Lightning Rods

Lightning Rods


Lightning: impressive as it always looks, never strikes in the same place twice. And yet, you can’t ignore the notion that it might strike just that once with a zillion blue volts of devastation. Ergo the lightning rod.

It’s Benjamin Franklin who is credited with the invention of the roof-mounted lightning rod in 1749. But, you don’t see them very much on modern structures. That’s because they have been supplanted by multiple “earthing” devices to cover all bases instead. So, the classic lightning rod continues in the popular discourse mainly as a metaphor.

Lightning Rods today are mostly people who take the flak for others. They tend to be pioneers, with a yen for path-finding. Some, of course, are employed for the purpose, hapless assistants, aka “fall guys” or “scapegoats”.

But in their more elevated avatars, Lightning Rods can be messianic, men of destiny, politicians yes, but those who tend to be larger than life. These are reformers that voluntarily put themselves at risk. Theirs is a courageous, ground reality altering commitment, a game-changing gambitry. It’s not lip-service, research-led, sound-byting, platitudinous, voter-friendly. Though this kind of appropriate seeming is happily adopted by many professional politicians, and not a few captains of business and industry also.

Benjamin Franklin was a politician/diplomat; a founding father of the United States of sufficient heft to inspire his likeness onto the 100 dollar bill. He not only invented the lightning rod but was path-breaking enough to epitomise the metaphor.

Successors include former US President John F Kennedy, who moved the Civil Rights agenda forward from where Abraham Lincoln had left off, and current African-American US President Barack Obama. And in India, Chief Ministers “Dalit ki Beti” Mayawati of Uttar Pradesh and ex-RSS Pracharak Narendra Modi of Gujarat, are also bonafide, modern day Lightning Rods. And they all attract an avalanche of criticism as a consequence of their temerity.

Just think of the media speculation over whether President Obama has what it takes. There were assessments descriptive of his professorial (law) demeanour, his cerebral and dispassionate approach, his vacillation, his closet Communism. There were racist slurs and doubts cast on his seeming inability to implement his plans.

But suddenly it’s all turned into fawning admiration. Mr. Obama has pulled the impossible off with the passage of the compromised but still substantial Health Reform Bill. All at once he is deemed to be determined, wise, visionary, bold. He is no longer called a “Big Government Pinko”. Now he is cast less as a hapless Don Quixote too small for his job, and more as a St. George slaying dreaded dragons.

But at least in America people learn from their mistakes! So now, as President Obama targets Wall Street and big- ticket financial regulation next, the erstwhile nay-sayers will definitely be more careful.

From the Indian perspective, the hyper-sensitivity we display with every US initiative towards Pakistan is equally misplaced. It is we, not the US so much, that persist in yoking ourselves to a perpetual bracketing with our troublesome neighbour.

The US is simply trying to make the impoverished Pakistani establishment fight the jihadis on its behalf. We are not even willing to fight them effectively on our home turf! But to the Americans, if throwing money and guns at the problem will make it go away, then great!

Our plaintive argument that all arms supplied by the US will ultimately be used against us rather than the Taliban is bound to fall on deaf ears. So at best, the Americans can only see our fears and concerns through a collateral prism. Despite this, we refuse to change diplomatic tack.

We must urgently realise that we are in a position to help ourselves. On our own, we can accelerate our defence preparedness via Israel, via France, via Russia, even the US, all of which countries are more than willing to meet us half-way. We are no longer poor and helpless and should further strengthen our decided economic advantage to our benefit.

But instead of getting on with putting distance between Pakistan’s begged, borrowed and stolen capabilities and ours; we expend large amounts of diplomatic capital complaining fruitlessly.

Similarly, at home, the partisan coverage on Mayawati’s currency garlands and mania for building parks and memorials glorifying mentor Kanshi Ram, herself and her Party, borders on the pathological.

It is as if there is a reluctance to give any credit to this third-time CM of Uttar Pradesh, the latest term with a majority not seen by any political party in the state for 17 years.

She has not only spearheaded a “will to power” for the Dalits of UP but in the last Assembly Election put together a most impressive “rainbow coalition” from seemingly opposed constituencies of Muslims, the higher castes and Dalits. The next elections may indeed demand a furtherance of the narrative, but CM Mayawati deserves respect for what she has achieved so far.

As for motives, it would probably surprise most of the commentators who see themselves as modern and progressive if they were called closet casteists. This, while letting many others, equally, if not more culpable of possible corruption, abuse of power, nepotism, and cynical vote bank manipulation, to get away with it.

The same kind of venom is reserved for third term Chief Minister Narendra Modi of Gujarat, allegedly a communalist and Muslim basher. That Narendra Modi was Chief Minister when the Godhra Riots took place is factual enough, but many commentators have routinely implied he is also its chief perpetrator without any evidence to support their done-deal thesis. From name-calling of the order of “maut ka saudagar” to constant disparagement, very little has been done to restrain the vilification in certain quarters.

In counterpoint, every one of Mr. Modi’s admirers have been portrayed as misguided, whether they are the common voters of Gujarat or Captains of Industry such as Ratan Tata and Mukesh Ambani. And the economic performance and progress made by this leading state of the Union is seen as a mere device to refurbish Mr. Modi’s tarnished image!

Perhaps it is time to retrospect and see if there is any merit in going back to portraying both sides of the story in a fair manner. But meanwhile we can be sure the Lightning Rods amongst us are too busy changing things to hold their breath.

(1,054 words)

27th March 2010
Gautam Mukherjee

Power and the reformist impulse

FN SOUZA- Untitled.

Power and the reformist impulse


Till the mid-seventies dictatorial aberration of the Emergency, general elections routinely returned the Congress Party to power despite disappointment over the economic results. The Opposition gained a little ground and credibility, espousing a range of alternate strategies ranging from capitalist and free-market nostrums, to even more populist forms of socialism. Still, the political hold of the Congress was strong as the party at the forefront of the freedom struggle and India stayed under one party rule for over three decades.

Nevertheless, the growth rates were dismal. India remained poor with myriad short-comings, facing the ignominy of being a backward third-world nation, its high-minded international initiatives in the non-aligned movement often derided or ignored.

Despite this non-performance, the public loyalty endured. Indeed the best general election results ever for Congress came in the aftermath of Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984. The irony is that even with a near total sweep of parliament, the succeeding Rajiv Gandhi Government was stymied on most reformist issues by resistance from within its own ranks. And only near bankruptcy prompted reforms under Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, the contours of which were largely dictated by the World Bank in return for a suitable bailout.

So it is seen, that reform does not necessarily predicate itself on lack of opposition, both formal and informal, from within and without. Irrespective of such opposition, reform still needs to be undertaken at different stages of a nation’s journey, and must necessarily spring from the vision of the leadership if it is not to be forced from without. And in pushing forward, the leadership knowingly and willingly must risk being swamped, both by the winds of change and the counter-winds of reaction.

Perestroika, in the then USSR, presided over by Mr. Mikhail Gorbachev, is a case in point. Many would argue that the tolerance towards reformist ideas initiated by him actually exposed the rot. And the demise of the Soviet Empire shows that reformist impulses do have a way of radicalising once unleashed, taking on a life and direction of their own that become very difficult to control.

That may also be why President Obama is being vilified and prematurely written off. The constant sloganeering about change that oiled his excellent election machine has been replaced by the nuanced positions of actual governance. But the public, reeling with up to 25 % unemployment among blacks, and perhaps influenced by simplistic if arch right-wing interpretations on the wildly popular Fox News Channel, is unimpressed.

This despite the real progress President Obama’s government has made on the economy, health reform and other areas. The public however, can only see the “vast undone”. Perhaps it simply misses the adrenaline and the limitlessness of the election rhetoric.

In India, over 63 years of self-rule, we have seen the excesses of both centralisation and its diced and pared opposite, without either extreme delivering the goods. And now, we may finally be veering around to the responsibilities of reasoned debate intended to be inclusive and representative. Centralisation and brute majorities have bred complacency and a fear of rocking the boat. And too much fragmentation has seen the politics of blackmail, disruption, and paralysis.

In the Indira Gandhi era, power was relentlessly centralised. It was applied, using licences and permits and an array of bureaucrats and political appointees in the all-powerful PMO rather than the ministries. Plus there was also an informal cabal of advisors, dubbed “the kitchen cabinet” that frequented the PM’s residence.

Politically this may have yielded rich results, but it did little for the economy, resulting in dismal GDP rates, rampant inflation, primitive infrastructure, and chronic shortages for almost all manufactured goods. But thankfully, not all the Government-knows-best statism fell on stony ground. The great successes during this period include the Green and White Revolutions in farming and milk production bolstered by mechanisation, new irrigation, and canals. And Mrs.Gandhi did do us proud in our confrontations with Pakistan and various separatist movements. She also pulled off the vital if oxymoronic “peaceful nuclear explosion” which altered our strategic possibilities.

This realpolitick was a relief after the overly idealistic Nehru era when we were invaded by the Chinese and couldn’t even feed ourselves without foreign food aid. Pandit Nehru however, was a constitutionalist. He worked, as intended by the Indian Constitution, through the Central Ministers and Ministries as well as the State Governments; relying on his towering stature, and copious correspondence, to carry the day.

He dominated and shaped all policy, even when he was mistaken, as in his naïve initiatives on Kashmir or in his gross miscalculations with regard to China. But Pandit Nehru felt no need to formalise the extent of his executive domination by legislative action.

Just as well, because excessive formalised centralisation is probably why we have greater democracy today. Because it was revulsion against the Emergency that gave birth to a non-Congress Government for the first time in the seventies. This was repeated through the eighties and nineties and could happen again before long.

But along with the power shifting to those who generally sit across the aisle from the Treasury Benches, came the era of coalitions, often made up of disparate elements and competing interests, and the peculiar phenomenon called “outside support”. And out of such political weakness and failed socialism has come the new market friendly policies that have resulted in renewed economic strength.

Even as the coalition era has proven unwieldy, it is a vast improvement on the erstwhile emasculated Chief Ministers of States and quaking central Cabinet Ministers. The PMOs steely grip over various Government entities and institutions including the presidency and governorships, the PSUs, even the judiciary, was complete. All who served in them did so at the pleasure and favour of the Prime Minister alone. The checks and balances intended by the Indian Constitution were subverted and its clauses and provisions used in a cavalier fashion.

But those days are now long gone, probably forever. And with the realignments, even amongst the regional parties fighting to stay relevant, there is a trend towards actually shaping legislation to reflect a broader consensus of public opinion and grass-roots concerns. The future therefore could well show the door to noisy morcha-like confrontation in favour of impassioned and persuasive debate followed by democratic voting in parliament and in the state assemblies alike.

(1,052 words)

15th March 2010
Gautam Mukherjee


Published in The Pioneer Edit Page Leader on 24th March 2010 as: Finding political middle ground. Also online at www.dailypioneer.com and is archived there under Columnists.

The Women's Reservation Bill Has Proved To Be A Unifier

The Women’s Reservation Bill has proved to be a unifier


What a lot of ugly rigmarole over the Women’s Reservation Bill! Just how can women, more or less half the population, be likened to any other minority, or caste, or sub-caste grouping, is hard to understand.

And intellectual notions that the privileged will necessarily hijack the reserved seats are as spurious as the opinions of those who argue that a semi-feudal country like India was unfit for universal suffrage from the very start.

Of course, the fact that we are still fighting shy of using this precious universal franchise in larger numbers may, as Shri LK Advani and Shri Narendra Modi have advocated, lead to more attention being paid to making voting compulsory. But that is the constitutional amendment bill reserved for another, no doubt equally contentious, day in the future.

But today’s parliament has undeniably been reduced to a fish-market by certain elements from the cow-belt unable to heed the call of the future, one in which caste, creed and gender may not quite be as important as before. And such uncivil goings on have been telecast live all over the country, shorn of all parliamentary norms, and, except for the suspensions handed down, and the use of marshals, also of its remedies.

At least now, we can look forward to better parliamentary behaviour when a minimum of a third of the strength of the Lok Sabha and in the Provincial Assemblies are composed of altogether more civilised women.

The arguments put forward to block the bill by the dissenters, mostly to the media, because all in parliament was inaudible, were reminiscent of the bad old proportional representation and separate electorate days of the British. These devices used in the retreating decades prior to independence suited the British Raj imperial policy of divide and rule.

The echo of those times, in the injured victimhood being projected by certain provincial parties such as the SP, RJD,BSP and the Trinamool Congress, is not a mere coincidence. It is also instructive that a number of other regional parties such as the DMK,some in the JD(U) and the AIDMK have not found anything objectionable in the bill.

However,creating and pushing separate constituencies does confer leverage, especially to further narrow regional interests and act as a bargaining chip for corruption. But the broader point is that the fissiparous voices being heard today on various issues owe their strength to the pampering of various disparate vote banks by the Congress Party.

Additionally, the majority Hindus have long been depicted by the Congress as a threatening communal-minded bogey, even as every attempt has been made to encourage the break down of this majority community into its competing caste-identified parts. Ironically, none of it has been done particularly well, or with sufficient conviction, and even minority interests have only been promoted in a token manner.

This is tacit continuance of the invidious British policy, only dressed up now as liberal secularism and concern for the underprivileged. But, like Pakistan’s nurturing and rearing terrorist groups to extend their strategic reach, such cynical manipulation of the illiterate masses and the downtrodden has a way of coming home to roost. Today, the manipulated have acquired some power of their own and are no longer easy to control.

Still, for the moment, this bill may not have been tabled for voting in the Rajya Sabha, if it wasn’t for Mrs. Sonia Gandhi. It was her solitary and principled stand on this benighted legislation, pending for over 14 years now, that stiffened the spine of the Congress Party factotums in the Government.

Simultaneously, the assurances given by the Prime Minister with regard to the future safeguarding of “minority interests” during the debate on the bill, only underscores the devaluation of political principles that bedevil us today. Otherwise, there is no reason why the fate of women’s representation should be held hostage to minority interests, male domination or the arcana of caste politics.

So, while it was Mrs. Sonia Gandhi taking a calculated risk on the political future of UPA II, that caused this bill to be voted on in the Rajya Sabha; it passed with an overwhelming majority only because of the principled backing of the Left and the BJP.

And it must be noted that it is a considerably weakened BJP, after two consecutive electoral defeats at the national level, and a nearly marginalised Left, most likely to lose both its bastions in Kerala and West Bengal after the next Assembly elections; that have come to the rescue.

Coming together with the Congress on matters of national importance may well be the road to continued relevance for both the BJP and the Left till the end of this term of the UPA at any rate.

The BJP is not in a position to precipitate a general election any time soon; and this goes double for the Left. But there may be a larger, tectonic shift in the works. After all, who would have imagined that Russia and the West would become allies, if slightly uneasy ones, during the height of the Cold War that lasted for decades after WWII?

Likewise, this may be just the beginning of a new centrist and inclusive BJP under new President Nitin Gadkari and new leadership in both the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha; and also a moderate Left, with Mr. Sitaram Yechury, more vocal of late, taking on from where the wise Surjit Singh Barnala left off.

And the grand old Congress Party, on its part, may see, in this circumstance, a way of backing away from the corner it has painted itself into. They too could be charting a new blue-print of governance, taking a cue from the prescient electoral verdict that returned UPA II to power while giving a thumbs-down to the blackmailing tactics of the provincial parties.

This new alignment could, if it becomes the methodology adopted repeatedly, also put paid to any revolutionary aspirations on the part of the SP, RJD, BSP and the Trinamool Congress, all parties less likely to remain reliable allies of the Congress during the rest of UPA II.

The Women’s Reservation Bill will probably pass in the Lok Sabha using the same Congress-Left-BJP combine, and also be adopted by the minimum of 15 Provincial Assemblies likewise, to enact all parts of this historic 108th amendment to the Constitution of India into beneficial law.

(1,061 words)

March 10th, 2010
Gautam Mukherjee


Slightly modified version published in The Pioneer on 11th March 2010 entitled "Giving women their due share" as the Leader Edit on Edit Page. Also published online at www.dailypioneer.com and archived there under Columnists.

With Every Mistake We Must Surely Be Learning...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3RYvO2X0Oo
Tinga Tinga Giraffe from Tanzania

With every mistake we must surely be learning…


The ISKCON/ sitar maestro Ravi Shankar following spiritual Beatle George Harrison,who died in 2001, also wrote sublime songs. This despite being overshadowed by the Lennon-McCartney juggernaut of explosive genius that occasioned comparisons, and twentieth century parallels, with Mozart.

Harrison’s own reflective and melodious contributions include While my guitar gently weeps in which he makes the all too human point that we don’t always do what needs doing and rarely learn from our mistakes.

Of course in the Indian strategic context, we are generally oblivious to our mistakes; let alone caring to learn from the success of others. Even others we admire, and some would say, slavishly follow. That is, if the school that suggests the recent Indo-Pak Foreign Secretary level talks took place at the behest of the US, is to be believed.

But just imagine those same talks taking place in the aftermath of an accurate Indian drone attack, US style, conducted likewise, in darkness, at the recent Jihadi Jamboree in Muzaffarabad, POK, for the so-called Kashmir Solidarity Day on February 4th .

Why, we might have been referring to the infamous Kandahar hijack released hostage Saeed Hafiz, cocky mastermind of 26/11, as well as his brother-in-law Hafiz Abdur Rahman Makki, leader of Jamaat-ul-Dawah, in the past tense now.

But of course, this is pure fantasy on par with the doings of Spiderman. What is all too real however, is that Makki apparently named four Indian cities to be attacked afresh, including Pune, at that self-same rally for Kashmir. But a well-targeted drone attack, and we might not have had to continue trying to convince the Pakistani Government to arrest Saeed Hafiz, and put paid to his brother-in-law Makki at the same time.

Instead, we have the dastardly bomb attack on the German Bakery in Pune as a backdrop to the Foreign Secretary Level talks. Talks widely perceived to have gone in Pakistan’s diplomatic favour because India has come to the table under US pressure without Pakistan conceding anything, or delivering on any of India’s requests.

But of course we are not, as a state set up largely inspired by the apostle of peace and non-violence Mahatma Gandhi, equal to the moral turpitude and derring-do involved. Such targeted surgical strikes or even less ostentatious ones like the elimination of Hamas leader Mahmoud Al Mabhouh in Dubai recently, allegedly by Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, is presumably not even contemplated in India.

Israel, on the other hand, can even use state instruments in a highly secretive way without leaving a discernible trail, let alone proof. Hamas leader Mahmoud died apparently suffocated, but the death could have been natural as well if he was overwhelmed by the quantum of sedative found inside him at the post-mortem. But did Mahmoud take it himself or was he administered the drugs? This could take years to unravel and meanwhile a potent threat to Israel has been rendered one with his maker.

But for pacifist India, offence is not, as yet, from all accounts, considered the best form of defence. Not even with the flexible fig-leaf of plausible deniability included; and this policy squeamishness on our part is being exploited by our enemies and detractors alike.

India is perceived as a soft state that can be bullied to a considerable extent, particularly if the attacks and humiliations come in a seemingly sporadic manner, more so if from non-state actors, enabling the Indians to save face and convince themselves that their national honour has not been impugned.

So an Indian drone strike, US style, is in the realms of a pipe dream. The nearest possibility might be some kind of fifth column along the lines of ISI induced Indian Mujahideen. But in this, we clearly have much to learn from the Pakistanis.

The jihadi brethren in POK on their part, exhibited their contempt for India’s strategic resolve by not only assembling minutes of flying time away from Indian territory but using the occasion to spew undiluted venom against it. They also demanded concessions from the Pakistani Government, lifting of bans and the like, but that may be so much camouflage for the cosiness of their actual nexus.

But then, the creation of such able non-state actors is indeed a master stroke on the part of Pakistan’s military, political establishment, and the ISI. It definitely gives them strategic depth and manoeuvrability both in the Af-Pak arena and in dealing with India in a manner that the Indians cannot, despite their military superiority.

Guerrilla warfare is what is truly difficult and intractable for any conventional armed force, however well equipped, to deal with. This has been proved again and again in different theatres of war. But used well, it can certainly help a nation further its strategic objectives.

Even Elizabeth I of England, the “Good Queen Bess” that put the Great into Great Britain after her formidable father Henry VIII broke with the Papacy; used a pirate like Francis Drake to harass and hijack the Spanish ships returning with gold from the Americas.

And she certainly wasn’t above accepting a great deal of the purloined gold as tribute from the promptly knighted Sir Francis. And of course such tactics, followed by a frontal assault on the Spanish Armada by the British Navy thereafter succeeded in eclipsing the power of Catholic Spain once and for all. We then see Protestant Britannia ruling the waves. It was a dominance of the high seas that saw Britain create a formidable empire that lasted right up to the end of the Victorian era.

This is not to suggest however that the non-state actor is capable of delivering the whole or even part of a nation’s strategic objectives on its own, even with covert support and succour from the state. But, as a flexible, highly manoeuvrable, and swift tool of state policy, it has its definite uses.

Besieged as India is with challenges to its sovereignty and cohesiveness as a nation, it is very necessary to develop the capacity to nip insurgencies, sedition, and terrorism in the bud by means of pre-emptive attacks that may not always play by the rules but act as a stern deterrent to those that may seek to take advantage of our plurality, diversity, and at the root of it, our inherent tolerance.

(1,045 words)

3rd March 2010
Gautam Mukherjee


Published as Leader on Edit Page in The Pioneer on March 5th, 2010 - entitled "This too shall pass. Will it?". Also published online at www.dailypioneer.com and is archived there under Columnists.