Reporting India

This is our India: A Hindu Guru celebrating the arrival of Eid with a Muslim Imam…

The Indian Muslim

The hard-line Deobandi school of Islam has the support of only around 20% of India’s 16-18 crore Muslims and most Indian Muslims prefer Sufi flavored versions, Timothy Roemer, the then Ambassador to India, told Farah Pandit before her first visit to India as Obama’s Administration’s ‘Special Representative to Muslim Communities.’

In a thorough analysis of India’s Muslim population, Roemer pointed out that despite this, the more liberal, Sufi-influenced Barelvi school and the Shias feel neglected by the Congress party, which has been more bent towards the Deobandi school.

Roemer pointed out that though only 20% of India’s Muslims supported the Wahabi (hardline Arab) school or it’s Indian counterpart, Western UP’s Deobandi school, political fortune has always favored this segment as it had the Congress Party’s ear.

“The Barelvi school, which proudly promotes the Sufi ideal of pluralism, has a following of over 75 percent of Sunni Muslims in India. Many Barelvis converted to Islam from Hinduism and Sufi influence allowed them to retain elements of their prior faith and culture.

“Unfortunately, they tend to lag behind economically and educationally. Imam Mazhari blamed the Barelvis’ current lot on the Partition — before Indian independence, Barelvis sided with the Muslim League that supported the creation of Pakistan. The Interfaith Harmony Foundation’s (IHF) Khwaja Iftikhar Ahmed agreed, adding that the move was in reaction to the Congress Party’s alliance with the Deobandis.

“Barelvi contacts lamented that Partition heartburn has left them “politically orphaned.” To this day, Barelvis resent the perceived Deobandi influence over the Congress Party and its allies, and the very public support the Congress Party has thrown behind their rivals, including the appearance of the Home Minister and National Security Advisor at Deoband rallies over the past year.

“This chip weighs heavily on the Barelvis’ shoulders, despite the fact that all 29 Muslim MPs and five Muslim cabinet members are Barelvi,” Roemer said in the cable.

The report noted that Indian Islam is heavily influenced by the mystical and tolerant strain of Islam known as Sufism. Though Sufism originated outside India, he noted, it had many similarities with Hindu religions — such as its liberal, accommodating and mystical nature. This, he pointed out, helped it coalesce with the Hindu religions that were present in India.

“Noted Islamic scholar Imam Mohammad Mian Mazhari noted that the Sufi “unorthodox approach,” which accepted the local customs of South Asia, including Hindu influences, facilitated its spread in India. When Sufi Muslims came to India as far back as the 12th Century, they embedded older South Asian traditions within a syncretic Islamic tradition,” he pointed out.

He added that unlike in some countries in the Middle East, which look down upon Sufism as a corrupt or unauthentic version of Islam, Sufism is still considered “mainstream Islam” in India by both Sunnis and Shias.

While the Barelvis are heavily influenced by Sufism, Roemer pointed out that the Deoband school has tried to purge such influences to create a purer form of Islam.

“Deobandis, who make up approximately 20 percent of India’s Sunni population, follow a more puritanical version of Islam,
shunning many Sufi traditions. Deobandis mainly reside in western UP and are the elite of Indian Sunnis.

“The Deoband school, based in UP, has become a model of Islamic scholarship and graduates have founded Deoband institutions throughout South Asia and beyond.

“Compared to their Barelvi compatriots, Deobandis more closely resemble Wahhabis in their austere interpretation of Islam and more conservative stance on social issues, including the role of women.

“Deobandis have tried to distance themselves from Wahhabism because of the stigma associated with conservative Arab Muslims. Imam Mazhari estimated that less than five percent of Indian Muslims are “true Wahhabis,” but he fears the numbers are growing,” he explained.

The Sunni Muslims, such as the above two, make up around 85% of India’s Muslim population, with the remaining being contributed by sects such as Shias (related to Persia, rather than Arabia).

“Historically, Shias enjoyed the status of India’s landlords. Unfortunately, this linked their fate to the decline of the landed property system after independence and Shias lost their political and economic clout.

[Expert Zafar] Agha admits that compared to Sunnis, Shias failed to adapt to the new democratic India, where numbers
(i.e. votes) matter and Shias fall short. They have struggled economically because employment had been viewed as beneath the Shia landholders,” he noted.

Roemer did not forget to mention that Shias are changing rapidly, especially in matters such as Women’s empowerment.

“Shia youth, especially women, are changing the mind set in the community and exploring career opportunities in both high tech and traditional fields.

“Shias are searching for a new political identity as well. According to Agha, Indian Shias tend to be more liberal and cosmopolitan and feel a kinship with higher caste Hindus,” he noted.

However, the historic support of Shia’s for the Congress too is starting to change, he added.

“Historically, they have supported the Congress Party. Given the patrilineage of their imams, Shias easily relate to the dynastic politics of the Congress Party, including Congress heir Rahul Gandhi of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

“In certain elections Shias have thrown their support behind other parties, including the BJP, in retaliation for Congress’ cozy relationship with Deoband. Both Agha and Imam Mazhari noted that Shia and Barelvi leaders have discussed forming a political alliance to counter Deoband and the increasing influence of Wahhabism.

“The alliance would balance each group’s strength: Barelvis have the numbers and Shias have a higher level of education and more contact with the Indian elite,” he noted.

Roemer added that India is likely to have around 160 to 180 million Muslims (about 15% of the population). “States with the highest Muslim population include: Jammu and Kashmir (67 percent), Assam (30.9 percent), Kerala (24.7 percent), West Bengal (25.2 percent) and Uttar Pradesh (18.5 percent). Uttar Pradesh (UP) has the most Muslims with a population of 30 million,” he pointed out.

This is our India: Muslim couple taking their kid (dressed as a pagan God) to a school play…

Arundhati Roy: I’d rather not be Anna

If what we’re watching on TV is indeed a revolution, then it has to be one of the more embarrassing and unintelligible ones of recent times. For now, whatever questions you may have about the Jan Lokpal Bill, here are the answers you’re likely to get: tick the box — (a) Vande Mataram (b) Bharat Mata ki Jai (c) India is Anna, Anna is India (d) Jai Hind.

For completely different reasons, and in completely different ways, you could say that the Maoists and the Jan Lokpal Bill have one thing in common — they both seek the overthrow of the Indian State. One working from the bottom up, by means of an armed struggle, waged by a largely adivasi army, made up of the poorest of the poor. The other, from the top down, by means of a bloodless Gandhian coup, led by a freshly minted saint, and an army of largely urban, and certainly better off people. (In this one, the Government collaborates by doing everything it possibly can to overthrow itself.)

In April 2011, a few days into Anna Hazare’s first “fast unto death,” searching for some way of distracting attention from the massive corruption scams which had battered its credibility, the Government invited Team Anna, the brand name chosen by this “civil society” group, to be part of a joint drafting committee for a new anti-corruption law. A few months down the line it abandoned that effort and tabled its own bill in Parliament, a bill so flawed that it was impossible to take seriously.

Then, on August 16th, the morning of his second “fast unto death,” before he had begun his fast or committed any legal offence, Anna Hazare was arrested and jailed. The struggle for the implementation of the Jan Lokpal Bill now coalesced into a struggle for the right to protest, the struggle for democracy itself. Within hours of this ‘Second Freedom Struggle,’ Anna was released. Cannily, he refused to leave prison, but remained in Tihar jail as an honoured guest, where he began a fast, demanding the right to fast in a public place. For three days, while crowds and television vans gathered outside, members of Team Anna whizzed in and out of the high security prison, carrying out his video messages, to be broadcast on national TV on all channels. (Which other person would be granted this luxury?) Meanwhile 250 employees of the Municipal Commission of Delhi, 15 trucks, and six earth movers worked around the clock to ready the slushy Ramlila grounds for the grand weekend spectacle. Now, waited upon hand and foot, watched over by chanting crowds and crane-mounted cameras, attended to by India’s most expensive doctors, the third phase of Anna’s fast to the death has begun. “From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, India is One,” the TV anchors tell us.

While his means may be Gandhian, Anna Hazare’s demands are certainly not. Contrary to Gandhiji’s ideas about the decentralisation of power, the Jan Lokpal Bill is a draconian, anti-corruption law, in which a panel of carefully chosen people will administer a giant bureaucracy, with thousands of employees, with the power to police everybody from the Prime Minister, the judiciary, members of Parliament, and all of the bureaucracy, down to the lowest government official. The Lokpal will have the powers of investigation, surveillance, and prosecution. Except for the fact that it won’t have its own prisons, it will function as an independent administration, meant to counter the bloated, unaccountable, corrupt one that we already have. Two oligarchies, instead of just one.

Whether it works or not depends on how we view corruption. Is corruption just a matter of legality, of financial irregularity and bribery, or is it the currency of a social transaction in an egregiously unequal society, in which power continues to be concentrated in the hands of a smaller and smaller minority? Imagine, for example, a city of shopping malls, on whose streets hawking has been banned. A hawker pays the local beat cop and the man from the municipality a small bribe to break the law and sell her wares to those who cannot afford the prices in the malls. Is that such a terrible thing? In future will she have to pay the Lokpal representative too? Does the solution to the problems faced by ordinary people lie in addressing the structural inequality, or in creating yet another power structure that people will have to defer to?

Meanwhile the props and the choreography, the aggressive nationalism and flag waving of Anna’s Revolution are all borrowed, from the anti-reservation protests, the world-cup victory parade, and the celebration of the nuclear tests. They signal to us that if we do not support The Fast, we are not ‘true Indians.’ The 24-hour channels have decided that there is no other news in the country worth reporting.

‘The Fast’ of course doesn’t mean Irom Sharmila’s fast that has lasted for more than ten years (she’s being force fed now) against the AFSPA, which allows soldiers in Manipur to kill merely on suspicion. It does not mean the relay hunger fast that is going on right now by ten thousand villagers in Koodankulam protesting against the nuclear power plant. ‘The People’ does not mean the Manipuris who support Irom Sharmila’s fast. Nor does it mean the thousands who are facing down armed policemen and mining mafias in Jagatsinghpur, or Kalinganagar, or Niyamgiri, or Bastar, or Jaitapur. Nor do we mean the victims of the Bhopal gas leak, or the people displaced by dams in the Narmada Valley. Nor do we mean the farmers in NOIDA, or Pune or Haryana or elsewhere in the country, resisting the takeover of the land.

‘The People’ only means the audience that has gathered to watch the spectacle of a 74-year-old man threatening to starve himself to death if his Jan Lokpal Bill is not tabled and passed by Parliament. ‘The People’ are the tens of thousands who have been miraculously multiplied into millions by our TV channels, like Christ multiplied the fishes and loaves to feed the hungry. “A billion voices have spoken,” we’re told. “India is Anna.”

Who is he really, this new saint, this Voice of the People? Oddly enough we’ve heard him say nothing about things of urgent concern. Nothing about the farmer’s suicides in his neighbourhood, or about Operation Green Hunt further away. Nothing about Singur, Nandigram, Lalgarh, nothing about Posco, about farmer’s agitations or the blight of SEZs. He doesn’t seem to have a view about the Government’s plans to deploy the Indian Army in the forests of Central India.

He does however support Raj Thackeray’s Marathi Manoos xenophobia and has praised the ‘development model’ of Gujarat’s Chief Minister who oversaw the 2002 pogrom against Muslims. (Anna withdrew that statement after a public outcry, but presumably not his admiration.)

Despite the din, sober journalists have gone about doing what journalists do. We now have the back-story about Anna’s old relationship with the RSS. We have heard from Mukul Sharma who has studied Anna’s village community in Ralegan Siddhi, where there have been no Gram Panchayat or Co-operative society elections in the last 25 years. We know about Anna’s attitude to ‘harijans’: “It was Mahatma Gandhi’s vision that every village should have one chamar, one sunar, one kumhar and so on. They should all do their work according to their role and occupation, and in this way, a village will be self-dependant. This is what we are practicing in Ralegan Siddhi.” Is it surprising that members of Team Anna have also been associated with Youth for Equality, the anti-reservation (pro-“merit”) movement? The campaign is being handled by people who run a clutch of generously funded NGOs whose donors include Coca-Cola and the Lehman Brothers. Kabir, run by Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, key figures in Team Anna, has received $400,000 from the Ford Foundation in the last three years. Among contributors to the India Against Corruption campaign there are Indian companies and foundations that own aluminum plants, build ports and SEZs, and run Real Estate businesses and are closely connected to politicians who run financial empires that run into thousands of crores of rupees. Some of them are currently being investigated for corruption and other crimes. Why are they all so enthusiastic?

Remember the campaign for the Jan Lokpal Bill gathered steam around the same time as embarrassing revelations by Wikileaks and a series of scams, including the 2G spectrum scam, broke, in which major corporations, senior journalists, and government ministers and politicians from the Congress as well as the BJP seem to have colluded in various ways as hundreds of thousands of crores of rupees were being siphoned off from the public exchequer. For the first time in years, journalist-lobbyists were disgraced and it seemed as if some major Captains of Corporate India could actually end up in prison. Perfect timing for a people’s anti-corruption agitation. Or was it?

At a time when the State is withdrawing from its traditional duties and Corporations and NGOs are taking over government functions (water supply, electricity, transport, telecommunication, mining, health, education); at a time when the terrifying power and reach of the corporate owned media is trying to control the public imagination, one would think that these institutions — the corporations, the media, and NGOs — would be included in the jurisdiction of a Lokpal bill. Instead, the proposed bill leaves them out completely.

Now, by shouting louder than everyone else, by pushing a campaign that is hammering away at the theme of evil politicians and government corruption, they have very cleverly let themselves off the hook. Worse, by demonising only the Government they have built themselves a pulpit from which to call for the further withdrawal of the State from the public sphere and for a second round of reforms — more privatisation, more access to public infrastructure and India’s natural resources. It may not be long before Corporate Corruption is made legal and renamed a Lobbying Fee.

Will the 830 million people living on Rs.20 a day really benefit from the strengthening of a set of policies that is impoverishing them and driving this country to civil war?

This awful crisis has been forged out of the utter failure of India’s representative democracy, in which the legislatures are made up of criminals and millionaire politicians who have ceased to represent its people. In which not a single democratic institution is accessible to ordinary people. Do not be fooled by the flag waving. We’re watching India being carved up in war for suzerainty that is as deadly as any battle being waged by the warlords of Afghanistan, only with much, much more at stake.

The Gandhi Last Name: India’s biggest marketing scam

Amidst the stench of corruption and malfeasance rising from the second political innings of the UPA coalition headed by Manmohan Singh but presided over by the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi comes a startling revelation – the unremarkable Robert Vadra, small time exporter of artificial jewellery and son-in-law of the Signora, is fast emerging as a virtual tycoon, with fingers in many industrial pies.

The revelations follow a public uproar over the outrageous loot of the exchequer in the Commonwealth Games and 2G Spectrum allotment scams, to mention only the most notorious. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his immediate family; circle of relations on both his own and his wife’s side; and personal friends, are nowhere indicted in any scandal.

The Gandhi family has been tainted with corruption and nepotism for at least four decades. Recently, the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal subtly revived the Bofors ghost by declaring that the late Win Chaddha had taken a legally banned commission on the Bofors gun deal, and hence owed the State a handsome sum as income tax dues! So while the Signora’s well-oiled protection machinery ensured that her countryman Ottavio Quattrocchi got away with the loot and that the Hinduja brothers did not suffer for their role in the affair, the ITAT decision ensured that the illegal gratification was recorded officially in the country’s legal history. It is a lesson in the limits of proxy rule.

And now, just a few weeks down the line, comes the news that Priyanka Gandhi’s fitness freak polo playing spouse is making strides in the real estate business, a sector riddled with nepotism and scandal as exemplified by the Adarsh housing scam in Maharashtra, which forced Ms Sonia Gandhi to urge Congress chief ministers to give up their discretionary powers in this area.

It is pertinent that facts personally embarrassing to the Gandhi family are emerging on the heels of strong nudges to Dr Manmohan Singh to step down so that Rahul Gandhi, reputedly the born-to-be ruler of India, could receive on-the-job training and redeem his otherwise inglorious existence. But the Prime Minister is no pushover and during a recent interaction with select senior journalists over the Spectrum Scam, explicitly stated he had no intention of resigning (read being driven out) as he had yet to go the metaphorical miles before he could consider an exit. In other words, he would go when the government went, and not before.

That these signals have been understood can be gauged from the fact that Sonia loyalists directly and indirectly sharpened their attack on the Prime Minister immediately thereafter. Senior ministers have urged journalists to target the Prime Minister and his office for the sins of omission and commission in the Spectrum scandal. Although the exposé of the Niira Radia tapes revealed that some journalists had networked with Congress leaders close to Sonia Gandhi to get the Telecom portfolio for Andimuthu Raja once again in the UPA-II – and that Singh had no say in the cabinet formation – senior ministers strove to implicate the Prime Minister enough to make him quit in disgust while publicly mouthing platitudes in his defence. It was schizophrenia at its best.

Dr Manmohan Singh is made of sterner stuff. Like the now forgotten Yuri Andropov who collected a handful of aides to erode the hated Soviet citadel from within, the Sardar too seems to have a set of unknown loyalists. His political ‘guru’ P.V. Narasimha Rao – no one even knew they were acquainted with each other until Manmohan Singh was anointed Union Finance Minister! – had secret Hindu sympathies that permitted the unhindered removal of the Babri structure in 1992 and so tilted the scales against the Congress in Uttar Pradesh that the party could not return to power for over a decade at the Centre, and that too only in coalition.

No one knows yet if Manmohan Singh has a covert personal or political agenda. But it is near certain that he was legitimately offended, if not enraged, at being asked at the very height of his stature as leader of a rising economic power who was being courted as a statesman in the international area, to step down in favour of the Amethi non-entity, who cannot even speak cogently on any issue of national concern and tends to disappear when things get politically controversial.

Sun shines over Robert Vadra

Whispers about the financial rise and rise of Robert Vadra have been doing the rounds for some years, escalating during the Commonwealth Games, but there was no independent corroboration of the same. This growing eminence is obviously a concerted decision of the Gandhi family and its courtiers, but could not have taken place without the knowledge of Dr Manmohan Singh and many others in industry and government. Thus, as in the Radia tapes episode, there are many sources from which the news could have leaked and it would be impossible to impute motives or fix responsibility. What is pertinent is the timing – it coincides with concerted attacks on the Prime Minister.

Robert Vadra’s entry into the real estate business has been accompanied by a partnership with the country’s largest realty firm, DLF Ltd, a staggering feat by any standards (The Economic Times, 14 March 2011). Hitherto known for the export of faux jewellery and handicrafts, the 42-year-old Vadra quietly switched lanes in 2008, buying up land in Haryana and Rajasthan, a 50% stake in a leading business hotel in Delhi, and attempting to enter the business of chartering aircraft, a quantum jump that certainly merits an explanation.

Vadra seems to have floated a number of companies, some of which have received unsecured loans from the DLF group companies, including the Bombay Stock Exchange-listed flagship DLF Ltd. Readers may recall that during investigations into the Spectrum Scam, the CBI found that a number of non-entity (shell) companies had received and passed on unsecured loans that ended up in Kalaignar TV! It believes these were bribes received against the sale of spectrum at throwaway prices, and that the loans would ultimately be cancelled as ‘bad debt’ and the slate wiped clean. Thus, Vadra’s receipt of unsecured loans certainly merits a probe.

Sky Light Hospitality Pvt. Ltd. (wholly owned by Vadra and his mother Maureen Vadra) is a partner, along with DLF Hotel Holdings and others, in a partnership firm that owns the posh Hilton Garden Inn in Saket.

DLF’s generous loans to Vadra companies, some without collateral, include:

- As on March 2009, Sky Light Hospitality had received unsecured loans amounting to Rs 25 crore from DLF Ltd.

- As on March 2010, only Rs 10 crore remained. It was unclear from the statement of accounts if the rest was paid back or written off.

- Sky Light Hospitality in turn loaned money to other Vadra-owned companies such as Blue Breeze Trading Pvt. Ltd, North India IT Parks Pvt. Ltd, Real Earth Estates Pvt. Ltd and Sky Light Realty Pvt. Ltd.

Knowledge of such unprecedented asset escalation naturally took the polity by surprise, though the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party tried to play down the issue owing to the covert proximity of some top leaders with the Congress and Sonia Gandhi in particular. A pathetic argument was forwarded that the party should not target the “family members” of the Congress leadership, an euphemism for Sonia Gandhi, though such sensitivity was not extended to the India-born M. Karunanidhi, and anyway has no place in public life.

For the CPI-M, however, Robert Vadra’s successful entrepreneurship has come as a timely boon, and the party hopes to extract full mileage from the same during the forthcoming assembly elections in West Bengal and Kerala. Sitaram Yechury emphasized that there was a strong case for an independent inquiry into Vadra’s activities.

Ra(h)ul (da) Vinci

Any investigation into Robert Vadra’s entrepreneurial prominence must legitimately cover the coy attempts of his brother-in-law Rahul Gandhi to become a business magnate. Media reports about the Amethi MP are opaque and have been noted perfunctorily only because Gandhi was compelled to reveal the same in his affidavit before the Election Commission.

In 2002, Rahul Gandhi launched a consultancy engineering firm, Backops Services Private Limited, with an authorized share capital of Rs 25 lakhs, divided into 25,000 equity shares of Rs 100 each. Gandhi himself held 83 per cent shares in the firm; the other shareholders were close family friend and aide Manoj Muttu; Anil Thakur, son of Madhya Pradesh Governor Rameshwar Thakur; and Delhi resident Ranvir Sinha.

Gandhi holds a mysterious M. Phil degree in Development Studies from Cambridge University, UK, though nobody knows when and where he completed his graduate and post-graduate studies. To this day not a single person has surfaced anywhere in the world to say that Raul Vinci (his disguise) was his/her classmate at x y or z college. The then Cambridge Master Amartya Sen defended the degree while stoutly declining to give details. However, in the wake of the Saif Gaddafi Ph.D. degree scam, it may be safe to assume that a friendly London establishment “took care of” the academic credentials of the wanna be PM-aspirant.

Similarly Raul Vinci is supposed to have done a stint as financial consultant in London. No colleague has stepped forward to say where, and how good or mediocre he was at the job.

What now merits investigation without delay – and the Supreme Court must urgently look into the same – is how Rahul Gandhi took on the identity of Raul Vinci. The specious plea that this was done for security reasons will not wash: Benazir Bhutto’s son Bilawal studies abroad under his own name, as do the scions of other eminent families.

- So how did Rahul Gandhi get the Raul Vinci identity?

- Was he given a Raul Vinci passport by the Indian passport office?

- If so, what are the names of the alleged parents of Raul Vinci and what is the place of residence given on the document?

- Or was a passport issued by a foreign country? Does this mean that Rahul Gandhi enjoys dual citizenship of some European country, which is illegal in Indian law?

- Where is that passport now and how often and where has Rahul Gandhi travelled on it?

On 21 March 2011, The Indian Express reported that some time prior to the 2009 elections, Rahul gave up his business venture, Backops Services Private Limited, to devote himself to full-time politics. It was by all accounts a modest venture, nothing compared to the phenomenal ascent of Robert Vadra. What is pertinent, however, is the suspicious overlap in Rahul Gandhi’s retreat from business and Vadra’s big time leap into the arena.

Wikileaks: Sardar – Signora Dyarchy in distress

The Wikileaks revelations regarding American interest and overseeing of the 2008 cash-for-vote scam due to the Indo-US nuclear deal could not have come at a worse time for Sonia Gandhi, who once stated that the deal was very close to her heart, but did not say why.

On 18 March 2011, Dr Manmohan Singh told Parliament he did not authorise anyone to purchase any votes: “I am not aware of any purchase of votes. Certainly, I am not involved in any such things.” One can readily believe that; it is totally out of sync with the known character of Dr Singh.

More pertinently, all the alleged fixers in the 22 July 2008 cash-for-votes episode are closely aligned with Sonia Gandhi and her family, which lends credence to the view that the nuclear deal was one of her ‘pet projects’ for unknown reasons. To recap the Wiki revelations briefly:

- Gandhi family loyalist Satish Sharma’s aide Nachiketa Kapur told a US Embassy official that the four RLD MPs [actually three] were paid Rs 10 crores each to vote for UPA-1. [Ajit Singh denied the charges and said his party voted against the government in the no-confidence motion].

- Kapur allegedly showed the US Embassy employee “two chests containing cash” in July 2008 [to assure him that the nuclear deal would go through] and said Rs 50-60 crores was ready for use as “pay-offs” to win the support of some MPs ahead of crucial vote of confidence following Left withdrawal of support on account of the Indo-US nuke deal.

- Satish Sharma reportedly told the US Political Counsellor that “PM Singh and others were trying to work on the Akali Dal (8 votes) through NRI businessman Sant Singh Chatwal and others, but unfortunately it did not work out” [robustly denied by Chatwal].

- Industrialist Mukesh Ambani offered to help secure Shiv Sena’s support.

- Congress chief Sonia Gandhi might meet Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MPs.

- Sharma told US embassy political counselor that Rahul Gandhi was speaking to National Conference’s Omar Abdullah.

- A Congress insider reported that then commerce minister Kamal Nath was “also helping to spread largesse”.

- The cables talk of the Left’s troubles with Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee’s refusal to quit and Ajit Singh’s success in getting Lucknow’s Amausi airport renamed after his late father Charan Singh.

- Satish Sharma quoted to say he was trying to sow divisions in BJP by working on former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s son-in-law Ranjan Bhattacharya.

- Prakash Karat-Sitaram Yechury fault lines; Yechury admitted it was a mistake to have listed Speaker Chatterjee as a CPM MP in a letter withdrawing support, submitted to the President on July 8. A large group of CPM MPs unhappy at Karat for his “failed” strategy.

- Regarding Left parties, cables say though defections were a possibility, communist party discipline remained strong and members were unlikely to vote with the government.

It thus transpires that the landmark achievement of the UPA in its first innings – the Indo-US Nuclear Deal – was the agenda of Sonia Gandhi, and she put her entire political weight behind it. Dr Manmohan Singh owned it as a good lieutenant and because he was himself pro-America, but he did not have either the money or the manipulative skills to push it through as happened on 22 July 2008.

Sonia Gandhi’s covert patronage of the deal also explains why CNN-IBN ditched the BJP and refused to air the secret tapes of the behind-the-scenes horse-trading as promised on 22 July 2008. Of course this does not explain why Mr L.K. Advani – who had previously made a veiled pledge to Senator Joe Liebermann regarding the deal – chose CNN-IBN to make the recording in the first place, when the party had its own equipment and talent to make the recordings and had done so successfully in another case.

Anyway, it is now evident that the undeserved elevation of the inane Rahul Gandhi has sundered the Sonia Gandhi – Manmohan Singh Dyarchy. Had it not been for an obliging BJP, the regime would have fallen by now.

This may still happen, as Sonia Gandhi may find it cheaper to cut her losses by sinking the government rather than risk the mild-faced Sardar using the state machinery to put the family in the dock, compelling the Supreme Court to order an investigation à la Hasan Ali.

If the government falls out of its own inner contradictions, the BJP will find itself in an unenviable position.

When Politicians & Bureaucrats Kill Social Activists - India has entered the Robber Baron Age

As she sat behind the wheel of her car to drive to an Anna Hazare protest meet, wildlife activist Shehla Masood, who had filed at least 40 Right to Information applications involving forest and police officers, was fatally shot by an unidentified assassin outside her home on Tuesday. The 35-year-old resident of Bhopal’s Koh-e-Fiza neigbourhood was shot in her chest and until late night police remained clueless about her killer though suspicion fell on tiger poachers she had sought to expose in her campaigns.

Witnesses found Masood slumped over the steering wheel, blood oozing from her chest. No gunshot was heard, which has led the cops to surmise that the killer used a silencer. Masood got out around 11:30am and when the car didn’t start for a while after she had left, her father came out to see if there was anything wrong. “She has been murdered. She was a daring girl who raised many issues through RTI. She’s a martyr,” said her father Masood Siddiqui, a retired government officer.

Hazed again: Protests erupt over corruption. But Sonia Gandhi’s health may matter more

India’s bungling rulers have been rattled by an anti-corruption campaigner yet again. Rather than let Anna Hazare, an ageing Gandhian, fast before a crowd in Delhi, plainclothes police grabbed the pensioner for seven days of “preventive” custody on August 16th. The idea was to stop him breaking arbitrary rules on his protest. Instead, it triggered a storm.

Within hours 1,300 of his followers were also in jail, several thousand young protesters were gathering in the sunshine around India Gate, in central Delhi, chanting “long live the revolution” and cable television was in full national-crisis overdrive in dozens of languages. Too late it dawned on the government that clumsy efforts to muzzle critics were not only undemocratic, but were also failing. On August 18th, the government climbed down, offering Mr Hazare a deal under which he left jail to begin a 15-day hunger strike.

That will not be the end of the matter. Ministers have long tried to smear Mr Hazare as corrupt, or as a demagogue set on subverting democracy by imposing a flawed anti-corruption ombudsman, or lokpal, to whom both prime minister and senior judges would be held accountable. On August 17th the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, called Mr Hazare’s hunger strike “totally misconceived”.

But he has become a focus of discontent about a government widely seen as fatally compromised by corruption. Opposition leaders, anti-corruption campaigners and all manner of activists have queued up to lambast the government for its treatment of Mr Hazare. Quick to spot a chance for self-promotion, Varun Gandhi, an MP for the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and nephew of Congress’s leader, Sonia Gandhi, says he will bring Mr Hazare’s lokpal bill to parliament on August 19th.

Congress may hope for only limited political fallout. The anti-corruption campaigners seem to be mostly city types, students and romantics frustrated by the bitter compromises of Indian democracy. Elections, by contrast, are won mainly among ill-educated, rural voters, most influenced by inflation, jobs, welfare and the charisma of the ruling Gandhi clan.

More troubling for Congress, therefore, is the uncertain fate of Mrs Gandhi. She is in New York this month reportedly getting treatment for cancer. Party spokesmen refuse to describe her illness, apart from saying that she left intensive care after an operation. Doubts persist over when she might return. Her 41-year-old son, Rahul Gandhi, may soon have to be promoted, perhaps sooner than he wished. Though few in public are paying close attention, given the other fuss, her prognosis may well have a bigger long-term impact on Indian politics than Mr Hazare’s ill treatment.

What the Land Acquisition Draft Portends

In a newly drafted bill to update India’s 117-year-old land acquisition laws, the new rural development minister is focusing on his party’s current mantra—social inclusiveness.

Jairam Ramesh suggests in the bill an overhaul of the rehabilitation and resettlement policy, a hot button issue that has stalled several projects in India, including the development of a $12 billion steel plant in Orissa by Korean giant Posco and the expansion of a bauxite mine by Vedanta Resources, which is owned by Indian mogul Anil Agarwal.

In an opening statement of the draft, Mr. Ramesh says, “Land markets in India are imperfect. There is asymmetry of power (and information) between those wanting to acquire the land and those whose lands are being acquired.”  

So far, Indian law kept rehabilitation a separate exercise from land acquisition. Mr. Ramesh wants to change that with this bill. “R&R must always, in each instance, necessarily follow upon acquisition of land,” he says in the draft. “Not combining the two – R&R and land acquisition – within one law, risks neglect of R&R. This has, indeed, been the experience thus far.”  

While this is a bold move by the ministry, it’s far from being a done deal. The draft is up for comments and feedback until the end of next month. Even to get to this point has been a long way in the making. A key sticking point had been if the government should acquire land for private developers, or not. 

The Supreme Court of India too stepped into the debate last month when it lashed out at the Uttar Pradesh state government for acquiring land for a project in the New Delhi suburb of Noida by invoking an emergency clause that snuffs out the ability of farmers to raise objections over inadequate compensation. Mr. Ramesh resolves that dilemma in this draft as it states that the government will not get involved in private land buys for private purpose.

It’s common for negotiations on land acquisition to stall on what is fair compensation. Mr. Ramesh wants to remove all doubts on that aspect. He expects companies to pay at least two times the market price in urban areas and at least six times in rural areas.  

In addition, companies will have to pay a subsistence allowance of 3000 rupees per month per family for 12 months; 2000 rupees per month per family as annuity for 20 years, with an appropriate index for inflation. The draft also requires a provision of housing if a house is lost – a constructed house of plinth area of 150 square meters in rural areas or 50 square meters plinth area in urban area. Where land is acquired for urbanization, 20% of the developed land will be reserved and offered to land owners, in proportion to their land acquired.

On every transfer of land within 10 years of the date of acquiring it, 20% of the appreciated value shall be shared with the original owner. The draft also mandates employment for one member per affected family or 200,000 rupees if employment is not offered.  

And wherever families are resettled, that area should include schools and playgrounds, health centers, roads and electric connections, assured sources of safe drinking water for each family.

Most importantly, for any land sale to happen, at least 80% of the affected families will have to give their consent.

Land acquisition has been a major stumbling block to industrial development in India; this draft, if it ever becomes law, could jumpstart industrialization, which economists say is needed to maintain India’s growth, which is now heavily skewed toward services while agriculture continues to employ the bulk of Indians.

It also may silence one of the great tropes about India: that democracy stands in the way of development. It’s a reason India boosters use to explain why China is so far ahead in manufacturing and infrastructure.

If this new law is passed, and land acquisition becomes a less contentious issue, it will show that it is not democracy but social equity that has stood in the way of India’s progress.