Rahul Gandhi must win battle within Congress

Rahul Gandhi is back with a Latin American brush of facial touch. Eyes have sunk deep. Curled hair is swept back and oiled. Skin is more tanned. Trademark beard that boasted of careless grey vegetation is gone. Pitch of the voice is moderated. He now looks reflective, with the brash shadow cast off. Gandhi is experimenting, progressing or swinging on the learning curve, amidst wave of personal onslaughts set off from within his party and the outside. He's an enigma that keeps Indian politics enchanted.    

RAHUL Gandhi, former Congress president and the Lok Sabha MP from Wayanad, Kerala, has offered another glimpse into his withdrawn world of thoughts. With YouTube debut, Gandhi has worn the creative attire. He has asked questions. He's seen probing the powerful Prime Minister Narendra Modi. There are subtitles and info-graphics to explain the subject. There is an air of a serious discourse. So, there are maps, backgrounders, anecdotes and contexts to put forth his arguments. And, he stays on China, asking why did Xi Jinping send his soldiers in East Ladakh, for Modi had excessively invested his economic capital in Beijing in past six years at the helms in New Delhi while also as the chief minister of Gujarat.

The three minutes and 38 seconds long video invited rebuttal from the Union Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar who argued the case of the Modi dispensation with 10 tweets. Besides, there was an avalanche of derision from top functionaries of the BJP. The volume and intensity of the responses demonstrate indubitably that Gandhi's experiment isn't entirely wasteful.

THE intellectual appearance of a political leader is as good as the depth of the script writers. For past one decade, the script for him and his mother Sonia Gandhi has been written by a former Union Minister who is known for putting his foot in the mouth too often. That script writer had faced the wrath of even his mother for making insensitive comments about Hindu symbols when he was a powerful minister in the Manmohan Singh government. It can be conveniently inferred that the comments, including the poor needs escape velocity to escape poverty, must have been authored by such script writers who delight in pulling the verbal strings of their aka. So, derision thrown at Gandhi must also largely account for the disconnect of his script writers.

Flower of India's foremost political dynasty, Gandhi is principally an experimenter, introducing the borrowed concept of primaries in the Indian Youth Congress and afterwards in the candidate selection for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. The 15th Lok Sabha and the 2009 winning list of the Congress candidates boasted a number of youngsters who rose from the ranks of the Youth Congress. Meenakshi Natarajan, winning Madhya Pradesh's poorest Parliamentary constituency Mandsaur, hogged the limelight, coming to Parliament on an auto-rickshaw. That was a full three years before a policy lobbyist rode piggyback to Anna Hazare to appear as an Aam Admi politician. Rahul Gandhi lacked manpower in salesmanship to allow Arvind Kejriwal to run away with the Aam Admi plot. A dynast would also otherwise have failed to win the plot.

Politics in India since the formation of the Congress in 1885 has been held hostage by the feudal lords. Post-Independence, they conveniently carved out their principalities under the benign patronage of the legacy of Jawahar Lal Nehru. The folly of Rahul Gandhi was that he paid more interests in the politics of the US than the architecture of his party and the Indian politics. His push with primaries to promote youngsters outside the established political families made him an outsider within the Congress. The entrenched had their interests better protected with Sonia Gandhi. She will not speak a word outside the slip given to her.

People will accept Rahul Gandhi if he wins the battle within the Congress. Changing the course of the status quoist blood running in the veins of the Congress is a herculean task. For a change, he should read the Roman mythology more to first take on the feudal lords within his party. Modi can wait for him to win his battle first within the Congress. 

Galwan gladiators

Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted anti-China war theaters in television and print to take a break. That was the basic import of his stunning "no intrusion" remark to political leaders in the all party meeting. His audience listened with devotional silence. But limitations of a video conference didn't work with argumentative Indians. And, thus, followed a clarification within 18 hours. Modi and his men since then are working overtime to push Galwan valley to the exclusive ownership of the Armed Forces, and unleash the politics of economy and trade.

IT has taken the BJP a full six years to know the financial details of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. The Jawahar Bhavan, housing the think tank headed by the first family of the Congress, is at a stone's throw distance from the Parliament of India.

Tales of the Gandhi family and its (mis) deeds in the Indian politics have been told too many times in the recent years. The larger audience has mostly been yawning. People have demonstrated clarity of understanding of the first family of the Congress. That it's most undeserving to lead India.

Yet, whipping a dead horse is the most convenient political craft of the BJP. The demon must remain alive to scare the masses to run to the shelters of the gods. The demon must also be bloated to hide smaller foes who are territory bound. So, the BJP chief J P Nadda has suddenly popped up in the midst of barrage of questions flying post June15/16 violent clash in the Galwan valley and India's raging battle with the Corona virus to turn the spotlight on the Gandhi family.

THE Balakot and surgical strikes in the wake of Pulwama and Pathankot terror attacks respectively whetted the appetite of the popular discourse for instant levelling (gratifications). The 20 brave-hearts of India who fell on the intervening night of June 15/16 set the television studios ablaze with the men of uniform talking war strategies at great lengths.

Similar anguish in China is also apparently spreading after the relatives were finally handed over the bodies of their fallen men. But China is a private limited enterprise where a regime lords over one and a half billion people. The regime has one sentence statecraft -- power flows from barrel of the gun, a copyright of Mao Zedong, ruler of China from 1949-1976.

India is a democracy irrespective of the streaks of a few to lord over the people with iron grips. Democracy entails questions, and plenty of them are being asked now. The Narendra Modi led dispensation knows well that the Galwan valley skirmishes aren't going to go away soon. The foe here is not a moth-eaten Pakistan. The fighter jets cannot just go raiding in the Chinese territory and drop a few bombs. Within the ruling dispensation this reality is well understood.

"It looks like some media houses, so called experts, think tanks & politically loaded ex-defence officers are hell bent on Indo-China war & Indian forces ultimately getting defeated. Commies were doing it in 1962. Left liberals have started it now," tweeted the BJP's organisational secretary B L Santhosh.

Santhosh may not be speaking Modi's mind, as he in the past has let go his frustration on social media, with an illustration of his rant, the tweet was soon deleted, against Bernie Sanders when he was on a roll against India.  

INDIA and China have an LAC (line of actual control) of almost about 4000 kms. History has seen many ups and downs in over 100 years. The  line of control has been pushed down, deep into Indian territory over the decades, principally on account of the timidity of the Indian leadership. 

The adventurous British India of the 19th century had grown weaker at the beginning of the 20th century. Freedom from slavery of centuries led the baton of the leadership pass onto the hands of the pacifists who were more than willing to believe in the virtues of their counterparts in the other countries. India learnt too many lessons of the leaders' follies. Barring 1965 and 1971, India allowed bureaucratic arms to overwhelm strategic urgency to safeguard India's frontiers, which most steadfastly was done in the days of glory of Ashoka, Akbar and the British.

Modi broke the spell of slumber by giving hard slaps to Pakistan after the Pathankot and Pulwama terror attacks. The western foe may not dare for a few years to force its tactical weapon of inflicting 100 cuts onto India. With China, India may need to embark on a journey of decades. Instant gratification is only in the realm of fantasy.

The saffron auxiliary forces have already been let loose to identify the Chinese goods and build the public opinion against them. The Chinese trade surplus of over $48.7 billion annually in bilateral trade with India in the last financial year, which slightly came down, has over the years nourished the muscles of Beijing. The Corona virus may potentially change terms of trade. India will need to make attitudinal and policy changes to become the recipient of the gains.

ON the rocky terrains, the Armed Forces should be allowed full freedom to push back the intruders, and the leadership should unhesitatingly put the facts in the public domain to cut the scope for the Galwan gladiators in the studios dictate the popular narrative. Speculation on the state of affairs of India's frontiers will only harm the national interests.

Let the Chief of Defence Staff CDS) Bipin Rawat give the full accounts of the Galwan valley to the people. Democracy ordains facts of the day in the public domain, not speculation on India's strategic interests.     

Delhi Assembly Elections: Prashant Kishor's swing management

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal waited for seven hours to file his nomination papers from the New Delhi Assembly constituency. That was a day after his roadshow pulled in a large number of cheer crowd to make him skip filing the nomination papers. The simple filing of nomination papers hogged the limelight for two days. The BJP played along, first by floating the strategy to surprise Kejriwal with a heavyweight challenger, only to spring a tame script in Sunil Yadav, who in his only electoral experience has lost councilor's elections. The discourse surrounding the Delhi Assembly elections have so far stayed around Kejriwal, portrayed as an indomitable and sometimes as a victim of the "dirty tricks" of the BJP, in line with Prashant Kishor's election management text book.

THE BJP veteran in Jharkhand Saryu Rai had long been a critic of the party colleague and former chief minister Raghubar Das. Rai would often put down dissent note in the Cabinet decisions. He would even admit lapses in events of alleged hunger deaths in the state. Das had also long been nursing an opportunity to get rid of him and found emboldened with his Maharashtra counterpart Devendra Fadnavis, who had also purged his rivals within the party during ticket distribution. Rai knew his fate, yet patiently awaited the Central leadership to be wiser.

The BJP Central leadership thought of paying a smart game by delaying Rai's candidature from Jamshedpur (West) Assembly seat. The party would have given the nomination by making him seen begging for the ticket, which, in turn, would have pleased Das. Rai didn't play along the script, and drifted away.

An old hand in politics, Rai had rubbed shoulders with the socialists, and counted on Bihar chief

minister Nitish Kumar as his pal. Over the years, he had cultivated an image of an intellectual within the BJP. He was popularly seen honest. In the face of his party insulting him, Rai took flight to an audacious course. He decided to challenge the chief minister Das in his Jamshedpur (West) constituency, which was among the only seven seats in the state in 2014 where the winning candidate had a margin of more than 50,000 votes.

Rai hogged the limelight. He was a victim. People sympathised with an honest and educated man who was dumped by the BJP at the insistence of an arrogant chief minister. Das stayed in Ranchi. He was miser in mixing with the people in his constituency. He was seen distant and inaccessible. The stage was set for the script of a simple man taking on an arrogant drunk on power. 

The script needed an able direction to stage the act on a large canvas. The director flew in from Patna with an army of 300 assistants. He was Prashant Kishor. His army brought in posters, leaflets and wrote slogans. They knocked at the doors to tell stories of an honest man fighting a lonely battle against an arrogant chief minister. In a matter of a few days, Rai was the only topic of discussion. The ripple effect soon electrified the whole state. Das had emerged a villain. Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to cut down the damage. He patted his Cabinet colleague Arjun Munda more frequently in his election rallies. But the damage was done beyond the limits of Modi. 

IN 2015 the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had turned a BJP foe in the state Assembly elections. The BJP brimmed with an all conquering passion to win elections. The saffron outfit was facing a grand alliance of Nitish Kumar in the company of the Congress and the RJD. Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav had become the best pals. Modi was on an error making spree. He sought to flow the river of funds from the Centre to Patna to turn Bihar into Gujarat. Worse, he hit out at Nitish Kumar, and Prashant Kishor grabbed that to run the campaign to send samples of hair for DNA testing. The BJP's well oiled electoral machinery slipped into the muddy waters of Bihar even before the people cast their votes in the first phase of elections. 

Kishor now has perfected text book to turn the victims in politicians to giant killers. His company I-Pac is currently the best political slogan writers. He in the course of a few months can apply smart touches to the images of his pay masters to the liking of the people. Kejriwal is no more seen an anarchist. The Delhi chief minister in the course of a few months, Kishor came on board unofficially with Aam Admi Party (AAP) around August, last year, has been smiling from thousands of his pictures dotting the national capital. 

Kishor has worked on the image makeover of Kejriwal. The I-Pac workers are knocking at the doors of the people to sell the story of governance. They are selling the dream that Delhi in another five years would become a place of their aspirations: free of toxic air, classrooms for all the children, and healthcare for patients.     

Delhi Assembly elections: Data drift holds cues

Predicting poll outcomes by all accounts is a perilous job. Elections are analysed on past trends. Electorates have proven wiser than pundits more often. They aren't prisoners of the past, as they script history elections after elections. Amid the maddening electioneering, data stay firm with serenity, inviting political strategists to steer narratives to help their masters for smart politics. Data for Delhi suggest the air in the city smells of a cliffhanger of the poll outcome. 

THE ruling Aam Admi Party (AAP) had weaved a magical spell in 2015. Political rivals of the incumbent chief minister Arvind Kejriwal were left shell-shocked with the final scoreboard. That was 67-3 and a naught for the Congress. The BJP had the worst tally. The saffron outfit still bears the taunt. Climbing from an abyss like situation of the single digit figure five years ago to go past the half way mark of 35 would indeed be an unprecedented somersault. For AAP, it will equally be the groundswell of popular anger to slump from the level of 67 to 30s or less would be quite a fall with thud. 

The AAP isn't just another political outfit. The party was born after Anna Hazare made the political air of Delhi pregnant with negativism during 2012-13. Negativism midwifed anarchism. Kejriwal proved an undisputed icon of the politics of anarchism. His foes were left guilt-stricken, as they bent backwards to prove their credentials of honesty and probity in public life. They vowed to innovate and herald an honest and people friendly governance. The tribe of Sheila Dikshit, Harsh Vardhan and Kiran Bedi searched for wood when their boats had already sunk.   

The 2015 scoreboard read: AAP 54.3 per cent vote share and 67 Assembly seats; BJP 32.3 per cent vote share and 3 Assembly seats; and the Congress 9.7 per cent vote share and zero Assembly seats.

But that wasn't the maiden electoral venture of AAP in politics. Kejriwal cut off his umbilical chord with his godfather Anna Hazare to contest the December 2013 Assembly polls. The cadre of the AAP wasn't yet properly built. The party was still sloganeering. 

The 2013 scoreboard read: AAP 29.5 per cent vote share and 28 Assembly seats; BJP 33 per cent vote share and 31 Assembly seats; and the Congress 24.6 per cent vote share and eight Assembly seats.

In  span of a few months, Kejriwal built the cadre for AAP, with donations pouring from the affluent class within the country and abroad, helping him to maintain an army of well paid functionaries. With the likes of Kumar Vishwas, Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav leading the most vicious attacks on the mainstream political parties, Kejriwal strode as the alternative politics warrior, swearing to slay the rivals in the electoral battlefield. The Congress fell for the trap, and helped Kejriwal become chief minister. That bloated the persona of Kejriwal further, and soon he didn't need the Congress crutches. He read the politics well, and played the victim card to the hilt.

People flocked to Kejriwal, with 54.3 per cent vote share in 2015. His rivals turned into pygmies. The new political icon was born. But within a few months, drift set in the Kejriwal camp, as all those who bloated him into an extraordinary exponent of alternative politics parted ways after much breast-beating. 

TWO years later, the AAP faced the litmus test to repeat the magical spell of 2015. The BJP had been in power in the municipal corporation of Delhi for a decade, completing two full terms. The AAP cadre was mobilised to oust the BJP from the MCD, which, incidentally, has over 90 per cent connect with the people on a daily basis. The BJP was up against significant anti-incumbency. The BJP chief Amit Shah sought shelter in simple strategy; he just told the incumbent Councillors that they should climb the political ladder and focus on contesting the next Assembly elections. The BJP fielded fresh crop of the party workers.

The 2017 municipal elections' scoreboard read: AAP 26 per cent vote share and 49 seats; BJP 37 per cent vote share and 181 seats; and the Congress 21 per cent vote share and 31 seats.     

From 54.3 per cent vote share in 2015, AAP came down to 26 per cent; the BJP after staying firm with 33 per cent (2013) and 32.3 per cent (2015) rose to 37 per cent; and the Congress made a smart recovery from an embarrassing 9.7 per cent (2015) to 21 per cent. 

In 2017 again the AAP got another jolt. The outfit had found fertile ground in Punjab, and was seen on course to wrest power from Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-BJP combine. The Delhi drift had its own parallel in Punjab for AAP. The Congress' old horse Captain Amarinder Singh strode high to leave AAP huffing and puffing at distant second.             

PEOPLE undeniably have made distinctions between local and national elections. Chhatishgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand have shown that the electorate can with ease make distinct choices in Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. In Odisha, the electorate cast votes simultaneously for Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, and showed preferences for Narendra Modi in New Delhi and Navin Patnaik in Bhubaneshwar.  

Still, the data are significant, for Delhi appears on a certain course. The BJP swept the Lok Sabha elections in Delhi, with the perfect scoreboard of 7-0. The 2019 endorsed the previous scorecard, with scales going higher.

The 2014 scoreboard read: AAP 32.90 per cent vote share and zero seat; BJP 46.40 per cent vote share and seven Lok Sabha seats; and the Congress 15.10 per cent vote share and zero seat. 

The BJP had seen a negative swing of about 14 per cent in the 2015 Assembly elections. The AAP correspondingly registered over 21 per cent of positive swing, mostly gaining at the expense of the Congress. 

 The 2019 scoreboard read: AAP 18 per cent vote share and zero seat; BJP 56.58 per cent vote share and seven Lok Sabha seats; and the Congress 18 per cent vote share and zero seat.

For BJP, the scores in recent elections are 33 per cent (2013), 46.40 per cent (2014), 32.3 per cent (2015), 37 per cent (2017), 56.58 per cent (2019). In the five recent polls, the BJP hasn't gone down 32.3 per cent even when the party arguably shot in the foot by fielding an ex-cop Kiran Bedi in 2015. 

The AAP in contrast has seen wild swing of vote share from 18 per cent (2019) to 54.3 per cent in 2015. The graph is surely not steady. The AAP, in fact, came third in 2019. 

The 2015 elections in Delhi was a watershed moment. The BJP saw 14 per cent vote share knocked away in the face of the magical spell of AAP. Delhi was high on romance in 2015. The level of romance was two per cent higher in 2019, with adoration for a different entity. 

The BJP's worst case scenario could be another 14 per cent drift, which may leave the saffron outfit still with 42 per cent popular votes. To level, the AAP will need 24 per cent of the positive swing from 2019. And, that would surely be reckoned a daunting task.    

Delhi may throw a tantalizingly cliffhanger election outcome on February 11.

Citizenship Amendment Act: Flying embers in times of urban unrest

Students are swelling in numbers on the streets. They've braved chill in the air. Showers from water canons haven't doused the fire in the bellies of the protestors. Universities, mostly in metropolitan cities, are squirming with angst. Air smells of feverish emotions. The new decade dawned with loud shrieks from the youth, underlining their hatred for the ruling dispensation in India. That Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are no strangers to hatred is not forgotten by those with eyes and ears for the fast changing Indian democratic flavours.

INDIAN Parliament has been seized of the pressing needs for the amendments in the Citizenship Act for a few decades. The voice for amendments in the Parliament began gaining visible strength from 2003. Politicians cutting across party lies made sympathetic overtures for granting citizenship to thousands of refugees. Such refugees who fled neighbouring Islamic countries due to religious persecutions have been spread out in many cities for past three decades, while they continue to seek ways to come to India on the back of radical Islamist choosing them for their bigotry even in the recent times. The influx will not stop of such people even while the Citizenship Amendment Act draws the curtain of December 31, 2014 for them to gain Indian nationality. 

Deliberations in the Parliamentary standing committee of the Ministry of Home Affairs largely concurred that the refugees belonging to the majority community in Bangladesh cannot be considered for citizenship. Muslim refugees from Pakistan and Afghanistan aren't in any significant number to warrant attention. Muslims from Bangladesh, popularly called ghuspaithiya (illegal migrants), have, however, been in numbers to polarise election campaigns, with a few political parties vowing to throw them out of the country. Assam has seen riots in areas inhabited by them since 1980s. Assam was torn apart in the face of the swift demographic changes, posing an existential crisis to the Assamese identity.

Demographic changes, substantially altering linguistic and cultural identities of districts bordering West Bengal and Bihar with Bangladesh in the course of 1990s and the first decade of the new millennium, were swift. Waves of illegal migrants from Bangladesh mingled in Indian habitations unhindered and unquestioned. The military dictatorship in Bangladesh after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had co-opted the radical Islamist. The free flow of Saudi money to further the Wahabi stream of militant Islam found fertile grounds in Bangladesh. That the Parliamentary voices underlined security risk from such unabated flow of illegal Bangladeshi migrants indeed reflected the ground realities.

THE National Register for Citizens (NRC), committed in the Assam Accord and implemented under the watch of the Supreme Court, bared the religious fault lines. The cut off date for the people to make into the list was March 25, 1971. Over 19 lakhs were excluded from the final list for which over 3.31 crore people had applied. The BJP was livid, for the party leaders claimed that 12 lakh Bengali Hindus found their claim rejected. The BJP leaders fumed that over 90 per cent of the alleged Bangladeshi illegal migrants actually made into the final list. Predictably, the BJP government in Assam rejected the NRC held in Assam.

Indian Parliament exhaustively debated the draft legislation on the Citizenship Amendment Bill. The BJP also faced internal dissent in its Assam unit, with some expressing that there would be backlash if the Bengali Hindus are granted citizenship. The Central BJP leaders held firm and went ahead with clear intent that the Hindus in Assam would gain citizenship. The Bill excluded the Muslims from the ambit, while other minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan -- Christians, Buddhists, Parsi, Jains and Sikhs -- made into the beneficiary list. Such refugees from Pakistan and Afghanistan are said to be just little over 30,000. The BJP leaders have guessed Bangladesh illegal Muslim migrants in excess of one crore (100 million).

"The Citizenship Amendment Act is meant principally for the Bengali Hindus in Assam," said a senior BJP leader in an informal chat with scribes.

THE BJP chief Amit Shah has rewritten the political script of Indian politics. In Narendra Modi, Shah had a campaigner to allow the BJP to overwhelm inimical political hindrances. Shah rejoices in politics of confrontation. In Parliament, his debates are essentially confined to winning the arguments, with facts and instances from the past, which are uncomfortable to the Opposition. In electoral politics, he demonstrated effortlessly that the age old might of the strategic Muslim voting was just rudderless. He scored the rare triple century for the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, leaving opponents gripped with morbid fear of irrelevance.       

Shah was among the first few to occupy the chair in the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan when Modi took oath for his second term. The men and women in the council of ministers largely consisted of the aids of Shah. It was apparent that Modi had chosen his second in command and possibly the heir. Shah proved soon that he was in a hurry. In a swift and sudden move, Shah wrote a new script for Jammu and Kashmir. He made it simple to disbelief of even his supporters that the Article 370 could just be wished away with a Parliamentary resolution. Shah endeared to the Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS) with one bold stroke. To the delight of the RSS, he owned up the moral ownership of the Citizenship Amendment Bill, and grabbed a narrative for the next five years by becoming vocal on the NRC.    

In a matter of six months, it's not Modi but Shah who is being talked about in the country. With his alter ego Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in India, accounting for one-sixth population of the country, the BJP-RSS brass know that the Hindutva would stay at the center stage of the popular discourse in the coming years.

Lok Sabha had passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill in 2018. The CPI (M) MP Mohammed Salim and AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi made the obvious noise. There were hardly any noteworthy protests on the streets of New Delhi. The Bill lapsed with the dissolution of the 16th Lok Sabha. The 17th Lok Sabha inaugurated with the BJP led government going in a tearing hurry to gain Parliamentary approvals to host of legislative bills, with government not shying away from pushing the contentious legislation. The NDA being in minority in Rajya Sabha proved no hindrance to Shah. From legislation against the practice of triple talaq (instant divorce) within the Muslim community to the dilution of Article 370, besides the Citizenship Amendment Act, flew with the Parliamentary favours with ease. The BJP under the watch of Shah in the government was seen possessed with the might to rewrite the Constitution o India by the opponents.    

The battle lost in Parliament and elections for long have been waged on the streets.

Ayodhya verdict: Epochal leap of faith

The responsibility laid on man as a rational being, to integrate himself, to relate the present to the past and the future, to live in time as well as eternity has become acute and urgent -- S. Radhakrishnan, The Principal Upanishads.

THE Supreme Court has taken off the poison in the air with its unanimous Ayodhya judgment. The political class had failed in its principal mandate to reconcile social contradictions. The religious leaders lacked mandate to rise above their identities. The politics of India used religion to polarise communities. Minorityism nursed identity politics, while the people were pushed into ghettos. Demographic transformation afterwards transcended identities. Political might of minorityism was firmly put down on the mat. The stage was set for the Supreme Court to shun judicial shyness to tread on the tricky path of faith and pronounce verdict to conclude explicit acrimony of over three decades. 

UNION Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi had brought leaders of the Muslim community face to face with a few top functionaries of Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS). The objective was to prepare grounds for the acceptance of the impending Supreme Court verdict on Ramjanmabhoomi title suit. Both sides talked necessities of the co-existence. One Muslim scholar 's word, however, hung on to the ears of the RSS functionaries.

"Mulk bachega to Mazhab bachega (Religion will survive only if the nation stays)," said the Muslim scholar. Four days later, the RSS functionary, while recalling the remark, noted: "The Muslims always professed their religion above the nation. That remark was significant, signalling change in thoughts even if shared by only a few. We've to see how does it go forward,"  said the RSS functionary.

The saffron outfit would await the Muslims to take further initiatives for dialogue. The RSS and its various socio-cultural-politico wings now genuinely argue that they want dialogue with the Muslim community leaders. It's not that they've just been talking. They have, indeed, been doing this for a while behind the closed doors. They just want that secrecy to go away.

Mohan Bhagwat, RSS supremo, after the Supreme Court verdict.

INDIA'S partition is still fresh in the collective memory of the people. That was on the basis of religion. The liberal politicians of India embraced the Muslims who chose to stay in India. The Congress leadership, drawing from the pool of the battery of freedom struggle leaders, steadied the nation on the path of peaceful coexistence of all communities. The talent pool fast became depleting, and the demise of Lal Bahadur Shastri brought curtains on the golden age of India's selfless politics. The consequent phase saw the birth of self-centred politics. The Muslims harbouring minorityism were the convenient hunting grounds for the proponents of identity politics. The Congress in 1970-80s evolved potent potion to win elections, with Muslims at the core of the social engineering consisting also of the upper castes and Dalits. The 1990s saw the arrival of aggressive politics around social justice. The Congress' potent electoral potion passed on to scores of identity based political outfits. They firmly pushed the Muslims into the ghettos.  

The BJP patriarch L K Advani has claimed that the Ramjanmabhoomi movement was the second biggest mass mobilisation after India's freedom struggle. He's seemingly not far from the truth, though JP (Jaiprakash Narayan) may disagree for having given India the third generation of leaders with his clarion call for 'Sampoorna Kranti'.             

Yet, the spate of communal riots across the length and breadth of the country for one and a half decades since 1989, with a few sporadic reported from the western Uttar Pradesh very recently, was by all accounts due to the virulent explosion of  the politics of exclusion. Both the secularists and the BJP practised the politics of exclusion to perfection. The idea of India conceived by Mahatma Gandhi was unmistakably dead.

LORD Ram is India's foremost cultural icon. He transcended religion. His celebrations in the East Asian culture despite majority Muslim population are loud testimonies to Ram's transcendental appeal. Ram breaths in lives of the people who were shipped to scores of islands by the British for sugarcane cultivation in faraway lands. Thousands of such people clung on to the copy of Ramayana. Indian life is incomplete without Ram.    

Ram is an embodiment of supreme sacrifice. He weaves magical spell with His unconditional acceptance of all on the path of Dharma. That man has to coexist in harmony with animal, plants and all is an overwhelming lesson of Ramayana. There's no other cultural icon in India who comes closer to Him in transcending scores of India identities, including caste and creed. Mahatma Gandhi swore by Ram.

If Ram can't have a temple at His birthplace in Ayodhya, then where else was the question which electrified millions of youth across the country in the early 1990s. The Muslims already co-opted by the identity politicians proved myopic. They threw their weight behind Babur, who despite the best efforts of the NCERT book was seen by the majority of the population as an aggressor whose successors unleashed religious persecution of not fully documented proportions. That there stood a mosque in the name of Babur at the birthplace of Ram was seen as an affront to the collective cultural conscience of the Hindu population.

The Muslims in the early 1990s could have owned up India's greatest cultural icon and handed over the land to the Hindus. That would have shut the political shops of many. India wouldn't have missed two decades to the communal embers. They missed the bus in 1990s. Second chance rarely comes in lives of the mortals. The Supreme Court verdict has imposed a choice on the Muslims, which by and large has been accepted by the community. But they can't by a bystander. They must board the bus.

PEOPLE in secular countries don't live in ghettos. Indian interests are harmed by communities embracing exclusion. The Supreme Court has only opened the doors. Hindus and Muslims now must walk in together.

Bravo Kejriwal, but buck stops with you

DELHI chief minister Arvind Kejriwal deserves all the plaudits, for he's making the right noise against pollution. Union Minister for Environment and Forest Prakash Javdekar is worth yawn, if not derision, for ticking off Kejriwal for doing politics over pollution. Tight lid over Delhi's gas chamber has now firmly been clasped. National Capital Region (NCR) is gasping for breath. Executives have shown thumbs to Supreme Court and Rule of Law. Turning deaf ears to orders of the apex court against instruments of pollution is now a policy and administrative habit. Could the Right to clean air become a clarion call in the mainstream political discourse?

An Una-Delhi journey lasts not more than four hours. Foothills of the mighty Himalaya astonishingly have the worst air. The city spaces soak in fumes and thick dust whipped up by vehicles. Only a few kilometers earlier in the descent, Himachal Pradesh stays in the lap of pristine nature. Slipping into the vast expanse of Punjab and Haryana in the Winter months, farm fields on fire and smouldering embers give a stunning sight shock. A few minutes in the open turn eyes irritable and throat soar even while locals continue their chores nonchalantly. Closer to Delhi border, thick blanket of smog take the horizon with frightening proportions. Possibly, journey from heaven to hell lasts only a few hours.  

People in northern parts of India have seemingly made peace with their fate to co-exist in the blanket of dust and fumes. That remains a constant in life notwithstanding change of seasons. Slowing of wind speed and dip in temperature only worsen the prevailing battered air. Stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana coupled with mass hysteria to burn firecrackers sent the air in the NCR to the abyss. Law of hypocrisy shifts focus on others, while dimming own complicity. Farmers, thus, in Haryana and Punjab are currently the whipping boys in the popular narrative of the national capital region.   

Stubble burning before the Rabi crop season has defied all measures of the government. Doles of incentives and sticks with police actions have yielded no results. Farmers in Punjab and Haryana have, incidentally, lit more this year than previously. From harvesting of Kharif crops to the onset of Rabi season, farmers have a small window to clear their agricultural land. Mechanised farming isn't yet the hallmark of Indian farmers, with hands in plenty to do the jobs, which could, otherwise, have been done by machines. Subsidies to farmers to buy machines to harvest their crops have found least takers. Farmers feel least enthused with prospects of machines lying unused for most of the year. With 80 per cent of the farm land holding less than four acres, the policy thrust to extend subsidies to individual farmers could only have been worked by the babus in the country.     

NITI Aayog had commissioned a study on stubble burning, which three years ago submitted the papers, with recommendations that the farmers be incentivised for not burning crop residues along with long term roadmap for setting up infrastructure to process the biomass with the involvement of the private players. The studied solution roadmap, sadly, remains tucked away from cognitive attention of the policy makers. 

The Narendra Modi government only a few weeks ago unveiled enhanced Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) for Rabi crops. The government with MSP increase wants farmers to grow more foodgrains. Ironically, India is a foodgrain surplus country, while there are few takers for the export. A huge pile rots, while rodents feast on them. Intermediaries make fortune out of the MSP driven grain production and its further pushing into the monstrous public food distribution system, accounting one-twentieth of the Budget of the country. Farmers survive for another year, slipping into firm grip of village money-lenders, while intermediaries fatten. If financial strain wasn't enough to break their bones, they also face with the prospects of Haryana and Punjab becoming the cancer bowls of the country. 

India Gate lost to smog.

DELHI by all accounts is a policy sterile city. It has exploded with population after India's partition in 1947. First, the city hosted the migrants from eastern and western Pakistan. Later, the Kashmiris descended. Afterwards, the pulls of economy drove millions of people from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and hilly states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh to the national capital. Many came for government and public sector jobs, with Centre anchoring headquarters of almost all the PSUs in the small confines of the city space. Delhi alone, unofficially, is now staring at a population close to 30 million. Rising wave of population drove enterprising builder-politician-bureaucrats nexus to squat on public lands to carve out colonies, which from beginning boasted of sub-human conditions.

Delhi is a city of construction. Buildings get demolished to pave way for fresh constructions. Mass of dusts swirls in the air for want of enforcement of building construction norms. World's most dense city generates more than 10,000 metric tonnes of solid waste daily, half being the organic waste. Only 10 per cent of the waste is processed. Rest is dumped at landfill sites or burnt. Burning of leaves and garbage in Delhi was banned many years ago. But people in Delhi know well that laws are made to be read only in papers.

Vehicular population may, arguably, leave behind its human counterpart. That's incumbent for a city of livelihoods. Yet, Delhi has added least infrastructure after the 2010 Commonwealth games to speed up traffic. The mass transport system, first growing leaps and bounds with whole-hearted support to Delhi Metro by the Sheila Dikshit dispensations till 2013, slowed afterward, with buck largely stopping with the Kejriwal government in the city. Ring Rail in Delhi has now gone idle, with the city government paying no attention to repeated pleas of the Ministry of Railways to provide linkages with Metro stations and Bus stops.              

CHILDREN in Delhi schools must write letters to "Captain uncle" and "Khattar Uncle". They should also write letters to Kejriwal uncle, for Delhi government has only taken cosmetic steps to curb causes of pollution in the past few years. Yet, Kejriwal must be lauded for politics over pollution. That helps bring the discourse to the center-stage of popular consciousness.

Assembly elections: Identity slingshot

Democracy by all accounts is India's greatest sociopolitical leveler. Electorate in Maharashtra and Haryana reassured all that India isn't on a course to turn into a ruthless one party politico-administrative Chinese system. That people have least appetite for vindictive politics has also been loudly told. Drum beating and cult worship aren't essentially preferences of the Indian electorate. The popular verdict in Maharashtra and Haryana is laced with clear message for the Opposition -- Believe in your strengths.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would stay in power in Maharashtra and Haryana. Yet, the outfit isn't exultant. Faces of party leaders turned long, after the full import of the verdict in the two states became clear. It evidently dawned upon BJP leaders that the party cannot dictate the agenda to the people. Democracy is all about the vice versa -- people dictating agenda to parties. 

The BJP essentially drummed being the sole custodian of the spirit of nationalism. Dissenting voices on even procedural matters were hurriedly branded anti-national. Leading voices of the BJP displayed penchant to ask for certificate of nationalism from Opposition leaders. The BJP campaign was all about commanding electorate to cast their votes to party's nominees since rivals had suspect nationalistic credentials. 

The electorate had grown bored of nationalism shrill. The neighbourhood shops weren't selling enough goods. Youth came home after losing contractual jobs. Farmers still sold produces at one tenths of the market prices. Elders watched over the idling youth spend days and nights staring at mobile phone screens with earplugs stuck in perennial entertainment trance. 

Economy has fallen flat. Spin doctors seek succor in food delivery boys running around. A few start ups create "Wows". Policy mandarins in Narendra Modi dispensation talk like business honchos. For them, India is all about a few metropolitan cities. The BJP has to bear the slingshot pain.

Victories mostly sober politicians. V P Singh hadn't sent Rajiv Gandhi to Tihar jail after the 1989 win. Atal Bihari Vajpayee also hadn't shown cells of Tihar jail to the Opposition leaders. But the 2019 Lok Sabha verdict opened the floodgate of vindictive politics. The pack of enforcement directorate (ED), CBI and others were sent on hunting grounds against Opposition leaders. Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar talked ED in his whirlwind rallies, and people said enough is enough. Same goes for Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Dushyant Choutala in Haryana. 

Identity politics has demonstratively made a strong comeback in Indian politics. The Lok Sabha verdict had spurred obituaries for identity politics. Politics in regions identified with dominant castes. Smaller castes rode piggyback to partake in the game of power. The BJP's poll mascot Narendra Modi sought to challenge this set political template. The party worked for consolidation of other castes. The ploy paid rich electoral dividends. It turned the political social engineering of a number of regional outfits on its head. But that worked when national narrative found resonance with the electorate. 

Tangible gains with welfarism push had cheered the vulnerable. Dominant castes, though, had nothing to gain from Modinomics, which is nothing but targetted delivery of subsidies. They became aware that they are staring at the prospects of a lost decade, with wealth being knocked away and income drying. Dominant castes sought to regain the lost political space. The BJP, indeed, co-opted them. But they were slotted to supporting roles. They, however, sought centrestage.  

The Congress stays in defeatist mode. The grand old party of India is yet to come to terms with the political erosion of the clout of the Gandhi family. With Sonia Gandhi back in the saddle, the reigns in regions are slowly being restored to old warhorses. That has been the Congress' political character. But that was also sought to be undone by the Gandhi scion Rahul Gandhi. The Maharashtra and Haryana poll verdict makes it evident that the electorate want the Opposition to believe in their strengths and shun their doubting Thomases.

Jats in Haryana and Maratha in Maharashtra backed their trusted parties to the hilt. They have sent signals to Yadavs in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to flock to caste outfits in the two states. The economic slide may loosen smaller castes from the BJP glue. And that could open up the prospects for revival of regional outfits. 

Snails' test for Sino-India ties

MODERN world often seeks succor in ancient glories. Bridge, if, not laid for centuries to cement links between ancient and modern only leaves momentary jubilation. Hopes fall with thud on hard surface of reality. Mammalpuram or Mahabalipuram near Chennai could well take pride in being China's spiritual Guru -- once upon a time. The seventh century Pallava dynasty sired Bodhi Dharma who sparked spiritual renaissance in China and other east Asian countries. But India's glory of ancient past was sucked in the dark tunnel of medieval period when fear reigned with the advent of murderous Muslim rulers. India subsequently became doubtful and uncertain of own strength. China embarked on contrasting path.  Now, gap is too large for trust for two diametrically opposite political systems. Mammalpuram is, thus, a break for Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping to breath in moisture laden sea side air to count missed opportunities.

Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had taken a giant step to open the shut doors on China in 1988. That was a year before he vacated office after a popular negative vote. For more than two decades, India had conducted her world affairs in which China had no space. That was because of the Chinese betrayal in 1962 in which love and affection of New Delhi were paid by Beijing spilling bloods of Indian soldiers and annexing vast tracts of India's landmass. India's popular psyche knows China as a treacherous country. 

Beijing hasn't walked even an inch to regain India's trust. India has, however, shown eagerness to forget the past. New Delhi's zeal has always met with Chinese realism. Post-1988, accounts abound to show China as India's numero uno stumbling block on the world affairs. They merit no retelling.

CHINA by all accounts is a brute imperialist, spreading tentacles all around. Beijing has been exploiting her deep pocket to gain economic slavery in African and South Asian countries. China's no holds barred exploitation of human capital to produce goods at unbeatable prices has for long tilted the trade balance in her favour at the cost of other humane and democratic societies. No civilized country in the world, practicing free speech, democracy, liberalism and fair play, can ever compete with China's trade thuggery. 

Wearing the facade of Communism, China is essentially a military totalitarian state. And, so Beijing's compulsive imperialism has seen China being the global trespasser, with none of her neighbouring country being exception. India has seen China's economic and geographic imperialism in worst forms, and there's no let down in Beijing's compulsive streak.        

Deep pocket has seemingly allowed China to make huge intellectual investment across the world, including the US. India's borrowed economic intellectual wealth from the US, thus, have sought in the past three decades to steer policy directions in Beijing's favour. Lately, Arvind Panagaria, the first vice-chairman of NITI Aayog, was evidently a "China awe-struck policy wonk". During his stint, which coincided with Narendra Modi's first four years, Panagaria tried to open the floodgates for Chinese trade.   

In 2014-15, India exported goods and services worth $11.9 billion to China. Import in contrast was $60.4 billion, with the resultant trade deficit of $48.5 billion. In 2017-18, India export rather dipped to $10.3 billion, while Chinese import ballooned to $63.2 billion, with consequent deficit of $52.9 billion. The deficit in 2018-19 was $53.5 billion. 

Indian eagerness to forget China's treacherous past has truly been fodder for Chinese imperialism. In contrast, India's insistence on resolution of border disputes has only seen the high Chinese wall. Despite scores of talks, with escalation of the seniority of interlocutors, there has hardly been any headway to talk about. On the contrary, no year goes by without the Chinese trespassing into Indian territories across the length of the Himalayan border.     

There shouldn't be any misgivings that India-China relations haven't kept pace with even snails on core Indian interests. 

FORMER Prime Minister P V Narsimha was more prescient than Rajiv Gandhi. Rao didn't bother about China. He looked East. Under Rao's stewardship, India found depth in relations and confidence in conduct with deepening of ties with Asean (Association of South-east Asian nations). That paid rich dividends. New Delhi can count on a few friends.

India and China cannot be natural friends as long as Beijing is ruled by a military totalitarian regime. Rest is delusion.

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Diplomatic expert and senior journalist Ramananda Sengupta had this to ask the blogger after reading the above article: "If India cannot be a natural friend with a totalitarian China, then how does New Delhi have good ties with a few similar regimes in Arab and Africa."

The blogger responded: "With Africa and Arab world, India has politico-economic scales to steer diplomatic ties to serve core interests. This is missing in the case of China."  

Missing E-factor

THREE months have gone by since the new government was elected with an unprecedented mandate in the recent years. World's largest democracy, arguably, also has the most costliest electoral exercise. Actual spending is seen dwarfing the official ceiling on expenses by candidates. The first three months after the 2009 and 2014 had shown economy spurting seemingly on the back of asteroid doses of the largess splurged by political parties in the length and breadth of the country. Yet, 2019 strikes a discordant note.

Dismissing a strategy meeting weeks ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP chief Amit Shah was seemingly exasperated. To a question on going big on media blitzkrieg, Shah blurted out to a fellow party leaders -- "First, let Arun ji and Piyush settle their quarrel".  

In the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, all knew that the contest would be unequal. Not that the BJP had the greatest of the poll mascot, but for the fact that others had hugely depleted coffers. Loss of key states had, arguably, bled the Congress treasury white. Regional parties weren't better off. The BJP treasury, however, was in its prime pink. It was evidently clear that one political outfit would take the pole position in election spending to swing the outcome of the poll. Others will be bystanders.

The BJP, thus, was deliberating "how and where" to unloosen the fat purse. "Arun Jaitley was firm that the party should give more money in the hands of the block and district level functionaries. Piyush Goyal argued that the BJP should spend more on media blitzkrieg. There was no common ground," said a functionary, who attended such strategy meetings at the BJP headquarters.

Jaitley had been ailing. He seemed fragile. His muscles had loosened. Yet, he stayed put at the BJP headquarters to man his mandate -- strategizing and perception management. "The BJP spent 42 per cent less on media advertisements in 2014 Lok Sabha elections in comparison to 2009 general polls. Jaitley's prescription was accepted, that more funds would go in the hands of foot soldiers of the party across the country than being spent on media and other publicity platforms," added the functionary.   

That media is currently bleeding in an affirmation to the changed tack of the political outfit with the most bloated moneybag. 

THE 2008-09 financial year was one of the worst for Indian economy. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had slumped to 3.09 per cent on 2011-12 baseline (6.72 per cent under the 2004-05 baseline). The Manmohan Singh led UPA had retained power at the Centre. The Congress ruled in a large number of states. The Congress coffer must have been spilling over the brim. The money was well spent by the party. The 2009-10 fiscal clocked 7.86 per cent GDP growth as per the 2011-12 baseline (8.59 under the 2004-05 series).

Electioneering splurge had seemingly knocked off the slowdown fangs to release adrenaline in the lifeline of the economy. The story re-ran the script in 2014 also with much greater intensity. The first quarter clocked GDP growth of 8.02 per cent under the revised 2011-12 series only to ascend steeply to 8.70 per cent in the second quarter, mapping the first three months after the election results. 

The first quarter of the 2019-20 fiscal delivered a fiver for the GDP growth. Five per cent for India is by all accounts a commentary of the economy in the worst health. The first three months of the Narendra Modi government in the second tenure would report the second quarterly growth. That the economy is gasping for breath is affirmed indisputably with the government finally waking up to the deep structural reforms covered by disinvestment.    

Dissonance between electioneering largess in the form of arming foot soldiers with party funds and the economy crying erosion of demand is palpable.

The BJP and allies, indeed, put the money in the pockets of the foot soldiers. But the money didn't spread out as intended to a significant extent. The BJP workers are full of tales about their peers pocketing the money but not passing on to the targets. They did so, because they were confident that victory in the elections was already on their side. That they became thrift with the large flow of money in their hands was also on account that Modi was winning them elections. 

THE money in place of being in circulation got stuck. And that possibly explains the missing E-factor of the economy. Electioneering splurge too failed to wake up the animal spirits of demands. That the printing of high denomination Rs 2000 currency is no more being printed could also be an after-effect of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The government in an RTI reply has admitted that the Rs 2000 currency hasn't been printed yet in the current financial year. The ATMs running dry in elections times has been pos-2017 phenomenon. Did the availability of Rs 2000 notes help push the cash flow to the electoral agents who in turn sat over the pile of cash to unleash demand depression in the economy? Circumstantial evidences suggest a fair correlation.

Mahatma Gandhi: Talismanic hypocrisy

Albert Einstein was most prophetic in his one-liner tribute to Mahatma Gandhi. Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth, Einstein had to say on Gandhi. Seventy one years after Gandhi departed, it's indeed a tall order to believe that such a soul led India's greatest ever political movement, with the velvet touch of empathy and simplicity. That within a few decades his political heirs sanctified Gandhi and turned him into oratorical rituals to spread tentacles of the Gandhian anti-thesis is, indubitably, India's monstrous hypocrisy.  

There's a certain deluge of commentary on Mahatma Gandhi. That India's commemorating the 150th birth anniversary of the icon befits the occasion. That the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) is in the midst of a process to attain lethal perfection in politics of mass mobilisation makes Gandhi the most convenient icon to bank on. And also for the fact that transportation of a ritual deity to the centre stage of the political discourse perfectly suits the dispensation which seeks to send dynastic demigods into oblivion.

The Mahatma plunged in the Indian freedom movement at a stage when the polity was fragmented. There were scores of streams within the polity and outside against the British rule. Millions of people died of hunger and epidemics. The British lords stayed enmeshed in crony capitalism. Sporadic reprisals amidst episodic bravery marked India's restlessness to throw the foreign yokes. Gandhi weaved magical spell to spearhead a coherent political agitation under the banner of the Congress. Rest is history.

Gandhi has been largely depicted by historians as the man with Midas touch for mass movements. He deftly sought definitive behavioural changes from the masses. He stayed away from power. Yet, he served a talisman to the new elites taking positions of power lest they lost their ways to wilderness.

"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you're in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test -- Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to Swaraj (freedom) for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away," Gandhi read out the moral political mantra to his ardent disciples when they assumed high offices.

The mantra arguably electrified the political class for the first two decades. Afterward, memory of the poorest and weakest started becoming fainter. The convenient escape route for the political class from the moral stigma of failing the Gandhian test was to pass the onus to the children. The Gandhian talisman found its resting place with the NCERT books.

In another one decade, the self in place of melting away was cast in stone for the leading lights of Indian politics, the principal instrument to free the spiritually starving millions. The Congress turned dynastic. Indian polity went into a meltdown. The after effects in the next two decades coalesced into caste based family enterprises. The Gandhian talisman was knocked off of its moral anchor.

The Mahatma practically became distant for the political class. His name didn't fetch votes. In place, Bhim Rao Ambedkar, Ram Manohar Lohiya, Karpoori Thakur, E V Ramasami (Periyar) and a few others became potent political icons who helped their worshipers fetch votes in truck loads.     

The Gandhian talisman proved a burden for the policy makers. The poorest and weakest were seen roadblocks to India's "earnest desire to become a developed country like the US". So, ways were (and are being) invented to chase them away from forests, islands, farms to herd the teeming millions into ghettos. The sub-human ghettos proved huge political investments for heirs of Gandhi.

Two-third of the population stays dependent on agriculture. Vast majority of the political class is land owning "agriculturists" after the residual generations of leaders educated professionals were edged out by their anti-thesis. To protect their own interests and milk government doles, the new political class pushed farmers to a never ending poverty. 

For Gandhi, Swaraj meant the economic self-sufficiency in such a manner that majority of the needs of the people could be served by enterprises within their surroundings. Now, most of the needs of the people are served by enterprises in China.   

The Gandhian talisman by all accounts has been stripped off all the moral and ethical weights. 

The ruling elites when they swear by Gandhi, and they do it more often, invite being condemned as bunch of hypocrites. The hypocrisy, sadly, has now acquired monstrous proportions.       

Public path for economy

Indian economy by all accounts has entered self-limiting bind. That the specter of slowdown is looming with cascading effect on unemployment is sharply visible. Economy isn't panting for breath all of a sudden. That the journey down the hill began from policy mishaps since 2008 is told to death. The Narendra Modi government took to "curing" ills of the economy with a number of eventful interventions, which had mighty side effects. Now, the Modi government must look inwardly to kick-start engines of the economy. 

THE North block mandarins are searching for clues to steer economy to eight per cent GDP growth trajectory. Flurry of outreach has come on the back of the growth knocking five per cent figure in the last quarter of the current fiscal. Essentially, the North Block policy wizards are asking for clues from those who're tired and fatigued, largely on account of excesses of the government. Nirmala Sitharaman and Anurag Thakur, ministers with principal mandate to steady the economy, with bureaucrats in tow, should, therefore, stay put in their respective holes and indulge in genuine economic crisis-management. 

The golden decade of the economic growth (1999-2009) was left on auto-pilot mode somewhere along the journey. The golden touch of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his aides spurted the economy to glorious highs. The mantra was simple -- structural reforms along with aggressive disinvestment programme to spur the consumption demands, which in turn put industries on expansionist path. The Congress, true to its nature of a status quoist outfit, led the UPA, with Left parties keeping hawks' eye in the first term, squandered the opportunity offered by the firm ground work done by the Vajpayee government. The second term of the Manmohan Singh government was comatose.

The Modi government should revisit the Vajpayee mantra. Besides structural reforms and aggressive disinvestment programme, Modi should work with state governments to not just fix economy's self-limiting glitches, but also lay ground for the next golden decade of growth.

Barring western and a few southern regions, finances of majority of the states  are in shambles. They are barely surviving, struggling to pay salaries and pensions to their employees. Their scopes of fiscal expansions are limited. Consequently, law and order, education and health have, arguably, taken sever blows in such states.

The Centre should work with states to fix their finances and work within a timeline to expand fiscal strength by 50 per cent with the help of disinvestment programme. The enhanced fiscal capacity must be put to work to spurt the economy. 

United Nations mandate 222 police personnel for 1,00,000 population. If all the police vacancies in India are filled, the country would come to the ratio of 185 per lakh population. 

Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Odishra, Andhra Pradesh are among the states with police-population ratio in 65-123 range. The police personnel are overworked and stressed. Various police reform recommendations are gathering dusts. That the decades' old weaponry of the state police requires immediate overhauling needs no further arguments. 

One year timeline to fill all police vacancies in states could add muscles to the consumption demands.

Ironically, public employment was turned into a policy curse at a time when India under the instructions of IMF (International Monetary Fund) charted on the path of reforms in early 1990s under the stewardship of P V Narsimha Rao and Manmohan Singh.  This has outlived its utility. Public employments essential to meet basic norms must be revived. 

A developing nation can leave education and health infrastructure space to individual enterprises at its own peril. A large number of states have taken recourse to recruiting contractual teachers, with some of them even sub-letting such employments. That the education sector should firmly remain in the public funded domain is, indeed, basic requirement for a developing nation. And, hence, the expanded fiscal strength of states should fuel expansion of teachers' strength along with expanded schools' networks. 

Additionally, Panchayati Raj unveiled in 1980s has become infested with unbridled corruption, exhibited by SUV riding Sarpanch and local bodies' representatives. Institutionalizing, financial and performance audits by Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) is crying need of the hour. This along with institutional capacity building of local bodies, with men and machines, could put India on the path of faster and sustainable growth pedestal. 

The three booster doses would require financial infusions of high scales beyond fiscal capacities of state governments. Here, the Centre should deploy resources gained from aggressive disinvestment programme to fund the public employment and curing fiscal health of states. 

But the Centre, sadly, has no institutional framework currently to work with state governments to guide them to sound fiscal health. NITI Aayog is beset with policy dwarfs to rise to the occasion. This gaping hole in sound fiscal policy architecture is, indeed, worrisome.  

The Modi government has sought to pump prime the economy with infrastructure spending in the first term. The public employment to meet basic minimum strength in various spheres could give fresh legs to the economy for the next decade. This could be the lasting legacy of the Modi government in the second term.

MIGHTY DISGRACE

Indian Constitution has failed over 100 children in Bihar who died for want of timely medical support. Indian democracy has ruefully demonstrated that it's a system of unaccountable governance. National silence, by and large, over deaths of children has affirmed the worst fears that apathy for poor has grown by leaps and bounds. Naked medical infrastructure in Bihar, which mirrors other states as well, is a warning to all -- citizens of the country are facing a ticking time bomb in imploding health infrastructure. Extent of undernourishment among children is a hard slap on faces of policy makers who have for years written papers on socio-economic planning of the country.        

Till the last count, more than 100 children have died at one hospital in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, in a span of about a fortnight. Thick-skinned say, it's an old story, that a mystery illness kills children during the peak summer in parts of Bihar. For years, health babus have called it acute encephalitis; some even ventured to attribute deaths to toxins released by unripe Litchi. Indian Parliament found mention of the deaths, but for maligning Litchi, which is causing hardship to growers. For politicians, deaths may be mystery. But stunted policies over the years had arguably foretold these deaths.

Guess works of medical fraternity converge largely on undernourishment and lack of sanitation as principal culprits. That 44 per cent of children in Bihar are underweight lends credence to the assessments of health professionals. Spectre of filth in Bihar indeed makes the state sitting on pile of garbage. None could, thus, dispute general diagnosis that undernourishment and filth are killing the children.

But National Food Security Act (NFSA) has also completed six years in existence, guaranteeing 25 kgs of foodgrains to each family almost free. The government has been pouring over Rs 1.25 lakh crore every year, principally for the reason that the poor shouldn't suffer from undernourishment and hunger. Bihar is a state, which has been aggressively implementing the mother of all welfare programme. The obvious rationale to pump in over Rs 1.25 lakh crore each year in running the Soviet era public food distribution programme is only to fight undernourishment. Underneath, however, the programme fattens embedded vested interests, who suck the lifeblood of the country, because the political class has no spine to tell that India must stop the political business of a state funded agriculture where only few pocket gains that too in just four to five states.

Thick-skinned Bihar politicians additionally, have bared delusion that the political change in the state was just facile that only the faces changed. The dark age of 1990s had ceded the state seemingly to light at the end of the tunnel in 2005 in the state. White clad thugs hid their guns and only chanted the mantra of their castes day and night in the changed political theater of the state.  

Gargantuan corruption in Panchayat and Local Bodies, the third tier of democracy, has shown an insatiable appetite for wealth. Public service, indeed, is least of their priority. That the former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh was awestruck at jewel laden 'Sarpanch and Mukhiya' at Vigyan Bhavan and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad at the scale of SUVs lined up on Tughlaq Road in 2012 when he called meeting of such persons had bared that unbridled corruption rules at the Panchayati Raj, which was thought to be government's channel of delivery of services to people.    

NITI Aayog is the new czar of policy making in India. Bereft of genuine talent pool from socio-economic space, the policy think tank has shown masterly hunger for private resources to deal with India's critical issues. It seeks privatisation. Heir to Planning Commission, a few of the interventions of NITI Aayog have shown that it essentially seeks quick fix solutions. And, one such stroke of genius to deal with crippling health infrastructure was Ayushman Bharat -- Rs five lakh medical insurance plan for 10 lakh people in the country. 

Heavy stroke of the scheme, amplified politically, sought to to put up a facade on a dilapidated health infrastructure. It was projected as a panacea for the health needs of millions. The Centre for past two years put all efforts to popularise the scheme. That AIIMS in Patna, Bihar, and others too in various state capitals remain works progressing at snail's pace failed attention of the political leadership. That the country is acutely short of qualified doctors failed the attention of the political masters of the country. That upgradation of district hospitals has been crying needs for decades fell on deaf ears. 

Policy thrusts, indeed, was to look for solutions from within private hospitals. After education majorly slipping into the private hands, health by all accounts is firmly in grips of private enterprises. And, that profiteering is the only indisputable mantra of private enterprises suggests that the political masters have thrown the public health to the wolves. 

Bihar deaths are just warning. The poor have fallen first. Others too will be in the queue.