Federalism Under Threat ?

West Bengal chief minister 

Mamata Bannerjee in the chief 

ministers’ conclave

It used to be the pet theme of Narendra Modi when he was the chief minister of Gujarat. But after he assumed power in the Centre, his style of functioning appears totally in defiance of the federal structure of the national polity. Not one meeting of the NDC has taken place in his 16 months’ rule, which is a forum where states can raise their issues. The Planning Commission is already finished which used to take care of financial needs of the states. There are accusations that Centre is running parallel governments through governors and lieutenant governors in the non-NDA states. All this does not augur well for the country and democracy. The first attempt to organise a ‘Conclave of Chief Ministers on Cooperative Federalism & Centre-State Relations’ did not succeed as only two chief ministers turned up from among the five who had evinced interest, but this does not mean the issue is going to die down any time soon. It would continue to acquire fresh energy and momentum until the Centre amends its ways, AAP leaders say.

By Bodhi Shri

Non-NDA governments in states have one common complaint against the Centre since the new government under Narendra Modi has came into existence that there is unwarranted interference of the Centre in the functioning of state governments. So much so that parallel governments are being run through the governors and lieutenant governors, state chief ministers say. 

The worst victim of this attitude has been the Delhi government of Aam Aadmi Party, which badly mauled the BJP in the assembly elections early this year despite the vigorous campaigning undertaken by prime minister Narendra Modi which was also hugely energised by the RSS. The BJP could win only 3 seats out of 70 in Delhi. 

      Decency and public ethics require that BJP leaders should have become humble after the defeat, but the opposite happened and all kinds of dirty tricks are being played to harass the Delhi government of Arvind Kejriwal. Any neutral observer would say that the Centre is creating hurdles in the functioning of the Delhi government on one pretext or the other out of vindictiveness. All limits were crossed when the lieutenant governor wrote to officers of Delhi government last week of September not to follow any orders from the chief minister, which they thought were in contravention of Centre’s directive. Who can say that this is not an open encouragement to rebel against an elected government? 

      It is not just the Delhi government which is at the receiving end from such an attitude of the Centre. The experience of several state governments is similar, though the degree of the interference might be varying. The Samajwadi Party last month protested the interference of UP governor Ram Naik who has earned the reputation of making comments, observations and statements which do not match his constitutional high position. Seeing the level of undue interference (he wrote 175 letters to the chief minister in a year raising numerous issues) crossing the limits, party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav requested prime minister Modi to either restrain him or remove him. The situation is so bad that a section within the ruling party in UP demanded to launch a ‘halla-bol’ against him.  

      The behaviour of other governors is also reported to be not much different. 

This is yet another matter that these chief ministers did not turn up in the ‘Chief Ministers Conclave on Cooperative Federalism and Centre-State Relations’ organised by Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. Five chief ministers had given their consent to attend the conclave—West Bengal, Bihar, Mizoram, Tripura and Puducherry. Uttarakhand chief minister had responded to the invitation, but chose to stay away, ostensibly due to strong rivalry between the Congress and AAP in Delhi. 

Delhi chief minister Arvind

Kejriwal and Tripura CM Manik 

Sarkar after the chief ministers’ 

conclave on ‘Cooperative 

Federalism and Centre-State 

Relations’ in Delhi

      The Conclave also seen as Arvind Kejriwal’s efforts to emerge as a national leader, as a matter of fact flopped since only two chief ministers turned up and others excused themselves from attending it citing one reason or the other. And out of the two chief ministers, Manik Sarkar of Tripura was counselled by the CPM’s central leadership not to share the dais with Mamata Bannerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal.  Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar did not come as he was involved in the ‘do or die’ kind of electoral battle in his state. Kumar’s letter, however, scathingly accused the Centre of crushing the federal structure by taking unilateral decisions on a number of issues like cutting Centre’s share in several important centre-sponsored schemes without consulting the chief ministers. Nitish reminded, ‘Before elections, BJP used to talk about federal structure but now the behaviour of the Centre is against cooperative federalism’. The Bihar chief minister proposed detailed deliberations among the states after the Bihar polls.

      Mizoram CM Lal Thanhawla of the Congress could not come as the assembly session was to begin, but he sent his views in a letter.  

      Mamata Banerjee stole the who roared like a lioness in the conclave making a convincing case by citing examples how the federal structure of the country was under threat. She accused that the Centre was using CBI, ED and Income Tax Department to bulldoze state governments. She proved her point by citing the case of CBI raids at Himachal Pradesh CM Virbhandra Singh’s residence in connection with a disproportionate assets case. She recounted how the Modi government was breaching the boundary of political ethics and propriety and ‘running down’ constitutional provisions. She told that she was shocked to know that the Bengal governor had written a letter asking for central forces for civic elections in the state. She accused the governor of summoning police chief and other officers to the Raj Bhavan though law and order is state’s prerogative. 

      Kejriwal spoke about how since the Delhi assembly was constituted in 1992 no LG had interfered with chief minister’s decisions. But in his case 30 decisions have been changed. By doing so Centre was not only insulting the democracy but also the judiciary. If I am wrong there are courts to take care, why this interference, he asked. He gave an example how Delhi Police under the Centre chose to remain mute spectator when ESMA was to be implemented during the DTC strike causing innense hardship to millions of commuters on a wroking day.   

      Some political observers feel the attempt to bring together chief ministers of various non-BJP parties at one platform may one day convert into a political alternative to take on the BJP. But this interpretation was vehemently denied by Arvind Kejriwal.

(Note: The article was first published in the Lokayat magazine: October, 2015) 

An Endearing Audacity

By Vinod Varshney
Denial is second nature to most leaders of conventional political parties, and   arrogance and condescending behavior towards people their outstanding trait. No wonder the Congress needed humiliating defeat in four states to wake it to the grim reality of its hollow narcissistic claim of mass-appeal, and to make it realise that people take corruption charges seriously.  People also cannot be fooled by circulating insinuations based on fake or doctored tapes and sting operations. Politicians would do well to note that people do not care much about doles; rather, they want good governance, jobs and control over prices.
       It was good to hear Sonia Gandhi talking about the need for deep introspection and Rahul Gandhi mentioning the need to learn from the newbie Aam Aadmi Party (Party of Common Man). This is a welcome sign in the leaders of a party which until the day of counting was smugly arrogant, not even ready to acknowledge the existence of the Aam Aadmi Party or its leader Arvind Kejriwal who was mocked at by the three-time Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit as a monsoon pest.
      Election results in Delhi indeed have shocked the two major national parties and confounded experts who are wont to look at politics in terms of caste, communities and vote banks. The way the one-year-old Aam Admi Party defeated the seemingly invincible Shiela with a margin exceeding the total votes she polled, the Congress Party should seriously think of closing down its dirty tricks department. 
     Many experts say the Aam Aadmi Party indulges in excessive populism. But not many are prepared to applaud its praiseworthy initiative in making election funding totally transparent. The fledgling political outfit put details of all donations received on its website. This is in sharp contrast to the corrupt and competitive politics practiced by others as a business run on the strength of black money.
      Another laudable APP initiative was the method of candidates’ selection in which opinions of the electorate in the constituency were sought and weighed. Preparation of manifesto separately for each constituency was an entirely new experiment. It was necessary to make governance accountable and closer to people’s needs. This method of trying to understand people’s aspirations revealed that lack of drinking water was the biggest problem of more than half of Delhiites. It showed that poor people wanted pure drinking water rather than liquor as price of their votes. By all accounts, therefore, this Delhi election will remain a textbook phenomenon to be studied by political scientists. It may also be a classic example of how power-drunk rulers could miss the mood of the people. Rahul Gandhi might want to present the image of an angry young man in a hurry with rolled-up sleeves wanting to make common cause with  people, but it was the down-to-earth Arvind Kejriwal who really struck an emotional chord with the electorate. Kejriwal’s utterances were direct, incisive and sincere enough to evoke trust and confidence. His narration of netas as chor, corrupt and criminals, half of whom would be behind bars once Jan Lokpal Bill was passed, was met with angry retorts from  leaders of established parties, but his words truly echoed the deep convictions of the voiceless common people.
      His ability to translate new ideas into votes provides the hint that his Delhi model can be replicated elsewhere in the country. Certainly he has succeeded in creating in people a desire for change. At this stage it seems his determination to change the political culture of India is simply audacious because it is in the vice grip of black money, criminals, crony capitalists, communalists and other vested interests.  But this audacity is what endears him to millions of our people.

The Article was first published in the monthly magazine of political affairs, the ' Lokayat' (December, 2013 issue)
 

Media should declare its business & political interests: Arvind Kejriwal

By Bodhi Shri

Anna Hazare’s historic fast accompanied with mass protest at Ramlila Maidan last year demanding Jan Lokpal as a sure recipe to stem all-pervading corruption in the country and a recent flash protest at India Gate after the Delhi gang-rape case in a moving bus, are two apt Indian examples to illustrate how social media can be used to build and sustain a five star movement. Only condition is that it should be complemented by main stream media especially the 24x7 TV making the protesting mob spectacle sensational. 

Founder of Aam Admi Party Arvind Kejriwal (4th from the left) regaled students of journalism by his side-splitters against corrupt politicians of India. He urged youth to not hate politics, but join it to change India.

The combined blistering heat of social media and TV was earlier felt by despots of the Middle East during the spring revolution it had created. The outcome was a few despots got dethroned. Arvind Kejriwal, a trusted former associate of Anna Hazare, is now experimenting with building a political outfit ‘Aam Admi Party’ to take on the corrupt Indian political system with the help of social media.  He is a craze among students these days.

It was a day of delight and positive stimulus for the students pursuing their 3-year BJMC course at the BLS Institute of Technology Management (Bahadurgarh, Haryana, when they got Kejriwal as the chief guest for their panel discussion on ‘Media as a Catalyst of Society’ on 21 February.  They found him a great regaler who kept them bursting into laughter by his side-splitters against corrupt politicians. At the outset he established his brand-equity by declaring he was an aam adami (common man) like any one of them or anyone in India.

What oppressed the countrymen most, he asked and gave the consensual answer--the corrupt politics, which is controlled by none other, but ‘your’ elected representatives.  He gave statistics of how many of them were facing heinous criminal charges in the courts of law. The highest law making body the Parliament, whose lower house Lok Sabha has 14 members facing charges of murder and 13 other charges of kidnapping. Seeing all this the youth today says—I hate politics. ‘No, this is wrong decision, you should not think like this. You need to participate in politics to change its character.’

Media should declare political and business interests

Sushil Aggarwal, chairman of BLS Education Society (Right) 

He qualified his praise for media as a roller coaster supporter of people’s cause, but most other times it remained blindfolded to the stark reality. He complimented media for taking Anna’s stir to every home, also the issue of women safety in Delhi. By doing so it proved it was with the people. It proved that it can act as catalyst. Even during the emergency in mid seventies it wasn’t neutral, and sided with people. But in general we find today a competition of sensationalism going on among media. Media covered an event only till it had some sensational value. He raised a pertinent question why certain media present certain things in a certain manner. ‘To maintain credibility, the biggest asset of any media, it should declare its business and political interests like how much share the FDI or the Big Business hold in its equity? People should know this. Why there should not be transparency in that.’   

Kejriwal limited his comments to the mainstream media and ignored fast emerging social media that poses a new challenge to the established one. Other panelists, viz. Vinod Varshney Editor of Lokayat, Dhiranjan Malvey OSD in Prasar Bharti, Vinod Arora, Chief Operational Officer of the ministry of information and broadcasting and Ratan Singh of Dainik Bhaskar, together built up a comprehensive picture of the media, including social media.

Dhiranjan explained the economic compulsions of media how without Rs 500 crore one cannot start and run a TV channel successfully with national footprints. He posed a question how anybody can expect media to act as a catalyst when the first worry of the owners remained to see their investment is not sunk. ‘This is a reality that private channels care more for their bottom-line.’ However, the internet media can afford to be free if it wants, as at least there are no such business compulsions involved in running it. Luckily, social media has also started attracting advertisements in good volumes, sometimes more than the conventional media, he informed.

FDI in media changed its character

Vinod Varshney emphasised that the character of Indian media got changed drastically since the FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) was allowed in media. He gave inkling of the times when the debate was raging whether to allow FDI or not in media. Many argued against allowing this as it would ruin the culture and value system of the country and media would become an agent to promote the western values, political and business interests. But a section, desperate as it was, not being able to compete with the monopoly national media, pressed for it. And now see the result--media is getting more and more attuned to western concerns, interests and values. 

It is promoting a consumerist culture which serves the business interests of the companies who produce related goods and services. To hook the rest of India fake sensationalism is offered. The media thus lately is becoming more and more damaging to the desirable values of liberalism, social welfare and concerns of masses.

Big corporate advertisers have over-controlled the media and as such the media does not remain a catalyst for the positive development of the society. This apart, the poor working conditions, including job security, is also taking its toll on the Indian media. The control of the editor on the editorial policy and content is now thing of the past. It is the business boss who decides what is good for the company as every quarter it looks forward to declaring growth in profits if it is a stock exchange listed company.  

Consumerist culture is being propagated to the loss of inclusive human culture which alone can cater to the general development and welfare of the society. He slammed journalist fraternity for not caring to go deeper into issues and develop sound understanding of them. Alibi that people want sensational stuff so only that should be offered, has become the rule. He urged the students to develop rational thinking and scientific outlook so that they can bust myths and not swayed by propaganda of various interest groups.

He termed social media more dynamic and more democratic, however many say that large part of it is propagandist. This media is being used mainly by various interest groups.

Vinod Arora gave a detailed history of how media developed and grew. Ratan Singh of Dainik Bhaskar told from his personal experience how difficult it was to get revealing stories published if they go against the business interests of the owners. Students of journalism may remain idealist till they are in the class room, but the missionary zeal gets evaporated soon once they join a media organisation as they have to invest all their energy to protect their jobs.