Falling morals of Indian politics

With the battle for Bihar heating up, decibel levels are rising and allegations of kinds are flying thick and fast in the state known for high drama and colour during elections. And this time the stakes are high, especially for chief minister Nitish Kumar, for this is an important state of the National Democratic Alliance. It is similarly also crucial for former chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav. Despite all attempts, the Congress remains a fringe player. It was Congress general sectary Rahul Gandhi who fired the first salvo and accused the Bihar government of massive irregularities in using the central aid for the benefit of the people of Bihar and since then there is no looking back in throwing filth at one another by the politicians. The Congress and Rahul Gandhi made this allegation even during run up to assembly and Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh. It was prime minister Manmohan Singh who hit out at Nitish Kumar at a rally in the state's Araria district on Saturday saying central funds were being misused. Nitish hit back by saying that no money had been squandered or misused and has been used for the purpose it was meant to be. He added for good measure that the finance commission decides on how much percentage of this money remains with the centre and how much goes to the states. By doing so no government had done a favour to Bihar and in fact this was the job of central government. This is sad part of the politics that allegations and counter allegations are thrown to garner public support. But if the central government’s fund was misused by the Bihar government then what have they done to stop this. Do they have any relevant figures of amount of funds misused? The Congress party has all these years just complained and made allegations at states, which it does not rule, but has seldom acted on any such irregularity where it is in power. Whether it is corruption in Commonwealth Games or fund allotment to any states, the pro-establishment forces always sneak through and rule the roost. At best, ministers like Shashi Tharoor just tender their resignation – and even such cases are not few and far between – and get a safe cover. Contrast this with Lalit Modi, who is paying the price of going anti-establishment. It remains to be seen how the government handles the Suresh Kalmadi issue now that the Games are over. Or it may well think that since the Games went by so well that the people will forget it. Wait and watch. May be this is the character of politics or the UPA government!

Painful punishment

The verdict of the 26-year-old Bhopal gas tragedy is finally out. And what is the punishment? Two years in jail and that too is bailable, along with an apologetic compensation for the negligence in one of the biggest manmade disasters in a century. And after all that, the high and mighty still move scotfree. This has become almost of every big and small verdict in this country where the victim suffers and the convict flees. Be it Jessica murder case or Ruchika, the law took its course only after a trial by the media. One still remembers a hard hitting headline in a newspaper saying ‘No one killed Jessica’. The media hit hard on the lower court’s verdict and the high court had to take a suo moto cognizance on the matter. The accused, who were acquitted had to face another trial and were thereafter sentenced with much severe punishment. But this was a high profile case in the national capital. But how many like Jessica get justice in ordinary circumstances? Well, the verdict in the Bhopal gas tragedy has made it clear that being poor in this country is a curse. People said the era of kings was brutal when they used to watch duels (a game where two people fight and one dies in the end) for their entertainment but I don’t think it can be more brutal than this where 20,000 lives have been killed with Rs 5 lakh compensation and the perpetrators get away with a bailable a two-year jail term.

War for Tamil hearts

Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa may have pledged to strive for a settlement acceptable to all Tamils in Lanka, but that does not seem to have silenced his detractors in India and back home in Sri Lanka. This is the first official visit of the Lankan president after cleaning up the three-decade-old LTTE and the killing its chief V Prabhakaran last year. Prabhakaran could not garner much support from India due to his anti-India policy, but his cause still seems to strike a chord here, and is still alive in the hearts of many Indians. At least the big divide in the Indian entertainment industry over organising a cine award function – the International Indian Film Academy awards — in the island makes us believe so. Bollywood stars, including IIFA brand ambassador and superstar Amitabh Bachchan, chose to miss the show. Various Tamil groups urged the senior Bachchan to boycott the Colombo awards ceremony as they marched from his Pratiksha bungalow to his Jalsa residence in Mumbai last month.This is the first time in 11 years that Big B kept himself away from the annual award function. Bachchan wasn’t the only to give the show a miss. The event was insipid as Bollywood biggies like Shahrukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai and many others kept away from the show after the South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce threatened to boycott films of Bollywood stars attending the event. The event has already drawn the ire of the Tamil film fraternity, with popular figures like Rajnikanth, Kamal Hassan, Vijay, Ajith and Surya refusing to be associated in anyway with the IIFA. This displeasure and divide over the issue also propelled the Lankan president to keep away from the event after Bollywood stars did not make an appearance at a brunch hosted by him at Temple Trees (his official residence). Rajapaksa may have salvaged his nation from decades-old militancy, but is still found stumbling in the ruins of Tamil legacy. May be this is the time to wage another “war” to win Tamil hearts.

'Left' in ruins...

It was furious red faced communists standing in the ruins of the rich left legacy on Wednesday as the verdict of West Bengal municipal elections made it clear that the change had arrived. Mamata’s second thumping victory within a year in the communist bastion has made it clear that the Left parties might well be in the twilight of their politics. And the West Bengal story is not just about that state, it is about a diminishing Left era in India. The communists have been ruling in the land of Tagore since the late 1970's and no party could break the record. May be, the Left lost the script, remained complacent or just refused to re-discover itself as it happened to communism elsewhere in the world. But the rout of the communist party may not portend well in the larger context of Indian polity. The communists were a great balancing force in the United Progressive Alliance, though they were considered an irritant who would always oppose everything progressive. It should not be forgotten that they played a vital role in making the National Rural Employment Guarantee programme a reality. The municipal election, which was seen as a semi final in West Bengal before the assembly elections next year, seems to have given Mamata Banerjee led Trinmool Congress a good chance to conquer the 'red fort' after more than three decades. The communist party, which was build on an anti-Congress theme decades later backed a Congress led government. Was this dilution in ideology or desperation to remain close to power that they lost, it is difficult to say.

Modi will rise, Am(i)en!

“Fear not what is not real, never was and never will be. What is real, always was and cannot be destroyed” Lalit Modi got rather philosophical as he quoted Bhagwad Geeta after his unceremonious suspension in the wake of the IPL drama. He stood all ‘alone’ with virtually everyone gunning for him – out but not down.Things would have been really different if the IPL chief had learnt another truth about ‘by power, for power and to hold back power’, of the modern times and would have kept mum when the UPA ministers were busy making money by ‘sweat’ equity. His stance on the issue not only took the toll of some big names in the UPA government but also raised many fingers over the alleged behind-the-door government involvement in money making. He just tweeted and one of the poster boys of the ruling coalition was dropped from the game; this should have given Modi enough indication that he was next in line to get the boot. It seems the government would not sit back and wait to see few more powerful ministers going the Shashi Tharoor way. Modi’s last words at the IPL final showed that he may be down but certainly not out and would fight back with full spirit and faith in himself. Success is the most difficult thing to achieve in this world and people who believe that money making is easy should go and ask a beggar.Modi has written his own success story. And only time will tell how long it will take for him to emerge from the ashes – like the proverbial phoenix.

IPL fiasco in last lap

It seems the IPL imbroglio will take many more days -- even after the IPL finals are over -- to reach its logical end. After Shashi Tharoor’sresignation from the union government, it seems to be the turn of IPL chief Lalit Modi to feel the heat from politicians who missed the IPL bus -- in other words those who failed to gain directly or indirectly from the league.With politicians like Lalu Yadav demanding banning the game in its present form clearly shows the frustration and pain for not being a 'beneficiary' of the game. One can understand this situation since Lalu who despite ruling the Bihar cricket board for past several decades, could not see his son in the playing eleven in IPL though he was part of the Delhi Daredevils team. Of late, the BCCI had also derecognised the Bihar state cricket body. This could be the backdrop of raising such a demand in the Parliament to at least grab some attention from the media, which after his Rashtriya Janata Dal's Lok Sabha debacle has been giving a short shrift to the maverick Bihar leader. Tharoor who presented his side in the Parliament while pleading innocence spoke about his statesmanship as a politician and his aura but could not explain why his resignation was accepted by the prime minister.The income tax action against Modi smacks of political vendetta from the union government after it suffered a huge embarrassment caused by Tharoor.While only time -- and investigations -- will tell if Lalit Modi is involved in any wrong doing, but one has to give him credit for the new dimension he has given to the game of cricket in India through the IPL. If it was Kerry Packer who brought in and popularised one-day cricket, it is Modi who has introduced the modern ‘private’ version of cricket. Many parents today want their children to become cricketers as the new form of cricket has opened doors for manyyoung sportspersons to fulfil their dream of becoming successfulcricketers.

Quiet escape

Shashi Tharoor, who has resigned as a union minister in the wake of the IPL Kochi controversy, seems to have paved the way for another round of showdown between the government and Board of Control for Cricket in India. After the government made the minister to resign taking a high moral stance, it seems to be ready to gun for IPL chief Lalit Modi. This seems to be really strange that a minister, who used the public office to favour a friend, is treated like a martyr and no further inquiry is being initiated against him, whereas others are being probed.

External affairs

‘External affairs’ seem to be keeping minister of state Shashi Tharoor quite busy these days while not much is known about what exactly he has been doing in his ministry. The minister, who is known for his arrogance and flamboyance, is now complaining of an attack on his privacy. He would have done better if he had thought about the privacy angle before he chose to plunge into electoral politics. Tharoor has decided not to give up and has been matching strokes with Lalit Modi. He is now trying to convert the IPL imbroglio into some kind of a Congress versus BJP issue.It is so very ironical that the minister, who is crying foul over remarks for his interest in one of the owners of the Kochi team, is terming it personal while putting all his professional clout to get through the deal of IPL Kochi team -- the one recently introduced and which is expected to take part in the fourth edition of IPL crickettournament. IPL chief Lalit Modi, who had sought the details of consortium partners for Kochi team, was termed as an opposition man who was trying to malign the image of UPA government. Although Tharoor has also responded well by hurling remarks about Modi’s past and his arrest for alleged possession of cocaine in the United States.It is really difficult to understand if all this is cricket or an ‘external affair’.

Now let the guns do talking

Time seems to be running out for the union government to act against rising Maoist insurgency in the recent times. Many experts attribute the unfortunate killing of 76 CRPF soldiers to the government taking the Naxal threat very lightly and made the security forces ‘sitting ducks’. There can be absolutely no reason to push the armed forces to the jaws of death when there were intelligence reports about the growing power and influence of the Maoists in Chhattisgarh,Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa. After such incident it becomes really difficult to understand the ideology behind any such act, which the Maoist claims. The Naxalite movement that started in India from Naxalbari, a small village in West Bengal, where an extremist section of Communist Party of India (Marxist) led by Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal began a violent uprising in 1967. The insurrection started on May 25, 1967, in Naxalbari village when a farmer was attacked over a land dispute. Maoists in the guise of farmers retaliated by attacking the landlords and the violence escalated.The ideology that once fought for the rights of the suppressed peasants and lower classes and tried to create an uprising to overthrow the government and upper classes whom they claimed to be responsible for the poor’s plight has somewhere totally lost its way. Today, most of the funding for the growing Maoist menace comes by oppressing the poor and by unlawful acts, including smuggling of poppy in the tribal areas of Orrisa. This is not the only thing. The Maoist have become a tool in the hands of some neighbouring countries who fund these organisations to push terrorism in India. How else does one describe the huge stockpile of arms and ammunition the Maoists have. May be this is the reason the Maoists view Islamist militancy as a struggle towards national liberation against imperialism and claims it to be an upsurge, which should not be opposed as it is basically anti-US and anti-Imperialist in nature. Time has come to take this threat very seriously. If the Moists are not contained at this point of time, the day is not far when this 'war' will not be confined to the ‘red corridor’ or few states but would engulf the whole country. Killing and exploitation against what the Naxal movement once stood for today stands on the corpses of innocent and poor. It’s high time to hit back and come to the rescue of poor beings. There is little scope for negotiations now. Sometimes the language of the gun has to be replied to in the same coin.