Introspecting Aloud

When should public figures recuse themselves or step down?

As usual the Congress spin masters are muddying pictures in the issue of the propriety of Bhushans continuing in the lokpal drafting committee. Sanjay Baru even tried to give an analogy of how Prashant Bhushan recused himself from a case in Gujarat when his bias was questioned. He asked why Prashant would not recuse himself in this case.

Their claim is that when aspersions have been cast on the integrity of these two people, they should step down. Now I am not one who has been entirely comfortable with both these folks being the in committee, but i think all this is a wrong argument.

A politician is rightly asked to step down, or a public figure is asked to recuse themselves when his ability to perform his duty is questioned. Personal integrity, while it should be, has never been a reason for politicians in India to resign. Otherwise, all the hundreds of chargesheeted and convicted representatives would not have been present in our parliament or legislative assemblies.

However, if a credible allegation is made against a political figure holding a public office, that he/she has abused their position or intentionally acted against the interest of the public or has a conflict of interest in that position, then it is a good reason for the person in question to step down.

Congress maintains that Shashi Tharoor resigned on mere allegation. He did it because he was supposed to have abused his minister post to ask for favor from Lalit Modi.

Congress maintains that Chavan resigned on allegation of the housing scam. Again, he had misused his position.

Prashant Bhushan has recused himself from the Gujarat case upon allegations of bias. Since that directly affects his role in the case, it was proper for him to recuse himself, and he did.

However, shady CDs about Shanti Bhushan's chat with shady politicians? Allegations of favoritism in land allotments in UP? How are these allegations in any way relevant to Bhushan's position in a drafting committee of a bill which doesn't cover non-politicians?

In any case, public memory being short, I am surprised that no one yet has brought up the credentials of the government presentatives in the panel to question. Kapil Sibal got a lot of notoriety by dismissing the entire 2G scam as a non-issue with the losses being merely notional. Today his predeccesor is in jail for this notional crime. So it is sure that the judicial system doesn't agree with him, and he is clearly trying to protect the corrupt.

Pranab Mukherjee a few years ago was embroiled in the rice scam where he pushed to export rice in spite of there being a ban on the same. The decision of the Group of ministers that he was heading was opposed at the time by none other than Chidambaram and Sharad Pawar himself. 

These are far more relevant and serious charges. There is a serious conflict of interest here, as these same people are drafting a bill which would have institutions hopefully take suo moto recognition of such offenses and investigate them. 

Dalit should have been in Lokpal committee: Paswan

The National Interest vs Human Interest debate surrounding Wikileaks

Shocking how the Indian media is not just absolutely silent about the Blackberry ban issue, but sometimes even citing it as one related to national prestige. None of our media even talks about the revelations some months back about illegal monitoring of opposition politicians by government agencies. And how little public information has been made available as to what steps were taken to strengthen safeguards as promised by our home minister. But then, with half-baked projects like the national UID project, which thankfully has recently got a more universal opposition, India has rarely been a country which respected individual privacy. But I am digressing a lot from what I originally wanted to write in this post. It seems that the bogey of nationalism and fear in US, spurred on by 9/11, has tamed the watergate-revealing fourth estate there. So much in fact, that to display their "nationalistic" side to the fearful public, rather than defending wikileaks' larger agenda, they have actually agreed with the government to not consider wikileaks as a journalistic entity. This essentially exposes Thankfully, quite a few voices are cropping up when one looks beyond the mainstream media. Quoting from one of those rare non-mainstream US media article which takes a larger look at the ongoing tussle between Wikileaks and American military.

That WikiLeaks and its founder manifest a planetary consciousness rather than a national one, that they put human security above U. S. national security, that they dare to advocate for “justice for the victims of the war in Afghanistan ” seems to make many in America apoplectic. Yet, considering the profound damage that nationalism has done to the human species as contrasted with the benefit to humanity of a more internationalist, human-centered perspective, WikiLeaks may have the better of the argument. Still, many Americans seem to be wondering, “How dare these WikiLeaks people not side with us in this war?” The truth is that WikiLeaks’ philosophy requires that it be committed to the interests of no nation in particular, and to human interests in general.

Genesis of Khap Panchayats

Pragoti has an interesting analysis of what makes Khap Panchayats still tick in the 21st century.

... Before we further delve upon this issue let’s see what is this whole concept of "honour". Honour or for the Hindi speaking people, izzat is the central reason for the functioning of these caste panchayats. In the popular perception of rural society and as well as in the Hindu scriptures, women are the repositories of this izzat of a community. The greatest danger to this ideology of izzat comes from the woman. In the warped logic of the caste system that dictates terms of life in villages, a female "dishonours" her family/clan/ caste and community by her "shameful conduct". Why is their conduct termed "shameful"? To understand this we should see what Manu, the Law Giver of the codified Hindu caste system writes for women in Manusmriti: (translated)

• II. 213. It is the nature of women to seduce man in this (world). For that reason the wise are never unguarded in (the company of) females.
• IX. 14. Women do not care for beauty, nor is their attention fixed on age; (thinking), (It is enough that) he is a man, they give themselves to the handsome and to the ugly.
• IX. 16. Knowing their disposition, which the Lord of creatures laid in them at the creation to be such, (every) man, should most strenuously exert himself to guard them.
• IX. 17. (When creating them) Manu allotted to women (a love of their) seat and (of) ornament, impure desires, wrath, dishonesty, malice and bad conduct

It is clearly and further stressed in Manusmriti that women should not be made free under any circumstances:

• IX. 2. Day and night women must be kept in dependence by the males (of) their (families), and if they attach themselves to sensual enjoyments, they must be kept under one’s control.
• IX. 3. Her father protects (her) in childhood, her husband protects (her) in youth, and her sons protect (her) in old age; a woman is never for independence.
• IX. 5. Women must particularly be guarded against evil inclinations, however trifling (they may appear); if they are not guarded, they will bring sorrow on two families.

These above verses coupled with other Codes (which must not be seen in their textual isolation) to be observed for caste purity describes the way caste panchayats operates in rural society. It is these archaic laws ingrained in the minds and actions of rural folks which drive them to uphold their caste linkages and force them to have a closer surveillance on the happening marital alliances. Thus, it is the woman who holds the key to the honour of a caste group and it is by not letting the woman to marry beyond the fold of her own caste (in various instances in the same gotra) that these caste panchayats maintain strict endogamy and thus the honour of their caste group and the "purity" of caste itself. ...

From all the news bites on the Khap panchayats demand to change the Hindu Marriage act and Naveen Jindal's quite shameless support for it, some folks would somehow have the impression that maybe the panchayat's demand for ban on marriages would have even a hint of legitimacy. Even Chauthala kept harping about there being medical justifications behind such demands. This Hindu news article exposes the lie behind such reasonings.

Most of the khap panchayat diktats are against couples who are not from the same gotra. In fact, not more than one case of honour killing has been of a couple within the same gotra. By creating the false impression that all marriages of choice between young couples are incestuous, what the khaps are actually opposing is the right to choose a marriage partner. Among the several instances of khaps issuing fatwas in Jaundhi, Asanda, Dharana, Singhwal, Hadaudi, Maham-kheri, Ludana and other villages, not a single one was an intra-gotra marriage, yet the married couples were declared siblings, and families made to suffer boycotts and excommunication from their villages.

Report on Cultural Policing in Dakshin Kannada

Just found out from this post about the report on Cultural Policing in Dakshin Kannada(PDF) just released by The People's Union for Civil Liberties, Karnataka (PUCL-K). An interesting excerpt mentioned in the blog post:

As one observer, who has been covering the events in Dakshina Kannada, put it, "Today saffron is the colour of power. You just walk around with a big red tilak and see how people treat you. Right from the shop keeper to the bus conductor to the policeman, everybody gives you respect. Without the tilak you are nothing, with the tilak you become a power structure." Munir Kattipalya of the DYFI echoes this sentiment when he says, "This district is not only communalized but also progressively criminalized." What is indicated by such statements is that there is a strong link between communalization and criminalization. It is precisely because the state has chosen not to act when criminal activities are perpetrated under the garb of religion that criminal elements now feel that they have the sanction to perpetrate violence and Cultural Policing in Dakshina Kannada other forms of intimidation by using the garb of religion. This possibly explains the proliferation of vigilante groups in Dakshina Kannada.

Going downhill

Just one single news article (Hindu.com) today upset me to no end.

• Call by multiple parties for a caste based census in 2011. This has not been allowed for the last few decades for the simple reason that it leads to caste based policy, which till a few years back was something people had uniformly been against. Now it is already a state policy.
• The idea behind the census is to justify inclusion of creamy layer into the reservation. This is even after the government has already increased the inclusion criteria to someone with a salary of about Rs. 40,000/month. BTW, BSP thought that was not enough, and increased it further to Rs. 5 lakh/annum.
• There is a demand of reservation not only in education and jobs in the private sector, but also in the media.

This, however, was a jaw dropping revelation.

Extending support to the Telangana statehood movement, Ramadoss said his party had always supported the idea of carving out small states from bigger ones.

Right. Break up the entire country into pieces. And while you are at it, why don't you break up J&K into J and K, and put this subcontinent out of it's misery?