Lengthening shadows of AAP

Arvind Kejriwal. Freedom from opposition!

Raju Korti
When charity becomes the opium of the privileged, you get a breed of leaders like Arvind Kejriwal. The Convener of the Aam Aadmi Party is presently presiding over one of the most disastrously conducted political experiments that has reduced the party to a theatre of the absurd, and an outfit with fulminations and machinations much in the mould of the Janata Party in 1977.
Although it was seen coming, the swiftness with which the party's National Executive has chosen to kick out and turn Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, two founding members into persona non grata, shows that Kejriwal and a bunch his incongruous party men have learnt little or nothing after they frittered away their first chance at power with a minority government that lasted barely 49 days. Yet, their ill-fated electoral debut bolstered by the presence of activists like Anna Hazare and Kiran Bedi, came in for as much public sympathy as criticism. The impression then was it was a nascent party with lots of promise and trying to come to grips with itself. As it turned out, the party and its leaders did not and could not develop the temperament of a ruling dispensation. You couldn't fault the baffled electorate of Delhi if they were unable to decide whether they had chosen a ruling party or an opposition party.
The whiff of change that came from the party that promised corruption-free and open governance finally succumbed to the hokey pokey seen across all the parties. It was an irony of sorts that while stridently espousing the cause of Lokpal Bill, the Kejriwal lobby had the audacity to ask its own internal Lokpal to skip the National Executive on the specious but untenable excuse of "avoiding confrontation". So the party that held out great expectancy and transparency witnessed a series of unsavory developments with allegations flying thick and fast. And all this when Yadav and Bhushan were at pains all along to explain the people that dissensions were a given in any democratic set up. The ferment in the party spilled over to even the ruling BJP at the Centre with Kiran Bedi -- among the most prominent face -- switching loyalties with the BJP. As was only expected, Bedi sank with BJP in Delhi. Surprising for a party that boasts of an array of "intellectuals" in its fold! Shazia Ilmi, another known face kept grudging that she never got her due despite her credentials as founder member, a woman and Muslim. She quit because she was denied a contest from Delhi and packed off to Rae Bareilly to fight a lost battle against Sonia. Her walk-out was followed by Captain C D Gopinath and Medha Patkar embarrassed to see the party crumbling even before its construct. The AAP was besieged by the coterie culture rife in other parties. I am reproducing these vignettes only to show that this couldn't have been a party that swore by the common man.
For reasons of expediency Yadav and Bhushan stuck around. To Yadav's credit, he was perceived as a think tank with the kind of socialist leanings the party should have desperately leant on. But good people rarely take off in politics and Yadav's humiliating defeat in Haryana only made matters worse for a party that never seemed capable of extricating itself from endless bickering.
Come to think of it, the AAP concept wasn't bad at all as initially it touched a chord with the masses in a very short span. Its leaders, however, had no clue how to handle success. The grassroots were weak and organizational management was next to nil. The volunteers on whom the leaders piggy rode were never consulted and transparency became a casualty as Kejriwal started emerging as a superego. The subtle move to wrest all powers from the Parliamentary Affairs Committee and vest it in National Executive was an obvious maneuver to insulate Kejriwal from any opposition in the party. The expulsions and the sordid drama in the Executive proved that beyond any shadow of doubt. The AAP's world -- justifiably or unjustifiably -- didn't have any plans for other states. It came across as a national party with regional outlook that derived its moments of glory in believing that Delhi conquered was India conquered. Kejriwal's so called attempts to arrest the party's slide were pathetic to say the least. Worst, they were construed as events that suited him and meant to eliminate dissidence.
Taking a very conciliatory view of Kejriwal and his party, I had written in September 2014:
It is tough to be Arvind Kejriwal these days. The man who stirred the conscience of the nation not long ago is now witnessing to his chagrin that the ground from under his feet has slipped so quickly and how. Looking at the shambles in which the Aam Aadmi Party finds itself in -- a situation of its own making --  it appears that the outfit needs to pull out a rabbit from its hat to undo the damage done in the wake of a series of rapidly unfolding events after AK quit as the chief minister of Delhi in a huff.
For major part, AK cannot shirk his responsibility as a leader. It is now obvious that he presided over a team of self-serving people who had no clue in hell what the party actually wanted to do or where it was headed. In the process, he frittered away the advantage with a chain of self-goals. In the kind of politics practiced in this country, a cavalier approach to leadership and governance is not particularly advisable. In the run up to the phenomenon he so painstakingly tried to create, it didn't occur to AK's wisdom that being a good bureaucrat is one thing and being a political leader is quite another. A good politician knows when to beat a tactical retreat, but AK kept compounding his errors with more errors. Take for instance his obdurate stand in seeking bail in the defamation case against Nitin Gadkari and then doing a somersault to bow to the dictates of the circumstances. A cursory look at the way AAP and its exuberant leadership has meandered in the recent months, is an eloquent commentary on the political inexperience which was sought to be made up with a peremptory outlook in dealing with party matters.
Internal bickering is a malady with all parties without exception. Like the proverbial goldfish, AK had no place to hide given that his every move was scanned and scrutinized. Although this may sound like a hindsight, AK messed up his chance with power. Thereafter, the party slid into a downhill so much so that it has a huge job on its hands to extricate itself from the morass. The sordid story was complete when rats started deserting the sinking ship, Shazia Ilmi and other disgruntled souls showing amply that they had stuck around only to extract their pound of flesh. AK himself seemed ill-equipped to stem the rot. The fall was as swift as the rise was meteoric.
To begin with, AK must learn to handle people and situations with restraint. Dharnas and campaigns cannot be the resorts of those in the saddle. You cannot fault people if their perception of AAP is that of a party that doesn't know whether it is in power or out of it. The electoral result is not just about one man capturing the imagination of the nation. If success is the Heads, failure is the Tails of the same coin. The AAP story begs the question: What went so terribly wrong for a party that seemed to be riding a crest a few months ago and is now threatened with the prospect of sinking without a trace? Lack of political acumen, inadequate man-management skills, one flip flop after another or sheer over-enthusiasm and over-confidence?
I am afraid, I read it correctly and to be honest, I am not too enthused about it.


  

Absolute freedom without absolute responsibility?

Raju Korti
Before this blog suggests anything to the contrary, let me attest that I am as vociferous a protagonist of freedom of speech and expression as anyone else who masquerades as a "liberal" on the social networking sites. But unlike the euphoria generated by the Supreme Court verdict on scrapping Section 66A of the IT Act, I am taking it with cautious optimism.
The apex court yesterday held that Section 66A of the Information Technology Act is unconstitutional in its entirety, striking down a “draconian” provision that had led to the arrests of many people for posting content deemed to be “allegedly objectionable” on the Internet.
“It is clear that Section 66A arbitrarily, excessively and disproportionately invades the right of free speech and upsets the balance between such right and the reasonable restrictions that may be imposed on such right,” said the SC Bench. The definition of offences under the provision was “open-ended and undefined”, it said. I need not cite the examples that have hit headlines in the recent past where the section was invoked, leading to a furore which to me is superficial.
As arbitrary as the provision sounded, Section 66A also provided a remedy against several cyber crimes like stalking, bullying, threatening through SMS and email, phishing and spamming, among others. You do not have to visit the cyber crime cell of the police to know that these crimes are on the rise in a technology-dominated age. The solution is not to scrap the provision but to amend it suitably without taking away the fundamental right of Freedom of Speech. The apex court ruling has not dwelt on this aspect at all. The present IT Act, I believe, does not have enough teeth for many cyber crimes that have been left out.
For the champions of freedom of speech and expression, the apex court ruling is an absolute victory but I am afraid that the very fundamental ethos of any freedom is not getting the same mention in the same breath. With unbridled freedom comes unbridled responsibility. My personal take is Freedom is an anti-thesis of itself. To think of Freedom in isolation is tantamount to chaos if you understand the word "chaos" not quite in the same manner as political scientists do.
Quite simply, the word Freedom has been followed more in breach than practice primarily for the reason that one's concept of freedom more often than not is in complete contradiction to someone else's Freedom. Is Freedom what it is when you uphold someone else's Freedom or trample it? Whose Freedom is it then?
The issue according to me is not Freedom itself per se but the maturity and responsibility with which it needs to be handled. The way political, social and cultural winds have blown -- and continue to do so -- across the world shows that mankind does not have the post-pubescence to deal with what is pompously referred to as Freedom. All that it has served to do is to show that it is a cracker with a dangerously short wick whose burst only leaves some excitement and casualties behind.
Quite expectedly, the focus now has shifted to the "reasonable restrictions" the Indian Constitution places on Article 19 (1) which lists Fundamental Rights among which Defamation is one. It is apparent to me that there are any number of people on social networking sites harbouring the misconception that you can write no holds barred with a unilateral right to castigate. These also include so called liberals who cannot take one word of criticism -- let alone criminal defamation -- in their liberal stride.
I remember my journalist friend Mayank Chhaya making a very pertinent point on Facebook when some of the Censor Board members expressed their displeasure about not being able to exercise the kind of autonomy they expected. Wrote Mayank: Censoring others is what you do for a living. What about their autonomy?" People demand Freedom of Speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought that they seldom use. Abuse simply cannot become a euphemism in the guise of Freedom of Speech. It then becomes freedom of extortion and blackmail.
Nothing is absolute. Not even time. Semantics are at best, a waste of time or an idle pastime. For everything else, there is a raging debate. Freedom of Speech is a double-edged weapon. So if it is taken away and the dumb and silent are led, like sheep to the slaughter, its grant also leads to a situation no less. It is a great concept if you revel in utopia. So here in my limited judgment I will compress the concept: I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself. 

A salutation to my Tai

A heroine if there ever was!

Raju Korti
It is easy to run the temptation of using a series of cosmetic platitudes when you describe someone who you look up to and idolize. And when that someone happens to be your near and dear, the exercise is peppered by a high emotional quotient.
Take a look at the angelic, infectious smile on that face in the picture. The owner of that beaming serenity was my  sister fourteen years older than me -- old enough to cuddle me in her lap and sing lullabies to me when I was a toddler. It was well before she bore three children -- now past their thirties -- that I had seen in her a gifted mother who managed her family in a society that is often reprehended for its patriarchal leanings. Personally, it was a two-fold loss to me. When she passed away a day before, I felt orphaned because she was a mother, father and sister all rolled into one -- each office handled like she was born for it.
I have been in the business of writing long enough to realize that great biographies and tributes are not necessarily of the great people. Often, they are about unsung people whose proficiencies are taken for granted. It is as if their craft is a disqualification. But all through her epic saga of struggle and pain I could still see what potential she packed in her fragile 5 feet two frame. She was probably ordained among the few that the Gods -- if they exist -- would fight shy of replicating.
Gentle to a fault, she was an astonishing package of every virtue you could think of. A living example of human existence in its pristine form, she came across as too surreal but that's how she spent all her life. Exceptional woman with exceptional qualities, she was kicked up about life. There was no corruption in her world. Braving all odds with a genuine smile, she inspired everyone around her. All through her 73 years, no one ever saw her complain, crib, grumble and gossip. It was probably an in-built mechanism she had developed to insulate herself from the pain that first destiny -- and then a plethora of ailments -- inflicted upon her all through. Not even death could rob her of that serenity she had patented as her own. In the large circles she was known, stories about her dignity, grace and benevolence had already become part of folklore.
Even in the evening of her life, she wasn't the one to recline and watch TV soaps. Despite an affected vision, she would rather spend her time solving crossword puzzles with books and newspapers held almost close to her retina. Her cooking was as flawless as it could get with minimal ingredients, never even once faltering in her proportions. She rarely needed any resources when she was resourcefulness personified. In her simplified comprehension about life, the biggest bonding came from mere talking to people.
I remember how charged up she was to come on Facebook and Whatsapp. True to her nature, she only wrote good thoughts. "There is enough cynicism and negativity as it is. The world isn't so crooked," she said to me once, knowing very well that it wasn't true. But she was too good-humored to look at the darker side of life. Excited that she had been gifted with a smartphone barely a few months back, she was keen to be on Whatsapp and it was perfectly in sync with her complaisant nature when the first message she dashed me off was not about herself but her concern for me. "Kasa aahes tu? Jevlas ka? Tabyetichi kaalji ghe" (How is you? Had food? Take care of your health). The word "self" didn't exist in her lexicon. Till her last breath, she remained a giving person always concerned about others. Having always taken her seemliness for granted, we siblings learnt she was a much more nobler soul from friends, relatives, neighbours and even rank outsiders. She had this unique quality that endeared her to all and we ordinary souls in the family were often awe-struck when people lavished praise upon her each time her name came up. Apparently there was nothing in her that merited any attention but anyone who came in contact with her was just smitten by her persona and dignified, smiling visage.
The last four years were hell for her with almost every second day spent on this medical test and that or being admitted in one hospital or the other, but there was not a murmur of grievance. She would go to the doctors all alone, dissuading others and asking them to carry on with their work. Bombarded by steroids and potent medicines her body was wrecked beyond repairs but the smile on her face never revealed the pain she harboured. To us unsuspecting siblings, reality sunk only when we saw her battered and bruised body on the ICU bed in grip of saline drips, oxygen masks and a maze of tubes. Even in her bouts of unconsciousness, she would mumble and tell us all to stick together and live like good human beings. Souls as noble as her descend on Earth by a freak of nature. And consciously, although unsuccessfully, as I try to ward off my gushing tears, I sense her oozing affection telling me "Why do you weep? I am very close to you here." That makes the pain of losing her excruciatingly unbearable. How does one live when the meaning goes out of life? If you have a sister and she dies, do you stop saying you have one? Or are you always a sister when the other half of the equation is gone?
As journalist my writing has usually courted the morbidity that obtains in the society today. So it took some effort to write about someone who probably deserved all this eulogy although it would appear to some as a brother's tribute to his sister.
Here is an ode to her resilience and nobility though I have never ever dabbled in poetry.

Helpless as I was, what could I have done
To help you through your darkest hours?
I wish I could take away all your troubles
And gotten rid of your demons.
But I was blind, I could not see,
And now you are gone forever.
A crippling wave of grief,
Relentless, merciless and endless has hit us hard,
And in its might, I am hurt, devastated and shattered.
We shared so much, but I misjudged,
And did not see your struggle and sufferings.
If I could change, what fate held out,
I would do it in a heartbeat.
You will have my throbbing heart as your permanent abode
No matter where I go or where I will be
Till death unites us again.
Constantly thinking, never to be the same,
Tears gush forth, just hearing your name.
Silence is not golden anymore,
But an unending spool of memory.
The nights are sleepless, dreams out of bounds,
Crying in my pillow inconsolably, to you I beseech.
Surrounded by kith and kin, I feel forlorn and desolate,
My heart is so empty, this pain I must own.
I wish I could fall back in your lap, hug you,
And just see your face,
But now I have memories to stand in your place.
Gone but not forgotten, that's what they say,
If only you could have stayed.