Digvijay Singh's latest red herring

Digvijay Singh, a former Congress Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, has rapidly degenerated as a most irresponsible, utterly undignified, senior ruling party leader, bordering on lunacy, after assuming the office of a  Congress general secretary at the party's head office in New Delhi. Despite all his senseless remarks, sometimes offensive even to his own party  and some of its sober leaders, he is known as a loyalist to the ruling dynasty and its heir-apparent, Rahul Gandhi! He never tires of pushing his icon's claims to the Prime Minister's chair, causing immense embarrassment to the incumbent, Dr Manmohan Singh who seems in no hurry to vacate it in favour of Digvijay Singh's favourite Gandhi. If nothing untoward happens to the PM's health, nor any other grave political disaster or fiasco hits his regime, Dr Singh seems determined to complete his term until the next general elections in 2014, when he will be 82.

In the meantime, unfortunately for Digvijay, his prime ministerial candidate further spoiled his chances for wider popular acceptance as the next head of government, by his immature and ill-timed remarks in the immediate aftermath of the bloody Mumbai bomb blasts which killed 20 innocent persons and injuring over 130. Rahul effusively praised the Congress governments at the Centre and Maharashtra for taking "profound steps" to fight terrorism and improving security by "leaps and bounds". Then why such ghastly terror incidents are recurring, his insensitive reply was that some blasts would continue to happen and cannot be stopped. Instead of applying a much-needed healing touch to the terror victims who had lost their dear ones, he was rubbing salt  into their wounds. There was a sharp and angry reaction over Rahul Gandhi's "bachkana"(childish)comments  in the public and the media.

But, sure enough, Rahul's apologist Digvijay Singh defended his remarks. He went even to a crazy extent: Out of the blue, he accused the RSS for being possibly involved  in the Mumbai mayhem! Even though he added that he had no proof against the RSS in this latest incident, he had evidence on the RSS involvement in earlier terrorist acts! However, his main worry seemed that his party's Muslim vote bank was being heavily eroded as all investigating agencies  were naming Muslims as possible suspects. Hence,  in order to impress the minority community for being their well-wisher, Digvijay Singh used this  mischievously clever ploy to divert the attention to the possible role of  non-existing "Hindu terrorists" in the Mumbai blast, by naming the RSS. He had done this earlier in the Batla House terrorist incident in Delhi in which a police inspector was gunned down by the terrorists present in the House. He had dubbed it as a fake encounter contrary to the policy of his own govt. Hence, it is beyond  comprehension as to why his party leadership is not expelling him from his important post. The only explanation could be that he enjoys the patronage of the ruling dynasty-Mrs Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi who seem to be quietly supporting his pro-minority and anti-majority angle in the interest of their nefarious vote-bank politics.    

Apex Court verdict on Chhattisgarh's anti-Maoist campaign

The two-judge bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Justices B.Sudershan Reddy and Surendra Singh Nijjar, recently ordered the disbanding of the Special Police Officers' force of 4000 armed youth set up by the Chhattisgarh government for counter-insurgency operations. The verdict came on the petition filed by Ms Nandini Sunder and others. Having watched Ms Sunder of the Delhi University-a known sympathiser and apologist of Maoist terrorists-in TV debates, one was deeply appalled by the court accepting her petition as a gospel truth and rejecting the case of Dr Raman Singh-headed State govt as "horror, the horror"!

Excerpts of the judgement that appeared in the press made a terrible reading. References to Joseph Conrad's novella:"Heart of Darkness", to describe the situation on the ground in Chhattisgarh in its fight against Maoist terrorists seemed highly misplaced  and overly dramatised. It appeared that one was not reading a serious judgement on a most menacing crisis that is facing the Indian State in general and the tribal-dominated State of Chhattisgarh, in particular, but accounts of an intellectual  seminar at the India International Centre, dominated by the likes of Arundhati Roy!

Chhattisgarh is one State that is widely acknowledged to be well-governed by a dedicated Chief Minster whose administration is trying its utmost to involve its tribal youth through proper training and motivation to stand up to Maoist extremists with the help and guidance of the security forces. One could understand judicial intervention if there are glaring excesses and human rights violations. But, the apex court order was a blanket ban on the State govt's major innitiative of forming a SPO brigade- a sort of people's force, armed  and trained,  to supplement the security campaign against seditious, anti-national brigands. Thus, the apex court order will be a huge set back to the Raman Singh govt's efforts to mobilise forest-dwellers who know the terrain where the militants operate. It will serve as a morale-booster to these authoritarian tyrants who were reportdly on a backfoot due to the popular hostility against their violent and criminal ways.   

Delayed, inadequate justice to two Delhi widows

In a Connaught Place shoot-out case, two businessmen were gunned down by the Delhi police on March 31, 1997.  It later proved to be a fake encounter to eliminate alleged terrorists. The Delhi High Court condemned the Central Home Ministry for a "lackadaisical appraoch" in taking action against the guilty policmen for "wanton  and callous killing" of the two innocent businessmen. After 14 years, the High Court ordered the two widows-Mrs Neema Goyal and Mrs Jaspal Kaur, to be paid a compensation of Rs.15 lakhs  each. They had petitioned for Rs 2 crore as compensation.

Once again, we are reminded of the terrible tyranny of delayed justice that amounts, in effect, to denying  justice. The governments at the Centre and the States may be castigated for their mindless insensitivity to delayed justice due to infrastructural deficiencies and systemic problems, but the end-result is that our criminal justice mechanism continues to remain ham-handed and inefficient. On its part, sadly, the judiciary has hardly covered itself in glory with its decision to pay Rs.15 lakhs as compensation to the tragedy-overwhelmed widows after 14 long years of mental and physical agony of going to the courts, and loneliness. One widow, Mrs Neema Goyal whose only child-a son-was 2-year-old when his father Pradeep Goyal was gunned down, narrated her painful and moving saga, in a TV interview last night(July 4). She outrightly rejected the sum of Rs15 lakhs as totally inadequate. She is right. In these days of unprecedented inflation, the poor lady can't even buy a small DDA flat.And what about her teen-age son's higher education? With tremendous suffering and sacrifice, she has somehow struggled to survive and bring him up as a single parent, all these years. And, this is how our heartless, cruel system treats her! No wonder, her lament was that law is blind and an ass, more so in our country.    

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Press Meet

Independent India never had the experience of a Prime Minister, supposedly a political leader with a large popular following, who was so reluctant to communicate with his countrymen. Although Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has a reputation of being a man of integrity and honesty, this economist-turned bureaucrat-turned politician, is ironically heading a most corrupt and direction-less administration. The Prime Minister, though unelected to the Lok Sabha in 2004, was nominated by his party supremo-Mrs Sonia Gandhi to occupy the chair of  the country's head of government. To follow the well-established convention of the PM being a member of the more important House of the People(Lok Sabha), he should have decided to legitimise his prime ministership by contesting a bye-election as soon as possible. But he chose otherwise. Even after the first term of five years, he was renominated by his boss(Mrs Sonia Gandhi)to continue in his post. Thus, he again avoided the Lok Sabha  general elections in 2009 and re-entered the Parliament through an indirect, convenient Rajya Sabha route. Consequently, he cannot be the Leader of the House as he is not an elected member of the Lok Sabha, as the elected Prime Minister would normally be, and he cannot vote in this House. His deputy, Pranab Mukherjee, being an popularly elected member of the Lok Sabha, is the Leader of the House and his Congress legislative party.

There has been a constant onslaught on the PM's habitual taciturnity from the media, thinking Indians and the opposition parties. His invisibility and long silence on critical problems facing the nation and his govt. has been a subject of tongue-in-cheek write-ups in the press. One columnist of a leading pro-Congress English daily wrote that the PM was reported "lost but not found"! Hence, in the face of  the crescendo of criticism, the party seemed alarmed by enormous damage this lack of communication with the people was causing and egged on Dr Singh to have a regular interaction with the media to reach the people. The first of these press meetings was held in the Prime Minister's residence on June 29, 2011, where five "carefully chosen" editors were invited for a 100-minute questions and answers session. Two editors-one from a small Marathi journal-a known pro-Congress apologist, and another from a Hindi one, the CEO of a leading news agency dependent on the govt for funding, and two editors, one each from an economic daily and another from an English regional daily. One would have expected that being the first press meet after a gap of nearly six months, the PM and his press advisers would arrange to televise the event for maximum impact. But, a restricted format was chosen:A summary of the proceedings will be placed on the official website. What a way to communicate in this age of television!

Judging from the account of the press meet given by the participants to the media afterwards, it was evident that the Prime Minister did not say anything new on problems like galloping price rise, corruption, Lokpal bill, cohesion in his govt, alleged party-govt discord, and his own future. He will quit if his party asked him to go, but they have not done so. He is, thus,  in full command, he insisted. Some media commentators called the PM's repeated claim of his being in charge as an indication of the opposite. It does not seem so settled. Even Dr Singh's comment that he had no objection to be within the ambit of Lokpal but that his colleagues had different views, did not seem sincere. If he was serious, he could have persuaded his cabinet colleagues to fall in line. Similarly, his observation that he had no magic wand to solve burning problems of corruption and inflation, etc., evoked derisive response. His certificate to the Chinese President and the Prime Minister that they are "men of peace" does him hardly any credit. How can any Indian forget the immense pain they have caused to us because of their aggressive policies towards Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh, damming Brahamputra, and their arrogant attitude towards Tibetans and the Dalai Lama and pro-Pakistan strategies,etc?