Of motivation and inversion

"Every intelligence officer will tell you that the motivation of the Indian jihadi is not Guantanamo or Iraq, it is, STILL, Gujarat."

That's Samar Halarnkar of the Hindustan Times, on his Twitter page.

This reminded me of these lines with which I began an article I called Just as Orwell predicted a few years ago:

"According to the [Srikrishna Commission] report, the [1993 Bombay bomb] blasts were the fallout of the riots that happened after demolition of the Babri Masjid. Why have only we been found guilty? What about the culprits who have been named in the Srikrishna Commission report?"

That was said by Abdul Ghani Turk, found guilty on September 19 2006 in the (March 12 1993) bomb blasts trial.

As I asked in 2006, let's punish Turk as he deserves, but who's willing to take a stab at answering his questions? Who's willing to take a stab at reacting to Halarnkar's observation? Anyone? You?

***
Incidentally, while that article I referred to above (Just as Orwell predicted) starts with Turk's questions, it is really not about them. It is instead about a perception among many people that the riots in Bombay actually followed the blasts for which Turk was convicted. That the riots were actually set off by the blasts.

Which perception is impossible, of course, given that the riots happened in December 1992 and January 1993, whereas the blasts happened months later, on March 12 1993.

But impossible, of course, is just a word. Consider some lines I read at the top of this page on the site mumbaivotes.com.

Terrorists has been made the situation of the country quiet vulnerable Since 1992-93 B.C. Bomb blasts took place on 13 places and around 900 people were lost their lives. Thousands of people were injured. As a result of which, big religious riots took place between Hindus and Muslims and so many innocents were killed.

This was, as you will read at the top of that page, "condensed and translated from the original version [of a manifesto] at shivsena.org."

Yes, some parties strive to invert history. In an election manifesto, no less.

The dilemma

Bit of email came my way a day ago. It was about my elected representative in the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha, one Baba Siddique of the Congress Party. Someone had filed a RTI query asking about how he had spent his MLA funds. This message listed several cases where, it said, "public funds have been misused [by Siddique] for favouring private groups of people. Some items are also fraudulent, i.e. fictitious items are shown as expenditure."

Here are the cases listed in the email message:

A. Parichay Society’s private premises/plot developed into a garden for private use through MLA’s public funds amount to Rs.5,19,685. (Item #3 here).

B. The wall of Baba Nagar Hill road, a private property was repaired / constructed through the MLA funds amounting to Rs.2,07,870. (Item #3 here).

C. Claims made to repair/construction of gutter/footpath, at Chuim Village, using MLA funds, amounting to Rs. 4,15,890. There are no footpaths in Chuim village. (Item #15 here).

D. Bought a laptop and printer for himself from MLA funds amounting to Rs. 1,03,000. (Item at bottom of page here).

E. MLA claims to have made a balwadi at Chuim Village in 2008 spending MLA funds amounting to Rs. 2,50,000. The Balwadi at this place was actually constructed several years earlier. (Item #18 here).

F. Funds for community centre which has been converted into Buddhist temple. Rajan Sherly Gaothan, Rs 2.5 lakhs. (Item #19 here).

G. Funds for Zafar Baba Dargah. (Item #17 here).

H. Recently the MLA distributed garbage bins, all over his constituency, bought through his MLA funds. However, there is no trace of such uses in the RTI reply. (Photo here).

I. In his adverts and brochures, MLA claims to have used his funds for Education and other general uses, but those are not reflected in the data revealed under RTI. The question then, is, which funds did he use?

J. We also wish to point out the MLA has directed approximately 85% of the funds available to him in areas where the Municipal Councillors are from his political party. While, this is perhaps not legal offence, it definitely is a moral one.

K. RTI application and reply available here.

***
What's a voter in my constituency to do?

Vote for a man with a long record like this of misusing his MLA funds?

Or vote for his opponent, part of an alliance of parties that, among other things, a comprehensive inquiry indicts for their crimes during the riots in this city in 1992-93?

What would you do?

Me, I'm not happy with what I did. That's the dilemma of our democracy, the way it leaves a voter unhappy.

Smiling from balconies

I have in my hand a news item from the Asian Age dated October 11, 1997 (12 years ago). It carries a reproduction of a print ad placed by the Shiv Sena party "a year ago" in all city newspapers -- i.e. in 1996, one year after a Shiv Sena-BJP coalition government came to power in Maharashtra.

The ad carries a prominent picture of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, and he has these words to say: "When I announced free housing for slum dwellers, cynics said I was building castles in the air. Last Dashera, 5000 slum dwellers actually went to their new homes. This Dashera, there will be 5 lac more. And in the next 3 years, 40 lac slum dwellers will be smiling from their balconies."

This is, of course, a reference to the famous promise that helped bring that SS-BJP government to power in 1995, that they would provide free homes to 40 lac (4 million) slum dwellers in this city. With this ad a year into the government's term, Bal Thackeray was letting people know about the progress of this programme.

So why is it reproduced in this news item in the Asian Age another year later? The headline on the item might say it all: "Dud scheme has housed just 1,468."

Yes, on October 11 1997, "only 1468 tenements [were] ready for occupation".

That was about the last we heard about that particular promise. In fact, in this very news item, Thackeray himself said that "he had never set five years" as a target, and that time limit "had been thought up by the media which … put words in my mouth".

Plenty to think about there. I've been thinking about it all as I look at the current round of SS-BJP ads. At least they make far vaguer promises -- competent governance, security, that sort of thing. Specifics get you nailed down, you see. Especially in the comparison between 1468 and several hundred thousand.

Pathetic, useless

On page 9 in the Hindustan Times yesterday (Sunday Oct 11), I found this nugget from an interview with Raj Thackeray, referring to "outsiders" coming to Bombay to live:

"But why can't they hold their local politicians responsible for the pathetic situation in their states? What about those useless leaders in their states who have failed to create employment there? It is their failure for which we are suffering here."

All right. Two reactions.

1) On page 11 in the same paper, I read this: "According to the Mumbai Human Development Report 2009 prepared by the National Resource Centre for Urban Poverty ... most of Mumbai's migrants are not from the north, but from other, neglected parts of Maharashtra ... Maharashtra accounts for 37.4 per cent of the city's migrant population."

(Clearly that word "most" really should have read "the largest fraction", but the point remains).

What should we conclude from that 37.4 per cent? Going by Raj Thackeray's logic, such as it is, we should conclude that the "local politicians [of Maharashtra] are responsible for the pathetic situation" in Maharashtra. That Maharashtra has "useless leaders who have failed to create employment". Etc.

2) By a rough calculation, there are about 120,000 Maharashtrians living in the US. (See this comment for how I came up with that number. Others in Australia, the UK, South Africa, etc, but let's focus just on the US). All of these Maharashtrians emigrated from this state in search of a better life.

What should we conclude from this number? Again, going by Raj Thackeray's logic, we should conclude that they emigrated because Maharashtra's "local politicians are responsible for the pathetic situation" in Maharashtra. That Maharashtra has "useless leaders who have failed to create employment". Etc.

Are these conclusions valid? And if so, who are the leaders and politicians he is referring to, especially considering he is a leader and a politician himself?

Or is the logic itself flawed? Your thoughts welcome.

What it meant (I think)

So what did it mean, this election just completed? Five days on, just before Manmohan Singh is sworn in for his second term, some thoughts:

* Is this the end of the era of coalition governments?

A resounding no. The Congress and the UPA improved their haul of seats, sure. But the Congress alone got only 206 seats, the UPA 266. Both short of the required 272 for a majority. We're a long way from the days of 400-seat Congress majorities. Even going by vote-share, the Congress is just short of 29%. Over two-thirds of the electorate voted against the Congress.

That last, of course, continues the trend we've had since Independence: in every election, a majority of the electorate has voted against the Congress.

The Congress is emerging from the nadir of 1999, yes. But I suspect we'll see many more years of coalition governments.

* Was it a vote against the "Left"?

At best, a hesitant nod of the head. If by "Left", we mean the parties that have the word "communist" in their names, yes, they lost plenty of seats.

But if we mean instead the ideology of the left, I'm not so sure. After all, in West Bengal it is the ruling CPM that has worked hard to attract big business and capital. It is Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool that has found new popularity in being the voice of the small farmer and the near-mythical "common man". (Case in point, Nandigram. Say no more). And Mamata, with the seats she won, is now an important part of the UPA.

* Was it a vote against regionalism?

A hesitant thumbs-down. Yes, such regional parties as the Shiv Sena and the AIADMK lost in their heartlands (and what a good thing that is).

But consider then the performance of such other regional strongmen as Chamling in Sikkim, Nitish Kumar in Bihar, Naveen Patnaik in Orissa, and Karunanidhi in TN. Or Mamata herself, in WB. None of them have any presence outside their states.

Who, then, is sounding the bells of doom for regional parties, and why?

* Was it a vote against "communalism" and for "secularism"?

At best, a hesitant thumbs-up. The BJP lost seats for the second election running, the Congress won seats for the second election running. But does BJP vs Congress equate nicely to communalism vs secularism? Not in my book, and in many ways.

One example: One Congress winner in Bombay used to be in the Shiv Sena. Another Congress winner in Bombay is named in the Srikrishna report in connection with a ghastly murder. What's communalism and what's secularism in politics, I'd like to know.

I think the vote can be interpreted -- if the BJP is so inclined -- as a signal that "Hindutva", as the BJP has articulated it, does not appeal to most Indians. Time for some introspection on what that means. If the BJP is so inclined, of course.

* Was it a vote for good governance and stability?

A qualified yes. I don't believe Manmohan Singh's government gave us unstinted good governance over the last five years (though it was a huge improvement over its predecessor). In my state, I believe Vilasrao Deshmukh's Congress/NCP government was, at best, a non-performing nonentity. After last November's attacks, it was excoriated, and rightly so, for its non-governance.

Yet the Congress has won more seats than 2004 both nationally and in Maharashtra. So what governance were voters voting for?

Again, the signs are in the regional results. Naveen Patnaik and Nitish Kumar have, from all accounts, given their respective states a better, cleaner and more responsive administration than they have seen for years. Voters there recognized this and rewarded their parties. One the other hand, Mayawati has given UP not much more than a huge Lucknow memorial to her own ego, complete with rows of stone elephants. Voters there recognized this and punished her party (though even that punishment was a qualified one, see below).

Nationally, I think this was a vote for the minimal prospect of a stable government under a clean man. I also think it was a vote against the much worse prospect of a much worse government by any of the other contenders (BJP, BSP, etc).

* Was this the coming of age of one Rahul Gandhi?

Well, yes and no. Sure, he scripted something of a revival for the Congress in UP. It's been years since the Congress was a player in UP politics, and this may be where that turns around. But let's remember that the party still came in only third in vote-share, well behind the BSP and the SP in that order.

In UP, Rahul Gandhi showed that while there are enough people who try to write him off as a nincompoop newcomer, he has a nose for politics. He will no longer be so easy to write off. This is no baba in the political woods.

But does that qualify him to be PM? Not for me. I want more from a PM: a greater breadth of knowledge about the world, a vision for this country, things like that. Maybe Rahul Gandhi will grow into that kind of leader. For now, he remains what he is: one more Congress MP, that's all.

And on that note, good luck to Manmohan Singh and his government.

Please raise it

Ten questions for Manmohan Singh, as he savours an election victory and gets ready to embark on a second term in office.

Note that this is by no means an exhaustive list. There are plenty of other questions to ask, plenty of other concerns to pay attention to. In particular, there are foreign concerns: like the goings-on in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, to pick two. Those are important, no doubt.

But I tend to believe in the maxim that we must clean our own house first, before looking outward. And I believe too that there are questions to be asked about justice in particular. So with no further ado, ten questions. About justice.

***
Sir, perhaps you can't actually do something about the questions I ask below, given both the compulsions of politics and what are state subjects and what aren't. Yet as Prime Minister, and one who has just won the clearest mandate Indians have given in two decades, your voice carries an authority that cannot easily be ignored. Thus:

1) Will you raise your voice about bringing to justice those responsible for the massacre of Indians in Delhi, 1984?

2) Will you raise your voice about bringing to justice those responsible for the massacre of Indians in Bombay, 1992-93?

3) Will you raise your voice about bringing to justice those responsible for the massacre of Indians in Gujarat, 2002?

4) Will you raise your voice about the sorry plight of Kashmiri Pandits, this country's forgotten refugees? About finding a way to return them in safety and dignity and on their own terms, even now, to their homes in that state?

5) Will you raise your voice about the imprisonment of Dr Binayak Sen for two years and counting now?

6) Will you raise your voice about how an administration only shirks its duty when it arms civilians and calls this "Salwa Judum"? About how this futile exercise only deepens a bloody and tragic crisis? About enlightened and statesmanlike ways to address both the great threat of Naxalism and the reasons for its rise?

7) Will you raise your voice about the unprovoked venom and attacks against "North Indians" in Bombay, and similar attacks elsewhere in the country? About how we are all daughters and sons of this Indian soil?

8) Will you raise your voice about the attacks on ordinary Indians and their places of worship in Mangalore and Orissa over the last several months?

9) Will you raise your voice about the attacks on women in the name of protecting Indian culture, in Mangalore and elsewhere?

10) Will you raise your voice about the way too many people are treated in the name of "development" -- whether in proposed SEZs or in the Narmada Valley? About the meaning of development in the light of such treatment?

What we want, and don't

Continuing the thought train started from the previous post ...

After the 2004 elections, which saw the BJP tossed out of power, one of its more fervent and vocal supporters wrote an article eloquently mourning the loss. Among other gems (many many gems) in it was this proclamation:

"I feel Indians do not really know what they want."

This, because the result of an election was not to his liking.

I wrote a note to the man, saying this:

If the BJP and its supporters, like you, are unwilling to do some introspection about why [the party lost power], if you will ascribe it merely to the fact that we Indians "do not really know what we want", I assure you the BJP will lose again next time.

Well, it is now "next time". We Indians who do not really know what we want have just voted again. Low voter turnout yes, spoiler parties yes, all that. But the fundamental reality of this election is this: the BJP lost again. It lost seats from its previous tally. Again. So did its coalition.

Proof that the BJP and its supporters did zero introspection about what happened in 2004. (Check the contents of innumerable blogs run by BJP fans, for example).

And that leaves me with curiously mixed feelings.

Glad, because with its preoccupation with some mythical Hindutva and a temple and stoking resentments, my hope every time is that the BJP loses.

Sorry, because if it ever learns to evolve beyond that preoccupation, the BJP can be the strong right-wing party that, even if I disagree with them, I believe a vibrant democracy needs.

Sad, because neither the BJP nor its fans has ever shown any inclination for that evolution. Nor do I see it happening now.

So what happens next time with us Indians who do not really know what we want?

Not the PM

Watching the early elections trends on my laptop on a slow connection on the beach near Alibag, this one thought:

A man wanted to be Prime Minister on the back of riding a Toyota around the country and calling it a chariot. On the back of fueling resentments, nurturing victimhood and selling weakness. On the back of no vision for this country of any kind.

LK Advani has lost probably his last chance to be Prime Minister of India. Thank you, voters.

I hope he and his party and their various supporters will now learn the lessons that they clearly haven't since 2004. Abusing those who disagree with you, feeling constant resentment and claiming perpetual victimhood -- these things only go so far. They take you to that mark of about 25-30% of the popular vote. They don't take you further. You don't get people to vote for you, or those you favour, by calling them names.

I'll have more later. For now, I am simply relieved and grateful that I live in a country whose government will not be headed by LK Advani.