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Not trusted by leadership, Rawat resurrects Congress

By Sidharth Mishra

Politics is all about ironies. The 69-year-old Congress Seva Dal volunteer who has emerged as the symbol of resurrection for the Congress party was trusted the least by its leadership till the crisis broke out in the Himalayan state.
Having been ousted from office on March 26 under a Presidential decree, Harish Rawat is now all set to return to the Secretariat on Subhash Road as the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday recommended to the President to lift Central rule in the state after the apex court certified that the Congress enjoyed majority on the floor of state assembly. There is unanimity among political pundits that there is just one winner from the whole crisis and that’s Harish Rawat. Not known to enjoy close proximity to either Congress president Sonia Gandhi or vice-president Rahul Gandhi, Rawat drew his own roadmap, piloted his resources and remained steadfast despite immense pressure brought by the Centre including the threat of a CBI probe.
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Dangerous to fly Agusta too far

By Sidharth Mishra

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar during a debate on the alleged corruption in the AgustaWestland helicopter deal last week said that he would not let this matter go the Bofors way.
Replying to the discussion, Parrikar vowed to do what “we could not do in Bofors.” Making it abundantly clear that the government investigations in the matter was not going to end at the door of former Chief of Air Staff SP Tyagi or for that matter lawyer Gautam Khetan, Parrikar said they were “small people” who “simply washed their hands in a flowing Ganga (of corruption).”
Earlier in the week, the debate on the same matter in Rajya Sabha gave enough indication that a long-drawn political battle between the ruling BJP and the main Opposition, the Congress, has just begun on the issue. In the upper house, while the Government fielded Subramanian Swamy, the best-known baiter of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, to bring up the core of its assault, the Opposition Congress too refused to cede turf.
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Of the women, for the women

By Sidharth Mishra

Travelling to Bihar last week, the first after Nitish Kumar introduced total prohibition in the state, there was liquor talk buzzing all around. This was, in fact, the first time I heard people discuss liquor so openly in the state. Unlike Punjab, Bachchus has never part of Bihari pantheon, especially among the Bhadralok.
Liquor in Bihar in the pre-Janata Dal days was limited to consumption in a few clubs (to which membership was very restrictive), a few restaurants with bar license (that families avoided visiting), and the homes of a few “independent” families. With large joint families still the norm back then, open consumption of liquor within the house too was a rarity.
I was brought up in a nuclear family and my father was a doctor, a community identified for prescribing dawa (medicines) and consuming daru (liquor). My father’s generation of doctors, in large numbers, went to the United Kingdom for specialised training and came back with sufficient exposure of the British life and ways - the taste of quality whisky 
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Of positive news and honey bee reporters

By Sidharth Mishra

The prime minister has done it again. In less than two years he has issued another advisory to the media. Last Sunday during his monthly radio talk “Maan Ki Baat” on All India Radio, he said print and television media should carry positive stories to spread an atmosphere of positivity that inspires the nation to do well. During the talk, he even “appreciated” the fact that some newspapers and channels have started carrying positive stories in certain time slots. Prime Minister also cited the example of former President A P J Abdul Kalam who used to say that newspapers should carry only positive stories in their front pages. He said focusing on the good will help erase the bad.
Now Mr. Prime Minister, in this era and time, how is it possible to cover only positive stories on the front pages? If the media industry went by the advice of the late President it would be in jeopardy. However, we’ll come to that later. First, the earlier advisory which the Prime Minister had issued 16 months back at the platinum jubilee function of a prominent publication from the North-East, ‘The Assam Tribune’. Prime Minister had then said that journalists should be like a honey bee and not a housefly.
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What’s in a name? Stupid politics!

By Sidharth Mishra
 
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Romeo and Juliet (Act II, Scene 2)
 

The famous lines by the Bard of Avon have echoed through the columns of our newspapers every time the name of a city, a city square, or a road changed. Many years ago, I recall, BJP spokesperson and Member of Parliament MJ Akbar doing a programme on Doordarshan on Shiv Sena’s attempt to change Bombay’s name to Mumbai.
Akbar, then a most respected editor, did a fantastic job taking on then Mayor of Bombay – Chaggan Bhujbal. The disgraced former minister in the Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra was then a Shiv Sainik. The narrative throughout had resonating in the background the famous number from film CID, “Ai Dil Hain Muskhkil Jeena Yahan, Yeh Bombay, Yeh Hain Bombay, Yeh Hain Bombay Meri Jaan.” Composed by the master of rhythm and melody OP Nayyar, the song was sung by Mohammed Rafi and Geeta Dutt. For years together it remained the signature tune for the city on India’s west coast, which has for decades attracted in hordes people with a dream.
“Bombay” inspired many songs, film titles, and even a film company. “Mumbai”, I don’t recall having inspired any popular number so far. Nearly a quarter of a century-old, Mumbai is yet to catch people’s imagination.
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Dalit empowerment: Look beyond quota

By Sidharth Mishra

As we celebrate 125th anniversary of Babsaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar, we are reminded afresh that some political leaders have found no better means to perpetuate his memory than extending the scope of the job quota in the private sector. The latest to join the bandwagon is Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who last week emphasised on increasing the reservation quota in jobs beyond 50 percent in view of the increasing population of Schedule Castes, and also advocated extending the provision in the private sector.
Pushing his point further Kumar, who was giving a vote of thanks upon receiving K Veeramani award last week, said, “In today’s time of economic liberalisation if reservation is not provided in the private sector then it would be playing a joke with the concept of social justice.” Kumar is the second leader from the state to ram for reservation in private sector. Before him, Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan had been pushing along similar lines.
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Democracy, dissent, and media

By Sidharth Mishra

About a fortnight back in the pages of Millennium Post I read an article titled “Manufacturing dissent in liberal democracy” penned by National Institute of Design professor Mihir Bholey. In the very incisive piece, Bholey took on Noam Chomsky and others for criticising the government for its role in the JNU affair. Bholey argued that “manufacturing dissent could be far more disastrous for societies and nations than manufacturing consent.”
According to Bholey, in overplaying Chomsky’s comments “the same media which Chomsky bitterly criticises for manufacturing consent through propaganda, might as well in liberal democracies be manufacturing dissent.”
The readers of the Notebook might enquire what took their reporter so long to react to Bholey’s article. In the intervening period one rubbed shoulders with academia attending five seminars from disciplines as diverse as International Relations, Psychology, Business and Commerce, Sociology, and Political Science in Delhi University. In all these interactions, the role of the media and events of JNU kept coming back to dominate the dialogue.
The most startling question was put at the seminar on Constitutional Rights versus Human Rights, where it was asked why the media went to town with the Nirbhaya case but ignored the rape of Dalit women on a regular basis in the countryside.
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Death of a Salesman aka Dentist

By Sidharth Mishra

About two decades ago, as reporters covering the crime beat, we had gone to the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police of North-East district, which was then located on old GT Road inside Seelampur police station complex. The Metro station, which is now located across the road, did not then exist.
North-East district in those days was considered the city’s underbelly. Sharing his challenges of policing the volatile district under him, the DCP had said that there were certain pockets were beat policing was not possible. According to him, those areas were so deeply entrenched with the anti-social elements that a cop feared to venture out there.
The officer had said that the police had devised a strategy of group patrolling in those areas - a gypsy with a section of cops and few other policemen on half-a-dozen odd motorbikes took rounds of the area to “instil a fear of the law.” North-East district in those days remained least visited till the Delhi Metro brought first signs of development in this back alley.
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