A deal to die for..or to die for a deal...?

The ongoing imbroglio between the Government and the Politburo is amusing, and yet at the same time, distressing.

Amusing because once again, the Left will do what it does the best: oppose the government in whatever it does. I mean, these blokes don’t have a hope in hell of ever forming the government at the Centre; their ‘appeal’ isn’t spreading beyond their strongholds (and from what I have read and understood, the term ‘stronghold’ is also becoming fast redundant in their case), and their performance in the current Lok Sabha is their best ever (and they don’t seem confident that they will ever repeat it either). So, who cares whether the Government is seen to be inept because of our interruptions and objections? We aren’t going to get this moment again, so we may as well enjoy it to the fullest.

Distressing because once again, an opportunity that might just solve our problems for generations will be thrown away by the needless posturing of politicians. Nuclear energy may have its disadvantages, but frankly tell me, is there anything on this earth, or for that matter in this universe, without its pros and cons?

The Left would have us believe, and ‘surprisingly’ (or perhaps not) so does the NDA and the rest of the ‘opposition’, that the 123 Agreement between India and the United States of America is inimical to India’s sovereign interests, that the Agreement places India firmly in the control of the United States, and does not give us any scope to demonstrate our freedom, that the agreement prevents India from ever pursuing the option of a nuclear weapon test.

First things first, are the mandarins in South and North Block bottle-suckling babies that they can be expected to take whatever their counterparts in the State Department serve them? And if the agreement places India in the U.S.’s control, then why on earth is there a lobby of Senators and Representatives eager to see this deal being scuttled? Why on earth are American citizens alleging that this deal gives India all that it wants and gets nothing in return (or at least nothing substantially) for the U.S.? (Maybe the Americans are mad, but surely not this mad?) As regards the prospects of a nuclear test, I seriously doubt anyone takes a nation which has conducted thousands of such exercises seriously when it tries to stop someone else from doing so.

All those who now accuse the government of playing into the hands of foreign interests and mortgaging the family silver have at some time or the other done the same. The Left Front suffered its greatest schism so far in 1962 during the Indo-China war over whether to support the Indian war effort or to be seen as receptive to Chinese overtures. The BJP-led NDA was seen as the party who ended India’s exile from Capitol Hill with its aggressive attempts to ingratiate with the U.S., especially with its offer to host the anti-Taliban forces during the Afghan offensive post 9/11. Hence, stop this holier-than-thou nonsense; we all know “kaun kitne paani mein hain”, as the adage goes.

That there may be some substance in the opposition to the agreement is undeniable. Sheer politics alone cannot threaten to bring down elected governments; they need a cause célèbre to do that, like the Jain Commission report in 1996 et al. The Government cannot be seen to be deaf to the objections being raised, for in such a stance lies the danger that we may not hear a conscientious voice, a valid point. The opposition must not try to scuttle the entire agreement, for in this agreement is not just the pride of the incumbent administration, but also the pride and honour of the entire nation. Clauses could be worked upon, words could be clarified, but don’t tear the entire sheet, for God’s sake!

It is clear that all the wrinkles in the deal must be ironed out not by grandstanding, but by explaining what is being entailed, in what is unclear, for things can be resolved in a much more dignified manner. Posterity will judge us for how we dealt with this opportunity; we cannot afford being seen to have let it go without due reason or cause.

Is this the right way.....?

Intolerance goes deep in our ethos. And there’s nothing that we are doing to ensure that our children are not affected by this malaise. Or perhaps we do not wish to. Whatever the reason may be, it is a sad day when thoughts and ideas are sought to be stifled at the point of a dagger, at the barrel of a gun, at the edge of a fist, and no one wants to do anything about it.

When the Faculty of Fine Arts at Baroda got embroiled in the most controversial act of permitting outsiders to enter the Faculty’s premises and beating up a student for his allegedly ‘disrespectful’ works, liberals and ‘moderates’ throughout the country rose to deplore the act. And very rightly so, for even if the student concerned was being disrespectful, that wasn’t justification enough for someone to go up to him and bash him up.

That the perpetrators belonged to an organization supposedly espousing the aspirations of the Hindu community should really have had no effect on the volume of the deprecations. After all, a fanatic anywhere is a fanatic, irrespective of his/her faith or lack of it thereof. The denunciations were heartening, because they illustrated that while the aggrieved had the right to be so, there was a ‘right’ way to resolve such conflicts, a more sophisticated and cultivated manner, if you please.

And yet, the silence when concerning Ms. Nasreen is simply shocking, nay, deplorable. Ms. Nasreen may be a controversial writer, or rather a writer who survives on courting controversy. Her writings involving her faith may verge on the edge of blasphemy and irreverence.

Nonetheless, to barge on her person, to threaten to kill her are neither reverent nor justifiable acts for anyone, no matter how sacrilegious her words may seem to anyone. Does Islam permit any man to injure or harm an unarmed woman on the mere pretext that she has dared to insult his faith? Is Islam so weak on its feet that mere words would shake its very foundations? I think not.

Frankly, politics and faith are two completely different things, and ought to be maintained so. That they have not been so far is distressing, but definitely no cause for the same being propagated through the ages. No faith teaches the path of violence, and if it does, then it is unworthy of being venerated.

Those who perpetrated these offences weren't ignorant buffoons. They were legislators, expected to know the law, and yet that they chose to break it should not be reason for letting them off easily. In fact, they should be prosecuted even more harshly. A threat to murder someone is no laughing matter, and a murderer must not be permitted to hide behind the authority of the Legislature.

There is a legal recourse that can be relied upon. It may be slow, it may be arduous, but it is the right thing. Fanaticism must not be accepted, if not for our sake, then for our children, lest they find themselves in a world where speaking itself offends someone.

How doth the moon shine this night....?

The moon stands resplendent
In her raiment of silver and gold,
The sweet mistrals blow
Her lustrous brown tresses,
And soft strings of light
Bounce off her curls.

Her face shines beautifully
Like Pallas Athena in Her Parthenon,
Her eyes sparkle
Like emeralds set in ivory,
Her delicate brow calls
For one to be lost in its expanse.

She smiles, ah, that glorious smile,
And her cheeks turn so red,
To shame the most brazen of roses,
The most precious of rubies.
Her laughter, have you heard one
More innocent, more melodious,
That even the nightingale stops
To recollect her tune.

I stand in her light,
Bathed in her glory,
I pray this night never end,
That she never forsake me,
That no cloud ever comes
Between me and her,
That the sands of Time
Flow ever so slow this night,
So that I may gaze in her eyes,
And be lost for all Time, For all eternity……

Right to abstain.....?

By this time tomorrow, India will have a new President. It might seem on the basis of sheer numbers that Ms. Patil will be the next occupant of Raisina Hill, but then politics and politicians revel in being as unpredictable as possible. The incumbent UPA government will gloat over how it managed to ensure that its ‘nominee’ becomes the Head of State. I used the quotation marks because no candidate in the Presidential elections is ever a representative of a particular political outfit or coalition; rather, each candidate is an Independent, whose nomination simply receives support from a cross-section of the electors.

Speaking of electors, the so-called Third Front, or as they would prefer themselves called now, the UNPA, have asked their MPs and MLAs to abstain from voting from either of the two candidates in the fray. Their reason for abstention stems from their reluctance to be seen to support either the ruling UPA’s ‘nominee’ or the opposing NDA’s ‘nominee’, for purely ‘ideological’ reasons. So rather than just allow its electors to vote as per their mind, the heads of the various outfits in the Front ordered their electors to stay away.

And in that is a distressing event. Can a political outfit be permitted to order public representatives from performing their duties? Can anyone presume so much authority as to command someone beholden to the will of the people that he/she may not exercise his mental faculties to perform responsibilities expected of him/her?

The Presidential elections may not be as important to the common people as they may be made out to be. And undoubtedly our Founding Fathers never intended to make them so either, for had so been their intention, they would have incorporated the proviso in the Constitution then itself. A popularly elected President and a popularly elected Legislative are somehow too explosive a mixture without proper safeguards.

But that’s beside the point. That some electors would not be voting in these elections doesn’t bother me as much as the fact that representatives can get away with not voting on matters of state, on important legislations affecting the people, people whose ‘will’ they claim to represent. The various state and the central legislatures are replete with examples wherein member attendance is sometimes as low as 30 percent. In recent times, important policies such as the Annual Budgets have been passed without much, or rather any, debate. Are we losing our touch at democracy?

I had written earlier this month about some electoral reforms that we should look at seriously. There is need for reforms here as well.

• Representatives incapable of maintaining an attendance record of more than 60 percent should be denied their pay, as is accorded to them.
• Walkouts being so common an occurrence nowadays, every time a representative takes part in a walkout, the pay for the said day should be denied, irrespective of when the walkout occurred in the course of the day.
• Whips issued to the effect of asking representatives to abstain from voting should be deemed as extra-constitutional and void; a representative cannot be permitted to be forced or coerced into abjuring his/her right to exercise his/her responsibilities towards his constituents in particular and the nation in general.
• The said right is not inviolable. If the said representative should be found to have violated parliamentary norms and regulations regarding conduct, both within and without the legislature, he/she may be debarred from voting.
• The period of debarment would also be applicable for the denial of pay.

As always, I would appreciate your comments on these suggestions of mine.

Answering the questions....

What is life? A question or an answer to a question? To those who believe in reincarnation, perhaps the latter, for one would come back to experience life only if one has found something wanting in one’s previous life/lives. And in truth, what indeed is life all about?

Is it the sweet feeling of togetherness and bonding with one’s loved ones, the warmth of love and affection, feeling secure in the arms of the one you care for the most and in turn holding him/her in your arms, or is it something else? Is life about grief, about the salty tears that splash down when it hurts, the sudden choked voice when one wants to cry out and no voice comes out? Is it about deception, about not being what the world sees you to do, about wearing different masks for different people, and never knowing who one really is? Or is it about just living life, one moment at a time, one breath, one heartbeat at a time?

For me, and I truly believe in this, life is a medley of all this and much more. To be happy without ever having experienced grief is to never truly realize the value of that joy, of that bliss. On the other hand, to have always been in the downs, to never have felt the warmth of affection, would make one so very pessimistic and so very dead. Can one truly appreciate the value of trust and belief when one has never been betrayed? So to enjoy a positive, one must suffer a negative, if just for a brief moment.

Sometimes, life must be lived alone, without anyone beside you. You could be surrounded by countless people, and yet be alone in your solitude. You don’t need books, or music, or someone special to lose yourself.
Just think of yourself as a raindrop, released from the dark, grey clouds. This drop is destined to reach the ground and then be consumed by the parched earth, and yet it never thinks, or rather it cannot think of ever stopping its descent, of ever turning back towards whence it came. It is surrounded by its brethren, so many like itself, and yet it falls alone. It can only see itself in them, a pale reflection of its soul in their eyes. There is a spot on the earth given to it to fall upon, a soul to enliven, and a heart to bring joy to.
Be like that raindrop; do what you must, bring joy to all whom you can, and leave the rest to the Fates. They will not betray your trust in them.

Voting for change or changing the vote....?

The recent statement made by Parliamentarians during the reservation debates and now the Presidential elections about them representing the ‘will of the people’ had sparked off a blog previously, and guess this would be just a continuation of the same.

The current political scenario and especially the incumbent administration is a consequence of a post-poll alliance. I feel that this in itself is a mockery of the ‘will of the people’. Individual parties and pre-poll alliances, at best, can be deemed worthy of the will of the people, as the people willfully vote in a said party or a certain alliance. But post-poll alliances are a backhanded way of getting power, come what may. That a certain party or alliance does not have the mandate to rule on its own should be sufficient enough to comprehend that it does not in truth represent the will of the majority of the people.

As it is, the ‘first-by-the-poll’ system of Indian elections allows for someone securing as low as 20 percent to be elected as the people’s ‘representative’. I find this a laughable prospect, and sometimes even disturbing. I mean, let’s say out of a total population of 100, 10 don’t come out to vote. So 90 people vote. Let’s say there are 10 candidates. Even if 18 people decide to vote for a single candidate A, and the rest vote for the remaining 9, such that neither candidate has more votes than A, A would be declared a winner. 18 people out of 100 voted for a candidate, and he becomes a representative of the will of the entire 100? And what about the choice of the remaining 82 people? Scary!

So, electoral reform is perhaps needed, whether urgently or maybe slowly is a matter of implementation, but it is sure that some reform is needed. I have some suggestions, and some possible fallout, as follows:

• Prohibit parties from forming any post-poll coalitions. Only those formations which were formed before the polls took place should be permitted to stake a claim for the government.
• This may lead to a minority government, but essentially if the largest formation has to come in power, then this will ensure that.
• Also, the proviso of a confidence vote can ensure that parties other than the claimant can certify whether the claimant has their confidence.
• This will also reduce the risks of horse-trading and defections, as no longer can legislators split their parties after the election on the basis of who wins the polls.
• The minority government continues till such time that it enjoys the support of the Parliament, both de jure and de facto.
• Discard the ‘first by the poll’ system, and adopt the runoff system, as in France. If no candidate secures a simple majority in a specific election, then the two candidates with the most votes proceed to a second round, from which all others are excluded.
• This may prolong the election process, and may increase costs.
• But, eventually, this might ensure that at least 51 people out of 100 have voted for a certain candidate.

These suggestions are neither infallible nor perfect; I am willing to accept that. There could be some measure which could be better placed to deal with my concerns. Therefore, I would appreciate your comments on my suggestions.

Reading:

• Two Round System
• Plurality Voting System