Leap into the past

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In 1996 when the Deve Gowda government tried to introduce the Bill through its law minister Ramakant Khalap in Parliament, the Bill looked all set to change the image of a politician seeped in systematic corruption so grandly manifested in the JMM bribery scandal, hawala scandal and chara ghotala. Today as the decade-and-a-half-old Bill clears the first stumbling block and gets a Rajya Sabha OK, Geeta Koda, the wife of the latest poster-boy of corruption, Madhu Koda who incidentally hails from the same land as once ruled by Lalu Yadav, represents her husband's seat in Jharkhand Legislative Assembly while her husband spends time in jail. In these intervening years, right up to the passage of the 108th Constitution Amendment Bill which reserves 33 per cent quota for women in Parliament and state legislature, the tentacles of corruption has spread deep into the family and given sanctity to political....

The age of reason

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What if freedom of speech is untouched and untainted by religion? Why does freedom of speech and expression get challenged just at the threshold where religion seems to rear its head? Why is Hindu or Muslim way of life as distinct and separate from the bedrock that constitutes way of life for the entire humanity? Are we to assume Socrates did deserve a death he ordained for himself for having spoken his mind. A mind that laid bare the arrogance and sham of the powers-that-be. Was Plato wrong in disseminating his guru's Republic? Was not Buddhism pushed out of this country for having challenged the dominant religious thought process of the times and having laid bare the chinks in its armour? Should we leave Thackerays and Bhagwats of this world to interpret one of the oldest religions for any one of us. If Husain is accused of painting....

World Cup, Sangh Parivar and the success 'mantra'

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Is the man with the golden touch losing his sheen? He failed with his batting and lo and behold there were visible chinks in his captaincy too - one thing Indian cricket fans boasted about was having the most innovative captain among all cricket-playing nations. Were Dhoni's men tired after the New Zealand tour and back-to-back and punishing IPL journey? Has the IPL money and the resultant myth of heroism and invincibility around players gone to their heads? What were the reasons for India's unceremonious exit from the T20 World Cup in England? Many questions and raised eyebrows later, the debate is still wide open. But just as the Bharatiya Janata Party and its many H-word propagating stalwarts need to self-introspect and clear the humongous confusion about its ideology and its relationship with the RSS, so does Dhoni and the Board of Cricket Control of India (BCCI) need to take....

The Sangh Parivar and the 'Ajit' factor

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The RSS mouthpiece Organiser, in its recent issue, has dwelt at some length on causes that led to the dismal showing of the BJP at the hustings. The Organiser emphatically arrives at certain conclusions which, more than the necessary 'aatm-chintan' by the parent body, inadvertently pops up a mirror of its down-the-hill relationship with the BJP. The Organiser editorial displays an overwhelming sense of unabashed over confidence when it concludes there is "no evidence to show the ideology of the party has failed." If that were to be taken as unadulterated gospel truth, emanating as its does straight from Hedgewar Bhawan, then RSS will have little evidence to offer that party won 116 seats only because of its "ideology." If Hindutva and its related brand of cultural nationalism is the cornerstone of Sangh Parivar's ideology, the RSS suggestion that the BJP failed despite its ideology does not hold....

An Ode to Coalition

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Looking back in history late Prime Minister V P Singh beat poll pundits hands down having prophesized more than a decade ago the coalition era was here to stay. And cannot be wished away for good 20 years or so. The country has travelled the road just half-way through. The results of the 15th Lok Sabha elections may have given a decisive edge to the Congress and have raised its confidence bar that much in Uttar Pradesh but it will only be wishful thinking that it's time up for regional parties. Congress gains in Andhra Pradesh can hardly be attributed to Rahul Gandhi. It was YS Reddy's persistent thrust on all-round development of the state, as against Chandrababu Naidu's 'look city' approach, made him King second time in a row. In Rajasthan, the groundswell of anger against 'Maharani' Vasundhara had only swelled past six months resulting in....

Discovery of India (Part II)

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His great grandfather discovered India for the country that woke up to a new dawn of freedom a year later in 1947. The Discovery of India was hailed as a brilliant work of history, philosophy and culture. Sixty two years later Nehru's great grandson Rahul Gandhi would embark on a similar journey. Not to write another book on India's history but, like his great grandfather, enrolling himself as a student of contemporary political history of India and becoming an active participant in rediscovering Bharat that is India. He traversed nearly more than a lakh kilometers, criss-crossed 17 states, addressed more than 120 rallies in 106 constituencies, hand-picked young faces, and authored the unprecedented triumph of the Congress in more than a decade. Critics of dynastic politics can take a walk. If dynasty speaks the language of development, upholds the secular credentials of the country, seeks to address....

Kaun Banega Pradhanmantri: Cracking the political Sudoku

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If Rahul Gandhi is to be believed, no coalition partner of the UPA other than the Congress has the rightful claim to the PM's post. This is what he meant when he said if the Left Front or Mr Sharad Pawar can win seats close to 200 then the Congress can think of supporting the NCP or the Left Front candidate for the Prime Ministership. The sarcasm in his declaration cannot be missed since the NCP and the Left Front put together are not contesting more than 100-odd seats in the elections to the 15th Lok Sabha. By any reasonable logic and given the party's sway as the oldest national party, across states from Kerela to Kashmir and from Assam to Gujarat, the Congress is destined to log close to one-third of the seats it is contesting. (No pollster yet has allowed his/her psephological instinct to run wild....

The Q factor and Indian polity

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Who is Q? Twenty years ago even a school dropout would have given you a low down on Ottavio Quattrocchi, his closeness to Sonia Gandhi and thus the Gandhi family and how he made good the payoff in the Bofors gun deal case. Today, an IAS aspirant would be at his wit's end to describe Q - a middle-man who siphoned off crores as Bofors payoff, a good samaritan flogged for being close to the Gandhis or a maverick who has used loopholes in the Indian criminal jurisprudence to come around it. The IAS-aspirant should thank the pliant Central Bureau of Investigation for his dilemma. In fact, Q, the Bofors payoff and the way it has been handled by various Congress regimes is a study in public administration that can come handy for an IAS aspirant. Who knows, one day, he may be part and parcel of the same....

Sholay relived; Gabbar, Thakur etc of IPL

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'Yeh haath lagaam pakad kar ghode ko bhi bitha sakte hain' ...That was Thakur Baldev Singh's bravado after being tricked into the den of Gabbar, whose fear and fables of ruthlessness travelled as far as 'pachas pachas kos dur'. Thakur Baldev Singh lets out the fiercest cry of helplessness and unforeseen fear as Gabbar chops off the Thakur's limbs from his shoulders. Leave out the physicality and gore of this high-voltage Sippyian drama, and you have an encore playing out on the cricketing fields of the Indian Premier League. The horses are aplenty. It's not Ramgarh's prestige at stake that can be safeguarded by Gabbar's goons for two sacks of wheat and corn. Here the stakes are in crores. You can start counting the currency and you will not be through with counting it even after having reached the moon. This Gabbar is more suave -- educated, glamorous,....

Mayawati's Swat; forgotten lessons of a legacy

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On April 13 the people of Jaunpur woke up to a real bad morning. They were not living out a nightmare but a scenario worse than that. They discovered they were living not in Uttar Pradesh but in Talibani Swat. A body hung from a a tree in Jaunpur's Dharnidharpur area. By the time the body was brought down it became clear it was Bahadur Lal Sonkar, the Indian Justice Party (IJP) candidate from Jaunpur Lok Sabha seat. Forty-eight hours before he was done to death and hung Talibani style from a nearby tree, Sonkar had told the press that he feared for his life. He alleged local police top brass was pressurising him to withdraw his candidature. He alleged the police were acting at the behest of local don and BSP candidate from the area, Dhananjay Pratap Singh. This was a classic Marquezian chronicle of a death foretold....