BJP - A Party With "Shady Shades"

For which nice turn of phrase, credit goes to the Deccan Herald editorial team: BJP’s porngate

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) liked to boast itself as a ‘party with a difference.’ The BJP, which was voted to power in Karnataka in 2008, is proving to be not only ‘different,’ but a party with many shady shades. 

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For all the high moral pitch the BJP and its fountainhead, the RSS adopt publicly, the quality of legislators the party has got elected this time, is indeed shocking. If excise minister Renukacharya’s name figured in a sex scandal before he became a minister, another minister Hartal Halappa was forced to quit after rape charges were levelled against him. 

Then there is this - the other strong wicket on which the BJP likes to bowl, corruption: Citing BJP pressure in Jayalalithaa case, Karnataka AG quits

The BJP government in Karnataka suffered another setback on Wednesday, with Advocate-General B.V. Acharya preferring to resign from his post rather than give in to “pressure” from the State government to quit as Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) in the disproportionate assets case against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.

Talking to The Hindu, he said: “For some time, there has been terrible pressure on me to resign from the position of SPP, and I have been resisting it.”

Ms. Jayalalithaa's AIADMK is not part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, but senior BJP leader L.K. Advani described her, at a function in Chennai last month, as a “natural ally” of his party.

Prediction Time

TCA Srinivasa Raghavan of Business Line does the predicting:

If the Congress manages to form a government in UP, or even manages to win enough number of seats, Rahul Gandhi would have “proved” that he is a mass leader in his own right, one to be reckoned with. 

The path will be then cleared for him to become Prime Minister and to force an early election in the first half of 2013 on the perfectly legitimate grounds that he needs his own team. 

The BJP under Advani will find it hard to come up with a fitting riposte. It needs Narendra Modi but will acknowledge it only after another resounding defeat. 

If Rahul fails in UP, it will be business-as-usual. Manmohan Singh will continue as Prime Minister till 2014; Rahul will become Congress President and the 2014 general election will be a nightmare for the Congress.

Let's see.

It's All In The Brain

Your Brain on Politics: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Liberals and Conservatives.  

Erasing The Difference

Between itself and the other parties. That is what the BJP has done according to one of its own leaders in the state.

Stating that party workers were of the view that the BJP had ceased to be a party with a difference, he said dynastic rule, casteism and electoral malpractices were the issues with which the Congress and the JD(S) were being targeted. "However, by fielding the kith and kin of sitting ministers, the BJP has lost the moral authority to take on other parties over this issue," he said.

Referring to allegations of the party employing money and liquor to woo voters during elections, Eshwarappa said he would appeal to State President Sadananda Gowda to constitute a committee of senior leaders to look into the charges.

"I am elated that the party won 19 seats in the elections. But, I do believe that means are as important as the ends. More than development and ideological issues, distribution of money and liquor were prominently discussed during elections in Shimoga.

Loyal BJP voters who were not used to this political culture, lost motivation to turn up at polling booths. The party had similar experience in other constituencies also."

I confess I never bought into the 'party with a difference' bs even as far back as 1990. When you haven't tasted power, you tend to be a bit different. After all, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely etc. But I did think it stood for 'partying with a difference'. With a saffron tinge if one may put it that way. And one did hear about the parties during the Pramod Mahajan days. However, the blatant use of liquor and money in the recent polls as reported in the newspapers did surprise me.

We live and learn.

BJP And Gandhi

Time was when a sure-shot way to identify a closet BJP supporter was by his views on Gandhi. Negative? Most probably a BJP supporter. Positive? Mostly a non-BJP supporter. Alas, that may no longer hold if the leadership goes on like this.

Politics & Facts

NR Narayana Murthy on fact-based decision-making (page 13):

Chennai: Infosys mentor N R Narayana Murthy on Saturday flayed politicians for taking “ego-centric” stand on several critical issues, including Indo-US nuclear deal, without properly studying the facts. “Most of our politicians do not have the details of the Indo-US nuclear deal. However, they are taking a stand”, he said speaking at a management seminar organised by the Great Lakes Institute of Management here on Saturday.

“When I ask them have you read the 123 agreement, please tell me what areas which you see are bad, very few of them are in a position to give facts. However, they have already taken a position,”

...Advising the students, he said, “please avoid taking decisions based on ego, based on perceptions and go for an analysis based on data and facts. In the end, everybody is happy.”

No one denies the merits of fact-based decision-making. And one respects NR Narayana Murthy immensely for doing what he has done with Infosys and for his 'High thinking and simple living', but there are some issues with the above formulation with respect to the nuclear deal.

1. The other party involved in this deal is not fact-based. It's record on Iraq, Iran, Kyoto/global warming, Pakistan - and all this in the very recent past that I remember - speak of a singular contempt for fact and a love of self-interest above everything else. Do we want to deal with such an entity without closing all loopholes in the agreement?

2. There are some salient facts quite apart from the text of the 123 agreement itself which should make one reject the deal.

• The record of the UPA government in being pressurised by the US on account of the deal, into acting quite differently from how it would have normally is quite poor. The Iran vote, the IPI gas pipeline, removing explicitly pro-pipeline Mani Shankar Aiyer from the Petroleum Ministry, cooling off of relations with Russia - all these are examples.
  
• The Hyde Act which everyone agrees is quite disagreeable, and the fact that there is no explicit clause which prevents the US from taking recourse to its domestic laws (e.g., the Hyde Act) to pull out of the 123 agreement - though such a clause is explicitly mentioned in the 123 agreement with China.

3. Politics and foreign policy cannot be entirely driven by fact. If it were, the West would not need to be dragged kicking and screaming to sign the Kyoto deal. Hundreds of thousands would not have lost their lives in Iraq. The courts would not be required to force, say, the Delhi government to make CNG compulsory in vehicles. I think that is why politics is called the art of the possible.

4. Forget politics, even some corporate policies are based on some vague thoughts without any basis in facts. Take for example, the matter of clothes in some IT based companies. Some of them require formal clothing on almost all days. This includes wearing of ties on certain days, which meets with lots of natural chaffing at the bit given the day-time temperatures in many Indian cities. Some companies going to the extent of advising their female employees not to forget to use dupattas! What are the possible reasons for such a policy?

• Productivity? Google among other highly productive companies don't have formal clothing rules. In fact, I believe Googlers/googlies are allowed to bring their pets to the office!
  
• Making favourable impressions on visiting clients? Has any fact-based study been made on whether clients give more weightage to clothes that their vendors' employees wear compared to the quality of deliverables. I've not heard of any such study.
• Getting employees used to wearing formals and getting the tie-knot just right? But a training session (or sessions) before the employee flies to the land of formality would probably be just as effective - have any facts been gathered on the efficacy of the two methods?

Where are the facts on whos basis this policy exists?

5. Sometime ago, NR Narayana Murthy called for a road on piles to Electronics City in Bangalore to reduce commute times. The government jumped to it promptly and the road is coming up. I have not come across any facts about the cost of the road, what its benefits are compared to the costs, what alternatives were considered, how exactly it would help when the rest of the city is still jamming away like Jimi Hendrix, etc. What does one say about that?

Of course, one would also love to know how many of the deal's supporters have read the 123 agreement in full.

Our Turn Now

From The Hindu:

The Bharatiya Janata Party is eyeing the portfolios of Public Works and Power under the chief ministership of B.S. Yeddyurappa.
...
Mr. Gowda said the Janata Dal (Secular) had enjoyed the two portfolios in the first 20 months of the coalition governance and it was time that party left them for the BJP.

One hears that there are treasures not dreamed of in the wildest human dreams in the aforesaid departments. As no doubt Mr Deve Gowda's other son would be able to readily testify, having served as the Public Works Minister in the outgoing government.

Man Of Letters

Deve Gowda. Nice job DH! He does shoot them off quite frequently doesn't he?

War and Terror

Kept away from the keyboard first by the Midnight Marathon and now by this. The desire exists - so many things happening out there - but somehow posting just doesn't happen.

Today I found two letters to the editor which I agree with:

Terrorism is to be condemned vehemently as it is a menace against humanity. But if one takes a look at the countries targeted for terror attacks, one can see a pattern. The Islamist terrorists target only the U.S. and its supporters. I worked in Jordan for a while and I have personally seen the plight of Palestinians who have been driven away from their homes. Their homes are just 50-100 km away from where they live but they cannot go there. The Glasgow incident is the result of such skewed policies of the west. Terrorism cannot be eliminated unless the world shows compassion for the sufferers.

N. Ramakrishnan , Richards Bay, South Africa.

True, most of the terrorist acts are perpetrated by young, misguided, hardcore members of a particular community. But it is also true that the majority belonging to the same community is law-abiding and is in no way responsible for the acts of the few. To tar an entire community with the same brush, therefore, is not only wrong but inhuman. The best ways of tackling terrorism are to strengthen and modernise our police forces and adhere strictly to the principle of secularism.

Baikadi Suryanarayana Rao, Bangalore

And it is irritating when people say that the 'misguided' youth 'misinterpreted' their religious teachings. Where does religion come into it? As far as I can see, the motivation is entirely political. The younger Bush and the older Blair declared a war on terror which somehow is a war solely against Islamic people. And these suicide bombers may be thinking that they are on the other side in this war.

Poor Losers

From The Hindu:

As soon as the House assembled in the morning, BJP members were on their feet, raising slogans against West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. They were warned by the Chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat to refrain from rushing into the well. "Do not march into the well or else you will regret it later," the Chairman warned before adjourning the House for an hour.

The scene was no different when the House reassembled at 12 noon but Deputy Chairperson K. Rehman Khan continued amidst the din with the business of laying papers, moving and passing the National Institutes of Technology Bill, 2006, the statement by Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh and even ran through the list of Special Mentions.

At this stage, BJP members trooped into the well, continuing their sloganeering more vociferously and demanding a discussion on the Nandigram issue. Left with no choice, the Deputy Chairperson was heard telling BJP members who had stationed themselves just below his chair: "Go to your seats, I am adjourning the House."

Leading to this conclusion:

...the BJP ... has proved itself to be a poor loser after the May 2004 general election. In the aftermath of that defeat, the BJP boycotted the budget, leading to its passage without a discussion. In the Rajya Sabha on Monday, its members made a bid to snatch budget-related papers from Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, forcing him to cut short his reply to crucial points raised by members. The party has gained a reputation for disobeying rules, flouting agreements reached in the Speaker's chamber, and refusing to extend the normal parliamentary courtesies to Ministers and to other parties. The Treasury and the Opposition benches must come to a minimum agreement on running Parliament — if not for improving their own public image, at least for the sake of Indian democracy.

It is especially sad when the party with a difference behaves thus.

Spine

Lack of it (via Atrios):

Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

Q: “I mean, I think you’d probably agree it probably does help stop it?”

Mr. McCain: (Laughs) “Are we on the Straight Talk express? I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it.”

Q: “But you would agree that condoms do stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Would you say: ‘No, we’re not going to distribute them,’ knowing that?”

Mr. McCain: (Twelve-second pause) “Get me Coburn’s thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn’s paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I’ve never gotten into these issues before.”

This is a US Presidential candidate who will run in 2008. Stumped by a simple question of whether condoms help stop the spread of HIV/STDs. Because his political base - the conservatives - wouldn't forgive him if he agreed.

There They Go Again

From The Hindu:

For the nth time in its post-1950 career, the Congress Party is in the process of demonstrating that, Bourbon-like, it can `learn nothing and forget nothing' when it comes to deploying the knife of Article 356 against State governments it intensely dislikes.

Time for some political fun and frolic. The question is: why?

On Policemen Being Attacked

Increasingly people don't seem to be too afraid of attacking policemen. From DH:

The policemen tried to enter the building. Out came the ladies, who threw chilli powder at the men in khaki.

Undeterred, the police began climbing the stairs only to be attacked by some youngsters with choppers. Central Crime Branch inspector Nanjundegowda was injured in the act. Later, a few more policemen trooped in and the boys were taken into custody and weapons seized. But none of the women were touched.

Is it desperation or a belief that they will be bailed out by their political sponsors?

Promises

Kept and unkept. A point worth noting:

Starting with the Second Plan, for the last 50 years our policy-makers have insisted that the salvation of India's countryside lies in urbanisation and industrialisation. Completely overlooking that for a nation whose cities are its biggest emerging disasters and where more than 700 million people are engaged in farming, there can be no escape from improving its agriculture — a sound agrarian base on which could develop a whole range of other nature-based livelihoods.

Also, I always thought our politicians were the new maharajahs. But no, there are others too.

White Elephants

Only, they are cows. So these Chattisgarh tribals of Nagri village are looking their gift horses in the mouth, if you pardon the mixed metaphors.

Politics In Flux

Says this editorial from The Telegraph. Giving a bird's eye view of the state of Indian political parties as of now, it suggests that the BJP, reinventing itself, has the best chance going forward.

Vote Hungry Politicians

Are blamed by the RSS chief here for projecting the organisation wrongly:

The RSS chief also spoke of the wrong projection of the RSS as an anti-Muslim outfit by ‘vote hungry’ politicians. “Muslims in India are not foreigners. They can pray in any manner they choose. Their roots lie in India, so when the nation demands, they should offer their lives for it,” he said while averring that they should not ask for minority status.

We all know what 'vote hungry ' politicians are capable of. But such a grievous injustice? One shudders at the very thought.