A month and a half ago I watched in horror along with the rest of India as politicians across party lines converged to negate the historic Supreme Court ruling debarring convicted politicians from contesting elections. At the last possible moment the BJP sent the bill to a standing committee, but they weren’t fooling anyone. It was just to score points against the Congress. At an all party convention they extended their firm support to the government – something that they never do. The compulsion was that strong.
But then the nightmare returned as the government tried to push through an ordinance. They had the balls to project it as protecting the Constitution! The BJP protested (as expected again), but not with their usual fervor. No threats of strikes or mass protests like they did with the FDI in retail issue. It was more of a token protest. No observer could be deceived for even one minute and think that they really meant it. If the BJP was in power, they would have done the exact same thing. The fact of the matter is that all political parties were behind the resolution. It threatened them all.
The came Rahul Gandhi’s (RG’s) dramatic intervention. By calling the ordinance a piece of trash that needed to be thrown away, he was echoing the sentiments of every decent Indian. Even the BJP had never asked for the original bill to be outright junked. As a result, both the ordinance and the subsequent bill are now dead. And as a country we can finally breathe a collective sigh of relief.
Do I care whether or not this was a calculated move by RG to curry favor and win the hearts of the average Indian? No – I do not. To me it doesn’t matter. I only know one thing – if he had not spoken out, the ordinance would have been passed and a bill would have followed. There’s no hope in looking to the president to sink it. He has no power and was a Congress man to the core in any case. Without RG’s intervention, criminals like Lalu Yadav would still be allowed to contest elections as their appeals meander through the courts for years upon end.
I only know one thing – if he had not spoken out, the ordinance would have been passed and a subsequent bill would have followed
If this was a deliberate ploy to project RG as a “fresh hope” it was very clumsily done. As things stand now, most people are suspicious of his outburst anyway demanding to know why he didn’t speak out before and what he was doing during the planning stages of the bill. Had he and his advisers really wanted to play the savior-of-the-masses card it could have been done much more elegantly without antagonizing existing allies, without provoking the BJP to call for his resignation (or the PMs resignation), and without being charged with “disrespecting the PM” – a statement I find ludicrous by the way. He was just giving his opinion on the bill as it his democratic right to do so. He never mentioned the PM in his little speech at all.
So no, I don’t think this was a pre planned move. If so, then he must have terrible advisers – and politicians are masters of manipulation. I think this was a move of desperation. There are two scenarios. First, he may have made his objections clear within the party and was overruled either by his mother or by other senior leaders and bringing his disagreement out in the open was the only way to force the party’s hand by presenting a sort of fait accompli. In the second scenario, he might be completely uninterested in entering politics and just wants to live a quiet and peaceful life. But as an Indian citizen he can’t just stand by and do nothing, so chose this clumsy way to just scuttle the ordinance and the bill in one go.
If it’s the first case then one can only hope he starts making more of his opinions public. The last thing India needs is another leader without convictions or character. If the second, then let him milk his position and stature as much as possible for the good of the country while still not getting involved. It’s what I would do as a lazy person and yet with a lot of power.
But in the end, I don’t care either way. The ordinance is dead and a horrible piece of legislation will never see the light of day. Motivations aside, we owe him thanks for that. If he never does anything more in his entire life, this one act alone is enough.
Happy he finally did it; but what is puzzling is why he did not put his foot down when the ordinance was being discussed ? if the Government gave in to him just as it was about to be passed, surely, they would have taken his opinion seriously when the ordinance was being debated..it is a mystery..
In reply to tp
Maybe he just doesn’t want to get involved in politics. Or they ignored him internally but can’t ignore him publicly. Or maybe it’s all a drama. But let’s just be thankful that it happened!
Why ? Why ? Why ?
For many hours yesterday , on a number of TV channels , experts were asking :
Why,
Man Mohan Singh cow-towed before Rahul ?
Cabinet surrendered its supremacy to Sonia ?
Sonia kept quiet against son’s insubordination ?
Sushma Swaraj ( & Co ) did not oppose the bill initially ?
Milind Deora was silenced ?
Samajwadi Party wants the Ordinance passed – even as a Bill ?
Narendra Modi is deafeningly silent on the entire episode ?
Subramaniam Swamy feels dejected ?
Rajnath Singh is trying to corner all credit ?
Sharad Pawar was sulking with back-stabbing ?
Manish Tewari was just about to cry ?
Mahesh Jethmalani had no answer for Babulal Bokhadia ?
Ram Jethmalani called Rahul , an unlikely hero ?
Gurudas Dasgupta sounded “ holier than thou “ ?
Kapil Sibbal / Chidambaram hid from the media ?
Rahul failed to apologize to PM , in public ?
Arnab Goswami forgo his divine right to drown the panelists ?
My own take of the entire episode :
Why keep asking the “ why “ ?
Why must we forever try to figure out the “ cause “ ?
Why are we obsessed with the presumed ulterior “ motives ” ?
Why can’t we just be happy that the will of the people has prevailed ?
Why not let the future unravel itself ?
Why not rejoice with the outcome ?
Instead of merely speculating what will happen next , why not people – and media –assert themselves and speak up loudly about,
# Political parties to be covered by RTI
# Electoral Reforms
# Women’s Representation
# Jan Lok Pal Bill…etc
Let us send out to the corrupt – and power hungry – politicians , a very loud and clear , “ Do or Die “ call !
• Hemen parekh ( 03 Oct 2013 )
In reply to hemen parekh
Agreed 100%.
Bhagwad,
It is not a question of what is good. It is a question of what is right or dharma. It always is that. Otherwise, there is nothing to write about. Almost anyone can tell you what is good. It is about what is the ideal thing to do, that most people cannot come to terms with.
You blog about “http://www.bhagwad.com/blog/2013/rights-and-freedoms/is-it-always-rape-if-the-woman-is-drunk.html/” is worth the read because, irrespective of the good or bad in the incident, the responsibility of the crime is with the perpetrator. Otherwise, every thief has a sob-story to justify his crime.
I am not one of Anna-cult, but when Anna refused to negotiate on Lokpal, the criticism was that the collective wisdom of parliament should be respected, against the rationale of one person. And, now when Rahul Gandhi speaks, one person’s outburst is good for the country. Decide the principle and then stick to it. We should not be changing the principle to support our view/convenience.
I don’t mind what Rahul says, what bothers me is that our cabinet agrees that their (well/ill-thought) decision was not worth an hour of discussion against Rahul’s rantings. Jay Panda said the same thing as Rahul, much before with much more finesse and tact. Why didn’t our cabinet listen ? The ‘Why’ is important.. because it shows us where we are leading to..
In reply to Balamurali
i agree; what’s going on here ? Has India become an Autocratic ” Democracy ” ??
WHERE were Sonia and Rahul when the cabinet decided that the bill should be shuttled through as an Ordinance ignoring the SC order and bypassing discussion in Parliament ?It was even sent to the President for approval. WHY the ” silence ” then..
Is there NO respect for our PM and Parliamentary Democracy ? I agree that ” Dharma ” is confined to the back seat in most present circumstances… excuses are made and explanations are offered to justify why dharma is circumvented….
In reply to tp
It’s not illegal to disrespect the PM. Respect must be earned, and not demanded as a matter of right. Besides, merely speaking your mind on a particular issue does not count as disrespect.
In reply to Balamurali
Oh of course – I’m not denying that it’s absolutely shameful that our cabinet take such rotten decisions in the first place. I think you’re absolutely right. My post is not about that though. I think every right thinking person will agree with your point.
I’m just saying that it’s a good thing that RG spoke out. If I had to choose – should he have spoken or not spoken, I would choose the former.
The ordinance may not be the issue any longer. But Rahul Gandhi’s “dramatic” intervention has exposed the fact that the cabinet’s collective decisions can be rudely rewritten by the party leadership at any point.
And did you know that this legislation does not disqualify state MLA’s!
In reply to Purba
I didn’t know that. So MLAs are still protected?
In reply to Purba
Happy that the ordinance has been scuttled; but the manner in which it was done is dangerous; is India actually being run by Dictators ? its another matter if they are benign and benevolent.. but maybe it’s a good check on the cunning, malignant representatives of our ” democracy “..
Well said Bhagwad!! I agree.
The fact that this was pushed as an ordinance rather than a bill speaks in volumes about congress’s sinister motives. I believe that there was no way the president was going to sign off on the ridiculous proposal, specially given the immense media and public pressure. Congress realised that Pranab was not going to budge and hence, the stunt that Rahul Gandhi pulled was a last minute face-saving tactic.
In reply to aturma
Since when does the president have the power to permanently stop anything? This particular president is even worse being a long time congress man. Indian presidents are rubber stamps. Don’t expect any heroics from them. Pranab would have signed the ordinance sooner or later, make no mistake.
In reply to bhagwad
But an ordinance has a self life of only 6 months. It doesn’t perpetually go on like a bill. And congress wanted to pass it to protect its cronies like Laloo. Anyhow, its really hard to explain the sudden change of heart that Rahul Gandhi had. But I guess we should thank him nevertheless.
Pfft. Rahul Gandhi is himself a Member of Parliament. Why did he keep his mouth shut when
-The amendment protecting convicted netas was originally introduced in Lok Sabha before his very eyes
-The ordinance was brought up and scrutinised by the national media
-Protests racked the whole nation against the ordinance
-Opposition leaders from BJP and Left parties personally met the President to convince him to refuse to sign it
-The President summoned the Law Minister, giving signals that he was going to resist the ordinance
Only after all this happened and it was clear that Pranab was going to refuse to sign it did Rahul come forward with his last-minute drama. Just by looking at how Ajay Maken’s face lights up in the press conference you can tell he was expecting it and pleased when the princeling played his part.
The reason for all this is obvious. The main criticism against Rahul is that he has no experience in politics or governance and has not done anything noteworthy in his 10-year career. Congress is trying to amend that while portraying him as an anti-corruption rebel that will clean up the corrupt system and justify voting for UPA again.
However the fact that he’s been utterly silent on all the other nonsense that goes on(over 100 scams in the last 10 years, new scams every week, the Coalgate drama, his brother-in-law’s shady land deals, the constant victimization of Ashok Khemka) under his government is enough to show us his sincerity(or lack thereof).
With him as PM nothing will change beyond having a nincompoop in the top seat with a bunch of septegenarian servants(Digvijay, Shinde, Jairam, Antony, MMS himself) actually running the government the same way they’ve been doing for the last 9 years.
In reply to GG
“Only after all this happened and it was clear that Pranab was going to refuse to sign it”
I keep hearing this but it’s nothing but wishful thinking. The president has no power – by design. And specially this president who was a long time congress stooge. India is not going to be saved by rubber stamp presidents. Salvation is never going to come from that direction. We might as well forget about it.
In reply to bhagwad
“The president has no power – by design.”
He has the power to reject a bill once. Abdul Kalam rejected the Office of Profit bill though he had to sign it when it was sent back. That’s why UPA opposed a renewal of his Presidency and placed a Gandhi family servant like Pratibha instead.
Rahul Gandhi is no messiah, and in fact he’s only in politics because his mother thrust him there. Nothing will change with him as PM. It’ll be the same party, same ministers, same government, same corruption, same weak foreign policy, same everything. His near-complete silence(occasionally interspersed with idiotic statements) on virtually every major national issue from corruption to poverty to unemployment to businesses to infrastructure to foreign policy tells all.
I can understand if you’re anti-Modi but don’t for a moment pretend Rahul is even a good option. Even UPA allies have no confidence in him. As per wikileaks diplomatic cables even Congress party workers know him as a lackluster leader though official policy dictates they praise the Prince at every turn.
In reply to GG
I wasn’t thinking of Rahul Gandhi as anything like a Messiah. I’m not looking at him as a future PM or whatever. All I’m saying is that in this particular instance, he saved us. Nothing more. It doesn’t imply that we should look to him for future interventions or whatever.
Before Pranab became the PM, everyone used to regularly label him a congress stooge – and for good reason. He was. Now I find it odd that people are suddenly praising him. What do they think, that he suddenly had an attack of conscience??
In reply to GG
agree
Kamraj Plan is now Scam-raj Plan !
Some 50 years ago , Congress President , Kamraj Nadar realized that the ideals on which Congress was founded , were decaying. Congress had started rotting from within because of power-hungry politicians
So he came up with “ Kamraj Plan “, under which , senior congress leaders were required to resign from their ministerial posts and devote themselves to re-vitalizing the party
Six Union Ministers and six State Chief Ministers resigned
50 years later , the current version of Kamraj Plan is “ Scam-raj Plan “ !
Under this new “ Scam-raj Plan “ ,
Ministers need not resign as long as they are involved in no more than one scam at a time
Ministers may ignore any adverse comments made against them , either by CAG or by Supreme Court
Ministers shall conveniently misplace / lose , scam related files
Ministers may continue to chair GoM appointed to investigate irregularities of their own ministries
Ministers shall have triple reporting relationships , viz :
• Congress President
• Congress Vice President
• Prime Minister
( strictly in that order ! )
Ministers shall not hesitate to appoint their near-and-dear relatives to sundry Government posts , as Chair-persons
Ministers shall ensure that all Government contracts / orders above Rs 100 crores , are mandatorily given out to each other’s relatives , in a quid-pro-quo basis , without fear or favour !
All cases to be decided on the basis of “ merit “ alone – that is whether the relative is a son / daughter / wife or a cousin , with family members getting bigger orders
Then there are many other minor “ Dos and Don’ts “ which readers may wish to add , by way of comments / replies
Who authored this “ Scam-raj “ plan ?
That is a “ Scam Raaz “ ! Relevant file is missing !
• hemen parekh ( 30 Oct 2013 )