Unwanted and discredited, Bhardwaj must go

RAJESH SINGH

Now that the central government has rejected Mr H R Bhardwaj’s recommendation to impose President’s Rule in Karnataka, the Governor must vacate the Raj Bhavan. He is unwanted, distrusted and discredited in the state. He said recently that he was a guest of Karnataka and thus deserved respect going by the Indian tradition that holds a guest as god. True, but when that god turns demon it is time to exorcise it. While rejecting Mr Bhardwaj’s suggestion, the government issued an ‘advisory’ to the BJP government in the state on the points raised by the Governor. This is a fig leaf that he can use to cover his political modesty, but it may not serve the purpose. He has been too widely exposed.

Mr Bhardwaj’s political misadventure may yet fetch him some reward. After all, no one seriously believes he created all the turbulence without an assured lifeline from influential people in the Congress party and the UPA government. He is no ordinary Governor. He was until very recently a key member of the Cabinet, and is considered close to 10, Janpath. So, the central snub notwithstanding, he has his admirers who will work to resurrect him if and when he leaves the state. Reports have it that he may even return to the Union Council of Ministers. If that happens, Karnataka’s gain can be the UPA government’s loss, because Mr Bhardwaj’s tenure as Union Law Minister was less than distinguishing.

There are only two ways he can shift out: either voluntarily or being recalled by the central government. The government has already ruled out his recall, because that would have been too much of an ignominy for a loyalist. Besides, the move would have been interpreted as the central government’s complete capitulation to the BJP. Mr Bhardwaj can quit gracefully – or as gracefully as he can after fruitlessly messing up the state’s politics – and leave it to posterity to be kinder to him. Of course, he can also hang on and continue to denigrate the Raj Bhavan till his admirers find him a suitable job.

The fact is, Mr Bhardwaj is the wrong person to be a Governor. He is a politician at heart and loves the skullduggery and intrigue associated with politics. He effectively converted the Raj Bhavan into a den of political subversion. Given his track record he is rather good at the game, if one excludes the Karnataka fiasco. He might just have succeeded here too if things had gone as planned by him and a few others who collaborated with him in the ‘oust Yeddyurappa’ campaign. To be fair to Mr Bhardwaj he failed not for want of trying but because certain events shot off in a new direction that he neither had plotted nor anticipated. For instance, he had not imagined that the 16 legislators with whom he had been so indulgent when they raised a banner of revolt against the Chief Minister, Mr B S Yeddyurappa, would conduct a U-turn just when the time came to deliver the Chief Minister the knockout punch. After their disqualification was set aside by the Supreme Court, these legislators had the opportunity to avenge the humiliation by voting against Mr Yeddyurappa in a trial of strength. But in a remarkable turn of events that took even the seasoned Governor by surprise, the MLAs threw their lot behind the very man they had gone to elaborate extents to dislodge.

Understandably, after – from his point of view disturbing – recent events, the Governor had neither the enthusiasm nor the appetite to ask the Chief Minister for a trust vote. He had loved the mechanism in the past, compelling Mr Yeddyurappa to demonstrate a majority in the Assembly on two quick days late last year. But then he had used those tumultuous occasions to argue that the Chief Minister had survived in a dubious fashion, after the Speaker had disallowed the rebel Legislators to vote and disqualified them thereafter. There was no such happy point to be made this time around, because the Chief Minister would have won with a more emphatic margin after winning over the rebels. So the Governor meekly admitted that a vote of confidence was unnecessary since Mr Yeddyurappa enjoyed a “huge majority”. For good measure, he added that the Chief Minister was his ‘good friend”.

It is not clear when this friendship developed or whether Mr Yeddyurappa reciprocates the sentiment. But since we do know that Mr Bhardwaj stands by his friends – recollect how he has backed all the way the rebels and the Karnataka leaders of the JD (S) and the Congress in their bid to displace the Chief Minister – we eagerly await his rendition of Yeh dosti hum nahin todenge. For now Mr Yeddyurappa is unwilling to add voice to what should be a duet. Perhaps it only a coincidence that the Governor should have developed such warm feelings for the Chief Minister after being mauled by legal experts and various political parties for recommending the dismissal of an elected government that enjoys the majority support in the House, and subsequent to getting gentle hints that the Centre was unwilling to accept his report.

The gush of warmth did not dry out with the unilateral announcement of friendship. The Governor applauded Mr Yeddyurappa for working ’18 to 20 hours a day”, for Karnataka’s welfare. Good Lord, if that is true Mr Bhardwaj has been pushing for the dismissal of a Chief Minister who has been toiling hard for the state’s development, not to mention the fact that he commands a huge majority in the Assembly. It is a defining contradiction, but then the Governor has been less than coherent ever since the Centre dumped his report and the Chief Minister won over the rebels.

Combating terror needs action, not words

(First published in The Pioneer dated May 18, 2011)

RAJESH SINGH

At the risk of being called a ‘US stooge’ — whatever that means for a commoner like me who has never entered a US embassy or consulate, or been ever contacted by any US official or mole, or enjoyed a US-sponsored junket — let me state that I am awestruck by the manner in which the world’s only superpower felled Osama bin Laden. It was a show of military precision and daring, backed by technological support and superior ground intelligence. But more than that, it demonstrated the unwavering resolve of a country hit by terror to extract revenge.

In the 10 years that it pursued the world’s deadliest terrorist who not merely led Al Qaeda but also spawned and became a source of encouragement for a host of affiliates — many of which have been targeting India — the US never lost sight of its goal, despite coming in for strong criticism from various quarters for the manner in which it had conducted its ‘war on terror’. It crossed borders and nailed the man it considered to be its enemy number one. That is how nations should fight terror, if it comes to that. Here, India has a lesson to learn.

But every time the issue of India duplicating the US approach to tackling terror is raised, it is brushed aside as unworkable. For one, Washington, DC had the support of the world’s most influential countries, with some being partners in the ‘war on terror’. New Delhi, we are reminded, will not find such allies if it decides to engage in hot pursuit of the terrorists holed up in Pakistan. Even the US, we are told, will not back India in that situation. Then there is the matter of geographical contiguity. Unlike the US, which is far removed from the scene of conflict, India shares its borders with Pakistan and any proactive military action to hit terror camps there will invite swift, and even perhaps a nuclear, retaliation from Islamabad. Finally, we are informed that while our armed forces are as good as any in the world when it comes to valour, they simply do not have the technological capability required to conduct audacious operations of the kind the US engaged in.

These are genuine concerns and cannot be brushed aside in the heat of the moment. But they are also possibly exaggerated. For instance, India is not without support. The UK, France, Germany, Russia, Israel and several others including the US are disgusted with Islamabad’s prevarication on acting against terrorists who have targetted India and find refuge in Pakistan. It may be true that those like the US have not really walked the talk from New Delhi’s point of view, but that is because we have ourselves not taken a hard stance. We will have reason to grumble only when we are firm on action (and not just speculate) and find no support from them.

The fact that Pakistan is our neighbour did not prevent us from going to war against it on three occasions, and engaging in the Kargil conflict which almost became a full-blown war. From all accounts, we emerged the better in these encounters. As far as the threat of a nuclear attack is concerned, Islamabad knows only well that any first-use of nuclear weapons from its end will mean its own denouement. India too would end up brutalised, but it will eventually recover; Pakistan is unlikely to do so because only that which survives will revive.

It is the third factor — not being technologically well equipped for across the border operations — that deserves closer attention. Our policy makers must hasten the process of modernising the armed forces to conduct such operations, which would be the last resort after all other methods of persuasion fail.

Eventually, the point is well accepted that these decisions have to be taken by the political executives based on expert inputs, and not by the ranting of lay commentators. That raises another disturbing question though: Does our Government have the spine to consider such daring options? The answer is ‘no’. Indeed, let alone demonstrate intrepidity, the UPA Government does not even have a clear stand on the recent developments. Osama bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan provided us with the perfect occasion to slam Islamabad for its duplicity, but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, with his head buried in the sand, refused to seize the advantage and continued to harp on working for better relations with that country. Amazingly, he did not have one harsh word for Islamabad. It was left to Union Minister for Home Affairs P Chidambaram to do some plain-talking — he slammed Pakistan for sheltering terrorists.

But strong words for Pakistan from the Indian Prime Minister, even when all of the world barring usual ones like China have pounced upon it, is perhaps expecting too much spine from him. Mr Singh has after all revived the composite dialogue process with Pakistan halted in the wake of the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. He did so despite Islamabad’s categorical refusal to act on the tomes of evidence New Delhi has provided it on the terror strike. Not only has Pakistan not acted, it has ridiculed the evidence as just some silly stuff on a piece of paper. Yet, our Government revels in cricket and hockey diplomacy, allowing Pakistani leaders to score public relations points. It is no wonder that Islamabad deals with our so-called stern messages with contempt at worst and a good deal of amusement at best.

That the Union Government is in a state of self-inflicted stupor is most remarkably evident in the manner it continues to drag its feet over the death sentence to the Parliament attack mastermind, Afzal Guru. His appeal for remission of the verdict confirmed by the Supreme Court has been pending with the President for years. Why, when it should have taken not more than a few days for the Government to advise the President to let the terrorist hang? It is because the UPA has developed cold feet over the likely ‘repercussions’. That alone tells the story of this Government’s resolve to fight terror.

The House is not in order

RAJESH SINGH

India’s Parliamentary Democracy on Trial
By Madhav Godbole
Rupa
Rs 595

This book could not have come at a better time. As people watch in dismay and horror the campaign unleashed by a group of politicians and their handpicked agents to discredit the anti-corruption drive of Anna Hazare, one thing is obvious: These politicians are not really concerned with the credibility of those on the panel as they are with derailing the process. The reason is that, if the panel members nominated by Hazare get to work without distraction, the politicians will have a lot of answering to do. Madhav Godbole’s book must be read in this context. It lays down how our political class has failed over the decades — not merely to meet the people’s aspirations, but even to acknowledge in any concrete manner that they have such aspirations.

The title — India’s Parliamentary Democracy on Trial — itself gives away the purpose of the book. It is a critique of how those who claim to represent us have made a mockery of a system that was so lovingly and with lofty ideals crafted by our founding fathers. As one with a ringside view of the developments — Godbole served over decades with distinction in various senior positions in Government, capping his career as Union Home Secretary — the author has brought his understanding of the issues to not merely point to the strings of blunders but also suggest remedies. In truth, those remedies have been floating around for some time now and effectively ignored. If those suggestions still sound contemporary, it’s because they are even more relevant in the present situation, where crusaders for a change face a thinly disguised vilification campaign, ironically from those who are themselves short of credibility.

While it may be far-fetched to believe that had the suggestions proposed in the book been implemented, there would have been no Hazare movement, none can deny that the implementation of at least some of them would have greatly strengthened the credibility of the political class to combat the Gandhian. As of now, more people tend to believe him and his followers — tainted as some may be — than the political class. They will also find great merit in the contents of the book.

The narrative reflects the clinical precision of an expert and the anguish of the governed. There are, unfortunately, few Indian writers who write authoritatively on contemporary issues of governance. Godbole is one of them. In fact, this book is a sort of continuation of his earlier exhaustive work, The Judiciary and Governance in India, in which he hit the nail on the head when he said, “We have, from the perspective of the civil society, made a series of recommendations... However, there are no prospects in the near future of the executive and Parliament, lacking as they are in political and moral courage and stature, addressing them.” This was two years before Hazare burst on the Delhi scene, leaving the political class fuming over charges that it was generally insensitive to the aspirations of the people.

The author does well to base his arguments in the backdrop of the ‘glorious’ Nehru days of Parliament, when the Prime Minister went out of his way to ensure that the fountainhead of democracy was receptive to the needs and demands of the people. Though he does not agree with everything the first Prime Minister said or did, Godbole nevertheless admits that Jawaharlal Nehru did not have a pathological dislike for opposition. Indeed, he sought it. The author quotes him, “It is right that there should be criticism... I think it is essential for any kind of Government to have critics, the opposition.”

Since the manner in which politicians treat Parliament is reflective of how much concern they have for those who send them to the hallowed body, Nehru was obsessed with discharging his duties to it, and did his utmost to see that his colleagues in the Government followed suit. Today the Prime Minister goes on a foreign tour when Parliament is in session. This is what Nehru had to say, as the author quotes him, “As far touring is concerned, I have personally decided not to attend any of the large number of diplomatic functions that take place in Delhi or otherwise, as far as possible, also not to accept any engagements.”

These observations are relevant in the present context because the political class, with a few honourable exceptions, has been condemning the Hazare movement as the subversion of democracy and Parliament. The fact is, because the Members of Parliament over the years failed to bring about substantial reforms to enhance accountability and transparency in their functioning, ‘civil society’ was compelled to rise in protest. Godbole lays down in clear terms those failures, a number of which reside in the premise of electoral reforms. As we have said before, he offers suggestions. Among them are ways to decriminalise politics and abolish the first-past-the-post winner system. The author is under no illusion that these will be easily done, though he points out that genuine will across the political spectrum can do the needful. Until now, that commitment has come only in the form of high-sounding statements, not real action.

As Godbole remarks, the law prohibits a person from contesting an election only if he/she is convicted by a court for offences mentioned in Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and sentenced to imprisonment for more than the stipulated number of years. While accepting the dogma that a person is innocent unless proven guilty and simply because there is a case against him he cannot be barred from contesting polls, the author suggests a way out: Once a court frames charges against an individual, the framed person should stand disqualified from contesting. And, if the person is already a member of a legislative body, he has to step down. In both cases, the accused should not be permitted to hold any Government or quasi-Government office, or be part of Government panels till he is cleared of the allegations.

The author is especially disdainful of the first-past-the-post winner system, by which the candidate who secures the highest number of votes is declared the winner. With politicians promoting caste, religion and regional divides to garner votes, the author correctly says that “winning even with a minority vote has become common place”. He points out that in the last Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, “96.53 per cent of the winners polled less than 50 per cent of the votes cast”. He adds that in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, the corresponding percentage was 59.85. With such fragment votes, how can the winner claim to represent the broad section of society in his constituency? And, knowing that he has won due to a particular section of the voters, why would he not bend backward to oblige that parochial group as a parliamentarian or a legislator? As a solution, Godbole says laws should be amended so that only that candidate who gets “50 per cent plus vote” is considered the winner.

Incidentally, the matter had also been raised by former Union Minister and senior writer Arun Shourie in his book, The Parliamentary System, where he pointed out how “unrepresentative” several of our elected representatives were.

It is worth reproducing Godbole’s dismay in the concluding part of the book’s introduction. He laments, “Except for the BJP, Communist or Left parties, almost all other political parties in India are family concerns... Who could have imagined that India, with its population of over a billion, would be so bereft of leadership, drawn from the masses, 60 years after practising parliamentary democracy?”

Indeed.

Politicians as our 'representatives'

RAJESH SINGH

Among the charges levelled against social activist Anna Hazare and his supporters is that they arm-twisted a democratically-elected Government into including them in a Government panel to draft the Lok Pal Bill. This, the dissenters fume, cannot be tolerated, because no ‘civil society’ member has the right to subvert the Constitution by seeking to become a framer of public policy. That prerogative, the critics remind us, rests solely with representatives elected by the people through a transparent democratic process. It is difficult to fathom how the subversion happens if enlightened members of society want to influence policies in the larger interest of the people. But let us accept the charge for the moment to take the issue forward.

We would then have to assume that our representatives, on whom we place such trust, truly represent us. Can even the most ardent admirer certify with conviction that the representatives, barring exceptions, have served us well, and that they have demonstrated promise of doing so in the coming times? One can already imagine the critics’ retort: If the people are unhappy with their representative, they can vote him or her out. Another retort: The voters are responsible for the wrong kind of people coming in. The message is clear in both the lines of persuasion, and it is that the only window available for course correction is elections. This is anachronistic to a healthy democratic system in which the people’s participation does not end but begins with an election. In any case, the voters are not in a position to decide the timing of voting out a useless representative; even that is determined by Government agencies.

Moreover, this argument would have been valid if elections were fought and won on issues of good governance. But that rarely happens — the BJP Government in Gujarat and the NDA Government in Bihar are among the exceptions — and the Governments that assume power do not do so because they promise the people greater accountability and cleanliness in public life. Had that been the case, people behind bars for offences as serious as murder, rape and extortion would not be contesting — directly or through proxies — and winning elections.

To understand why we should not expect many of the elected representatives to reflect the aspirations and grievances of the people at large, we must acknowledge a harsh reality which is at the core of several of our problems. It is that these leaders often win with the help of a small section of society, many times located in a few pockets of the constituency. Thus, the people’s support for them is neither broad-based nor spread across the constituency. The first-past-the-post system ensures their victory even with minority votes, ie they can bag just a quarter of the total votes polled and yet be a victor. Why would such a representative bother even with issues like good governance, when all he has to do is to appease the small section of the people which has got him elected? In the end, that is the only mandate he has to honour, not petty matters like the Lok Pal Bill.

Let us look at some figures to better understand the rationale. In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, just 40 per cent of winners were elected by polling more than 50 per cent of the total votes cast. The rest polled a minority number. The situation is even more alarming when one glances at the votes gained by winners as a proportion of the total electors. As former Union Minister and author Arun Shourie points out in his excellent book, The Parliamentary System, “99 per cent of the members got into the Lok Sabha by getting less than half the electors to vote for them.”

He provides another startling figure that really explains the disdain of many of our politicians to meaningful reforms like the Lok Pal Bill or changes in the electoral laws. In elections to the Uttar Pradesh State Assembly seats between 2001 and 2005, for instance, 62 per cent of candidates became the ‘people’s representatives’ by attracting less than 20 per cent of the votes.

Staying with Uttar Pradesh, should it surprise anyone that the highest votes polled by a winner as percentage of electors in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls was a mere 18 per cent — in Ballia — and that the lowest was an abysmal 11 per cent in the reserved seat of Basti? If these margins are all that are needed to win elections, why would a representative waste his energy on anything else other than to ‘manage’ his niche constituents for retaining the seat!

Recently, Madhav Godbole, former Union Home Secretary and now author of some remarkable books on contemporary subjects, comments in his latest offering, India’s Parliamentary Democracy on Trial that it would be best to discard the first-past-the-post system which is responsible for victors to emerge in elections despite polling a minority number of votes. He informs, “In the election to Uttar Pradesh Assembly held in 2007, 96.53 per cent of the winners polled less than 50 per cent of the votes cast.”

The Uttar Pradesh example should partly explain the recent conduct of the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party representatives on the Public Accounts Committee. They ganged up with the Congress and the DMK to stall the acceptance of the panel’s report that severely indicted the Prime Minister and other arms of the Government for the 2G spectrum licencing fraud. Winning on largely caste and community lines, the leaders of the two Uttar Pradesh parties do not have to even present a façade of support for good and accountable governance.

They have to only ensure two things to remain relevant: One, get their caste and community calculations right, and two, humour the UPA Government to fob off the various cases against them pursued by central probe agencies. In their scheme of things, helping either to punish the guilty in the 2G scam or to get progressive legislations like a strong Lok Pal Bill are way down the priority order.

Sideshows mar anti-corruption drive

BY RAJESH SINGH

The ongoing controversy over the Lok Pal Bill has centered around two issues: The method adopted by social activist Anna Hazare to have a say in the drafting of the anti-corruption legislation and the credentials of his nominees on the panel that is responsible for drafting the Bill. Let us for a moment keep aside the first aspect and concentrate on the other because that is what has captured the headlines of the television channels and newspapers. Certain people have raised doubts over the credibility of Anna Hazare’s people. The obvious question that arises out of this is: What are the credentials of the people levelling the charge? This needs to be understood because those making the allegation have to be above board themselves — ironically, this is the argument that Anna Hazare’s detractors have proposed in condemning the inclusion of the civil society panel members.

Leading the critics’ pack is the senior Congress leader, Mr Digvijaya Singh. He has targeted a panel member, Mr Shanti Bhushan because the former Union Law Minister has been supposedly caught on tape striking a deal with Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. Regardless of the fact that the authenticity of the tape has been contested and the final word is yet to be said, Mr Singh continues to berate the veteran lawyer.

As if that is not enough, he took on another member, the Karnataka Lokayukta, Mr Santosh Hegde — one who commands far greater credibility than Mr Singh ever did in his long political career. The Congress leader believes Mr Hegde has done more talking than acting as the Lokayukta — in other words, he has not acted against the BJP Chief Minister of the State. So, it all boils down to politics, is it not, Mr Singh? He seems to have forgotten that given the legal confines, Mr Hegde has performed admirably and has succeeded in maintaining the spotlight on corruption high places in Karnataka.

For sometime now, the Congress leader has been on a spree, making irresponsible statements and damaging his credibility further with each one of them. So much so, that few even within his own party take him seriously. He questioned the Batla House encounter — in the process belittling the sacrifice of a police officer who took on the terrorists; he ridiculed the Union Government’s policy towards combating the Maoists and spoke passionately for the Red ultras who mindlessly kill innocents and damage Government property; he made fun of the Union Minister for Home Affairs, Mr P Chidambaram and called him “intellectually arrogant”; he raised doubts over the Samjhauta blast case, providing a handle to Pakistan to up the ante against India.

Why then should his criticism hold credibility? A few days ago, a Madhya Pradesh court directed that Mr Singh be charge-sheeted over irregularities in a case involving a shopping mall project in the State. He may well protest innocence, but so have his targets. If the Congress leader is mired in allegations, how can he challenge the credentials of others? He has acquired a larger than life image because the electronic media, always looking for juicy comments, latches on to every silly word that he utters, and also because he has got away with his irresponsible conduct due to the Congress High Command’s blessings.

The other principal player in the campaign to discredit the panel’s non-Government members is Mr Amar Singh. If there is to be a list of the country’s most discredited politicians, the obstreperous former Samajwadi Party leader will surely figure among the top entrants. His constant flip flops, his willingness to align with any one or discard any one purely for personal gains, and a complete absence of a political conscience are his hallmarks. If there are rumours that the tapes allegedly implicating Mr Bhushan have been ‘sponsored’ by him, it is because he has that sort of a sordid reputation. Again, we do not know the truth behind that charge, but the allegation lends itself to the possibility that it is plausible. After all, the alleged taped conversation happened way back in 2006, and it could not have suddenly come out into the open without somebody’s orchestrated attempt.

The Samajwadi Party had dumped Mr Singh after it alarmingly realised that he had led it to the brink of disaster and discredit. How amusing that a person who openly admits to have lured (with chocolates or something as innocuous?) Opposition party legislators in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly to the SP, should be demanding the resignation of others on the ground of propriety!

Besides these two great political warriors for probity in public life, we have had fringe players doing their bit to discredit the civil society panel members — and, wonder of wonders, they belong to ‘civil society’ itself. So, what has angered them, and how credible are they? Take Ms Medha Patkar’s case. The anti-Narmada dam activist shared the dais with Anna Hazare at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, but a few days later turned dissenter, asking the social activist to choose his friends carefully. She also admonished him for not consulting the larger civil society in conducting his campaign. Another similar critic emerged from the tinsel town in Mumbai — the super secularist film maker Mahesh Bhatt, who ranted over Anna Hazare’s ‘authoritarian’ attitude. Both these reactions emerged after the social activist let slip his admiration for the role of Mr Narendra Modi in promoting rural development in the State. It is not a coincidence that both Mahesh Bhatt and Medha Patkar are among the Gujarat Chief Minister’s most bitter critics — with their hate blinding them to any kind of objective assessment that brings out Mr Modi in good light. Their response also demonstrates their willingness to subordinate the larger cause of corruption in public life to their parochial agenda.

Soon after, a whisper campaign was initiated by people who have blatantly played the minority card for political and personal gains that Anna Hazare is actually an RSS man in disguise. After all, what better way is there than this to dent the solidarity among the non-Government members of the anti-corruption Bill panel! We will have to wait and see if the smear campaign eventually achieves its real goal — that of derailing the process of tightening the noose around corrupt public servants.

Who will guard the guardians?

RAJESH SINGH


(First appeared in The Pioneer dated March 08, 2011)

In the disgraceful PJ Thomas episode, what has gone largely unnoticed is the dubious role the Central Vigilance Commission played as an institution in facilitating the elevation of the now displaced IAS officer. This happened before he became the Central Vigilance Commissioner, and much earlier to the Supreme Court’s landmark verdict of March 3 that set aside Mr Thomas’ appointment as non-est – an appointment that never happened. A reading of the judgement – that ranks as among the most significant verdicts of the apex court since Independence – clearly establishes the flip-flops of the Commission on the matter that was used by both the Centre and Mr Thomas to project their righteousness.

On February 18, 2003, the Department of Personnel and Training referred the matter of sanctioning Mr Thomas’ prosecution in the palmolein oil import case to the Central Vigilance Commission. Less than four months later on June 3, 2003, the CVC responded, “Keeping in view the facts and circumstances of the case, the Commission would advise the Department of Personnel and Training to initiate major penalty proceedings against Mr P J Thomas…”

Nothing significant happened for four years after that, except that the governments changed both in Kerala and at New Delhi, and the matter of granting prosecution sanction remained in limbo. The central government remained ambivalent to pleas from the state on the matter. Meanwhile, the issue of empanelment of some officers including Mr Thomas to central services came up for consideration. On May 10, 2007, after persistent prodding by the Kerala government, the central regime wrote to the CVC seeking an opinion whether the pendency of response from the central government on the request can come in the way of the empanelment.

Here, the Commission went beyond its brief to take a U-turn on its earlier stand that he should be proceeded against. As the apex court observed, “Rather than rendering the advice asked for, the CVC vide its letter dated June 25, 2007 informed the Ministry that no case is made out…”

The Commission went a step further and stated that the case against Mr Thomas “may be dropped and the matter be referred once again thereafter to the Commission so that vigilance clearance as sought for now can be recorded”. Two points need to be noted here: One, the CVC went out of its way to suggest dropping of charges, and two, it even offered a way out to the Centre by suggesting that, once the charges were dropped, the government could return to the Commission for vigilance clearance.

The Supreme Court took exception to this change in attitude when it stated, “Neither in the reply nor on the file, any reasons are available as to why the CVC had changed its earlier opinion/stand as conveyed to the Ministry (earlier on June 3).” But that was not the central government’s concern. The problem for it was that, despite the CVC’s convenient shift in position the central government still could not have its way because the Kerala government which had pressed the charges was in no mood to oblige.

But even that did not deter the UPA government. Fortified by the Commission’s “advise”, it empanelled Mr Thomas – by now the state’s Chief Secretary – to the central services. On October 6, 2008 the CVC gave him the vigilance clearance, ignoring not just its earlier stand but also the various observations made by the Department of Personnel and Training along the way. On this the apex court remarked, “From the files we find that there at least six notings of DoPT between June 26, 2000 and November 2, 2004 which has recommended initiation of penalty proceedings against Mr P J Thomas, and yet in the clearance given by CVC… there is no reference to (these) notings.”

The Commission’s remarkable vacillation and doubtful ignorance of the adversial remarks by the DoPT eventually cleared the way for Mr Thomas to enter the central services and later become the Central Vigilance Commissioner. It also led to his disgrace.

If the role of the CVC was questionable, the conduct of the Congress had been no less so. While it is well known that the Congress-led UPA government backed Mr Thomas all along in the Supreme Court battle, the support can be traced back to the early days when the IAS officer was charge-sheeted in the oil import case – a charge-sheet that stands to this day. It was a Congress government in Kerala that wrote to the DoPT in January 2005 saying it did not want sanction to prosecute Thomas. In fact, it sought withdrawal of an earlier request for sanction made by its predecessor, the Left Front government.

Again, in November 2005 the state government took the position that since the charges levelled against Mr Thomas were invalid, the case against him should be withdrawn and the request for sanction to prosecute him need not be pursued. The move would have been a success but for the will of the people of Kerala. In May 2006, the Left Front, which was swept to power replacing the Congress-led alliance, opened the case and asked the central government to proceed with according sanction for prosecution.

Now, New Delhi’s Congress-led government suddenly perked up. It demanded to know the grounds on which the state was seeking to revive the prosecution sanction request. Interestingly, it had sought no such clarification when the Congress government in the state had sought withdrawal of request to sanction the prosecution – a request that had been made by an earlier Left government. Also, the Congress-controlled regime at the centre had not demanded an explanation from the CVC as to why the agency had summarily given a clean chit to Mr Thomas when all it had been asked to do was to offer some technical advice.

Wasteful defence, ridiculous deflection

RAJESH SINGH

(First appeared in The Pioneer dated March 2, 2011)

It beats reason why the Prime Minister, Mr Manmohan Singh should continue to defend a telecom policy that has reduced his government to shame and ridicule. If the idea is to constantly remind the people that the policy is the creation of the NDA regime, and therefore, the NDA is to blame for all the subsequent ills, it has not worked. The policy was framed in 2001 when market conditions were substantially different from those of today. Corporate houses had then to be cajoled into providing services whose financial viability was yet to be tested. Today, with the market expanding and the demand for Law mobile phone services growing at a blistering pace there is a scramble for securing licences, with operators willing to pay huge sums as fees to get them. Surely, the policy ought to have been tweaked to exploit the situation and gain the maximum revenues for the public exchequer.

That apart, let us understand what the Prime Minister said in Parliament recently. He stated that the implementation of the policy had been faulty. In doing so, he has further implicated himself, because then Mr Singh presided over a government which wrongly executed the telecom policy – even assuming for argument’s sake here that the policy was appropriate for the moment. What did he do about it? He cannot say that he acted immediately after the matter came to light. The Pioneer was the first to report on the shady dealings in December 2008, and it went on unravel layer after layer of the scam in a series of reports thereafter all through 2009 and 2010. That in turn triggered a flurry of activity, with the Comptroller & Auditor General, Central Vigilance Commission, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the courts turning the heat on the government. Mr A Raja, who presided over the scam as Telecom Minister had to depart and was eventually arrested.

But, at least a year before The Pioneer launched its scathing expose the matter had come to Mr Singh’s notice. Besides the official correspondences involving the Telecom Ministry, the Law Ministry, the Finance Ministry and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in late 2007, that showed how the then Minister was manipulating the policy to favour a select few, the Prime Minister too had written to Mr Raja asking him to implement the policy in a fair and transparent manner. All of this is in the public domain now, as is the fact that Mr Singh took no action over the defective implementation. For the Prime Minister to now regret that the policy execution was faulty is meaningless, unless he squarely takes the responsibility for that.

Mr Singh also said that the government’s aim was to provide quality service to the largest number of people and not to maximize revenue. Interestingly, this is in keeping with the now discredited Mr Raja’s contention that his decisions had empowered the common man by making 2G services accessible at affordable rates. The argument is supposed to provide legitimacy to the decision of not auctioning the licences but distributing it at discretion. It goes like this: had the government auctioned the licences, the service providers would have had to pay a heavier price for getting them, and thus would have charged the consumer more for the services they would provide. Why has the government then auctioned the 3G spectrum licences? Interestingly, despite having paid market price for 3G spectrum in competitive bidding, the service providers have rolled out the service at rates that are in some cases even lower than those of the 2G service providers.

The absence of bidding leads to – as it did in the 2G issue -- the cartelization of service providers, and that, the Prime Minister will agree, is not in the long-term interests of the consumer. Nor is such a development healthy for the country’s corporate sector, already beset by deep rivalries. In such a situation, the government’s intent also comes into question, because it is seen as favouring a select group of business houses at the cost of others. In the old times of licence-quota-permit system governments used to employ such tactics to extend their patronage to those they favoured and harm the ones they considered as ‘hostile’. Several high profile business clashes that hit the ordinary shareholders besides creating obstacles in the country’s economic growth, had their genesis in this sort of discretionary system.

Let us now return to the telecom policy itself, a policy that the central government has defended not so much because it likes it but because it wants to grill into the opposition that the policy is the NDA’s creation. Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said in Parliament, with a smirk on the face, that the government had merely implemented the first-come-first-served provision of that policy.

There are two basic differences in the approach of the NDA government and that of the present one on the policy. During the NDA regime, the first-come-first served provision was implemented in letter and in spirit. Secondly, every major decision was vetted and cleared by the Cabinet. But in the UPA’s case, Mr Raja handpicked applicants and helped them jump the queue by various means such as arbitrarily advancing the cut-off date for submitting applications along with the necessary fee, which ran into several crores of rupees. Caught off guard, several legitimate applicants were stranded for time and cash, and thus eliminated. Messrs Singh and Sibal must, therefore, stop indulging in illogical analogies and concentrate on stemming the rot.