Corleone Lalu

ONE night in late 1990s.

The district police had suddenly become pregnant with the idea of their manhood. The 'Kaptaan' of the police personnel had shared with them the mission idea, that they would be out in the night to crush the head of the most vicious snake in the district.

With the city going to sleep in late evening, heavy shadows fell on the walls of the lanes and by-lanes leading to the den of the most vicious snake. Heavy boots thumped the ground beneath. A few windows opened. Torch flashes fell on the approaching swarm of menacing police men. With rifles slung on their shoulders and fingers on machine guns, they gave a full measure of their might to the third ring of security of the vicious snake. Shots were fired. A few henchmen killed. Scores were hand-cuffed and bundled into waiting jeeps. The second ring too was crushed in quick time. 

The den was panic stricken. The policemen were finally moments away from crushing the head of the most vicious snake. He too had given up. His hopes were lost.

Piercing the thick night with sharp red flashes, an ambassador car menacingly raced into the compound of the den. A man in his 50s alighted. His waistline was bloated, and hairline for all to count. The 'Kaptaan' and the policemen, who had been the hunting wolves of the night, became stiff at the sight of the man just out of the white ambassador. Their faces loosened. The man took the most vicious snake into his ambassador car and sped away.           

That vicious snake was Mohammed Shahabuddin, who had been a member of Parliament from the Siwan Lok Sabha constituency. The police operation was ordered by Lalu Prasad whose wife Rabri Devi had been the chief minister at that time. The man in the ambassador car was sent by Lalu Prasad. "Mohammed Shahabuddin had become a law unto himself. He thought he was bigger than Lalu Prasad. That night Lalu saved his life, but gave a message in clear terms about who was the actual boss," recounted one former aide of Lalu Prasad. 

Siwan knows that Mohammad Shahabuddin is an out and out criminal. He won elections by intimidating voters and rivals alike. He won Lok Sabha elections four times from 1996 to 2004. The law finally caught up with him in 2007 when he was convicted in one of many cases pending against him and sent to life imprisonment. He, thus, was debarred from contesting polls. 

The law caught up with Mohammad Shahabuddin at a time when Bihar woke up to the idea that it had been electing criminals for quite long time. Nitish Kumar propped up by the BJP promised to keep criminals behind the bars. He kept his words, and very soon the dreaded criminals were in jails.

Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, who held on to his den in the Seemanchal of Bihar, spent long years in Tihar jail. He who once literally got one of his henchmen to push a bamboo into the rectum of an engineer became a 'Drohkal ka pathik' during his stay in Tihar. Mohammad Shahabuddin could not carve out an independent fiefdom for himself, but Pappu Yadav was able to branch out in later years.

Lalu Prasad in his heydays was arguably nothing but a replication of Vito Coreone -- the Don of Mario Puzo's trendsetter novel 'The Godfather'. Lalu's empire crumbled with the ascendance of Nitish. The mandate compelled Nitish to crack whip against the criminals and Lalu's henchmen turned politicians.

But Nitish as is true with most of the politicos never pursued any idea to its logical end. He went after the criminals turned politicos, but left them half dead. He went after the crime syndicates, but allowed them to survive. He paid scant attention to policing and improving the infrastructure of law and order apparatus. That he solicited Mohammad Taslimuddin and sought blessings of the mother of the jailed Anand Mohan Singh in the run up to the 2010 Bihar Assembly elections, besides allowing refuge in his party for the criminals from the ranks of Lalu's RJD made it evident that Nitish too sought to borrow the brand of politics of his former aka.

Six years later, Nitish and Lalu are a team. Nitish allowed Lalu to breath again in Bihar politics. He

stayed in power by joining hands with Lalu for 2015 Bihar polls. But in the process, he lost control of the genie that he allowed to come out of the shut bottle. Mohammad Shahabuddin had been running his empire from Siwan jail before being shunted out to Bhagalpur jail. Now, he's a free bird.

With Lalu getting his men back to their respective territory, it may only be a matter of days that Nitish will read the writing on the wall. That his script has awfully gone wrong is no more an idea lost to doubts. He knows better than any that Lalu can't be reigned in for long.

Nitish met Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently. The obvious agenda was the issue of floods in Bihar. But some claim, they did not just talk floods.

After statue, Maya's deity fancy

A week is a long time in politics. Harold Wilson's one line wisdom has stood test of time for decades. That the political commentators are swayed by events to make predictions are commentaries on fallacy of being forgetful of what Wilson had so succinctly surmised.  

Only a few weeks back the Mayawati led BSP was rattled. The prominent face of the party in Uttar Pradesh Swamy Prasad Mourya had quit. He was followed by two more in quick succession. They all went out by alleging Mayawati's penchant for "money for tickets". Mayawati was seen defensive and waiting to see how many more would bolt her stable. She was apparently faced with a script of sabotage from within her party even before she launched the campaign to wrest the power back in the next year's elections in the state.

Mayawati

The BJP dropped a rope to Mayawati to swing back from the zone of self-doubt to that where she could street-fight her battle for Lucknow. The vice president of the state unit of the BJP Dayashankar Singh had a momentary loss of sanity to believe a public place as his private abode to abuse Mayawati. He succumbed to profanity. The Rajya Sabha was rocked. Leader of the House Arun Jaitely apologised. The BJP sacked Dayashankar Singh. He went into hiding, as the Akhilesh Yadav government went after him with full might.

The cadre of the BSP came on the street. The party battered in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections found the veins swelling with energy. The blue flag embossed with image of an elephant spurted on Lucknow streets. The verdict in New Delhi was out, that the BJP had handed the seat of power in Lucknow to Mayawati on a platter. The verdict was not misplaced either, for the BJP chief Amit Shah had been feasting and bathing with Dalits to win them over in the run up to the UP elections. The BJP story seemed over in UP. 

Dalits were bashed up in faraway Gujrat as well. They were flogged allegedly for skinning dead cows. The cow vigilantes have mushroomed north of Vidhyanchal strongly. The Narendra Modi government's ministry of agriculture and farmer welfare has rolled out ambitious plans for protection of cows. But the cow-worshipers choose not to remember that a few Dalits eke out their livings out of the skins of dead bovines. And, thus, the plan of feasting and bathing with Dalits by Amit Shah met with its anti-thesis in Una in Gujrat. The story which began with the suicide of Rohith Vemula on the Hyderabad University campus spread far and wide, that the BJP's love for Dalits was farcical. And, the BJP should forget taking a bite of the 20 per cent Dalit vote base pie in the electoral demography of Uttar Pradesh.

But politics is not stagnant waters. It's rather a flowing river. It absorbs the upheavals and goes on. And,

Dayashankar Singh

thus, the feast of abuse hosted by Dayashankar Singh was not the last one. Mayawati chose to become a deity from a wily politician. She sensed she could be the J Jayalaitha of Uttar Pradesh. And, she unleashed the hooligans upon the wife and minor daughter of Dayashankar Singh. Her crowd wanted his minor daughter. The woman and the girl were hurled choicest abuses. The battered women took shelter with the law of the land against the lynch mob set on them by Mayawati. They lodged an FIR against the BSP supremo. The score is now level. Akhilesh Yadav can now have the last laugh.

Mayawati's rise to political prominence in Uttar Pradesh had never been on account of militant Dalit politics. She had in contrast been the beneficiary of the Brahamanical uprising against the Mandal politics of the state. The BJP liberated her from the shadow of the BSP founder Kanshi Ram. The wily lawyer-turned-politician Satish Chandra Mishra made her the "Iron lady" of Uttar Pradesh. She practiced the mantra of "Bahujan Hitay, Bahujan Sukhay". Mishra helped her in scripting unprecedented social engineering in the run up to the 2007 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. She won support of upper castes, most backward castes, extremely backward castes, and, thus, became the queen of the UP politics. She built her political castle whose base was the 20 per cent Dalit vote constituency but the structure was provided by non-Yadav castes. 

Mayawati now appears to have overturned her mantra. Now, she threatens caste polarization. By fueling militant Dalit politics, her castle stands the risk to crumble with other castes likely to polarize against her. Uttar Pradesh is not a Tamil Nadu. The cow-belt is hardly congenial to militant Dalit politics. The past has shown that Dalits alone can not send Mayawati to the seat of power in Lucknow. She appears far from scripting the repeat of the magic of 2007. Much waters have flown in the Ganges in the last one decade.

This blogger had pointedly asked the then president of a national party how much money he had spent in the 2012 UP Assembly elections. He had paused, and then said "Rs 200 crores". He had apparently told the half truth. The amount was much higher. A cash starved political party stands no chance to win the UP elections. This is known to most of the political players. After leaving office in 2012, Mayawati has been out of power for more than four years now. She badly lost the 2014 Lok Sabha elections not only because the Modi magic was blowing like a whirlwind, but also for the fact that her party had been financially drained. Even now she is said to be struggling to lay her hand into the deep pockets of her likely financiers. Those who allegedly benefited during her tenure in the office are either financially bankrupt or have passed away. 

No one raises a slogan on the street of Uttar Pradesh without laying hands on the green notes. Mayawati's show of strength on the Lucknow street may be her attempts to win the support of those who have deep pockets. But they are sitting on the fence. They believe in the words of Harold Wilson, that a week is a long time in politics.

And, the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections are still 10 months away. 

Discordant notes

IN governance, performance most often is about creating popular positive perception than actually delivering verifiable outcomes. And that may be a reason why governance is seen as an art and not science. That leaves enough space to talk about with broad numbers from a high pedestal, and, so, there is an avalanche of commentaries on two years of the Modi government.   

TWO years back, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a speech full of melodrama to the Parliamentary party meeting of the BJP had promised to share the report card of his government with them in 2019. Five years must have looked quite a long time. So, Modi amended his promise, and shared the report card of his government -- not with the BJP MPs, but the people -- from the ramparts of the Red Fort after a year passed off since his assuming the charge. A year after, Modi launched "Vikas parv (Development festival)". 

His MPs are a miffed lot. Those striking discordant notes with the Modi government from the ranks

of the BJP MPs are gaining in strength. Bhola Singh, Hukum Singh, Jagdambika Pal and a few more have been throwing away tact to criticise the government during the Lok Sabha proceedings. A large number of BJP MPs openly rue to the secretaries of the Union ministers, that they're having tough time facing people in their respective constituencies.

"It's we who face people. It's we who will seek votes in 2019. The Modi government came to power because we won elections, and not due to his ministers, who para-dropped from the Rajya Sabha to seats of power," one BJP MP was heard loudly telling one aide of a minister.

The BJP MP Hukum Singh was more acerbic when Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh sought to suggest that a web portal to electronically link all markets will come as a boon to the farmers. "The farmers are throwing the onions to garbage after failing to get remunerative price. They're being offered as low as 50 paise a kg for onions in Nimanch in Madhya Pradesh. What will these farmers do with your web portal," Hukum Singh blared in the Lok Sabha. Radha Mohan Singh predictably paled.

But when the Prime Minister never tires talking of his App and web portals, his ministers would only follow the suit. So, the likes of Smirti Irani and Piyush Goyal blurt out several Apps of their ministries when the MPs in the Lok Sabha seek to know answers to basic issues. 

IN 2003, a group of bureaucrats sought to please the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. They

brought forth numbers and data to suggest that the time was apt to launch a 15-day long "India Shining" campaign. Vajpayee concurred. Late Pramod Mahajan got the wind of the move and sought a presentation from the enterprising bureaucrats. He instantly fell in love with the idea. And, he turned the 15-day "India Shining" campaign into an year long affair.

The bureaucrats wanted to caution. They knew it would be suicidal for a ruling political alliance to become part of such a brazen campaign for such a long time when large parts of the country form an oasis of darkness. Yet, they did not have the nerve to express their reservations to a man who was known as a bully. In 2014 people delivered verdict, and stated unequivocally that they did not believe at all in the idea of "India Shining".   

The self-adulation bug had bitten Vajpayee in the fourth year of his tenure. Modi would have made people believe that the event of his mere occupying the 7, Race Course Road had changed the fortune of India for better. Last month, he launched a 10-day long campaign -- Gramoday se Bharatoday. This month his government launched 15-day long "Vikas parv". 

The April campaign failed to enthuse people in the rural parts of the country. The agricultural growth last year was 1.1 per cent, and the average for last two years has been 0.5 per cent. The Monsoon, unseasonal rains and hailstorms have played havoc with the farming community. One fourth of the population of the country is under the spell of drought, which has affected 1.25 lakh villages. The suicide by farmers has taken the form of an epidemic. Not only farmers, but even the cattle-stock is bearing the brunt of the failure of the government to reach waters to parched regions.

MODI in his maiden address to the Lok Sabha ridiculed the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). In the next two years, the Opposition kept alleging that the Centre had not been releasing funds under MGNREGA to the state governments. Former PM Manmohan Singh too alleged that the dues to the states amounting to over Rs 10,000 crores remained unpaid. The next day when Union Minister of Rural Development Birender Singh was asked on Manmohan Singh's allegation, he claimed that there was no outstanding at all. 

That he was bluffing was known when the Supreme Court ordered the Centre to release the outstanding MGNREGA dues to the state governments. It was the Supreme Court again which ordered the Modi government to take immediate steps for the drought affected regions and the people. The rural parts of the country have to look up to the Supreme Court for deliverance from the pain. For Finance Minister Arun Jaitely, it amounted to the judiciary destroying the legislative and executive wings of the democracy "brick by brick". He would not admit that the non-performance of the government always invites the judicial scrutiny.           

     

The swagger of the growing number of youth in small towns of the country suggest their lack of faith in the system. They feel that they have been let down. That they possess degrees but no jobs frustrate them. The engineers are taking up clerical jobs. The doctorates are seeking jobs of police constables. Those with master degrees do not mind wearing uniforms of security guards in the metropolitan cities. 

The jobs are hard to find by is the story of the day in the country. The economists concur that the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth in the range of six to eight per cent only allows status quo. They argue with empirical evidences that for India to add more jobs the GDP growth must surpass eight per cent. But the higher growth trajectory is arguably not possible with a "tough task master" leadership, but deep and strong structural changes, which Modi has not yet shown stomach to undertake.       

POSTSCRIPT

It's stupid to expect change in two years' time. But the path on which one embarks for a long journey may suggest the outcome. In the first two years' of the Modi government, a few sectors have arguably outperformed, which include the Railways, Road and Shipping, Power. But there is a long list of outright non-performers, which include Agriculture, Rural Development, Water Resources, Telecommunication, etc.

Fraud path of Paytm

VIJAY Shekhar Sharma calls himself a capitalist, hippy and founder. In five years' time he now boasts of a billion dollar company in Paytm. He did not lay any brick or mortar in his climb up the ladder. He sold one website to launch another, and there he's now dipping his hands into the pockets of Jack Ma of Alibaba to become more fatter. 

Sharma comes from the city of dust and oriental learning for minority community. But Aligarh never made names internationally for either its insatiable hunger for dust or for the Muslim University, which came up with liberal British support, who in return for the favour insured "The Raj" with divide and rule policy. Aligarh made names nationally and internationally for its copyright on "Jugaad" technology.

That Jugaad is now internationally accepted as a word to describe the habit of finding a solution through whatever means speaks volume for the achievement of Aligarh. Thus, the city not only bathes each moment in swirling dust, but also sprays herself with smoke emitted by generator sets mounted on wooden carts, which outnumber the manufactured four-wheelers there.

SHARMA did not bring any innovation in his path which led him to the billionaire club. He aped what the Americans did decades back. True to all capitalist economy and consumerist society, greed comes out as surest source of success of any business. Aligarh knows the value of greed better than any other city, and so it throws all norms to the winds to get to the ends. Sharma truly belongs to Aligarh. And, thus, he made greed of the people his business model. 

Business grew and data expanded. Customers flocked for cash back offers. No technological innovation was required to become big, as telling it aloud that the App or Paytm website pays back was enough to broaden the customer base. The likes of Ratan Tata and Jack Ma of Alibaba too poured their monies to make more money by tapping the business of greed.       

The Paytm is essentially a wallet. But the greed of Sharma to become a big player took him to the path of cheating the customers. Sounds wired that a new age entrepreneur with funding by venture capitalists like Ratan Tata and Jack Ma could be essentially a crooked fellow who is out there to make quick bucks at the expanse of customers! It would not sound so, with an illustration.

YOU visit Paytm and opts for a recharge of pre-paid mobile. You pay Rs 515, the Paytm says there will be full talk-time along with extra time. But your mobile phone is actually given a talk time of Rs 1. What happened to Rs 514?

The search for this answer is through a 48-hour long ordeal. The Paytm would say, deal with the

Airtel. "We are only a payment gateway," says Rishi of the Paytm.

He's technically right, that Paytm has an RBI license as a wallet in the form of a payment gateway. But take a look at the Paytm portal. It operates and functions as an e-commerce marketplace and has an ecosystem on the lines of Flipkart and Amazaon where it allows sellers to sell their products. And, thus, it's not just a payment gateway. So, Rishi lied actually, but he's doing a job in a firm where lying appears to be a culture.

Rishi and all his associates at Paytm would so say, "go and settle it with Airtel". So, Paytm essentially is an e-commerce marketplace where it takes no accountability for false promises and failure to deliver the promised services. Thus, deception looks well-knit and camouflaged.

But, yes, what happened to Rs 514?

The answer is not yet forthcoming, and now the time has come to drag Sharma. "I really feel terrible the way one of our team member (s) took judgment on the issue," said Sharma when he was confronted. 

Then he informs that the Rs 515 paid to Paytm gave an international roaming facility to a mobile

phone which is being used in Godda and Jharkhand. The user has no plan to go abroad, and the recharge was not done for such a purpose. So, the Paytm has an extraordinary ability to give an international roaming facility when talk-time recharge is sought. He also asks the customer to talk to the cellular operator.

Thus, Sharma, who is chief executive officer (CEO) of the Paytm, is in a business where he is not accountable for false promises, cheating, deception, and fraud, but would pass on the onus to an organization whose doors the customers never knocked. Is there any better business in the world than this?

Yet, when confronted, Sharma asks for solution from the aggrieved customer asking how should the process be developed that the customers are not cheated. Thus, he admitted that the Paytm process is flawed. And, yet, the likes of Ratan Tata and Jack Ma are investing in a flawed firm.

Frogs sometimes jump off well, and think that they can own the ocean too. The internet entrepreneurs are such frogs who're taking too many customers for a ride with impunity.