Middle Class Muddle

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A Raja’s alleged crimes would make poor old Tharoor’s transgressions look like a church sermon. Yet Raja’s brazen refusal to resign, or for that matter even appear contrite, stands in sharp contrast to the way Tharoor was made to quit as a result of the IPL imbroglio. The reason, commentators tell us, is that Tharoor has no “political base”. However, this is only partly true. Tharoor had a very well defined base to target—the urban middle class. Tharoor’s credentials to play this role were impeccable: the man was an international diplomat, had been to the best schools, and pronounced the word ‘power’ as ‘par’, as in the golf term—a fact which endeared him to India’s anglophilic middle class. However, the ease with which Tharoor fell, as a result of a charge which, in Indian politics, was minor at best, points to how little explicit political power this demographic holds.

It wasn’t always like this, though. At independence, political power passed largely to a highly educated, urban leadership. This class used its new found power to great effect, knocking out feudalism from India’s power matrix—an achievement which tends to be undervalued till one looks across our western border. A highly centralised power structure kept this arrangement going for 40 years till Mandal and Mandir changed India’s political landscape, drastically curtailing the middle class’ political influence.

However, at the same time, India’s newly liberalised economy helped the middle class not only to become a lot richer but also became a lot larger. And, though it had lost a lot of political power, the urban middle class still enjoyed a disproportionately large share of the pie—Delhi’s power cuts cause a lot more consternation than the lack of power in UP.

In a bid to win over this growing class, lost to the the BJP in the 90s, the Congress air-dropped Tharoor onto the political scene. This coupled with Manmohan Singh’s favourable image and the general disarray the BJP finds itself in helped the Congress significantly in winning over the urban middle class. Unfortunately, Tharoor’s style was too much of a break with the way Indian politics works. However, as this middle class grows, it’s only a matter of time before it gets its own political representation.

A Very Costly Bill

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India is a democracy or, at the very least, that’s what some of us have been led to believe. And one of the major reasons that you can claim that India is a democracy with a straight face is that the country has a Parliament that, in some form or the other, represents the people of India. What allows Parliament to claim that it represents the people of India? That’s because it’s composed of MPs, elected by their constituencies and it is assumed that the manner in which an MP conducts business in Parliament will, in some ways at least, correspond to the people of his constituency. After all, the system is built on a mutual back scratching basis—put simply, the MP tries to act in a way that would help his constituents; if his constituents think that he’s done a good job, they re-elect him.

Sadly, the woman’s reservation bill (and more importantly, the Anti-Defection law, but more on that later) does a fairly good job of blowing this concept out of the water. Maybe the bill is well intentioned and, God knows, women in India can do with all the help they can get, but the feature of the bill which necessitates the rotation of parliamentary seats such that two-thirds of all parliamentarians will be compulsorily unseated every five years pretty much ends any incentive for an MP to even put up an act of representing the people of his constituency. As Pratap Bhanu Mehta puts it:

“The rotation principle is a peculiar one in a democracy because it produces democracy without democratic accountability. You don’t, as an individual, now seek the verdict of those whom you claimed to serve. Even the rightly heralded reservations at panchayat level have generated this problem, producing both an accountability deficit and a weakening of an institution as a whole.”

Ironically, Subhashini Ali has even claimed this rotation principle is actually one of the redeeming features of this bill as it would “discourage personal fiefdoms” and the rise of pocket boroughs.

In order to prevent fiefdoms in some constituencies, to uproot legislators from 2/3ds of India’s constituencies regardless of whether they are fiefdoms or not is an extreme use of the broad brush. To try and present an analogy, it would be like a law which requires 2/3rds of all companies in the country, regardless of their size or market power, to be penalised as if they were monopolies.

From where I see it, the only faction this bill will benefit will be large, established political parties. You could bring in a class/caste angle too, I guess, but for most part that’s a red herring, although, the logic behind asking for sub-quotas is the same as what drives the original bill and it would be slightly hypocritical to support one without the other. However, by periodically culling 66% of all sitting legislators, MPs, on their own, will have little or no clout left in their constituencies; the Party will be his mai-baap if he wants a re-election, not the voters.

Of course, this bill can hardly be credited of being the first legislation which tries to actually make an MP and, by extension, Parliament, less accountable to the voter. The pioneer there would be the Anti Defection law which makes it mandatory for an MP to follow his party whip. Never mind the merits of the way he is voting or how it affects the people he represents—unless he agrees with his party, he will actually be stripped of his post as “representative” of his constituency.

By and large, though, middle-class India is grateful for the law. After all, it does bring a semblance of order to the dinner table—the unruly kids are rapped on their knuckles and ordered to keep their elbows off the table. However, the fact of the matter is that pelf and corruption go hand and hand with power—it has always been like that and will always be like that. The only antidote is to distribute the loaves and fishes to as many people as possible—so it’s better that 500-odd MPs are corrupt rather than just 5 party cabals, the ideal case scenario being when all of India partakes of those loaves and fishes.

Also, what makes this law doubly galling is that fact that parties in India, who control our democratically elected legislators, are highly undemocratic themselves. The Congress depends on one Family for its leadership, BJP presidents are appointed by funny people in khaki shorts and the last time I checked, politburos weren’t exactly paragons of democratic propriety.

Our political system started out by being modelled on Britain’s—I’m afraid that it might end up being more like China’s: our parliament will eventually end up being an ineffectual rubber stamp and all power will lie with opaque party machines.

MNIK Sob Story Softens Hearts of Sainiks

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No spoilers about the movie, by the way. Can't say the same about the Shiv Sena, though.

An insidious plan by the Shiv Sena to send Sainiks into cinema halls disguised as movie goers to disrupt the release of My Name is Khan was foiled, as Sainiks, after watching the emotional tearjerker, were so overwhelmed by emotion that they were unable to carry out orders. The movie’s release in Mumbai was, for the most part, trouble free.

Sunil Joshi, a veteran Sainik, says that the plan of their group to jump out of their seats in the middle of the movie was abandoned mid-way as they were apprehensive that their red, puffy eyes—a result of the emotional maelstrom that the movie about religious stereotyping caused—would make them look like sissies. “Which, of course, is not true at all,” a fellow Sainik of Sunil hastened to add. “It’s just that we are ideal Marathi Manooses—hard on the outside and soft on the inside, you know...that’s all. But you never know as to what the TV channels would make of those images.”

Some other groups of Sainiks failed to act because the movie forced them to change their minds about the morality of their actions in the first place. In fact, quite a few refused to vandalise the theatre they were in after they learnt that Shah Rukh Khan played a character who suffers from Asperger Syndrome. As a Sainik, who did wish to be named, put it: “Accepting Balasaheb as my leader has inculcated in me a new found respect for people who are mentally challenged. I could never do this after watching Shah Rukh play Rizvan.”

Surprisingly, a few Sainiks, after the entry of Sonya Jehan in the movie, even went so far as to challeng the Sena’s stand of hating everything Pakistani, preferring to make a distinction between politics on the one side and things like cricket and actresses on the other.

Sonya Jehan

Of course, most Maharashtrians in Mumbai paid little heed to the Sena’s message, even in some instance openly defying it. Unconfirmed reports say that Paresh Mokashi is even working on a film titled, My name is Kulkarni and I am not a Sainik.

In related news, the beleaguered Bal Thakeray, already smarting from the MNIK fiasco, was further brought under the scanner by India’s premier investigative news agency, India TV, in a report which, keeping up to their impeccable journalistic standards, exposes the truth as only they can:

Why Republic Day is so Important

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Because almost every achievement that India can claim as a country, rests on the bedrock of an amazing document which came into force today—the Constitution. It might seem simple enough now, but India could easily have blundered in the type of polity it chose. Just to compare, these are the words that Pakistan’s Objectives resolution (it lays the framework for the constitution to be framed) starts with:

Whereas sovereignty over the entire universe belongs to Allah Almighty alone and the authority which He has delegated to the State of Pakistan, through its people for being exercised within the limits prescribed by Him is a sacred trust;

As compared to, “Wherein all power and authority of the Soverign Independent India, its constituent parts and organs of government, are derived from the people” from the Indian Objectives resolution.

Best to keep God away from matters as prosaic and boring as running nations, as India occasionally forgets and Pakistan is learning the hard way.

Not to say that the document is perfect—in my opinion, too much power is concentrated in the Centre. For example, Residuary powers—powers that do not exist on either the Union, Concurrent or State List—are given to Parliament, which is absurd given India’s size and diversity; even a relatively smaller country such as the US, vests residuary powers with the states. Of course, given the way power shapes itself to ground realities gradually, we have seen a decrease in the influence of national parties, as states increasingly vote for smaller, regional parties, thereby blunting to some extent, this constitutional tilt in favour of the Centre.

Of course, the other, and vastly more significant reason why this day is so important is that it’s a holiday. Woo Hoo!

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Also, just to add a We-Are-Like-That-Only section to this Republic Day post, The Telegraph reports that Modi held a Samvidhan Gaurav Yatra where he "led a march through the Saurashtra town [Surendranagar], followed by a decked-out elephant carrying an oversized replica of the Constitution, in an attempt to showcase his respect for the statute and its best-known architect, Dalit icon B.R. Ambedkar."

Yes, a human-sized replica of the Constitution was put onto an elephant and paraded through a city. No, seriously. Here's a picture:

Picture courtesy The Telegraph

My IPL is Bigger Than Yours

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The glee that quite few Indians have shown over the IPL saga is understandable—to quote from one of India's most popular bloggers, Great Bong, the reasoning goes something like this: “Now since we are talking about a country who about a year before butchered our citizens and who allow the perpetrators of that crime against humanity to walk their streets amidst adulation and approbation” what the IPL has done is perfectly allright. Hell, it’s super.

Which is a fine sentiment.

But the thing is, does this, in any way, actually help in preventing further instances of terror, or even punish those in Pakistan who are responsible for this sort of thing?

Well, no.

Hiring or not hiring 5 or so cricketers from a nation of 170 mln is going to make no practical difference to anything, least of all the foreign policy of that nation.

Of course, not all foreign policy need be purely practical; India might make a symbolic point. Fair enough, other than the fact that India did not make a symbolic point. A symbolic point would have been made if the Pakistani cricketers would not have been allowed to participate from the outset and it would have been made clear as to the “issue”, in Shahrukh’s words , behind the ban. In fact the Government made in unequivocally clear that there was no “hint or nudge from the government ” in this matter.

Even explanations such as “it is business decision” do not stand up to scrutiny. As Offstumped explains:

IPL as a private business has the right to do what it wants but that right is not beyond the ethics and values how any business must conduct itself. Tacit collusion by a cartel to discriminate against individuals based on origin doesnt speak highly of IPL’s ethics and values as a private business.

This whole episode was an exercise in bad judgement—no two ways about it.

Of course, not be left behind in the stupidity stakes, some in Pakistan have erupted in near-hysterical rage, as if 5 players not earning some money in a private league is a national disaster.

Aman ki Asha - Amen

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The two leading media houses of India and Pakistan - The Times of India and the Jang Group - have come together to develop a stronger Track 2 in the diplomatic and cultural relations between India and Pakistan. "Aman ki Asha: Destination Peace" looks beyond the confines of a 62-year-old political boundary to the primal bonds that tie together the two peoples.

That’s how the ToI describes Aman ki Asha—an initiative which will, of course, amount to nothing. Don’t get me wrong, though—I’m not against the aims of Aman ki Asha. Peace is critical when it comes to a region as poor and wretched as the Indian sub-continent and anybody who thinks otherwise is just plain deluded. It’s just that by playing on the cultural similarities that the two countries share, as this project does ("primal bonds that tie together the two peoples"), you’re going to get nowhere.

It’s a common refrain, though—just ‘cause the two twins share a whole lot culturally, the two should be at peace. Well, the fact of matter is that culture-shulture never stopped a good, solid war. The two main protagonists of the Word Wars, Britain and Germany, shared religion, race and royalty (in an episode of Blackadder Goes Forth, a sitcom set in WW I, when Captain Darling, on being accused of being a German spy, protests that he’s as British as Queen Victoria, Blackadder replies, “So your father’s German, you’re half German and you married a German!”) but that didn’t stop them from trying to flatten each other.

Of course, it might not even be accurate to say that India and Pakistan share a common culture. While North India would, I guess, fit the bill, the people of East and South India share little, if anything, culturally with the people of Pakistan.

The fact of the matter is that India has to deal with Pakistan as a neighbour, plain and simple. Wildly oscillating between the extremes of treating the country as a long, lost brother and, then, as India's mortal enemy isn't going to help in the least.

The City Never Dies

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What do you do when your city is dying? Do you feel sad like when a person you know dies? Do you tell others, “don’t worry, everything will be all right”? Maybe even go for the “inhe dawaon kee naheen, duaon ki zaroorath hain” line.

Well, if the city’s Calcutta, you eat. Calcutta might be dying (it’s been dying for the longest time, really—Rajiv Gandhi thought it was dying even back in the 80’s) but there’s always a huge variety of interesting food available in the city to take your mind off that sort off stuff. And while cities that are not dying might offer, on paper, a lot more, much still remains to be said for Cal’s cuisine which is a part and parcel of the city unlike, say, Korean food in Delhi.

Eating out in Calcutta consists largely of three cuisines: Chinese, Mughlai and Continental (a British Raj relic). There’s also “Indian”, which is a euphemism for Punjabi, but it doesn’t make sense to sample that on a trip to Cal when you now live in Delhi. There are hardly any Bengali restaurants in the city, although this is changing now.

Tangra, Calcutta’s main Chinatown, still bustles; had a tough time getting a table at Kim Fa on Christmas day. Calcutta’s other Chinatown, Tiratti Bazaar, though, I was told has shrunk down.

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It’s amazing the way the political graffiti, flags and other paraphernalia has changed in favour of the Trinamool Congress. Just by looking at Calcutta, you can make out that the Left Front is on the back foot--which is pretty much the same conclusion that you’ll reach on talking to Calcuttans. From Taxi-drivers to book-sellers to commuters on those new-fangled, low-floor buses, everyone I spoke to felt “it was time for a change”. Of course, it must be kept in mind that the city has never been a great Left supporter anyway, but this time around people aren’t wishing for a CPM defeat, they are, or so they feel, prophesising it.

Of course, you never know with the temperamental Mamatadi. This sort of rise can induce a number of mistakes—spelling, for one.

Might be a pun, although it’s highly unlikely. For all its warts, Bengal’s politics, unlike the rest of the country, has little to do with caste.