The Congress’ Obsession with Loyalty

At a public function in the presence of the Prime Minister, Arjun Singh said that today the Congress Party is evaluating loyalty in a very limited context. He hastened to add that the Nehru-Gandhi family is fully capable of judging loyalty, implying that the Prime Minister is not.

The Congress Party has always been obsessed with loyalty. To the party loyalty is a greater virtue than capability. And to the Nehru-Gandhi family loyalty has meant loyalty to the family and not to the party. The reason for the pitiful state of the part today is that it has not been able to differentiate between loyalty and merit and between the party and the family. This is the reason why a person like Arjun Singh heads the HRD Ministry in a country of a billion people. This is the reason why today we have the most lackluster Home Minister of independent India, under whose regime there has been a resurgence of violence in the North East and from Naxalites. This is the reason that Narsimha Rao, one of the better Prime Ministers we have had, was not given a second term by the Congress High Command after having a successful first term. Apparently Rahul Gandhi is no different from his predecessors in this respect. Recently Congress MP Akhilesh Das resigned from the party because the coterie surrounding Rahul Gandhi was destroying the party in Uttar Pradesh.

Unfortunately this is the fate of all political parties. The top leadership everywhere is surrounding itself with loyalists in order to safeguard its position. Seekho India Seekho.

Ms. Shobhaa De: From Incredible to Unstoppable

Browsing in The Strand Bookstall yesterday I saw Ms De’s latest staring down from the prime display location. Ms. De on the cover was at her dazzling best, but then when is she not. I was tempted to make an immediate purchase but I had half a dozen unread books lying at home so I reluctantly placed the book back onto the shelf.

I know a little bit about Ms. De from her writings. She is unashamedly proud of India’s past and unashamedly optimistic about India’s future. I cannot think of a person who epitomizes contemporary India better. Whatever Superstar India: From Incredible to Unstoppable is, it will certainly be straight from her heart.

Ms. De sprung to fame as the editor of Stardust and turned film journalism on its head. The first issue featuring Rajesh Khanna on its cover, labeled as the ‘phenomenon’ is something few will forget. Later she began writing novels. I haven’t read any only because by then I had stopped reading contemporary fiction. But I remember that the novels were recommended as supplementary reading by Oxford University (or was it Cambridge?). And I also remember one pitifully misguided comment in the press that it was perhaps to teach people how not to write. Why cannot we revel in the successes of our fellow humans? I have read quite a few of Ms, De’s newspaper columns. Her observations are sharp and her arguments sound. I remember a recent one in which she expressed admiration for Mayawati’s success in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. I do not know whether she subscribes to Mayawati’s political philosophy, but Ms. De drove home the point that admiration for the achievement is independent of admiration for the achiever. One book of Ms. De’s I have read and that is Spouses. It is an extremely imaginative concept in that it describes the joys and tribulations of marriage in general through the joys and tribulations of her marriage. The only more candid self-exposition I have read is in Shri Harivanshraiji Bachchan’s autobiography. And finally I cannot forget her on Coffee with Karan, sorry make that Koffee with Karan. One thing we have in common is a liking to see movies in cinema halls with popcorn for company.

So I will read Superstar India: From Incredible to Unstoppable, either after I finish the unread books lying at home or more likely when I give in to the temptation of by-passing the queue.

The Women’s Reservation Bill

Yesterday the Women’s Reservation Bill was finally tabled in the Rajya Sabha with much “nautanki”. I cannot think of any word in English that conveys the exact sense of this word. In fact over the last decade this bill has unfortunately become something of a joke. No political party wants this bill passed, with the possible exception of the Communists, yet every party wants to put up a front of supporting it in some way or the other. If the Congress was really serious why did it have to wait till the end of its five-year term before tabling the bill?

This nautanki (there can be no other word for it) reminds me of an episode from the famous television series Yes Minister. Jim Hacker MP, succeeds in getting reservation for women, not in the parliament, but in the upper echelons of the civil service. And he wants to promote a junior female officer to a senior post under this policy. But the woman hands in her reservation instead. She does not want to be part of a quota. She has obtained a job as a CEO in the private sector on her own merit.

So on a more serious note: should there be reservation for women? Ideally there should not be. Since women comprise 50% of the population they should get 50% of the seats on merit without reservation. Are the women capable of getting 50% seats on their own without reservation? Yes they are. Then why are there so few women as elected representatives? This is because the male chauvinistic leadership of political parties does not give them tickets on the untenable pretext that women in general do not have the capacity of winning elections if pitted against men. Therefore reservations are required so that women can be pitted against women.

So why is the Women’s Reservation Bill being held up. The answer is that the men do not want to concede 33% of the space to women. As it is there is not enough space for all the men and many have to be left dissatisfied and these dissatisfied men can create quite a ruckus. If the space for men is reduced further then imagine the headaches for the party top bosses. But this is not the reason being offered.

The reason most commonly being given is that within the reservation for women there should be reservation for women of backward classes and minorities. There is merit in this argument and the solution is simple. If there are 150 seats reserved for backward classes and minorities, then 100 of these should be in the open category and 50 in the women category. But the messiahs of the backward classes and minorities do not want this. They want to keep the existing reservations for the backward classes and minorities intact and secure further reservation for women, a concept that is neither fair nor tenable.

Therefore the nautanki continues and the male politicians are having a good laugh.

Shri Amitabh Bachchan’s Blog

Some days ago while surfing through the TV channels I listened to the final part of an interview with Shri Amitabh Bachchan on NDTV. The interview had a reference to Shri Amitabh’s blog site and I decided to check it out.

Almost immediately I recalled some lines from his esteemed father’s autobiography, which I present from memory. “Whenever Amitabh decides to write his autobiography I am sure that it will be better than mine.” And considering that Shri Harivanshraiji’s autobiography is one of the best works that I have read, this was an awesome prediction. And Shri Amitabh’s blog suggests that his father’s prediction was not unfounded. Times have changed and so has the medium, but in essence a blog is an autobiography, or it can become one if continued for long enough.

I was delving into Shri Harivanshraiji’s poetry long before his son entered films and to me he will always remain the first Bachchan. The best part of Shri Amitabh’s blog, at least as far as I am concerned, is that it is garnished with references from his father’s works. And this gives me an opportunity to relive all those wonderful moments I had reading Shri Harivanshraiji’s works.

I must confess that I was saddened by some of the vituperative reactions the blog has drawn. Dissent is not only fine but also welcome. Bigotry though unwelcome can be tolerated. But abuse has no place in civil society. And it is a dicey decision for moderators to judge who has crossed the line because freedom of expression is equally important. Hence the best way out is self-regulation, in blogs as in all creative endeavours.

Meanwhile I will continue reading Shri Amitabh Bachchan’s blogs and look forward to his web site.

The Indian Premier League

As the Indian Premier League is nearing the half way mark some stray thoughts “all of my own”, like Busybee used to say.

· The name given to the Mumbai team “Mumbai Indians” is most unfortunate. Whereas the format involves teams being named after cities, to name a team comprising international player as “Indians” is simply not on. The international players are playing for their respective cities but not for India. I hope this gets rectified the next time round.

· The Harbhajan-Shreesant spat is a blot on the IPL no doubt, especially as one of the objectives of the IPL was to promote the spirit of cricket. This was more of a let down because the whole country stood by Bhajji during the crisis in Australia. I would be more than happy if this was the end of the road for both Harbhajan and Shreesant.

· The other spat, the Warne-Ganguly one, was a milder affair. Yes, Ganguly did pressurize the umpire and deserved to be docked points in the fair play award but not more than that. The umpire was at fault for getting pressurized and it is good to see the umpire being held accountable. The ICC needs to take a leaf from this.

· Farokh Engineer has also come under the scanner for fraternizing with one of the team owners while on duty as match referee. Though he has always had a cavalier attitude he needs to realize that he is wearing a different hat now.

· T20 is more like football than cricket in some ways. There is no room for error and the captain and players have to think all the time. The top four teams are the ones with the best leadership qualities that include tactical and man-management skills. And Mumbai’s revival has more to do with Shaun Pollock replacing Harbhajan Singh as captain than anything else.

· Another aspect that has come to the forefront is that those teams are faring well who are concentrating on cricket and not on publicity.

· We now know why Australia is not faring as well as it was some time back. Shane Warne and Glen McGrath have been the pick of the retired players and have performed much better than the big five of Indian cricket. It is more than evident that there is no room for anyone above the age of 30 in the Indian T20 side.

· One cannot talk about the IPL and leave out the cheerleaders. Personally I do not think cheerleaders have anything to contribute to the contest. They are inconsequential. However to try and get rid of them on puritan grounds is absurd. When will our elected representatives grow up?

· My favorite for the trophy are the current leaders – the Rajasthan Royals.