Passionate About India

Normally, it is difficult for me to be cynical like media pundits generally are. But after looking at election results in so many states since 2010, the one sad conclusion that I can draw is that the corruption card is being overstated and over-hyped. it appears as if allies and perception management play a bigger role in deciding elections than actual facts related to corruption and plunder. This should be the biggest lesson that the top BJP leaders must draw from the elections. Compare two states and two parties and see what has actually happened. In Karnataka, the Lokayukta, Justice Santosh Hegde and his office accused the BJP government led by the then Chief Minister B. S. Yeddyurappa of corruption. These charges were related primarily to mining operations in Bellary. Subsequently, Yeddyurappa was forced to step down. At that time, my colleagues told me that senior BJP leaders based in Delhi had a bigger role to play in the ouster of Yeddyurappa than opposition parties! In a s...

Today, India is at a critical juncture with all socio-economic as well as political ills engulfing the nation from almost all possible directions. Starting from a series of bribery scams that are being exposed, to our plummeting ranks in almost all economic indicators – everything corroborates the hope for the rise of a fourth front (considering the third front still exists and is potent) in the form of Arvind Kejriwal’s political debut with India Against Corruption, along with an emerging coterie of social activists, who are gradually morphing the political landscape and are all collectively reshaping the political couture of the nation. Without even an iota of apprehension, Kejriwal has been able to create a wave of passion and excitement among common Indians for a probable better political future. Through his campaign against political parties and leaders, he has been instrumental in giving a vent to the pent up anger of the public against the corrupt, inefficient and slothful ...

First of all, congratulations to our Chief Election Commissioner Dr. Quraishi for yet again managing the elections with the least reports of rigging; congratulations also to Akhilesh for becoming an icon overnight for the Indian youth through sheer hard work. I shall write on him very soon! This time, I want to write on something that is spoken about every time that elections are held anywhere in India – the question of election time funding. Of course, it’s shameful the way black money dominates election funding in India. But then, if you thought American Presidential elections – the nomination fight for which is underway currently in the USA – are clean, then here are some facts which will make you think again! Actually, throughout history, elections have never been democratic in the true sense with money power significantly dominating the outcome instead of ability, one way or the other. There has been rarely an election where power-variables have not played their role. Almost all e...

ONLY THEN WOULD WE KEEP GETTING GOVERNMENTS TRULY FOR THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE AND OF THE PEOPLE Last December, the state assembly of Gujarat passed a bill to make voting mandatory – that bill is still to see a nod from the Governor. Revisiting the issue, L K Advani and Narendra Modi both recently echoed the viewpoint again and asked the legislation to make voting compulsory in the state, especially after a low turnout rate in the recent civic elections. On an average, the voter turnout rate in Gujarat has been around 50 per cent, while a month back Bihar saw a turnout rate of 43-45 per cent! The recent developments with respect to compulsory voting remind me of an editorial of mine that I wrote way back in 2007 – on allowing voting through SMS! Although I never advocate mandatory voting in a democracy, as that is not logical, what is essential is a larger engagement of the electorate which has been diminishing by the day. In fact, this larger engagement need not be just for a few con...

The last elections had invariably cast a heavy spell on BJP. As a result of which, over sometime now, the party had had been busy in meetings. And aptly so, these high profile and highly secured meetings had been named Chintan Baithak (‘thought sittings’). But ironically, the outcomes of these meetings have not been as thoughtful though! On the contrary, the party has been reeling under a perpetual conflict, and unfortunately all of this is coming from the leadership. The lineup of miseries starts with Arun Shourie’s remarks and stretches up to Vasundhara Raje's clichés with the party over her resignation and the suspension orders served to her loyals Rajendra Rathore and Gyan Ahuja. Before Raje’s episode could have been resolved any further, a new episode on BJP leader and party veteran Jaswant singh popped up, wherein he was recently expelled for writing a book on Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his thoughts on partition. On this, the two veteran leaders, Arun Shourie and Vasundhara Raje...

The election results are out! We were not into any prediction games, but tried to base our prediction in the last issue on what others tried to predict! And it seems apart from Total TV and Live India, there was no one else who could make the right prediction about the election results! But I’m excited. Excited, because though no massive change in governance or the corruption index is likely with our current breed of rulers, the voters are exerting their powers in their own way; and that means that although very slowly, in another twenty years from now, these voters will elect the right people to power finally. The signals this time were clearer perhaps than ever before. Firstly, anti-incumbency is more or less out – only your performance matters! Although the mandate nationwide was clearly against BJP, in the states where they have been doing creditable work, they still have won more seats. Even in the Assembly elections, it has been the same scenario. In Delhi, Sheila Dixit led the C...

I often welcome a hearty laugh when I watch news on television or read newspapers; because what I see and read is usually so exasperatingly infuriating and depressing that anger and frustration simply overwhelm me. So I had a hearty chuckle the other day when I found out that Sadhu Yadav – the brother-in-law of Lalu Prasad Yadav – will be a Congress candidate for the Lok Sabha elections. That, I thought, was delicious irony. I also laughed watching the media cover the manner in which film star Sanjay Dutt was projected and nominated as a Samajwadi Party candidate from Lucknow, a seat that is still held by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. From Vajpayee to Dutt would have been an interesting transition! But then, Sanjay Dutt happens to be a convicted criminal who is also a Bollywood megastar. I have the deepest sympathies for him and his family; but I have always wondered if the Indian judiciary, and the media, were going commodiously soft on him because of his background. I mean, he did allegedly ...

AT A TIME WHEN IT IS NOT ABLE TO GUARANTEE RETURNS TO THE OWNERS? Unlike last year, this year’s IPL is in the news for all together a different set of reasons. Now that it has already been declared (assuming this decision to be the final one, without further change) that this season’s IPL would take place in South Africa, it is time for India to take stock of what she has lost and what not on account of this decision. But before that it is even more pertinent to question why IPL organisers accepted this in the first place? Is it that they are deliberately trying to run away from hosting the event in India, using the general elections as an excuse? And considering the fact that general elections should be given topmost priority, was it so very challenging to postpone the event by some time, and hold it later on in all the states? Why is there so much hurry to force upon a decision, and that too, to host one of the most popular sporting properties of India outside India? Is it that the o...

With general elections round the corner, it is not just the political parties but various organisations that have voluntarily launched themselves into the election campaign. The only difference being that the former is wooing the voters to vote for themselves, and the later is making various attempts to either get voters to the booth or educating them on their franchise rights. And with each passing day, the visibility and the audability of such campaigns are increasingly getting louder. So, on the one hand it is Aamir Khan beaming on the radio – ‘aao hum apne bachchon ke sar pe haath rakh kar kasam khate hain that we will vote. Not for, but against. Against those who are against our nation’. Or on the other hand, some other campaigns are saying something like - ‘the dot on your finger is hot’. No doubt, if one has to judge on the merit of mere campaigns, full marks to their efforts and the very right, motivational and positive intent… but then the truth is that a nation cannot just ru...