governancenow.com, march 28, 2011
It's time EC took note of manifestos
It is raining freebies in Tamil Nadu. Both the main political parties, the DMK and the AIADMK, have promised free laptops, mixies, grinders etc in their manifestos. Such promises may gladden the heart of voters of Tamil Nadu, but the key questions to ponder are: one, don’t these constitute electoral malpractices, and two, can these be described as serving “public purpose” to justify spending public funds?
The DMK promises free mixies and grinders to all women, laptops to all SC/ST students, free 35 kg of rice every month to BPL families, rice at one rupee a kg to all and so on. In the last elections, it had promised free colour TV sets to all and claims to have fulfilled that. Sceptics say this and other such freebies, including cash gifts, clinched the election in its favour then. In fact, union home minister P Chidambaram had then described DMK’s election manifesto as the real hero of the 2006 elections.
The AIADMK didn’t bother to match DMK in 2006 in terms of poll promises and may have paid the price. This time, Jayalalithaa is taking no chances. Her manifesto promises, among other things: free laptops to all senior school and college students; wet mixies (to prepare dosa batter), grinders plus electric fans; free 20 kg rice to all ration card holders (PDS is universal in the state) every month, free water and half a sovereign of gold for ‘mangalsutra’ to poor women getting married. She even described her manifesto as “growth oriented”.
The obvious question then is: Does freebies announced in election manifestos amount to bribing the voters and hence, an electoral malpractice?
The electoral laws are silent on this. KJ Rao, former advisor to the ECI, says manifestos go “unscrutinised” because there are no guidelines relating to the manifestos. Presently, a PIL is pending with the apex court challenging the DMK’s free distribution of colour TVs.
The closest that any electoral law may refers to is clause 4 of the Model Code of Conduct issued in 2007, which says: “All parties and candidates shall avoid scrupulously all activities which are “corrupt practices” and offences under the election law, such as bribing of voters...”
The Representation of the People Act defines “corrupt practices” to include (for the present purpose) “bribery” (gift, offer or promises to contest election and not, to vote or not), “gratification” (to contest election or not and to vote or not) and “undue influence” in free exercise of electoral rights.
These are not specific to the manifesto. This why Rao says one would need the court’s guidance. The PIL before the apex court may then provide the answer.
The second question that arises is: Can public money be used (as manifestos promise and DMK did after the 2006 elections) for purposes other than “public purpose”?
While free education, free drinking water and free ration to BPL families may be construed as “public purpose” given the level of illiteracy, hunger and lack of access to potable water in the country, to say the same about “gift” of colour TV sets, laptops, mixies and grinders is to stretch the definition of “public purpose” or “public interest”.
Even to a lay man it is apparent that TV sets, laptops and other such freebies are “luxuries” that serve no “public purpose” or “public interest”.
Public interest would be served by promising to provide basic facilities like food, education, drinking water, healthcare, electricity, shelter etc “to all”. Some of these facilities may be given to the poor and the disadvantaged “free” as a “positive incentive” or “affirmative action” to improve their lot.
It is time for our courts of law and the ECI to take cognizance of this malaise that characterize election manifestos.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
MPLADS has no mechanism to identify local needs: CAG
governancenow.com, march 18, 2011
Says despite pointing out, old maladies plague the scheme
A week after finance minister Pranab Mukherjee hiked the MPLADS fund from Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore for each MP, the comptroller and auditor general of India (CAG) tore into the way the scheme is being implemented.
Releasing its third performance audit report on MPLADS, for the period between 2004-05 and 2008-09 on Friday, the CAG pointed how many of the shortcomings pointed out earlier in 1998 and 2001 “still persist.” And these shortcomings are one too many.
Some of these are as follows:
*Though MPLADS is meant for “locally felt need for development works”, the CAG report says there is no mechanism to identify the local needs. It says: “The scheme design doesn’t ensure participation of various constituents such as resident forums, local bodies, NGOs etc in determining works responsive to locally felt needs.”
*Such is the transparency and monitoring aspect of the scheme that as of March 31, 2009, 57 percent of completed works were not even uploaded on the website of MPLADS by the district authorities.
*State level monitoring committees to review progress has not even been constituted in three states/UTs. In 14 states/UTs, committees have been constituted but never met. In the remaining 18 states/UTs, it didn’t meet annually.
*The scheme was most active during the election time, indicating that it was being used more as election sops.
*Works worth Rs 9.45 crore were executed without any recommendation from the MPs.
* MPs are not to select the implementing agency as per the guidelines. But in nine states, MPs had recommended implementing agencies for more than 8,700 works.
*In 11 states/UTs, 305 works worth Rs 8.5 crore has been abandoned or suspended, rendering the expenditure unfruitful.
*Utilization of funds with district authorities ranged from 37.4 to 52.4 percent.
*In seven states, works were sanctioned to 145 trusts/societies which were either not eligible or their eligibility not verified.
*Basic internal control records such as asset registers, works registers etc underpinning accountability were missing in a number of instances.
*The ministry of statics and programme implementation (MoSPI) has not been closing monitoring the receipt of utilization certificates and completion certificates.
* No analysis of audited account and other management information system.
There were cases of diversion and misuse of funds too. The CAG was pained to remark that the MoSPI, the administrative ministry, “should own the scheme”, meaning that it washed its hands off after releasing funds, often without any justification.
One wished our FM had read the report before hiking the funds for the MPs.
Says despite pointing out, old maladies plague the scheme
A week after finance minister Pranab Mukherjee hiked the MPLADS fund from Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore for each MP, the comptroller and auditor general of India (CAG) tore into the way the scheme is being implemented.
Releasing its third performance audit report on MPLADS, for the period between 2004-05 and 2008-09 on Friday, the CAG pointed how many of the shortcomings pointed out earlier in 1998 and 2001 “still persist.” And these shortcomings are one too many.
Some of these are as follows:
*Though MPLADS is meant for “locally felt need for development works”, the CAG report says there is no mechanism to identify the local needs. It says: “The scheme design doesn’t ensure participation of various constituents such as resident forums, local bodies, NGOs etc in determining works responsive to locally felt needs.”
*Such is the transparency and monitoring aspect of the scheme that as of March 31, 2009, 57 percent of completed works were not even uploaded on the website of MPLADS by the district authorities.
*State level monitoring committees to review progress has not even been constituted in three states/UTs. In 14 states/UTs, committees have been constituted but never met. In the remaining 18 states/UTs, it didn’t meet annually.
*The scheme was most active during the election time, indicating that it was being used more as election sops.
*Works worth Rs 9.45 crore were executed without any recommendation from the MPs.
* MPs are not to select the implementing agency as per the guidelines. But in nine states, MPs had recommended implementing agencies for more than 8,700 works.
*In 11 states/UTs, 305 works worth Rs 8.5 crore has been abandoned or suspended, rendering the expenditure unfruitful.
*Utilization of funds with district authorities ranged from 37.4 to 52.4 percent.
*In seven states, works were sanctioned to 145 trusts/societies which were either not eligible or their eligibility not verified.
*Basic internal control records such as asset registers, works registers etc underpinning accountability were missing in a number of instances.
*The ministry of statics and programme implementation (MoSPI) has not been closing monitoring the receipt of utilization certificates and completion certificates.
* No analysis of audited account and other management information system.
There were cases of diversion and misuse of funds too. The CAG was pained to remark that the MoSPI, the administrative ministry, “should own the scheme”, meaning that it washed its hands off after releasing funds, often without any justification.
One wished our FM had read the report before hiking the funds for the MPs.
Meet the Shah Rukh Khan of real life...
Governance Now, March 16-31,2011
Tale of an engineer who has built 16 mini-power plants to light up remote villages lying light years away from our consciousness
Remember the eureka moment for the old woman with a wrinkled face in the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Swades when a bulb lights up on her face and she sees, for the first time in her life, the magic called ‘bijli’? That fairy-tale like incident actually happened in 2003 in Bilgaon, a remote village in Nandurbar district of Maharashtra. Forced to live in the dark age 56 years after independence, the villagers set up their own power plant and, yes, indeed, an NRI couple provided monetary support and two young engineers designed the blueprint of what came to be known as the Bilgaon Project to tap a 9-m high waterfall on river Udai, a tributary of the Narmada, to generate their own power. Medha Patkar’s Narmada Bachao Andolan was the moving force and every villager contributed ‘shramdaan’ (voluntary work) to make it happen. A year later, Swades took that story to the people, though this wasn’t the first project of its kind in the country.
The irony – or paradox – of the present-day development paradigm is that two years later, in 2006, the rising waters of the Sardar Sarovar dam washed away both the village and its power project forever.
But the good news is, many more such mini power plants are coming up in the country to light up the lives of those who have lost much, not benefitted, from the mega projects like the Sardar Sarovar sold to them in the name of development. During my recent visit to Kashipur, the back of beyond region of Orissa, I met one such public-spirited engineer who has made it his mission to spread the cheer and the couple who anchored him as well as the villagers.
V Ramasubramanian, a 42-year-old mechanical engineer from Tamil Nadu, started working with a non-governmental agency in Madurai while waiting for a “proper job”, like those in the railways or the corporate world, after completing his studies in 1987. But soon the job grew on him and in 1995 he went to Philippines to learn about how to set up Bilgaon-like micro-hydro projects. His training was organised by a UK-based charity organisation, called Intermediate Technology Development Group (now rechristened Practical Action).
A year later, he set up his first mini-power plant for a residential school in Ooty. It was a 300 watt plant that cost Rs 27,000. At that time, the turbine and the electric controller for the plant had to be imported from Nepal, which, he says, boasts of more than 10,000 mini power plants, against about 200 in India. Things have changed since then. The equipment are locally available and many states – Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, West Bengal and even Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir – boasts of several such plants now. Of course, these are all NGO-driven and privately funded. Mostly, they cost less than Rs 25 lakh.
Ram has so far built 16 mini plants, bringing joy to thousands of people across the country. And he is onto the 17th, in Peepalpadar of Kashipur. But I saw the one he had built in 2008, in Keshkeri, another inaccessible village in the same block. Though located just 40 km from block headquarters, it takes endless hours of painful driving and a daredevil at the wheels to reach the village of 37 Kondh families. No motorable road exists anywhere in Kashipur and we had left behind the last settlement to get electricity (Barpadamajhi village) 30 km away. When a 15 mw plant, commissioned by Agragamee, an NGO run by Achyut Das and his wife Vidhya Das, came up two years ago, the station master of the nearby Leliguma railway station was among the first to come running for a connection. But the villagers refused, saying that this was not a commercial venture and certainly not for a government agency. They had toiled hard for one and a half years to build it – first a check dam a
kilometre away, up in the hills, then a water channel close to their village, a 30 metre pipeline from there to the powerhouse about 100 metre from their village and then lay all the wires that had to be drawn to the last house. No government agency was in picture.
The life for Keshkeri villagers has changed dramatically. Though they still have to climb the hills to reach the block headquarters, every house in the village is now lit up at night in the glow of three CFL bulbs each. Kamlu Majhi, the ‘grama rakshi’ (village policeman), has even bought a television set and a DVD player to watch films. The whole village sits around whenever a DVD is brought in. They are also privileged to have streetlights, something of a rarity in Orissa which has only 22 percent households electrified so far. Better still, all electric cables are underground. Sunsets no longer means a time to sleep. Kids continue to create a racket as the elders occupy themselves in various ways long into the nights.
While looking to set up the plant, Ram and the Das couple were looking for three ingredients: a perennial water source, which can be dammed to release at least 250 litre of water every second and a height of at least 10 metres to generate enough force to run the turbine. They found that near Keshkeri and started working. Two German NGOs, Karl Kubel Stifung and Welthungerhilfe, helped Agragamee with Rs 22 lakh they needed to set up the plant, not counting the labour the villagers put in.
Now they have surplus power. As against 15 kw power the plant generates, street and house lighting takes up only three kw. Agragamee is putting up a rice mill, a leaf-plate making unit and an oil expeller for the villagers. But this would consume another three kw. Many, including those in the neighbouring villages, are eyeing their power but Agragamee and the villagers are not rushing into any decision. Having paid Rs 100 every month for a year to set up a “village fund” for emergencies and maintenance of the power plant, which was a condition laid by Agragamee, they can relax. They are now required to pay Rs 30 a month now, which is less than the cost of kerosene they were using earlier. Besides, the money goes to the village fund and the actual cost of maintenance may be a pittance.
Ram says nothing gives him more high than seeing the happy faces of the villagers when they see electricity for the first time. “It is a magical moment for them. Though they trust you when you tell them about generating power and work hard to make it a reality, they actually believe you when the bulbs lit up. They jump in joy, shout at the top of their voices and start singing merrily. That is my reward. When I saw this in Putsil for the first time (that was in 1997-98 in Orissa’s Koraput district), I decided to go on doing this,” he says.
As for the Das couple, theirs is a separate story. The power plant is one more milestone in their 30-year-long endeavour to make Kashipur a better place to live. n
prasanna@governancenow.com
Tale of an engineer who has built 16 mini-power plants to light up remote villages lying light years away from our consciousness
Remember the eureka moment for the old woman with a wrinkled face in the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Swades when a bulb lights up on her face and she sees, for the first time in her life, the magic called ‘bijli’? That fairy-tale like incident actually happened in 2003 in Bilgaon, a remote village in Nandurbar district of Maharashtra. Forced to live in the dark age 56 years after independence, the villagers set up their own power plant and, yes, indeed, an NRI couple provided monetary support and two young engineers designed the blueprint of what came to be known as the Bilgaon Project to tap a 9-m high waterfall on river Udai, a tributary of the Narmada, to generate their own power. Medha Patkar’s Narmada Bachao Andolan was the moving force and every villager contributed ‘shramdaan’ (voluntary work) to make it happen. A year later, Swades took that story to the people, though this wasn’t the first project of its kind in the country.
The irony – or paradox – of the present-day development paradigm is that two years later, in 2006, the rising waters of the Sardar Sarovar dam washed away both the village and its power project forever.
But the good news is, many more such mini power plants are coming up in the country to light up the lives of those who have lost much, not benefitted, from the mega projects like the Sardar Sarovar sold to them in the name of development. During my recent visit to Kashipur, the back of beyond region of Orissa, I met one such public-spirited engineer who has made it his mission to spread the cheer and the couple who anchored him as well as the villagers.
V Ramasubramanian, a 42-year-old mechanical engineer from Tamil Nadu, started working with a non-governmental agency in Madurai while waiting for a “proper job”, like those in the railways or the corporate world, after completing his studies in 1987. But soon the job grew on him and in 1995 he went to Philippines to learn about how to set up Bilgaon-like micro-hydro projects. His training was organised by a UK-based charity organisation, called Intermediate Technology Development Group (now rechristened Practical Action).
A year later, he set up his first mini-power plant for a residential school in Ooty. It was a 300 watt plant that cost Rs 27,000. At that time, the turbine and the electric controller for the plant had to be imported from Nepal, which, he says, boasts of more than 10,000 mini power plants, against about 200 in India. Things have changed since then. The equipment are locally available and many states – Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, West Bengal and even Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir – boasts of several such plants now. Of course, these are all NGO-driven and privately funded. Mostly, they cost less than Rs 25 lakh.
Ram has so far built 16 mini plants, bringing joy to thousands of people across the country. And he is onto the 17th, in Peepalpadar of Kashipur. But I saw the one he had built in 2008, in Keshkeri, another inaccessible village in the same block. Though located just 40 km from block headquarters, it takes endless hours of painful driving and a daredevil at the wheels to reach the village of 37 Kondh families. No motorable road exists anywhere in Kashipur and we had left behind the last settlement to get electricity (Barpadamajhi village) 30 km away. When a 15 mw plant, commissioned by Agragamee, an NGO run by Achyut Das and his wife Vidhya Das, came up two years ago, the station master of the nearby Leliguma railway station was among the first to come running for a connection. But the villagers refused, saying that this was not a commercial venture and certainly not for a government agency. They had toiled hard for one and a half years to build it – first a check dam a
kilometre away, up in the hills, then a water channel close to their village, a 30 metre pipeline from there to the powerhouse about 100 metre from their village and then lay all the wires that had to be drawn to the last house. No government agency was in picture.
The life for Keshkeri villagers has changed dramatically. Though they still have to climb the hills to reach the block headquarters, every house in the village is now lit up at night in the glow of three CFL bulbs each. Kamlu Majhi, the ‘grama rakshi’ (village policeman), has even bought a television set and a DVD player to watch films. The whole village sits around whenever a DVD is brought in. They are also privileged to have streetlights, something of a rarity in Orissa which has only 22 percent households electrified so far. Better still, all electric cables are underground. Sunsets no longer means a time to sleep. Kids continue to create a racket as the elders occupy themselves in various ways long into the nights.
While looking to set up the plant, Ram and the Das couple were looking for three ingredients: a perennial water source, which can be dammed to release at least 250 litre of water every second and a height of at least 10 metres to generate enough force to run the turbine. They found that near Keshkeri and started working. Two German NGOs, Karl Kubel Stifung and Welthungerhilfe, helped Agragamee with Rs 22 lakh they needed to set up the plant, not counting the labour the villagers put in.
Now they have surplus power. As against 15 kw power the plant generates, street and house lighting takes up only three kw. Agragamee is putting up a rice mill, a leaf-plate making unit and an oil expeller for the villagers. But this would consume another three kw. Many, including those in the neighbouring villages, are eyeing their power but Agragamee and the villagers are not rushing into any decision. Having paid Rs 100 every month for a year to set up a “village fund” for emergencies and maintenance of the power plant, which was a condition laid by Agragamee, they can relax. They are now required to pay Rs 30 a month now, which is less than the cost of kerosene they were using earlier. Besides, the money goes to the village fund and the actual cost of maintenance may be a pittance.
Ram says nothing gives him more high than seeing the happy faces of the villagers when they see electricity for the first time. “It is a magical moment for them. Though they trust you when you tell them about generating power and work hard to make it a reality, they actually believe you when the bulbs lit up. They jump in joy, shout at the top of their voices and start singing merrily. That is my reward. When I saw this in Putsil for the first time (that was in 1997-98 in Orissa’s Koraput district), I decided to go on doing this,” he says.
As for the Das couple, theirs is a separate story. The power plant is one more milestone in their 30-year-long endeavour to make Kashipur a better place to live. n
prasanna@governancenow.com
Mea culpa is not enough, Mr PM
Edit, Governance Now, March 16,31, 2011
You must explain what led to the error and heads must roll to account for the serious lapses
When the prime minister first said in Jammu that it was an “error of judgment” and that he took “full responsibility” for appointing PJ Thomas as the central vigilance commissioner, which the supreme court set aside as “illegal”, it seemed a genuinely contrite expression. Given his reputation for personal integrity, many looked forward to his subsequent statement in parliament to find out what steps he intended to take to fortify such appointments in future. The BJP’s suggestion was loaded: “The PM should introspect on whether he was misled or allowed himself to be misled.” But when he made his statement in Lok Sabha a few days later, doubts crept in. His statement was a mere record of the timeline with a tag, “we accept and respect the verdict”. Expressions of error of judgment and taking full responsibility for it were missing. When the leader of opposition, Sushma Swaraj, protested, the prime minister said: “I have no hesitation in repeating what I said in Jammu. Obviously, there was an error of judgment. I accept full responsibility for it.”
Swaraj may have been satisfied with that but we, the people of India, are not. We demand some answers and remedial measures given the fact that it involved appointment of the head of the topmost corruption watchdog in the country. Firstly, this is not about your personal integrity, Mr Prime Minister. It is about institutional integrity, the integrity of the office of the prime minister. Thomas’ appointment was cleared by a panel headed by the prime minister. Second, you must explain the omissions and as well as the commissions in the selection process. And third, fix the responsibility. Who is or are responsible for the apparent lapses? Why heads haven’t rolled, then or now? Until we have answers to these questions, the institutional integrity of the prime minister will remain suspect, and so would the mea culpa.
That is so because Thomas’ selection was a brazen act. Not only did the panel know about the pending criminal case against him, Swaraj, who was a panel member along with home minister P Chidambaram, was overruled when she objected to his candidature on this very ground. Both the prime minister and the home minister have confirmed this since then. Swaraj has gone on record to say that she tried to postpone the decision “by a day” when she was told that Thomas had been “acquitted”. This was not conceded. She tried to approach the president but by the time she got an appointment, Thomas had been sworn in. It remains a mystery as to why Swaraj’s red flag didn’t alert the PM and why a background check was not initiated thereafter. The extraordinary haste with which the government moved doesn’t reflect the circumspection such sensitive appointments call for.
Selection and swearing-in of Thomas happened in the first week of September 2010. The PIL in the apex court came later. The same brazenness was evident in the government’s dealing with the issue in courts too. The affidavits filed by the government first certified Thomas’ impeccable integrity and then questioned the court’s jurisdiction in questioning governme-nt’s action. When these didn’t work,
the court was told that the PM-led panel had no knowledge of the criminal case against Thomas.
It is difficult to believe that for five months the PM was being misled into believing something contrary to what the court was commenting from time to time and what incessant and widespread media coverage was screaming about l’affaire Thomas. At the end of the day, the court said it wasn’t only a pending criminal charge sheet, the prosecution sanction on which had been pending for years, but that there were nearly half-dozen file notings seeking disciplinary proceedings against Thomas and even a CVC note seeking his punishment.
Assuming for a moment that the PM was indeed being misled, what is stopping him now from acting against those who did so? Why is he being seen to be protecting those at fault? His silence only reinforces the idea that he chose to be deliberately misled, which, then, raises a question about his personal integrity!
You must explain what led to the error and heads must roll to account for the serious lapses
When the prime minister first said in Jammu that it was an “error of judgment” and that he took “full responsibility” for appointing PJ Thomas as the central vigilance commissioner, which the supreme court set aside as “illegal”, it seemed a genuinely contrite expression. Given his reputation for personal integrity, many looked forward to his subsequent statement in parliament to find out what steps he intended to take to fortify such appointments in future. The BJP’s suggestion was loaded: “The PM should introspect on whether he was misled or allowed himself to be misled.” But when he made his statement in Lok Sabha a few days later, doubts crept in. His statement was a mere record of the timeline with a tag, “we accept and respect the verdict”. Expressions of error of judgment and taking full responsibility for it were missing. When the leader of opposition, Sushma Swaraj, protested, the prime minister said: “I have no hesitation in repeating what I said in Jammu. Obviously, there was an error of judgment. I accept full responsibility for it.”
Swaraj may have been satisfied with that but we, the people of India, are not. We demand some answers and remedial measures given the fact that it involved appointment of the head of the topmost corruption watchdog in the country. Firstly, this is not about your personal integrity, Mr Prime Minister. It is about institutional integrity, the integrity of the office of the prime minister. Thomas’ appointment was cleared by a panel headed by the prime minister. Second, you must explain the omissions and as well as the commissions in the selection process. And third, fix the responsibility. Who is or are responsible for the apparent lapses? Why heads haven’t rolled, then or now? Until we have answers to these questions, the institutional integrity of the prime minister will remain suspect, and so would the mea culpa.
That is so because Thomas’ selection was a brazen act. Not only did the panel know about the pending criminal case against him, Swaraj, who was a panel member along with home minister P Chidambaram, was overruled when she objected to his candidature on this very ground. Both the prime minister and the home minister have confirmed this since then. Swaraj has gone on record to say that she tried to postpone the decision “by a day” when she was told that Thomas had been “acquitted”. This was not conceded. She tried to approach the president but by the time she got an appointment, Thomas had been sworn in. It remains a mystery as to why Swaraj’s red flag didn’t alert the PM and why a background check was not initiated thereafter. The extraordinary haste with which the government moved doesn’t reflect the circumspection such sensitive appointments call for.
Selection and swearing-in of Thomas happened in the first week of September 2010. The PIL in the apex court came later. The same brazenness was evident in the government’s dealing with the issue in courts too. The affidavits filed by the government first certified Thomas’ impeccable integrity and then questioned the court’s jurisdiction in questioning governme-nt’s action. When these didn’t work,
the court was told that the PM-led panel had no knowledge of the criminal case against Thomas.
It is difficult to believe that for five months the PM was being misled into believing something contrary to what the court was commenting from time to time and what incessant and widespread media coverage was screaming about l’affaire Thomas. At the end of the day, the court said it wasn’t only a pending criminal charge sheet, the prosecution sanction on which had been pending for years, but that there were nearly half-dozen file notings seeking disciplinary proceedings against Thomas and even a CVC note seeking his punishment.
Assuming for a moment that the PM was indeed being misled, what is stopping him now from acting against those who did so? Why is he being seen to be protecting those at fault? His silence only reinforces the idea that he chose to be deliberately misled, which, then, raises a question about his personal integrity!
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Thank you Thomas, for showing the way to fight corruption!
governancenow.com, march 4, 2011
All we need is a few men (and women) of steel, who can say no to govt
P J Thomas has been forced to quit – by the supreme court, not the government. Once the UPA government decided to make him the central vigilance commissioner, it could do nothing to dislodge him even as it faced embarrassment and criticism.
Yes, it’s a new low for prime minister Manmohan Singh. People are outraged, and that’s understandable. But if there is any silver lining to the Thomas saga, it is this: he has unwittingly set a precedent that the officials heading our key institutions can do well to remember. He has shown them that you can say no to the government, come what may. Of course, we all wish his ‘no’ was for some cause other than selfish, but ‘no’ it was. Only if our key corruption watchdogs develop the spine, they cannot be removed – not by the government at least, and wage their battles to clean up what is euphemistically called the system. For they have been assured a fixed tenure and a tough process for their removal. They need not take orders from political masters (unless, of course, they are looking for post-retirement benefits).
Taking this lesson is the only way to make good use of the otherwise sorry saga of that bureaucrat.
Remember how a “lapdog” T N Seshan became the “bulldog” of democracy overnight in the 1990s? Single-handedly, without any additional power, he transformed a docile constitutional body, the election commission of India, into a powerful institution that the politicians came to dread. So much so that all the political parties conspired to convert a one-member CEC into a three-member body in 1993. That didn’t have the slightest impact on Seshan, who retired in 1996. Such was his impact that his legacy endures till today. The CEC remains one of the most respected institutions in the country. Those who saw the dramatic transformation marveled at the powers that had always been vested in the CEC but had been largely wasted.
N Vittal did the same to the CVC. When he assumed charge in 1998 (retiring in 2002), the CVC wasn’t even a statutory body. Few, in fact, knew what it was or that it was there. He created a website for his organization and put out the names of mighty IAS and IPS officers on his corruption watchlist because the government deliberately sat on his request for prosecution. It sent a shiver down the spine of the infamous iron-frame of the bureaucracy. When a politician complained against the then minister and feared criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani, he sent it to the then CBI director R K Raghavan and got it investigated.
Before Raghavan, Trinath Mishra was the acting director of CBI. In November 1998, he had the residence of the mighty Dhirubhai Ambani raided to inquire into the leakage of sensitive official documents. Mishra did not feel the need to check with prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee or home minister L K Advani because, as he told some people later, it is not the CBI director’s job to seek political sanction for his every move. Of course, within weeks of this daredevilry, Mishra was shunted out. Mishra was just an “acting” director and at that time he did not even enjoy the safety of a fixed tenure. That came about with the CVC Act of 2003.
Contrast that with what has happened with the CBI in the telecom scam. The agency sat on the case for two years though it had ample evidence of wrongdoing. When the supreme court moved in and directed action, it arrested a former minister and his associates and a businessman. It has questioned top corporate houses and is moving at a blinding speed. The CBI could move so fast only because, as former minister Arun Shourie says, it had the facts all this while but was waiting for political signals. Imagine what a Trinath Mishra could have done in this case!
A clutch of important posts, all dealing with corruption, are similarly politician-proof. The directors of CBI and enforcement directorate, cabinet secretary, home secretary, defence secretary and foreign secretary are all tenure-fixed posts. Once appointed they cannot be removed for two years. Similarly the chief election commissioner and election commissioners have a six-year tenure (unless they attain age of superannuation before). The heads of TRAI, SEBI, IRDA, RBI have five years.
In our fight against corruption, it would do us all good if we looked at what is there rather than what should be. We have some of the top jobs in this country protected from politicians. Now we need just a few officers with spines of steel to do their jobs the way they are supposed to instead of hankering for the next job. If at all we need changes in our laws to fight corruption, let us begin by making our top officers ineligible for a post-retirement job for a specified number of years. In this age of increasing life-expectancy we cannot ask a 60-year-old to vegetate so they must be paid handsome compensation for denied opportunities.
All we need is a few men (and women) of steel, who can say no to govt
P J Thomas has been forced to quit – by the supreme court, not the government. Once the UPA government decided to make him the central vigilance commissioner, it could do nothing to dislodge him even as it faced embarrassment and criticism.
Yes, it’s a new low for prime minister Manmohan Singh. People are outraged, and that’s understandable. But if there is any silver lining to the Thomas saga, it is this: he has unwittingly set a precedent that the officials heading our key institutions can do well to remember. He has shown them that you can say no to the government, come what may. Of course, we all wish his ‘no’ was for some cause other than selfish, but ‘no’ it was. Only if our key corruption watchdogs develop the spine, they cannot be removed – not by the government at least, and wage their battles to clean up what is euphemistically called the system. For they have been assured a fixed tenure and a tough process for their removal. They need not take orders from political masters (unless, of course, they are looking for post-retirement benefits).
Taking this lesson is the only way to make good use of the otherwise sorry saga of that bureaucrat.
Remember how a “lapdog” T N Seshan became the “bulldog” of democracy overnight in the 1990s? Single-handedly, without any additional power, he transformed a docile constitutional body, the election commission of India, into a powerful institution that the politicians came to dread. So much so that all the political parties conspired to convert a one-member CEC into a three-member body in 1993. That didn’t have the slightest impact on Seshan, who retired in 1996. Such was his impact that his legacy endures till today. The CEC remains one of the most respected institutions in the country. Those who saw the dramatic transformation marveled at the powers that had always been vested in the CEC but had been largely wasted.
N Vittal did the same to the CVC. When he assumed charge in 1998 (retiring in 2002), the CVC wasn’t even a statutory body. Few, in fact, knew what it was or that it was there. He created a website for his organization and put out the names of mighty IAS and IPS officers on his corruption watchlist because the government deliberately sat on his request for prosecution. It sent a shiver down the spine of the infamous iron-frame of the bureaucracy. When a politician complained against the then minister and feared criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani, he sent it to the then CBI director R K Raghavan and got it investigated.
Before Raghavan, Trinath Mishra was the acting director of CBI. In November 1998, he had the residence of the mighty Dhirubhai Ambani raided to inquire into the leakage of sensitive official documents. Mishra did not feel the need to check with prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee or home minister L K Advani because, as he told some people later, it is not the CBI director’s job to seek political sanction for his every move. Of course, within weeks of this daredevilry, Mishra was shunted out. Mishra was just an “acting” director and at that time he did not even enjoy the safety of a fixed tenure. That came about with the CVC Act of 2003.
Contrast that with what has happened with the CBI in the telecom scam. The agency sat on the case for two years though it had ample evidence of wrongdoing. When the supreme court moved in and directed action, it arrested a former minister and his associates and a businessman. It has questioned top corporate houses and is moving at a blinding speed. The CBI could move so fast only because, as former minister Arun Shourie says, it had the facts all this while but was waiting for political signals. Imagine what a Trinath Mishra could have done in this case!
A clutch of important posts, all dealing with corruption, are similarly politician-proof. The directors of CBI and enforcement directorate, cabinet secretary, home secretary, defence secretary and foreign secretary are all tenure-fixed posts. Once appointed they cannot be removed for two years. Similarly the chief election commissioner and election commissioners have a six-year tenure (unless they attain age of superannuation before). The heads of TRAI, SEBI, IRDA, RBI have five years.
In our fight against corruption, it would do us all good if we looked at what is there rather than what should be. We have some of the top jobs in this country protected from politicians. Now we need just a few officers with spines of steel to do their jobs the way they are supposed to instead of hankering for the next job. If at all we need changes in our laws to fight corruption, let us begin by making our top officers ineligible for a post-retirement job for a specified number of years. In this age of increasing life-expectancy we cannot ask a 60-year-old to vegetate so they must be paid handsome compensation for denied opportunities.
Thomas out. What about culpability of PM, HM in the case?
governancenow.com, march 3, 2011
Their clean chit to Thomas led to the "illegal" appointment
* http://governancenow.com/sites/default/files/P.J.Thomas1.jpg
The apex court’s order setting aside appointment of P J Thomas as the central vigilance commissioner is actually an indictment of prime minister Manmohan Singh, home minister P Chidambaram and Thomas’ predecessor Pratyush Sinha. The PM and HM are at fault for forcing their way through Thomas’ appointment, despite objections from the third member, leader of opposition Sushma Swaraj, and former CVC for giving a vigilance clearance to Thomas at the time of his empanelment as secretary in 2008.
This will be evident if we look closely the grounds on which the apex court set aside Thomas’ appointment:
* The court said recommendation for appointment of Thomas by the selection panel was “illegal” since it didn’t consider the pending charge sheet in the palmolein case and hence, this recommendation “does not exist in law”;
* Thomas failed to qualify because of pending case and official notings for initiation of disciplinary proceedings against him;
* The plea that the CVC had given a vigilance clearance to Thomas in 2008 could not be the basis for empanelment for the CVC and
* The selection panel and other government agencies ignored the larger issue of institutional and personal integrity of the office of CVC.
It may be recalled that the government went ahead with Thomas appointment despite strong protest from Swaraj. The selection was defective for two reasons.
One, the panel ignored the pending criminal case against Thomas and this violated the 1997 apex court’s order in the Vineet Narain case which specifically mentioned that the person being considered for the post should have “impeccable integrity”.
Two, the selection would be on the basis of “consensus” but the government interpreted it to be “majority view”, rather than “unanimity”. This defeated the very purpose of including the leader of opposition in the selection panel.
In subsequent court case, which culminated in setting aside Thomas’ appointment, the government lied through its teeth saying that the selection panel had no knowledge of the pending criminal case.
Chidambaram issued a statement about a month ago, during his infamous spat with Swaraj, saying: “I reiterate that the Committee was aware of the palmolein case; that no sanction for prosecution of Shri Thomas had been granted since 1999; that the case was pending in the Trial Court; that the Supreme Court had stayed the trial of the case; and that the then CVC had granted vigilance clearance in respect of Shri Thomas”.
All this makes culpability of both PM and HM clear.
As for former CVC Pratyush Sinha, the government also defended its position in the court saying that it was right in empanelling and subsequently appointing Thomas because the CVC had, in 2008, given a vigilance clearance to him. Sinha was the CVC at the time and he too ignored the pending criminal charge sheet in the palmolein case to give a clean chit to Thomas.
This makes him guilty of gross impropriety.
As the apex court has said, everyone ignored the integrity of the institution of CVC as well as personal integrity of Thomas.
Thomas has done the right thing by tendering his resignation, which he has been resisting for quite some time.
Now is the time for the PM, HM and former CVC to own up their culpability.
We don’t expect PM and HM to resign but we expect them to take the moral responsibility and apologize to the nation for their gross misconduct. After all, CVC is the apex corruption watchdog of the country and they had, by their action, compromised that office.
Sinha has retired, making way for Thomas. He clearly compromised the office of the CVC while holding the august office. His apology is also in order.
Their clean chit to Thomas led to the "illegal" appointment
* http://governancenow.com/sites/default/files/P.J.Thomas1.jpg
The apex court’s order setting aside appointment of P J Thomas as the central vigilance commissioner is actually an indictment of prime minister Manmohan Singh, home minister P Chidambaram and Thomas’ predecessor Pratyush Sinha. The PM and HM are at fault for forcing their way through Thomas’ appointment, despite objections from the third member, leader of opposition Sushma Swaraj, and former CVC for giving a vigilance clearance to Thomas at the time of his empanelment as secretary in 2008.
This will be evident if we look closely the grounds on which the apex court set aside Thomas’ appointment:
* The court said recommendation for appointment of Thomas by the selection panel was “illegal” since it didn’t consider the pending charge sheet in the palmolein case and hence, this recommendation “does not exist in law”;
* Thomas failed to qualify because of pending case and official notings for initiation of disciplinary proceedings against him;
* The plea that the CVC had given a vigilance clearance to Thomas in 2008 could not be the basis for empanelment for the CVC and
* The selection panel and other government agencies ignored the larger issue of institutional and personal integrity of the office of CVC.
It may be recalled that the government went ahead with Thomas appointment despite strong protest from Swaraj. The selection was defective for two reasons.
One, the panel ignored the pending criminal case against Thomas and this violated the 1997 apex court’s order in the Vineet Narain case which specifically mentioned that the person being considered for the post should have “impeccable integrity”.
Two, the selection would be on the basis of “consensus” but the government interpreted it to be “majority view”, rather than “unanimity”. This defeated the very purpose of including the leader of opposition in the selection panel.
In subsequent court case, which culminated in setting aside Thomas’ appointment, the government lied through its teeth saying that the selection panel had no knowledge of the pending criminal case.
Chidambaram issued a statement about a month ago, during his infamous spat with Swaraj, saying: “I reiterate that the Committee was aware of the palmolein case; that no sanction for prosecution of Shri Thomas had been granted since 1999; that the case was pending in the Trial Court; that the Supreme Court had stayed the trial of the case; and that the then CVC had granted vigilance clearance in respect of Shri Thomas”.
All this makes culpability of both PM and HM clear.
As for former CVC Pratyush Sinha, the government also defended its position in the court saying that it was right in empanelling and subsequently appointing Thomas because the CVC had, in 2008, given a vigilance clearance to him. Sinha was the CVC at the time and he too ignored the pending criminal charge sheet in the palmolein case to give a clean chit to Thomas.
This makes him guilty of gross impropriety.
As the apex court has said, everyone ignored the integrity of the institution of CVC as well as personal integrity of Thomas.
Thomas has done the right thing by tendering his resignation, which he has been resisting for quite some time.
Now is the time for the PM, HM and former CVC to own up their culpability.
We don’t expect PM and HM to resign but we expect them to take the moral responsibility and apologize to the nation for their gross misconduct. After all, CVC is the apex corruption watchdog of the country and they had, by their action, compromised that office.
Sinha has retired, making way for Thomas. He clearly compromised the office of the CVC while holding the august office. His apology is also in order.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Wanted: A few officers with spine
Governance Now, March 1-15, 2011
We have to thank CVC P J Thomas for reminding us that those holding certain high positions can indeed stand up to the government, that corruption watchdogs cannot be eased out at will. Now, let us put this knowledge to good use
Scams are scams. There are no good scams and bad scams. But even then, in the brouhaha over the 2G, S-band, CWG and Adarsh scams, another scam – that has embarrassed the government no less – has not been recognised for being the beacon of hope that it is: the appointment of P J Thomas as the central vigilance commissioner!
A month and half ago, the government was busy weaving a web of deception to get out of the mess it had created by its choosing and doing. First, it gave a clean chit to Thomas when protests mounted; then refused to accept the supreme court’s show-cause notice to Thomas on his behalf. When these things didn’t help it questioned the apex court’s very jurisdiction in “questioning” the government’s authority to appoint and Thomas’ suitability and integrity. Finally, it ended up with an affidavit that said the selection panel that consisted of the prime minister, the home minister and the leader of opposition had no information about the pending charge sheet against Thomas. Leader of opposition Sushma Swaraj jumped into the fray, which led to an exchange of words between her and home minister P Chidambaram. More egg on the government’s face as Chidambaram ended up confirming that the panel had knowledge of the charge sheet and that it was even discussed at the meeting.
It was by now clear that the government wanted desperately to see the back of Thomas in order to contain the damage caused by its own bullheadedness in appointing him. It hinted, it pleaded and it even planted media stories that Thomas would resign “within 48 hours”. When the pressure of 24x7 media badgering did not help to get rid of Thomas, the government, it is said, even tried negotiating a “compensation package” for him if he quit on his own. But this didn’t work either. Thomas refused to resign and boldly declared at the end of all this: “I am still the CVC.”
Indeed Thomas is still the CVC, though there is a chance that he might not continue to be post March 3, the day the supreme court will pronounce its judgment on a PIL challenging his appointment.
Whether or not Thomas continues to be the CVC beyond March 3, is immaterial. What is material to the fight against corruption is that he has, unintended of course, exposed the helplessness of the government of day when it comes to removing people occupying some key posts that deal with corruption in the country.
Let me say this again, because this bears repetition. In the way the government grovelled before Thomas it has demonstrated a fact that often escapes our attention: that when it comes to the chiefs of top anti-corruption agencies in the country, the government can appoint them, it just cannot get rid of them!
If every cloud has a silver lining, in the murky Thomas episode it is this revelation.
The CVC is not a constitutional post; but it is a statutory one. Thomas has been appointed for a fixed tenure (of four years). He can be removed only by following a complicated laid-down procedure and that kicks in only if there are serious charges of corruption or misuse of office. This post of the CVC was tenure-fixed just to ensure that the incumbent can function without interference from the government.
Imagine for a moment, that if Thomas, the biggest corruption-buster of the country, who oversees the functioning of our premier investigative agency CBI, were to stand his ground on a corruption case instead, what turn our fight against corruption could take! Would we still be agonizing and fretting that corruption is a way of our life and that nothing short of a DNA transplant would help us Indians? Would our corruption crusaders like Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan (not to belittle the importance of their brave struggle) still be talking about a Lokpal Bill? Or would Thomas’ predecessor Pratyush Sinha have felt the need to justify four years of twiddling his thumbs while in the high office because the “CVC is merely an advisory body” and join the anti-corruption crusade post-retirement to campaign for more power and bite for the CVC? Not a chance.
It is delusional and falling into the now familiar trap to believe that our corruption watchdogs have no teeth; that the politicians in power interfere, immobilise or misuse them or that nothing short of a systemic overhaul is required. They need more teeth, yes, but to say they are toothless is a fallacy, actually a clever camouflage for the lack of another critical and felt shortcoming: the lack of spine. We do need to tweak some laws. We do need, for example, to kill, bury and obliterate the “single directive” that makes the government’s sanction mandatory to prosecute any official of the level of a joint secretary or above. This single directive is a big boon for the babu and an equally big curse for India. (It is also the reason why Thomas is today our CVC!) We do need to give the CVC an investigative arm and the power to prosecute. Likewise we do need to enact a new Lokpal law that civil society has been demanding. But, the point is, even without these changes or any other changes, we can fight corruption very effectively and decisively. Thomas has shown how.
Many would recall how a “lapdog” T N Seshan became the “bulldog” of democracy overnight in the 1990s. Single-handedly, without any additional power, he transformed a docile constitutional body, the election commission of India, into a powerful institution that the politicians came to dread. He cleaned up the entire electoral process which used to be a free-for-all jamboree. So much so that all the political parties conspired to convert a one-member CEC into a three-member body in 1993. That didn’t have the slightest impact on Seshan, who retired in 1996. Such was his impact that his legacy endures till today. The CEC remains one of the most respected institutions in the country. Those who saw the dramatic transformation marveled at the powers that had always been vested in the CEC but had been largely wasted.
N Vittal did the same to the CVC. When he assumed charge in 1998 (retiring in 2002), the CVC wasn’t even a statutory body. Few, in fact, knew what it was or that it was there. He created a website for his organization and put out the names of mighty IAS and IPS officers on his corruption watchlist because the government deliberately sat on his request for prosecution. It sent a shiver down the spine of the infamous iron-frame of the bureaucracy. When a politician complained against the then minister and feared criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani, he sent it to the then CBI director R K Raghavan and got it investigated.
Before Raghavan, Trinath Mishra was the director of CBI. In November 1998, he had the residence of the mighty Dhirubhai Ambani raided to inquire into the leakage of sensitive official documents. Mishra did not feel the need to check with prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee or home minister L K Advani because, as he told some people later, it is not the CBI director’s job to seek political sanction for his every move. Of course, within weeks of this daredevilry, Mishra was shunted out. Mishra was just an “acting” director and at that time he did not even enjoy the safety of a fixed tenure. That came about with the CVC Act of 2003.
Contrast that with what has happened with the CBI in the telecom scam. The agency sat on the case for two years though it had ample evidence of wrongdoing. When the supreme court moved in and directed action, it arrested a former minister and his associates and a businessman. It has questioned top corporate houses and is moving at a blinding speed. The CBI could move so fast only because, as former minister Arun Shourie says, it had the facts all this while but was waiting for political signals. Imagine what a Trinath Mishra could have done in this case!
The good news for a nation that is looking for salvation from corruption is this: it is not just the CVC who is tenure-protected. A clutch of important posts, all dealing with corruption, are similarly politician-proof. The directors of CBI and enforcement directorate, cabinet secretary, home secretary, defence secretary and foreign secretary are all tenure-fixed posts. Once appointed they cannot be removed for two years. Similarly the chief election commissioner and election commissioners have a six-year tenure (unless they attain age of superannuation before). The heads of TRAI, SEBI, IRDA, RBI have five years.
It is now much easier for all these individuals to stand their ground and enforce the rule of law as Seshan, Vittal and Mishra did. Except that they don’t. Why? Shourie gave a good answer at a Delhi seminar: “There is a famous Zulu proverb. ‘A dog with a bone in his mouth can’t bark.’ Similarly, a dog with a bone in front of him can’t bark either.” Unfortunately, now that they are secure in this job, most officers are interested only in the next. In spite of their offices being ring-fenced, most people holding key positions lust for post-retirement position, some even hunger a post-post-retirement position. Vittal said in an interview last year that there are four key bodies to fight corruption – courts of law, election commission, CAG and CVC. If they do their job well, the fight against corruption will have made major strides.
In the fight against corruption, it would do us all good if we looked at what is there rather than what should be. We have some of the top jobs in this country protected from politicians. Now we need just a few officers with spines of steel to do their jobs the way they are supposed to instead of hankering for the next job. If at all we need changes in our laws to fight corruption, let us begin by making our top officers ineligible for a post-retirement job for a specified number of years. In this age of increasing life-expectancy we cannot ask a 60-year-old to vegetate so they must be paid handsome compensation for denied opportunities.
Then, may be, we will find those 10 people with spine. And for making us realise that there is a way to deal with corruption, thank you, Mr Thomas! n
prasanna@governancenow.com
We have to thank CVC P J Thomas for reminding us that those holding certain high positions can indeed stand up to the government, that corruption watchdogs cannot be eased out at will. Now, let us put this knowledge to good use
Scams are scams. There are no good scams and bad scams. But even then, in the brouhaha over the 2G, S-band, CWG and Adarsh scams, another scam – that has embarrassed the government no less – has not been recognised for being the beacon of hope that it is: the appointment of P J Thomas as the central vigilance commissioner!
A month and half ago, the government was busy weaving a web of deception to get out of the mess it had created by its choosing and doing. First, it gave a clean chit to Thomas when protests mounted; then refused to accept the supreme court’s show-cause notice to Thomas on his behalf. When these things didn’t help it questioned the apex court’s very jurisdiction in “questioning” the government’s authority to appoint and Thomas’ suitability and integrity. Finally, it ended up with an affidavit that said the selection panel that consisted of the prime minister, the home minister and the leader of opposition had no information about the pending charge sheet against Thomas. Leader of opposition Sushma Swaraj jumped into the fray, which led to an exchange of words between her and home minister P Chidambaram. More egg on the government’s face as Chidambaram ended up confirming that the panel had knowledge of the charge sheet and that it was even discussed at the meeting.
It was by now clear that the government wanted desperately to see the back of Thomas in order to contain the damage caused by its own bullheadedness in appointing him. It hinted, it pleaded and it even planted media stories that Thomas would resign “within 48 hours”. When the pressure of 24x7 media badgering did not help to get rid of Thomas, the government, it is said, even tried negotiating a “compensation package” for him if he quit on his own. But this didn’t work either. Thomas refused to resign and boldly declared at the end of all this: “I am still the CVC.”
Indeed Thomas is still the CVC, though there is a chance that he might not continue to be post March 3, the day the supreme court will pronounce its judgment on a PIL challenging his appointment.
Whether or not Thomas continues to be the CVC beyond March 3, is immaterial. What is material to the fight against corruption is that he has, unintended of course, exposed the helplessness of the government of day when it comes to removing people occupying some key posts that deal with corruption in the country.
Let me say this again, because this bears repetition. In the way the government grovelled before Thomas it has demonstrated a fact that often escapes our attention: that when it comes to the chiefs of top anti-corruption agencies in the country, the government can appoint them, it just cannot get rid of them!
If every cloud has a silver lining, in the murky Thomas episode it is this revelation.
The CVC is not a constitutional post; but it is a statutory one. Thomas has been appointed for a fixed tenure (of four years). He can be removed only by following a complicated laid-down procedure and that kicks in only if there are serious charges of corruption or misuse of office. This post of the CVC was tenure-fixed just to ensure that the incumbent can function without interference from the government.
Imagine for a moment, that if Thomas, the biggest corruption-buster of the country, who oversees the functioning of our premier investigative agency CBI, were to stand his ground on a corruption case instead, what turn our fight against corruption could take! Would we still be agonizing and fretting that corruption is a way of our life and that nothing short of a DNA transplant would help us Indians? Would our corruption crusaders like Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan (not to belittle the importance of their brave struggle) still be talking about a Lokpal Bill? Or would Thomas’ predecessor Pratyush Sinha have felt the need to justify four years of twiddling his thumbs while in the high office because the “CVC is merely an advisory body” and join the anti-corruption crusade post-retirement to campaign for more power and bite for the CVC? Not a chance.
It is delusional and falling into the now familiar trap to believe that our corruption watchdogs have no teeth; that the politicians in power interfere, immobilise or misuse them or that nothing short of a systemic overhaul is required. They need more teeth, yes, but to say they are toothless is a fallacy, actually a clever camouflage for the lack of another critical and felt shortcoming: the lack of spine. We do need to tweak some laws. We do need, for example, to kill, bury and obliterate the “single directive” that makes the government’s sanction mandatory to prosecute any official of the level of a joint secretary or above. This single directive is a big boon for the babu and an equally big curse for India. (It is also the reason why Thomas is today our CVC!) We do need to give the CVC an investigative arm and the power to prosecute. Likewise we do need to enact a new Lokpal law that civil society has been demanding. But, the point is, even without these changes or any other changes, we can fight corruption very effectively and decisively. Thomas has shown how.
Many would recall how a “lapdog” T N Seshan became the “bulldog” of democracy overnight in the 1990s. Single-handedly, without any additional power, he transformed a docile constitutional body, the election commission of India, into a powerful institution that the politicians came to dread. He cleaned up the entire electoral process which used to be a free-for-all jamboree. So much so that all the political parties conspired to convert a one-member CEC into a three-member body in 1993. That didn’t have the slightest impact on Seshan, who retired in 1996. Such was his impact that his legacy endures till today. The CEC remains one of the most respected institutions in the country. Those who saw the dramatic transformation marveled at the powers that had always been vested in the CEC but had been largely wasted.
N Vittal did the same to the CVC. When he assumed charge in 1998 (retiring in 2002), the CVC wasn’t even a statutory body. Few, in fact, knew what it was or that it was there. He created a website for his organization and put out the names of mighty IAS and IPS officers on his corruption watchlist because the government deliberately sat on his request for prosecution. It sent a shiver down the spine of the infamous iron-frame of the bureaucracy. When a politician complained against the then minister and feared criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani, he sent it to the then CBI director R K Raghavan and got it investigated.
Before Raghavan, Trinath Mishra was the director of CBI. In November 1998, he had the residence of the mighty Dhirubhai Ambani raided to inquire into the leakage of sensitive official documents. Mishra did not feel the need to check with prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee or home minister L K Advani because, as he told some people later, it is not the CBI director’s job to seek political sanction for his every move. Of course, within weeks of this daredevilry, Mishra was shunted out. Mishra was just an “acting” director and at that time he did not even enjoy the safety of a fixed tenure. That came about with the CVC Act of 2003.
Contrast that with what has happened with the CBI in the telecom scam. The agency sat on the case for two years though it had ample evidence of wrongdoing. When the supreme court moved in and directed action, it arrested a former minister and his associates and a businessman. It has questioned top corporate houses and is moving at a blinding speed. The CBI could move so fast only because, as former minister Arun Shourie says, it had the facts all this while but was waiting for political signals. Imagine what a Trinath Mishra could have done in this case!
The good news for a nation that is looking for salvation from corruption is this: it is not just the CVC who is tenure-protected. A clutch of important posts, all dealing with corruption, are similarly politician-proof. The directors of CBI and enforcement directorate, cabinet secretary, home secretary, defence secretary and foreign secretary are all tenure-fixed posts. Once appointed they cannot be removed for two years. Similarly the chief election commissioner and election commissioners have a six-year tenure (unless they attain age of superannuation before). The heads of TRAI, SEBI, IRDA, RBI have five years.
It is now much easier for all these individuals to stand their ground and enforce the rule of law as Seshan, Vittal and Mishra did. Except that they don’t. Why? Shourie gave a good answer at a Delhi seminar: “There is a famous Zulu proverb. ‘A dog with a bone in his mouth can’t bark.’ Similarly, a dog with a bone in front of him can’t bark either.” Unfortunately, now that they are secure in this job, most officers are interested only in the next. In spite of their offices being ring-fenced, most people holding key positions lust for post-retirement position, some even hunger a post-post-retirement position. Vittal said in an interview last year that there are four key bodies to fight corruption – courts of law, election commission, CAG and CVC. If they do their job well, the fight against corruption will have made major strides.
In the fight against corruption, it would do us all good if we looked at what is there rather than what should be. We have some of the top jobs in this country protected from politicians. Now we need just a few officers with spines of steel to do their jobs the way they are supposed to instead of hankering for the next job. If at all we need changes in our laws to fight corruption, let us begin by making our top officers ineligible for a post-retirement job for a specified number of years. In this age of increasing life-expectancy we cannot ask a 60-year-old to vegetate so they must be paid handsome compensation for denied opportunities.
Then, may be, we will find those 10 people with spine. And for making us realise that there is a way to deal with corruption, thank you, Mr Thomas! n
prasanna@governancenow.com
They showed the way
Governance NOw, March 1-15, 2011
TN Seshan | No bureaucrat transformed himself and the public office he holds in such a spectacular way as TN Seshan did as the chief election commissioner of India between 1990 and 1996. From a “lapdog” of the Nehru-Gandhi family, he became the “bulldog” of democracy and turned the election commission into a powerful and independent body that came to be feared by the political parties. Stretching the limits of his power, he cleaned up the entire electoral process through a series of measures – put a limit on electoral spending for the candidates, prevented defacement of public places, forced candidates and parties to submit full details of election expenses for scrutiny, stopped misuse of government resources in campaigning, seized unlicenced firearms, banned liquor sale on the eve of polling and forced voters to use identity cards. These measures had dramatic effects. So much so that a scared political establishment turned election commission into a three-member body in 1993. But his legacy endures.
James Michael Lyngdoh | None other than Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi made this name so famous. Piqued by the fact that Lyngdoh dared to challenge the state government on the timing of elections soon after the post-Godhra riots and postponed it by six months on the plea of a vitiated communal environment, Modi went on a public offensive, calling his name in full to highlight his Christian identity. But nothing deterred the man who held the office of the CEC between 2001 and 2004. The year 2002 presented him another big challenge: to hold a free and fair election in J&K amidst a standoff with Pakistan, boycott by the separatists and militants’ violence. He warned off the army who used to assist the state in poll rigging, mobilised local police and paramilitary forces, introduced voter cards, updated and verified electoral rolls and held what was hailed by one and all as the first free and fair elections and a triumph of “ballots over bullets”.
N Vittal | Hardly anybody had heard of the central vigilance commission (CVC) before this bureaucrat held the office between 1998 and 2002. CVC wasn’t even a statutory body then (it became one after the CVC Act of 2003) and yet, he emerged as a crusader against corruption. He put the names of the mighty IAS and IPS officers found guilty of corruption charges on the CVC website, which he had set up. By the end of the tenure, 4,000 plus names of public servants were listed on the website. He even forwarded a complaint against the then minister Ram Jethmalani to the CBI. His other initiatives included a ban on post-tender negotiations in government purchases except with the lowest bidder, vigilance awareness campaigns, a citizens’ guide to fight corruption and public campaigns against corruption. All these led to flooding of CVC with complaints. Unlike now, nobody said then that they came to grief by approaching the CVC.
Vinod Rai | He is another bureaucrat to stand up and be counted after TN Chaturvedi brought glory to the office of Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) with his reports on the Bofors deal in the late 1980s. Rai took over as the CAG in 2008 and has since then consistently hit the headlines by exposing one scam after the other. He started off with warning against the potential scam in the CWG deals much before it actually burst forth. He was ignored and the result is for all to see. Last year, his audit exposed another big scam in the 2G spectrum allocation, pegging the loss to the exchequer at Rs 1.76 lakh crore. It was his report that finally nailed the government’s lie and led to A Raja’s ouster and subsequent arrest. Early this year, CAG hit the headlines again by exposing what is described as the ISRO spectrum scam. The spectrum deal with Devas Multimedia now stands scrapped.
TN Mishra | The last time, in the recent memory, our premier investigating agency carried out a daring raid on a real big cookie on its own was in 1998. The CBI entered the mighty business tycoon Dhirubhai Ambani’s apartment in Mumbai with a search and seizure warrant to probe into the leak of sensitive official documents. Trinath Mishra was ‘acting’ director of the CBI then. The raid, which apparently didn’t have the approval of the Vajpayee-led government, led to his removal from office within a fortnight. He had not even completed a year in office and though his name figured in the probable candidates, RK Raghavan was made the CBI director. There was no fixed tenure for the CBI directors then. The raid on Ambani was preceded by a few others, including one on Dawood’s henchman in Delhi Romesh Sharma and Reliance Industries’ Delhi representative V Balasubramaniam (better known as Balu), which provided Mishra with sufficient grounds to raid Ambani. None of his successors has dared to act on his own despite a fixed tenure.
TN Seshan | No bureaucrat transformed himself and the public office he holds in such a spectacular way as TN Seshan did as the chief election commissioner of India between 1990 and 1996. From a “lapdog” of the Nehru-Gandhi family, he became the “bulldog” of democracy and turned the election commission into a powerful and independent body that came to be feared by the political parties. Stretching the limits of his power, he cleaned up the entire electoral process through a series of measures – put a limit on electoral spending for the candidates, prevented defacement of public places, forced candidates and parties to submit full details of election expenses for scrutiny, stopped misuse of government resources in campaigning, seized unlicenced firearms, banned liquor sale on the eve of polling and forced voters to use identity cards. These measures had dramatic effects. So much so that a scared political establishment turned election commission into a three-member body in 1993. But his legacy endures.
James Michael Lyngdoh | None other than Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi made this name so famous. Piqued by the fact that Lyngdoh dared to challenge the state government on the timing of elections soon after the post-Godhra riots and postponed it by six months on the plea of a vitiated communal environment, Modi went on a public offensive, calling his name in full to highlight his Christian identity. But nothing deterred the man who held the office of the CEC between 2001 and 2004. The year 2002 presented him another big challenge: to hold a free and fair election in J&K amidst a standoff with Pakistan, boycott by the separatists and militants’ violence. He warned off the army who used to assist the state in poll rigging, mobilised local police and paramilitary forces, introduced voter cards, updated and verified electoral rolls and held what was hailed by one and all as the first free and fair elections and a triumph of “ballots over bullets”.
N Vittal | Hardly anybody had heard of the central vigilance commission (CVC) before this bureaucrat held the office between 1998 and 2002. CVC wasn’t even a statutory body then (it became one after the CVC Act of 2003) and yet, he emerged as a crusader against corruption. He put the names of the mighty IAS and IPS officers found guilty of corruption charges on the CVC website, which he had set up. By the end of the tenure, 4,000 plus names of public servants were listed on the website. He even forwarded a complaint against the then minister Ram Jethmalani to the CBI. His other initiatives included a ban on post-tender negotiations in government purchases except with the lowest bidder, vigilance awareness campaigns, a citizens’ guide to fight corruption and public campaigns against corruption. All these led to flooding of CVC with complaints. Unlike now, nobody said then that they came to grief by approaching the CVC.
Vinod Rai | He is another bureaucrat to stand up and be counted after TN Chaturvedi brought glory to the office of Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) with his reports on the Bofors deal in the late 1980s. Rai took over as the CAG in 2008 and has since then consistently hit the headlines by exposing one scam after the other. He started off with warning against the potential scam in the CWG deals much before it actually burst forth. He was ignored and the result is for all to see. Last year, his audit exposed another big scam in the 2G spectrum allocation, pegging the loss to the exchequer at Rs 1.76 lakh crore. It was his report that finally nailed the government’s lie and led to A Raja’s ouster and subsequent arrest. Early this year, CAG hit the headlines again by exposing what is described as the ISRO spectrum scam. The spectrum deal with Devas Multimedia now stands scrapped.
TN Mishra | The last time, in the recent memory, our premier investigating agency carried out a daring raid on a real big cookie on its own was in 1998. The CBI entered the mighty business tycoon Dhirubhai Ambani’s apartment in Mumbai with a search and seizure warrant to probe into the leak of sensitive official documents. Trinath Mishra was ‘acting’ director of the CBI then. The raid, which apparently didn’t have the approval of the Vajpayee-led government, led to his removal from office within a fortnight. He had not even completed a year in office and though his name figured in the probable candidates, RK Raghavan was made the CBI director. There was no fixed tenure for the CBI directors then. The raid on Ambani was preceded by a few others, including one on Dawood’s henchman in Delhi Romesh Sharma and Reliance Industries’ Delhi representative V Balasubramaniam (better known as Balu), which provided Mishra with sufficient grounds to raid Ambani. None of his successors has dared to act on his own despite a fixed tenure.
Paying the price for good work
Governance Now, March 1-15, 2011
Krishna brought about both qualitative and quantitative change to development in the Cut-Off Area
The obvious takeaway from the abduction and subsequent
release of Malkangiri collector R Vineel Krishna is that the Maoists use tribal welfare only as a ruse to achieve their ultimate and professed goal of overthrowing the state through an “armed struggle”. Had that not been so, Krishna not only shouldn’t have figured in the Maoists’ scheme of things, they wouldn’t have delayed his release by 48 hours insisting on the release of five of their members.
That Krishna is hugely popular with the local tribals of the grossly neglected Cut-off Area (called so as K Guma block of Malkangiri is completely cut off from the rest of the state by the Balimela reservoir and Gurupriya river), which is also a safe haven for the Maoists, is evident from the way they went to the forests to search for him, confronted the Maoists and cheered him when he was freed. His peers too hold him in very high esteem for his commitment to the welfare of this neglected region.
His predecessor and Rayagada collector Dr Nitin Jawale says Krishna brought about both qualitative and quantitative changes in the development work. “He introduced micro-planning, carried out land development through the NREGA works and frequently toured the area to oversee the progress,” Dr Jawale commented, adding that Krishna fulfilled his promise of taking electricity to the Cut-Off Area. Krishna had, in fact, gone to the area to see electrification of Siliguma village, the first one in the area, and hand over pension money and land rights to the tribals at a ‘jan sampark shivir’ when he was abducted. In his enthusiasm, the young IAS officer made the cardinal error of rushing to a nearby village of Jantapai to inspect an incomplete culvert without any security escort and was picked up by the ultras on his way back. But this was not the first time he was doing so. Chitrakonda tehsildar D Gopal Krishna says Krishna did so in the past too, probably confident that the ultras posed no threat to him.
He was wrong. In the past few decades, the state government has made several attempts to connect to the Cut-Off Area by a bridge over the Gurupriya river at Janbhai Ghat. Even today, tell-tale signs of Gammon India’s effort to build a bridge exist at the place. A local sarpanch had told me a year ago that one day the Maoists called the engineers and told them to just leave the area. After he was released Krishna too expressed his surprise at his abduction, saying that he was travelling in the area with the express purpose of evaluating development projects.
The Cut-Off Area came into being at the Orissa-Andhra Pradesh border when the Balimela dam was built in the 1970s. The reservoir water and Gurupriya river cut off 150 villages spread over seven gram panchayats having a population of 26,000. The Balimela hydel project supplies about 500mw of electricity to the two states but its own backyard, the Cut-Off Area, never got electrified until Krishna drew up the first lines to Siliguma village this month.
The other takeaway from the incident, and a decidedly positive one, is that Krishna seems determined to carry on the good work that he has been doing, though he has become a bit more diplomatic. When reporters asked him if his interaction with the Maoists had changed his perspective on development, he said: “There is always scope for debate on the nature of development. Ultimately, the tribal community must benefit.” Amen! n
prasanna@governancenow.com
Krishna brought about both qualitative and quantitative change to development in the Cut-Off Area
The obvious takeaway from the abduction and subsequent
release of Malkangiri collector R Vineel Krishna is that the Maoists use tribal welfare only as a ruse to achieve their ultimate and professed goal of overthrowing the state through an “armed struggle”. Had that not been so, Krishna not only shouldn’t have figured in the Maoists’ scheme of things, they wouldn’t have delayed his release by 48 hours insisting on the release of five of their members.
That Krishna is hugely popular with the local tribals of the grossly neglected Cut-off Area (called so as K Guma block of Malkangiri is completely cut off from the rest of the state by the Balimela reservoir and Gurupriya river), which is also a safe haven for the Maoists, is evident from the way they went to the forests to search for him, confronted the Maoists and cheered him when he was freed. His peers too hold him in very high esteem for his commitment to the welfare of this neglected region.
His predecessor and Rayagada collector Dr Nitin Jawale says Krishna brought about both qualitative and quantitative changes in the development work. “He introduced micro-planning, carried out land development through the NREGA works and frequently toured the area to oversee the progress,” Dr Jawale commented, adding that Krishna fulfilled his promise of taking electricity to the Cut-Off Area. Krishna had, in fact, gone to the area to see electrification of Siliguma village, the first one in the area, and hand over pension money and land rights to the tribals at a ‘jan sampark shivir’ when he was abducted. In his enthusiasm, the young IAS officer made the cardinal error of rushing to a nearby village of Jantapai to inspect an incomplete culvert without any security escort and was picked up by the ultras on his way back. But this was not the first time he was doing so. Chitrakonda tehsildar D Gopal Krishna says Krishna did so in the past too, probably confident that the ultras posed no threat to him.
He was wrong. In the past few decades, the state government has made several attempts to connect to the Cut-Off Area by a bridge over the Gurupriya river at Janbhai Ghat. Even today, tell-tale signs of Gammon India’s effort to build a bridge exist at the place. A local sarpanch had told me a year ago that one day the Maoists called the engineers and told them to just leave the area. After he was released Krishna too expressed his surprise at his abduction, saying that he was travelling in the area with the express purpose of evaluating development projects.
The Cut-Off Area came into being at the Orissa-Andhra Pradesh border when the Balimela dam was built in the 1970s. The reservoir water and Gurupriya river cut off 150 villages spread over seven gram panchayats having a population of 26,000. The Balimela hydel project supplies about 500mw of electricity to the two states but its own backyard, the Cut-Off Area, never got electrified until Krishna drew up the first lines to Siliguma village this month.
The other takeaway from the incident, and a decidedly positive one, is that Krishna seems determined to carry on the good work that he has been doing, though he has become a bit more diplomatic. When reporters asked him if his interaction with the Maoists had changed his perspective on development, he said: “There is always scope for debate on the nature of development. Ultimately, the tribal community must benefit.” Amen! n
prasanna@governancenow.com
Where are you, Mr Chidambaram?
Governance Now, March 1-15, 2011, edit
Three states have fallen prey to the Maoists’ designs. We can’t afford your aloofness any more
Around this time last year, union home minister P Chidambaram was leading the charge against the dreaded Maoists, described as the “biggest threat” to the internal security of the country by no less than the prime minister himself on more than one occasion. After years of pussy-footing, the state, finally, seemed determined to stand up to the challenge and when Chidambaram talked about the possibility of eliminating the menace in a couple of years’ time, he was cheered on by a large section of the people who felt reassured at his commitment and drive. Then the inevitable happened. In April, 76 CRPF jawans were massacred by the Maoists in the Dantewada jungles of Chhattisgarh. Three months later, another group of 26 CRPF jawans was butchered in a similar fashion in the Narayanpur jungles. This was inevitable because these CRPF contingents were untrained and unfamiliar with the territory, and yet careless enough to ignore the basics of the standard operating procedures (SOP). Chidambaram was very much in charge after the first incident. He rushed to Dantewada to honour the dead soldiers and revive the morale of those still fighting. But he was found missing from the battlefield after the Narayanpur massacre and continues to be so. Did you hear him speak or rush to Orissa when the Malkangiri collector was abducted by the Maoists and the state completely capitulated to secure his release?
Something had snapped after the Dantewada massacre. Chidambaram was abused and given public lessons on the “root cause” of the Maoist menace and the “right way” to fight it by his party men, who were ably led by a couch potato, Digvijay Singh. Why was he attracting the blame to himself and his party-led central government for something that was essentially the state’s problem? That was the “political” message from such worthies as Digvijay Singh to Chidambaram. Unfortunately, Chidambaram balked. Chhattisgarh virtually abandoned its fight against the ultras after the two massacres. No major offensive has been launched in the state thereafter. Now, the Orissa government has publicly declared that “there will be no coercive action by the security forces as long as the Maoists do not indulge in unlawful activities”. One of the key demands of the Maoists, for releasing the collector, was to “stop Operation Greenhunt” in the state altogether. The state has obliged. It has also freed some top-notch Maoist leaders, including their central committee members, and has agreed to free nearly 700 of the cadre. What this mean is that two frontline states have laid down their arms in the fight against the “biggest threat” to the internal security of the country.
Add West Bengal, another frontline state, to the list. With the help of Chidambaram, the state managed to regain Lalgarh and the surrounding Junglemahal last year. The Maoists have been pushed back, but not eliminated. If it was his party men who stopped Chidambaram in his track in Chhattisgarh, it is his ally Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress who hounded him out of West Bengal because she wants to win the next assembly election with their help.
Digvijay Singh, Mamata Banerjee and Naveen Patnaik may say or do what they will, but you were right, Mr Chidambaram, in taking on the Maoists directly. You correctly understood the import of the prime minister’s words and provided the right impetus to the drive against the menace. The Maoists remain the biggest challenge to internal security and having spread their tentacles close to a dozen states, federal intervention is indeed called for. It is beyond petty politics, internal squabbles or short-term electoral gains. The job at hands calls for a clear understanding of the motive and the goal of the ultras, which is to overthrow the state through an “armed struggle”, and a clear-headed strategy to counter it. Evidently, this is not the case with many of the state governments.
Today two states have capitulated and another has been neutralised. It would be no surprise if other states too fall prey to the similar designs of the Maoists. And when that happens, the battle will truly be lost. We will be back to square one. It is time for you, Mr Chidambaram, therefore, to take charge of the situation now.
Three states have fallen prey to the Maoists’ designs. We can’t afford your aloofness any more
Around this time last year, union home minister P Chidambaram was leading the charge against the dreaded Maoists, described as the “biggest threat” to the internal security of the country by no less than the prime minister himself on more than one occasion. After years of pussy-footing, the state, finally, seemed determined to stand up to the challenge and when Chidambaram talked about the possibility of eliminating the menace in a couple of years’ time, he was cheered on by a large section of the people who felt reassured at his commitment and drive. Then the inevitable happened. In April, 76 CRPF jawans were massacred by the Maoists in the Dantewada jungles of Chhattisgarh. Three months later, another group of 26 CRPF jawans was butchered in a similar fashion in the Narayanpur jungles. This was inevitable because these CRPF contingents were untrained and unfamiliar with the territory, and yet careless enough to ignore the basics of the standard operating procedures (SOP). Chidambaram was very much in charge after the first incident. He rushed to Dantewada to honour the dead soldiers and revive the morale of those still fighting. But he was found missing from the battlefield after the Narayanpur massacre and continues to be so. Did you hear him speak or rush to Orissa when the Malkangiri collector was abducted by the Maoists and the state completely capitulated to secure his release?
Something had snapped after the Dantewada massacre. Chidambaram was abused and given public lessons on the “root cause” of the Maoist menace and the “right way” to fight it by his party men, who were ably led by a couch potato, Digvijay Singh. Why was he attracting the blame to himself and his party-led central government for something that was essentially the state’s problem? That was the “political” message from such worthies as Digvijay Singh to Chidambaram. Unfortunately, Chidambaram balked. Chhattisgarh virtually abandoned its fight against the ultras after the two massacres. No major offensive has been launched in the state thereafter. Now, the Orissa government has publicly declared that “there will be no coercive action by the security forces as long as the Maoists do not indulge in unlawful activities”. One of the key demands of the Maoists, for releasing the collector, was to “stop Operation Greenhunt” in the state altogether. The state has obliged. It has also freed some top-notch Maoist leaders, including their central committee members, and has agreed to free nearly 700 of the cadre. What this mean is that two frontline states have laid down their arms in the fight against the “biggest threat” to the internal security of the country.
Add West Bengal, another frontline state, to the list. With the help of Chidambaram, the state managed to regain Lalgarh and the surrounding Junglemahal last year. The Maoists have been pushed back, but not eliminated. If it was his party men who stopped Chidambaram in his track in Chhattisgarh, it is his ally Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress who hounded him out of West Bengal because she wants to win the next assembly election with their help.
Digvijay Singh, Mamata Banerjee and Naveen Patnaik may say or do what they will, but you were right, Mr Chidambaram, in taking on the Maoists directly. You correctly understood the import of the prime minister’s words and provided the right impetus to the drive against the menace. The Maoists remain the biggest challenge to internal security and having spread their tentacles close to a dozen states, federal intervention is indeed called for. It is beyond petty politics, internal squabbles or short-term electoral gains. The job at hands calls for a clear understanding of the motive and the goal of the ultras, which is to overthrow the state through an “armed struggle”, and a clear-headed strategy to counter it. Evidently, this is not the case with many of the state governments.
Today two states have capitulated and another has been neutralised. It would be no surprise if other states too fall prey to the similar designs of the Maoists. And when that happens, the battle will truly be lost. We will be back to square one. It is time for you, Mr Chidambaram, therefore, to take charge of the situation now.
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