POLITICAL DIARY

New Delhi, 25 January 2008

Time To Rethink

HOW DO I KNOW IT’S BIRD FLU?

By Poonam I Kaushish

Anger and anguish. Despair and desperation. Little did one know that India would celebrate its 58^th Republic Day riding the crest of these emotions. Forget that India is fast earning the ignominious title of being the world’s rape capital, that killing is the rhetoric of the times, what to speak of the frighteningly ever-widening gap between the filthy rich of Brand India and the depraved garib of Asli Bharat. Standing testimony to a callous, heartless and selfish country.  

Epitomised by the worst outbreak of bird flu, the third since 2006. This time it has enveloped West Bengal and spread to neighbouring Bihar, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Maharashtra and UP. Even down south Kerala has sounded an alert. “It is horrible,” confessed the hapless Bengal Animal Resources Minister. Is this enough? Does it condone and justify the State Government’s delayed action, bad planning and mismanagement?

Think. From 15 December when it surfaced in Margram village, in Birbhum district, till date the State Government is still grappling with the enormity of the crisis and is clueless as to how to proceed. There is no evidence of civic authorities and public health officials attempting cleansing operations on a war-footing. Its culling record of birds is dismal --only four lakhs out of 20 lakhs. To top it all, villagers continue to feast on the dead chickens, their children play with the infected ones and many carry on selling them as it’s a question of their livelihood. Characterised by “chickens die of various diseases, how do I know it’s bird flu?”

The end result? Equipment and necessary tools sent by the Union government to the State to help set up isolation wards, simply gather dust. No one visited the village till 16 January, a month since its outbreak. And those who did had no clue what to do as they were not bird flu experts. A majority of the “health surveyors” were school dropouts with no medical training or experience. They had no testing equipment, not even a thermometer! Exposing the tragic fallacy of India. Spotlighting once again our cavalier and churlish attitude and approach to a crisis. Not just a crisis of character, but of crass casualness, which has become the touchstone of our present-day culture.

Besides, it also demonstrates that the real filth is more administrative and political. The point is not that just a few countries have banned Indian poultry and that airlines are no longer serving chicken but that it highlights the nation’s inability to manage a crisis, dictated by a ki farak painda hai attitude. Many of the CPM leaders were busy attending the Party Conference in Kolkata, rather than overseeing culling operations in their districts.  

Evidently, the administrative system has practically collapsed a long time ago --- not only in Margram, West Bengal but almost everywhere. Today, we face an extremely serious situation, socially and environmentally. There’s a total urban and rural breakdown, unpaved roads, collapsing sewage and drainage system and abject poverty. We are at a stage where another crisis threatens.

Scandalously, the Indian Government spends less than one per cent of its GDP on public health care. A National Sample Survey Organisation study of village infrastructure in 2003 found that 54 per cent of villages were more than five km away from the nearest Primary Health Centre and 27 per cent were more than 10 km away. Only 10 per cent had a dispensary and only 20 per cent had a private clinic or a doctor.

According to the WHO, India has a national average of only 45 doctors and 8.9 beds for every 100,000 patients, with the levels far lower in the poorest States. Add to this the reputation of having the highest annual death toll due to tuberculosis, many dying from malaria, dengue and cholera, preventable and treatable diseases.

The country is ranked 127th out of 177 countries in the Human Development Index. According to the Arjun Sengupta report 70 per cent of our population survives on less than Rs 20 a day, living in appalling slum dwellings. Take Maharashtra, India’s financial capital, which is plagued by lack of water and electricity. Its rural people live in densely-populated hamlets in close proximity to fowls and pigs, which they breed as additional food supplements. There is only one doctor for 28 villages with over 20,000 people. When he is away on call all is left to God.

Bird flu is only the latest in a series of reversals in public health hazards. Dengue, chikgunaya, malaria, gastroenteritis is all around. There is resurgence of Kala Azar and there is Japanese encephalitis, viral hepatitis and tuberculosis. Child mortality is on the rise. If a child doesn’t die within five years from birth due to malnutrition and diarrhea, acute respiratory infections will get him later.  

The Government can no longer bury its head in the sand. People are sick of hearing the same old refrain: “Don’t panic…The Government is doing everything that is necessary…things are improving”. They are tired of their netas going through the yearly ritual of ‘see-touch-go’ visits, of their State Governments knocking the door of the Centre for relief, of money and aid being freely bandied words. Appropriate noises, hollow concerns and instant remedies are made at crisis time. Enough to satisfy everyone’s conscience that they have done their bit for the nation.  

Perhaps, it is time for the Government to realise that economic liberalization without reforms in the social sector can become a bane. There are no short cuts possible. It is now imperative that the nation and its netagan rethink strategy and approach to safeguard public health infrastructure, establish fresh priorities, improve public hospitals. To foresee is to govern.

The country’s image cannot be made or unmade by imagery alone. It is time to change the reality. Economic efficiency, social well-being, community upliftment are all different by products of a common collective endeavour. Education and public health are two other areas which have to be attended to on high priority if the nation is to accelerate its economic growth.

Ravaged Bengal has exposed the total collapse of the administrative system and the frailty of our netagan. Remember, all crises are surmountable. What is insurmountable is damned casualness. That is the tragedy of the nation. Resigned to acceptance and lacking the will to fight. How long can this go on? --- INFA

(Copyright India News & Feature Alliance)     

Inky, Pinky, Ponky…..

POLITICS OF PADMA AWARDS

By Poonam I Kaushish

New Delhi, 19 January 2008

“The next on the block is the Bharat Ratna followed by the Padma awards. In the reckoning are: former Prime Minister Vajpayee, Dalit icons Jagjivan Ram and Kanshi Ram, State satraps DMK’s Karunanidhi, Orissa’s Biju Patnaik and Bihar’s Karpoori Thakur, Jat leader Chaudhary Charan Singh. Hold your breath, the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar. The bidding starts now…..And the Bharat Ratna goes to…..” This, dear aam aadmi, is how the country’s highest civilian honour is decided. A game of akar bakkar bambeh boh or inky, pinky, ponky, have your pick. Either way it matters little. The awards are all about darbari politricking!

Come 26 January eve, the story will be the same. The Roll of Honour will be grandiosely announced. Many will applaud, some will criticize and the remaining will sulk. The increased tu-tu-mein-mein and lobbying by our netagan including a Prime Minister-in-waiting’s ‘gratitude’ to his predecessor, state satraps flexing their muscle and filial outpourings of paternal love has yet again put a question mark on the highest civilian award. The UPA Government may just give the Bharat Ratna a miss, the seventh in a row.

Ever since it was instituted by India’s first President Dr Rajendra Prasad on 2 January 1954, our founding fathers wanted the Bharat Ratna be awarded to people of impeccable integrity, extraordinary service towards advancement of art, literature and science, and in recognition of public service. They also advocated it be conferred sparingly for exceptional service to the country.

Since Independence, only 40 persons from various fields, mostly of high eminence, with some exceptions have been honoured. During the Nehru era there were no problems as eminent personalities with immense contributions were conferred the Bharat Ratna. Tall leaders like C Rajagopalachari, C V Raman and S Radhaksishnan were the first ones to be given the award.

The nation applauded them and next year it was given to Dr Bhawan Das, the 90-year-old engineer who had built the city of Mysore. However, on 13th July 1977, the then Prime Minister Morarji Desai discontinued these honours, which were later restored by Indira Gandhi on 25th January 1980, during her second term.

Some of the latter recipients like Sir M.Visweswaraya, Mother Teresa, Vinobha Bhave, J.R.D.Tata, Satyajit Ray, M.S.Subbalakshmi, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Amartya Sen, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Nelson Mandela. Lata Mangeshkar and Ustad Bismillah Khan were the last to receive the award in 2001.

However, controversies cropped up when former cinema star and AIADMK supremo M.G.Ramachandran was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1988. Murmurs were also heard when former President V.V.Giri, Congress President K.Kamaraj former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi were given the award. True, they had made contributions to the nation but it was felt that they were being awarded with political motives rather than for stellar credentials.

Unbelievable but true, the most important person, who befits this award is missing. The Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi! Interestingly, the Bharat Ratna was conferred on Subhash Chandra Bose posthumously in 1992, by the then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao’s Government. But it regrettably got embroiled in a controversy over his death and had to be withdrawn.

Distressingly, the conferring of the Bharat Ratna stinks of populism and vote-bank politics at its crassiest best. Dalit stalwart BR Ambedkar was honoured by ‘Mandal’ Prime Minister V P Singh in 1990, Jayaprakash Narayan was conferred the Bharat Ratna in 1999 by Vajpayee and Mother Teresa by the Congress. Why now? To help our netagan and their parties to garner votes in subsequent elections.

The less said the better over the jostling for the other three awards --- Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri. There is no dearth of award-seekers. Like every year, already the Centre and State Governments have been besieged with self-recommendations for the three categories of the Padma awards and other State Governments award. The corridors of power are witness to people lugging their resumes to concerned Ministers and X, Y, Z’s who can help them get an award. All stops are being pulled out, favours called and relatives and friends pressed into service to put in a word.

Till date, the awards committee which shortlists the nominations for the three awards and forwards them to the Prime Minister, has received over 1,500 recommendations from Union Ministries, States, MPs, MLAs, individuals and private organizations over the last six months. The Bharat Ratna, however, is decided by the Prime Minister, who if he wishes may consult the President and the Leader of Opposition.

Sadly, over the years successive Governments have treated these awards as favours to be bestowed in exchange of personal loyalty while ignoring deserving people in civil society. Never mind that it lowers the value, prestige and dignity of the awards. Worse, the awards are trivialized to an extent whereby conmen and fortune-tellers too can boast about being the proud recipients.

Recall the 1960’s, when the then Defence Minister YB Chavan secured a Padma Bhushan for his professor N.S.Phadke, a popular Marathi writer of kitsch romances, even as senior and more deserving littérateurs were left out. The 2001 list of the Padma awards figured a relatively junior Mumbai vocalist whose sole claim to glory was her ‘singing’ Vajpayee’s poems. The politics of largesse continues unabated.

Given the notoriety these awards generate every year, some feel these should be "scrapped". The selection process is all wrong, merit is no longer the criteria and to top it all the people have lost faith. Especially when those honoured refuse the award on some pretext or the other. Instances include historian Romilla Thapar, Kathak exponent Sitara Devi and sarod maestro Vilayat Khan et al. Then there is the strange case of the Assamese litterateur Kanaksen Deka who refused the Padma Shri out of a respect for the highest Assamese State civil awards he had received.  His argument, it would discredit the State awards which were for the same achievements.

Despite controversies, many feel the awards are necessary as a form of national recognition for meaningful contribution to society. But changes need to be made and the flaws rectified in the basic selection process. Remember, last year the then President Kalam sent back the awardees file to the Prime Minister’s Office as there were grave irregularities in the selection. Three names had been included without the approval of the inter-ministerial committee and the final list had 12 names against which there were adverse reports of the Intelligence Bureau.

Also, a glance of last year’s awardees list shows that the awards are Delhi-centric. The majority of the awardees were from States where the ruling Party at the Centre was in power and there were only a handful from the Opposition-ruled States. Out of the 10 selected for the Padma Vibhushan, Delhi bagged 6, Haryana and Tamil Nadu one each and the rest to NRIs.

Again when it came to the Padma Bhushan, Congress-ruled Delhi got 6, Communist Kerala and West Bengal got 6 each, NCP dominated Maharashtra three and one each was bagged by Assam, Mizoram, U.P. and Tamil Nadu. Of the Padma Shri, Delhi again bagged 17, Maharashtra 9 and Tamil Nadu 8. Similarly the Gandhi family fiefdom U. P got 5 along with Congress-ruled Andhra. Uttarakhand again Congress-ruled got 4 whereas Kerala and Karnataka three each.

Questionably, does the Government want us to believe that only Centre-ruled States have deserving people? This is unacceptable, untenable and anti-people. Also, is there a curriculum in Padma scheme on fulfillment of which one qualifies for higher degree? Orissa’s Kelucharan Mohapatra bagged the Padma Shree in 1972, Padma Bhushan in 1989 and Padma Vibhushan in 2000.

Scandalously, religion and castes too are being taken into consideration while entertaining nominations for these titles. The columns that are required to be filled up in the nomination Form clearly include “Religion” and another “Category”, asking whether the person belongs to the Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe or Other backward Castes or General Castes. This goes against the tenets of national integration.

What next? Clearly, the cesspool of awards needs to be cleansed. Greater transparency and accountability should get precedence over politicians’ personal whims and Ministers should be kept out of the selection process. Two, the committee should include people with unimpeachable credentials and the awards should be weighed carefully on the scale of creative freedom and professional integrity. Three, there should be uniformity in the selection from the States and religion and caste should find no place.

In sum, the time has come to cry a halt to competitive ‘awardmanship.’ Specially when our national pride, honour and self-respect is at stake. Awards or nominations must be in keeping with their laudable objective of acknowledging the truly distinguished service to the nation. Not given to those who live for the moment and revel in the glory of yesteryears. Nor to the politricking darbaris! ---- INFA

(Copyright India News & Feature Alliance)            

Political Diary

New Delhi, 12 January 2008 

Affectionately Yours….

MAYA REWRITES ‘CORRUPT’ RULES

By Poonam I Kaushish

 “The element of love and affection relate to emotions of a man. One may be impelled by his conscience or may be moved by emotions to part with his wealth or property and to give the same to a particular person for whom he has developed love and affection. Such a desire can be developed any time and on any ground.” Pearls of wisdom from Freud? A chapter on the intricacies of the human mind? Or, perhaps a psychiatrist’s verbose on love? Neither. These pearly gems flow from none less than the pen of the aam aadmi’s moral and ethical conscience keeper: the income tax officer.

The foregoing “maya” of love and affection was showered last week on the BSP supremo and UP Chief Minister Mayawati by the IT Appellate Tribunal. In one fell stroke, the Tribunal affixed a legal stamp of legitimacy on the Dalit icon and her clan’s huge wealth of properties and cash not commensurate with their known sources of income in various cases of disproportionate assets pending before the IT department.

Shockingly, it whitewashed Mayawati’s sins of commissions and omission as “gifts” received from supporters just out of “veneration and personal esteem” for her. Incredibly, it accepted in toto that her chelas’ love for her transcended new heights wherein they even inflicted heavy financial burdens on themselves by taking massive loans only to buy properties for presenting them as ‘offerings of love’ to their living Goddess. Sic.

In a land where political and public morality is virtually non-existent, it needs no guesses to know that only a politician could be wallowing in the sunshine of the IT man’s largesse. Certainly not the aam janata, which is treated with increasing contempt or as culprits. Aren’t we now accustomed to paying bribes for everything --- from getting a ration card to a driving licence. Never mind that it continues to burn a hole in our aam pocket. Clearly, when gold speaks, all tongues are silent!

In this swirling eddy of corruption, la affaire Mayawati has once again conclusively shown the depth to which India’s democracy and its leaders have sunk. Wherein our polity has not only legalized corruption and put a seal of approval on the culture of plunder but continue to be a law unto itself! In the bargain, the lion-sized corruption continues to gorge itself on the vitals of the nation.

Look, its raining scandals for our netagan. Why only Mayawati? How is she any different from Mulayam Singh, Jayalalitha, Laloo, Sukhram, Ju Dev etc? Remember Suraj Mandal, who blew the whistle in the JMM case in 1996 in the Lok Sabha. He asserted: “Paisa boriyon main ata hai, gathriyon main nahin.” Not one MP present protested.

Why should they? After all, haven’t our leaders reduced graft to a farcical political pantomime. So easy to blame everything on the “system”. Wherein India’s brand equity has been xeroxed as corrupt. Now naked, unashamed, public and brazen. Sanjiva Reddy’s words haunt and taunt us. Prior to his retirement as the President of India, he had told INFA candidly: “Anyone who has the opportunity to make money but doesn’t do so is a bloody fool.” How true.

We’ve had a surfeit of scams and their number keeps growing. Starting from Mudgal accepting a bribe of just Rs.2,000 in the early fifties to the Bofors Rs.64-crore pay off in the eighties. Nothing changed in the nineties except the magnitude of the scams snow-balled. From the Rs.5,000 crore bank scandal down hawala, sugar to UTI, petrol and Tehalka, which exposed the underbelly of defence deals in 2000. To Telgi’s Rs.30,000 fraud in 2004. Followed by Natwar Singh’s Volcker UN food-for-cash, down to the MPs cash-for-question and cash-for-projects scams under the MP Local Area Development Scheme. Onward to the fake passport racket and the latest wheat import scam.  

Only political reactions have changed with the changing times. From 1951 to 2008. For Nehru corruption was “always distasteful” which he considered as “highly derogatory and highly objectionable.” In fact, so averse was he to money that once he urgently summoned the then AICC General Secretary Shriman Narain to take charge of Rs.500 given to him as Party donation.

On the other hand, his daughter Indira dismissed corruption as a “global phenomenon” in 1977. Narasimha Rao merely called it “a systems failure,” in 1993. Vajpayee asserted, “law will take its own course” in 2003. Culminating in Manmohan Singh helplessly dismissing it as “the compulsions of coalition politics”!

Any wonder that in the last 60 years not one politician has been convicted. Leave alone, jailed for corruption. With the result that with each passing year politicians have become increasingly brazen. Bringing things to such a pass that going to jail is not far from becoming a badge of honour! In fact, two MPs and a sprinkling of MLAs involved in criminal offences have fought elections from behind the bars and won. A ghotala of few thousand crores is not worthy of feeding the chara of morality.

Sadly, the principle of “sovereign immunity” continues to protect our netagan. Operating in our expended concept of “instrumentality of state”. Never mind that the principle itself is a contradiction of democracy. It was derived from the English Common Law wherein the king could do no wrong. But the principle should have been given a burial once we had abandoned the kings. However, trust our polity to continue to cling to this royal privilege. It was primarily intended to protect a public servant from liability, not prosecution. But today our rulers have extended this concept of prosecution to even investigation.

What is extremely disquieting is that Union Ministers and Chief Ministers accused of swindling crores of public money are all living in great comfort and merrily enjoying their high positions. Effectively exposing the fact that the crusade against corruption has shamefully failed in India. Think. We Indians pay over Rs 21,068 crores a year for ‘services rendered’ to our powers-that-be, according to the Transparency International’s Indian Corruption Study 2005.

Arguably, what is the future of society in such conditions? More frustration, more chaos, more unrest and even bloodshed. It needs to be remembered that corruption in the national polity can only survive by paying a very heavy price of increasing mayhem and violence in society. The tragedy of it all is that our polity continues to merrily wallow in corrupt self deception without a thought to the future and the inevitable damage to the larger national cause.

This in a nutshell epitomizes today’s political culture. New ideas are bandied about daily for eradicating the scourge of corruption and enforcing some morality. Which like a Jack-in-the-box surface each time a scandal breaks out. By Government after Government. All setting up Committee after Committee, each tom-toming more than the other. With what  net result? A big zero.

The problem of dealing with corruption is not merely due to a lack of legal powers or absence of any enforcement agency. We have had the Prevention of Corruption Act since 1947. The CBI was set up in 1963. Nevertheless, no amount of legal powers or creation of enforcement infrastructure will be of much help. Simply because there is a lack of political will, genuine desire to cleanse the political cesspool and courage of conviction to fight for honesty and accountability.

The question then is: how does one eradicate this scourge from public life? There are many remedies for what the people want: transparency and accountability. That is the crux of the problem of our polity, which has so far only preached, but seldom practiced. The top has to be clean for the lower levels to be clean. But the people at the top are just not keen on honest anti-corruption drives, the stench, which fills the political class, cannot be cleared by mere personal assertions, abuses or denials.

The harsh truth is that no politician till date has been able to overcome his greed to bell the big fat cat of corruption. To quote Vajpayee in the Lok Sabha during the debate on the hawala scam in 1996; “Politics has become a way of making money.” One living testimony to this is Mayawati, who extols her workers to fill her coffers --- openly, defiantly and shamelessly.

If the Government is serious about purging the malaise and reigning in the Dalit icon, now is the time to introduce probity and cry halt to the legitimizing of corruption, as implicitly in IT Tribunal’s bizarre decision. Galloping corruption and the lack of integrity at the higher levels needs to be curbed ruthlessly without further delay for the health of our democracy. Failing which we will at best end up letting Mayawati ‘affectionately’ continue to rewrite the ‘corrupt’ rules of a ramshackle corrupt democracy, where honesty  will no longer be viewed as the best policy! --- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

POLITICAL DIARY

New Delhi, 5 January 2008

Small Is Beautiful

WHAT PRICE STATE REORGANISATION?

By Poonam I Kaushish

From maut ke saudagar to small is beautiful. The latest brainwave to emerge from a desperate Congress, hurting after its electoral massacre in Gujarat and Himachal, is aimed at once again reigniting the flames of ‘separatist tendencies’ by talking of carving big States into small. The bigness and smallness of a State has little to do with national interest but everything to do with massaging its vote-banks and improving its winability quotient. In the hope that the smaller units will fetch the Party big political dividends.

Camouflaged as imperative for “political stability” in the country (read Party), it has mooted the idea of setting up another States Reorganisation Commission ((last suggested in July 2007) to explore the formation of new States. No matter that till its electoral rout in UP May last, the Party had opposed tooth and nail the creation of small States. It even let the Telengana Rashtriya Samiti quit the UPA alliance.

Today, with Assembly polls in nine States and the General Election just 15 months away, the Party has now backtracked or, should one say, had a rethink and is all set to create Telengana. Primarily, to take the sting out of the TRS political plank, now also backed by the BJP. Recall, the UPA had set-up a sub-committee under Pranab Mukherjee (who else?) but as it had failed to reach a consensus, the decision was left to the Congress.

Needless to say, this out-of-the-blue plan to appoint another SRC is bound to open a Pandora’s Box on the demand for statehood from every nook and cranny of the country. Already, over 10 new entrants are rearing to go. It remains to be seen whether the Congress-led UPA Government will come out smelling of roses or reek of rotten eggs.

The task is, indeed, tough, as the issue is both emotive and politically sensitive. Against the backdrop of many regions and sub-regions aspiring to be full-fledged States. Moreover, the Left is divided. While the CPM, which faced a violent demand for Gorkhaland in West Bengal, is opposed to carving out separate states, the CPI has of late has softened its stand on the demand for a Telengana. The NCP also remains lukewarm to the demand for Vidarbha, even though it has no major presence in the region.

Besides Telengana and Vidarbha, BSP’s Mayawati favours trifurcation of Uttar Pradesh --- Harit Pradesh out of Western UP, Bundelkhand and Purvanchal out of south-eastern UP. Then there is a demand for Gondwana from portions of Chhattisgarh, Andhra and Madhya Pradesh, Kodagu from Karnataka’s coffee belt, Bodoland from Assam, Ladakh from Kashmir, Garoland from Meghalaya, Mithilanchal from North Bihar and Gorkhaland.

Nobody can deny that a few States in India are much too large and unwieldy for efficient governance. It takes nearly two days to get from one end of UP to the other by road! Obviously, administrative efficiency is the first casualty. As the recent experience of Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and, earlier, of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, shows, smaller States are able to meet better the rising expectations of their people for speedy development and a responsive and effective administration. Today, all are shining examples of “small is beautiful.”

However, protagonists of bigger States disagree, often sharply. What guarantee, they ask, is there that this will end internal fissures. Make the rivers flow smoothly from one State to another. Merely look at the ugly riparian fight between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, Andhra and Tamil Nadu and Punjab and Haryana.

What warranty that it would decrease the ever-rising disparities between the haves and the have-nots which are all the more glaring and difficult to camouflage in small states. Clinching their arguments by asserting that with caste and creed dictating the polity’s agenda presently, any fresh redrawing of India’s political map would only give monstrous fillip to separatism.

Just see how pandering to casteism over the past many years has unbottled the genie of separatist tendencies. Almost every caste now wants to be included among the Other Backward Castes (OBCs). Even Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians are demanding reservation on the basis of caste which their religions do not accept. Would this be in India’s best national interest? Further reinforcing that if smaller incisions have to be made as in the USA, then the body politic of India would need to be wholly restructured on that pattern.

Besides, it may make sound political sense but lousy economics. When the Prime Minister goes blue in the face talking of cutting back on costs, we continue to multiply our expenses. Authoritative sources aver that the creation of a State would cost the national exchequer over Rs 1,200 crore. Entailing expenditure on setting up a new State capital, Assembly and Secretariat but excluding the annual recurring expenses.

In addition, it could well encourage fissiparous tendencies, ultimately leading to India’s balkanization and stoke the sub-terranean smouldering fires of disputes over borders--- and cities. Both Haryana and Punjab still claim Chandigarh. Orissa demands the return of Saraikala and Kharsuan. Nagaland still wants to cut into large chunks of Manipur and certain forest areas of Assam to create Nagalim. Bihar yearns desperately for the mineral-rich districts of Jharkhand.

Will not a further partition of the existing States result in an India that would fit Jinnah’s classical description of Pakistan as being “truncated and moth-eaten”? The only purpose it will serve will be to whet regional and separatist appetites, as it happened at the time of the first SRC in the mid-fifties. The very “black hole” that our past leaders were ever eager to avoid.

Remember, the first State Reorganisation Commission was set up by the Nehru Government in 1954 under Justice Fazl Ali, retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. It recommended that the component units of the Indian Union would consist of two categories ---“States forming primary federation units of the Indian Union and territories which are centrally administered.” One of its members, K M Panikkar submitted a dissenting note, seeking the bifurcation of Uttar Pradesh. This was rejected by the Government.

Typical of India’s political culture, the first SRC and the creation of new States left in its wake more controversies than it sorted out. Regional leaders promptly started demanding the liberation of smaller colonies from the fat ruling classes. While those opposed countered the demand for smaller States by cautioning against India’s break-up into hundreds of smaller States. Did the country want to reverse the historic integration brought about by Sardar Patel?

The tragic irony of history is that successive Prime Ministers bought peace at the cost of strong integrated India by carving out new jagirs for acquiring “new chelas” and assured vote banks. Lest history books omitted their “contribution” in the building of a new India.The controversies and demands generated then continue till date

Logically, if one district of Assam could be made into a full-fledged State of Nagaland, another into Mizoram, a third into Meghalaya and yet another into Arunachal Pradesh, how can one hold back on Telengana or Vidarbha? The last time new States were created was in 2000 when the NDA regime okayed the creation of Uttaranchal (now Uttarkhand), Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.

Unfortunately for the Centre, its policy of going populist time and again and opting for quick-fix remedies has boomeranged. What, one might ask, is the alternative? Statesmanship and sagacity lie in adopting the middle path. The UPA Government should not set up another SRC just to win votes.

It needs to learn from the mistakes of the recently carved small States, diagnose the disease afresh and hammer out solutions for better governance. Much can be achieved through meaningful decentralization of administration in these days of computerization, without adding to the cost of governance through top-heavy ministerial baggage.

Let us not allow politicians of all hues to create new pocket boroughs motivated by petty personal interests, undermining national unity. India has entered its 60^th year of Independence with 27 States, a testimony to a free and vibrant democracy. Are we now going to roll back history to pre-Independence days and create 562 States? Let not history record what Conrad Egbert once brilliantly stated: We learn nothing from history except that we learn nothing from history! ---- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)