Congress Manifesto: High on Style, Low on Substance
by Sudheendra Kulkarni
When it comes to manifestos of political parties, a section of the intelligentsia and the media exhibits a dismissive tendency that riles political activists like me. A major national daily last week called manifesto-making nothing but a “cut-and-paste” job. This tendency is symptomatic of a larger habit of the chatterati sneering from the comfort of their well-furnished drawing rooms at all political parties, indeed at the political process in general. The reality is quite otherwise. Most political parties, especially those with a national perspective, have begun taking policy issues—and, by extension, manifesto preparation—far more seriously than before.Now it is the turn of the media to take manifestos more seriously and catalyse a widespread public debate, x-raying both their specific assurances and their overarching visions. The performance of parties in power, especially, has to be scrutinised closely. At the same time, the assurances of those making a bid for power also have to be subjected to rigorous examination from the point of view of commitment, feasibility and their earlier track record. A debate of this kind will make political parties more accountable, the electorate more well-informed, and India’s democracy more enriched.
The Congress manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections 2009, which was released last week, has escaped a serious scrutiny in the media. The one thing to be said in its favour is that it is very well written. It has made up in style what it largely lacks in substance. It is excessive on self-congratulation but certainly not shoddy in its architecture. On substantive matters, however, it fails the test of satisfying a searching mind. Look at the points on which the Congress manifesto is silent. There is not a word in it on fighting corruption. It’s as if in the assessment of the Congress leadership, the problem does not exist at all. Not surprising since the party’s track record of five years in Government shows that it took no steps to fight corruption. The war against corruption requires personal conviction, moral courage and political authority. Sadly, these were not the qualities that Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh demonstrated during his five years in office. To his credit, not even his worst critics questioned his integrity in financial matters. However, by allowing blatant misuse of institutions to let Ottavio Quattarocchi, the Italian wheeler-dealer who was the prime accused in the Bofors scandal, go scot-free, he made it known that fighting corruption was not on his personal agenda. Any remnant of moral authority that he had in this matter evaporated when he permitted the cash-for- votes scandal to be enacted last year to purchase the allegiance of opposition MPs just to keep his government afloat after the Left parties withdrew their support to it.The Congress’s silence on this issue is especially regrettable since none other than Rajiv Gandhi (whose name appears six times in a laudatory manner in the manifesto) had lamented, in his initial idealistic years in office, that only 15 paise out of every rupee sanctioned by the Central government for various anti-poverty schemes reached the end beneficiary. He said so in 1985. Has the situation changed for the better in the past 24 years? Only last month, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India censured the UPA government for improper accounts on Rs 51,000 crore earmarked for various anti-poverty schemes, including the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. The NREGS is a good programme and the UPA government deserves credit for launching it. However, it would have received greater encomiums if it had strengthened, in cooperation with state governments, the delivery mechanism for various development schemes.
The second problem on which the Congress maintains a conspiratorial silence in its manifesto is the massive influx of infiltrators from Bangladesh. It has reached such alarming proportions, especially in Assam, that the Supreme Court has described it as “external aggression” and urged the central government to take effective and urgent steps. Dr Singh has been a member of the Rajya Sabha from Assam for the past 18 years. The fact that the Congress manifesto does not even pay lip service to saving Assam from this menace means either that Dr Singh believes that the problem doesn’t exist or that his lips are sealed on account of his party’s votebank politics.
Another regrettable feature of the Congress manifesto is its promise to introduce religion-based reservations for minorities (read Muslims) in government employment and education. True, a large section of Muslims are victims of poverty and backwardness. But does the solution to this problem lie in reservations, that too on the ground of religion? The proposed policy won’t benefit Muslims much, but it certainly will solidify minority and majority identities and further widen the divide between the two. Indeed, this could embolden those who have been demanding, for a long time, proportionate representation in the Parliament and state legislatures. Why not, instead, work for a national consensus on reservations on the basis of the economic criteria for all communities while retaining the existing quota benefits for SCs and STs?
India’s experience with the quota system has clearly driven home an important truth, which the political class has so far not been able to grasp with courage. That truth is: quotas alone are not a panacea. Be it for the minority or majority communities, or even for the SCs and STs themselves, our country has to look beyond reservations. A different approach to affirmative action, rooted in a radically different model of socio-economic development and strongly aligned to a vision of “justice for all but discrimination against none”, is needed. Not even a hint of it is visible in the Congress manifesto.
(This article was first published in the Indian Express on March 29, 2009.)
Boosting Bharat’s Bandwidth for Progress
by Sudheendra Kulkarni
I met the renowned agriculture scientist, Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, at his office in Chennai a few years ago to discuss the monumental work he was doing as chairman of the first-ever National Kisan Commission. Even at 77 (he is now 80), he was as passionate about his subject as he must have been at 27. But he was most animated as he explained the Information Village project, which his foundation has launched in Pondicherry to demonstrate the benefits of information technology for rural India. The project has connected ten coastal villages using broadband Internet and introduced software applications developed in Tamil, which can be used even by illiterate users. These applications provide free-of-cost information to villagers on prices of agricultural inputs and outputs, citizens’ entitlements under various Government programmes; healthcare and veterinary care; transport; and weather information. Each village information centre, which is powered by a solar panel, is run by locally trained volunteers, at least half of whom are women. Since these are fishermen’s villages, the project enables them to know about the areas of abundant fish catches, wave heights on the sea etc, thanks to information provided by the National Remote Sensing Agency.
But I also had doubts about the project’s overall impact because of its nano-scale: the coverage area was only 10 villages. My belief that a project like this deserves a nationwide footprint was reinforced when Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi launched his ‘E-Gram Vishwa Gram (E-Village, Global Village)’ project, which aims to provide broadband connectivity and a large bouquet of IT-enabled services to all the 13,693 gram panchayats in the state. Modi inaugurated it on the birth anniversary of Subhas Chandra Bose on January 23 this year in Haripura village, where Netaji had given the call for Swarajya (Self-Governance) in 1938. Modi described the goal of his project as ‘Su-Rajya’ (Good Governance).The ‘E Gram Vishwa Gram’ scheme envisages provision of Internet-enabled education, telemedicine, veterinary services, market linkage and other agriculture-related services to kisans, payment of electricity and telephone bills, issuance of death and birth certificates, land ownership records, application forms for various development and welfare schemes, postal services, reservation and purchase of bus and railway tickets, video conferencing and video broadcasting.
I have alluded to these two examples because they, along with several other initiatives aimed at bridging the digital divide in India and other developing countries, inspired my colleagues and me in preparing the BJP’s IT Vision document. Released by L.K. Advani last week, it presents a comprehensive picture of how the BJP, if elected to form the next government, will endeavour to empower Bharat by using the revolutionary power of IT. Until now, only a small part of India’s urbancentric economy and society has benefited from IT. Agriculture and the rest of the rural economy, small and medium enterprises, and the informal sector have remained largely untouched by its productivity-enhancement potential. The same can be said about education, healthcare, delivery of government services, and administration of law and justice. It is our belief that there is an urgent need, and also a historic opportunity, to increase Bharat’s bandwidth of progress.
The BJP’s IT Vision promises broadband connectivity to each of the 6,38,365 villages in India by implementing the digital avatars of the two ambitious projects that are associated with Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government: National Digital Highway Development Project and the Pradhan Mantri Digital Gram Sadak Yojana. Using this robust broadband Internet infrastructure, upgrading the skills of rural youth, and universalising the use of IT in Indian languages through a mission-mode initiative, it is possible to create over one crore IT-enabled employment opportunities in rural India.
Over-ambitious? To those who say so, I can only respond by invoking the words of our former President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam: “To think small is a crime in today’s India.” A majority of development-hungry Indians, especially the youth, are impatient for change. Their aspirations and expectations are soaring. But the system’s capacity to fulfill them is sorely lagging behind. Let us remember that China’s success in alleviating acute poverty in rural areas has been largely due to its focus on building better physical and digital infrastructure, combined with its stronger emphasis on agriculture, healthcare and education, especially vocational education. Here is a comparative snapshot of where China stands vis-à-vis India: China’s per-acre farm yields are, on an average, three times higher. China has 5,00,000 it is, as against India’s 5,000. China’s enrolment rate in higher education is 30 per cent, as against India’s 12 per cent. China has 16.2 crore PCs, 8.5 crore broadband subscribers and 29.8 crore Internet users, as against India’s 2.8 crore, 0.54 crore and 5.2 crore respectively. It is for this reason that the BJP’s IT Vision document has promised that India would equal China in every IT parameter in five years. Can India achieve this? Of course, we can.
Naysayers, including some in my own party, asked me, “What’s the point in assuring laptops to rural students and smart mobile phones to BPL families, when what they need is power, safe drinking water, and good roads?” Good question. But the answer is: Bharat needs both. It needs bijlee, sadak, paani. It needs roti, kapda, makaan. But it also needs IT and the cornucopia of tools and services it provides for faster and guaranteed provision of power, roads, water, food, clothing and shelter.
Bharat needs IT also to check corruption. Imagine the financial benefits under various poverty alleviation schemes like NREGS, old-age pension, etc, being directly deposited into the bank accounts of end beneficiaries. It will no doubt ensure full financial inclusion (only 50 per cent of Indians have bank accounts; ironically, it is the financially excluded who need reliable banking services the most). But it will also, hopefully, minimise the corruption that has plagued all our welfare schemes.
In short, IT is not merely technology. It is the Vision Thing for the rejuvenation of Bharat.
(This article was first published in the Indian Express on March 22, 2009.)
Election 2009’s Caste Vote
by Sudheendra Kulkarni
It is amazing how much the forthcoming parliamentary elections revolve around the issue of caste. Almost every party in every state has had to grapple with the caste factor in selecting its candidates and in devising its campaign strategies. True, by no means is this happening for the first time. But in my own observation of India’s elections for the past three decades, caste has never figured so prominently in national polls as it is in 2009.Every major party is looking at the caste composition of the constituencies where it will field candidates. What also figures in its calculation is how the selection of a candidate belonging to a particular caste in a particular constituency impacts, positively or negatively, on the party’s prospects in neighbouring constituencies. Before selecting its own candidate in a constituency, a party often waits to see the caste identity of rival candidates, asking itself questions such as: will the votes of caste A or caste B split up or add up?
Even in the national capital, which has become far more cosmopolitan than before, caste has come to be seen as an important factor. It is common to hear political workers in Delhi saying: “There are more Jats in this constituency and more Gujjars in that constituency.” The caste factor is even more pronounced if one surveys the poll scene in UP or Bihar. It is well known, for example, that Yadavs form the traditional support base of the Samajwadi Party and Jatavs constitute the core support base of the BSP. “The support bases of both parties are intact in their respective castes,” experts will tell you and that “the BJP and the Congress can do better only if they regain their support among ‘upper castes’.” Bihar, the bastion of ‘backward caste’ politics, is witnessing a new assertiveness by the MBCs (Most Backward Classes). The phenomenon is not limited to North India. Take the case of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. The support base of each of the three main contenders in Andhra Pradesh—Telugu Desam, Congress and Praja Rajyam— is broadly associated with Kammas, Reddys and Kapus respectively. H.D. Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal (S) has a stronghold among the Vokkaligas in Karnataka. And although Lingayats, the other major caste in the state, have largely voted for the BJP in the last parliamentary and assembly elections, a new consideration has cropped up this time: is there fair representation of the Panchamsalis and other sub-castes among the Lingayats? Several new caste-based political parties have sprung up in recent months and their following is by no means insignificant. For example, Kongunadu Munnetra Peravayi, a party floated by the influential Gounder caste in the eastern districts of Tamil Nadu, surprised many by holding a huge rally in Coimbatore recently.
Two questions demand our attention. Why has caste become politically more important in national polls now? And is it necessarily a negative phenomenon? The answer to the first question has to do with the fact that the Congress, which was once an umbrella party under which almost all sections of society found shelter, has shrunk to a pale shadow of its original self. The BJP has no doubt emerged as a second pole in today’s bi-polar national politics but it is yet to acquire a pan-India and pan-society presence. It has a very slim presence among religious minorities. The resultant fragmentation of the polity has given rise to two types of parties, one espousing regional aspirations and the other caste aspirations. Today all castes and communities feel they should have a fair representation in Parliament, legislatures, Government and other structures of power.The answer to the second question is much more complicated. The westernised intelligentsia in India has come to view caste in a negative light, forgetting that there is a fundamental difference between casteism and legitimate caste-based aspirations, especially among those who have been left behind. Casteism connotes a prejudiced mindset of high and low, and discrimination between one caste and another. This, of course, is condemnable. But those who believe that caste is inherently anti-democratic and hurtful to the nation’s interests are clearly barking up the wrong tree. This is because caste is a reality in Indian politics that no one can ignore. It is a reality in politics because it is a reality in society. What is a fact in society cannot be wished away in politics.
If regional aspirations are legitimate, as they indeed are so long as they do not conflict with national interests, what is wrong in caste-based aspirations so long as they do not rest on prejudices and do not cause social disharmony? Caste identity in India has a longer history than regional identity. Therefore, if people can have a legitimate attachment to their state or region, isn’t it understandable that they also have a legitimate attachment to their caste? Why then is the former considered democratic and the latter anti-democratic?
A caste-based party catering solely to one caste rarely succeeds. If it has to grow in a multi-caste and multi-faith society like ours, it has to necessarily reach out to beyond its core support base. Such social alliances have been bedrock of stability and progress in India’s diversity-based democracy. The era of coalitions has further accentuated the need for politics based on regional and social alliances.
Having said this, it must be clarified that caste-based politics often carries the danger of degenerating into casteist politics. It also has the potential to promote political and social fragmentation. Political formations and governments that draw their support mainly from a particular caste are prone to discriminatory behavior, as is indeed happening in Uttar Pradesh today. What is the way out? In my view, it lies in strengthening a political movement that respects legitimate aspirations of all castes; believes in the motto “sab jaati samaan; sab jaati mahaan” (all castes are equal and all castes are great); builds social alliances that embrace all castes and religious communities; and insists that regional and caste identities should be secondary and subservient to our national identity. We cannot altogether dissolve people’s regional, caste and community identities. But we certainly can, and should, make these lesser identities harmonious with the larger and common identity of India. Let us therefore ensure that all castes, sub-castes, religious communities and their internal segments are fairly represented in our democratic self-rule and, additionally, also ensure that meritorious candidates are elected irrespective of their identities.
(This column was first published in the Indian Express on Mar 15, 2009. You can write to Sudheendra Kulkarni at sudheenkulkarni@gmail.com.)
In Search of a Strong and Stable Government
by Sudheendra Kulkarni
Elections to the 15th Lok Sabha are only weeks away. Can anything be said about their outcome without the fear of being contradicted? Yes. First, there is no wave in favour of any single political party, although, given an alternative, people would like to vote for change at the Centre. After all, there is little in the performance of the UPA Government to suggest that it will be the beneficiary of a positive pro-incumbency vote. Second, the electorate’s natural preference would be for a strong and stable government, capable of lasting the full term of five years without being blackmailed and without falling to the temptation of bribing MPs to stay afloat, as Dr Manmohan Singh’s government did by enacting the cash-for-votes scandal.The reasons supporting the expectation that India should have a strong and stable government are so compelling that the point needn’t be stressed at all. The grave challenges to our national security posed by forces that have been exporting Terror to India; the alarming inadequacies in the governance system to tackle these challenges, as was glaringly exposed by the Mumbai terror attacks; the worsening political situation in Pakistan which is bound to further endanger our national security and social peace; the threat to livelihood security created by the worst economic crisis that our country has faced in recent times; the unmet expectations of crores of young Indians; and rapidly spreading corruption and criminalisation that is sapping the vitality of our political and governance systems—all these are troubling aspects of the pre-poll reality that nobody can deny. A weak, infirm and unfocussed government will not only fail to address these multiple problems, but actually render them more difficult to solve later.
Some leaders of smaller political parties are, of course, hoping for a verdict so fractured that neither of the two national parties—the BJP and the Congress—would be able to form the next government. This situation, they reckon, would place a new Deve Gowda or I.K. Gujral in the prime ministerial chair. Between 1996 and 1999, when four governments were destabilised, some leftist commentators bizarrely welcomed this debilitating bout of instability on the ground that it contributed to the vibrancy of Indian democracy. Actually, it was a situation tailor-made for the likes of Harkishan Singh Surjeet to play a role in national politics far weightier than his party’s parliamentary strength would normally permit. This time around, some wheeler-dealer politicos have been playing this role with far greater flamboyance and far less scruples in the post-nuclear deal phase of the UPA government. Those who delivered opposition MPs to the UPA during the crucial trust vote in July last at a price of around Rs 25 crore per MP are hoping that Elections 2009 would give them a larger scope to practise their sleazy brand of politics.Whose responsibility is it to ensure that the polls produce a stable and strong government? It lies on the shoulders of both the voters and the parties seeking their votes. Generally speaking, the voters’ own responsibility is not emphasised in the political discourse. But the time has come to do so by telling the electorate that a lot is at stake for the country. Let us not take our democracy for granted. Let us not subject India’s governance to the travails of weak and unstable coalitions. Deve Gowda’s Janata Dal, for example, had won only 46 seats in 1996. A repeat of that farcical experiment in government-making would be a sure prescription for moneybags to become more active and further pollute the political process. It would also tempt India’s enemies to hatch new conspiracies to further weaken our country from within by instigating the forces of terrorism, Naxalism and separatism.
Every election is a test not only for the contesting political parties but also for the voters. Democracy gets enriched only when both make an honest effort to act as per the lessons of previous elections. The Indian voter has the experience of voting in 14 Lok Sabha elections so far, and also in numerous Vidhan Sabha and local body elections. One of the lessons of this experience that deserves to be applied in April-May 2009 is this: voters should be guided primarily by national issues, and only secondarily by such legitimate concerns and considerations related to caste, religion, region and local factors. In short, every voter must vote, and vote responsibly.
Some readers might ask: “What makes you think that we do not vote responsibly? Reserve your advice on responsible conduct to political parties, who need it the most. Let Party A or Alliance X first prove that it is worthy of a decisive mandate.” Point taken. If no party or pre-poll alliance presents itself as worthy of winning more than 272 seats, it cannot blame the electorate for its failure.
Therefore, a big responsibility today rests on the shoulders of the two national parties—the Congress and the BJP. Congress has to work really hard because it carries a heavy burden of anti-incumbency, which is compounded by its quandary over the leadership issue. The BJP, on the other hand, carries the historical handicap of not being in the reckoning at all in several big states. Further, it has also squandered away precious time in the opposition battling internal problems rather than on presenting an attractive alternative agenda of governance and development. It should at least learn from its own recent debacle in the Delhi assembly elections that the voters are not interested in hearing only negative propaganda about the incumbent government. They want to know: “How will you be different?” There is very little time for the BJP to answer that question.
(This column was first published in the Indian Express on Feb 1, 2009. You can write to Sudheendra Kulkarni at sudheenkulkarni@gmail.com.)
Attacking the Aam Aadmi’s Swabhiman
by Sudheendra Kulkarni
In a recent interaction with my party’s young campaigners in the coming parliamentary elections, I asked them, “What is the first and foremost expectation of young people like you from the next government?” I was expecting them to say “employment”, “better education” and so on. One of them, an alumnus of IIT Delhi who studied and worked abroad and has now taken to political activism, gave a one-word reply: “Swabhiman” (self-respect).My instinctive interpretation of his answer was that he was referring to India’s honour and self-respect. “No, I am not talking about desh ka swabhiman and desh ka gaurav. Every patriotic Indian, belonging to any party, wants India to be heard, honoured and respected more by the international community. What I am referring to is the self-respect of ordinary citizens. When the aam aadmi deals with the Government in his own country, why is his self-respect routinely bruised? Why do government officers and employees behave with citizens as if they are our masters and we their subjects? Why do they make us feel that they are doing us a favour when the service or information we are seeking is our right as citizens? And, often, the ‘favour’ is done to us only after we have met their demand for bribes.”
The anger in his voice was rising after each sentence he spoke. “I am an entrepreneur. There was a matter in which I was taxed excessively. I contested the claim and, after a long delay, won the case. But the officer who was responsible for making the wrong claim would not give me the refund amount without a cut for himself. It is when I have experiences like these that I feel, with great pain in my heart, that Bharat is not Mahaan. I never had such an experience while working abroad, even though I was a foreigner there.”My young friend, who was wearing khadi kurta-pyjama, continued, “You know why I wear this? This is for my self-defence. It makes me look like a political VIP. And those in government offices and police stations behave a little more politely, and sometimes quite submissively, with neta-types. I hate this reality in India.”
My young colleague, who hails from Rajasthan, was indeed speaking for crores of ordinary Indian citizens. Elections come and go. Governments are formed and defeated. Yet, the way the government machinery deals with citizens doesn’t change much. From getting a ration card to registering an FIR, interfaces with the government for most people entail a harrowing experience.
In a recent column after 26/11, I had paid tribute to Hanif Shaikh, one of the heroes of the battle with terrorists at Nariman House in Mumbai. After some days, he became a victim of police misbehaviour in a minor traffic incident. He believed that his friend, who was riding the motorcycle, and he, on the pillion, were innocent. But he got a thappad (slap) in full public view for his impertinence in asking the cop what their fault was. The experience was so unsettling for him that he phoned me that night and said, “I decided to tell you about what happened to me because you wrote about me. Seeing my name in print made me feel good, although I didn’t do what I did for recognition or reward. After your newspaper mentioned my contribution, the office of the police commissioner informed me that I would be one of the citizens of Mumbai to be given a certification of appreciation at a special function on Republic Day. But I don’t feel like going for the function after the humiliation I suffered today.”
On my next visit to Mumbai, I met Hanif, who works at a small ice-cream parlour in Colaba, and took him to the local police station. The officer on duty was politeness personified. “If this boy and his friend were guilty of breaking the traffic rules,” I told him, “they should have been duly penalised under the law. But why was he beaten up? Does it do any good to the image of the police? And Hanif is not an ordinary boy. You surely know about the local citizens’ contribution, including Hanif’s, to Nariman House’s liberation by the NSG commandos.” The officer apologised for the misconduct of the traffic cop, patted Hanif on the back, and we left the matter at that.
But such assaults on citizens’ swabhiman are a daily occurrence in India. What an abominable situation it is that we have created a two-class society in India, of VIPs and non-VIPs, the former receiving special treatment from the officialdom and the latter denied even normal courtesies. Corruption, harassment, systemic apathy, and colossal delays and inefficiency are what law-abiding citizens often encounter in their interface with government. Of course, those who are deficit in honesty and surplus in ill-gotten wealth know how to work the system because they know how to hobnob with the VIP class.
Why have we failed to make the system respect the citizens more? It’s a complex problem, but some roots of it lie in the fact that the government has two parts—the democratically elected executive that is accountable to the people and has to seek their mandate; and the ‘permanent government’ of the bureaucracy that is largely unaccountable and remains unchanged even after Party A is voted out and Party B is voted in. It is high time the progressive section of our political class and leaders of civil society paid serious attention to reforming these “permanent rulers” to make them truly citizen-friendly. Good governance is being much talked about in the current election campaign. We can move towards this goal only by introducing radical citizen-centric reforms.
(This column was first published in the Indian Express on Mar 1, 2009. You can write to Sudheendra Kulkarni at sudheenkulkarni@gmail.com.)
Bringing Development to the Bahujan within the Bahujan
by Sudheendra Kulkarni
H.L. Dusadh is not the typical high-society Delhi intellectual one sees at the India International Centre and other usual places in the seminar circuit. He, like crores of other Indians, is a victim of linguistic discrimination that is as odious, if less subtle, as caste discrimination. For our intellectual establishment displays an arrogant notice at the entrance of its privileged enclave: ‘Entry only for those who speak English.’ Dusadh doesn’t, and most of his colleagues don’t. They write only in Hindi. But the work that they have produced on Dalit empowerment, with meagre resources at their disposal and no institutional research support, is voluminous in quantity, substantive in quality and displays a rare kind of transformational passion that only those with deep grassroots social involvement can summon.I consider myself fortunate in having come to know Dusadh and his group, which calls itself Bahujan Diversity Mission (BDM). We have been interacting for close to a year now. Our dialogue has been especially rewarding for me since it has somewhat bridged the differences that separate us. I am proud of my Hindu roots. Many intellectuals belonging to this group are religious rebels who are angry with traditional Hinduism. I work for the BJP, whereas they have no affinity with it. But if these differences have not come in the way of our interaction, it is partly because we have a common link in Dr Sanjay Paswan, a former BJP MP from Bihar who was also a minister in the Vajpayee government. I have always admired Paswan for his dedication to the cause of Dalits’ all-round progress. I was an avid reader of Vanchit Vaani (Voice of the Excluded), the magazine that he used to edit.
Dusadh, bespectacled, bearded, soft-spoken and frail on account of all the hardships he has faced in life, responded to Kanshi Ram’s call of ‘Pay Back to Your Society’ and made research and writing his lifelong activity. He believes that Kanshi Ram, founder of the Bahujan Samaj Party, was not merely an excellent organiser and a farsighted political leader but also an original thinker. Kanshi Ram’s principal goal was to achieve for Dalits social equality and economic empowerment. However, he was firm in his belief that this goal can be reached only by achieving “political influence initially, and political power ultimately.” Most of his life was spent in pursuing the first objective of making the BSP politically influential through ceaseless mobilisation of Dalit intellectuals, employees and masses. Towards the end of his life, the BSP also gained partial political power. His achievement was all the more remarkable since he succeeded where traditional Ambedkarite movements had failed?namely, in transforming mobilisation into legislative strength.Mayawati, Kanshiram’s successor, has taken the party considerably ahead along that path by adopting an unusual tactic of social alliance building?of bringing Dalits and Brahmins together in Uttar Pradesh. But the strategy, according to Dusadh and his colleagues, remains the same. Tactics are subservient to strategy.
I shall not dwell here on Dalit intellectuals’ dilemma over Mayawati’s brand of governance, characterised as it is by rampant corruption and, lately, criminalisation. It is the kind of dilemma that all politically committed intellectuals experience, to a lesser or greater degree, with regard to the parties they support. What interests me, instead, is the concept of ‘Bahujan Diversity’ that Dusadh and his colleagues have been advocating. Their basic proposition is well known: India’s social diversity is just not reflected in its economic profile. A small minority, belonging overwhelmingly to upper castes, is rich and privileged, whereas the majority (Bahujan), comprising the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, OBCs and others, is excluded from the nation’s progress and prosperity.
How can India’s social diversity be fairly represented in its development? Dusadh invokes a slogan that Kanshi Ram had coined: ‘Jiski jitni sankhya bhaari, uski utni bhaagidaari’ (Numerically proportionate share to each caste or social group). I consider this formula flawed and unworkable. Neither democracy nor any dynamic economic system can sustain it. Another flaw: India is an integral, united and self-reforming entity, not a numerical aggregation of separate and unchanging social groups.
But Dusadh, who is the president of BDM, and his colleagues have also been advancing a related concept of diversity promotion, which deserves serious consideration. Its primary virtue is that it takes the debate on affirmative action beyond the limits of reservation in jobs. For example, Dr Vijaykumar Trisharan, a BDM activist from Jharkhand, writes categorically that “Dalit liberation is impossible through reservations alone”. He calculates that the Government sector, with 1.94 crore employees, can give 45 lakh jobs to SCs and STs when quotas are fully implemented; additionally, the organised private sector, which employs only 87 lakh people, can give 19.57 lakh more jobs, if and when quotas are introduced in it. Thus, only 64.57 lakh SCs and STs can have quota-based jobs. Assuming an employed person supports a family of five, only 3.24 crore SCs and STs can benefit from the quota system. “Where should the remaining SC/ST population of 21.75 crore go and what should it do?” is the blunt question Trisharan poses.
I must confess that this is the first time I have across Dalit intellectuals so squarely and unambiguously positing the limitations of the quota policy. Reservations are, of course, justified and must continue. But aren’t we, as a society, morally and constitutionally duty-bound, to look beyond job quotas to bring tangible benefits of development to the bahujan within the bahujan (majority within the majority)?
As a solution to this problem, Dusadh and his colleagues have been advancing another diversity- promotion principle, which, according to me, has some merit. It is based on preferential treatment for SC/ST entrepreneurs, contractors and professionals in government purchases and contracts and also in the purchases and contracts of private sector companies that avail government support in one form or the other. It also envisages skill development, induction of science and technology inputs into traditional vocations on which large numbers of SCs and STs are dependent for their livelihood, and empowering them with beneficial market linkages without exploitative intermediaries. “Political parties should look beyond the B-S-P (bijlee, sadak, paani) model of development,” says Dusadh. “What matters ultimately is whether there is diversity in development.”
I agree.
(This column was first published in the Indian Express on Feb 22, 2009. You can write to Sudheendra Kulkarni at sudheenkulkarni@gmail.com.)
Democracy and the Five-Year Ritual
by Sudheendra Kulkarni
The other day I was talking to a fellow political activist about how to increase voter turnout on the polling day. Yes, we have formed booth-level committees, whose members are expected to conduct door-to-door mass contact. Yes, there is a campaign to reach out to first-time voters, whose number in the coming parliamentary elections is a staggering ten crore. But a question my colleague asked me seemed to raise fundamental questions about democracy itself. “Normally the turnout is around 60-65 per cent. Have we bothered to find out why the remaining 35-40 per cent don’t vote?” Nothing original about the question, but what it portends is worth probing.Some voters don’t vote because they face genuine difficulty on the polling day, but their number isn’t large. Some may not vote because they do not prefer any candidate on the ballot list. Their number too would be rather insignificant. Then there is the elite section of society whose members think it’s below their dignity to stand in line at the polling booth along with the aam aadmi. The largest number of people who don’t vote are those who think “What do we get by voting?” Theirs are the minds in which cynicism and impotent rage live.
However, let’s not think there are no cynics and angry people among those who vote. Many of them also wonder, “What do we get by voting?” It’s probably their sense of duty as citizens, or even the realisation that their vote has a certain power—and this realisation has been steadily increasing everywhere, including in a place like Jammu & Kashmir—which gets the better of their discontent. Let’s also accept that the use of power of the vote to get someone from one’s own caste or community elected is also an important consideration that brings voters to the polling booth.What has puzzled and agitated me since the time I voted for the first time in an election—and I am sure I share the sentiment of most voters on this point—is that the voter’s engagement with democracy ends once his or her vote is cast. The next engagement is, usually only after five years. During this period, the voters mostly have no voice, no forum to express their views, no activity or responsibility, barring what some self-motivated citizens do by keeping the flame of democracy burning. How can we make democracy more than a five-yearly voting ritual? How can we improve our democratic system as if the voter mattered? All of us learnt in our high schools, long before we became voters that democracy is of, by and for the people. It’s a wonderfully simplified encapsulation of a profound concept. How can we ensure greater functional content in ‘of’ and ‘by’ the people, so that democratic governance also becomes more manifestly ‘for’ the people? Here are five thoughts.
First, make voting compulsory by giving the option of ‘none of the above candidates’ option. Compulsion is justified because when a citizen enjoys the rights and freedoms in a democracy, he also has duties to perform, one of them being the duty to vote. When voting becomes compulsory, voters are more likely to become aware of their right to ask questions of their elected representatives, political parties and members of government.Second, it should be made compulsory, in some institutionalised way, for elected representatives, candidates and leaders of political parties to listen to voters. Today most of the communication is one way: leaders give speeches to people, but rarely listen to what the people have to say. And it would be wrong to think that the people only voice their personal grievances when they get an opportunity to talk to their MPs, MLAs or political leaders. They do have views and concerns to share about the larger issues facing the country. Many of them also have creative solutions to offer. After all, common citizens care as much about the nation as, if not more than, the leaders who hog the limelight. Sadly, their voice goes unheard because all political parties are more or less impervious to accepting ideas from ordinary citizens, much less making them participants in governance.
Institutionalisation of this two-way dialogue is a matter that needs wider debate. How about compulsory, well-structured and regular sessions for an MP to interact with his constituents? How about making it compulsory for an MP to respond to every representation coming from voters in his constituency, just as it is mandatory for a minister or a Government officer to reply to any letter coming from an MP? How about making it mandatory for an MP to present an annual report detailing his activities in Parliament, parliamentary committees, constituency, and spending under the MPLADS fund with some kind of social audit?Third, for the voters’ voice to be heard, it is necessary for them to be organissed. In Delhi, for example, the Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) have become powerful grassroots groupings, which deal not only with neighbourhood issues but, at the time of assembly or parliamentary elections, also as platforms for ordinary citizens to talk to candidates and campaigners. We need more such autonomous, non-political platforms that mobilise common people’s opinions.
Fourth, when it comes to nurturing the interaction between voters and their elected representatives, a huge disappointment is the functioning of the media. As the fourth pillar of democracy, the press enjoys enormous freedom, prestige and power, which are of course its due. Sadly, coverage of parliamentary news by the big media has plummeted alarmingly over the years. Not only voters but even MPs feel that they have no place in the media. Lok Sabha TV, in its present format, is a poor substitute to what the larger media can and should do. Clearly, owners and editors of privately owned media would do well to introspect if they are doing enough to promote vox populi.
Fifth, we now have a powerful new medium in the Internet to empower the voters. It can do what the traditional print and TV media are either loath to do or cannot do—give people a medium that they can ‘own’. Internet is indeed the greatest tool of democratic empowerment in human history. We in India need to devise ways of using it effectively to let the people speak truth to power.
(This column was first published in the Indian Express on Feb 15, 2009. You can write to Sudheendra Kulkarni at sudheenkulkarni@gmail.com.)
Choice before the Electorate: Karma Yogi or Vansh Bhogi?
by Sudheendra Kulkarni
D’Ocracy-D.E.M., beloved husband of T. Ruth, loving father of L.I. Bertie, brother of Faith, Hope, Justice, expired on 26th June
Does this make any sense to you? Does it have any bearing on the electoral battle that is about to comm.ence in India? Well, it was an innocuous if strange-sounding announcement in the ‘Obituaries’ section of the Bombay edition of The Times of India, in its edition on 27 June 1975. Of course, those who read it on that day and could decode its meaning knew that it was about the demise of Democracy, consequent upon the imposition of the Emergency by the then Congress government at the Centre.
Censorship had already been clamped. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had already sent stalwarts in the Opposition, including Jayaprakash Nararayan, Morarji Desai, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K. Advani and Chandrashekhar, into jail where many of them would spend the next nineteen months. Tens of thousands of trade union activists, lawyers, writers, journalists, civil liberty activists and political workers (the largest number of them from the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which was the previous avatar of the BJP) were subsequently imprisoned. Advani, one of the heroes of the struggle against the Emergency, writes in his 986-page autobiography My Country My Life that “a gutsy and imaginative democracy-lover had inserted the advertisement” in the newspaper as his own way of bemoaning and protesting the arrival of dictatorship in India.
The draconian Emergency rule may seem like a closed chapter now. Indeed, no government in present times dare trample upon India’s democracy the way it was done thirty years ago. No government dare molest the Constitution, assault the judiciary or postpone parliamentary elections, as was done then. Even a mild, albeit thoroughly ill-conceived, attempt, post-26/11, by the UPA government to control the electronic media had to be hastily abandoned due to all-round opposition. However, let us remember that if India has had peaceful, free and fair elections in the past three decades, and is going to have one more in April-May, it is because many brave and principled men and women ― some well-known like JP, Vajpayee and Advani and most others ordinary foot-soldiers like the person whose protest was in the form of an ‘obituary’ ad in a newspaper ― struggled and sacrificed for the cause of democracy.
Now that the basic edifice of democratic rule has been secured in our country, we need to wage other struggles for the cause of democracy. After all, the right to vote once in five years can hardly be the summum bonum of democracy. There are many mountains to be scaled, much rocky terrain to be traversed and many fierce currents to crossed in the forward march of democracy in India. Where is economic democracy in our country? Where is social democracy in our country? Do we have gender justice?
Those who have ruled India for the longest period since Independence have many questions to answer. But the responsibility to answer them is not of the Congress alone. All political parties, including the BJP, have a duty to introspect as they go out to seek votes in the coming elections. What is democracy to the tribals in Thane district in Maharashtra, almost next door to the country’s financial capital, where infants still die due to malnutrition? What is democracy to the debt-ridden farmers and handloom workers in Andhra Pradesh who are forced by circumstances to end their own lives? What is democracy if a quarter of our population is denied something as basic as access to safe drinking water, and nearly three quarters have no access to something equally basic like a proper toilet? And when we talk of lack of proper toilets, we are not talking about villages in Bihar or Jharkhand. We are talking about the rapidly proliferating slums in every Indian city. Who is, and what policies are, responsible for the alarming rich-poor divide in India? Can we continue with the current development model and hope that it will somehow deliver what we want it to deliver?
And what is democracy if the state cannot protect its people against cross-border terrorist attacks like the one that a horrified nation witnessed for three days in Mumbai last November? Like the ones that took place earlier in Guwahati, Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Ayodhya, Varanasi…? And what will happen to India if we cannot ensure communal peace and harmony, if globally fanned Islamist extremism takes advantage of widespread socio-economic backwardness among our Muslim brethren, and if extremism begins to infect Hindu society as well, as happened in Malegaon?
And what kind of democracy do we have where MPs can be traded like horses, as indeed happened in the “Cash for Votes” scandal that the UPA government enacted to save itself in July 2008? Where institutions of governance can be devalued and misused for self-protection, as was evident in the way the UPA government assisted Ottavio Quattrocchi, the prime accused in the Bofors scam, to go scot-free? A young man posted a question recently on Advani’s portal (www.lkadvani.in), worded in typical Hinglish, about the pathetic state of criminal justice system in India ― “If you are a chhota criminal, you may languish in jail even in a petty case. But if you are a bada criminal, netas will help you become gul without a trace!”
Hence, today the struggle needed is not for protecting the basic right to vote, the freedom of speech, press freedom, independence of judiciary or for safeguarding the basic structure of the Constitution. These struggles have been waged and won. What is needed is struggle for deepening and broadening the promise of democracy so that it delivers GOOD GOVERNANCE, DEVELOPMENT and SECURITY, which are the three main planks of the BJP’s election campaign.
In this struggle, we in the BJP are proud to be led by a lifelong Yoddha (warrior) like Advani. He is not a vansh bhogi He is a karma yogi. His ateet ki neenv is not dynasty, nor is projecting the latest member of the dynasty as India’s future leader the BJP’s concept of bhavishya ka nirmaan. (For the benefit of those who may not yet have seen the Congress campaign, I am referring here to hoardings that carry images of Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and a dull-looking Dr. Manmohan Singh, with a slogan that says: “Ateet ki neenv par bhavishya ka nirmaan” — Building the future on the foundations of the past.)
Advani entered public life before India became independent and his dedicated service to the nation has continued uninterrupted till now He has seen, and often participated in, every important political development in the history of independent India. For example, he was one of the architects of the Janata Party, formed after democracy’s triumph in 1977. Along with Vajpayee, he built the only party, BJP, which has emerged as a stable national alternative to the Congress. He served by Vajpayee’s side in the only non-Congress government that not only delivered on its promise of stability but also made India proud with several landmark achievements. In spite of being a national leader, his loyalty to his party to Vajpayee was so total that the BJP never witnessed the tremors of any power-struggle, which has been the bane of so many other parties. His integrity, as even his worst critics would admit, is unimpeachable. When the Congress government under P.V. Narasimha Rao slapped the false and motivated Hawala charge on him in 1996, he not only immediately resigned from Parliament but vowed not to contest an election until he was exonerated by courts. And acquitted he indeed was, with his honour further burnished and stature grown taller. Many of his critics call him “communal” because of the spirited leadership he gave to the Ayodhya movement. But none has explained the true context or purpose of this biggest mass movement in India’s post-1947 history more persuasively than Advani has in his autobiography.
A leader is to be judged by which seminal ideas he injects into the life of a nation. Advani has initiated a nationwide debate on two inter-related and critically important ideas: the true meaning of secularism and the true basis of India’s national identity. He has called the latter Hindutva or Cultural Nationalism. Interpreted wrongly and narrowly, it can cause a lot of harm to our national fabric. However, if it is understood in a broad and enlightened sense, the sense in which Advani has explicated in his book, it is indeed the guarantor of India’s survival.
And, last but not the least, Advani is a man of principle, in an era that has so few principled political leaders. He stood his ground after the baseless Jinnah controversy following his 2005 visit to Pakistan, which almost ended his political career. But just as the BJP rose like a phoenix after the 1984 election debacle, when it could win only 2 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha, he quickly rose to the top of the BJP and the NDA, becoming their unanimously chosen prime ministerial candidate for the 2009 parliamentary elections.
Age? Yes, he is 81. But judge him by his energy, day-long activity, constant travels around the country, enthusiasm, intellectual alertness, articulation, knowledge and experience, all of which are a product of his disciplined way of life, a life anchored in idealism He has on several occasions suggested that there should be live nationally televised debates between contending prime ministerial candidates. Is anyone ready from the Congress?
It is perhaps apt to sign off with another post from a visitor to Advani’s portal: “It needs wisdom and experience to run a country of 1.13 billion people, and people are not born with wisdom and experience.”