Government

Nothing could sum up better the transactional relationship between big capital and authoritarian rule than these words of William E. Scheuerman, Professor of Political Science at Indiana University in the ‘Boston Review’, under the catchy title Why Do Authoritarians Win?

In the last three years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has introduced and carried through, with lightning speed and his brute majority in parliament, a series of legislations that choke or restrict our freedom of expression, information, data and their transmission. We have reasons to believe that the apparatus of a surveillance state has been grafted, stealthily but surely,

The unseemly haste and rough manner in which Prime Minister Modi and his Communications Ministry rushed through the Telecommunications Bill in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha not only reveals their muscular, majoritarian psyche but also the regime’s apathy towards (or fear of) debate.

দেশের ধর্মনিরপেক্ষ মানুষেরা যখন হিন্দুত্বের উগ্র রূপ দেখে খুব বিব্রত হচ্ছিলেন তখন অনেকেই খেয়াল করেননি যে ‘হিন্দিত্ব’ হয়তো তার চেয়েও বেশি ভয়ঙ্কর। ‘হিন্দিত্ব’ সংখ্যাগুরুদের মধ্যেই হিন্দি ভাষাকে গায়ের জোরে চাপিয়ে দিচ্ছে। আমাদের যুক্তরাষ্ট্রীয় কাঠামোয় প্রধান হিন্দুত্বের চেয়েও অধিক ক্ষতিকর এই ‘হিন্দিত্ব’। এর প্রবক্তারা বলেন যে, হিন্দি রাষ্ট্রীয় ভাষা তাই দোষ নেই, কিন্তু তা সত্যি নয়। সংবিধান অনুযায়ী রাষ্ট্রভাষা কিছু নেই।

There is no doubt that the increasing politicisation of the bureaucracy has been corroding, for quite some time, the pillars on which fair and efficient administration rest. The pains taken by the founding fathers of our constitution to protect and insulate the civil service from political interference had ensured a large degree of neutrality, for several decades — except perhaps during the Emergency. What is more important is that it created a culture of looking down at any suspiciously close liaison between politicians and bureaucrats (for mutual personal gain) to be illicit and adulterous.

As the Modi government’s much-hyped ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ ( immortal celebration of our independence) gathers momentum, one is likely to fall prey to two impressions that are sought to be conveyed. The first is that the present regime is more firmly wedded to the principles of nationalism than others and the second is the utter devotion with which it remembers the nation’s struggle for independence.

Narendra Modi is in a hurry to tattoo his signature right across the chest of Delhi even after his costly gambit of redoing an already splendid Central Vista (Rajpath) flopped at the box-office. He had blocked the central artery of Delhi for almost three years, dug all around, pumped tonnes of pollutants into the city’s notoriously noxious air, sent traffic haywire, and blown up some 700 crore rupees. But when the new ‘Kartavya Path’ was inaugurated with orchestrated flourish, even the moles of the area yawned and went back to their burrows around the Boat Club.

The BBC’s telecast in January immediately triggered highly inflammable memories of communal riots in Gujarat in 2002, when Narendra Modi was the chief minister. These wounds were just too raw to be touched, even after Modi’s professionals had adroitly managed to cover them up, with the assistance of several legal eagles and the indulgence of judicial officials and those even higher up. Modi has been pronounced “not guilty” on certain specific narrow charges, for the present and to the extent possible, but many other questions continue to fly, all around, thick and fiery. This riot, in which over a thousand people – mainly Muslims – were slaughtered simply refuses to behave and lie still in its grave.

For a government that constantly measures the ‘productivity’ of parliament in terms of hours or minutes wasted in non legislative business, this Budget session that has just ended ‘sine die’ would normally have been really heart-breaking. Data just released shows that Lok Sabha’s productivity had fallen from 83.8% in the first part of the Budget session that ended in February to just 5.29% in the second part in March-April. Over 96 hours and 13 minutes were lost to disruptions in the Lok Sabha, while they claimed 103 hours and 30 minutes in the Rajya Sabha. Whatever Modi and his captive media may propagate, Houses of parliament are not some sort of industrial assembly lines of production where machines and numbers matter the most. What is not noticed is despite its apparent futility, this latter part of the Budget session has been extremely productive in bringing the Opposition together.

Seventy-three years may not be enough to pronounce a judgement on whether parliamentary democracy has worked in India or not. In a democracy, it is the lowest common denominator that prevails, and hence, it is futile to accept only Pericleses in the rough and tumble of the demos. But it is this same Indian parliament that has managed, without doubt, to bring together under one roof, into some sort of dialogue, the incredibly diverse peoples, ethnicities, and religious denominations. Issues are settled in Sansad through debate – sometimes, a bit too loudly. But let us not forget that some of today’s participants had once favoured the gun rather than talk. In just seven decades, governments and the parliament have, indeed, succeeded in cooling off numerous intractable sectarian and secessionist passions. The first election to the Lower House (Lok Sabha) will go down in history as one of those wonders that only Indians are capable of demonstrating – maybe once or twice in a century.

কেন্দ্রীয় অর্থমন্ত্রক সংসদে প্রশ্নের জবাবে এমন ঘুরিয়ে-ফিরিয়ে কিছু সংখ্যা পরিসংখ্যান প্রদান করছে যে তার থেকে পুরো চিত্রটা অনুধাবন করা সহজ নয়। তাই আমরা ঠিক করেছি দীর্ঘদিন ধরে অনাদায়ী ঋণের দায়ে ব্যাঙ্কগুলো ক্ষতির বিষয়ে কেন্দ্রীয় অর্থমন্ত্রী ও এই দফতরের প্রতিমন্ত্রী যেসব কথা সংসদে বলেছেন, সেগুলো একত্রিত করে পরিবেশন করব। আমরা আবিষ্কার করেছি ১২ লক্ষ কোটি টাকা ব্যাঙ্কগুলো থেকে সরানো হয়েছে এবং এই কম্মটি করেছেন মূলত বড় বড় কর্পোরেট সংস্থাগুলো। এই অপকর্মটি তাঁরা করেছেন নরেন্দ্র মোদির শাসনকালের প্রথম আট বছরেই।

The government’s concern at the circulation of patently false news items is quite understandable as there is a noticeable rise in the visibility of such items circulating on the social media. In fact, 2023 is the tenth year since this new weapon was added to the arsenal of India’s major political parties. These items stir up emotions, for or against the regime, and whip up rage at perceived attacks and insults on one’s religion. There are clear reasons to assume that several hordes of people or teams must be working overtime to disseminate them in order to raise the temperature in people’s minds with these distortions of the truth.

There are reasons to believe that some 12 lakh crore rupees have been systematically siphoned off from banks in the first 8 years of Narendra Modi’s rule — mainly by big corporate borrowers,. This was/is done quite ‘legitimately’ by taking loans for units and then getting them written off as unrecoverable non-performing assets (NPAs) The scale of that is 4 to 6 times higher than the internationally accepted norm. Obviously such a massive but smooth operation is simply not possible without complete political backing. Every GM, ED or CMD of a bank knows that when he is told by someone representing the core of political power “to lend to X”, he jolly well does it.

They are caught playing around with the time-tested established principles and procedures of good and fair governance.

In a democracy, public affairs are no one’s personal fiefdom, though those in power often get their way in, say, getting someone into a position. But even here, the rules of eligibility must permit or be stretched to cover the executive’s will, or be vague enough not to stand in the way.

The bulldozer style of saffron politics has provoked quite a few articles from different angles, but we may like to look at the juggernaut vehicle as the latest expression of toxic masculinity – something which was quite evident in its predecessors, the horse, the motorcycle and the speedster car.

So, let’s begin with the horse. From amidst the wealth of literature on the relationship between man and the horse, we zoom directly into Adrienne C. Frie’s report in the Oxford Journal of Archaeoolgy in October 2017, on an archaeological examination of burial ground culture at a site in Slovenia.

“Little girl, are you lost?” asked a concerned lady who was observing a five-year-old moving around aimlessly at the airport terminal, with a teddy bear tucked under her arm. “No,” said the child rather emphatically, as she looked straight into her eye and added, “it’s my parents who are lost”.

গত 15 সেপ্টেম্বরে নরেন্দ্র মোদীর সরকার হঠাৎ একটি ‘Bad Bank’ ঘোষণা করল আর মন্ত্রিসভা একইসঙ্গে এই অদ্ভুত ব্যাঙ্কের খাতে বিপুল 30,600 কোটি টাকার সরকারি গ্যারান্টি অনুমোদন করল। এই ব্যাঙ্কের আসল নাম National Asset Reconstruction Company Limited, সংক্ষেপে এনএআরসিএল। বাংলায় তর্জমা করলে যার অর্থ হয় জাতীয় সম্পদ পুনর্গঠন সংস্থা।

বিগত সংসদের অধিবেশন পূর্বঘোষিত সমাপ্তির আগেই মুলতুবি করে সরকার যেন হাঁপ ছেড়ে বাঁচল। এই চার সপ্তাহে বোঝা গেল, এই সরকার অসহিষ্ণুতা ছাড়া আর কোনও আচরণই বোঝে না। নরেন্দ্র মোদী যতই জনসমর্থন হারাচ্ছেন, ততই তাঁর অসহিষ্ণু স্বরূপ দেখাচ্ছেন। সদ্য প্রকাশিত একটি সমীক্ষার ফল অনুযায়ী, তাঁর জনপ্রিয়তা গত এক বছরে ৬৬ শতাংশ থেকে এক ধাপে পড়ে গিয়েছে ২৪ শতাংশে।

One feels immensely relieved that at no point in one’s four decades of government service was one ever important enough to work in any of the 25 critical organisations that deal with state security. This places one outside the scope of the central government order of May 31 that prohibits officers who retired from any of these listed organisations to publish without taking prior clearance from the government. It bans discussions on “the domain of the organisation”, a bureaucratic way of saying “don’t spill the beans”.

১৯৪৮ থেকে ১৯৬২ অবধি পশ্চিমবঙ্গের মুখ্যমন্ত্রী ডাঃ বিধানচন্দ্র রায় আজ থেকে ঠিক ৫৯ বছর আগে জুলাইয়ের এই প্রথম দিনে কলকাতায় তাঁর বাসভবনে প্রয়াত হন। তাঁর সুশৃঙ্খল স্বভাব, নির্ভুলতা, যুক্তিবাদ এবং বৈজ্ঞানিক দৃষ্টিভঙ্গির জন্য তিনি সাধারণের কাছে বহুল জনপ্রিয় এক নেতা ছিলেন। পৃথিবীতে প্রবেশ ও প্রস্থানের দিনটিকে এক রেখে, কীভাবে ঠিক আশি বছর বয়সে নিজের প্রস্থানমুহূর্তটি বেছে নিয়েছিলেন তিনি, তা তাঁর গুণমুগ্ধদের কাছে অনেকখানি অবাক করে দেওয়া এক বিরল ঘটনা নিশ্চয়ই৷