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TheIndian EXPRESS
www.indianexpress.com

NEW DELHI l WEDNESDAY l AUGUST 1 l 2012

The Indian EXPRESS

BECAUSE THE TRUTH INVOLVES US ALL

Discord between Team Anna and media brings a crucial and overdue reality check for both
own mission. It thought it was leading a revolution simply because there were TV channels gazing at it reverentially, avidly covering its events and personalities, finding the flattering angles. However, as the months rolled on, and given the diminishing returns to the Anna coverage, the media took its focus off Team Anna and Team Anna is lost. Their sense of injury and betrayal is evident in their public anger now. The media should also remember this lesson in the dangers of losing its head. Whether it was a race for higher viewership numbers or an emotional, underthought response to Team Annas legitimate outrage against corruption, the media discarded the vital scepticism with which it must approach both the establishment and the crusader. That analytical and questioning cast of mind is necessary if it is to serve the public good. The media failed to look closely, or often to look at all, at the dodgy solutions offered by the Anna campaign. It ignored the problematic content of the envisaged Lokpal for the colourful spectacle of the mobilisation in its favour. Arvind Kejriwal recently told the crowd, The media has become a part of this movement... talk to them with folded hands. Warm words, but that remark should embarrass us journalists.

End of the affair

NHAPPY with the cameras apparently turning away from their cause and reporting the dwindling numbers at their venue, several Team Anna members and supporters have now declared the media biased and complicit with power. Some in the crowd at Jantar Mantar even heckled journalists. The Broadcast Editors Association sought, and got, an immediate apology from Team Anna for their misbehaviour. The souring of this relationship could be said to have been inevitable, but it is also an overdue reality check for both for Team Anna, which built upon the obsessive coverage of its mobilisation to conjure up delusions of a grand movement, and for parts of the media that lost sight of the essential distance in a democracy between such campaigns and a free, sceptical media. The media cannot be expected to be a collaborator or a cheerleader for any cause or holy man. Ramdev, the yoga guru turned anti-corruption campaigner, who shares Annas platform, or vice versa, recognises that and plays to the media on its terms. Team Anna, though, imagined that unquestioning support was its due, that the media was an ally and a participant, that its role was to rouse public passion. Emboldened by the camera, it exaggerated its

Is rate cut the way out, or a false solution to policy paralysis? New FM must take the call
money less expensive to spur investors. The RBI believes it will not happen in a period of policy paralysis, so rate cuts are not warranted. Governor D. Subbarao maintains that a rate cut at this juncture can only spur headline inflation to even more than the 7 per cent projected by the RBI for this fiscal. This is because the gap between actual output and the trend rate of output for the economy is thinning. In other words, the RBIs argument is that the economy has scarce chance to improve its capacity so a higher money supply would simply spur prices to rise. This will be the first call for the next finance minister, P. Chidambaram. The rising interest cost has begun to hurt the corporate sector. Companies have responded by drastically slashing inventories running at minus 23 per cent for 2011-12. This is an unsustainable situation where companies can topple over, and they are doing so. How long the Indian economy can hold on to this situation is something the finance minister will have to soon tell us.

Cutting it fine

WO significant figures came from the Reserve Bank of India this week. For one, the interest burden for corporate India has leapt to almost 28 per cent in 2011-12 from less than 20 per cent a year ago. So, the high cost of money has obviously begun to bite. The other number indicates that India Inc is planning to spend just Rs 1.9 billion on capital expenditure in 2012-13, and worse, just half of that Rs 1.1 billion in the next fiscal. This means that in the first quarter review of the monetary policy issued on Tuesday, the RBI is not only aware of the way growth has decelerated it has lowered the growth projection for the Indian economy to 6.5 per cent but it also realises the extent to which the projection for the next fiscal too will look dismal. The difference between the RBI and the government at this juncture is simply on whether rate cuts will spur investors to bring more money to the table in the next fiscal. The government believes there is some scope for action if the RBI reduces the rates to make

S WE think about the 2014 national elections, one thing is becoming manifestly clear. The two leading political parties of India, and their alliances, are in varying states of disarray. As of now, either could still win the next Lok Sabha elections, but that will not be because of organisational health, only due to the absence of other alternatives. The BJP, as the opposition party, should have been sitting pretty after the incumbent scandals of the last 18 months. But it seems incapable of stealing an easy thunder. How do we understand the malaise of both parties? Before we proceed further, we should note that the malaise, however characterised, does not pose immediate, or fatal, dangers to Indias democracy, as is sometimes claimed. We need to draw a distinction between routine and visionary forms of democratic politics. If anything, India has too much of routine democratic politics: bargains and negotiations between political parties, and of course, regular elections, victories and defeats. But India also has too little visionary democratic politics, in which parties vie with each other on transformative visions, mobilise support and run campaigns on that basis. It is the emaciation of visionary politics that has caused depression in the popular mood. Not in jeopardy, routine electoral democracy will go on. The problems of the Congress party can be easily summarised. All over the world, political power has a corrosive, self-destructive quality. Exceptions notwithstanding, few incumbents last more than two terms; in some polities, in fact, there is an explicit two-term limit. The self-destructive quality of political power stems from the fact that the more a political organisation acquires power or the longer it lasts in power, the more it attracts those for whom political power is a means to patronage and to personal or sectional enhancement, not an instrument of social or national transformation. And the more politicians in power serve their own interests or those of a specific group, the more they lose larger political legitimacy. As power goes up, legitimacy tends to decline, very often if not always.

The ravages of routine

Both the Congress and the BJP suffer from a vision deficit
ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY
Even in the most idealistic phase of governance in India (194764), leaders worried about the mercenary uses of power. In the late 1950s, a Nehru-appointed committee found that the Congress organisation in Gujarat in the famous land of Gandhi had lost its idealism, wedded as it was to those who used power for patronage. The problem is, of course, much more serious now. Given the level of economic activity, graft was not pervasive then. It is today. With an economically rising India, personal enhancement of politicians has reached monumental proportions. Typically, businessmen become billionaires; in India, some of the politicians have also come to scale such heights, not beand a crisis of ideology. If Narendra Modi wins assembly elections in Gujarat in December, his right to lead the BJP in the 2014 parliamentary elections just cannot be legitimately denied. No one who wins three elections in a row can be brushed aside, if others cant even win two. But if Modi leads the BJP, the NDA will almost certainly break up. Nitish Kumar will leave, as will, most probably, Chandrababu Naidu. They heavily depend on Muslim votes. Nitish Kumars departure will, in particular, hurt, for he is a new star of Indian politics. If Modi has kept Gujarat going at Chinese rates of economic growth, Nitish Kumar has pulled Bihar from the abyss of pessimism. Who could

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If the Congress has apologised for 1984, why cant Modi for 2002? The problem appears to be ideological. The Congress does not have an anti-Sikh ideology; the RSS has an anti-Muslim one.
cause they came to politics from business, but they use politics for business. The fact that this happened during so many rapid economic transformations in the world in the late 19th century US, in South Korea during the 1970s and 1980s, in China since the 1990s is not something that can bring solace to Indian voters. They dont vote in non-Indian, or historically bygone, polities. The BJP suffers from this problem too. After all, it is in power in several states, if not in Delhi. It has also attracted seekers of patronage and wealth, not simply ideology. In Indian political science, Karnataka was known to be one of the cleanest states till the 1970s; under the current BJP rule, political ethics in the state have touched new depths of decline. At any rate, from the perspective of the 2014 elections, the BJPs problems are quite deep. The BJP has a leadership crisis, have realistically believed, in the 1980s and 1990s, that it was possible to turn Bihar around? Bihars turnaround also illustrates an old truism of democratic politics that democracies are capable of self-correction. In their routine form, democratic politics can be boring, even depressing, but in their visionary form, democratic politics can lift spirits. As scholars, we simply dont know how much routine malaise is necessary before visionary forms of politics emerge. The most logical solution for the BJPs leadership crisis has been obvious for some time: Narendra Modi should apologise for 2002 and make up with Indias Muslims. The apology will be political, for the massacres took place when he was chief minister. The apology does not have to be personal, if he believes he did his best. Moreover, only the courts can establish his personal culpability, if any. What is the appropriate lan-

guage for a political apology? Only Modi can decide. He has twice come close: last year when he invited Gujarats Muslim leaders to the manch of his well-publicised rally; and last week when he gave his first uninterrupted interview on 2002 riots to an Urdu weekly. He clearly knows what is necessary, but each time he pulled back from a politically pivotal moment. Muslims were welcome to the stage in Gujarat, but their offering of a cap was not accepted. The weekly was given a long interview and Muslim dreams were said to be important to Modis politics, but the remorse was not evident. Only ambivalence was. If the Congress has apologised for 1984, why cant Modi for 2002? The problem appears to be ideological. The Congress does not have an anti-Sikh ideology; the RSS has an anti-Muslim one. With roots in the RSS, an anti-Muslim ideology seems to be ingrained in Modi too. In the 1920s and 1930s, V.D. Savarkar and M.S. Golwalkar, fathers of Hindu nationalism, had no doubts that Muslims were fundamentally traitors to the Indian cause; in the 1960s, Deen Dayal Upadhyay, another leading ideological figure, was less acerbic, but he was also doubtful of Muslim commitment to India. Even in the interview last week, Modis advice to Indias Muslims is that they should see themselves as human beings and Indians, not as Muslims and Indians. If Hindus can be simultaneously Hindus and Indians, why cant Muslims be Muslims and Indians at the same time? Elementary norms of modern citizenship require such equalisation. Essentially, the BJP is struggling with a post-Ayodhya ideological framework. Blaming Muslims for Indias ills, and castigating the Congress for Muslim appeasement, just cant be a viable electoral strategy any more, as it was in the 1980s and 1990s. For electoral success, the BJP needs an ideological reformulation. The leadership crisis and the ideological crisis are linked. The writer is Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and Social Sciences at Brown University, where he also directs the India Initiative
express@expressindia.com

EDITOR
Dark reality
(IE, July 31), the collapse of the Northern grid has been blamed on overdrawing of electricity by errant states. Capacity generation has also been named as a reason for the woeful state of affairs. Distribution and transmission losses also account for some of the shortage. However, state governments may want to revisit the practice of giving free electricity to some consumers, with others forking out huge amounts in tariff. Political will and a system of accountability will be needed to address the situation. The onus lies on the political class. Abhishek Puri Chandigarh
APROPOS Grid indiscipline

Letters to the

Premature verdict

NIKHILESH JHA
ANY significant developments have taken place in the past few months regarding water resources management (WRM) in the country. The Supreme Court, in February, gave its goahead to the interlinking of rivers and asked the government to ensure that the project is implemented expeditiously. The judgment seems to have more opponents than supporters. Then, inaugurating the India Water Week in April, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh observed that a problem that hindered better WRM was the fragmented and inadequate institutional and legal structure for water, and that there was an urgent need for reforms. A solution to the water problem requires a revisiting of the entire gamut of WRM. The subject water is placed in the Constitution in Entry 17 of List II (State List) of Schedule VII. However, the caveat is Entry 56 of List I (Union List), which says, Regulations and development of interstate rivers and river valleys to the extent to which such regulation and development under the control of the Union is declared by Parliament by law to be expedient in the public interest. Unfortunately, the Centre has made little use of the powers vested in it vide Entry 56 of List I. The result is

Exclusive jurisdiction of states over water hinders its proper management

that by virtue of Article 246 read with Entry 17, List II, states have exclusive jurisdiction over waters that are located within their territories, including inter-state rivers and river valleys. It is arguably this status of water in the Constitution that constrains the highest in the executive and the judiciary, despite their pronouncements on and commitment to resolving the problem. It also makes a mockery of the National Water Policy that declares water a prime natural resource, a basic human need and a precious national asset. It has also stopped the Centre from esUses of International Watercourses (CLNNUIW), a document adopted by the UN on May 21, 1997, pertaining to the use and conservation of all waters that cross international boundaries, including surface and ground water. Unfortunately, the convention is not yet ratified. Alongside the US, China, Canada and Australia, India is among the major opponents of the CLNNUIW. A ratification by India would have at least given it the support of other ratifying nations to pressure China against the diversion of the Brahmaputra. Several Chinese Bank report, entitled Indias Water Economy: Bracing for a Turbulent Future, faced with poor water supply services, farmers and urban dwellers alike have resorted to helping themselves by pumping out ground water through tube-wells... it has led to rapidly declining water tables and critically depleted aquifers, and is no longer sustainable (at many places). The report adds that government actions including the provision of highly subsidised or even free power have exacerbated rather than addressed the problem. India is getting seriously water-stressed; and we need to act fast. Water has to be treated not as a local resource, but a global resource. We need to see if a change in its constitutional status is required. Similarly, we need to proactively decide on our stand on the proposed UN convention. Our opposition is not helping us nor the cause of humanity. We also need to enhance our water-storage capacity, as we suffer the most from the vagaries of the monsoon. The river-linking project, alongside a chain of waterconservation projects, would offer a solution. The writer is joint secretary and CVO, CPWD. Views are personal
express@expressindia.com

Status of water

Post-Modi interview, SP disowns Siddiqui (IE, July 29). Shahid Siddiqui must be lauded for standing firm on his decision to interview Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team has not found any substantial evidence implicating Modi in the riots of 2002. Unlike in other riots in India, many of the cases filed on the Gujarat riot massacres have ended in convictions. The rest are likely to see verdicts soon. Modis detractors should wait for his guilt to be proved in a court of law before indicting him. N. Ramamurthy Chennai

THIS refers to the report

Where are the leaders?

Political blunderlands (IE, July 30) reiterates the importance of having able leaders who can hold the fort. Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have periodically suffered from a crisis of leadership. S.M. Krishna was probably the last Karnataka chief minister with a vision for the state. The current government lacks direction and is extremely fragile. In AP former , chief ministers N. Chandrababu Naidu and Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy tried to turn Hyderabad into a prosperous IT capital. It was during Naidus tenure that dreams of Cyberabad took shape. However, subsequent chief ministers frittered away the legacy of Naidus reign. It is painful to watch leaders failing to capitalise on the good work done by their predecessors from other parties and succumbing to petty party politics instead. This works against the interests of the state. Ganapathi Bhat Akola
SEEMA CHISHTIS article

FREEZE FRAME

Water must be treated not as a local resource, but a global one. A change in its constitutional status may be required.
tablishing allocation rules and clearly defined water rights among states that have unending disputes over the sharing of interstate water resources. The latest example is the second Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal, which has turned into a warzone, with a battery of lawyers, technical staff and irrigation department officials from Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh fighting to win the maximum allocation of the Krishna river for their respective state. The Centre has also been reluctant to take a proactive position on the Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational projects in west-central Tibet may have a bearing on river water flow into India as well as Bangladesh. There are also reports that China is planning to divert 200 billion cubic metres (BCM) of the Brahmaputra from south to north to feed the Yellow River. If this is true, India will face a severe crisis once the Chinese projects are completed. Many of the hydel projects in the Northeast may have to be shelved. Of the 1,900 BCM of river runoff available in the country, about 600 BCM is generated in the Brahmaputra, one can imagine what would happen if the bulk of this is diverted by China. According to a recent World

Ploughing back

THIS refers to 21 SC

HROUGHOUT history, authoritarian leaders have vigorously and often cruelly defended their dignity. To observers lucky enough to be beyond reach, their actions merely confirm their vulnerability. It may not look quite like that to the three members of the performance art outfit Pussy Riot, whose trial has just started in Moscow. They wanted to use art to undermine the power of Vladimir Putin. Instead, predictably, he has turned it on them. Beyond the border, he looks ridiculous. In Russia, the prosecution of these three young women who have been vilified in the media for months has become a trial of Putins very regime... Claims that this trial is a critical

Putins peeves
PRINTLINE
moment for the Putin regime may be overdone. But, even without the states absurd over-reaction to a small feminist guerrilla movement that has committed no crime, it does reveal potentially catastrophic weaknesses... If the Kremlin wills it, the three defendants two of them with young children whom they have not seen since their arrest face sentences of up to seven years. This is hardly the action of the confident, forward-looking state that Putin would claim to lead; rather, it is the peevish response of slighted machismo that Pussy Riot exists to mock. From a leader in The Guardian, London

judges retd since 08, 18 in govt panels (IE, July 30). Many retired government officers are likely to find their way to government panels. Some reforms have been suggested to address this problem. One of them is that no bureaucrat be reemployed in the first five years after retirement. This is a simple but effective way to break the nexus between bureaucrats and their political bosses. Suresh Amin Vadodara