UPA 2 : When Politics Trumps Institutions

The following mid-term perspective of the UPA2 rule was written for Centre Right India and published on their site here: http://centreright.in/2011/11/upa-2-when-politics-trumps-institutions/

Pasting the whole article below :)

‘I have orders from above.’

When a minister of state (with independent charge) in the union Cabinet says this to his officials, what does it mean?

'I have the blessings of my leader'

When the Home Minister of this country is asked a question, "Do you have the confidence of your leader?" after multiple terror attacks, he answers "I have the blessings of my leader". So who is the leader that the Home Minister is referring to?

"He almost warned that even if the Bill is passed by the Cabinet, he would complain to the UPA leadership"

This report says that Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar was upset about a sports bill (yep, you are reading this right. The agriculture minister was opposed to a sports bill, for the obvious reasons!) that was presented to the Cabinet and therefore in the cabinet meeting (which by the way, many ministers from the allies skip), said he will complain to the UPA leadership. What did he mean by "leadership"?

Back in High School, in our civics lessons, we were taught that the Prime Minister is the most powerful person in the country. We were told that all ministers report to him. We were taught that he/she is the ultimate authority when it comes to decision making. In fact when one is preparing for any state or central service examination, an entire chapter is devoted to explain about the authority and responsibilities of the Prime Minister. As assignments, students are made to write short/long essays on this authority of the Prime Minister of India.

So based on our high school experiences, the answer to all three questions above should have been the Prime Minister.

Alas! Two-and-a half years into the second term of UPA (more pompously called UPA 2.0), it is now time to either rewrite all those lessons or have an addendum - "all general rules have an exception, Dr. Manmohan Singh is an exception to term 'ultimate authority' ".

The above three links of ministers invoking a "leader" other than the PM is just a small sample of the erosion of the authority of the PM. Remember the incident where MoS for Railways openly defied the PM when asked to visit a accident site? Remember the Prime Minister's press conferences when he said he could not prevent the loot because there are "comprimises to be made in coalition". Mamta Banerjee openly flirted with Maoists and the Prime Minister was helpless. Month after month, the rot in agriculture ministry was being talked about but the Prime Minister could not do anything about Sharad Pawar. The losses and mis-management of Air India are a hot topic in TV studios every now and then. Yet, Praful Patel was always let off the hook. The Finance minister and Home minister of the country trade (very) serious charges of spying and 2G scam and it took people other than the Prime Minister to bring about a truce.

There are only three major allies which share power at the centre. DMK, TMC and NCP. Members of the cabinet from these parties have either pioneered massive scams or have been the cause for huge losses to the exchequer through their sheer incompetence and greed, and we have a Prime Minister who cannot even touch their toe nails! And that is the most enduring legacy of this UPA government. The abject surrender of the authority of the Prime Minister of India.

We have had 14 people as Prime Ministers so far (including Gulzari Lal Nanda). We have seen weak Prime Ministers, who could not exude any kind of authority. Such tenures were short-lived because of their lack of assertiveness. And in the course of time, their tenures will be forgotten too. But this Prime Minister is different. He will be the first PM (and probably only PM) who tried to sell his helplessness, incompetence and unreasonableness as an unparalleled virtue!

And now you must be wondering - if PM is not the ultimate authority, then who is? It has been successfully passed to the Chairperson of the NAC, and the Congress President, Sonia Gandhi (full list of her "achievements" here). The NAC she leads is the parallel decision making authority when it comes to policy matters. Sonia Gandhi is the parallel decision making authority when it comes to political matters. Manmohan Singh is the decision making authority when it comes to maintaining status quo!

Politics of Divide/Vendetta

The strength of a democracy depends on how freely the opposition (not just the political parties) is allowed to work. Another enduring legacy the second term of UPA will be leaving, is the politics of vendetta. Question them on corruption - immediately very old cases are dusted and thrown out in the open. If the principal opposition party, BJP questions them, then "what did they do in the 6 years they were in power" is parrotted with the help of a compliant TV media. If a politician falls out with the Congress party and leaves it, then automatically he becomes a corrupt person. If citizens of the country question, then either obscure income tax cases are foisted on then or lectures are given as to how they don't vote, how they resort to petty bribing and blah blah. Attempts were even made to discredit CAG but thankfully they failed at it (atleast for now!)

Anyone, practically anyone, who dares to the question the government is automatically hounded by it. There is very little informed debate on matters concerning public interest, and the primary onus for this fall in standards rests on the shoulders of the ruling party. If you don't want to believe me, then please follow the debates (I know it's a challenging task :D) on TV for about a week.

Vote bank politics have reached their peak during UPA. It is always about "minority welfare", "minority well-being", "minority rights" etc. This is not to say that minorities should not have any of those. It is just that the ruling party is creating this divide that will only be detrimental to the country's progress. At every step, the ruling party makes the minorities feel weak, and then project itself as their saviour. Any government's aim has to be to empower them. This government is doing the exact opposite and worse, is proud of doing it.

Federal Structure

Fellow blogger Jiten documented in 2009 that there was an ad in TOI during the Maharashtra elections. Gist of the ad being that there will be better centre-state relations if people vote back NCP-Congress to power. And in July 2011, we see a news report that says "State gets little fund allocation in Centre’s schemes: Ministers" !! Guess which state this is? Maharashtra! Congress big-wigs, Mr. Vilasrao Deshmukh who is a central minister and Prithviraj Chauhan who is the Congress Chief Minister (earlier minister in the PMO!) have made this observation - they accuse their own party of hyping development in their state and thus releasing lesser funds!

The importance of Centre-State relations can be gauged from the fact that it is an important part of the manifesto of all political parties. That congress politicians feel miffed at treatment towards their states is another irony in itself, but that's aside the point. With respect to the States -To interfere when necessary and to give a free hand otherwise - is a sound policy for the centre to follow. This way, federalism is strengthened. UPA has done the exact opposite!

The recent Manipur blockade is a perfect example. For 100 days, the two national Highways that connect Manipur to the rest of India have been blocked, and the centre has not even moved an inch towards trying to resolve it. The state government should have taken the lead, but clearly it hasn't and more importantly a state in this country is completely cut off from the rest of us for 100 days and UPA was unmoved! And this is not the first time, a blockade of this magnitude happened. Just last year, there was a nearly 2 month blockade.

The Telangana fiasco is another perfect example. When everyone looked towards the centre for resolving this issue, UPA 2.0 hurriedly took a disastrous decision and the result is there for everyone to see (fellow CRI commentator Amar says that the Telangana fiasco deserves a separate post in itself and I agree). Nearly two years since that "Sonia's birthday gift", this contentious issues continues to bog the people of AP.

Tamil Nadu CM, Jayalalitha made some very interesting observations at a recent National Development Council meeting. She correctly said that the Centre is taking hurried decisions on matters that hugely affect states, thereby reducing the states to merely "glorified municipal corporations". The examples she cited were the Communal Violence Bill (which will give more powers to the Centre than the states, given that law&order is a state subject!), the GST (Goods and Services Tax) and changing formats of Entrance tests for professional courses (this is by far the worst executed program in my opinion. The Centre is giving very short notices for states to comply with ridiculous demands. If you think it is the opposition-ruled states that are complaining, then you are mistaken. Maharashtra and Congress filed a petition just 2 days back against the Centre's diktat on medical entrance test!).

And ofcourse, there is the Governor's post always to be used for political machinations. One perfect example of using this post to undermine an elected state government is from Andhra Pradesh. Surprised at the choice? Here's why I strongly feel so. Mr. E.L.Narsimhan was appointed as governor after the great N.D.Tewari expose. The state was just beginning to go through it's most tumultous phase. Rosaih was the Chief Minister, and since he was perceived to be less competent to deal with such political matters, the new governor was given the mandate of invovling himself in matters of daily governance too. He even reviewed the law and order situation with police officials directly, without the CM or any minister present. Mr. Rosaih once advised his ministerial colleagues something on these lines "I can't do much. If there is anything else, please go to the Governor directly." To date, E.L.Narsimhan continues to play an active role in important matters of law and order. And please be aware, the people of AP have elected the Congress party to govern them. And a crisis in their party, led the UPA to find a solution in an appointed governor, not in any elected leader!

Damaging institutions

The institution of the Prime Minister is not the only institution that has been damaged by the UPA. Do correct me if I am wrong, but the post of Governor has never been so abused before. Either the post has been used for vengeance or to reward it's former leaders. The Governor of MP even announced that it was Sonia Gandhi who recommended him. Buta Singh in 2005, HR Bharadwaj since 2008, Kamala Beniwal recently, E L Narsimhan in AP are examples of proactive governors. Shivraj Patil, Rosaih, M.K.Narayanan, J.B.Patnaik etc get appointed to the royal Raj Bhavans to lead a happy retirement life. Take a look at the complete list and just see the number of former politicians of the Congress on that list.

The CBI has been used like a pawn as never before. Election Commission was bogged down with some controversies. The institution of Vigilance Commissioner was also put through severe testing times only because of the adamant attitude of UPA leadership. During Team Anna Crisis, this government unilaterally decided to not involve any elected opposition parties in delibarations while at the same time had to gall to lecture us on the supremacy of elected representatives! There just seems to be no institution left for the UPA to damage further.

What about policy then?

Quiz Question. What happens when an "economist" PM who concentrates excessively on Foriegn policy. Disaster on both fronts! Inflation has been on a high for more than 2 years. Our "economist" PM has no solution for that. Food prices go up - global problem. Fuel prices are up by Rs.11 over the past 1 year or so - global problem. Spending goes up on social sector, impeding the growth in the infrastructure sector - thankfully not a global problem but a problem whose solution should remain a "priority concern". Mamta Banerjee causes losses to Railways (and thereby to the economy) and we have no one to ask about it. The EAM is there only to parrot the PM's views. The once powerful office of Foriegn minister has been reduced to doing secretary level work to the PM's foreign policy.

We have already seen how Jairam Ramesh goes off the tangent. The less said about Sports ministry, the better. The mess in Civil aviation gets highlighted in Parliament as well as media, but the PM can't even touch the concerned minister. "Rural Development" is happening only in the sense of NREGA, where people are getting income for repetitive work. Kapil Sibal seems to be a man in a hurry. He announced of reforms within 100 days. Two and half years hence, we are still debating them! Speaking of Kapil Sibal, his famous "zero loss" theory in the 2G spectrum scam has become the butt of jokes, but that has exposed another serious legitimacy issue in the government.

All the above mentioned points lead to only observation - UPA's serious problems with decision making of any kind. This is one more dangerous legacy that we will have to live with. Till date, the PM has not clarified whether he agrees with Kapil Sibal's "zero loss" theory. Each minister is on his own. No one knows who takes decision, or at whose behest decisions are taken. It took a Supreme Court to openly direct the investigations on massive corruption scandals, not an executive order. Apart from the above mentioned policy points where decision making has stagnated, take the recent handling of the Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare agitations.

At every step, the only thing that reigned supreme is confusion. First, top ministers go meet Baba Ramdev and praise him. When he goes ahead with his plan for an agitation, they start to deride him. The midnight scoop (because UPA feared communal elements will take over) killed one hapless woman. A similar story with Anna Hazare. All that the "Team Anna" asked in the beginning was to be heard. The egoistic UPA refused to even do that, thereby giving them space to launch bigger agitations and make fiercer (and unreasonable) demands. And then they arrest him, release him, cajole him and finally give in. All this while, there is no single authority of the government saying "Yes, I take responsibility for these decisions".

Conclusion

There is an air of negativity around this UPA dispensation (led mostly by Sonia Gandhi and partly by Manmohan Singh). Mere status quo is being maintained. Dr. Manmohan Singh has reduced the job of Prime Minister to a mere desk job. Even the most tom-tomed schemes of UPA - MNREGA, Loan Waiver, Forest Tribals act are not his ideas. No flagship economic reform has been carried out. During the infamous trust vote in July 2008 (called because of the Nuclear Deal, of which we don't hear anything these days!!), he tabled his speech in which he spoke about "achievements". The first one was about controlling inflation, and we all know how well it is being controlled. He spoke about "revitilising agriculture" and we know what happened there. "To deal firmly with terrorist elements" - we all know what has happened since.

One of the worst things to happen during UPA 2.0 is the Supreme Court's active invovlement in matters concerning corruption related investigations. More than a couple of times, the SC has rapped the government for it's lethargic response. The political legitimacy of UPA is in serious doubt only because it is the judiciary and not the executive that is driving the cleaning up act. The political legitimacy of UPA is in serious doubt not just because the centre is severely undermining the states. Last, but not the least, the political legitimacy of UPA is in serious doubt only because it is Sonia Gandhi who is driving policy and politics, not the Prime Minister.

Arun Shourie summed it up best, in an interview on the 2G scam - "This was not the Manmohan Singh cabinet that the ministry could do anything. It was Atal Behari Vajpayee's cabinet. You could not do one milimetre more than what Cabinet has decided."

Disconnect of English TV media!

The Hindu has been presenting the findings of a CNN-IBN & CNBC-TV18 ‘State of the Nation Poll’ "State of the Nation" poll, conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. Ofcourse, CNN-IBN also debated them everyday and I haven't seen any of them. The findings of this poll have been published over 5 days. Some observations and interpretations to follow now :)

State of the Media

No no - that poll was not conducted :D. Today's poll findings were about the popularity ratings of various Chief Ministers. The results can be found here. Am just pasting a snapshot of one result below.

Now - here's my question - can anyone show or point to a link, where we can find 5 good stories about the top 5 Chief Ministers? Leave top 5 - 10 good stories of the top 10 Chief Ministers?

Let's leave CMs of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala out of this survey - they just won landslide victories, so their popularity is expected.

• What is it that you always hear about Chattisgarh? Salwa Judum, SPO, Naxalites, law and order.
• What is it that you hear about Gujarat? 2002. Nothing more, nothing less.
• What is it that you hear about Orissa? Last we knew, farmers protesting about land acquisition and before that Rahul Gandhi's visit to Niyamagiri
• What is it that you commonly hear about Bihar? Nitish Kumar is good, bought hope blah blah. One, one indepth story of about how he became so popular?
• What is it that you hear about Madhya Pradesh?? Nothing! (except for having to hear from their former CM, Digvijay Singh on a daily basis!)
• What is it that you hear about Uttarakhand? Maybe many of us will even forget that such a state exists, given the kind of coverage!
• What is it that you hear about Assam? Once in 5 years, when there are elections. That's all.

If we watch and read the publications that published these results (and others too), all we will know is that the above 7 states are either screwed or don't exist!! How come their admistrators are so popular then? Karnataka CM Yeddyurappa has a 51% popular rating. 51% !! And what do we know about him?

The question here is not of media bias - we don't hear of good stories from Rajasthan either (a Congress ruled state). The observation here is the kind of negative and banal coverage silly issues get on the english TV media. The above survey results are proof enough of their severe disconnect from the masses of the country.

State of the UPA

Almost every index that was surveyed showed UPA in extreme poor light.

On Terrorism ( the most shocking thing here is that 61% actually thought government's response to terrorism was good in 2009!!) And if one were to go by the commentary of the english TV media - Chidambaram is the best Home Minister the country ever had. The same media house publishes a survey which shows the confidence declined by a whopping ~30% during his time. Another disconnect? (assuming the survey is true).

On price rise (blame on the Central government)

On Corruption (full page here) only one snapshot of a summary below:

Yet, Rahul as PM!

And finally the one thing the entire media wants to happen - Rahul Gandhi as Prime Minister of India. 19% respondents want him to become Prime Minister.

Except for the survey on Rahul Gandhi, all the other surveys had detailed break-ups of "urban", "rural", "literate", "college" etc. It will also be interesting to note what these segments think about Rahul Gandhi as Prime Minister. The survey (some good questions on the methodology here) covered 73% of rural areas, and it is not surprising Rahul Gandhi get 19% thumbs up as the Prime Minister.

Many have already analysed why despite the congress falling down, the BJP hasn't rised. It is BJP's own failing to counter a massive PR propaganda of the Rahul Gandhi machinery. The media went overdrive to project Rahul Gandhi as an entity that has nothing to do with the UPA government. Look at the state government results - the percieved "Rahul magic" does not work. When it comes to national level politics, then the perception of people is bound to change. Rural people (in general) interact more with the state government - for them a Prime Minister might not mean as much as the Chief Minister means. Urban people are lazy and impulsive - an image of Rahul Gandhi "fighting" for farmers is enough for them to think that he is "the" man. And quite frankly, BJP has so far failed in countering this PR propaganda.

And another main drawback is that the BJP still doesn't have a face for this 2014 campaign (perhaps things will be clear in 2012, post UP elections but any delay beyond that will be damaging). We still don't know if Congress will declare Rahul as PM, but for sure he is their face for any campaign.

A split up of this 19% will reveal much more than what is hidden. I have sent a mail to election@csds.in but haven't received any mail yet. (Update, I just got a reply, and the results are astounding! - below)

Looks like the PR machinery of Rahul Gandhi is turning out to be a success :( .

However, look at the snapshot below.

"The sentiment against the UPA continuing in power is stronger in urban areas and among the upper classes. While in rural areas, the sentiments against the UPA is strong, there are still more people among the sections who want it to continue in power".

Hence a split up of these areas when it comes to the Prime Minister is crucial to understand the Rahul Gandhi "phenomenon". Plus there is little to cheer about - look at that survey. Vajpayee's popularity was 38% in 2004. And yet NDA lost.

By the way, the survey on Prime Minister itself has 3 exclusive questions on Rahul Gandhi.

Padayatra? Show me ONE article that gives us the distance he travelled on foot? Just one.

Flirting with murderers...

The Past

On the 30th of May, Thirteen coaches of the Howrah-Kurla Jnaneswari Express were derailed in West Bengal. A Goods train later rammed into these coaches, resulting in the deaths of more than 140 people. Basically what happened was that the tracks on which the ill fated train was, were removed (by who else, but the Naxalites). And after the train derailed, a goods train coming from the other side rammed into this train. Now some would call this sabotage, some would call this a terrorist act. Either way, everyone would want the people behind this attack to be bought to justice. No one would even want to associate themselves with the perpetrators of this crime.

A coupld of days after this attack, a PCAPA (People's Committee Against Police Atrocities) leader had this to say:

“We are sorry. We never wanted these innocent civilians to die. Trust me, we targeted the goods train. But somehow, we were fed wrong information that the goods train would cross through this track and we removed pandrol clips from a long stretch. We did not want to harm civilians. There must have been some miscalculation.”

You read it right - the Naxalite leader "apologised" for messing up their "target". Anyways, the CBI made some arrests, and the state police also announced rewards for some leaders of PCAPA.

The Present

Union Railway Minister and President of All India Trinamool Congress, Mamta Banerjee held a rally in Lalgarh (the bastion of the Naxalites) on August 9th. If you think she did it by defying the Maoists, no you are mistaken! She did it with the support of Maoists. And with the support of the same group - PCAPA. The same group that has accepted responsibility for removing the tracks, later "apologising" for their "goof-up". The same group that has been responsible for the loss of 141 lives whose only mistake was to be on that ill fated train. Take a look at this picture (via @centerofright) - the PCAPA terrorist who has a one lakh reward on his head is leading a gang to the rally of Mamta Banerjee.

In another twist in the tale, one of the "supporter" group of the rally is infact upset that Mamta has not spoken about their demands!

And at the same rally, Mamta Banerjee also declared that the killing of Maoist leader Azad was wrong. She declared that she thinks this is murder. Azad was killed in an encounter with AP police. By the way, here's a small list of crimes Azad is involved in:

1. Killing of Panchayat Raj Minister, A. Madhava Reddy in AP
2. Killing of 2 IPS officer, Vyas and Umesh Chandra, in AP
3. Killing of former Speaker D. Sripada Rao, in AP
4. The Attack on Chandrababu Naidu, then CM of AP.

This begs the question - What does the future hold for us?

Mamta Banerjee's crass acts can no more be justified under any political compulsions. Hell - there is no politics involved in criticising her in the first place. This is plain ridiculous that such a high ranking minister in the Government of India, openly courts the Maoists/terrorists and we are to just remain mute spectators to this disgusting spectacle. Why have we become so immune to Mamta's "irresponsible politics"? Why is the media not even demanding that Mamta Banerjee resign from her post? Shouldn't the Prime Minister sack her? What kind of a country tolerates a cabinet minister's open support to Maoists, when the Prime Minister of the country himself describes them as the "gravest internal security threat to this country"? By plain common sense, doesn't that make Mamta a threat too?

Shivraj Patil had a murderous stint as Home Minister in UPA 1.0. Now, we have a cabinet minister openly sliding with murderers. Both times the Prime Minister was silent. How much more longer will this facade go on?