UPA's comeuppance but will the new claimants to the throne rise to the challenge?

The drubbing that the Congress is facing is just comeuppance for its hubris, lack of connect with the people, and last but not least, its ineptness. The last few years of UPA rule have been, to put it mildly, disastrous for this country -- in every front. Worse still, the common people had to suffer the humiliation of Congress worthies pontificating about everything under the sun, as if no one else had the wisdom to see things in the "correct" perspective.

Even when onion prices went through the roof, the UPA was unmoved -- because the engineers of that artificial price rise were none other than their own allies, the Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra. Its chief and Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar is more focused on getting control of the lucrative cricket board in India. He  actually had the gall to tell journalists, who asked him about onion prices during a cricket-politics function, that it is not the time and place to ask such questions. The underlying contempt and message was clear: the common man can go to hell, who are you to ask?

Now that the common man is finally pulling the rug from under the feet of these racketeers and daylight robbers, the next logical step would be throwing them into jail.

Just like the tough rape laws, we need tough anti-corruption laws. Will the new claimants to the crown be able to rise up to the challenge?

Hazare is 'unelected tyrant'; so does the Congress want to go back to the elected tyranny of Indira Gandhi?

Congress has called Anna Hazare, who is leading a completely legitimate protest against corruption, an unelected tyrant! So what does the Congress want? An elected tyrant like Indira Gandhi?
People like Pranab Mukherjee have flourished under the tyrannical regime of Indira Gandhi and it is understandable they want back such regimes.
However, they forget that India of 2011 is not the India of the 1970s. The youth today have access to disruptive technologies that have the entire Middle East in upheaval, they want change, and they want accountability.
Political fossils like Pranab Mukherjee may not understand that but people like Rahul Gandhi may.
If the political class, which everyone knows is corrupt and is in cahoots with the corrupt in plundering India, does not want change, they have lost grip of reality.
The desire for change in India's middle class and youth just needs a spark and playing people like Baba Ramdev against these aspirations will only work for so long.
If India's political rulers, with the arrogance that they have been elected by the people -- a people we know care the least about the principles of democracy when the cast their votes -- think they can suppress the genuine aspirations of the Indian people, God save them!
Anna Hazare and his cause will win, whatever political detritus like Pranab Mukherjee or Digvijay Singh think.

Baba Ramdev breaks protest asana; focus now on Hazare

So the Ramdev drama has ended. Sri Sri Ravishankar and numerous others helped the yoga guru out of the convoluted political pose he got himself into!
Ramdev's jumping into the anti-corruption protest and the drama that followed almost took attention away from this important issue. And the way he conducted his protest showed up his amateurishness as a political leader.
Now that the yoga guru has ended his fast, he should try to stick to what he knows best --  teach yoga -- and let the fight against corruption be led by Anna Hazare.
Also the general public would be interested in all those allegations that flew around about Baba Ramdev's business empire and the content of his popular medications.
Meanwhile, whether the prime minister or certain others officials and ministers are involved in the ambit of the Lok Pal Bill may not be very important for the fight against corruption.
What is more important is that corruption that is eating into every day transactions like cancer be put an end to. That law-abiding citizens should be able to get their work done without worrying about greasing palms.
Every honest Indian is looking to Anna Hazare to see if he can pull this one off. The future of the country depends on this.

Anna Hazare saves India's fight against corruption from Baba Ramdev!

Anna Hazare has saved India! By disawoing Baba Ramdev's call to arms, he has in one stroke saved the struggle against corruption and the non-violent nature of the protest.
Baba Ramdev had some relevance in the fight against corruption as long as he kept within the limits of the law and his methods did not threaten the fabric of the country and society. However, after Ramdev talked about setting up a militia, Anna Hazare wisely  realized the perils of Ramdev's path stayed away from the yoga guru.
The country needs change and an end to corruption. And it is lucky to have someone like Anna Hazare who understands the importance of non-violence to achieve those aims.
Baba Ramdev has marginalized himself and Hazare has saved the anti-corruption struggle from being snuffed out by the guru's looniness.
From here on there is no looking back for the fight against corruption. Anna Hazare has made it into a juggernaut and in the process showed himself to be a statesman par excellence.

Baba Ramdev undermines himself but fight against corruption must go on

Baba Ramdev's call for arms clearly shows his intentions for power. Going by some of the demands he has articulated, his aspiration for power is not good for India. The government should, as Home Minister Chidambaram said, let the law deal with him if he creates a private militia.
Ramdev's protest and its breaking up by the government helped bring public focus on corruption; now by talking about building a force, Ramdev has done the biggest harm to his cause.
Of course it can be asked whether his true motive has always been power. Or whether the government action helped change a shift to his new cause. Whatever that be, the serious issue of fighting corruption is now going to get buried in all the cacophony around the militia Ramdev has said he wants to create.
From here on, however, it is a downhill ride for Ramdev. He will see that India's youth and the middle class, which have supported his fight against corruption, will not support him in an armed agitation.  India's young, Internet savvy and wanting change, are also not zealots who can be swayed by narrow sectarian agenda. Ramdev has effectively undermined himself by his utterances.
However, the people who supported him should also ensure the fight against corruption is not centered around a personality and should go on regardless of whether Baba Ramdev can lead it or not.

The government better act against corruption, or an Indian Spring is not far away!

It is ridiculous to see the levels to which the Congress-led UPA government is going to divert attention away from the core issues raised by Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare.
Not only has the government failed in its duty to govern, but it also showed some of the traits hidden in the Congress's DNA when it used the police to break up a totally democratic protest. A protest against the corruption which is eating into the common man's life and helping fatten the purses of the rich and powerful.
And then the government makes a ruckus about how Sushama Swaraj's jig during the protest in Rajghat will hurt Gandhiji's sentiments! They should be doing what they are supposed to do -- govern and bring accountability  not try to paint protesters' activities in black and white. The real world is a lot more grey!
This government has shown it cannot rule and worse, it is clearly trying to protect the corrupt -- or at least hoping the protests would blow over.
If young protesters aided by cell phones and the Internet can force change the world over, especially in parts of West Asia, India's rulers should well be warned that it can happen in this country too.
This country has a predominantly young population now -- a population which does not care about protecting fossilized social and power structures.
They want change and accountability; trying to protect elitist power structures with a veneer of democracy is not going to help.
India's politicians should see the writing on the wall or an Indian Spring is not too far away.

India's corruption is linked to our democratic sensibilities, or lack of them

Why is corruption thriving in India? Because we, as voters, have no qualms in voting to power the corrupt!
Every election we tend to bring back the same old culprits to power, blithely forgetting all their misdeeds, giving them a second, third, fourth,... chance.
In a democracy the responsibility to elect the right rulers rests with the people. And we as people have thought our responsibility is to elect people from our own castes, creeds, geography, language and such other considerations.
And we tend to think any regime is good as long as it helps us profit at others' expense. Think of it: isn't that corruption in a subtle form?
Isn't the corruption we see at the top levels of our government just a more grosser form of the same evil that lurks in our own minds?
Yes, we need to suffer.
A Baba Ramdev or an Anna Hazare cannot weed out corruption in India. That can be done only when we as a people decide to punish corruption.
But we have shown again and again that public memory is worse than a dog's. And the corrupt have taken heart at that and went about happily deceiving India, and profiting from it.
Or may be we are not ready for democracy! But Plato's Philosopher King is not just around the corner, at our beck and call. We need to make do with this system and for it to succeed we need to take long-term views and act on them.

Baba Ramdev's demands may sound anachronistic, but his cause is very relevant

Some of yoga guru Baba Ramdev's demands might have sounded out of sync with the modern world and bordering on the lunatic. But that does not take away from his cause: crackdown on corruption.
What the government is trying to do is divert attention away from the core issue that Ramdev has raised and drown it in a cacophony about BJP/Sangh Parivar support for the agitation.
Also, there is no doubt that whatever reason the Congress government advances in support of its actions, the crackdown on Baba Ramdev's peaceful protest was completely undemocratic.
So why is the government fearful of the agitation and trying to tarnish Ramdev's reputation? Because it is common knowledge that most of the Indian who have stashed away black money in foreign banks are connected to our political class.
If the details of those accounts are made public many heads will roll and the vast network of corruption will be exposed.
It is worthy to remember that it is these same people who direct state agencies at people to harass them over unpaid taxes and other supposed financial irregularities.
If the details of black money in foreign banks is obtained, it would show how laughable is the system we are in.
The simple fact is this: people like Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare are doing a service to the nation, something our elected political leaders have been trying to torpedo for decades.

Is India ripe for mass protests too?

The protests sweeping the Middle-East and Northern Africa make me wonder if it is time Indians too stepped into the streets to hold mass protests against the government.
We all know how corrupt and putrid our political system is, and going by the corruption scandals that erupt steadily and get squelched as steadily, I suspect India's political rulers are way more corrupt that some of those despots in the Middle East. Think of the government's reticence to find out and bring to book Indians who have slashed money in tax havens.
The question, maybe, is not whether we should hold protests -- but who will lead them and what next?
The drama playing out in the Middle East is far from ended, and big question marks hang over how the political vacuum there will be filled -- without the anarchy that we saw in Iraq soon after the Saddam regime was toppled and before the Americans finally wielded power.
Is India ready for that. And, given how manipulative our politicians are and how prone to divisive doctrines we as a people are, can we ever put up a unified protest?

Much vilified, Sonia Gandhi brings hope for India

How can corrupt politicians hang so long to power? That speaks volumes about the state of the value system in Indian politics. 

However, I am heartened by Sonia Gandhi's leadership now, despite my being no Congress supporter.

The lady has been vilified, as inept, corrupt, loyal to foreign masters ... Yet she has been able to blow in change, through her subtle, often behind-the-scenes ways into Indian politics. 

And many Congress leaders who have been under the cloud of corruption in the past have suddenly emerged as 'clean' ones.

We don't have to search far for the answer to that one.

Congressmen have always been lackeys of the supreme leader. Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi never much cared about reining in corruption, for different reasons. Congressmen quickly read the message and went on to make money merrily.

Sonia faced, in many ways, a mostly hostile senior leadership, and had to cut them to size. Also the support she got from the electorate, again for different reasons, worked to her advantage. And Congressmen have been quick to read the signals.

Suddenly corruption is not something brazenly boasted about in the party, though it thrives more healthy than ever.

Thankfully, Rahul Gandhi hasn't let a coterie build around himself; and that gives hope to India.

Yes, because the BJP, Left and the Third Front have effectively demolished themselves in the country's political landscape.

How to cut India's fiscal deficit? Stop paying taxes!

When the government got an unexpected pay check in the form of 3G and broadband auction payments it seemed like the fiscal deficit monster was finally on the way to be slayed.

But it seems our politicians never learn -- in any case why blame them; there is absolutely no pressure on them to perform or to stop the plundering of national resources.

Govt to gobble up 3G cash; wants Rs 50,000 cr more -- said rediff.com

So the more taxes we pay, the more we will be told every year that India is deep in fiscal deficit. While daylight robbery in various forms -- from the Commonwealth Games contracts to the iron ore mining in Bellary -- goes on unhindered.

Democracy was supposed to bring accountability to rulers. Here we see them exploiting differences in the ruled community to plunder away.

Is there no recourse for tax-paying citizens? Yes, just stop paying your taxes.

Demand that the government stop paying lazy and corrupt bureaucrats.

Well, it may sound like a steep ask, but it is not.

If the tax payers finally come together and demand accountability no government can hold out for long. It is time to do that instead of forking up cash every time a bunch of unscrupulous and effete politicians ask us to pay up.

Achtung! LDF Going The UDF Way In Kerala

The infighting in the Left Democratic Front is actually causing a lot of pain to people who voted them to power. Let us first face the fact that a lot of people who voted for the LDF aren't members of any of the parties. They voted for the LDF because they were tired by the corruption and lack of accountability and complete breakdown of the administrative machinery during the United Democratic Front't rule.
I remember the last days of the UDF government. I had just returned from Delhi, and what I saw was something unimaginable in a state like Kerala which prides itself on its awareness and liberal outlook. Just one example: the police were out in the streets flagging down and checking any vehicle and fining them, trying to extort money from motorists. And if you wanted to complain about it to someone higher up, the officer you approached would ask you to grease his palms! The general feeling was the ruling leaders had let the policemen out on the streets to make money even as they themselves were lining their pockets.
Okay, now the funny thing was while the police were so active on the roads the thieves were having a field day! There were gangs of robbers roaming the streets, even in Thiruvananthapuram, and going about their 'profession' with immunity!
Now, this was one instance of UDF misrule. And the people were tired of it. So the LDF came to power - not because of the charisma of VS Achutanandan or the cadre folloewing of the CPM!
Look at the state of affairs now! The faction war has hobbled the administration. Even as various kinds of fevers ravage the populace the state health minister is not to be seen. The treatment and cleaning drives are non-existent. All that the chief minister and his cronies are worried about is image building, while leaving the day-to-day functioning of the government in the hands of an inept bureaucracy! Even the party machinery which usually steps in to correct such mistakes is split along factional lines and engaged in a game of trying to run down each other.
Little wonder even die-hard Communists are now saying they made a mistake in voting this government to power.
They may be exaggerating: the LDF is still better than the corrupt and divisive UDF; but their feelings can only be ignored to the peril of the current government. That is the most insidious part of the current state of affairs. Public memory is short; the UDF can come back to power if the LDF continues on this track. Will we go back to those days of rampant corruption and extortion? I fear to think of it.