- and Dwarka has more property dealers it would seem than any other kind of shops. But though we wore out our foot wear visiting their dinghy offices, we could not identify one dealer, who would be willing to complete a transaction without accepting a portion of the payment in cash which would not accounted for. Partly constrained by our principles and partly by our purse for we could get a loan only on the declared value of the property, we gave up the chase after a while. None of us still own any property ; at least not in Delhi.

The sight of the uncouth and decidedly unprofessionally attired and ill mannered persona of those manning these “offices” and their equally loud and garish office décor should have alerted us that we were not dealing with any one acquainted in the least with real estate or property matters but with goons and thugs. But it did not. In fact it is the newspapers that have alerted me to this fact. The constant stream of news connecting property dealers with killing and murders is too obvious to ignore. The news of an NRI investor being duped of his property by a land mafia is just one more story in a long line of stories which connects dubious property dealers with crime and greed. A couple of months ago, the television channel CNN-IBN had done a sting operation aimed at restoring another property that had been ‘captured” from the owner by the local land mafia.

Scarcely a day passes when one does not find some property dealer or the other accused in some murder or extortion or other kind of deception. Recently one of the high profile cases involving a property dealer was that of Gurgaon property dealer Vijay Bharadwaj confessing to the killing of a Assistant Commissioner of Police in the Delhi Police. The shortage of land in the National Capital Region, particularly Delhi, the long connection between land, muscle power and greed and the fact that profession is still unregulated and is entirely in the unorganized sector has meant that chaos has ruled in the profession. In Delhi’s urban villages, where municipal zoning rules do not apply, all one needs to set up shop as a real estate agent is a rickety table and chair put with a ceiling fan droning lazily and a small television set perched up to help the attendant pass time as he waits for clients.

The government has for long pondered about regulating and licensing the capital intensive industry - at least in Delhi and the NCR region where the nexus between builders, property dealers and land grabbers seems particularly rampant. The Real Estate Management Regulation & Control Bill is meant to license builders and property dealers and has provisions for penal action and includes even cancellation of license to operate, among several other stringent measures for those found guilty of flouting the norms. However will the bill be ever introduced in reality ? Or if ever introduced, will it ever be passed ? Remember the fate of the Womens’ Reservations Bill ? It took forever to be introduced and now that it is introduced , it is languishing in benign purgatory as vested interests try their best to scuttle it. The builder property dealer lobby may be less loud but no less effective in scuttling bills that are inconvenient. Meanwhile the pillaging and plunder will unfortunately continue!