Anna’s last chance

I am surprised by the public outpour of support for social activist Anna Hazare’s fast against corruption. Perhaps the supporters are unaware of Mr. Hazare’s weak credentials as a crusader. Readers following Maharashtra politics will remember how Mr. Hazare had launched several such fasts in the past against thugs in the Maharashtra Government, only to withdraw them after a token assurance from the state’s chief minister. Like Shane Warne’s complete mastery over Daryl Cullinan, the rioter and businessman Manohar Joshi (appointed as the Maharashtra Chief Minster by Bal Thakre in the mid-1990s) had Mr. Hazare’s  number: every time Mr. Hazare undertook one his fasts, Mr. Joshi made a few random reconciliatory noises, to see Mr. Hazare immediately give up his fast.  The only goon Mr. Hazare succeeded displacing in Mr. Joshi’s time was Baban Gholap, then Maharashtra’s social welfare minister.

This fast is therefore Mr. Hazare’s last chance for redemption, and I believe he has gotten the timing right: India’s civil society is looking for its Egypt moment, and being too secure and worldly-minded to come to streets and protest, the middle-class and the urban elite are searching for an icon to lead the fight, and Mr. Hazare provides them an opportunity. I only wish that Mr. Hazare fights until the end and does not frustrate his supporters once again.

No names policy

Yesterday the Maharashtra assembly was thrown into turmoil over this report, which claimed that fraudster Hassan Ali laundered money for three former Maharashtra CMs:

"In those years, especially the late 1990s and early 2000s, the stock markets had huge black money riding on it, which was often untraceable. Ali smartly bought participatory notes which were not required to be registered with SEBI. In the same fashion, some of the money would also come into companies that would have a beneficiary of the politician's family or in some cases, a completely new business entity in the name of a beneficiary of the politician," said a source close to the probe agencies. Through this strategy, Ali is believed to have pumped in money into the businesses of the son-in-law of one of these former CMs."

[emphasis mine]

What do you think is the chance that these three CMs would be named? Last week Tehelka magazine had reported that not naming Ms. Kanimozhi in the charge-sheet was a strong pre-condition for the DMK to re-extend its support to the UPA government. This is what is likely to happen: today’s Mint mentions indications that Kanimozhi, one of Tamil Nadu CM Karunanidhi’s several children and an influential politician, will not be named in the first charge-sheet to be filed in the 2G scam case.  If things get too hot, the NCP would withdraw support from the UPA/Maharashtra government, and then watch things return to normalcy.

Who has the cleanest hands in Indian Politics?

A PJ to wash off the Monday morning blues:

Question: Who has the cleanest hands in Indian politics?

Answer: Sharad Pawar, because he washes his hands off every now and then:

1.      On escalating food prices
2.      On his proteges like Lalit Modi 
3.       On the Bt Brinjal row
4.      On farmer suicides
5.      Etc. etc.

Constituencies as family heirloom

I am eagerly waiting for Patrick French’s new book on post-Independence India (and the early reviews are encouraging). From an excerpt in Outlook magazine, it appears that one important theme in the book is the hereditary nature of Indian politics. We’ve seen countless examples in the recent past about how Indian politicians promote their offspring, but this report, compiled by Mr. French and his associates, shows how deep the malaise goes. Some highlights:

•          68% of Indian MPs under the age of forty come from political families
•           28% of Indian MPs come from political families
•           100% of Indian MPs below the age of thirty are from political families
•           70% of women MPs come from political families

It’s worse when it comes to start-ups founded by regional satraps. The Nationalist Congress party, backed by allegedly India’s biggest venture capitalist Sharad Pawar, has seven (out of nice) MPs that have entered politics through family connections. All five MPs of the RLD, promoted by politician-comedian Lalu Prasad, come from political families.

Mr. French and his associates have also provided the dataset that lists every Indian MP (from the Lok Sabha), details like his/her age, sex, political background and notes. The dataset is worth reading and analyzing in its entirety, and we hope to bring you more details/comments in the coming weeks.

Mr. French also had this to say when asked whether Indian politics would become completely hereditary:

“I was quite surprised by the results when I did that survey of the Lok Sabha. I did not expect the data to be so overwhelming—the  fact that, for example, every MP under the age of 30 is hereditary. I don’t think it’s a bad thing having political families in any democracy. The problem really is the scale of what is happening. For instance, the quite inspiring grassroots leaders who came up in the past—certainly in the Congress—would have no chance of winning a ticket for a Lok Sabha seat now. You have this ironic situation where democracy is deeply entrenched and yet, at the same time, for the top reaches of certain parties, you have to be the son or daughter of an existing leader in order to get anywhere.”

Personally, though I am amused by the extent of the rot, I am not shocked. The lines of mafia, business and politics have blurred in the past two decades, and the first two professions run deeply in families, so it’s no surprise that our politicians would emulate the ‘best practices’ from these. A vast majority of Indian politicians have interests in real-estate, which necessitates some allegiance to organized crime.  Most of our successful politicians also run business empires, and it is natural that to protect the interests of the family, the heirlooms like parliamentary constituencies are passed on: it’s part of the family business, and our politicians are at least being good fathers. (For instance, who can fault Karunanidhi for being a bad father? Mr. Karunanidhi has fathered several children from three wives, and has settled for nothing but the best for them: one he made a Union Fertilizers minister, another a deputy CM, yet one another a Rajya Sabha MP. Even distant relatives like grand-nephews get to become cabinet ministers and run large TV networks.)

The other reason is India’s rapid journey towards retracing its roots, such as Feudalism. But more on that later.

Maharashtra tops the honors again

In the past decade, the fortunes of many Indian states have changed. Bihar seems to slowly turning a corner, Karnataka is successfully managing the contrasting twains of development(growing) and corruption (escalating), and Himachal Pradesh, if the India Today magazine’s annual surveys are to be believed, is a leading state in India. However, nothing can match the tragic decline this decade brought for Maharashtra, once (up to 1990s)  believed to be the foremost state in India. Between 2000-2010, Maharashtra had the misfortune of being led by one mediocre government after the other, cultural terrorists like the MNS and Shiv Sena destroyed whatever little remaining liberal credentials Mumbai had, and state’s image was battered by scam after scam. Mumbai, Maharashtra’s capital and once India’s foremost city, lost that honor to New Delhi: New Delhi today can reasonably claim to be India’s financial capital, and the country’s most attractive city. 2000-2010 was thus the lost decade for Maharashtra – perhaps the first of many more to come.

However, there is one list that Maharashtra has managed to top:  farmer suicides.

Sharad Pawar: India's biggest Venture Capitalist?

Sharad Pawar, India's alleged agriculture and food minister, under whose disastrous rein thousands of farmers committed suicide and food inflation routinely stayed in double digits year-after-year, is many things: mediocre politician, failed minister, past mentor to crooks like Suresh Kalmadi. Now, in the year-end special of Outlook Magazine, respect financial journalist Sucheta Dalal hints at he being India's biggest venture capitalist:

Their inspiration is probably a Maratha heavyweight leader seen as India’s biggest ‘venture capitalist’ (several top companies today were backed by him) and has vast interests in realty, agro industries, media, sports, food, aviation and beverages. He uses the market so effectively that in the run-up to the last election, key party functionaries got stock tips in lieu of cash, with specific instructions on when to book profits. It gave them clean, tax-paid investment income thanks to easy market manipulation.

Read the entire piece.

Shekhar Gupta mollycoddles Sharad Pawar

Shekhar Gupta entertains us with an interview with India’s alleged Agriculture and Food minister, Sharad Pawar. The interview is amusing: not even once does Mr. Gupta quiz Mr. Pawar on agricultural issues or our food security, let alone farmer suicides or the soaring inflation. All Mr. Gupta is concerned about how the business environment in our country, and protecting the fair name of Ratan Tata and Praful Patel, India’s aviation minister. Mr. Pawar obliges Mr. Gupta all the way, at one instance saying:

“Basically as a person who was a chief minister of a state like Maharashtra and who comes from Mumbai, my major concern is the investment climate.”

Mr. Pawar could have easily said:

“Basicaly as a person who was a chief minister of a state like Maharashtra, which has seen the largest amount of farmer suicides, and which has a very large number of poor people who are affected by the soaring prices, my major concern is agriculture and food. Oh, I forgot to add, I am also supposed to India’s agriculture and food minster, so I must be interested. Very interested.”

Of course he says nothing like that.

The only time Mr. Gupta diverts from the line is when he discusses Mr. Pawar’s myriad business interests. Mr. Pawar, as one would expect, dismisses all his connections, at one point even lamenting/claiming that ‘But I didn’t get even a single share’ in Dynamix, a dairy and food processing major in his constituency.

Read the entire interview: it shows how a mediocre politician can become a successful business tycoon and escape any media criticism for his disastrous failures.

A Turing test for Sharad pawar

Computer programmers will be familiar with the Turing test, a device to test a machine’s intelligence. As per Wikipedia:

“A human judge engages in a natural language conversation with one human and one machine, each of which tries to appear human. All participants are placed in isolated locations. If the judge cannot reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine is said to have passed the test.”

One can devise a similar test for Sharad Pawar, allegedly India’s agriculture and food minister. During his disastrous career as the agriculture and food minister, lakhs of farmers – mostly in his own home state of Maharashtra – have committed suicide; and food prices have repeatedly breached all-time highs. Yet, Mr. Pawar prefers to remain silent. P. Sainath, rural-affairs editor for ‘The Hindu’, says:

“Sharad Pawar has never once moved to see that the National Farmers Commission Reports are placed in parliament for discussion and for adoption as policy, nothing. Sharad Pawar has not visited one house hold where a farmer has committed suicide. He is the agriculture minister. But he has been to every IPL, final, semi final, IPL 1, IPL 2 , he went to Durban to attend but he has not been in his home state of Maharashtra ,he has not visited the house hold of a farmer who was committed suicide, these are the sort of people who run our country. “

Then what makes Mr. Pawar speak? How do we know that Mr. Pawar feels responsible for any topic? If a farmer dying every half an hour doesn’t compel him to act, what will? If prices of essential commodities double in three years coaxes a statement to the effect that ‘we expect prices to rise even more’, what will? Is there an issue that can make the Baramati Boss talk?

We now have an answer: Lavasa. Mr. Pawar’s malleable and ultra-sensitive heart bleeds for the scam-embattled project. Mr. Pawar has recently come out against the environment minister jairam Ramesh’s directive asking the Lavasa corporation to stop constuction work.

So we now have a Turing test for Sharad Pawar: our alleged agriculture minister might be slient on topics of national importance, and thus rsemble a mue automaton, but attack one of his myriad business intersts, and the NCP supremo will sing.

Perhaps the farmers of Vidarbha must immoalte themselves in Lavasa. During the fourth edition of IPL.

regards,

- Bhushan.