The Kejriwal-Kiran Karnama

and a dash of Modi...

a

Kejriwal at the protest

This time I am with Kiran Bedi because I know where she stands. Whatever be her personal motives, she was right in not joining Arvind Kejriwal’s protest on Sunday. To those analysts who believe that he is targeting the BJP, take a chill pill. If the party dangles a carrot before him during the general elections meal, he will happily make a halwaa of it.

What we are witness to is political acrobatics. Team Anna has already announced its decision to form a political party. It should go about its business instead of taking to the streets:

The activists are demanding resignations of the PM and Gadkari and the cancellation of all coal licences following the CAG report that estimated a loss of Rs 1.86 lakh crore to the public exchequer.

Does it mean that each scam will result in just such a show of strength? What about the ones in the past? Why don’t they file a PIL? This is indeed an issue, but why does corruption only mean that which grabs media eyeballs?

The activists led by Arvind Kejriwal reached the residences of the PM, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Gadkari three hours before schedule, setting the pace for a manic nine hours for a harried Delhi police that never quite got its grip on the situation.

Kejriwal said, “Our intention was to show the nation how the BJP and the Congress were hand-in-glove over the coal allocation issue. We have done our job, it is time we go back.”

Oh, sure. You create havoc, try and force an ‘alliance’ between opposition parties to show how ‘balanced’ you are and you expect people to believe you?

Addressing the crowd, he said:

“When the ruler is afraid of its subjects, it means that democracy is dead. What wrong are we doing? We are just sitting quietly on the footpath. At least we should be told why we are being detained.”

What they did was not democratic. They just follow another form of autocracy. It never was and cannot be a “people’s movement” when you need to wear Anna T-shirts. The caps seem to have been replaced. Is this what young India wants?

Kiran Bedi, Anna and the goddess

Kiran Bedi’s stand is “realistic” (My piece on her dance and symbolism is here). As a TOI report states:

She had opposed IAC’s plan to target and gherao BJP president Nitin Gadkari’s house on the coal block allocation issue, arguing that the activists should not forget the support given by leaders like Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, L K Advani and Gadkari during their bid to get the Jan Lokpal bill passed.

“Arvind and the Bhushans had several meetings with them (BJP leaders). And they agreed to support in some ways. But at least they were not dismissive as the ruling party. Why must we forget this. End of the day, if we paint all black who will get us what the country needs now and in the near future. India needs honest political leadership and I look forward to widespread changes. But we got to be patient and inclusive. Without losing possible quarters of support even if we have ideological difference with them.”

Kejriwal just wanted to play drama queen until things hot up and he will have to sit and help formulate something called a party manifesto that goes beyond corruption that is already being exposed by others. This is, as I have said so often, a BJP vs. RSS diversionary tactic, and he is so comfortable in such a scenario where one acts as the foot soldier with righteous indignation and the other is the moderate.

See you in saffron in 2014, Mr. Kejriwal.

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Netting Modi

Modi maange more

There are several websites singing his praises, uploading his speeches, capturing his every move. So, why does Narendra Modi need another channel?

Cornered by a relentless onslaught from a rejuvenated Congress and a buoyant Keshubhai Patel, chief minister Narendra Modi is planning his biggest ever media blitzkrieg. An internet protocol channel (IPTV), most likely to be named Namo Bharat, will be launched soon to arm the Gujarat CM with a potent propaganda tool.

“The name itself makes it clear that this is personal projection not just for the assembly election but bigger things that lie ahead,” said a source.

Namo is the name the mainstream English media gave him, just like they did Saifeena (for Saif and Kareena), which was copied from Brangelina. This is also what stores and companies with two partners do – add parts of each name and run shops.

"Bigger things" is a loaded phrase. And adding Bharat does not mean a thing, because even Manoj Kumar used the name for his characters in films. This won’t make Indians more interested in him as potential prime minister. In fact, he will appear so limited, stuck to his “5 crore Gujarati” obsession in the big pool. Good. Perhaps, there is a typo in the name. Is it ‘Nano Bharat’, little India?

(c) Farzana Versey

NGOs, Kiran Bedi, the Media: Who’s the ‘farest of them all?

Kiran Bedi is indeed wrong, but when media persons sit to judge her it is a bit of a laugh. Clearly, they do not look in the mirror.

Instead of seeing this as an opportunity to question all sorts of voluntary agencies and their modus operandi, we have a situation where a person is pinned down for wrongdoing without a backward glance at how the whole NGO business works, often with the media’s involvement.

Kiran Bedi has been fudging her bills, where she charged inflated amounts from her hosts. The main source was airline tickets. She would travel by economy class, that too at a discount because of her gallantry award, and charge business class fares. We now have these sanctimonious NGOs tell us that they took it at “face value”. Most NGOs send the tickets themselves. So, why did they let her use her travel agent? And what sort of auditing departments do they run? The reason for keeping quiet is not that they were afraid of Ms. Bedi’s wrath – they obviously did not mind shelling out Business Class fares – but because their finances will lead to many question marks.

This is my point. The media and certain activists have taken a convenient yo-yo stand on the Jan Lokpal Bill campaign. They propped him up and were completely besotted by Team Anna. After they were done with the photo-ops of the caps and the fasting and dancing, they realised that there were chinks in the armour. No one was interested in the deeper questions – it came down to superficial put-downs.

Let us get this fudging business clear. Kiran Bedi has admitted to it and says she will return the excess money that she wanted to use for her own NGO. Where do the NGOs get this kind of money that they can afford to invite people from different cities for seminars? I have often posed this query when we rubbish other institutions. Do you know that most of the activists themselves travel Business Class, stay at fancy hotels, and order the best food – for what? To gupshup about the state of the nation, the homeless, female foeticide, dowry, terrorism, communalism?

Check out the number of people who have left their high-paying corporate and bureaucratic jobs to “serve the nation” or, “become useful members of society” or, “fight communalism”. They could do all of these by continuing to work. The reason is that activism has become a paying proposition. Have you seen the huge ads put up in newspapers inviting you to attend some conclave or the other? Is it affordable or even appropriate to shell out this kind of money on overheads? Besides government grants, there is a good deal of foreign sponsorship and donations from industrial houses. While the international ‘intervention’ often comes with some amount of side-effects (pushing of substandard products and services clubbed with the do-good, feel-good stuff), some of the Indian business black money that is not stashed away in banks abroad is routed to charitable organisation, with income tax exemption.

Why does the media not raise a voice about this? Has the media ever questioned journalists who attend these same seminars? Oh yes, the same journalists who give inflated bills to their accounts departments for their travels and hotel stays and “related expenses”. Journalists who sit at the desk and make phone calls but charge taxi fare for the quotes. Journalists who try to get tickets and freebies because they think they are in a position to ‘arrange something’. Journalists who do not have to spend a paisa at restaurants and spas because they just might mention it, in passing, in their next column. Journalists who give us scoops that are fed to them by interested parties or who conduct sting operations that are again paid for by interested parties.

Of course, it is not only the media at fault, but also those who host such talks. Corporate India’s ladies who lunch get a big high when they invite a person who can indeed talk and add to their resume. They flash such people as trophies to display their own worth as ‘aware citizens’. That some media people are doing their evening show with this group should be an eye-opener rather than a can-opener.

If, as some commentators wish to know, why people from public office enter the fray late in the day to become part of NGOs, then one might wish to ask them why they have timed their queries now and not for all these years. Do they ponder about it when they go on government-sponsored junkets?

The problem is that this whole Anna Hazare campaign has been a sham, and revealed more shams both on the inside as well as on the outside. It showed us how the ruling party and the opposition got to pay politics; the arrests also reveal a lot about those who got away without a scratch to their reputations. It is rather disingenuous of Digvijay Singh to say that if Kiran Bedi can offer to return the money, then every bribery case can be closed by saying the bribe-taker will return the money, including, A. Raja.

This is some gumption. A minister in the government of India is caught in a scam of frightening proportions and another government person uses this as an analogy. He is also quite gung-ho about such a thing happening at the highest level. The 2G Spectrum scam is not just about bribes, but also about how the nation was taken for a ride with the government, big industrialists and lobbies involved. It is about how the government functions and not merely who took how much. This case has come under scrutiny; many others do not.

If political agencies get a chance, they try to co-opt the activist groups. Most are willing to go along because it is the easy option. In some cases where they need the government to act, it does become a crucial mutual involvement. Therefore, if a political party invites activists, and they fudge figures about travel expenses, then what will the political parties do? Why not question the complete lack of balance by media groups? One can understand individual commentators taking a particular position, but why do they blatantly follow the newspaper/TV channel line? Where is their independence? Those who talk about objectivity should really look in their own backyards. There is favouritism everywhere and the media indulges in it as much as politicians, and the ‘activist’ role of the media should also come under scrutiny.

Tavleen Singh, Indian Express columnist, while raising some important points, makes a rather shocking comment:

“My own observation is that many NGOs working in India appear to be funded by organisations bent on ensuring that India never becomes a developed country… In order for India to become a halfway developed country, we need new roads, airports, ports, modern railways and masses more electricity. In addition, according to experts, we need 500 more cities by 2050. The odd thing is that the NGOs who oppose steel plants, nuclear power stations, dams and aluminum refineries in India never object to the same things in China.”

Is this the definition of development, and the only model? As I have already said, many NGOs do have an agenda, but not only if they are funded by organisations that do not wish to see a developed India. By this logic, Gujarat should have no NGOs. And why must Indian NGOs object to what happens in China? Has the Indian government opposed the self-immolation of Tibetan monks and nuns in support of the Dalai Lama’s return? Has the BJP done so? Has the media done so?

Forget the NGOs for a while. Think about how these plants were to come up, who was to be uprooted and how it would affect the environment. If this development is only for those setting up factories and making India technologically advanced, then why are we still the hub of western-powered outsourcing? Are the NGOs involved here?

Why absolve the fat cats of business only to hit out at the NGOs unless they are specifically playing dirty? How many media people have taken free jet rides, attended fancy wedding functions abroad and written glowing accounts of them? Will they be sanctified as the facilitators of development? Or do they need to get closer to the seats of such power or perhaps such development? These are trick or treat queries. Ask them we must, for there is much beyond Kiran Bedi, whose banshee persona was in fact given a boost by the media when they needed her sound bytes. They were birds of a feather, until she was grounded.

The still-feathered ones have taken wing and are giving us a bird’s eye-view.

(c) Farzana Versey

Also published in Countercurrents

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My earlier related piece on such superficiality: Kiran's Dance, Illiteracy and Symbolism

Kiran’s Dance, Illiteracy and Symbolism

Kiran Bedi as performer

After the fast-feast, there are bound to be leftovers. They make for an interesting peep into the psyche of the performers and the spectators. There has been much shock expressed over Kiran Bedi’s ‘ghunghat’ dance at the Ramlila rally.

Bedi then moved on to theatrics and enacted what she said was how politicians behaved. Bedi pulled a scarf from the neck of a young activist on stage, wrapped her head with it and proceeded to mock MPs.

"You remove one mask, then you find another one, and then another. They change words according to time and place. Never trust them," she said.

What is the objection to? That she poked fun at the MPs or that she enacted this parodic scene? Despite my antipathy towards the whole movement, I fail to understand how this alone reduces her stature. Her calling this act a “game-changer” is a bit too delusionary, but at what point in time has there been no drama in this rally?

When Anna Hazare came on the music reality show “Little Champs”, he too sang a few lines of Gandhi's favourite bhajan “Vaishnao jan to”; Arvind Kejriwal asked the kids to come to the rally and give a boost to the ‘andolan’. Many singers and actors did. This was the nature of the movement. Ms. Bedi was just playing her part.

Does anyone recall Asma Jehangir and company singing in a television studio on one of those ‘aman’ programmes? Street theatre is very much about activism. Did not Sushma Swaraj dance, and was the objection to her doing so essentially relegated to tarnishing the image of Gandhi’s Rajghat?

Bedi as cop

The problem with Ms. Bedi’s stance is that she, who claimed to be the dissenting voice against any authority, is now calling herself a mere soldier. She is not even that and seems more like Anna’s nurse.

During the 1984 anti-Sikh riots there were pictures of her, lathi in hand, fighting the mobs. It was an iconic image that has stayed with some of us. But in later years, even as she was honoured as a ‘supercop’, she was accused of being a publicity hog.

Let us not forget that she has endorsed a detergent to show how to clean dirt. Whether we agree with her or not, this is what has been embedded in the public mind.

As for her opinion on politicians, is not the Jan Lokpal Bill fighting against the system’s version?

What I am trying to say is that she is pandering to type and not going beyond the script because it is the best option. As for her saying that our leaders wear masks, wasn’t Atal Behari Vajpayee called the “mukhota”?


Only because some of us – in fact many of us – do not agree with the Anna caravan, I do not see any reason to respect politicans as a reaction. We must respect Parliament and the Constitution. Individual ministers are known to be venal as are individual activists.

This brings us to the other leftover issue. Actor Om Puri got a whole lot of mileage for landing up slightly tipsy and making a speech where he called our ministers illiterate:

“I feel ashamed when an IAS or IPS salutes a "gawar" who is a Neta. We have more than 50 percent ‘gawar’ Netas. Don’t vote for them.”

It has resulted in much semantic knowledge of what really “gawaar” means. Is it crass, or lack of knowledge, or just illiterate? How does it matter? Is this the first time anyone has said this about our politicans? Did not Amitabh Bachchan, a neta once, call politics a cesspoll?

Om Puri in the last couple of years has shown that you may be literate and educated but you can still be crass. Literacy does not imbue people with decency or common sense. If anything, he has insulted the very aam aadmi, the considerable numbers of unlettered people that constitute the Indian population and who this Team Anna is claiming to be the voice of.

Political leaders have been quick to trot out numbers of MPs and their degrees. I remember a forward that was sent some years ago listing out Manmohan Singh’s impressive CV. What does it mean when it comes to the real world of steering the country outside the ‘economic progress’ bubble? How has the educated Narendra Modi fared with the common people? Did not the rustic Lalu Prasad Yadav, who was seen as a standup comic, gain respectability only after he was invited by the posh management institutes to lecture?

What is most amusing is that many of these foot soldiers, by putting their foot in the mouth, are only making Anna seem more saintly than he is. They are the shoulders he can happily fire the non-violent gun from. And to think that some people believe that the elite dislike Anna because he is a poor villager. Oh sure. Had he not been legitimised by candle-light, these barfers would not have been supporting him. Isn’t he too a “gawaar” and we do have a former top police officer saluting him? What a circle within circles. If this is not politics, then what is? Or shall we say politicans trussed up for the kursi, with the readymade words, “We think it will be better to fight from within the system”?

Talking of leftover matters, I wonder why there isn’t much noise about the symbolism of two little girls offering Anna his first drink to break his fast – one was a Dalit, the other a Muslim, we were informed. I can imagine the communal harmony waalas applauding. I find it revolting. As though it is okay to drink from the hands of Dalits and Muslims. The only symbolism here seems to be the poor souls make for good water/message carriers; they cannot be the fount from which wisdom and change can spring.


End note:

Why has Rahul Gandhi been silent? It is the most sensible thing to do. The visible face of the country is the prime minister. By letting him manage with his core group is a smart move. Rahul, once he is anointed, will need the Mr. Clean image. That is probably his only USP.

News meeows

Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali Geelani asked people in Kashmir to stop pelting stones at cops and security personnel:

“Religious debate about the relevance of stone pelting notwithstanding, we have realized stone pelting yielded no contribution to the freedom struggle last year. Instead, we lost 118 youth in last year's unrest.”

Religious debate? Is he out of his mind? The stone pelters were doing it because of disaffection and not because of any religious reason. There is nothing like a freedom struggle of last year that is any different from the years before – the methods alter a bit.

It is Geelani who was riding the wave and not the other way round. Geelani will never win an election in Kashmir; that is not to say those who win elections are right or in their right mind. The Hurriyat leader is trying to take over the real movement, but then what’s new? He is not the only one.

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A person has a right to her/his private beliefs. So, it was surprising to read these views in a TOI interview of India’s former chief justice, P. N.Bhagwati, a devotee of Satya Sai Baba for 42 years, regarding his devotion intruding into his work:

As a professional, each time I would sit down to write a judgment at 5 ‘o'clock in the morning, I was only writing what my god dictated. Bhagwan held my hand as I put pen to paper. Everything that I have achieved in respect of the law, and people say I have achieved a lot, is owing to the guidance and inspiration of Sathya Sai Baba. There is no doubt on that score.

And this from someone who dealt with legal matters and is supposed to be aware -


On alleged offences committed by Sai Baba that were never investigated:

What is the point of investigation? (Agitated) Bhagwan is divinity personified, he radiates joy; millions worship him. He is a teacher of mankind.

On ashrams inmates killed when there was an attempt on Baba’s life:

I am not aware of this. I live in Delhi, so I have no knowledge.

On succession:

…there is no row over succession. How can anybody succeed God? Who succeeded Lord Krishna?

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I really want to steer clear of naked women and women with veils. They are two extreme positions, but after all the noise would we not like to know about non-Islamic countries?

Tourists in Barcelona who wander off the beach onto the streets in just their swimming costumes — or even less — will now face stiff fines. The city hall voted to ban “nudity or virtual nudity in public places” and limit swimming costumes to swimming pools, beaches, adjacent roads and beach walks. Nudists who stray off their designated areas of the beach will be subject to fines of 300 to 500 euros.

From another report:

"We want to make people understand that it's an attitude that we don't like, that it's not banned or punishable but that it's something we don't think is civil," a spokeswoman for the city hall said.

Municipal authorities in the seaside Spanish city have already printed posters showing a couple in swimming costumes with a red line across it, along with another couple dressed normally but without the red line.

Sometime ago it was Sri Lanka:

Nimal Rubasinghe, secretary of the Cultural Affairs Ministry, said the government had received representations calling for a ban on wearing revealing clothing in public. “There have been complaints from various quarters about miniskirts, but we are only considering them and no final decision has been taken.”

“There are individuals and groups representing religious and cultural interests, who have written to us raising concerns that this kind of (mini) dress would corrupt our culture,” Minister T B Ekanayake was quoted as saying by the Lakbima news daily.

President Mahinda Rajapakse’s government had ordered the removal of billboards featuring scantily-clad women.

Second look: Last year, US singer Akon was denied a visa to perform in Sri Lanka after Buddhist monks took offence at one of his videos that featured women in bikinis dancing around a pool in front of a Buddha statue. The Sri Lankan army has committed atrocities against Tamil women.

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I used to like Kiran Bedi. She still makes sense, but what is she doing on TV hosting Aap ki Kachehri (People’s Court) where melodramatic performers enact some flimsy tangled issue and she flashes papers and declares justice? It demeans her position and gives the perception of a kangaroo court. But then, she is part of the Hazare movement and it goes with such a belief.

Interestingly, she also endorses a detergent to convey a clean image!

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Talking of ads, the senior Bachchan couple are selling diamonds. It is nice to see an older couple in such an ad, but Amitabh brings this heavy diamond necklace and is given a run-down by Jaya: “What would you know about diamonds?” He mutters to the camera, “Women!” Then he goes on a discovery tour and brings the necklace with the info and she is impressed. Just when he is exulting over it, she asks, with a sulk, “And bangles?” And he mutters even more silently, “Women…”

We really cannot break ground, can we? Typical avaricious woman, nagging woman. Incidentally, the neck piece is not worth all that effort. It looks like greed.