Fly on the wall : No Taj Mahal memento by the President

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

No Taj Mahal memento by the President

Why blame the UP Government or BJP hardliners for discarding Taj Mahal as the 7th wonder of the world and erase it from booklet meant for tourists. Long before this was done, the Rashtrapati Bhawan had discontinued the practice of giving Taj Mahal's replica as memento to visiting dignitaries. Gone are the days when Taj Mahal used to be given as precious gift to VIP visitors. But one must remember, this has not been done by Shri Ram Nath Kovind who was elected President with the support of the NDA in July this year. On the contrary, Ram Nath Kovind has proved to be a person of his firm beliefs. He recently said in Lucknow that if UP is known for Kumbh Mela, its also known for the Taj Mahal. This made some of the BJP leaders uneasy. The fact is that the practice of giving Taj Mahal replica was dispensed with by Kovind's predecessor Pranab Mukherjee. It transpires that Mukherjee chose to do away with the practice after suggestions emerged during informal discussions with the Modi dispensation. It was felt that the visiting dignitaries be offered books such as Gita or mementos reflecting the ancient civilization & culture of the country rather than of the Mughal era. Though no one from the government suggested to Mukherjee that he shouldn't give Taj Mahal replica as gift. The government was aware that Mukherjee is very sensitive to such issues and didn't say anything directly. However, Mukherjee was also aware of the sensitivities of the Modi government and keen to maintain cordial relations with it. Some say that he was hoping for second term and this step was aimed at keeping the NDA in good humour. Mukherjee stopped giving Taj replica as gift and Kovind has continued with the practice. Its a different matter that the Yogi Adityanath government in UP is now working hard to dispel the notion that its against the Taj. However, there is no dearth of those demanding that the old glory of Shiva temple be restored and Taj Mahal be buried in history.

Amit Shah batting for Hindutva

The Modi government may be completely focused on “Vikas” (development). But BJP president Amit Shah is clear in his thoughts and vision that the party cannot dump its Hindutva plank. He gave a clue to his thinking recently during an informal chat on Diwali Milan when he said, “I need my Hindutva, its my lifeline.” In fact, the BJP finds that the Congress is walking an extra mile to woo the community rather than focusing too much on the minorities. The fact that Rahul Gandhi is visiting temples and shrines regularly is an indication that the Congress is changing tack. “So why shall BJP abandon its time-tested policy?” wondered the leader. In fact, the UP government's recent order banning consumption of non-veg food in Vridavan and Barsana, birth places of Krishna and Radha, is an indication of BJP pursuing its policy stridently.

Its Modi VS Rahul in Gujrat

Its Modi VS Rahul battle in Gujrat now. No one cares who is the Congress face for the Chief Minister's post or whether Rupani will be stay as CM after the polls. For the first time in 40 months, its the first time that the polls are being fought between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi. If Modi is contemplating to address 50 rallies during eight days of campaigning, Rahul is not lagging behind either. He may not address five rallies a day like Modi. But he has earned some brawny points recently due to wit and sarcasm and has made a mark too. Irrespective of the outcome of the Gujrat Assembly polls, Rahul Gandhi has arrived on the scene as he is making right noises these days.

How Patel got Bharat Ratna !

How Sardar Patel was conferred Bharat Ratna ? There is an interesting tale. And no one including the BJP or erstwhile Jan Sangh can take credit for it. Of course, the Congress was never keen to confer the highest national award to the departed leader. It so happened that Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in May 1991 in the midst of the General Elections in the country. T N Seshan who was the Chief Election Commissioner postponed the polls for some time and there was a pressure on the Chandra Shekhar government to confer Bharat Ratna on Rajiv Gandhi immediately. R Venkatraman was the President of India then and some discussions took place between them. It was agreed that Sardar Patel be also conferred Bharat Ratna. The BJP may be taking pot shot at Congress for ill treating its Iron Man.” But how the present dispensation treating its own “Lauh Purush” is for all to see. So why blame the Congress ?

Govt. to go soft in the Valley, for now

After telling the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to go soft in its operations in the trouble-torn Valley in J&K, the army has also been told avoid raiding civilian homes just on the basis of suspicion. “Unless there is specific intelligence information, unnecessary gun battles be avoided,” the Army was told. This has been done to facilitate the Special Representative of the Centre, Dineshwar Sharma, to undertake his peace mission in the state. Sharma has made a special request to the PMO that he would require calm in the Valley as he would like to initiate a dialogue with all the stake-holders. The NIA will not file the chargesheet against the Hurriyat leaders immediately giving some leeway to Geelani & company. There is already a talk to have are-look at the controversial AFSPA.

Conscience vote goes abegging

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

In this space last week, I doubted if the secret ballot system in the presidential and vice-presidential elections could be entirely to the advantage of the BJP-led NDA. The opposition looked like having an ace up its sleeve as its candidate for Presidency, Meira Kumar, was bubbling over for what she thought could be “vote according to conscience”.

It wasn’t. Cross-voting had benefited not Kumar but Ram Nath Kovind, BJP’s victorious candidate. In Gujarat, as a prelude, perhaps, to former chief minister Shankar Sinh Baghela quitting the Congress, at least 11 Congress MLAs ditched Kumar to vote Kovind. In West Bengal, Kovind bagged the votes of 11 MLAs though BJP and its allies could have openly garnered only six MLAs. But its largely some dissidence in Congress & the Left that may have gone in favour of Kovind. Mamata devised a mechanism through which she ensured that there is no cross voting in her party except one MP who is suspended. In Maharashtra, Meira Kumar’s tally was 77, which fell short of her calculation by at least ten. In Uttar Pradesh, eight MLAs had violated their party instructions by voting Kovind; they could be ‘renegades’ from the Akhilesh Singh Yadav-faction of the Samajwadi Party. The numbers in the tiny north-eastern state of Tripura are baffling; in a state with no BJP legislator, Kovind found seven silent supporters. There were opposition reversals in Punjab too, as two of the Aam Aadmi Party’s four MPs are suspected to have for the BJP candidate.

There was a reverse trend as well. In Rajasthan, Meira Kumar was supported by ten more MLAs than her expected tally, a feat which is not possible without some BJP MLAs having been driven by the ‘call of conscience’. But volume-wise, the trend of cross-voting was overwhelmingly dominated by the BJP. Like Kumar, Gopal Gandhi, Opposition’s Vice Presidential candidate,  too has pinned his hope on the electors’ “conscience”.

The failure of the appeal to ‘good sense’ is not a recent phenomenon. In the years between Independence and promulgation of the Constitution in 1950, the so-called idea of India got delineated in the very preamble of the Constitution. It was made on behalf of the “people of India”, which is, by itself, an assertion that the country would make no discrimination on the ground of caste, creed, gender or religion. The preamble defined the Constitution’s four pillars: justice, liberty, equality and fraternity. B. R. Ambedkar, the acknowledged architect of the Constitution, said on the last day’s session of the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949: “Political democracy cannot last unless there is at the base of it social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life which recognises liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life”. Ambedkar had also said that these three principles of liberty, equality and fraternity were “not to be treated as separate items in a trinity” because (a) equality without liberty would kill individual initiative, (b) without equality, liberty would produce the supremacy of the few over the many, and (c) without fraternity, liberty and equality could not become a natural course of things…it would require a constable to enforce them”.

I have cited this long passage from one of the most sparkling discourses in Indian politics because it provides, in a sense, the essence of the “conscience” or “good sense” that UPA, the loser, has vainly tried to invoke. Such ideal is embedded in the Constitution and is made explicit in Ambedkar’s radiant prose. As the first to form government, it was the Congress’ turn to follow the principles laid down in the Constitution. But it failed and failed the people of India.

It was during the Congress rule that equality got divorced from liberty by a bizarre quality of government and its myriad rules and regulations. It snuffed out “individual initiative”, exactly as Ambedkar had predicted. Again, it was in the Congress rule that equality of opportunity was denied to the poor while the rich had the liberty to influence policy and get richer. Another Ambedkar prophesy that came true.

However, the absence of fraternity has a long history. The communal holocaust and partition in 1947 itself is a testimony to the dismal fact that the Indian society was revelling in fratricide instead of being fraternal. Nor was the Congress any less divisive than what it accuses Modi of, in its handling of caste and communal issues. From the 1980’s, when infusion of militancy turned Islam into a security threat, successive Congress or Congress-led governments had, instead of promoting fraternity, tried to put the communities into their separate silos. In the Shah Bano case, by refusing to reform the obsolete Muslim marital system, Congress PM Rajiv Gandhi pushed the community back into its medieval isolation. A fraternal approach would have been to help the community to reform itself. On the other hand, the Rajiv administration, by allowing a Hindu group to perform worship of Ram in the Babri mosque, virtually ignited the communal fire which is still blazing. Equality and fraternity became victims of decades of vote-bank politics.

The problem with Congress’ recent and vociferous appeal to people’s conscience is that most people—the new generation, in particular—do not think of BJP’s adversaries as repositories of conscience. Instead, they are seen by the younger Indians as a picture of ineptitude and corruption. Its the loss of credibility on policy and conduct.  It is not that the Congress doesn’t understand it, but it has few options. If it must keep its own conscience clear, it has to snap ties with Lalu Yadav. With that vanishes its toehold on power in Hindi-speaking India.

After FDI, it's Lokpal Bill

Harish Gupta

With the Lokpal Bill set to be the centerpiece of public discourse, I think it is time to wonder why this creature keeps popping back like a squash ball. It is some half a century ago that the venerable Ashoke Kumar Sen, the then Congress law minister, moved the first Lokpal Bill. It failed to go through Parliament. In 1968, it was Shanti Bhushan who took his turn, but it got nixed in the Rajya Sabha. It was followed by a procession of similar last-stage abortions in 1971, 1977, 1985 (it was Ashoke Sen again, as law minister in the Rajiv Gandhi cabinet), 1989, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2005 and 2008. Its transformation into a Civil Society movement since then, under the (contested) leadership of Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal or Baba Ramdev, the yoga instructor, does not dilute the doubts raised by its serial rejection by the legislators. And if lawmakers have considered it to be a bothersome intrusion, is the Civil Society justified in still demanding it with so much earnestness?