A House For Mr Kejriwal

By John Cheeran
Delhi chief minister is a homeless man today. Arvind Kejriwal, the
primal aam aadmi, has been forced to vacate his two five-bedroom
duplexes on Bhagwan Dass Road in Lutyens’s Delhi, even before he could
step in there with his parents, wife and kids.
What you are witnessing is another slice of direct democracy,
practised by Aam Aadmi Party. On Saturday, Kejriwal told television
channel reporters that after listening to aam aadmis within his party
and a late night call from his conscience he has decided to let the
bungalows go. So another round of house hunting is on.
It is notable that compared to the house occupied by former Delhi
chief minister Sheila Dikshit on Motlial Nehru Marg, Kejriwal’s chosen
bungalows were poor cousins.
There has been an outcry, most notably by BJP leaders, at the spacious
bungalows allocated to the Delhi chief minister. How can an ‘aam
aadmi’ chief minister live in opulence, asked the media and critics.
Now that’s a question Kejriwal himself invited after peddling needless
symbolism. Kejriwal is a prisoner of his own cheap populism. After
free water and cheaper electricity, does Delhi CM have a right to live
in a 9,000 square feet quarters?
Why should anyone object to a chief minister living in a five bedroom
house? Or should Kejriwal continue to live in his Kaushambi flat and
take Metro every day to the chief minister’s office?
Good governance can steer clear of gimmicks. That’s one important
lesson Kejriwal has to learn fast. It does not matter whether Kejriwal
lives in a downmarket DDA flat in Mayur Vihar Phase III or in a
bungalow on Bhagwan Dass Road. What matters is that how he can make a
difference to people’s lives by bringing down toxic levels of
corruption, flouting of rules, and ensuring an even spread of
development for aam aadmi as well as non-aam aadmis. Justice and
governance should get rid of trite labels.
In a wired world, it does not matter where you are. As long as you
have access to enough information, you can make correct decisions.
Yes, where you sit matters in Kejriwal’s case up to a point – the
whole India is talking about him precisely because he today sits in
the chief minister’s chair. That’s the power of symbol and that’s the
meaningful inch of real estate in Lutyens’s Delhi that people should
be worried about.
And it also matters that Kejriwal should sit in comfort. He should not
be imagining himself to be a political Bhishma, neither should his
critics and aam aadmis expect him to be one, and prepare a bed of
arrows to express solidarity with the homeless and shelter-less
denizens of Delhi.
It is time to throw out puerile symbolism and get ready to work.
Everyone has a right to live in comfort, if not in opulence. To live
and work in comfort is not a sin, not a crime.
It would be foolish to expect that aam aadmi will forgive your
administrative dithering and political pussyfooting just because you
occupy a cramped quarters. And let’s not worry about who wields the
broom in Kejriwal’s home.

What they are talking about in Kerala

By John Cheeran

Congress in Kerala is in all sorts of trouble. Group war is raging in the party and the CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) is seeking the ouster of chief minister Oommen Chandy. The saving grace is that CPM itself is divided over bringing down the United Democratic Front (UDF) government thanks to the internecine rivalry between party secretary Pinarayi Vijayan and opposition leader V S Achuthanandan, who is now seen as the last communist in Asia, including China.

Consider the charges against Chandy. It has been alleged that Chandy is party to a series of frauds committed by a private company, Team Solar, which swindled people of money to the tune of Rs 10 crore (the official figure quoted by Chandy is Rs 1 crore).  Serious among them is an accusation levelled by Sreedharan Nair, a provincial Congress leader and industrialist, who says he had received an assurance from Chandy that Team Solar is a venture that needs to be encouraged, which made him part with Rs 40 lakh to Saritha S Nair, a femme fatale associated with the solar firm.

Chandy says Sreedharan Nair had parted with his money a week before he met him last July. All Malayalis are now debating whether the femme fatale, Saritha S Nair, was with the Nair Who Had The Money, when he met the chief minister. Chandy, who streams visuals from the chief minister’s office live (Is he the world’s first politician to do so? Will have to check Limca Book of records) says visuals of his meeting with Nair are not available. And the incorruptible Chandy has now appointed a panel of Malayalam speaking Sherlock Holmes to retrieve the lost visuals, sift through them and spot whether there was a sexy Nair, apart from the Money Nair. 

Rivalry among Congress A and I groups has ensured that details were leaked to the media about extensive telephone conversations that Saritha had with chief minister’s office, his assistants and an entire spectrum of Congress leadership in the state, including home minister, members of Parliament and Kerala Pradesh Congress chief Ramesh Chennithala. And remember Kerala’s chief minister did not have a cell phone in his name till now and has been making use of his flunkeys’s phones to stay connected!  

There is no denying that both Saritha and her partner, Biju Radhakrishnan, had a criminal past, before they hit upon the ruling Congress establishment with a seemingly credible and fashionable scheme of solar energy at homes and industrial units.

Read the full story

How far is Saudi Arabia from Kerala?

By John Cheeran
How far is Saudi Arabia from Kerala?
Saudi Arabia is a state of mind, a state of mind intolerant of other points of view. It comes as no surprise to me that Kerala is not far from that theocratic state as evidenced by the chopping off act on Sunday in Thodupuzha. Taliban have infiltrated Kerala’s body politic for a long time and the vengeful act that reeks of the primitive and barbaric justice system that Saudi Arabia swears by was put into practice by a band of thugs who swear by Islam.
On Sunday a university professor’s right wrist was chopped off in Thodupuzha, Kerala, by people who carry, what’s generally regarded as Muslim names.
It was no ordinary crime.
It was religious backlash and the man under the axe, TJ Jospeh, a Malayalam professor, was suspended by Newman’s College, Thodupuzha, for including a question derogatory to the founder of Islam, in an examination paper. Now, Joseph, who went into hiding after those who were hurt by that question paper, raised a ruckus, had been arrested by the state police and later released on bail.
All that is fine. You can get offended for whatever slights you could imagine. In our democracy that has become a fundamental right for fundamentalists.
The point is that should we accept the rule of law or should we lie back and let Taliban take hold over us?
I have noticed that those who have a stake in this issue, LDF and UDF politicians, and especially, the leadership of assorted Muslim organizations in the state have condemned the barbaric act. They have made the routine noises about how violence is antithetical to Islam, etc.
It would be naïve to consider the chopping of the wrist as a stray event. May be no religion, on the face of it, allows for a vendetta as barbaric as that happened in Thodupuzha. But there has been a consent built over a period of time various religious communities that justifies any ugly and revolting deed if it is consecrated in the name of God.
It’s difficult to read Muslim mind in these troubled times and especially if you live in Kerala. Away from the public glare there has been a Muslim consciousness at play, fundamental in its thought, and fanned by petrodollars from the Middle East. And this Taliban are at work in various disguises, declaring at times solidarity with social causes only to further its own narrow and divisive agenda.
The intolerance against perceived slights to religious prophets and retaliations, purely inspired by a barbaric justice system, such as in Thodupuzha are dead give-aways that there is a tacit approval from the Muslim community for such heinous acts.
To confront this Taliban is the immediate responsibility of the Muslim leaders in Kerala. You cannot take the grievance that India has been unfair to Islam’s followers beyond a point.
Mind you, this is India. This is not Afghanistan. This is not Saudi Arabia. The political leadership on the left and right may well kiss the Middle East arse, but those who talk about pogrom in Gujarat should also remember that you cannot butcher men in the name of the most merciful.

Vande Mataram...let's write new songs for an India where nights without darkness prevail

By John Cheeran
Should an Indian sing Vande Mataram?
If you know the lyrics, please go ahead.
Like many, I know only the first two stanzas of India's national song.
Do I know Jana Gana Mana, the national anthem, better?
I doubt.
I appreciate the poetry of Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay's in those early lines of Vande Mataram. As for my religious beliefs clashing with poetry, I know better.
Much of the Indian poetry in vernacular languages is a paean to Hindu gods and goddesses. You fall in love with a language, its beauty and cadences. And as for its meaning, you read between the lines.
And what about the meaning? What about it?
Do you care for your own mother? Or father? Or blood brothers?
Let's not worry about who wants to sing our songs, songs of yesteryears.
Allama Iqbal who wrote in 1904 to say that Saare Jahan Se Acha
maz'hab nahīn sikhātā āpas men bayr rakhnā
hindvi hai ham, vatan hai hindostān hamārā
changed his stanza and stand six years later in 1910 to write
chīn-o-arab hamārā, hindostān hamārā
muslim hain ham, vatan hai sārā jahān hamārā.
May be, it is time for us to write new songs for an India where nights without darkness prevail.

Rahul Gandhi meets Madam Poverty

By John Cheeran
It indeed was a historic moment the other day at Amethi.
Much like Siddhartha, and quite strikingly that is, another Rahul was looking for meanings.
The Prince of India, and son of Amethi, left his New Delhi abode and went into the wilderness in search of what I’m being told, the meaning of poverty.
It is a pity that after 37 or so years of living as an Indian, Rahul Gandhi, had to visit a hut in Amethi to know all about poverty.
And this is after his grandma abolished the said phenomenon with the magic words of “Garibi Hatao” in 1970s.
Reports in the Indian media say that Rahul Gandhi asked a Dalit girl named Sunita the meaning of being poor during a fly-by-night revival of the political behemoth, the Congress Party.
Let me a quote from a newspaper report.
” Sunita’s reply that poverty to her meant spending the day working to ensure that there was diner at night moved the youth leader. He visited her kitchen and insisted that he would share their dinner. He sat on the floor of the kitchen and shared the meal the family had prepared for themselves.”
It is important to note that if all goes well, at a certain point in time, Rahul Gandhi is bound to shoulder the burden of ruling the nation. He is already representing Amethi constituency in the Parliament.
So whatever the Prince of India does, it matters.
But it should be better Rahul gets his enlightenment from the managers of his party rather than indulging in such gimmicks. Does Rahul admit that he became an MP without knowing anything about the living conditions of his voters in Amethi?
If Rahul was willing to see, he could have met Madam Poverty and her brood in New Delhi itself.
There is more to India than 10, Janpath, Mr Gandhi.