The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) the other day admitted in the Supreme Court that it made a "mistake" in approaching the latter late for restoring stringent charges in the Bhopal gas tragedy case against the accused who escaped with lighter punishments. When questioned for the reasons for the delay, the agency, parrying the query, said that it was not an "ordinary case" in which delay in filing the curative petition should come in the way of providing justice to the victims of the disaster.
The agency has filed a curative petition to, evidently, set right the injustice meted out by the apex court in September 1996 when a two-judge bench, presided over by the then Chief Justice of India (CJI) AM Ahmedi, diluted the charges against the accused from that of “culpable homicide not amounting to murder” punishable with 10 years’ imprisonment to “causing death due to negligence” that fetches a punishment of mere two years in prison. The contention of the then CJI was that he could not support such a charge (that of culpable homicide) unless it was indicated, prima facie, that the plant was run on that fateful night by the accused with the knowledge that it was likely to cause deaths of human beings. The CBI, in its wisdom, did not approach the court for a review.
However, it has had to file a curative petition now because of the public outburst after the June 7, 2010 verdict of the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM), Bhopal, that handed out 2 years’ imprisonment with some fines for the accused officials of the Union Carbide India, Ltd (UCIL) under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code that deal with death(s) caused by criminal negligence. The ultra-mild verdict caused outrage amongst the victims and their relatives. The verdict had come 26 years after filing of the case relating to the leak of the lethal methyl isocynate from the Bhopal-based UCIL factory in the early hours of 3rd December 1984. Officially, 15000 men, women and children were killed, the unofficial count being in the region of 25000 to 30000. Thousands of others died later or were maimed for life and are still suffering from the after-effects.
Making assertions before a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court the Attorney General (AG) Gulam Vahanvati justified the filing of the curative petition as the UCIL was entirely responsible for the world’s worst industrial disaster. The Corporation attracted the total responsibility as it operated the pesticide plant with “structural and operational defects” and flouted “all other” safety norms. The AG added, “The UCIL was sitting on a powder keg and as such the disaster was waiting to happen” He further said that the plant had been “limping” along since 1981 – good three years before the fatal accident – due to the illegal omissions and commissions on the part of the management that resulted in a “dismal state of affairs”. The accident was the cumulative result of a series of criminal violations by the factory which, he contended, was not due to negligence as determined by the Supreme Court in 1996. “Once this knowledge was attributed to the respondent/accused persons, the fact that no action was taken to set right and cure the defects in the plant would by itself attract the provisions” of the relevant section of the IPC that treats such offences as culpable homicide not amounting to murder. He felt that the Supreme Court had erred in 1996 in giving a verdict that was “oppressive to judicial conscience”. He added that it has caused manifest “irremediable injustices”. The two-year jail-term capable of being imposed under the section of IPC applied by the court to the culprits was “grossly disproportionate” to the “horrendous crime” that was committed by them.
The assertions of the AG must have surprised and shocked many who are acquainted with the developments of the entire case against the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) and its Indian subsidiary the UCIL. Although privy to all the facts that are now being placed before the apex court, these were never mustered to book the culprits earlier when apex court diluted the charges. Perhaps, CBI’s hands were tied owing to the directions given by the then ruling party. In fact, all these years there had been a well-considered attempt by the governments at the Centre and the state of Madhya Pradesh (MP), both ruled by the Congress at the time of the tragedy and for many years thereafter, to protect the interests of the UCC and its Indian subsidiary, UCIL.
A recapitulation, in brief, of the basic facts of the case should prove to be helpful for a better appreciation of what has been said above. That the plant was of obsolete design was known to the Centre’s Department of Industrial Development where the proposal of the UCC remained on ice for around five years until, suddenly during the Emergency, it was fished out of cold storage and approved reasons that were dubious. The then Chief Minister (CM) of MP was grateful to the UCC that it agreed to set up the factory in Bhopal. Soon thereafter, in the early 1980s, a local reputed journalist cried hoarse about the very facts that the AG has pleaded now – that the plant at Bhopal was sitting on a powder keg. But the then CM, the late Arjun Singh, would not lend his ear to them – beholden as he was to the UCIL. After the tragedy, not only did he try to palm off a depressed figure of casualties, he also had Warren Anderson, CEO of the UCC, most inappropriately smuggled out of Bhopal after his arrest. Later, the Centre saw to it that he was safely flown back home. Anderson was personally responsible for the tragedy as the defects and deficiencies of the plant had been communicated to him by the local plant authorities from time to time before the gas-leak.
At Delhi the Centre played its own games to the detriment of the victims and survivors of the tragedy. Not only did it agree to a paltry sum of $470 million as compensation negotiated in camera by the then Chief Justice of India, RS Pathak, with the representatives of the UCC, (another curative petition for which has now been filed) the government had a law enacted that took away the rights of the victims to sue the UCC for compensation or to file criminal cases against it and its officials. Further, the government has so far steadfastly refused to pursue the ongoing Bhopal Gas Victim’s case in the US even though it knows full well that its participation will strengthen it and that any order of an Indian court will not be enforceable in the US – regardless of a positive outcome of its fresh curative petition.
All this apart, the MP government, under the Congress rule, stopped remediation by Eveready, the successor of UCIL, of the contamination of the factory-site, which the UCIL had been contaminating from even before the gas-leak tragedy. Having done that, the government accepted the site back from the Corporation with all its hazardous wastes without insisting on its return in the condition it was handed over to it in accordance with the provisions of the lease deed. A few thousand crores may now have to be spent for the removal and disposal of the hazardous chemicals and other contaminants from the site.
Clearly, both, the Central and the state governments, after such a grievous tragedy, short-changed the country and its people, as it now seems, for the interests of the Congress party that happened to be running both the governments. They took decisions that, from all evidences, were in favour of the UCC, apparently, for reasons of the payments the UCC made to the Congress Party, as very plausibly alleged by the eminent lawyer, Ram Jethmalani. His allegations have not been denied so far.
The public outrage after the June 2010 judgement left the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government with no alternative but to take the initiatives it has taken now. Nothing may, however, come off them as the actions that are being taken now are excessively delayed. The government is, apparently, going through the motions only to assuage the feelings of the victims of the disaster.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Cricket on overdrive
It has almost been like carpet bombing – the media hype during the recent International Cricket Council (ICC) Cricket World Cup of one-day internationals that was recently played out in the Indian sub-continent. The “bombing” was intensified just before the India-Pakistan semi-final played at Mohali, near Chandigarh.
The term “carpet bombing” has been described by Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, as large-scale bombing of targets covering wide areas usually by dropping many unguided bombs. The tactic aims for complete destruction of a target region, either to destroy personnel and material, or as a means of demoralizing the enemy. In somewhat similar fashion, the print and electronic media “bombed” the reader/viewer with everything they had to soften, if not demolish, his faculty of reason. The print media had sports and other pages dedicated to the World Cup; the TV news channels mounted programmes of discussions, talk-shows, teleconferences and what have you. With interesting names like “Power Play”, “Inside Story”, “Fourth Umpire”, “Kings of Cricket” etc. the programmes – much like unguided bombs – would obliterate regular news-and-views schedules and bombard viewers with opinions, anecdotes, cricketing trivia and suchlike. What’s more, there would be repeat telecasts in the mornings or late in the night for those who, by an odd chance, might have missed them. To add a touch of glamour, they had even inducted two very attractive ladies, one an actor and a cricket-lover and the other a former captain of the Indian women’s cricket team. The idea of the promoters of the channels seems to have been to force-feed the TV audiences, much like the famed Peking ducks or the Kobe cows, with the stuff that they had taken great pains to muster spending millions, maybe billions of rupees and dollars. While one could skip the sports pages of a daily, the visual media is another kettle of fish. It has that unmistakable tendency to arrest the viewers’ attention.
Not many years ago, only the channels that would telecast a match would assemble a few experts and put on the air the discussions in real time prompted by an anchor before the commencement of play, during the intervals or, as they say in cricket lingo, breaks and at the end of the game or, in case of a test match, at the end of the day’s play. It is no longer so. While the channels that buy out the rights to telecast the matches or the tournament continue with their rigmarole, others attracted by the target rating points (TRP), especially the English and vernacular languages news channels, too, have climbed on to the bandwagon. During the recent World Cup, therefore, at any hour of the day or night one or the other or several channels would be inflicting cricket on the unwary surfer.
While the vernacular language channels had to make do with former local heroes, a large number of retired national and international cricketers had been assembled along with numerous national and international commentators from practically every cricketing country. They would expatiate ad nauseam on the finer points of the games that had already been played or strengths or weaknesses of various players as also of the several teams in the fray with their prospects of advancing in the tournament. As hiring of these former foreign cricketing greats meant enormous outflow of cash they had to be kept busy and, hence, they would be put live on the air most of the time, sometimes even on prime time. News was pushed out into the background. During the World Cup the news channels all but forgot about Fukushima and the ongoing war in Libya. Nothing seemed to be news-worthy other than what transpired on the cricket ground. Fed up with this overdose, one felt like kicking the TV.
It’s not that I am not a cricket buff. In my younger days I was very much so. Not only would I play cricket in school and college, I would also, apart from reading books on cricket, avidly listen to the running commentary of matches over the radio. We would tune in to Radio Australia early in the morning to catch the Australia-England “Ashes” series or listen to the BBC till late into the night for the matches played in England with the edifying comments in ‘poetic’ prose by the legendary John Arlott. I still recall the embarrassing Test of 1952 at Headingley, Leeds where India were four wickets down for no-score. The Indian prestige was somewhat redeemed when Vinoo Mankad, later in the same series, scored 72 in the first innings, took 5 English wickets and the scored 184 in the second innings of the Test at the Lords Cricket Ground. The spectators gave him a standing ovation.
All India Radio would broadcast running commentaries when matches were played in India. I remember with nostalgia the delightful commentating of Dev Raj Puri who had mastered the art of giving ball-to-ball commentary, effectively conveying the atmosphere on the ground. Sometime later, Vijay Merchant, a retired cricketer, also started commentating with his thick Gujarati accent. Even “Vizzy”, the Maharaj Kumar of Vizianagaram, a cricket busybody, had insinuated himself into the commentary box. For him what was happening on the ground was of little importance. He would expound more on the exploits of Polly Umrigar in the Queens’ Park Oval, Trinidad or Sabina Park in Kingston, Jamaica. Most interesting, however, used to be the chats of AFS Talyarkhan with commentators during the tea-break around the early 1950s. He was reputed to be a marathon commentator earlier and used to cover entire five-day Test matches by himself. Later, he used to write a witty column on cricket with the title “Do you get me Steve?” I still remember a devastating one of his directed at Vijay Merchant on the much-publicised incident of a girl kissing Abbas Ali Baig after he scored a hundred at Bombay in a Test. “Vijay Merchant was wondering on the air”, he wrote, “where all the girls were when he was scoring his hundreds. Fast asleep Vijay, they were too tired of waiting”, followed by the inevitable “Do you get me Steve?” An opening batsman, old-timers would remember, Merchant, though technically perfect, was undoubtedly a plodder.
Cricket was earlier quintessentially a sport indulged in by the upper and middle classes. Patronised by the maharajas and nawabs, it used to be played mostly by the feudals and their progeny. Even the commentaries over the radio were listened to by them and the middle classes who possessed the radio-receivers – a rarity in those days. The common man as also the deprived masses could never afford it and, hence, never showed any interest in the game. A change came over after transistorisation of the radio. It became cheap, affordable and portable. Running commentaries in Hindi extended the reach of cricket making it more fathomable to the non-English knowing crowd. The game received a big boost in popularity when India won the third edition of the Cricket World Cup in 1983. Advancement in technology gave it a further boost with proliferation of TV sets and cable and satellite channels carrying live images of matches into the living rooms. Today, cricket is watched on TV by millions of Indians in high-end houses as also in rural and urban shanties, even if the power in the latter happens to be purloined. A once-aristocratic game has been taken by TV to the plebeians and they have taken to it, virtually, like the duck takes to water.
The viewership in multi-millions generates billions of dollars in advertisement revenues. It has made the country’s apex cricketing body, the Board of Control for Cricket in India, cash-rich, giving it an enormous clout in international cricket. India may not be a world economic power yet, but it surely is a world cricketing power. And, before anybody could get wise about it, cricket’s centre of gravity shifted from England to India. No wonder, the ICC World Cup was played out recently in the sub-continent for the second time and two sub-continental teams fought out for the honours with India winning the Cup. The Central and some state governments gave a holiday to the cricket-crazy staff to cheer the home team even if they did so from the comfort of their homes. No work would have been done in offices even otherwise.
With the kind of money cricket now generates things certainly had to change. It has become a year-round circus and is no longer a sport for the three or four winter months as of yore. With everyone raking in the moolah none seems to resent it. There is, therefore, going to be no respite from cricket. Even as dust is yet to settle down after the World Cup, the Indian Premier League’s Twenty-Twenty (T-20) tournament has commenced and cricket will again monopolise the TV channels for the next fifty days.
The term “carpet bombing” has been described by Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, as large-scale bombing of targets covering wide areas usually by dropping many unguided bombs. The tactic aims for complete destruction of a target region, either to destroy personnel and material, or as a means of demoralizing the enemy. In somewhat similar fashion, the print and electronic media “bombed” the reader/viewer with everything they had to soften, if not demolish, his faculty of reason. The print media had sports and other pages dedicated to the World Cup; the TV news channels mounted programmes of discussions, talk-shows, teleconferences and what have you. With interesting names like “Power Play”, “Inside Story”, “Fourth Umpire”, “Kings of Cricket” etc. the programmes – much like unguided bombs – would obliterate regular news-and-views schedules and bombard viewers with opinions, anecdotes, cricketing trivia and suchlike. What’s more, there would be repeat telecasts in the mornings or late in the night for those who, by an odd chance, might have missed them. To add a touch of glamour, they had even inducted two very attractive ladies, one an actor and a cricket-lover and the other a former captain of the Indian women’s cricket team. The idea of the promoters of the channels seems to have been to force-feed the TV audiences, much like the famed Peking ducks or the Kobe cows, with the stuff that they had taken great pains to muster spending millions, maybe billions of rupees and dollars. While one could skip the sports pages of a daily, the visual media is another kettle of fish. It has that unmistakable tendency to arrest the viewers’ attention.
Not many years ago, only the channels that would telecast a match would assemble a few experts and put on the air the discussions in real time prompted by an anchor before the commencement of play, during the intervals or, as they say in cricket lingo, breaks and at the end of the game or, in case of a test match, at the end of the day’s play. It is no longer so. While the channels that buy out the rights to telecast the matches or the tournament continue with their rigmarole, others attracted by the target rating points (TRP), especially the English and vernacular languages news channels, too, have climbed on to the bandwagon. During the recent World Cup, therefore, at any hour of the day or night one or the other or several channels would be inflicting cricket on the unwary surfer.
While the vernacular language channels had to make do with former local heroes, a large number of retired national and international cricketers had been assembled along with numerous national and international commentators from practically every cricketing country. They would expatiate ad nauseam on the finer points of the games that had already been played or strengths or weaknesses of various players as also of the several teams in the fray with their prospects of advancing in the tournament. As hiring of these former foreign cricketing greats meant enormous outflow of cash they had to be kept busy and, hence, they would be put live on the air most of the time, sometimes even on prime time. News was pushed out into the background. During the World Cup the news channels all but forgot about Fukushima and the ongoing war in Libya. Nothing seemed to be news-worthy other than what transpired on the cricket ground. Fed up with this overdose, one felt like kicking the TV.
It’s not that I am not a cricket buff. In my younger days I was very much so. Not only would I play cricket in school and college, I would also, apart from reading books on cricket, avidly listen to the running commentary of matches over the radio. We would tune in to Radio Australia early in the morning to catch the Australia-England “Ashes” series or listen to the BBC till late into the night for the matches played in England with the edifying comments in ‘poetic’ prose by the legendary John Arlott. I still recall the embarrassing Test of 1952 at Headingley, Leeds where India were four wickets down for no-score. The Indian prestige was somewhat redeemed when Vinoo Mankad, later in the same series, scored 72 in the first innings, took 5 English wickets and the scored 184 in the second innings of the Test at the Lords Cricket Ground. The spectators gave him a standing ovation.
All India Radio would broadcast running commentaries when matches were played in India. I remember with nostalgia the delightful commentating of Dev Raj Puri who had mastered the art of giving ball-to-ball commentary, effectively conveying the atmosphere on the ground. Sometime later, Vijay Merchant, a retired cricketer, also started commentating with his thick Gujarati accent. Even “Vizzy”, the Maharaj Kumar of Vizianagaram, a cricket busybody, had insinuated himself into the commentary box. For him what was happening on the ground was of little importance. He would expound more on the exploits of Polly Umrigar in the Queens’ Park Oval, Trinidad or Sabina Park in Kingston, Jamaica. Most interesting, however, used to be the chats of AFS Talyarkhan with commentators during the tea-break around the early 1950s. He was reputed to be a marathon commentator earlier and used to cover entire five-day Test matches by himself. Later, he used to write a witty column on cricket with the title “Do you get me Steve?” I still remember a devastating one of his directed at Vijay Merchant on the much-publicised incident of a girl kissing Abbas Ali Baig after he scored a hundred at Bombay in a Test. “Vijay Merchant was wondering on the air”, he wrote, “where all the girls were when he was scoring his hundreds. Fast asleep Vijay, they were too tired of waiting”, followed by the inevitable “Do you get me Steve?” An opening batsman, old-timers would remember, Merchant, though technically perfect, was undoubtedly a plodder.
Cricket was earlier quintessentially a sport indulged in by the upper and middle classes. Patronised by the maharajas and nawabs, it used to be played mostly by the feudals and their progeny. Even the commentaries over the radio were listened to by them and the middle classes who possessed the radio-receivers – a rarity in those days. The common man as also the deprived masses could never afford it and, hence, never showed any interest in the game. A change came over after transistorisation of the radio. It became cheap, affordable and portable. Running commentaries in Hindi extended the reach of cricket making it more fathomable to the non-English knowing crowd. The game received a big boost in popularity when India won the third edition of the Cricket World Cup in 1983. Advancement in technology gave it a further boost with proliferation of TV sets and cable and satellite channels carrying live images of matches into the living rooms. Today, cricket is watched on TV by millions of Indians in high-end houses as also in rural and urban shanties, even if the power in the latter happens to be purloined. A once-aristocratic game has been taken by TV to the plebeians and they have taken to it, virtually, like the duck takes to water.
The viewership in multi-millions generates billions of dollars in advertisement revenues. It has made the country’s apex cricketing body, the Board of Control for Cricket in India, cash-rich, giving it an enormous clout in international cricket. India may not be a world economic power yet, but it surely is a world cricketing power. And, before anybody could get wise about it, cricket’s centre of gravity shifted from England to India. No wonder, the ICC World Cup was played out recently in the sub-continent for the second time and two sub-continental teams fought out for the honours with India winning the Cup. The Central and some state governments gave a holiday to the cricket-crazy staff to cheer the home team even if they did so from the comfort of their homes. No work would have been done in offices even otherwise.
With the kind of money cricket now generates things certainly had to change. It has become a year-round circus and is no longer a sport for the three or four winter months as of yore. With everyone raking in the moolah none seems to resent it. There is, therefore, going to be no respite from cricket. Even as dust is yet to settle down after the World Cup, the Indian Premier League’s Twenty-Twenty (T-20) tournament has commenced and cricket will again monopolise the TV channels for the next fifty days.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
"Cash for votes" - sensational WikiLeak disclosures
That voters in India are routinely bribed in cash or kind is a well-known phenomenon. In Tamilnadu according to WikiLeaks, it is commonplace, as indeed it is elsewhere in the country. Indians are also familiar with what is generally known as “horse trading” that involves in huge amounts of cash changing hands when, post-elections, political parties engage in government formation to find that majority in the “house” that elude them at the hustings. Likewise, Indians have been taking bribing of legislators for voting for a minority government in the state or national legislatures during trust-votes, by and large, in their stride.
Nevertheless, the expose’ by the highly respected newspaper “The Hindu” of the “cash for votes” cables sent from the US Embassy and procured from WikiLeaks, seemingly, set the cat among the pigeons. The cables talked of millions of rupees being paid to a certain political party at the time of the 2008 no-confidence motion moved against the Manmohan Singh government that lost its majority in the Lower House on withdrawal of support by the Left parties over the Indo-US Nuclear Deal.
The July 22 2008 no-confidence motion moved against United Progressive Alliance government by the Opposition was followed by tremendous amount of theatrics. Three Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MPs came rushing into the Lok Sabha, the Lower House, waving bundles of currency notes in front of the Speaker, alleging attempts by Samajwadi Party (SP), then a supporter of the government, to bribe them with a crore (ten million) of rupees each for voting for the government. The name of Amar Singh, then of the SP and a well-known political wheeler-dealer, was mentioned in this connection. The expose’ was result of a sting operation by CNN-IBN news channel, masterminded by one Sudhindra Kulkarni, a BJP ideologue.
The money was seized by the Speaker and, later, a committee of Lok Sabha was constituted to probe into the matter. Failing to arrive at a definite conclusion even though video tapes and other documents relating records of phone calls etc. were submitted to it by the news channel and the BJP, respectively, the Committee exonerated Amar Singh but labelled his aide, one Sanjeev Saxena, as a bribe-giver who was caught on camera bribing a BJP MP. Unable to probe further for reasons of rules and procedures, the Committee suggested further investigations into the matter. However, neither the matter was probed further nor the case registered at the instance of the Speaker with the local police pursued. The Manmohan Singh government survived the motion with the help of a few abstentions and support of a few BJP MPs who defied the party’s whip.
In the context of what happened in the Parliament in July 2008, contents of the leaked cable are perfectly credible. It is quite likely that as a measure of abundant caution the Congress Party attempted to muster as many votes as possible in favour of the government. After all, the Prime Minister was deeply committed to the Indo-US Nuclear Deal and the government (and his party) had to take all possible measures to ensure its survival to push it through. Apart from using Amar Singh to bribe some BJP MPs, the Congress, apparently, pitched on the MPs of Rashtriya Lok Dal, a regional political outfit of Uttar Pradesh (UP), more open to the lure of money. Headed by one Ajit Singh, a man of dubious reputation, the party has frequently figured in reports of its involvement in lending support for monetary considerations to shaky governments. Apparently, the US Embassy contact was told that the MPs of RLD had been paid a billion rupees each. Their reputation is such that even the Congressman, Nachiketa Kapur, who organised the payment, was not sure whether they would vote in favour of the government even after having been bribed. He, however, boasted that there was enough kept away in chests for further pay-offs, if necessary.
Yet another factor that makes the cable credible is the mention of Capt. Satish Sharma, an MP in Rajya Sabha, the Upper House, who also was met with by the US Embassy contact. Looks like, Capt. Sharma and Kapur were jointly in charge of the operation of bribing the RLD MPs. Once a close friend of the Late Rajiv Gandhi, he is now a close associate of Sonia Gandhi, widow of Rajiv Gandhi and the current Congress President. With a chequered political career and several brushes with the law, he, seemingly, has been involved in the dirty work of the Congress. He was also involved in 1993 in bribing the MPs of another regional political outfit, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), to save the minority Congress government of the Late Narsimha Rao in a trust-vote moved by the BJP. The investigations had revealed that various industrialists had paid Rs 13 crore (130 million) to Capt Satish Sharma, who arranged payments to the JMM MPs out of this amount. Narsimha Rao’s government did survive the trust vote.
Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, brazened out the WikiLeaks disclosures by an outright denial of the allegations of bribery and rejected the charge of the Opposition, which he said was based on “speculative, unverified and unverifiable'' communication, and told Parliament that none from the government or the Congress indulged in any unlawful act during that time. He went on to say that the government “cannot confirm the veracity, contents or even the existence of such communication.” At the then ongoing India Today Conclave he had said, “I have no knowledge of any such purchases and I am absolutely categorical, I have not authorised anyone to purchase any votes. I am not aware of any acts of purchase of votes…I am absolutely certain in asserting that I am not at all, I think, involved in any of these transactions”.
Nobody is buying what Dr. Singh has been saying in denial. Not only there was enough evidence gathered earlier, the US officials have since certified the accuracy and credibility of the cables now released by WikiLeaks. Julian Assange, Editor in-Chief of WikiLeaks, branded Dr. Singh’ statements of denial as “misleading”, a charge that is serious when made against a prime minister. Generally known for his clean image, Indian people are aghast at the way the Prime Minister, with his distinguished academic and bureaucratic background, staked his reputation and all that he had for winning a trust-vote to see a mere deal through. At a recent interview with the editors of Indian TV news channels he had said, that after his academic and bureaucratic stints, politics was a fresh field that was providing him a new learning experience. Apparently, he has been very quick in picking up the tricks of his current trade.
Apart from the image of Dr. Singh, the image of Congress has taken a severe beating. The grand old party, now more than a century and a quarter old, has, somewhere down in the post-independence years, lost its moral fibre and has acquired an insatiable lust for power. This very lust may see the end of it. Mahatma Gandhi happened to say in 1948 “...in the ungainly skirmish for power, it (Congress) will find one fine morning that it is no more.” That may well happen with the contemptible riff-raff that it now constitutes of, unless the party immediately sets about correcting its course.
Nevertheless, the expose’ by the highly respected newspaper “The Hindu” of the “cash for votes” cables sent from the US Embassy and procured from WikiLeaks, seemingly, set the cat among the pigeons. The cables talked of millions of rupees being paid to a certain political party at the time of the 2008 no-confidence motion moved against the Manmohan Singh government that lost its majority in the Lower House on withdrawal of support by the Left parties over the Indo-US Nuclear Deal.
The July 22 2008 no-confidence motion moved against United Progressive Alliance government by the Opposition was followed by tremendous amount of theatrics. Three Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MPs came rushing into the Lok Sabha, the Lower House, waving bundles of currency notes in front of the Speaker, alleging attempts by Samajwadi Party (SP), then a supporter of the government, to bribe them with a crore (ten million) of rupees each for voting for the government. The name of Amar Singh, then of the SP and a well-known political wheeler-dealer, was mentioned in this connection. The expose’ was result of a sting operation by CNN-IBN news channel, masterminded by one Sudhindra Kulkarni, a BJP ideologue.
The money was seized by the Speaker and, later, a committee of Lok Sabha was constituted to probe into the matter. Failing to arrive at a definite conclusion even though video tapes and other documents relating records of phone calls etc. were submitted to it by the news channel and the BJP, respectively, the Committee exonerated Amar Singh but labelled his aide, one Sanjeev Saxena, as a bribe-giver who was caught on camera bribing a BJP MP. Unable to probe further for reasons of rules and procedures, the Committee suggested further investigations into the matter. However, neither the matter was probed further nor the case registered at the instance of the Speaker with the local police pursued. The Manmohan Singh government survived the motion with the help of a few abstentions and support of a few BJP MPs who defied the party’s whip.
In the context of what happened in the Parliament in July 2008, contents of the leaked cable are perfectly credible. It is quite likely that as a measure of abundant caution the Congress Party attempted to muster as many votes as possible in favour of the government. After all, the Prime Minister was deeply committed to the Indo-US Nuclear Deal and the government (and his party) had to take all possible measures to ensure its survival to push it through. Apart from using Amar Singh to bribe some BJP MPs, the Congress, apparently, pitched on the MPs of Rashtriya Lok Dal, a regional political outfit of Uttar Pradesh (UP), more open to the lure of money. Headed by one Ajit Singh, a man of dubious reputation, the party has frequently figured in reports of its involvement in lending support for monetary considerations to shaky governments. Apparently, the US Embassy contact was told that the MPs of RLD had been paid a billion rupees each. Their reputation is such that even the Congressman, Nachiketa Kapur, who organised the payment, was not sure whether they would vote in favour of the government even after having been bribed. He, however, boasted that there was enough kept away in chests for further pay-offs, if necessary.
Yet another factor that makes the cable credible is the mention of Capt. Satish Sharma, an MP in Rajya Sabha, the Upper House, who also was met with by the US Embassy contact. Looks like, Capt. Sharma and Kapur were jointly in charge of the operation of bribing the RLD MPs. Once a close friend of the Late Rajiv Gandhi, he is now a close associate of Sonia Gandhi, widow of Rajiv Gandhi and the current Congress President. With a chequered political career and several brushes with the law, he, seemingly, has been involved in the dirty work of the Congress. He was also involved in 1993 in bribing the MPs of another regional political outfit, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), to save the minority Congress government of the Late Narsimha Rao in a trust-vote moved by the BJP. The investigations had revealed that various industrialists had paid Rs 13 crore (130 million) to Capt Satish Sharma, who arranged payments to the JMM MPs out of this amount. Narsimha Rao’s government did survive the trust vote.
Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, brazened out the WikiLeaks disclosures by an outright denial of the allegations of bribery and rejected the charge of the Opposition, which he said was based on “speculative, unverified and unverifiable'' communication, and told Parliament that none from the government or the Congress indulged in any unlawful act during that time. He went on to say that the government “cannot confirm the veracity, contents or even the existence of such communication.” At the then ongoing India Today Conclave he had said, “I have no knowledge of any such purchases and I am absolutely categorical, I have not authorised anyone to purchase any votes. I am not aware of any acts of purchase of votes…I am absolutely certain in asserting that I am not at all, I think, involved in any of these transactions”.
Nobody is buying what Dr. Singh has been saying in denial. Not only there was enough evidence gathered earlier, the US officials have since certified the accuracy and credibility of the cables now released by WikiLeaks. Julian Assange, Editor in-Chief of WikiLeaks, branded Dr. Singh’ statements of denial as “misleading”, a charge that is serious when made against a prime minister. Generally known for his clean image, Indian people are aghast at the way the Prime Minister, with his distinguished academic and bureaucratic background, staked his reputation and all that he had for winning a trust-vote to see a mere deal through. At a recent interview with the editors of Indian TV news channels he had said, that after his academic and bureaucratic stints, politics was a fresh field that was providing him a new learning experience. Apparently, he has been very quick in picking up the tricks of his current trade.
Apart from the image of Dr. Singh, the image of Congress has taken a severe beating. The grand old party, now more than a century and a quarter old, has, somewhere down in the post-independence years, lost its moral fibre and has acquired an insatiable lust for power. This very lust may see the end of it. Mahatma Gandhi happened to say in 1948 “...in the ungainly skirmish for power, it (Congress) will find one fine morning that it is no more.” That may well happen with the contemptible riff-raff that it now constitutes of, unless the party immediately sets about correcting its course.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Of venal politicians and their corrupt parties
The Outlook magazine, a popular national weekly, has been publishing excerpts from the taped conversations of Niira Radia, the now (in)famous lobbyist of, inter alia, the House of Tata, with several individuals, including the former Indian Telecommunications Minister, A Raja. In one of the tapes published in the issue of 14th February 2011 of Niira Radia’s conversation with one Manish, an employee at Vaishnavi Communications (another corporate communication consultancy firm) Radia says “In the middle of the night (Raja, the Minister) called Anil Ambani to come and collect his LoI (Letter of Intent) for a dual technology license” and “...when you ask Mr. Raja why are you doing this, his view is ‘what do you do, I have a party to run”.
The last bit of what Raja said is not only significant but also carries the nub of what has now come to be known as the “2 G scam” (the scam related to frequency allocation for mobile telephony to favoured parties) of the Ministry of Telecommunication & IT that he headed as also of many other scams. That Raja was required to, through his acts of omissions and commissions in the Ministry, ensure that the party coffers are filled as much as possible has now become somewhat of a standard political practice. He, most probably, had the same mandate before he was re-nominated for the Telecommunications Ministry in 2009. And, likewise, before him even Dayanidhi Maran, again of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), may also have had to work according to the same mandate. Clearly, DMK was keen on Telecommunications Ministry only for the reason that it could be milked for the benefit of the party and, of course, its patriarch M Karunanidhi. If, in the process, the ministers involved made some billions on the side the party bigwigs would, seemingly, have no objections.
Whether Raja, in his previous avatar as the head of the Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF), did not do the same is open to question. After all, during his tenure in MoEF in UPA I government the epithet “rubber stamp” was largely used for the ministry. It would clear each and every project that came its way for environmental clearance regardless of the adverse impact that they would have on the country’s environment. Maybe it is hearsay, but the e-mails that are circulating in the country with photographs of his palatial modern-looking residence with extensive grounds could not have been inherited by a person who claims to be a dalit (a member of former depressed class). How it was built and what the sources of his resources are still a mystery.
Obviously, Raja’s party, the DMK, a regional outfit, has imbibed what its senior alliance partner, the Indian National Congress, has been adept in for a long time. The latter has, according to credible reports circulating for years, has been creaming the government decisions taken during its decades in power at the Centre and in the states to fill its own coffers. In the early years, Soviet money found its way not only to the Communist Party of India but also to the Congress. The thriving rupee trade between the two countries, particularly big-ticket imports of defence equipment, facilitated the illegal transfer of funds. That the Soviets had infiltrated into the Indian establishment within the country and abroad is, of course, another story. The Mitrokhin Archives threw generous spotlight on it and is now a part of history. It, inter alia, made a mention of the Soviet money getting to India with minsters like Lalit Narain Mishra, the then Minister for Foreign Trade, as conduit. His corrupt ways were legendary but in no way comparable to what happens today. Tales about his accepting briefcases full of currency used to be rife in Delhi during the early 1970s. Not only did he enrich the Congress, he enriched himself, too, but, unfortunately, to no avail. He was, reportedly, bumped off in 1975. He was, after all, “the man who knew too much”.
If the Soviets transferred funds to the Congress, the US could not have been left behind. The late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a one-time US ambassador to India, in a collection of personal letters and journal entries edited by Steven R Weisman, a public policy fellow at Washington-based Peterson Institute, in a book “Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary”, asserted that US had paid money through the CIA to the Congress Party. The charge was later taken advantage of by the late Jyoti Basu, a former communist chief minister of West Bengal, who speculated that the money was, probably, disbursed in the early 1970s to contain Naxalism, a violent and rabid movement of the Left, which had spread like wild fire in West Bengal. Although, the current Congress spokesperson rubbished the allegations, he wouldn’t know what transpired forty years ago between two hardnosed politicians like the late Indira Gandhi and the then all-powerful US secretary of State, Dr. Henry Kissinger.
Last year the octogenarian eminent lawyer, Ram Jethmalani, accused the Congress of receiving payments from the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) after the Bhopal gas tragedy and demanded that all the correspondence between the Union Government and the company should be made public. He said that the then Union Government enacted a legislation abrogating the rights of thousands of dead and grievously injured victims to sue the company for compensation and appropriated the same to itself without the victims’ consent. It then promptly filed a suit for payment of adequate compensation the results of which are well-known. Not only a measly sum of $ 470 million was settled as compensation in an in camera sitting of the Supreme Court in the chamber of the then Chief Justice to which the UCC lawyers, reportedly, had come straight from the Prime Minister’s Office then headed by the late Rajiv Gandhi, the settlement also extinguished all financial liabilities of the UCC and the rights of the victims to file civil and criminal cases against the corporation – a very favourable turn of event for it.
Apparently, the quantum of compensation to be paid by the Corporation was also treated like a deal like the ones struck during those very years for import of Westland helicopters, HDW submarines and the (in)famous, though very effective, Bofors howitzers. However, the intense public resentment that was aroused as a sequel to the farcical judgement of June 2010 in the criminal case against the Indian bigwigs of Union Carbide India Ltd. the current coalition government led by the Congress at the Centre was forced to file a curative petition in the Supreme Court against the 1989 compensation settlement –generally branded as “collusive”. Agreeing that there had been an error in settling for the very meagre amount of compensation, it has now sought enhancement of compensation to the victims from Rs 750 crore (75 billion) to Rs 7,700 crore (770 Billion). That and the chain of events that followed the tragedy made it amply evident the collusive arrangement between the then Union Government and the UCC. In the aftermath of the tragedy, an overriding desire, among other things, on the parts of the state and Union governments, both then ruled by the Congress, to protect the interests of the company was clearly discernible. Jethmalani may well be right in making his accusation.
In our kind of democracy, which has progressively assumed an aberrant form, priorities of the political participants in the act of governance have got mixed up. Political parties seek power to exercise it not on the basis of Jeremy Bentham’s “Greatest Happiness Principle” but to ensure their own happiness and well-being as also of their members. This is true both, at the Centre and in the states. The ministers, like Raja, who are in a position to swing deals, direct their efforts towards enriching their party as also themselves. The basic idea is to enable the party to have enough means to swing elections in its favour by buying votes or managing polling booths or even buying legislators, if it came to that, for garnering support when it fails to get a clear majority. Having enough cash in party coffers is very essential as the going rate of a legislator could be in billions. All major national and regional parties are guilty of this sin.
Hence, it would seem as if governments in India exist only for the political players who happen to capture their reins. Milking of the state by way of foul means permeates the system spreading an environment that is utterly unethical. No wonder, party men like Raja who are pushed to head ministries for their proven record of venality indulge in massive scams, stoking further the already pervasive corruption in the Indian administration.
The last bit of what Raja said is not only significant but also carries the nub of what has now come to be known as the “2 G scam” (the scam related to frequency allocation for mobile telephony to favoured parties) of the Ministry of Telecommunication & IT that he headed as also of many other scams. That Raja was required to, through his acts of omissions and commissions in the Ministry, ensure that the party coffers are filled as much as possible has now become somewhat of a standard political practice. He, most probably, had the same mandate before he was re-nominated for the Telecommunications Ministry in 2009. And, likewise, before him even Dayanidhi Maran, again of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), may also have had to work according to the same mandate. Clearly, DMK was keen on Telecommunications Ministry only for the reason that it could be milked for the benefit of the party and, of course, its patriarch M Karunanidhi. If, in the process, the ministers involved made some billions on the side the party bigwigs would, seemingly, have no objections.
Whether Raja, in his previous avatar as the head of the Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF), did not do the same is open to question. After all, during his tenure in MoEF in UPA I government the epithet “rubber stamp” was largely used for the ministry. It would clear each and every project that came its way for environmental clearance regardless of the adverse impact that they would have on the country’s environment. Maybe it is hearsay, but the e-mails that are circulating in the country with photographs of his palatial modern-looking residence with extensive grounds could not have been inherited by a person who claims to be a dalit (a member of former depressed class). How it was built and what the sources of his resources are still a mystery.
Obviously, Raja’s party, the DMK, a regional outfit, has imbibed what its senior alliance partner, the Indian National Congress, has been adept in for a long time. The latter has, according to credible reports circulating for years, has been creaming the government decisions taken during its decades in power at the Centre and in the states to fill its own coffers. In the early years, Soviet money found its way not only to the Communist Party of India but also to the Congress. The thriving rupee trade between the two countries, particularly big-ticket imports of defence equipment, facilitated the illegal transfer of funds. That the Soviets had infiltrated into the Indian establishment within the country and abroad is, of course, another story. The Mitrokhin Archives threw generous spotlight on it and is now a part of history. It, inter alia, made a mention of the Soviet money getting to India with minsters like Lalit Narain Mishra, the then Minister for Foreign Trade, as conduit. His corrupt ways were legendary but in no way comparable to what happens today. Tales about his accepting briefcases full of currency used to be rife in Delhi during the early 1970s. Not only did he enrich the Congress, he enriched himself, too, but, unfortunately, to no avail. He was, reportedly, bumped off in 1975. He was, after all, “the man who knew too much”.
If the Soviets transferred funds to the Congress, the US could not have been left behind. The late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a one-time US ambassador to India, in a collection of personal letters and journal entries edited by Steven R Weisman, a public policy fellow at Washington-based Peterson Institute, in a book “Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary”, asserted that US had paid money through the CIA to the Congress Party. The charge was later taken advantage of by the late Jyoti Basu, a former communist chief minister of West Bengal, who speculated that the money was, probably, disbursed in the early 1970s to contain Naxalism, a violent and rabid movement of the Left, which had spread like wild fire in West Bengal. Although, the current Congress spokesperson rubbished the allegations, he wouldn’t know what transpired forty years ago between two hardnosed politicians like the late Indira Gandhi and the then all-powerful US secretary of State, Dr. Henry Kissinger.
Last year the octogenarian eminent lawyer, Ram Jethmalani, accused the Congress of receiving payments from the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) after the Bhopal gas tragedy and demanded that all the correspondence between the Union Government and the company should be made public. He said that the then Union Government enacted a legislation abrogating the rights of thousands of dead and grievously injured victims to sue the company for compensation and appropriated the same to itself without the victims’ consent. It then promptly filed a suit for payment of adequate compensation the results of which are well-known. Not only a measly sum of $ 470 million was settled as compensation in an in camera sitting of the Supreme Court in the chamber of the then Chief Justice to which the UCC lawyers, reportedly, had come straight from the Prime Minister’s Office then headed by the late Rajiv Gandhi, the settlement also extinguished all financial liabilities of the UCC and the rights of the victims to file civil and criminal cases against the corporation – a very favourable turn of event for it.
Apparently, the quantum of compensation to be paid by the Corporation was also treated like a deal like the ones struck during those very years for import of Westland helicopters, HDW submarines and the (in)famous, though very effective, Bofors howitzers. However, the intense public resentment that was aroused as a sequel to the farcical judgement of June 2010 in the criminal case against the Indian bigwigs of Union Carbide India Ltd. the current coalition government led by the Congress at the Centre was forced to file a curative petition in the Supreme Court against the 1989 compensation settlement –generally branded as “collusive”. Agreeing that there had been an error in settling for the very meagre amount of compensation, it has now sought enhancement of compensation to the victims from Rs 750 crore (75 billion) to Rs 7,700 crore (770 Billion). That and the chain of events that followed the tragedy made it amply evident the collusive arrangement between the then Union Government and the UCC. In the aftermath of the tragedy, an overriding desire, among other things, on the parts of the state and Union governments, both then ruled by the Congress, to protect the interests of the company was clearly discernible. Jethmalani may well be right in making his accusation.
In our kind of democracy, which has progressively assumed an aberrant form, priorities of the political participants in the act of governance have got mixed up. Political parties seek power to exercise it not on the basis of Jeremy Bentham’s “Greatest Happiness Principle” but to ensure their own happiness and well-being as also of their members. This is true both, at the Centre and in the states. The ministers, like Raja, who are in a position to swing deals, direct their efforts towards enriching their party as also themselves. The basic idea is to enable the party to have enough means to swing elections in its favour by buying votes or managing polling booths or even buying legislators, if it came to that, for garnering support when it fails to get a clear majority. Having enough cash in party coffers is very essential as the going rate of a legislator could be in billions. All major national and regional parties are guilty of this sin.
Hence, it would seem as if governments in India exist only for the political players who happen to capture their reins. Milking of the state by way of foul means permeates the system spreading an environment that is utterly unethical. No wonder, party men like Raja who are pushed to head ministries for their proven record of venality indulge in massive scams, stoking further the already pervasive corruption in the Indian administration.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Environment Minister's "no-go" areas under attack
In India systems that are installed are seldom worked. There are numerous examples but, in the immediate context, the example of the Ministry of environment & Forests (MoEF) should suffice. According to Wikipedia, “the Ministry is responsible for planning, promoting, coordinating and overseeing the environmental and forestry programmes” of the country. Its main activities being conservation and survey of flora and fauna of India, forests and other wilderness areas, prevention and control of pollution, afforestation and land degradation mitigation.
It is a comprehensive charter and if the minister in-charge takes up his duties sincerely India would be a “green” country in most respects. However, that has not been so, at least, until now. Before the current Minister, Jairam Ramesh, took charge, the Ministry under the now-discredited Andimuthu Raja of the DMK party, an ally of the Congress in the United Progressive Alliance government, was known as a “rubber stamp”. The “system” was hardly ever worked for the larger good. Environmental clearances for industrial, power and other projects submitted by other ministries were freely given without any questions being asked regardless of what impact they were to have on the country’s environment. The “greens” kept shouting but there was none to hear them.
Ramesh, on the other hand, has taken his job far more seriously. He has given the ministry a direction and, some say, even teeth, it had lacked before. Barring a few gaffes, his performance has been so good that the country’s environmentalists thought that the ministry and the country’s natural assets were in safe and competent hands, perhaps, for the first time. Unlike Raja, he subjects all the proposals for setting up projects, particularly in the midst of the country’s dwindling forests, a very close look. No wonder, the environmental clearances take more time than what they used to take earlier, inviting the wrath of several ministries.
Working in accordance with his ministry’s mandate, Ramesh adopted a suggestion of Coal India Ltd, a Public Sector Undertaking, made at a meeting with the Minister for Coal. The suggestion was to conserve India’s fast-diminishing rich forests and segregate them into mineable and non-mineable areas. Accordingly, his Ministry released a series of maps of coalfields superimposed over forests on its website, identifying ‘go' and ‘no-go' zones for mining. It showed 35 per cent of the area of nine coalfields in six States, including Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa – the mining hotspots – as “no-go”, including them in Category A. These areas are mostly dense forests where mining is unviable because of the environmental damage it would cause. The remaining 65 per cent of the coalfields are in forests, falling in Category B, that can be mined – the “go” areas – but only if environmental and forest clearances are obtained. This has led to the cancellation of many proposed mining areas by the Coal Ministry.
Most of the coal resources in India are beneath the generally good forests, which according to the Forest Survey of India are just 40% of the country’s total forest cover, which is only 21% of the country’s geographical area. There are 206 coal blocks spread across 4,039 sq km in nine coalfields, involving a production potential of 660 million tonnes, which have been designated as no-go areas. Currently, around 70% of the energy used in India is sourced from coal.
Feeling deeply uncomfortable with adoption of a suggestion that emanated from his own minions, the Minister of Coal reacted sharply. He used the vital linkage between coal and economic growth with great aplomb. His chant that already there was a gap of 83 million tonnes between demand and supply of coal and that it was projected to rise to 200 million tonnes in 2013-14 became shriller. He not only took the matter to the Prime Minister but also mustered support from, inter alia, other core sector ministries of power and steel and argued that the non-availability of coal from no-go areas would seriously hit the projections of growth at 9% per-annum. While Dy. Chairman, Planning Commission, agreeing that growth would be seriously hit, desired a “sensible” definition of the no-go areas, Finance Minister asked Ramesh to be more “lenient”. The Law Minister said that such categorisation of forests would be illegal. Even the Prime Mister’s Office was upset and warned that these no-go areas could deprive the Central and state exchequers of several billion rupees and, worse, could turn into Maoists’ strongholds.
Several ministries had been banking heavily on the coal from the proposed no-go areas for ultra mega power projects (UMPPs) of 4,000 MW to meet the perennial power crisis. The Eleventh Five Year Plan had recommended power generation target of 78,577 MW by 2012 through these UMPPs. All those plans were seemingly being stymied by Ramesh. A chorus went up for unlocking of the coal in the no-go areas so that the growth projection could be met. With a high-decibel fracas developing, the Prime Minster, as is his wont, appointed a Group of Ministers to sort the matter out.
None, it seemed, realised the implication of what they were screaming for. India has already a very small area under forests – a measly 21% of its geographical area against the Government’s own goal of attaining 33%. Of this total, only around 7% is of the dense variety. If these, too, are exploited nothing short of an environmental disaster will ensue. Not only the country would suffer water shortages and face progressive desertification, it would also witness decimation of forests, land degradation, soil erosion, air pollution etc., and more so because of coal industry’s proclivity for opencast mining.
A prime example of such an eventuality is Singrauli in east Madhya Pradesh, adjoining the states of Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, which has emerged as the “energy capital” of India. Its rich coal deposits made it what it is today. Once covered with dense natural forests that were seemingly impenetrable, the generous deposits of coal and limestone proved to be its nemesis. Its cement factories and coal-fired power plants necessitated large-scale deforestation, converting forest ecosystems into savannahs and marginal croplands. The rainfall has become erratic and meagre, the soils are highly weathered and impoverished with widespread signs of desertification. A rapid depletion in the biodiversity, too, has occurred. It has become a critically polluted area. Its five super thermal power plants, which supply 10% of India’s power, are responsible for 16% or 10 tons per annum of total mercury pollution through power generation. Singrauli, reportedly, accounts for 10% of total Indian and 0.3% of global carbon dioxide emission.
Likewise, in the district of Raigarh in Chhattisgarh state its coal deposits are playing havoc. Half of the state’s coal is estimated to be in Raigarh. Only forty-odd years ago the district, then in Madhya Pradesh, was known for its pristine forests and tussar silk produced by its tribal community. With a current coal-based thermal power capacity of 1420 MW the district is planning to increase it to 16155 MW. Forty-odd power projects are in the pipeline which will push up the district’s capacity to 20000 MW – 23 % of the country’s coal-based power capacity. Ubiquity of fly-ash has prompted the Regional Director of Chhattisgarh Environment Conservation Board to say that Raigarh’s future will be covered in toxic fly-ash spewed by the chimneys of its coal-fired power plants. “Everyone makes power and takes away our coal to leave behind waste and pollution”, he says – a price the state is going to pay for its break-neck pace of development.
With the world seriously contemplating decarbonisation, the insistence of the ministries of the Government of India to unlock the “no-go” forest areas seems a trifle out of sync. One can appreciate the dilemma that Ramesh is in. Neither can he be a “growth-maniac” nor can he be an out-and-out environmentalist. For some time to come, as Ramesh says, the centrality of coal-based power will remain unquestioned, yet it’s time the country begins to strike a middle path. After all, the Earth’s commons are involved. One tends to feel that it’s time the ministry for coal is considered for disbandment as it, naturally, will work only for its own perpetuation even if that happens to be at the cost of the country’s forests. As, there is already a separate department for atomic power, a ministry of energy, that includes renewable and non-renewable sources, would seem to be more in line with today’s needs, which, progressively, could plan for a judicious mix of power from the two sources, progressively reducing the dependence on the latter.
It is a comprehensive charter and if the minister in-charge takes up his duties sincerely India would be a “green” country in most respects. However, that has not been so, at least, until now. Before the current Minister, Jairam Ramesh, took charge, the Ministry under the now-discredited Andimuthu Raja of the DMK party, an ally of the Congress in the United Progressive Alliance government, was known as a “rubber stamp”. The “system” was hardly ever worked for the larger good. Environmental clearances for industrial, power and other projects submitted by other ministries were freely given without any questions being asked regardless of what impact they were to have on the country’s environment. The “greens” kept shouting but there was none to hear them.
Ramesh, on the other hand, has taken his job far more seriously. He has given the ministry a direction and, some say, even teeth, it had lacked before. Barring a few gaffes, his performance has been so good that the country’s environmentalists thought that the ministry and the country’s natural assets were in safe and competent hands, perhaps, for the first time. Unlike Raja, he subjects all the proposals for setting up projects, particularly in the midst of the country’s dwindling forests, a very close look. No wonder, the environmental clearances take more time than what they used to take earlier, inviting the wrath of several ministries.
Working in accordance with his ministry’s mandate, Ramesh adopted a suggestion of Coal India Ltd, a Public Sector Undertaking, made at a meeting with the Minister for Coal. The suggestion was to conserve India’s fast-diminishing rich forests and segregate them into mineable and non-mineable areas. Accordingly, his Ministry released a series of maps of coalfields superimposed over forests on its website, identifying ‘go' and ‘no-go' zones for mining. It showed 35 per cent of the area of nine coalfields in six States, including Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa – the mining hotspots – as “no-go”, including them in Category A. These areas are mostly dense forests where mining is unviable because of the environmental damage it would cause. The remaining 65 per cent of the coalfields are in forests, falling in Category B, that can be mined – the “go” areas – but only if environmental and forest clearances are obtained. This has led to the cancellation of many proposed mining areas by the Coal Ministry.
Most of the coal resources in India are beneath the generally good forests, which according to the Forest Survey of India are just 40% of the country’s total forest cover, which is only 21% of the country’s geographical area. There are 206 coal blocks spread across 4,039 sq km in nine coalfields, involving a production potential of 660 million tonnes, which have been designated as no-go areas. Currently, around 70% of the energy used in India is sourced from coal.
Feeling deeply uncomfortable with adoption of a suggestion that emanated from his own minions, the Minister of Coal reacted sharply. He used the vital linkage between coal and economic growth with great aplomb. His chant that already there was a gap of 83 million tonnes between demand and supply of coal and that it was projected to rise to 200 million tonnes in 2013-14 became shriller. He not only took the matter to the Prime Minister but also mustered support from, inter alia, other core sector ministries of power and steel and argued that the non-availability of coal from no-go areas would seriously hit the projections of growth at 9% per-annum. While Dy. Chairman, Planning Commission, agreeing that growth would be seriously hit, desired a “sensible” definition of the no-go areas, Finance Minister asked Ramesh to be more “lenient”. The Law Minister said that such categorisation of forests would be illegal. Even the Prime Mister’s Office was upset and warned that these no-go areas could deprive the Central and state exchequers of several billion rupees and, worse, could turn into Maoists’ strongholds.
Several ministries had been banking heavily on the coal from the proposed no-go areas for ultra mega power projects (UMPPs) of 4,000 MW to meet the perennial power crisis. The Eleventh Five Year Plan had recommended power generation target of 78,577 MW by 2012 through these UMPPs. All those plans were seemingly being stymied by Ramesh. A chorus went up for unlocking of the coal in the no-go areas so that the growth projection could be met. With a high-decibel fracas developing, the Prime Minster, as is his wont, appointed a Group of Ministers to sort the matter out.
None, it seemed, realised the implication of what they were screaming for. India has already a very small area under forests – a measly 21% of its geographical area against the Government’s own goal of attaining 33%. Of this total, only around 7% is of the dense variety. If these, too, are exploited nothing short of an environmental disaster will ensue. Not only the country would suffer water shortages and face progressive desertification, it would also witness decimation of forests, land degradation, soil erosion, air pollution etc., and more so because of coal industry’s proclivity for opencast mining.
A prime example of such an eventuality is Singrauli in east Madhya Pradesh, adjoining the states of Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, which has emerged as the “energy capital” of India. Its rich coal deposits made it what it is today. Once covered with dense natural forests that were seemingly impenetrable, the generous deposits of coal and limestone proved to be its nemesis. Its cement factories and coal-fired power plants necessitated large-scale deforestation, converting forest ecosystems into savannahs and marginal croplands. The rainfall has become erratic and meagre, the soils are highly weathered and impoverished with widespread signs of desertification. A rapid depletion in the biodiversity, too, has occurred. It has become a critically polluted area. Its five super thermal power plants, which supply 10% of India’s power, are responsible for 16% or 10 tons per annum of total mercury pollution through power generation. Singrauli, reportedly, accounts for 10% of total Indian and 0.3% of global carbon dioxide emission.
Likewise, in the district of Raigarh in Chhattisgarh state its coal deposits are playing havoc. Half of the state’s coal is estimated to be in Raigarh. Only forty-odd years ago the district, then in Madhya Pradesh, was known for its pristine forests and tussar silk produced by its tribal community. With a current coal-based thermal power capacity of 1420 MW the district is planning to increase it to 16155 MW. Forty-odd power projects are in the pipeline which will push up the district’s capacity to 20000 MW – 23 % of the country’s coal-based power capacity. Ubiquity of fly-ash has prompted the Regional Director of Chhattisgarh Environment Conservation Board to say that Raigarh’s future will be covered in toxic fly-ash spewed by the chimneys of its coal-fired power plants. “Everyone makes power and takes away our coal to leave behind waste and pollution”, he says – a price the state is going to pay for its break-neck pace of development.
With the world seriously contemplating decarbonisation, the insistence of the ministries of the Government of India to unlock the “no-go” forest areas seems a trifle out of sync. One can appreciate the dilemma that Ramesh is in. Neither can he be a “growth-maniac” nor can he be an out-and-out environmentalist. For some time to come, as Ramesh says, the centrality of coal-based power will remain unquestioned, yet it’s time the country begins to strike a middle path. After all, the Earth’s commons are involved. One tends to feel that it’s time the ministry for coal is considered for disbandment as it, naturally, will work only for its own perpetuation even if that happens to be at the cost of the country’s forests. As, there is already a separate department for atomic power, a ministry of energy, that includes renewable and non-renewable sources, would seem to be more in line with today’s needs, which, progressively, could plan for a judicious mix of power from the two sources, progressively reducing the dependence on the latter.
Friday, February 18, 2011
In India mafias flourish and eliminate the honest
The other day something very unusual happened in the state of Maharashtra. Almost all its officers, numbering around 150,000 went on a day’s strike. They were protesting against killing of Additional District Magistrate of Nashik, Yeshwant Sonwane. Sonwane, an uncommonly upright and courageous district officer, was burnt to death by members of the oil mafia when he caught them on camera pilfering kerosene from a tanker. The protest was organised under the aegis of the Maharshtra Gazetted Officers’ Mahasangh. Its President said that the Mahasangh’s members were not really on a strike but were “shunning work” to protest against the gruesome act which had shaken the employees.
This was neither here nor there as, given the current ethical standards of government employees, many of them are corrupt and may even be in league with or are in the payrolls of several mafias for whom the state has been a happy hunting ground. This is further corroborated by the fact that Sonwane was building a case against one Popat Shinde, who has since died of third-degree burns and was the main accused in Sonwane’s killing. Sticking his neck out, Sonwane had conducted raids on Shinde’s dhaba (roadside eatery) – not an eatery, in fact, but a site for pilfering oil from tankers – earlier in 2010 and had seized 4000 litres of kerosene and 3000 litres of petrol. He had filed a report in this regard and had asked the Police to seal the seized oil and take action against Shinde under Essential Services Maintenance Act. Nothing was, however, done and Shinde was merrily roaming around free, indulging in his illegal business until he got severely singed while attempting to burn Sonwane alive. Obviously, he had friends in the government in the departments concerned, including the Police and, maybe, even in the political establishment. Reportedly, as many as six First Information Reports lodged with the Police and an “externment” order issued against him were never acted upon The indignation of most of the officers “shunning work” was, therefore, either out of sheer shock or totally spurious.
Further proof in this regard came soon after Sonwane’s death in the shape of a crack-down on the oil, land, milk and sand-mining Mafiosi by the government. All these mafias seem to have been having a free run of the state and, apparently, the state government had knowledge of them. More than 200 locations were raided in several districts of the state and as many as 170 were held. Until now, it seems, the government was a mute witness and the Mafias operated with considerable freedom to make money, cheat the government and the people. The new chief minister, chastened after the brutal killing of Sonwane, has assured the staff and their unions that security will be provided to those who do risky jobs. What, however, is needed immediately is to improve governance and ruthlessly eliminate the mafias who have become bold enough to even kill those who interfere with their nefarious activities. Simultaneously, severe action is necessary against those in the government, including politicians, who assist the mafias or are in league with them.
Sonwane’s sacrifice was extolled by the Indian Petroleum Minister as “heroic”, which, in fact, meant nothing. Sonwane was the second honest and courageous man who was audaciously killed by those who live by adulterating petroleum products. In November 2005 Shanmugam Manjunath, a much younger man, a management graduate to boot, was severely beaten up and riddled with bullets by a petrol-pump owner. A product of Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow, Manjunath was a popular student and was known for his sincerity and integrity. He had joined Indian Oil Corporation as a manager at Lucknow soon after he graduated out of the Institute in 2003. A no-nonsense and honest-to-the-core young manager – a rarity in these days of corrupted values – he had ordered closure of two IOC petrol pumps in Lakhimpur in the badlands of Uttar Pradesh (UP) for selling adulterated fuel. When he ordered closure of the third he was mercilessly beaten up and then shot. His body was found forced into the backseat of his small car. The culprits were nabbed but would not have been brought to justice had it not been for his friends in the IIM. Their efforts, in view of the government’s utter inaction, ensured a quick trial which was completed in nine months – uncommon in the annals of Indian judicial proceedings. All the accused were sentenced to life imprisonment. Strangely, while his friends and colleagues treated Manjunath as a martyr the Government of India remained a detached spectator. Afraid of the violent mafia of that region, Manjunath’s own company failed to take any action to provide security to its honest employees. The UP government made some noises but their action soon petered out.
Apart from sporadic attempts to check adulteration of petroleum products nothing much has been done over the years by the government or its agencies. That adulteration has been promoted by the skewed prices of petrol, diesel and their adulterants spawning mafias all across the country has been common knowledge for long. Despite knowledgeable circles’ repeated indictment of the pricing and taxation policies of petro-products and subsidies attached to the sale of adulterants, the governments at the centre never reacted positively. Outlook India published in April 2005, six months before Manjunath was brutally gunned down, an interview with KLN Sastri, Executive Director of the Oil Coordination Committee (OCC), the country’s top oil policy body, in which he mentioned that in the 1980s the “range and availability” of adulterants was around 10% but in the late ‘90s the same had climbed up to 40 to 45%. Around the same time Tata Consultancy Services came out with an astounding disclosure that 40 to 45% of subsidised kerosene channellised through Public Distribution System was being diverted for adulteration causing a loss of 5000 crores (Rs.500 billion) of subsidy. At current prices, it should be a mindboggling sum, not counting the increase in percentage of PDS kerosene being diverted due to further fall in ethical standards as also of governance. The fact remains, despite the exposures the governments at the Centre and in the states did nothing and an honest young life was lost.
According to Sastri, all major oil PSUs, including Gas Authority of India and Oil and Natural Gas Commission, “played no mean part, more often knowingly, in abetting adulteration”. It seems, under political pressure they were colluding in adulteration of even petrol by naphtha. Besides, when on OCC’s report about a major private player, presumably Reliance Industries limited, releasing super Light Diesel Oil and other products for adulteration, the then conscientious Secretary Petroleum set up an industry group for a thorough investigation, he was promptly moved out. The then minister petroleum from a southern ally of the National Democratic Alliance government, found him inconvenient.
The massive operations of adulteration in which the oil mafias have been involved across the country could not have been possible without the blessings of politicians at different levels. The highly regarded “The Hindu” recently reported that Rs. 25,000 crores (Rs.2500 billion) were paid in bribes in January 2011 by the oil mafia for issue of a government resolution excluding furnace oil tankers from the monitoring system. The report even named two men who paid the bribe to some ministers, including one from the Centre. The furnace oil business in Maharashtra is reported to be of the order of Rs. 100,000 crores (Rs.10000 billion).
The Prime Minister has been talking off and on about the need to eradicate corruption. Recently, he asserted “Corruption strikes at the roots of good governance... It dents our international image and it demeans us before our own people. This is a challenge which has to be faced frontally, boldly and quickly.” This happened to be one of his many statements on this menace during the last few years. Yet, so far, he has not displayed any gumption to meet the menace “frontally” or “boldly”. Strangely, under the rule of an economist of his stature and credentials of integrity mafias flourish and eliminate the honest.
This was neither here nor there as, given the current ethical standards of government employees, many of them are corrupt and may even be in league with or are in the payrolls of several mafias for whom the state has been a happy hunting ground. This is further corroborated by the fact that Sonwane was building a case against one Popat Shinde, who has since died of third-degree burns and was the main accused in Sonwane’s killing. Sticking his neck out, Sonwane had conducted raids on Shinde’s dhaba (roadside eatery) – not an eatery, in fact, but a site for pilfering oil from tankers – earlier in 2010 and had seized 4000 litres of kerosene and 3000 litres of petrol. He had filed a report in this regard and had asked the Police to seal the seized oil and take action against Shinde under Essential Services Maintenance Act. Nothing was, however, done and Shinde was merrily roaming around free, indulging in his illegal business until he got severely singed while attempting to burn Sonwane alive. Obviously, he had friends in the government in the departments concerned, including the Police and, maybe, even in the political establishment. Reportedly, as many as six First Information Reports lodged with the Police and an “externment” order issued against him were never acted upon The indignation of most of the officers “shunning work” was, therefore, either out of sheer shock or totally spurious.
Further proof in this regard came soon after Sonwane’s death in the shape of a crack-down on the oil, land, milk and sand-mining Mafiosi by the government. All these mafias seem to have been having a free run of the state and, apparently, the state government had knowledge of them. More than 200 locations were raided in several districts of the state and as many as 170 were held. Until now, it seems, the government was a mute witness and the Mafias operated with considerable freedom to make money, cheat the government and the people. The new chief minister, chastened after the brutal killing of Sonwane, has assured the staff and their unions that security will be provided to those who do risky jobs. What, however, is needed immediately is to improve governance and ruthlessly eliminate the mafias who have become bold enough to even kill those who interfere with their nefarious activities. Simultaneously, severe action is necessary against those in the government, including politicians, who assist the mafias or are in league with them.
Sonwane’s sacrifice was extolled by the Indian Petroleum Minister as “heroic”, which, in fact, meant nothing. Sonwane was the second honest and courageous man who was audaciously killed by those who live by adulterating petroleum products. In November 2005 Shanmugam Manjunath, a much younger man, a management graduate to boot, was severely beaten up and riddled with bullets by a petrol-pump owner. A product of Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow, Manjunath was a popular student and was known for his sincerity and integrity. He had joined Indian Oil Corporation as a manager at Lucknow soon after he graduated out of the Institute in 2003. A no-nonsense and honest-to-the-core young manager – a rarity in these days of corrupted values – he had ordered closure of two IOC petrol pumps in Lakhimpur in the badlands of Uttar Pradesh (UP) for selling adulterated fuel. When he ordered closure of the third he was mercilessly beaten up and then shot. His body was found forced into the backseat of his small car. The culprits were nabbed but would not have been brought to justice had it not been for his friends in the IIM. Their efforts, in view of the government’s utter inaction, ensured a quick trial which was completed in nine months – uncommon in the annals of Indian judicial proceedings. All the accused were sentenced to life imprisonment. Strangely, while his friends and colleagues treated Manjunath as a martyr the Government of India remained a detached spectator. Afraid of the violent mafia of that region, Manjunath’s own company failed to take any action to provide security to its honest employees. The UP government made some noises but their action soon petered out.
Apart from sporadic attempts to check adulteration of petroleum products nothing much has been done over the years by the government or its agencies. That adulteration has been promoted by the skewed prices of petrol, diesel and their adulterants spawning mafias all across the country has been common knowledge for long. Despite knowledgeable circles’ repeated indictment of the pricing and taxation policies of petro-products and subsidies attached to the sale of adulterants, the governments at the centre never reacted positively. Outlook India published in April 2005, six months before Manjunath was brutally gunned down, an interview with KLN Sastri, Executive Director of the Oil Coordination Committee (OCC), the country’s top oil policy body, in which he mentioned that in the 1980s the “range and availability” of adulterants was around 10% but in the late ‘90s the same had climbed up to 40 to 45%. Around the same time Tata Consultancy Services came out with an astounding disclosure that 40 to 45% of subsidised kerosene channellised through Public Distribution System was being diverted for adulteration causing a loss of 5000 crores (Rs.500 billion) of subsidy. At current prices, it should be a mindboggling sum, not counting the increase in percentage of PDS kerosene being diverted due to further fall in ethical standards as also of governance. The fact remains, despite the exposures the governments at the Centre and in the states did nothing and an honest young life was lost.
According to Sastri, all major oil PSUs, including Gas Authority of India and Oil and Natural Gas Commission, “played no mean part, more often knowingly, in abetting adulteration”. It seems, under political pressure they were colluding in adulteration of even petrol by naphtha. Besides, when on OCC’s report about a major private player, presumably Reliance Industries limited, releasing super Light Diesel Oil and other products for adulteration, the then conscientious Secretary Petroleum set up an industry group for a thorough investigation, he was promptly moved out. The then minister petroleum from a southern ally of the National Democratic Alliance government, found him inconvenient.
The massive operations of adulteration in which the oil mafias have been involved across the country could not have been possible without the blessings of politicians at different levels. The highly regarded “The Hindu” recently reported that Rs. 25,000 crores (Rs.2500 billion) were paid in bribes in January 2011 by the oil mafia for issue of a government resolution excluding furnace oil tankers from the monitoring system. The report even named two men who paid the bribe to some ministers, including one from the Centre. The furnace oil business in Maharashtra is reported to be of the order of Rs. 100,000 crores (Rs.10000 billion).
The Prime Minister has been talking off and on about the need to eradicate corruption. Recently, he asserted “Corruption strikes at the roots of good governance... It dents our international image and it demeans us before our own people. This is a challenge which has to be faced frontally, boldly and quickly.” This happened to be one of his many statements on this menace during the last few years. Yet, so far, he has not displayed any gumption to meet the menace “frontally” or “boldly”. Strangely, under the rule of an economist of his stature and credentials of integrity mafias flourish and eliminate the honest.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
The Spurious in India
The other day the Bhopal edition of a national daily reported a raid on a local manufacturing unit of spurious Unani medicines. Unani is a traditional system of medicine which has been practiced in the country for centuries. Although the name suggests that the system is Grecian, it in fact is a Greco-Arabic system that is widely taken recourse to in South Asia. No wonder, it is generally patronised by Muslims, who would seem to have adopted it as their own. Certainly not as expensive as its allopathic counterparts, Unani for the poor is a default medical system. And, quite heartlessly, there are people who apparently are prepared to harm the hapless poor for a few quick bucks by having them treated by fake medicines.
There was another similar report the same day. An industrialist in a remote corner of the town was nabbed for manufacturing and supplying fake electrical items with names of well-known brands tagged on to them. Even ceiling fans of, inter alia, Usha brand-name were being manufactured by him. Obviously, the budding industrialist knew that the stuff he manufactured wouldn’t sell unless he gave them a brand name. So, he thought nothing of counterfeiting the recognized brands.
But these, perhaps, pale into insignificance before the report of farmers committing suicide because of ruined crops owing to spurious fertilizers and pesticides. Poor farmers bought them taking loans at usurious rates of interest in the hope of augmenting their produce and protecting their crops in the hope of good returns. But that was not to be. The ignorant farmers were cheated and sold duds, ruining their finances. Worse, there have also been reports of spurious seeds being sold to them, even by some public sector firms. Having been heavily shortchanged the farmers facing financial ruin are sometimes driven to take the extreme step of ending their life. However, it is not the farmer alone who, along with his family, suffers because of such widespread dishonesty; the entire nation suffers by way of reduced agricultural output that frustrates its efforts to build up its food stocks.
This is not all. Items of food that are used in large scale are adulterated with toxic materials and are sold openly. Late last year, during the festive season, the local collector organized raids and detected trade in spurious khoya, thickened milk, which is widely used for making a number of upper Indian sweets. A year before that, a sting operation by one of the more conscientious TV news channels exposed the massive trade in spurious milk products all over north India. It included khoya, of course, and even ghee (clarified butter) and paneer (cottage cheese). Many arrests were made in several north Indian states.
Among the most adulterated food items are the Indian spices which are routinely sold by grocers all over the country. While the middle classes and others who can afford to buy the branded packaged products – generally genuine – at a higher cost are able to avoid sickness and ill-health by consuming spurious spices, there is no respite for the poor who have to depend on the neighbourhood grocers. Sale of spurious spices has been an age-old practice. Ground red-chilly, for example, would be mixed with generous proportions of powdered brick and the powdered coriander seeds would contain liberal quantities of horse dung.
Governance being weak, people go to tortuous lengths to produce fake stuff to make quick money regardless of the consequences of their unscrupulous acts on others. On the one hand, the state surveillance is ineffective, even non-existent, on the other, the relevant laws are old and archaic providing for penalties that are so light that they are not enough of a deterrent. An unscrupulous entrepreneur would rather take the risk of spending a few months in the coup and paying a light fine of a few thousands to make a pile.
The utter lack of governance seems to have promoted all around an amoral culture with almost absolute lack of ethical values giving rise to a pervasive atmosphere of mistrust as nobody knows when one is cheated, swindled, robbed or even killed for a few nickels. In this milieu a straight individual is taken for a ride or is dispossessed of most of his assets –liquid or fixed. There is an enormous trust-deficit prevailing in the society. One is generally suspicious of the next man and one has to watch one’s every step. The gullible and the careless end up as losers.
Here, cheats, swindlers and the like are more pious and, with corruption spreading like galloping cancer, religiosity has broken all bounds. Places of worship are multiplying and hundreds of thousands gather at shrines during religious festivals Recently, on a festive occasion a hundred-odd died in a stampede when millions milled around to view a, supposedly, spurious divine luminescent phenomenon near a legendary temple on top of a southern forested hill. Even people’s blind faith has become exploitable for unethical gains.
India had won its independence from the colonial power largely on the basis its moral force. Non-violence, “soul-force”, et al practiced during the struggle for freedom had won encomiums from world leaders. Gandhi’s truth and non-violence were the guiding forces which eventually won the country its freedom without any bloodshed. Truly, in those days, which stretched into the first two decades after independence, ethical standards were so high that scarcely was there a person who would be corrupt, and, if found so, would promptly be ostracized. No wonder, soon after independence the country, despite its abject poverty, was acknowledged by the international community as repository of ethics and morality. Immediately after the end of World War II, unleashed by the self-aggrandising and immoral Axis Powers, India provided a welcome change.
A decline in ethical standards, however, commenced around the 1970s and took progressively a precipitous plunge thereafter. It largely started off as political corruption and later, unchecked and unbridled, permeated the society at every level, so much so that today India is among the most corrupt nations in the world. The governments – central or of states – and public bodies make phony efforts to fight the menace of corruption. Even the corruption- watchdog the Centre recently appointed has a history of corruption.
While politicians and top officials at the Centre, the states and even in the civic bodies loot the public exchequer, they also foster sleaze among those who deal with them. Industrialists, businessmen and traders, in league with politicians and officials, make merry at the cost of the people. The recent missive to the government by corporate houses asking for a check on corruption is, therefore, specious and spurious as it is they who are largely responsible for corrupting the system.
Even the democracy that we have is spurious. Politicians work for their own perpetuation in office, instead of working for the larger good. Politics of vote banks has permeated the entire polity. Besides, the country’s parliamentary democracy is progressively morphing into an oligarchy. As Patrick French, the British author of “India- an intimate portrait of 1.2 billion people”, has revealed, seats in the Indian Parliament are progressively going by heredity. The electoral system being what it is, a non-political contestant has scarcely a chance. It’s now the private preserve of the movers and shakers and wheelers and dealers.
The “social contract”, under which people ceded their sovereignty to the government hoping for installation of a just and equitable social order based on the rule of law, has been severely breached by the (central and state) governments and other public institutions. They and their several agencies are promoting, by way of their acts of omissions and commissions, socio-economic disparities. While a few are reaping the fruits of the country’s economic surge, a very large section of the population continues to be deprived, languishing in heart-rending poverty and under-nourishment. The fetish-ised 9% “inclusive (GDP) growth”, therefore, sounds hollow and the claim of being an emerging super-power is nothing but – well, yes, spurious!
There was another similar report the same day. An industrialist in a remote corner of the town was nabbed for manufacturing and supplying fake electrical items with names of well-known brands tagged on to them. Even ceiling fans of, inter alia, Usha brand-name were being manufactured by him. Obviously, the budding industrialist knew that the stuff he manufactured wouldn’t sell unless he gave them a brand name. So, he thought nothing of counterfeiting the recognized brands.
But these, perhaps, pale into insignificance before the report of farmers committing suicide because of ruined crops owing to spurious fertilizers and pesticides. Poor farmers bought them taking loans at usurious rates of interest in the hope of augmenting their produce and protecting their crops in the hope of good returns. But that was not to be. The ignorant farmers were cheated and sold duds, ruining their finances. Worse, there have also been reports of spurious seeds being sold to them, even by some public sector firms. Having been heavily shortchanged the farmers facing financial ruin are sometimes driven to take the extreme step of ending their life. However, it is not the farmer alone who, along with his family, suffers because of such widespread dishonesty; the entire nation suffers by way of reduced agricultural output that frustrates its efforts to build up its food stocks.
This is not all. Items of food that are used in large scale are adulterated with toxic materials and are sold openly. Late last year, during the festive season, the local collector organized raids and detected trade in spurious khoya, thickened milk, which is widely used for making a number of upper Indian sweets. A year before that, a sting operation by one of the more conscientious TV news channels exposed the massive trade in spurious milk products all over north India. It included khoya, of course, and even ghee (clarified butter) and paneer (cottage cheese). Many arrests were made in several north Indian states.
Among the most adulterated food items are the Indian spices which are routinely sold by grocers all over the country. While the middle classes and others who can afford to buy the branded packaged products – generally genuine – at a higher cost are able to avoid sickness and ill-health by consuming spurious spices, there is no respite for the poor who have to depend on the neighbourhood grocers. Sale of spurious spices has been an age-old practice. Ground red-chilly, for example, would be mixed with generous proportions of powdered brick and the powdered coriander seeds would contain liberal quantities of horse dung.
Governance being weak, people go to tortuous lengths to produce fake stuff to make quick money regardless of the consequences of their unscrupulous acts on others. On the one hand, the state surveillance is ineffective, even non-existent, on the other, the relevant laws are old and archaic providing for penalties that are so light that they are not enough of a deterrent. An unscrupulous entrepreneur would rather take the risk of spending a few months in the coup and paying a light fine of a few thousands to make a pile.
The utter lack of governance seems to have promoted all around an amoral culture with almost absolute lack of ethical values giving rise to a pervasive atmosphere of mistrust as nobody knows when one is cheated, swindled, robbed or even killed for a few nickels. In this milieu a straight individual is taken for a ride or is dispossessed of most of his assets –liquid or fixed. There is an enormous trust-deficit prevailing in the society. One is generally suspicious of the next man and one has to watch one’s every step. The gullible and the careless end up as losers.
Here, cheats, swindlers and the like are more pious and, with corruption spreading like galloping cancer, religiosity has broken all bounds. Places of worship are multiplying and hundreds of thousands gather at shrines during religious festivals Recently, on a festive occasion a hundred-odd died in a stampede when millions milled around to view a, supposedly, spurious divine luminescent phenomenon near a legendary temple on top of a southern forested hill. Even people’s blind faith has become exploitable for unethical gains.
India had won its independence from the colonial power largely on the basis its moral force. Non-violence, “soul-force”, et al practiced during the struggle for freedom had won encomiums from world leaders. Gandhi’s truth and non-violence were the guiding forces which eventually won the country its freedom without any bloodshed. Truly, in those days, which stretched into the first two decades after independence, ethical standards were so high that scarcely was there a person who would be corrupt, and, if found so, would promptly be ostracized. No wonder, soon after independence the country, despite its abject poverty, was acknowledged by the international community as repository of ethics and morality. Immediately after the end of World War II, unleashed by the self-aggrandising and immoral Axis Powers, India provided a welcome change.
A decline in ethical standards, however, commenced around the 1970s and took progressively a precipitous plunge thereafter. It largely started off as political corruption and later, unchecked and unbridled, permeated the society at every level, so much so that today India is among the most corrupt nations in the world. The governments – central or of states – and public bodies make phony efforts to fight the menace of corruption. Even the corruption- watchdog the Centre recently appointed has a history of corruption.
While politicians and top officials at the Centre, the states and even in the civic bodies loot the public exchequer, they also foster sleaze among those who deal with them. Industrialists, businessmen and traders, in league with politicians and officials, make merry at the cost of the people. The recent missive to the government by corporate houses asking for a check on corruption is, therefore, specious and spurious as it is they who are largely responsible for corrupting the system.
Even the democracy that we have is spurious. Politicians work for their own perpetuation in office, instead of working for the larger good. Politics of vote banks has permeated the entire polity. Besides, the country’s parliamentary democracy is progressively morphing into an oligarchy. As Patrick French, the British author of “India- an intimate portrait of 1.2 billion people”, has revealed, seats in the Indian Parliament are progressively going by heredity. The electoral system being what it is, a non-political contestant has scarcely a chance. It’s now the private preserve of the movers and shakers and wheelers and dealers.
The “social contract”, under which people ceded their sovereignty to the government hoping for installation of a just and equitable social order based on the rule of law, has been severely breached by the (central and state) governments and other public institutions. They and their several agencies are promoting, by way of their acts of omissions and commissions, socio-economic disparities. While a few are reaping the fruits of the country’s economic surge, a very large section of the population continues to be deprived, languishing in heart-rending poverty and under-nourishment. The fetish-ised 9% “inclusive (GDP) growth”, therefore, sounds hollow and the claim of being an emerging super-power is nothing but – well, yes, spurious!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
The other day “The Hindu” brought out a feature on the guavas of Allahabad. Allahabad has, seemingly, always been famous for guavas. ... -
http://bagchiblog.blogspot.com View from my room We landed not at Haneda, but at Narita airport. Narita was opened to traffic in 197... -
http://www.bagchiblog.blogspot.com (In continuation of the previous post) With a desktop things became much easier although it took ...