The Return of Rahul

                    The Return of Rahul

( Introspection Camp at Kedarnath. Rahul is lolling on one side. The advisers are ranged in two groups: The Group of Elders and the Group of Youngsters.)

Rahul:   Come on, chaps. Don’t keep on discussing ad nauseam and wasting the time. Tell me what to do.

Jyotir: We told you bluntly. Our advice is very clear. The first stage of introspection is to identify the key questions. And the consensus so far is that the foremost key question is: What is the problem?  

Rahul: Tell me again, I have forgotten. What is the problem?

Jyotir: To cut the story short, what is the problem is not the problem. Who is the problem is the problem. And the short answer is: You are the problem.

Rahul: That is cool. That is real cool. I give you inner party democracy. And you repay my debt by laying the entire blame on me.

Jyotir: Who else to hold responsible? If we had won, we would have assigned the credit to you.

Database manager:  It is my duty to inform you that today is the 30^th day. Our Supreme Command has decided that 57 days of introspection is the maximum that the nation will stomach!

Rahul: Exactly my point! We cannot stretch this introspection gimmick too far .Even Jesus Christ got only 40 days and nights in the desert.

Sachin: I have always said that Rahul’s sabbatical should be about a month.

Digvijay: You chaps count us as the older group. Age might be     a deficiency, but some of us are still fresh at heart. The youngsters are forgiven certain lapses as whimsical fads, but even these have to be within limits.

Ahmed: I agree. Every day that passes makes it more and more difficult for us to face the cameras and answer embarrassing questions.

Anand: They ask us what you are introspecting about, why it is taking so long, when the answer stares everyone in the face.

Rahul: What is that answer? Will somebody tell me?

Sachin: We told you just now.

Rahul: Sorry, I was not attentive. Would you kindly repeat it?

Sachin: You are the problem.

Rahul:  oh that?  Okay. I won’t contest that. Nobody is perfect. But do we have an option?

Diigvijay: No we don’t. And that is the tragedy. Now if Priyanka had been a boy…

Ahmed: No point dreaming up imaginary scenarios.

Anand: We have to make the best of a bad bargain.

In charge Tutorial Team: We tried our best. See what a hash he made of his interview with Arnab Goswami. After all that tutoring!

Jyotir: I don’t think   we are being fair to Rahul. You gave him some oneliners about gender parity, the role of women, the significance of bringing youth into mainstream politics, the crucial importance of RTI and lok Pal and so on.

Sachin: So whenever he wished to evade a question, he talked of inner party democracy, rights of women, RTI and the rest. And Arnab’s style everyone knows. The more Rahul tried to stray, the more   he brought him back to the track. Till it all became a joke.

Rahul: Yeah, a sick joke!     That is an Arnab speciality. I realised later why Modi had walked out of the studio when he tried to grill him on Gujarat riots. If Modi could not face him, what chance did I have?

 Anand: I think our Media Team   floundered on the decision to field Rahul in a one-to-one interview and the Tutorial Team did not coach him   well.

In charge Tutorial Team: It is easy to blame us. In these matters,     one has to think on one’s feet and improvise. That only comes with experience.

Sachin: Okay, forget about the interview.  Where did Rahul get out- manoeuvred by Modi during the   2014 Lok Sabha poll?

Digvijay:  I think Modi was lucky. He succeeded and nothing succeeds like success. He played several gambles and because    the time was auspicious for him,   all his moves      succeeded.

Ahmed: I agree. Look at how he got nominated as the prime ministerial candidate.   How he eliminated stalwarts like Joshi, Advani and Sushma. How he converted the election into a Modi versus Rahul contest as if it was a presidential poll   in the US.

Anand: Even jibes got converted into votes.  Mani Shankar tried to denigrate him as a Chaiwala’s son. He has converted that remark into his defining trademark. He is extremely clever.

Jyotir:  The trouble with all of us Indians is that we     respect cleverness, not honesty .Modi was able to get out of his scrapes with seeming ease. Look at how he did not let even a single court give     a finding against him for the Gujarat riots. He buried Snoop gate several fathoms deep.

Rahul: Sorry friends. I don’t think this introspection is taking us anywhere. To my mind, we should answer some pointed questions. Question 1: Why did the Congress lose? Question 2..

Incharge Database:  We have collected all the possible questions and surveyed them in opinion polls. In the hierarchy of importance these questions rank as under:

 1 to 10: Dynasty

11 to 20: Corruption

Jyotir: Hold on, let us not create a huge question bank and then get lost. Stay with Question 1.

Anand: I would say the Congress lost because of the Dynasty .

Sachin: What Dynasty? The Gandhis are not the only Dynasty in Indian politics. Jyotir is the Scindia dynasty, I am the   Pilot dynasty. You have the Karunanidhi dynasty, the Abdullah dynasty, the Yadav dynasty and so on and so forth.

Ahmed: Where does Dynasty not play a role? Look at the legal profession. Ram Jethmalani and Mahesh, Lakshmi Mal Singhvi and Abhishek, Shanti Bhushan and Prashant. The corporates are all dynasty. The entertainment industry is all dynasty. Why pick on poor Rahul?

Rahul: And how can bachelors like Vajpayee or grass widowers like  Modi create a dynasty?

Ahmed: I think this Dynasty business is a red herring. It is a good stick to beat Rahul with.

Digvijay:  Unfortunately, Modi makes it a telling point. He calls him the Shehzada. That makes the whole thing humorous, as if it is a scene from Mughal-e-Azam.

Sachin: I think you have   hit the jackpot. It is Modi’s gift of the gab that needs to be countered.

Jyotir: I agree. He is a very powerful speaker.

Incharge Tutorial Team: He has learnt the art of public speaking in the RSS. RSS pracharaks are speaking in the vernacular all the time. Atal Behari Vajpayee was an RSS pracharak. So was Modi . Rahul suffers from the usual problem of public school products. He has to get  the Doon  School out of his system. Even when he farts, he does so in an elongated Anglicised way

Rahul: I refuse to take note of such puerile remarks about my alma mater.

Ahmed: You make it sound as if learning one more language is impossible. What about Soniaji? When she first started speaking in Hindi, she had an Italian European accent. But today…

In charge Tutorial Team: We are working on it. We have hired three first rate RSS pracharaks to coach him. There is a good humorous phrase they have coined about the Modi Government being a “Soot boot ki sarkar”.

Rahul (vastly amused): Yes, yes, that “soot boot ki sarkar” is rich. I am going to use it as often as I can.

Jyotir: No, you are not. That is your problem. When you get hold of something, you wear it down to the bone.  (To In charge) Please give him a repertoire of thirty forty witticisms for the sake of variety. Okay?

Incharge: Okay. But he has to think up some jokes himself, learn to play around with words.

Rahul: So how does one play with words? Give an example.

Incharge: For example, Modi is converting his name into a mantra. He has coined the phrase “Ab ki baar Modi sarkaar.” Suppose we discover that like some traditionalist Hindus, he wears a topknot on the crown of his head. Topknot is called “Bodi”.     So you can twist his slogan to “Abki baar, bodi sarkar.”No urban youth would be found dead with a bodi on his head. Bodi is a symbol of  rusticness, being out of tune with modernity etcetra. Say it. See how it sounds.

Rahul: (with some awkwardness) Modiji kehte hain “Abki baar Modi sarkaar.” Everyone knows that Modi wears a bodi. So what it will really be like is “Abki baar bodi sarkaar.”

(The entire group of advisers breaks into a smile.)

Anand: That is not bad. Not bad at all. I am doubtful though that Rahul would know words like bodi, which are pure vernacular.

Incharge Database: You have not discussed corruption.

Sachin: Phooey! Is corruption an issue in Indian politics? Look at what Modi has done on corruption.

Jyotir: Or what he has not done. The black money in foreign banks has not come back to India. It is doubtful if there would be anything left in those accounts by the time our SIT reaches out to them.

Ahmed: Modi has not appointed the Lok Pal or the CVC or the CIC. He is merrily helping out his cronies by wholesale amendment of legislation that affects them.

Anand: And who the hell is bothered? I agree that corruption is a non-issue in Indian politics and always will be.

Digvijay: Our real problem is that of strategy. Rahul’s ghar wapsi should happen with a bang. We have to identify issues,   collect the crowds,   write Rahul’s speeches, send him to far-off places on padyatras and so on.

Jyotir: He should raise issues specific to segments of Indian society like the farmers, the landless labourers, the OBCs, the hill people, the tribals, the people living in deserts and coastal regions and so on…

Ahmed: You are right. Above all, he must not keep quiet. Indian politics is not about dignified silences. You have to be noisy, you have to be brash, you have to stage dharnas, walkouts, gheraos, demonstrations, processions …

Sachin: He must make a ruckus in Parliament every day.

Digvijay: The channels should have breaking news all the time about how Rahul has lashed out at the prime minister. Our database chaps should monitor his daily, weekly, monthly and annual output so as to keep him at the top of all the statistical charts…

Anand: Absolutely! I think you chaps have hit the nail on the head. HE SHOULD NOT KEEP QUIET. That is our takeaway from this introspection.

Rahul: Okay, I think we are now making some progress. Let us grab a bit of lunch. Thank you, friends. Rest a while. All this introspection must have worn you out. When I ran away to introspect, I was under the impression that it would be like an extended holiday, I will take several naps during the day and have plenty of rest. If I knew that maman mia would pack all of you after me and how tiring a simple thing like introspection could be, I would have opted for a course in Kungfu or jiu jutsu.

Okay, now let me play the role of Shehzada Salim in real life

.Takhliya…

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 (curtain)

The Farce called Electronic Media

Silly point


The farce called electronic media



                      There was a time when Times Now claimed to be the most watched show on television. Arnab Goswami was touted as the most ardently watched anchor. A time came when reams of newsprint was devoted to a close analysis of the reasons for the immense popularity of Newshour.

                    Experts pointed out the reasons for the mass appeal . Arnab was famous for posing a question and then refusing to hear the answer. The most frequently made request of the panellists was a plaintive, ““Let me have my say, Arnab!” or “ If you are not interested in what we have to say, why call us for a discussion?”

                     Meanwhile, Goswami would pronounce his verdict as soon as he popped his question. Obviously, he had a tremendous research team which collated all the facts for him, he had access to all the documents. He read all the articles that had appeared in the print media. He did not have any sides or ideologies.

                     So obviously he was the best fitted to pronounce an objective verdict on a contentious issue. He knew it and used his advantages to the hilt.

                     The other merit of his programme was that there was no discipline of any kind. Arnab gave the lead by interrupting all the panelists without a by your leave. Often he would egg on the silent ones by saying, “this is an open discussion. So feel free to make your point as soon as you feel like it.” He never interrupted a heckler to make him hold his tongue. He never advised the participants to observe the niceties of a debate on national television and speak only when called upon to do so. And whenever he felt the decibel count too low, he would add to the cacophony by shouting, “You have much to answer for., Mister Jyoirmoy Sarkar… you have much to answer for , Mister Jyotirmoy Sarkar.. “   Ad infinitum till other hecklers joined the fray and raised the decibel count to acceptable peaks.

                    I once advised a former top bureaucrat    to join the Newshour debate on an important topic concerning the civil services.. He said witheringly that he had no  intention of projecting a postage stamp face and    be hardly visible or audible unless he became a party to the shouting brigade.

                   These days when one has time, one surfs from one news channel to another. Increasingly, one finds the other anchors trying to out-Arnab Arnab. There was a time when Rahul Shiv Shankar seemed to be a sedate equable personality following all the rules of a college debating society. Now he specializes in calling friends from Pakistan and the separatists from Kashmir and not letting them speak. He pontificates at them and when he loses steam brings into play stalwarts like Marouf and General Bakshi and Ashok Pandit, who can be depended upon in shutting up the enemies within and without.

                   Rahul himself is unable to get in a phrase edgewise and is reduced to saying in a plaintive refrain, ‘Just a second, just a second, just a second...” but no one gives him that crucial second.

                      While on this subject, we should ruminate over the elasticity of time on television.  The anchors often say, “Okay, let us wind up the discussion. You have five seconds each”.  One wonders how elastic those seconds are, as the voluble speakers keep on letting forth steam and sputum for interminable minutes.

                       The antithesis to Arnab Goswami is the patrician Karan Thapar, whose personality exudes the sedateness of the family background (he is the son of General Thapar, a Chief of army staff and a product of Doon School and St. Stephen’s ) and his earlier stint on the BBC. He has imbibed the steely look of “Hard Talk” and can look chillingly satirical and silence his interviewee with an imperious gesture.

                      But Indian television has injected a desi flavour to  his biting sarcasm   and sometimes his subjects turn around and give him a dose of his own medicine. Over the years, he has lost some of his pungency and looks almost human at times. Especially at the end of an interview when he masks his wolfish teeth with a genial smile.

                         The other Rahul ( Kanwal)         of TV Today has a pleasant face and  warm smile. He has no obvious skews in his coverage of news and views.

I like Rajdeep Sardesai the best. He has lustrous eyes and is well up with the facts, but he does not ride rough shod    over his interlocutors. Like his father, he plays cricket and tries to be balanced in his approach. His conclusions come at the end of a programme and seem to be derived from the tenor of discussion.

                         But the fact that the Editor’s verdict comes sharp on the heels  of the debate seems to arouse the shrewd suspicion that his observations  are a foregone conclusion drafted by Sagarika Ghose and his team of advisers.

                           And the story of how Reliance bought up TV 18 in order to get rid of Rajdeep and Sagarika and their mentor Raghav Behl is a scathing comment on the farce called electronic media on Indian television.

The Endgame in Kashmir

Silly point


The Endgame in Kashmir


Sarvanand is the pen name of an astute Kashmiri Pandit, who has been a close observer of the mind games being played out over the decades in Kashmir. He was for long in the Intelligence Bureau and was involved in the manufacture of half the tales spun out by the mandarins of North Block.                
Long after he retired, he once wrote a masterful analysis of why the Kashmir problem could never be resolved. He proved beyond a shadow of doubt that all the parties to the struggle, in India, Pakistan and the valley were vitally and personally interested in an indefinite continuance of the struggle. People remarked that Sarvanand had always been known to be a maverick, but this time around he had really exceeded the outermost limits of forthrightness and was bordering on effrontery. He had been brutally frank and had revealed the innermost secrets of the army brass, the ISI, the RAW, the separatist lobby, the Panun Kashir crowd, the Pakistani Rangers, the BSF, the Americans, the Russians, the Afghans, the Chinese… everyone, every blessed one of them.

They all privately admitted that Sarvanand should not have said what he did, but there was no doubt that he was unfortunately right.

He was the Editor-in-chief of the premier community journal being brought out from Delhi. The uproar over his editorial was so strident that he had to be removed from his position. So much for freedom of speech and expression!

I recently had a long chat with Sarvanand and wanted to know what he made of the present situation. To my rational mind, Modi had been taken for a ride by Mufti Mohammad Syed. He had made Modi believe that India could keep Kashmir and hold it too, and that Mufti would help him in this enterprise. I said that Mufti was an old campaigner and Modi a comparative novice, and that although Modi was a shrewd player, this time he had met his match and he was all set to lose.

To my surprise, the usually disenchanted Sarvanand said that he felt in his bones that the Kashmir Problem had finally met its Master Player. For the first time, the Indian side had a plan. It was somewhat convoluted like a game of chess, where a player had to have the capacity to anticipate the opponents’   twentieth move ahead, but there was a Plan.

Modi’s opening gambit was the vociferous selling of Mission 44. He launched a blitzkrieg of a media campaign to assert that the BJP would bag 44 seats in the Assembly. And because he had taken UP by storm against all odds, there was a credible possibility that Mission 44 just might succeed. Delhi had not happened as yet. Modi had a dark suspicion that the results of the Delhi poll might not be as sanguine as that in U.P. So he delayed the polls in Delhi as much as possible.

This was the first master move. Mufti and the separatist lobby   fell into the trap. They outwardly called upon the people to boycott the polls, but their secret call was for 100 per cent turnout. They failed to perceive that Modi had no possibility of achieving Mission 44. He had merely floated a canard so that the voter turnout would be an all-time record. He could then claim ( as he later vociferously did ) that the common people in the valley were happy with the Indian constitution, they had a deep and abiding faith in the electoral process, and thus could be said to have rejected the options of independent Kashmir or  Kashmir as a part of Pakistan.

In the second phase, Modi wanted to show Mufti in his “true” colours. Mufti had pretended to be anti-India and pro-Pakistan, but he had negotiated with his arch-enemy, the outrageous emblem of a saffron India, the BJP, for forming a government of sorts in Kashmir. His main strategy should have been to keep the BJP out at all costs. But he wanted to be the Chief Minister and only an alliance with his arch- enemy could place the crown on his head. By starting a long-drawn out negotiation process, Modi was able to demonstrate that Mufti was only interested in his own coronation and as far as he was concerned, the people of Kashmir could go to hell!

Mufti was now in a double fix. His popular ratings had plummeted to  an all-time low. He could have broken off the negotiations and clambered on to the moral high ground.  But age was against him and this was probably the last time he would come within striking distance of the crown.
This is where Modi showed his genius as a player, said Sarvanand. Since the day he took over as Prime Minister he had led Pakistan a merry dance. He was cordial, even effusive with Nawaz Sharief. He shook hands with him and embraced him; he presented a sari to his mother. And when his guard was down, he stabbed him in the back. He made a great houha over the Pakistani High Commissioner calling the Geelani and party for their annual cup of tea. He cancelled the Foreign Secretary level talks. He even told the Indian troops to inflict maximum damage on their Paki counterparts. Sharief did not know what had hit him.

And come Republic Day when Modi was able to persuade the first citizen of the USA to attend the festivities and not pay the customary call on Islamabad on his return journey. Sharief was now in an absolute tizzy.

In their disturbed state of mind, all that Mufti and his Pakistani mentors could think of was the strangely incongruous remark that Mufti made minutes after he took the oath of office as Chief Minister. He expressed thanks to Pakistan and the separatist lobby in the valley for letting the election process to be smoothly conducted.

But people of Kashmir are not fools. They noted the fact that Mufti had dragged the negotiations on till the BJP conceded the Chief Ministership to him for all of six years.

Now Mufti was really in a soup. He tried to redeem himself by releasing Masrat Alam and letting Andrabi hoist the Pakistani flag and lead a squad of burqa-clad women in singing the Pakistani national anthem.

But Modi refused to intervene in the matter and thereby put the problem back on to Mufti’s plate. Resultantly, the PDP spokesperson was forced to concede that the State Government’s decisions to arrest Alam and register an FIR against Andrabi were based on the procedure laid down in law, and had not been taken under political pressure from the Centre.

So what is the state of the game today, Sarvanand asks. Today, the PDP comes off as a party prepared to sell Pakistan and its agents if they are allowed to rule the state in peace for six years. And BJP is the Good Samaritan only interested in the welfare of the flood-hit people of Kashmir.

Sarvanand is sore at the channels which project the riff raff separatists as anti- national villains, who deserve to be condemned on prime time television. Left to himself, Modi would have killed these nonentities not in encounters with the security forces, but just by ignoring them.

What is the endgame that is being played out now, I ask Sarvanand. He has advised me to keep an alert, watchful eye on Modi’s schemes for promoting the welfare of individuals, subsidising the hotel and tourism industry, persuading the film units to recreate the magic of the romantic sixties, rehabilitating the displaced families and distributing munificent largesse to persons devastated by the natural calamities and so on.. He is just waiting for the Durbar move, when the government shifts to Srinagar, says Sarvanand.

That will be the time for the final moves and checkmate!

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Silly point

                          Mother Teresa and All That

The latest remark by the RSS chief that Mother Teresa‘s sole motive in the so-called service of the poor was a desire to convert them to Christianity has sparked off yet another needless controversy. This is singularly unfortunate, because such comments tend to project a strangely unfamiliar face of Hinduism which has had a highly tolerant attitude towards religious debate and discourse.

One of the earliest encounters of the Sanatana Dharma was with the Parsis. These adherents of Zoroastrianism had to run away from their native Persia because of trouble there. When they arrived by ship in what is modern Gujarat, the ruler welcomed them to his kingdom.  He expressed the hope that they would sweeten the social dialogue just as sugar sweetens milk. The Parsis have since been proving his strangely prophetic remark right.

The first happenstance recorded with Christianity was when Jesus Christ himself appeared before the King of Kashmir. The story unravelled by Christian scholars themselves alleges that Jesus survived his crucifixion and his disciples managed to smuggle him to India.     Contemporary records have been cited to show how the encounter went off. Jesus apparently told the King that he was Yeeshu and wanted permission to settle down and propagate his teachings. The King extended a warm welcome to him and said that he was at liberty to spread his faith.

This story might be apocryphal, although its proponents have discovered the tomb of Jesus at a place appropriately named Christabal in Srinagar, Kashmir. But no one can deny the palpable presence of a sizeable Christian population in Kerala,. They call themselves Syrian Christians. They trace their origin to the early Christians who were persecuted in their native Syria and sought shelter in Kerala, coming in by the sea route long before Vasco da Gama had officially “discovered” the sea route to India!

The Hindus have had a singularly relaxed approach to religious debate. We have never given total primacy to a single book. Even the Vedas which are supposed to be acceptable to all Hindus have been challenged with impunity. Hindus never gave themselves a name. The very phrase “Hindu” has not been coined by them. It is supposed to be a play on the word “Sindhu” and was used to refer to people living beyond the river Sindhu.

Even “Aryan” does not refer to the Hindu faith . In Sanskrit texts, the word was used to refer to persons of dignity and grace. A woman would address  her husband as “He Arya!” meaning “O Exalted One!”

The nearest anyone came to give Hinduism even a name was when it    was referred to as “Sanatana Dharma”, which was translated by Aldous Huxley as “the Perennial Philosophy”.

Hindus never let their faith freeze into a mould that could not be broken. Far from denying people the right to challenge established interpretations of the scriptures, they invented the hugely popular mode of “Shastrartha”, literally “ deciphering the meaning of the scriptures”. Debate and discussion was encouraged and the common people thronged to assemblies where such debates took place.

It is out of such fertile exchanges of ideas that our ancestors discovered the three major ways in which a human being could encounter the vast totality that confronted him. The Dwaita(doctrine of dualism) which saw the divine as the other, Vishishtadwaita( the doctrine of qualified monism) . And Advaita which saw the human and the divine as a single unity, the One without a Second.

Hinduism has had the strangely assimilative power of accepting everything and rejecting nothing. Brahmo Samaj was a peculiarly Hindu response to the modern encounter with the faith that accompanied our British rulers. The Hindus were ready to worship Jesus along with the myriad other gods and goddesses they already boasted of.

Let us not forget that Swami Vivekananda came to Ramakrishna Paramhamsa after being first attracted to the Btahmos.

This assimilative power was demonstrated most dramatically in the case of Buddha. Buddha gave a strong challenge to the Vedas by saying, “Never accept anything because the Buddha says so. Never accept something because the ancient scriptures say so. Nor because your elders say so. Only that which appeals to your intellect and you find practical on the basis of your own experience, accept only that.” When asked to sum up the gist of what he taught all his life, Buddha said, “Be a light unto yourself”

The Hindus assimilated Buddha on two fronts. On the one hand, Buddha was added to the Hindu pantheon and became one of the Avatars of Vishnu. On the philosophical front Shankaracharya stole his thunder by inventing Advaita Vedanta, which is nothing but Buddhism in Sanskrit!

The response of the RSS supremo to the challenge posed by Christianity to Hinduism is not in tune with the traditional defence mechanisms invented by the Sanatana Dharma to remain in business.

He could learn something from the following stories which suggest a more interesting response.

A Muslim claimed that islam had a unique doctrine in the concept of Aakhriyat.That is, there had been thousands of prophets in the past but Mohammad was the last. A wag replied that Indians had propounded the doctrine of Aakhriyat thousands of years before Islam. Look at the theory of Avtars. Vishnu had only ten Avtars. The tenth , the Kalki was always coming but never actually came! Look at Buddha. There were millions of Budhisattvas before him. Buddha was the last! Look at Mahavira. He was the twenty fourth Teerthankara and predictably the last.

The true unity of faiths can be seen in their strictly commercial approach. In a village that boasted of all the three faiths, a Hindu pujari, a Muslim Mullah and a Sikh Granthi met for their usual gossip session after lunch. The pujari said that he had kept a donation box in the temple. Whatever the devotees put in the box went to God, what was thrown on the floor was his. The Mullah said that he spread a green cloth in the prayer room. What fell on the cloth went to Allah, he took the rest. The Granthi said that he spread a white chaddar before the Granth Sahib. After the prayers, he picked up the chaddar and lofted the offerings to Waheguru in the sky. Whatever was kept by Waheguru was his, what came back to earth was the Granthi’s.

The RSS supremo should learn a lesson from this story. We know that there is a commercial angle to Hindutva. Such statements might be good for the worldly success of the RSS. But the damage that they cause to the BJP government is incalculable. Many astute observers claim that it is the shenanigans of the saffron brigade that catapulted Kejariwal to victory in the recent Delhi polls!

Well might Narinderbhai sing a couplet from a famous Urdu ghazal:

                              Dushmanon ke siitam hamen manzoor

                               Doston ki wafa se darte hain

( I can well accept the torture inflicted by enemies

What I fear most is the loyalty of my friends! )

                                                                        M.K.Kaw

Silly point

Niti Aayog or Atithi Aayog?

When I first heard   the policy pronouncement of the new Government that the Planning Commission was going to be abolished, I felt like celebrating. Since the early sixties when I joined service I have harboured a deep-rooted prejudice against this leviathan.

The reason was simple. Even a blind man with his eyes bandaged could plainly perceive the incandescent truth that the Deputy Commissioner and the Superintendent of Police were the two draught animals who pulled the bullock-cart of peace and progress in the field. Yet the Planning Commission was totally blind to this reality. So much so that the revenue and police were the only departments which did not have a plan scheme to their name.

Resultantly, the patwari who had been around since Sher Shah Suri and Raja Todar Mal did not have a patwarkhana to run his office cum residence from. The most decrepit ramshackle huts were the police stations which had existed since the Kali Yuga began. And the brand new buildings and gleaming vehicles belonged to the pampered sons-in-law of the Yojana Ayog, the Block Development Offices and the Irrigation department guest houses.

As I progressed up the hierarchy, the sightlessness of the Planning Commission became even more evident. Whether required or not, there was always money available for plan schemes. Literally not a naya paisa was allotted to the non-plan budget under which existing assets had to be manned, maintained and sustained. Very soon I joined a select band of officers who clamoured for the distinction between plan and non-plan expenditure to be abolished. Whenever I could, I diverted funds to the patwarkhanas and police stations.

When the Government was annoyed with me for pleading the cause of Tata Singapore Airlines, what better parking lot for me than the Principal Advisership in the Planning Commission? I looked around and found some of my best friends also cooling their heels as Principal Advisers. We were led by no less a personality than the redoubtable Naresh Chander Saxena, who was ranked as the topper of the 1964 batch. I spent the one year of my vanvaas in dreaming up a scenario of an India minus the denizens of Yojana Bhavan.

The Deputy Chairman was Jaswant Singh, who was a most interesting conversationalist. He had a soft husky voice which was orchestrated by Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony while the blue smoke rose in peaceful vertical streams towards the nearly invisible ceiling of a softly lit room. Although he was a retired army major, he did not possess the warlike demeanour of some of the mustachio’d Generals who engage in slanging matches with their Pakistani counterparts in Arnab Goswami’s Newshour. I suspect that he was too gentlemanly to shout at the likes of Rabri Devi in the annual discussions with the States. His soft exterior encouraged me to present a blueprint for the abolition of the Planning Commission. Jaswant Singh did not bat an eyelid. That was 1999.

So when I heard the announcement by the new Government that they were going to write finis to the Planning Commission, for a second I thought that someone had reactivated my 1999 paper. I waited anxiously for the contours of the new body to emerge, trying to imagine how the new babus would bring about cooperative federalism in this country. I wondered whether they would recall the criticism that all the previous regimes had buried fathoms deep the only constitutional body which could have ushered in cooperative federalism in this country, namely the Inter State Council , while they tinkered around with an illegal enterprise called the Planning Commission which had emerged from a mere resolution of the Government of India.

The suspense is over. People are bound to say that it is old wine in new bottles. There is no dearth of cadgey critics in this country who will recall that the Janata Government had replaced Indiraji’s Garibi Hatao programme alias Integrated Rural Development Programme alias India’s War on Poverty by the Hindutva-sounding Antyodaya programme. They will comment that the more things seem to change in Delhi, the more they remain the same!

They will refuse to see the absolutely novel features of the new incarnation. There used to be some Cabinet Ministers in the Commission. Now they are called ex officio members. Full-time members have been reduced to two. Much of the work will be done by part-time members and short-term consultants, who will come and go. The member Secretary has been rechristened as Chief Executive Officer or CEO, thus giving the think-tank a corporate flavour.  There used to be a National Development Council consisting of all the Chief Ministers. Now there will be regional meetings of the CMs of the BIMARU region, the CMs of the north-eastern region, the CMs of the Himalayan region, the CMs of the Southern region and the CMs of the Western region. They will focus on the problems of           each region separately. That is “cooperative federalism” at last.

Alas! My Kashmiri genes rebel. I have essentially a very simple mind. I liked Modi’s simple solution to an age-old problem when he decreed that you can attest a document yourself; you need not hunt for a gazetted officer. Absolutely fine! I would have liked it even better if he had abolished the concept of the official gazette altogether. As also the concept of a gazetted officer!

I had sent a simple proposal to Narinderbhai. Reduce the number of gazetted holidays from 16 to three. Make it a six day week. Do not let employees take their mobile phones to their tables. Don’t let them go for interminable cups of tea in the Canteen. Serve the tea free, hot and steaming, at their work tables. These simple steps will raise the productivity of the babus by a factor of eight.Try it, Narinderbhai.

Administration is basically very simple. Take the question of a biometric identity card. There was a tussle between the MHA and the Planning Commission, between the Aadhar and the National Population Register. Transfer the Aadhar to the MHA. Let them merge the databases. This simple gambit will save thousands of crores. Try it, Mr. Prime Minister.

The solutions are well known. What is missing is the action. Who does not know that if the third level of governance is established, benefits will start reaching the common man in the village and the town. Yet only a handful of states have brought this revolution about on the ground.

Everyone knows that if you can guarantee the provision of about fifty basic services to the masses through legislation that mandates time limits to such provision on pain of penalties to be imposed on the babus who prevent such guaranteed supply, things will improve dramatically.

Everyone knows that if you construct small check dams, you can prevent soil erosion and raise the water levels and transform the productivity of agricultural operations.

Who does not know that a simple rule that a Chief Minister can appoint whosoever he wishes as the Chief Secretary but cannot remove him without the okay by a Civil Services Board, can galvanise the administration?

Millions of such simple totkaas lie buried in reports of Commissions and Committees. All we need is implementation. If the Niti Aayog selects only five such totkaas every month and reviews the implementation in two committees, one of Chief Secretaries for the States and one of Secretaries to the Govt. of India for the Central Govt. that will be enough. There will be a revolution in the country.

Modi is a doer. I hope he reads the G files India and implements the ideas retired babus delineate without fear or favour every month.

For us delhiwallahs he has solved all the problems by the right choice of two stalwarts. The two major difficulties we face are traffic and sanitation. By choosing Crane Bedi as the Chief Minister-designate, he has solved the problem of traffic. By appointing Sindushree Khullar the former NDMC chief as the CEO of the Niti Aayog, he has ensured a Swachh Delhi.

What more can we ask for?

Endpiece: Now whether he calls it Niti Aayog or Atithi Aayog where he can call his NRI friends for short-term consultancies over an extended holiday, it does not really matter.

Kaw caw

Teaching maths to Amrit

Ever since my grandson Amrit secured 50% marks in the quarterly test in his Maths paper, our relations have progressed to a distinctly higher level. Urvashi, his mother, has realised that the old man who was giving him tuitions for the past three months has not achieved much. He just pocketed the Rs. 500 he got as the tuition fee.

“Daddy!” she bleated, “His concepts are not clear. He does not understand what subtraction means. You will have to start from basics.”

That evening while I sat on the computer, I overheard my wife teaching math to Sandhya, our maid’s daughter.

“Look,” she said, “You have ten beans with you. Amrit snatches three away. So how many beans are left with you?”

“Three,” said the brilliant Sandhya, with a beatific smile on her chubby face.

“How?” shrieked my wife, almost tearing her hair in fury. “How?”

“You said that Amrit snatched three away from her. So that is why.” Sandhya paused, waiting to get a shabaash from Mummy.

“What is wrong with you? I have explained ten times to you already. You had ten beans. Here are the ten beans. (Raj actually took out a bunch of beans from her pocket and placed these in front of Sandhya. ) Now, Amrit! you take three beans away from her. (Amrit, mischief writ large on his face, who was just waiting for an excuse to disturb Sandhya’s lesson, pounced on the opportunity and took away all the ten.) “So how many beans are left with you, Sandhya? “

Sandhya looked tearfully at Mummy and the vacant floor in front of her. “None, Mummy, none. He has taken them all!”

“Amrit!” shouted Raj. She tried to feign anger. But Amrit is our youngest grandson and has an innocent cherubic face. No one can be angry with Amrit for long.

“Why have you taken them all?” screamed Raj.” You were supposed to take only three.”

“ I took them all so that I can win the game.” Amrit patiently explained.

“What game? This is not a game.”

“If this is not a game, why am I taking beans away from her? Is it not like cricket? The more runs you make, the better your chances of winning the match.”

“No,” shrieked his grandmother. “This is not a game. It is not like cricket. I am trying to teach mathematics to Sandhya.”

“Then, teach her mathematics. Where did the beans come in?” Amrit wanted to know.

“I give up. This fellow will give me a nervous breakdown one day. He has such fundamental doubts.”

I could not bear to see her agony any longer. Intervening, I said, “You are tired, Raj. Let me try and make his concepts clear.”

Next evening, Amrit came with his “Enjoying Mathematics” textbook. We started on the lesson on Fractions.

“Look, Amrit. We have one cake. There are two boys to share it. How much will each get?”

“½”, said the genius.

“And suppose there are three boys to share the cake. How much will each of them get?” I continued.

“1/3”, said the latter day Ramanujam.

“Wonderful! That is correct. Now tell me, will the first group get more cake or the second group?” I asked.

Amrit appeared to think hard. At last he ventured, “The second”. He looked anxiously at my face, trying to guess whether his answer was correct. I must have been transparent, because he hastened to add, “No, no. the first.”

“Think carefully. Is it the first or the second?”, I countered.

“I am not sure,” he said at last.

“Why are you not sure? If the concept is clear, the answer should stare you in the face.”

He looked at me with a blank expression. And our parry and thrust went on for an hour. In between the lad took a break for potty, to take an orange and to eat a bowl of namkeen. At last his concentration broke down completely and I let him go.

Next evening when he came to me to learn the basic concepts,  I confronted him with a piece I had written about his struggle with Mathematics.

“What will you do with it?” he asked.

“Have it published in Naad” ,I replied.

“No. You cannot do that. I will delete it from the computer,” he threatened.

“You will be immortal Twenty years later when your son goes to DPS, ‘Teaching Maths to Amrit’ will be one of the lessons anthologised in the English textbook. And your son will smile and say, ‘How unlike you he is, Papa! You are a Ph.D. in Mathematics. And look at this Amrit.’ “

“Fortunately for you there will be no author’s name in the lesson. It will be shown as ‘Anonymous’.”

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GETTING OLD

kawcaw

Getting Old

When I was a young stripling, my birthday was celebrated with great éclat. The family was still in Srinagar. The Maharaja was on the throne. Shevur Bayu was our family priest and he used to come to our house in Mallapora, Bana Mohalla.

The Janamdin Pooja was a long drawn out affair. The climax came when Shevur Bayu took out a new Janeyu from his bag and put it around my neck while reciting the Gayatri Mantra. At the end he blessed me with long life. The words were “Jeevo tvam sharadam shatam” (May you live for a hundred years!)

At that time I was innocent and hundred years seemed to be a reasonable span of life. One did not see many centenarians around and a century appeared to be just the right age for exiting from this life.

Now that I am seventy three, and victim of the multitudinous maladies that the metropolitan flesh is prey to, a span of 100 years appears to be too long. Even the smallest task has become burdensome.

Can there be anything simpler than making water? An enlarged prostrate renders even this puny chore irksome and fraught with dangers.

The other day I was returning home from a public meeting. I should have reached home in twenty minutes. Unfortunately we were caught in a traffic jam. One hour and   we had just reached Niti Bagh. Meanwhile, the bladder had started pressing the panic button.

What to do? The Prime Minister may exhort this nation of 125 crores to bring about a Swachch Bharat. The youthful Aamir Khan might berate the persons pissing by the roadside. But if the municipality does not build urinals at 15 minute intervals by the roadside, what is the old man with his swollen bladder to do?

The problem becomes even more acute if you are travelling in a posh colony like Greater Kailash. There are uniformed guards outside each bungalow, whose main occupation seems to be to protect their owners’ property from urinary attacks. You hope and pray for a house under construction with lot of building material strewn around and no bright flood-lights.

The matter does not end there. I recently participated in a half-an-hour discussion on this crucial subject in the pensioners’ corner of our Ornamental Park. Speaker after speaker described the great travails they are subjected to even when they have secured access to a toilet.

In old age, and especially in winter, the chief instrument of action is shrivelled and shrunk to a pale shadow of his youthful self. Your hand searches and seeks but all in vain. Even when this non-performing asset  is located, he refuses to open up. He has to be persuaded and cajoled into assuming his active form.

When  at long   last the stream trickles out in a thin yellow streak, it does not make a positive forthright statement, but comes out in multiple sprinkles and droplets, some curving inside to wet your trousers, others besmirching the toilet floor. There is lot of humming and hawing . At the end, when the lad has ostensibly finished his oration, there are some last minute addenda.

 As the poet has said,

“Howsoever you may shiver, jiggle and shake,

 Some drops are bound to wet your innerwear make.”

That is the tragedy of old age.

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