Congress party's flippant spokespersons

It is a bitter truth that most controversies currently confronting the Congress party can be attributed to its own folly:confusion and incompetence. It is unfortunate that when it needs able, dignified and well-informed spokespersons the most, to defend it in TV news channel debates on topical matters on daily basis, it puts forward flippant, crude ones like Mrs Renuka Chaudhry who only compound its misery.

Watching her performance on several occasions in recent weeks, particularly the one on February 27 on NDTV, I really felt sorry for the party's improper and unwise choice to project Mrs Chaudhry. The lady has a bad habit of giggling at and taunting opponents during serious discussions, and this was in full flow on the Feb.27 night debate on the PM's accusation against some NGOs allegedly misusing foreign contributions to "instigate" local people to agitate against the Kudankulam nuclear power facility. Renuka indulged in a running commentary, ridiculing  another panelist, BS Udaykumar's assertion that he had not received any money from foreign sources for his NGO-National Movement Against Nuclear Energy. He added that he raised his money in small amounts from local people-farmers,etc. Mrs Chaudhry was interrupting him, implicitly saying that Kumar was lying. At that point, one more panelist-Mrs Kiran Bedi remarked that the lady anchor was not controlling the discussions, indirectly accusing Renuka of hijacking the debate with needless interjections. All in all, Renuka Chaudhry's conduct was totally undignified that did no credit to her party.

Muslim quota controversy

The Muslim quota controversy that has been fuelled by Congress leaders like Salman Khurshid and Beni Prasad Verma-both UPA Cabinet Ministers-as well as SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and the BSP Chief Minister of UP Ms Mayawati, in their election campaign in the State, is now echoing in the media. It was the topic of discussion in the NDTV's popular Sunday, prime-time, programme:"We, The People"(Feb 19). One can understand vote-bank-oriented parties-Congress and the Samajwadi Party championing the religion-based quota for one community-Indian Muslims, through  their respective leaders, namely, Mrs Rita Bahuguna Joshi and Shahid Siddiqi, in the TV debate, during the election time in UP, in violation of the spirit and the letter of the Constitution. Siddiqi who is a typical party-hopper who moved from the Congress, then the BSP to the SP, was quite confused and pathetic in his arguments in favour of the Muslim quota. In fact, all those exponents of Muslim quota have no real valid argument to oppose economic criterion as the basis of reservation of the depressed classes. But they think that Muslim quota advocacy will bring them electoral gains in the crucial election. Siddiqi seemed even critical of the Constitution-makers for providing reservations for the Hindu Scheduled castes, and not others, namely, Muslims who were similarly situated. In other words, he admitted that Islam had failed to absorb the SC converts, unable to offer them equal treatment!

What was most astonishing and incomprehensible in the TV debate, was the pro-quota posture of highly placed Muslims like the film-maker Muzzaffar Ali and a former IAS member and Vice-Chancellor Ansari. Having achieved a distinctive, elitist status in the society due to their hard work and talent, how could they join the ranks of habitual Muslim whiners, complaining about discrimination and backwardness allegedly faced by their community? Is itn't a myth-in fact, falsehood, to accuse the Indian State and the society(read Hindu dominated), for the socalled miserable plight of the Indian Muslims? How is it that Bollywood is dominated by Muslims even when all key levers-finance, direction, production, exhibition and distribution are mostly in the hands of Hindus? As an ordinary Indian, I know of so many cases of Muslim boys from very poor families achieving success through hard work and basic talent in their chosen field like tennis. You see so many young Muslim men and women in the print and electronic media doing well.

How can we forget the way our poor illiterate brethren-Hindus and Muslims, from the boondocks of UP, Bihar and Rajasthan, were taken to the far off lands-in the Caribbean-Trinidad and Guyana, Fiji and Mauritius, in the 19th century and later, to work in the sugar plantations as indentured labourers? They had to work in terrible, snake-infested conditions. And see how they have transformed their lives, becoming most prosperous and politically powerful, in less than a century, through sheer hard work and emphasis on education. Also, look at the refugees from West Pakistan and Sindh after partition. They came penniless, leaving everything behind. Again through sheer relentless efforts, self-sacrifice and hard work they have successfully rebuilt their lives. One has heard many stories of poor women doing manual work to send their children to school and college. Hence, it is disgusting to hear Ansaris, Siddiqis, Khurshids and Beni Vermas  talk of quotas. In fact, it is time to end all quotas; even, initially, they were meant for a decad or so. Let the State help weaker ones with affirmative action without the crutch of quotas.

SC-appointed amicus curiae-Is it useful?

Judging from press reports in regard to the Supreme Court-appointed amicus curiae(friend of the court), Raju Ramchandran, in two recent cases, one wonders whether this specific appointment is really serving any useful purpose in objectively and impartially assisting the court. The two cases are:The SC-appointed SIT's findings on Narendra Modi and his Gujarat govt's alleged involvement in the 2002 riots and the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist carnage in which the lone surviving convict Ajmal Kasab is facing death sentence. The role of the amicus curiae-Raju Ramchandran, appears quite dubious. It seems more like performance of a defence lawyer rather than that of a "friend of the court". In the Modi case, the gentleman cast doubts on the SIT report to the metropolitan court, reportedly exonerating Modi and his govt; instead, he seemed to favour the Modi-accusers like the IPS officer MS Bhatt, himself facing charges and is under suspension; he also reportedly pleaded in favour of criminal Kasab, describing him as a minor terror accomplice deserving mercy!

Given the above facts, shouldn't the apex court look into the necessity and utility of the institutional appointment of an amicus curiae?  

Supreme Court verdict on 2G scam indicts UPA

When one looks at the terrible saga of scandals that have pock-marked the Congress-led UPA govt., the pathetic roles of the Congress president Mrs Sonia Gandhi, her nominated Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and her spokesmen like Kapil Sibal, stand out. The pre-eminent characteristic of the two top leaders is their long, unbroken silence and inexplicable reluctance to communicate with the Indian people who are desperately and angrily seeking answers to their questions and doubts in regard to their rulers' incompetence and cynical indifference to corruption. The arrogant and sanctimonious behaviour of the team of party lawyer spokesmen headed by Sibal, is hard to believe. They have done immense damage to the Congress image that was already badly dented.

In their earlier phase when likes of Kapil Sibal, Manish Tewari and Abhishek Manu Singhvi were trying to malign and destroy Anna Hazare's anti-corruption movement, the popular outrage against them was so great that the party leadership discreetly chose to keep them out of the press briefing circuit. Habits die hard. In the wake of the Supreme Court's February 2 verdict cancelling 122 2G licenses illegally allotted by the then Telecom Minister A.Raja, Kapil Sibal was arrogance and cyncism personified. When most observers and media commentators called the apex court judgement "a historic indictment" of the Manmohan Singh govt., Sibal was insisting that the PM had been "vindicated"! Curiously, Sibal did not seem to realise that he was, in fact, implicitly indicting Manmohan Singh and the then Finance Minister P.Chidambaram by claiming that A.Raja was not listening to their advice in favour of the auction of the spectrum. If that was the case, were both of them-Singh and Chidambaram, not guilty of the abdication of their responsibility to stop their junior colleague from going ahead with a clearly "fraudulent" and "illegal" decision to give the 2G spectrum to "friendly" companies at the 2001 price at a huge loss to the public exchequer? Does this not amount to connivance-a silent acceptance of a criminal act?  

MP Owaisi's communal rantings

Asaduddin Owaisi, the chief of the Majlis Ittehade Muslimeen(MIM) of Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh), is a Member of the Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha) who never tires of swearing by the Indian Constitution and the secular, multi-religious, multi-cultural character of India. But, if you probe him a little, you will find this England-educated, affluent Hyderabadi who speaks English fluently, as a most bigoted, inflexible, closed mind who is an arch-enemy of the right of freedom of expression of writers like Taslima Nasreen of Bangladesh and London-based, India-born, novelist Salman Rushdie whom he perceives as anti-Islam.

One can understand Owaisi's anger against Rushdie's work of fiction:The Satanic Verses which had unfairly treated Prophet Mohammed's wives by giving their names to some prostitutes in his book. Even I-a non-Muslim-was appalled on reading it. I understand that following a wide-spread protests in the Muslim world and Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa of death on Rushdie, the author had apologised for his objectionable act. The fatwa was subsequently revoked following Khomeini's death. Recently, in a TV interview (NDTV), Rushdie disclosed that the Satanic Verses has been translated in at least three Muslim countries-Egypt, Turkey and now Libya.

But, Owaisi will have none of it. For him, Salman Rushdie is an anti-Islam devil, a blasphemer who cannot be forgiven although the opening verse of the Quran describes the Allah as "the most compassionate and merciful-ever forgiving"! Owaisi even does not like Rushdie's Booker Award winning work:The Midnight's Children". However, the most objectionable and undemocratic aspect of Owaisi's opposition to the writer, is his denial of the latter's right to travel to his mother country-India-on his PIO card which requires no visa. He was in the forefront in opposing Rushdie's participation in the Jaipur Literature Festival recently. From all accounts, Rushdie is proud of his Muslim faith, its humane and moderate face and not an Owaisi-style intolerant Islam. Owaisi, similarly, hates Taslima Nasreen. In her case, his younger brother Akbar Owaisi, an AP MLA, a few years ago, had physically attacked Nasreen during a book function in Hyderabad, along with a group of his followers. The MP Owaisi, who supposedly believes in non-violence, never expressed any regret; in fact, he reportedly defended his brother's violent assault on her. He reiterated his opposition to her recently when some Muslim fanatics scuttled her new book launch-a volume of her autobigraphical series, called "Nirbasan"(Exile), in Kolkata during the literary fair in the city.

In a TV debate on Times Now news channel, Owaisi justified his pernicious and illegal act when he was asked by the anchor how could he know about the contents of the book without reading it. His contention was that knowing Taslima's anti-Islamic bent of mind, he had the sense of what it would contain-a most ridiculous argument. Yet, Asaduddin Owaisi continues to remain an elected member of our august temple of democracy (Parliament) who is an ally of a secular, supposedly liberal Congress party that heads the UPA government! On his part, Owaisi may be relatively coy and reasonable inside the Lok Sabha to keep the pretence of democratic traditions, but, outside, he merrily spews his communal, Islamist venom in TV debates. His tone and postures are predictable but nontheless obnoxious and shocking, unworthy of a member of Indian Parliament.  
     

Sam Pitroda Congress's new OBC face

One did not expect that in the run-up to the UP elections, round the corner, the ruling Congress party and its heir-apparent-the prospective prime ministerial candidate-Rahu Gandhi, would stoop so low as to dig out the OBC caste of their favourite US-based NRI Sam Pitroda, a telecom professional who is currently working as an Adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on "infrastructure, information and innovations", to try to cash it to woo OBC voters. Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda(Sam Pitroda) has been sharing his expertise with the Indian govt, off and on, for over two decades. No one knew his OBC background(carpenter caste), nor it was seemed necessary or relevant.

Yet, being familiar with the Nehru-Gandhi's penchant for exploiting the accursed and ugly aspects of our traditional past, in its pursuit of despicable vote-bank politics, Rahul Gandhi, supposedly a young, modern and progressive face of the party, highlighted Pitroda's caste details in an election rally in UP recently. No wonder, the party paraded Pitroda as the central figure along with a few leading Congress leaders like Kapil Sibal and Mrs Rita Bahuguna Joshi at the party's election manifesto release function in Lucknow yesterday, January 31.

Although press reports seem to suggest that Pitroda was enjoying the attention and playing along with a new OBC iconic identity, there was a lurking hint of some unease behind the facade. When asked about his caste, he said,"Today, my caste is science". Further asked if he liked the way he was being projected as an "OBC leader", his reply was:"That is Rahul Gandhi's(prerogative). I am not trying to fit into any caste and there is no question of being projected as a member of any community". Is it not a most undignified and cynical exploitation of a high-ranking professional to play casteist politics at his expense and clear embarrassment? Is it not a measure of the Congress desperation on the eve of the UP elections to pull out all stops in order to somehow win?