Democrasty

Some young countries devoid of rich heritage and long history may have democracy based on two (or such a small number, in any case), and the governance may oscillate between those limited political parties. The democracy in vibrant countries like India have a rich lingering flavor of dynasties of yore, and we are right in coining and calling it democrasty. It is an accepted practice to conduct the coronation of heir apparent soon of the royal mourning which follows the unnatural demise of an emperor or empress as the case may be. If the heir is not ready for the throne, it is not uncommon for the rajmata to manage the show with a front-end council of ministers till the heir apparent comes of age of juvenile delinquent acts like roaming in forests, making unannounced nocturnal visits to huts, partaking their frugal meal and later snore away to glory etc. and completes his royal education and becomes ready and steady enough to sit on the throne. There are also recorded situations where trusted persons ruled strictly on stop-gap basis. Such stop gap entities are expendable like late PV and soon after their character assassination takes place, lest some undeserving historian may record the latter’s contribution to the nation and thereby vilify the family. It is a matter of months, if not weeks, before our present PM also gets consigned to the dustbin of history like his mentor. It is also a prevalent practice for the royal council to oversee all operations during periods of mourning which enables royal families to complete rituals and also settle squabbles, if any. We are fortunate to have such situations averted in advance. After all, to paraphrase what a royal follower said few decades ago: The Family is India, India is the Family . It does not require knowledge of rocket science to relate and understand the roles of late Gulzarilal Nanda, late Lal Bahadur Shastri, late P V Narasimha Rao, present PM Dr. Manmohan Singh in proper perspective.

Visiting dignitaries to modern day Hastinapur (New Delhi) understand the ground realities and soon after paying the mandatory tribute at Raj Ghat with reluctance, look forward to the more important visit to Janpath to a number which is same as a famous one, if not more powerful, on Downing Street. These dignitaries are a smart lot and they know how to maintain diplomatic decorum. This visit is more than mandatory irrespective of who is at the Centre at that point of time. At times it also happens that some usurpers occupy throne like our non-congress parties/alliances and they generally do not last full term. It is easy to recognize the new jargon of democrastic lexicon. No wonder, followers and commoners alike look forward for early coronation so the prince soon becomes an emperor. If he remains single at the time coronation, people can have the pleasure of speculating on the lucky empress to be.

Never forget the eternal saying: democrasty is the government of the people, by the people, for the people.

Why a National Holiday on Oct 2nd?

Every year India is having a National Holiday on this day. Can anyone recall the purpose? A person born 141 years ago who was destined to work all through his life for making India independent and he performed his duty, no more and no less. We Indians believe in the Theory of Destiny. India was simply destined to get freedom from British rule with the collective effort of some of our ancestors and he was to be at the helm of affairs. No more significance can be attached to his role.

Over 95% of Indians on rolls today are born after Mahatma Gandhi died. Of the remaining 5% or less, majority of them were in their loincloths (or nappies, if you prefer) during his time. Only few individuals, having one leg already in their respective graves now, have any vivid recollections of him.

Mahatma was not too popular with everyone. Sir Winston Churchill blurted on Mahatma:

It was while addressing the Council of the West Essex Unionists on February 23, 1931, that Churchill remarked of how, to him and most likely to much of his audience, it "was alarming to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceregal Palace, while he is still organising and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor."

Sir Stafford Cripps, British Minister for Aircraft Production said cautiously on Mahatma fasting in jail:

He is such a semi-religious figure that his death in our hands would be a great blow and embarrassment to us.

Nobel Peace Prize committee never felt Mahatma as a worthy candidate for Noble Prize during his lifetime and only expressed cursory regret, at a later stage, for not awarding him the coveted prize!

Mahatma was not present at the function marking the transition of India from the holds of British Raj to independent India. India itself did not deem it fit to honor Mahatma, for whatever reasons, with Bharat Ratna or instituting a greater recognition for him while every T, D and H is aspiring for Bharat Ratna these days!

Most importantly, it will be a shocking revelation to many to know that Mahatma is unrelated by blood to the more famous and omnipresent and omnipotent G-family whose names adore and render grace and dignity to all major airports, stadia, arterial roads and so on. It is a sheer coincidence that Mahatma shares the same surname as the dynasty of illustrious saviors of the nation. India looks for the leadership and deliverance at the hands of the members of every new generation of G-family and has no more need for the memories of fakir, as Churchill of yore called him.

Mahatma literally long ceased to live even in the minds of today’s Indians. Forget old G and look forward to new Gs. By the way, why are we torturing our beloved national leaders by making them garland statues year after year? It is indeed backbreaking. There is no doubt that Mahatma deserves peace and rest in his grave and we need not make him turn in his grave as the garlands might prick his conscience.

Tarantula is certain that Mahatma himself, in respect of wastage of national productivity of one day in a year in his name, would have disapproved.

80-20 Syndrome

Whether you are a student of management studies or a student of history or a statistician or a plain observant individual for that matter, you know about 80-20 syndrome or principle or rule. It is pervasive in all walks of life. The observation of Pratyush Sinha reinforces this well known phenomenon.

Pratyush Sinha who just demitted the office of CVC said: 20% of Indians are "honest, regardless of the temptations, because this is how they are". Regarding the rest 80%, 50% are on borderline to utterly corrupt and 30% are utterly corrupt. We need to applaud Pratyush for being one of those rare breed of Babus who could atleast speak out and express on retirement, his disgust on increasing acceptance of corruption by the society.

Let us not enter into a debate about the figure 80-20; it could well mean 99-1 depending on the definition of honesty. If you analyse by various sections of society, ratios would differ and politicians take the cake with 100%-0%.

The process of the appointment of Shina's successor tells us the unwritten story more vividly.

On the objections raised about P J Thomas' appointment as head of the anti-corruption watchdog, Chief Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) of India, saying that he had faced probe on charges of corruption in the Kerala palm oil import scam and was thus not fit to oversee investigations into the 2G allocation scam, Chidambaram said the bureaucrat had been cleared of all charges.

It is worth noting that Thomas was not above suspicion but is "cleared of charges."

Chidambaram is understandably under pressure to bail out his strange political bedfellows from his native state Tamil Nadu, which is essential for the survival of the present government. By the way, who cleared Thomas? Are the people clearing someone of something above board? A mute question! A person who is part of a scam is the best fit as out of gratitude (and duty bound!?) he will not allow any probe into the 2-G scam of past or 3-G of present or 4-G of future. No bureaucrat has ever committed suicide thus far.

Dr. Manmohan Singh, our beloved PM, defended the government's decision. 'We have done the right thing. We have chosen the best candidate out of the list of three,' he had said. How can he say anything contrary to that?

Story boils down to this: India has only three people fairly fit to be considered as successor to Pratyush for the position of CVC. Out of these three, Thomas is fittest of all! If you combine Chidambaram’s statement, that Thomas is cleared of all charges, all others are either unfit or yet to clear the corruption charges they are involved or both.

It is time for us to congratulate Chidambaram for having found, after a long search, one Babu who cleared the charges!!!

Long since CBI has become Corrupt Bureau of India and ACB has become Authorised Corrupt Bureau. Sorry fellow countrymen, the office of CVC is now compromised.

Blame it on PV

Post Ramayana and Mahabharata history of India is both tumultuous and fascinating. At the time of Alexander’s invasion, India was in a state of geographic fragments with political and leadership bankruptcy to say the least. A visionary with a missionary zeal called Vishnugupta rose to the occasion and unified fragmented Indian kingdoms and forged them into a single country which encompassed several small neighboring countries of present day India. To put it in a politically more correct manner, Vishnugupta who is also known as Chanakya (son of Chanak, a well known and respected political economist of his generation) is called by his adversaries as Kautilya which is a scandalous title for unifying the country, punishing lethargy and corruption and establishing a golden era and a truly global University and dying as teacher in his hermitage with minimum of comforts. A school of thought of present day political intelligentsia believes that one of the non-family PMs of a certain political party which owns the nation is a reincarnation of the same Vishnugupta who is more often referred by his acquired name.

Someone said: if anything can go wrong, it will. There is more to it. Something or other always goes wrong; it has been going wrong yesterday, going wrong today and will go wrong tomorrow. That is a Law of the Universe. Stephen Hawking is yet to figure it out whether this Law is applicable to other Universes which might exist outside our Universe.

When India faced economic bankruptcy, it is PV who saved it with his vision and wisdom and gave his protégé, today’s PM, a free hand to deliver goods and insulated him from the taunts of other politicians and bureaucrats. PV got criticized when he was alive, people raised objection for cremating him at a place where his mortal remains were consigned to flame and people will continue to blame him tomorrow.

India has its share of wrongs. Babri, Bofors, Bhopal, Kashmir, Naxalites, Maoits, LTTE, Reservations, Religions, Castes, Census, Democracy, Judiciary, Police, Military, Illiteracy, Poverty, HIV, Sanitation, Traffic, Education, CWG ... The list is unending. Since independence, almost everything is going wrong in India but we are fortunate to have someone to blame and one can blame it all on PV.

One will be absolutely right in one aspect, though. Those who are unhappy with present two-time, non-family, apolitical, indigenous PM, can certainly blame it on his mentor, PV.

Prevention of Equating Animals with …

There are numerous associations for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals around the world and some millions of pet lovers are rendering yeomen service to the cause they believe in. The situation is fast changing like every other thing around us. Cruelty to Animals has become secondary. What can cruelty to animals do? It can cause physical pain, curtail freedom, isolate from its kith and kin, partly crush its spirit, make it a victim of medical trials, convert into a stuffed decorative item and even cause its death – yes, death to its body and not soul which is imperishable. By the way, what is a body without soul? The atman is all-important.

In the good old days, parents used to name their children after their elders out of respect and call them by a pet name out of affection, convenience, brevity, preserve hierarchy among children (ex: Chotu) and so on. When a child does something mischievous, they used to call the child after a pet or domesticated animal; they meant no offence to the child or animal. If any, it used to be a way expressing their concealed admiration of the child’s mischief.

Karna got a shaap for inadvertently killing a cow, and paid for it with his life during the Great War. Yudhistir refused to enter Swarg until the dog following him is given the same red carpet entry and with equal respect. Some animals acquired divine status. Yes, examples galore. India has a rich tradition of treating animals as equals or superior.

Our politicians have forgotten the vast cultural heritage and spirit with which Indian languages in vogue are spoken. All politicians, metaphorically speaking, are the birds of the same feather. Our Constitution has not denied them their fundamental right/freedom to address their brother politicians with choice expressions and expletives. Yet, by calling other politicians by the name of an animal, they are insulting our revered animal world. This is not acceptable. This hurts the soul (of animals); crushes their spirit completely on being equated with most unholy of His creation.

The need of the hour is to set up an Association for Prevention of Equating Animals with Politicians.

33% Reservation and After

Rajya Sabha gave us entertainment by way of passing 33% Women’s Reservation Bill in March 2010. The next logical step of passing it by Lok Sabha got stalled thanks to Yadav trioka and few other friends who have united for this particular cause. Some groups of MPs started giving their support to ruling coalition in exchange of Clean Chits in the long pending corruption cases against them to run the day-to-day business of the Parliament, when in session. It appears that on one fine day, Lok Sabha will eventually complete this long pending transaction of passing the Bill and send it for Presidential assent.

CEC may find it equitable to declare 33% seats in coming General Elections as reserved for women and rotate them in future general elections. It requires political ingenuity to understand and circumvent the rules. That being the case, let us explore the possible situation when Saran parliamentary constituency, a bastion of RJD supremo, is reserved for women in the next election in 2014 or so.

Lalu Prasad Yadav will spring a surprise in the list of RJD candidates that comes out. An unknown woman candidate called Labri Devi Yadav gets RJD ticket for his Saran Parliamentary constituency! His own name does not appear in the final list of RJD candidates! Some people cry fowl. Nation becomes deeply interested and curious to learn about Ms. Labri, a hitherto unknown political figure. Rabri Devi, in contrast, prefers to re-contest from her Assembly constituency.

Some people observe that Lalu and Labri Devi were not seen together on any platform or in public. They get suspicious. Some activists are bound to file a complaint with CEC and file a public interest litigation in Supreme Court, claiming that since Labri Devi is contesting for a seat reserved for women, it is only fair to ascertain the sex of the candidate. Supreme Court, in all its wisdom, is bound to dismiss the petition, in an analogous manner to most recent judgments, stating:

i) who are you to file a case against Labri Devi? ii) in what way you are affected? iii) Every citizen has a fundamental right to keep his/her private parts private and hence subjecting them to sex-determination tests is unconstitutional iv) even though few criminal might misuse such a fundamental right and get away, SC has a duty to protect the fundamental rights of common people of the country.

Taking a cue from the judgment delivered by SC, CEC will declare sex-determination of the candidates is unwanted intrusion into the privacy of contesting candidates and prohibits the inclusion of the details of private parts in the mandatory disclosures of assets of the candidates. CEC also observes that in sports, sometimes, sex-determination is done to ensure men do not participate in the women’s events. There is no such need in higher form of Sports like Politics.

.......

For the general elections coming after another lapse of a five-year term, by rotation, Saran seat becomes open. The beauty is that in the RJD list of candidates, Labri’s name does not figure and she disappears into thin air; and there comes back the RJD ticket for our Lalu.

Making India Corruption-free

In the last few months, based on the submissions of CBI, Hon. Supreme Court closed the Bofors case, some cases against Lalu Prasad Yadav and today against Jagdish Tytler. It is clear that our Hon. Supreme Court is burdened with numerous such frivolous cases and hence it is left with hardly any time to deal with the other cases pending since its inception.

In order to lessen the artificial burden thrust on the shoulders of our SC, time is ripe for the parliament to act quickly. Tarantula has a suggestion and hopefully it will find the approval of several important sections of the society, including politicians, babus, contractors, middlemen, smugglers, black marketers, rioters and other criminals.

In reality, this suggestion is so simple; Tarantula wonders why none of our brilliant parliamentarians thought of it so far.

Parliament should bring in a bill in the morning session of tomorrow, by burning tonight’s midnight oil, to the following effect:

All the corruption, riot, murder, rape, land grab and such other cases of comparable magnitude pending in various Indian courts as of tonight deemed as closed and the people charged are set free with a clean chit. All acts of corruption till midnight tonight, which are yet to be booked, which are similar in nature to aforesaid crimes, should get a general amnesty and deemed as closed once for all.

The wonderful aspect of this bill is that India becomes Corruption-free at the stroke of midnight just it has become independent when 15th August 1947 has ushered in. It will prove all the skeptics, who believe that India can never become a corruption-free country, wrong at one stroke of genius. Such a bill will go through both the the houses of parliament without any acrimony with or without party whips as none will say nay. This will give an opportunity to all those to breath a sigh of relief and start with renewed vigor a new chapter tomorrow, afresh.

Voyage to Eyjafjallajökull

The time is ripe and just right to send an all but one or two MP delegation to Eyjafjallajökull urgently to have first hand information of the situation over there.

Some of the acrobatic MPs who habitually jump into the well of the Parliament may be allowed to jump into the mouth of this volcano at their own risk and get a better feel.

On their successful return, we should give them a rousing reception. They can also share their experiences with voters in coming elections how the nation should face natural calamities with a brave front. Such election speeches will be a welcome change to voters who are fed on same insipid stuff for last 63 years.

One of the couple of exceptions we talked about is our PM. He is a tired man after his recent trips and his return trip via Johannesburg to avoid ashes from Eyjafjallajökull. Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor should stay back and be in constant touch with the entire delegation to give us updates through his tweeting.

Who is Better Trained and Equipped?

It is not uncommon to see photos of police firing teargas shells at demonstrators to take control of the situation. The photo dated today shown below is a picture in contrast. Readers of Tarantula may recall the post “Where is Unemployment?” where in we discussed about stone-pelting industry in J&K. This photo shows that J&K also has hi-tech industry with well trained, agile, motivated and athletic looking youth to throw teargas shells at police! It is difficult to find a policeman or a para-military who can throw with comparable agility, focus and concentration.

A protester carries a burning teargas canister to hurl it back at police during a stir in Srinagar on 13th April 2010.

Dantewada carnage in which 74 plus CRPF personnel died makes one think whether the CRPF is trained and adequately equipped to meet the challenges posed by Maoists.


THE ROAD TO HEAVEN, OR IS IT?: The marker stone for a temple beside a road going to Chintalnad, which has witnessed a lot of violence.

Son of a famous film star and congress party MP was arrested under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) on 19 April 1993. A big catch of weapons in his possession, were supposedly of such latest designs and so sophisticated, the envious military officials who had a look at them wanted such weapons, at that point of time, for Indian Army.

Persecution of Minds

Galileo Galilei defended Heliocentrism, a quantum step towards a scientific truth, away from Geocentricism and the antagonized church awarded him life imprisonment, narrowly avoiding death sentence. Defiant Galileo said "Eppur si muove" which means And yet it moves (Nonetheless, it moves).

Bertrand Russell was against conscription, atomic bombs and several other things. Once he was sentenced to six months in Brixton Prison for his views published in an article. He was arrested at the age of 89, during a demonstration against the atomic bomb. One of the finest thinkers of 20th century is at loggerheads with the state for expressing views.

Robert James "Bobby" Fischer, one of the finest chess players of our times had to live and die in exile as a fugitive from justice for his anti-American and anti-Semitic views. He lived a reclusive life in Iceland and died in Reykjavik.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1991 continues to be in the custody of junta.

India's 95-year old renowned painter M F Husain, often called as Picasso of India, who has been under attack from some religious fundamentalists for his paintings of Hindu goddesses has been given Qatar nationality and he had to relinquish his Indian nationality.

Moral of these real life stories is that one can express views against institutions governing religion or nation or military or so called moral police at the cost of being exiled and persecuted till death or may be even after. At the same time, a safe life and haven are guaranteed to murderers, plunderers of national wealth, corrupt officials, mafia etc. at taxpayer’s expense.

Sibling Rivalry

It all started with Cain and Abel. Cain is said to have committed first ever murder by killing his younger brother out of sibling rivalry. Too bad. From then on there is no stopping. Rivalries have taken different forms at different times in different places. In world’s largest democracy too these things have happened in the past, happening now and will happen in future.



Every now and then, the succession issue crops in a predominantly Dravidian state of India. Both contenders are presently well placed and eagerly waiting to succeed dad as and when He wills, the supreme leader keeping silent for obvious reasons. What these youngsters do not realize and the supremo alone understands is that there is a bigger foe waiting on the other side of the road to pounce when the time comes to take advantage of the infighting. Boys are boys; their young blood does not understand what is in store for them.

Media does not refrain from conducting popularity survey of Cain and Abel and gets repeated thrashing as soon as the results are out. Old habits die hard; they start all over soon after recovering from the blows.

This is a very normal sibling rivalry from the fact that these siblings are not stepbrothers or half-brothers born out of human relationships like bigamy.

R T I I P (DEEMED IVY LEAGUE UNIVERSITY)

It is heartening to know that Raj Thackeray is starting an Academy to impart higher education to MNS cadre. What sets him apart from other political leaders is his fresh thinking based on contemporary reality. His zeal to educate the cadres in all aspects of political philosophy to political management is a paradigm shift. There is no doubt about the long-term benefits of such an organized effort. History is bound to remember him as a greatest political thinker of 21st century. What can be more appropriate than Raj Thackeray Institute of International Politics (Deemed Ivy League University) as a name of the upcoming academy?

Please read the news item:

http://www.ndtv.com/news/cities/mns-political-workers-taught-how-to-research-subjects-18447.php?page=1

To keep in line with the political philosophy of MNS, it should give preference to Marathi Manoos. In any case, their prospectus should clearly state Biharis need not apply. While the medium of instruction should be Marathi, their programs should be structured on international pattern so that, in due course, when RTIIP sets up campuses globally, they will have a standardized pattern of education in sync with the advanced world. Like any institution of global standards, this should offer degrees such as bachelors (4 years), masters (2 years), doctorate and PDF programs to start with.

For any budding politician, it is necessary to have an understanding of the political philosophy or operating methodology of other leading political parties. In this context, it would be ideal to rope in Prof. Lalu P. Yadav, not withstanding his nativity, as a visiting Professor to RTIIP. Veteran spokesperson like Prof. Pranab Mukherjee will add value as a visiting Professor. Incidentally, these two personalities have prior teaching experience.

Who else is better suited than uncle, Prof. Emeritus Balasaheb K. Thackeray, for Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Chair?