The Great Indian Land Trick

Its been sometime since I last blogged, been busy with a whole bunch of personal stuff and also being flabbergasted at how the Indian economy is being run into the ground. Anyway, here I am, but only to chronicle a pet conspiracy theory that occurred to me. It is one that I have mentioned countless time to a whole bunch of people over the last two or three years but only now putting down in writing. At the outset let me apologise for the long winded blog, but the matter is such that it required some details. In any case I do not consider this my most articulate work and hope people can wade through the messiness and get to the crux.

Let me start of with a short story of an advertisement I saw in 2010, on a large hoarding in Bandra for a property being developed in Kurla. I asked to be contacted by a sales representative thinking perhaps it was time that I invested in some real estate in Mumbai. Receive a call I did, and what a call it was. The sales guy told me the minimum price for a 1,000 sq ft flat, was Rs 50 million, approximately US$ 1 million at the exchange rates then. This was a ridiculously brazen price for an apartment in Kurla, one of ‘less nice’ suburbs, least safe as well in event of a communal conflagration. Consider this, for US$ 1 million I could get an apartment in Zurich, one of the top three most expensive cities in the world. Zurich, with its rational tax structure, excellent infrastructure, virtually zero crime, brilliant health services, public transport you can set your watch to, great education, superlative life style etc etc etc. On the other hand, spending the same amount for a flat in Mumbai, what does one get? Even if the construction is not shoddy, once you step out of the flat, you have the same bad roads, beggars and eunuchs at the car window, bribe taking government officials, high taxation, bad climate and none of the other benefits that one would associate with a million dollar pigeon hole!

That set me thinking on why a poor country like India where 300 million people live in abject poverty and many millions more near enough to not matter have such expensive apartments? What has caused this price rise? Who is buying these shanties priced like palaces?

The conspiracy theory is like this:

After the condemnable, gruesome attacks by Jihadis on the US on September 9^th, 2001, the world changed. The fight that so far was being fought somewhere else in the world and was only TV news for Americans, became a tragic reality. The US was not likely to take this lying down and launched a multi pronged attack on the terrorists where ever they may be hiding. One of the aspects of this campaign was to cut off the financial assistance to terror groups. In this regard, the US started to clamp down on tax havens and shadow banking territories. Sooner or later, publicly or privately, many succumbed and handed over secret banking data to the US.

The surprising outcome of this was that allegedly, a lot of Indians who have allegedly stashed their illegal earnings outside India came under pressure as their hidden banking accounts were also ‘inadvertently’ targeted. They have little choice but to move their money elsewhere, but where?! Perhaps Macau/ China which could stand up to US pressure was not as developed as a banking centre yet. My guess is the real urgency was not felt till until 2005 or 2006 perhaps. Anyway, so money had to be moved into something else. One option was gold, and perhaps that is one of the reasons due to which the yellow metal has jumped so much, but not so high to adequately compensate for an international central bank failure, as is normally hypothesised. Plus, not a whole bunch of gold can be bought without significant paperwork.

So the corrupt politicians started repatriating their ill-gotten gains back to India. There were two obvious choices for this money to flow to: a) the stock market and b) land. And it seems to have gone here too!

However, after the stock market crash in 2008 proved a bitter lesson in karma to such politicians. Market is of course the great leveller! However despite the really bad real situation in India the market is still holding on to the 18K-20K levels (Sensex) suggesting that perhaps atleast there is some element of management to protect the capital already invested. On a side note, this is why I am cautious of the Indian stock market in general. It has not had a cleansing crash for the economic bloopers of the last few years. So every rise is perhaps seen by this ‘black money’ as an opportunity to get out. And who do they sell to when they get out, to people like you and me, who are left holding the baby, the baby that has been artificially pumped up on steroids with no real value discovered.

Anyway, I digress…so basically for various reasons real estate was the only asset left to this black money. In fact it offered TWO HUGE advantages that neither gold nor equity can offer to this particular ‘class’ of investors: a value black hole and soaking up cash.

A lot of land in India is agricultural land that can only be bought by someone who has a ‘farmer’ status. This farmer status is an unwritten caste system almost that gets passed on as a hereditary thing based on similar land being owned by ones ancestors. Land holdings are small and thanks to economic mismanagement the owners (farmers) are usually poor and willing to sell land. The land value is noted in government records but is in my knowledge at a vast discount to the actual real world cost of buying this land. This is the value hiding. The difference between the actual cost and price paid to the land owner to acquire this land is the cash soak.

Let me illustrate:

Lets say I have to launder…sorry…’invest’…Rs1,00,00,000 (1 crore). In stock I can buy 1 crore of stock and it will show up in records as 1 crore. If I want to buy gold, beyond a point, I can buy 1 crore worth of gold for 1 crore worth of currency. But land…if the actual market rate is 1 crore, BUT value in government records is say only Rs10 lakhs, then for  corrupt person with a lot of cash in earned in bribes, this is a godsend. He can buy a crore of property by only disclosing Rs 10 lakhs or 10% of his wealth. The rest of the money 90% of it can be paid in cash, allowing him to dispose off his cash and his tax troubles/crimes to someone else! The new owner gets the land transferred to his name and converts land into N.A. (Non Agricultural) to prevent any legislated acquisition of the property by the government.

While I concede that this may have always been happening, the conspiracy thesis is that the flow of money being repatriated has caused a parabolic shift in the amount of money going into this space causing land prices to SKYROCKET!

It is the implications of this that worry me, and are multi-pronged:

Impact analysis: a blind spot: As I feared and as a senior journo confirmed to me, is that there is no central agency that monitors how much land is changing hands and how much is being converted to N.A. In fact a validation of the above mentioned theory would be if one were to see a jump in land conversion to N.A. (ex government) since 2002 or 2003. How can the government foresee or analyse the impact of something it doesn’t know?!

Food scarcity: In the absence of any data with me, I quote a link: http://infochangeindia.org/agenda/battles-over-land/the-nuts-and-bolts-of-appropriating-agricultural-land.html with the caveat that I dont guarantee its accuracy or claim to know the intent of the author. The link claims: “Between 2002 and 2007, about 90,000 hectares of agricultural land across 25 mandals in and around Hyderabad have been diverted for real estate speculation and mega-projects. Another 63,000 hectares across 20 mandals of Ranga Reddy district have been lost over the past 10 years. These figures have been reported in a paper published in the August 4-10, 2007, issue of the Economic and Political Weekly by V R Reddy and B Suresh Reddy who estimated that a mind-boggling 5 lakh hectares of agricultural land have been lost in Andhra Pradesh in recent years. The authors feel this is a conservative estimate”.

My biggest question is not why this land was converted, but whether the government knows about this, does it have an idea how much land can be safely converted without impacting food security. Does conversion of 1 lakh hectare of land in say Year 1, impact the government’s view on whether similar permission will be given in year 2? Has the government prepared any study regarding this?

Poverty and cultural impact: While a few farmers, mostly those who had some sizeable holdings and some relationship advantage in a geographical area have been able to milk this cash hoarding by turning into land brokers and entrepreneurs, this dastardly business has in my unstudied opinion, a vast populace of farmers untouched. What does a farmer whose ancestors have tilled a small plot of land for generations do once that land is taken away? Ok, if there is a factory built on that spot, he may take some employment there, but is he skilled to do it? If the land is going to be used to build residences, then maybe he does masonry work during construction, but what about after? Will he not fall prey to unemployment and poverty? More so if he has spent the money he received unproductively, then he is left with nothing. What does he turn to? Does he not become an easy target for ‘coercive’ religious conversion?

Housing impact: With a relentless black money inflow artificially inflating land prices, the price of land, the most basic raw material for housing has shot up. With commodity prices (cement, steel, energy etc) also on an uptick, cost for housing has gone up. With the result that builders (that are used to supernormal profit margins) are unwilling to look at mass housing or affordable housing seriously as a business model. A simple journey from Mumbai to Pune will tell you about how many projects are “exclusive”, “opulent”, “luxurious”, “second homes”, “bungalows” etc etc. Not too many for housing in a country where 100s of millions are middle class to poor! That just doesn’t make sense. With property prices at ridiculous rates (as I mentioned in opening comments) the number of investors they attract (versus users) appears to have shot up. Does everyone think that property prices will keep going up? Japan, anyone?

What about the vast numbers that will not be able to afford to move out of their parents home and start a life, family because the rates are so high. Surely, land in India can be in short supply, in fact: “A little arithmetic shows this is not the case. If you place 1.2 billion people in four-person homes of 1000 square feet each, and two workers of the family into office/factory space of 400 square feet, this requires roughly 1% of India’s land area assuming an FSI(floor space index) of 1. There is absolutely no shortage of land to house the great Indian population.” http://www.firstpost.com/investing/japan-to-india-busting-the-biggest-myth-of-investing-in-real-estate-921239.html

In a country where there is a ‘housing shortage’ of 20-30 million units (Source: http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=56880) what is the reason that I read this statement in a report: “The inventory level has almost doubled in the last three years. In the National Capital Region, the inventory level reached 31 months at the end of March 2013 against 15 months at the end of March 2010, while in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region the inventory level has jumped from 17 months to 40 months. In Hyderabad, it reached 49 months in March 2013 as compared to 23 months in March 2010, according to data by real estate research firm Liases Foras. Inventory denotes the number of months required to clear the stock at the existing absorption rate. An efficient market maintains an inventory of eight to ten months,” a news report in the Business Standard points out.”?!

Housing inventory is 3 to 5 TIMES higher than the level it should be at should at in an efficient market. Real estate firms might be loathe to cut prices due to the high cost of land paid and/or some extra ‘commitments’ that no one likes to talk about! Is this a validation of the theory outlined above?

So how does this situation resolve itself? One, way is economics, as alternative shadow banking jurisdictions develop, the new ‘flow’ of money into real estate will slow down, after easier to transfer black money from one foreign location to another, than risk bringing it to India. The money that is already invested in land in India, will need to be moved out, but with land being a sticky asset, this will be a slow process. Also, this will likely put a lot of pressure on land prices in India. So if I was a land investor, I would probably hold on to the pulling the BUY trigger yet.

Second way is through, a price crash. Eventually unrealistic asset prices crash,it might happen expeditiously or via death by a thousand cuts route, as was the case in Japan. My guess is this will be triggered by builders trying to offload property that they can no longer hold. So if it does take this route it will begin in the apartment pricing stage. Already builders are feeling the heat and are offering some discounts etc. In fact if you look at real, inflation adjusted pricing it can be argued that price action is already happening.

The third way, is through government action. If new, honest government comes into power and is serious about tackling the menace of black money, it should set up a land transaction monitoring organisation that will track anyone trying to quickly sell out his/ her land to escape scrutiny. Secondly, such an organisation can examine all land transactions where land was subsequently converted to N.A. Track the seller and his income and use that route to get to the buyer.  In fact, if properly executed, this third way will simultaneously trigger way 1 and 2 described above.

 

Anyway, I just wanted to get back to blogging after a long hiatus and hence describing an idea that has been going on in my head for years. Notably, this is a conspiracy theory and possibly wrong. When I mention politicians or black money this only refers to those people who are allegedly corrupt and should be defamatory for the honest lot. As always, this is a work of fiction and no intention to hurt anyone.

 

 

 

 

What the hell is going on?!

As usual Indian politics offers a Bollywood or even Tollywood style potboiler where sadly the country is the most ignored character and politicial expediency and electoral merit takes precedence. As usual MSM continues to behave (in the opinion of some) like the mouth piece of the ruling coalition and unable to lend even a single original thought to this crisis that may soon consume public consciousness and plunge the nation into a mid-term poll that I have been predicting for several months now.

I assume most people reading this are aware of the developments that have unfolded over last 48 hours. These developments are largely in line with what I had predicted in my blog in September 2012, with a few minor differences. I of course expected these to come about in the last year itself, but then timing in politics is always a bit dicey.

To re-capitulate, my thesis is that the DMK pull out is engineered by the Congress itself that wants the government to fall and call new elections. The reasons have been outlined in the September blog but broadly being: Congress expects that the government will not be able to complete its full term anyway and would rather that it fell on an obscure policy issue that its key electorate will not care about or understand rather than issues of corruption, mis governance etc. We will again touch upon this point later in this post but let me get into the meat of my analysis on the taaza developments right away.

As discussed several times earlier, Congress cannot seriously expect to get re-elected after the farce of the last 8-9 years. Its best option is to get a third front government that it can support from outside to prevent a resurgent BJP led NDA from coming to power. It is necessary for the Congress however to have a third front PM that can be ‘managed’ or ‘controlled’ by it. Someone who is extremely parched for the PM’s chair and whose principals are subservient to his/ her political ambitions. Congress needs this too ensure that the new PM keeps the wraps on all the cases and investigations on the various scams in return for a continued outside support to his/ her government.

The UPA (226 seats) today has three main constituents: the Congress with 203 seats, Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) with 9 seats and 14 seats of other small groups. The main ‘outside’ support (53 seats) to the UPA comes from four main constituents: Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party (SP) with 22 seats, Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) with 21 seats, Lalu Yadav’s Rashtriya Janta Dal (RJD) with 4 seats and others with 6 seats. This is how UPA crosses the midway mark of 273 seats (226+53 = 279).

It is clear that the others with 6 seats cannot on their own impact UPA at all. But either SP or BSP or both together can easily bring down the government. Interestingly both Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati are facing the CBI on some matters, and it has long being alleged by opposition with some empirical merit that the Congress controls the actions of these two leaders via the CBI office. If this is true, then both Mulayam and Mayawati make good ‘puppet’ PMs that the Congress may be looking to lead the third front. Both these individuals are famously known to dream of the Prime Minister’s chair in any case strengthening the case that I have outlined earlier.

Therefore, if for one moment we were to accept the truth of two things: a) Congress wants early elections and b) BSP and SP are controlled by Congres through CBI, then it emerges that Congress can virtually ask one of the two to walk out on some flimsy reason or the other. Assuming all of the above is the case, then who will Congress ask to walk out? Simple, the one that it believes is in a position to win most seats in Uttar Pradesh and form a relatively stable jirge called the third front. That is the person Congress will prefer to be the puppet PM.

Now lets look at it from SP and BSPs point of view. SP is losing the public perception war everyday now thanks to the goonda raj it is famous for. The longer it stays in power the more votes it loses. In that sense they would perhaps like to call elections early. Just for this reason alone, it follows that Mayawati would prefer that elections are delayed as much as possible (admittedly I cant think of another reason for BSP wanting elections to be delayed). In any case neither SP nor BSP can afford the other reaching the PM’s chair given their own rivalry in the state of Uttar Pradesh. So there will have a be a ton of backroom agreements under the stewardship of the Congress to ensure that one does not extinguish the other in UP using CBI after coming to power. Another important aspect is that the party (SP/ BSP) which pulls out first will have the most credibility (well…relatively speaking anyway) when it goes to ask for votes in the next election.

So can the party asked by Congress to pull out refuse? No. For one thing, they are not in a position to argue with the CBI sword hanging over their head. Plus not pulling out will not help keep UPA up, as the Congress can ask the other party to pull out. With about 21-22 seats between them, sticking of one of them in UPA while the other pulls out is hardly going to help. Plus the one that doesn’t heed to High Command will be remembered as the one that did not ‘cooperate’. Also the one that sticks in will lose the advantage of the more relative credibility that I mentioned in the preceding paragraph.

It will be interesting to see the role that the past master of Indian-style politics, Sharad Pawar will play in this drama. It is my belief that Sharad Pawar will be meeting all sides but not say a word on it in the public domain. He has been singed once when he lost his chance at Prime Ministership in early 2000s and will play his cards very close to his chest. He also knows that with just 9 seats at his command he is not in a position to really influence what the Congress wants in terms of continuance or otherwise of the UPA government. So my guess is he will keep his mouth shut and play along with whatever is going on. He may in an outside chance present himself as the third front PM candidate if he can convince the Congress of his willingness to ‘play ball’ on all the investigations that a new government is expected to undertake. But he is a smart cookie and don’t expect him to make his Prime Ministerial ambitions known anytime soon. This is a game best played AFTER the next elections are over. And played it will be.

Now looking a bit at the BJP. The BJP has come out and sided with the Congress in opposing DMK’s demand for a country specific resolution. Fair enough. Also, it has sided with Mulayam Singh Yadav in asking Congress to throw out Beni Prasad Verma who had passed some very frank remarks against Mulayam Singh Yadav. Fair enough. In the meanwhile, a potential NDA partner, Jayalalitha’s AIADMK has raised the bar making DMK’s position to back off a difficult one. Again, fair enough. So basically BJP will play along with Congress’ plan (if such plan does in fact exist) to quit office mid way on its own terms rather than being possibly thrown out due to corruption issues and other miscellaneous havoc. The BJP leadership seems to be thinking “baad ka baad meing dekh lenge, abhi pehle to inko nikalo”. Narendra Modi’s shining leadership has also electrified its cadre and BJP appears to be a resurgent force, for now anyway.

A quick word on Nitish Kumar, about whom I feel pity these days. He apparently made a speech today which said his future options on alliances are open thus hinting he may not stick with the NDA. Now that we have explored what appears to be his fantasy, lets look at practical realities:

Lets say he pulls out of the NDA, he will mostly go with the third front (well he can go with the UPA…but that’s a black hole. We all know all laws of physics break down in a black hole and thus isn’t subject to any sensible analysis). Practically, he is allegedly the least blackmailable of Mulayam, Mayawati and Pawar. So what chance does he have of becoming the third front’s PM candidate. Zilch. In the process he breaks the alliance with the reenergised BJP which is preparing to fight next elections on every single seat in Bihar. Thus chances are gets reduced number of seats as well. So his bargaining power reduces further. The other thing is if he joins the third front or the UPA, he automatically becomes ‘secular’ and thus eats into the madate of Lalu Yadav, the one time self proclaimed king maker now made pauper. Lalu, interestingly sees Mulayam Singh being picked by Congress to pull out which explains his eagerness to rush to Mulayam’s defence in the Beni Prasad (non) issue. Lalu cannot afford Nitish breaking up from NDA and thus may lean on Mulayam to lean on Congress to stop JD(U) becoming part of the third front or UPA. So it is likely that Nitish for all his ruckus, remains with the NDA or then fights elections on his own without being part of any alliance in the hope that he will get enough seats to be a king maker post elections. What is fascination Biharis have for becoming ‘king maker’ is beyond me…first Lalu and now Nitish. First king maker and now irrelevant.

Now quickly touching upon Congress secretly wanting mid term elections. Lets assume that DMK has had a genuine stroke of morality after years and has genuinely pulled out of the UPA. The Congress knows that it cannot possibly continue this government at the whims and fancies of the SP and BSP. They can use the CBI stick to a certain extent but there is a limit of politically difficult decisions that SP and BSP will tolerate. After all they have their own electorate in Uttar Pradesh to worry about. The Congress knows it will go crazy trying to manage BOTH these parties in passing any new laws. If the Congress was counting on short public memory and going out on a bang with a slew of reforms towards the end of its tenure, holding hands with SP and BSP is not going to make it easy. It would rather hope for new elections sooner than opt for death by a thousand cuts.

Question on timing. I am going to fall for this temptation again ha ha, and say that it doesn’t happen now. Mulayam picking Beni Prasad as the issue seems a petty reason to call for elections. Unless he spins this into some Bhaiyya pride issue, he is not going to pull support due to this. Congress too cant make it too obvious by staking the governments future on Beni Prasad’s ego. Afterall apart from him being a ‘close associate’ of our perennial PM-in-waiting, what is Beni’s qualification or achievement? I say, the current issue works out, but another crops up within the next 3-4 months and then the government goes in for early elections. After all the fun of a drama is in its suspense. Sadly, this drama is of my country and the joke is on us.

 

This is work of fiction. A theory that is possibly wrong. All resemblances to people and organisations living and dead coincidental and unintentional.

UPA pulls off another one again!

While I remain a staunch opponent of the CONgress led UPA on ethical grounds, I cannot help but wonder at their political finesse. Today, Mamta Banerjee pulled out of the government and media channels are debating on how the CONgress can try and keep power in the government. This is another thing that amazes me, how the mainstream media (MSM) manages to miss the point and not have a genuinely independent thought ever.

What my take is this (and I may be wrong, but atleast its an independent view), the CONgress wants the government to fall. The reason being that it knows that is a very good chance that the government would fall mid-term anyway given the myriad scams and cases filed against senior CONgress ministers and members. In this case, how could the CONgress face the electorate again?! It would be disgraced in front of its electorate and wont be able to ask for votes convincingly.

So what does it do? Its gets its two coalition partners who are also from states where the CONgress has no electoral presence and wont be losing anything. It says to TMC and DMK, that we will take several unpopular decisions that will give you a valid reason to pull the plug on the government. The government will then fall and you can ask for votes next election in your state saying that you are poor friendly and we will ask for votes in other states on the plank of ‘we were reform friendly and allies stopped us’.  I know there is no news on DMK, but this is my assessment that there will be…give it another week or two.

This way the CONgress gets to change the narrative from a government falling under the weight of its own corruption to a brave government that was martyred on the hallowed altar of reforms. MSM which is always catering to the government’s whims and fancies (in the view of some) will be more than glad to support this narrative. As the CONgress Home Minister alluded, they view people as having a shorter memory than goldfish and will then vote for a reform focussed government having forgotten the massive scams that were perpetrated. The TMC and DMK can always join forces with the CONgress after elections and justify their volte face by saying they needed to keep ‘communal’ forces out. J

There cant be any other script in my mind, other than the above, for the following reason:

FDI decisions. The manner in which the decisions were taken suggests that the government never intended to actually pass the Bills at all. In the first place, why were the FDI proposals mooted immediately after the monsoon session of the Lok Sabha was in progress, why not during it? Knowing the opposition of the parties to it, what did the government hope to achieve by these FDI proposals, the benefits of either would be only after years, if any benefits exist at all, so there is no immediate benefit in electoral or fiscal terms. So why risk the ire of its key ally (TMC) without any corresponding benefit that I can see.

TMC response. TMC’s press conference was pretty scathing. Mamta didi covered a lot of ground and has made her position almost non-negotiable. This is very uncharacteristic of a politican. So she has made her mind up to leave, in other words she is in the know that the CONgress is not going to come up with any serious counter proposal. Her statement on readind Friday’s namaz before tendering her resignation and about how Friday is a holy day and even referring to Friday as Jummawar and not Shukrawar is significant and will provide the ‘secular’ underpinning she needs when she joins hands with CONgress again after next general elections, like I said above.

So I conclude, that this is only confirmation for my long held belief that India is heading for a mid-term poll. But I am amazed by the devilish intelligence of the CONgress that it has managed to change vice into virtue and convert the narrative from being a government that fell because of corruption to a government that fell because it was ‘reform oriented’. A confirmation of this theory for me would be DMK breaking away from the Congress at some point soon. I just hope the citizens of India can see through this game plan of the UPA and vote for honesty and not for spin.

 

This is a work of imagination. Just a story, not meant to hurt, judge or insult anyone. Its a point of view that is possibly wrong. So take it with a pinch of salt and dont riot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The esoteric meaning behind the origins of Lord Ganesh

This blog was prompted by a recent discussion that I overheard which suggested that the story of Lord Ganesh’s origins is highly violent and does not teach the right values for our children. While I do not agree with this ill-held belief at all (in any case this is not meant to be a children’s fairy tale!), I was not in a position to protest then and have decided to write it here just as Sri Ganesh Chaturthi is about to be celebrated.

Let us first examine how the story is traditionally told. There are several versions and variations of the story, the most popular being from the Shiva Puraan. While the details may defer, let me quickly lay out the gist of the story here (which is likely common in all versions) and use it to explain the esoteric meaning of the story as it occurred to me.

The story goes that Ma Parvati (Lord Shiva’s wife) was distressed because she did not have anyone who was loyal only to her. After all their son, Lord Kartikeya’s loyalty was split between both his parents and that loyalty of all of Shiva’s entourage was first for him. So she decided to create a son who is loyal first to her. So she scrubbed the dirt off her body and created the image of a child and being the Devi, she breathed life into it. Shiva was did not know this.

Then one day, when Ma was going for a bath, she asked her newly created son to guard the door for her and let no one enter. When Lord Shiva came back he was surprised to see a young lad barring his way. Try as he might, cajole as he might, the young Ganesh would not let him in. Shiva, eventually flew into a rage and asked Indra and all the gods to attack and destroy this child who has dared to stop him. All the elements and weapons were thrown at the child but he fended them off with ease, still barring the door. Finally Lord Shiva himself uses his choice weapon, the trident, and lops the child’s head off. To pacify Parvati, Lord Shiva replaces the child’s head with that of a baby elephant, and thus is born Lord Gaj-anana (elephant faced  one).

The esoteric meaning of the same is as follows:

The Hindu way of viewing the world is that everything is the same substance, vibrating at different frequencies. The world exists because of the play between reality and maya, truth and illusion or Purush and Devi.

When someone is said to achieve enlightenment, he/she has broken through the maya and sees the world as it really is, beyond the usual five senses. Enlightenment is only possible through various types of yoga that pushes the Kundalini Shakti (the devi) that lies coiled at the base of our spine, to the top of our head when it unites with the Purusha or Shiva, resulting in the yogi getting enlightened.

The path between the base of our spine and the head happens only when yogic processes are able to unblock three channels in the spine. Hindus see the spine as the inverted figure 8 with the hollow on the left called Ida, the hollow on the right called Pingala and the meeting point called Sushumna. In fact these channels are often times depicted as a trident.

Along the path there are seven chakras which are centres in our energy body. Yogis tell of 112 chakras in our body but these seven along the spine are the principal ones. Kundalini needs to rise from below the first charka (mool adhara) to the top of the highest chakra (sahasrara). Important to note that Lord Ganesh is considered the master of the first chakra and Lord Shiva is known as the first yogi or the Adiyogi.

Now let us examine the traditional story in light of the above paragraph:

So Ganesha is created from dirt off the Devi/ Shakti’s body. The dirt represents the most superficial level of maya. It is pure delusion or falsehood. Ego is a characteristic of a deluded person. The young child guards the door to Parvati just like Mooladhara guards the Kundalini. Just like the child prevents Shiva from meeting Parvati, the Mooladhara prevents the kundalini from meeting the Sahasrara. All the elements and deities are unable to break the child just like all externalities in the world will not be able to purify the Mooladhara and persuade it to give Kundalini passage. Finally, the Adiyogi, uses his trident, or purified channels (Ida, Pingala and Sushumna) to remove the head off the arrogant child. The Head itself is a significant thing, it denotes ego. When it is said he removed the head the allusion is to a yogi using his channels to break his ego, his ego of identification with his body or identification with any sort of Maya. The replacing of an elephant’s head is also significant as since time immemorial, the elephant is a symbol of knowledge as wisdom. So Shiva destroys the ego and replaces it wisdom, allowing the union of Shakti and Purusha to take place and thus allowing enlightenment.

So in effect the story is like this: A person ego is is his biggest hurdle in his spiritual progress. His worldly activities and siddhi’s cannot help him unite his kundalini and the Sahasrara. He uses yoga to purify the three subtly channels in his spine and uses these channels to break through the Mooladhara (which Lord Ganesh rules) and welcome the Kundalini to higher planes.

So the story of Lord Ganesha’s birth has a deep esoteric meaning attached to it and is in fact the story of a yogi’s spiritual progress. It is our weakness and our deficiency and lack of diligence that we are unable to see the subtlety in it. If a layman mistakes a piece of diamond to be a piece of glass, the problem does not lie with the diamond. I hope people read and understand the underlying philosophy behind the story and behind yogic processes instead of dismissing our great epics as mere ‘stories’.

 

(My thanks to my Sadhguru and to all gurus before him, without whose inspiration the esoteric meaning above would never occurred to me).

India Presidential Drama

The Indian Presidential drama has played out over the last few days and that is continuing to be played out is seeing Indian politics at its worst (or best, depending on how you look at it). As Ravi Shastri would have put it: In the end, politics was the real winner. The game of shadow boxing, thinking four steps ahead and hint dropping is at its peak, it would seem.

This is how I read the situation. At the outset I was 100% confident that Sonia would not nominate Pranab as the Presidential candidate of her own free will (with one exception: She expected a mid-term election and did not want to antagonise Pranab). And I stick by this conviction, had the game not been changed (which I will discuss presently).  

Why not Pranab?

The reason for my conviction is rooted in the assumption that Sonia would not like to have anyone with a relatively independent mind in any post which could target her, her family or Congress leaders.

Pranab (unfortunately for her, perhaps) is intelligent, a past master in Indian-style politics, has somewhat of a spine and has a beef to pick with some senior Congress ministers and Sonia’s confidantes. Regular news readers will remember Pranab’s chagrin at being spied upon by P Chidambaram, the Home Minister, after bugs were discovered in Pranab’s office. Pranab will also remember how he was kept out negotiations with Team Anna (or was it Baba Ramdev) and coming to know the agreement with everyone else in the Parliament, a clear rebuff. He will also remember how he was made to retract his signed statement that placed the blame of the 2G scam squarely on Chidambaram’s shoulder. All this must be deeply insulting for a man who has given his career for the benefit for the Gandhi family. He must also know that none of the above instances could be possible without the orders of the Congress Supremo. 

Pranab was the smokescreen

Congress which had heaped a Pratibha Patil could not pull out another name like that given its scam-ridden tenure. It had to first get a carte-blanche from its UPA allies before it announced its Presidential candidate. So with the help of the media, Congress floated the name of Pranab as its candidate. It is noteworthy that at no time did any senior leader of the party, much less Soniaji herself, did formally announce Pranab’s name. As expected, its equally-corrupt allies were prompt in authorising Sonia Gandhi under the Pranab smokescreen. Later on when the name of Sonia’s butler was announced, the allies could defend their ‘helplessness’ having already authorised Sonia. Soon the media would ensure that this episode was forgotten and another hand maid(en) would rule Raisina Hill. 

Who did Sonia really want?

Basically she would have been happy with anyone who did not have the guts to stand up to her. That opens up the entire Congress Party to choice and so it was more of a bouquet than any rigid qualification system. I believe even PA Sangma (PAS) was (is) one of her candidates, given he is a non entity in the rest of the county and has no mass following except in one state. I will discuss PAS later.

But Sonia decided to make use of this opportunity to ‘kick’ Manmohan Singh (MMS) upstairs. There are two reasons for this: 

a) He has presided over arguably the most corrupt government ever, anytime in the world. Removing him will give people the illusion of action and frankly make people hate the Congress a little bit less. Makes it easier for the media to get the public to forget the various scams once the head is out and some cabinet reshuffling can be done.

b) Manmohan may turn out to be the Professor Snape of Indian politics. There is a growing belief among a section of political observers that he is actually helping bring down the corrupt coterie in the congress, including allegedly the family itself, by his activities. Consider this, almost all the leaks (2G Pranabs letter, VK Singhs letter, Antrix-Devas papers etc) have come out of the PMO and the media has hardly broken any scandal on its own. There is a feeling that perhaps he even helps Dr. Subramaniam Swamy’s crusade for justice leading to Dr.Swamy never targeting Manmohan directly.

Pranab's dream comes in the way

However, thanks to the persistent rumours about Pranab’s candidature, that Sonia did not deny (she couldn’t, after all that WAS the plan!), and some well-schemed prodding by the opposition, Pranab himself began coveting President-ship. After all, he was PM material now relegated to reporting to his junior (Manmohan Singh). Being persistently denied what was rightfully his, Pranab now finally had something to crown the end of his political innings. He is anyway not going to contest elections again and would rather ride into the sunset donning the President’s hat than be remembered as ‘a cabinet minister’ in the most corrupt government and as the Finance Minister saw the near-demise of the Indian economy. Pranab began to believe that he was (or atleast deserved to be) the Congress’ Presidential candidate. Now, THIS Sonia did NOT factor.

The pawns

When Sonia realised that she would have to drop Pranab and replace him with Manmohan, she knew she had to shoot from someone else’s shoulders. After all Congress cant afford antagonising Pranab, he knows too much. So Sonia chose two people to manipulate toward this end.

The first was Mamta Banerjee (MB), the explosive, moody chief minister of W.Bengal. Mamta has no love lost for Pranab. MB is ex-Congress stock who fought for the Party for years in West Bengal, the bastion of communists in India. In fact it is rumoured that she left the Congress in the mid-90s to form the TMC only because of Pranab’s deep friendship with the communists that was resulting in her efforts against them coming to naught. Additionally, she has been long demanding a financial package for W.Bengal which Pranab has been consistently stalling. So using Mamta against Pranab would not raise any suspicions.

The second was Mulayam Singh Yadav (MSY), the calculating and allegedly extremely corrupt chief minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP). Rumour has it that he has several damning cases pending with the CBI which are used as a ‘stick’ by the Congress everytime they want him to fall in line. It is well known that after several flip flops, Mulayam always sides with the Congress when it matters (nuclear deal e.g.) and everyone can guess the reason why.

So it was clear to Sonia that Mamta’s character and Mulayam’s alleged lack of it make them the best pawns to use for this operation. 

This was the master plan *

Sonia talked to Mulayam Singh Yadav (MSY), the head of the Samajwadi Party (SP) to put into motion her master plan that would achieve multiple objectives. She asked him to talk to Mamata Banerjee (MB), head of Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) of West Bengal, to plan a ‘rebellion’ against the UPA. Given her long misgivings about the Congress, Pranab and perhaps even the Gandhis, Mamta would readily agree. So Mulayam and Mamta got together and hatched a plan. 

The plan within the plan – Phase I

Sonia invited Mamata for a meeting in 10 Jan Path and possibly said something like this. “I will guarantee you whatever package you want, if you go out and say that you insisted on Manmohan Singh’s name as President”. This way, Sonia could have feigned helplessness in front of Pranab and said something like “look these are difficult times, we are facing multiple pressures, why should we risk a break in the UPA now? Manmohan Singh is anyway the symbol of massive corruption, this gives him a face-saving exit and I will promote you to the post of Deputy PM. You know Mamata is extracting her long standing vendetta against you, and I am really helpless against his. I have nothing to do with this but you should forget your Presidential dreams and take one of the chin for the Congress Party”. 

The plan within the plan – Phase II

Mamta met journalists immediately outside 10JP and said Sonia recommended two names, Pranab and Hamid Ansari (even causal observers know that Hamid is nowhere close to Pranab in stature). This must have caused massive consternation to Pranab who till now was perhaps given to believe that he was Congress’ ONLY candidate. He immediately knew that was a lie and that Sonia was throwing other names, much less qualified names to partners. To top this, Mamata went to a meeting with Mulayam Singh, whom she perceived to be a partner in this, and said that they jointly have three names: Abdul Kalam (her real intent), Manmohan Singh (as she had promised Sonia) and Somnath Chatterjee (a diversion).

The plan within the plan (goes slightly awry) – Phase III

The Congress made a big show about being muddled, not knowing what to do, not having expected this turn of events at all. Which in itself is surprising given that Mamta had told reporters that Sonia knows that I am going be announcing the two names (Pranab and Hamid) outside.

But, this was also where the plan went a little awry. While Sonia had expected Mamta to take Manmohan’s name and give an ultimatum to her, which was what Sonia wanted, Mamta took three names. If Sonia would have chosen Manmohan from those three, it would have looked like she has no faith in the PM, causing the opposition to call for a trust vote or try and pull the government down. It was a media circus that Sonia wanted to avoid. This caused her to change her plan a little bit, she was now forced to defend Manmohan Singh, basically ruling him out for President nomination. Which in a way was good, as Manmohan Singh is the best PM India can get under the UPA (and for the reasons stipulated earlier).

Had things gone to plan and Mamta and Mulayam insisted on just Manmohan, this would have been the end of it, with Pranab’s hope dashed for a believable excuse. 

The plan changes

Now the plan needed to be changed. While there was no choice now for the Congress but to prop Pranab up for President-ship. But after the events of the first day, Sonia could not just flip, she had to ensure that Pranab believed that he had coerced her to change. Otherwise, he would never trust the Congress. That is, in his mind unless he believed he knew WHY the Congress changed it decision, he would not believe they were serious about getting him elected.

Congress cleverly kept quiet for a day and waited for Pranab to come to 10JP and vent his anger. And vent, he did. Early next morning he got in touch with Sonia and used some of the many cards he has at his disposal to coerce her into defending his candidature. Maybe one of the cards was the illegal account holder list received from the LGT Bank, Lichtenstein which Pranab has so far managed to not disclose? It was after this orchestrated tongue lashing (Pranab was himself unaware of this), Sonia sent one of her men Dwivedi to defend Manmohan Singh as the PM, and eventually after a big show of discussion, announced Pranab as the candidate. 

Plan B

Now the plan is: Prop Pranab as the Congress’ official candidate, but ensure that the other guy (whom Sonia likes) wins.

As originally planned, Mulayam abruptly stopped supporting Mamta. This gets rid of the most difficult ally of the UPA, without the Congress officially throwing it out. This also brings Mulayam closer to the Congress and more wedded to its fate. In fact it was this betrayal of Mamta by Mulayam that suggested that the entire drama was coordinated. Why? – I will discuss later.

The replacement killers

Now there is no way that Sonia was going to support Kalam. One, he is as savvy and spine-ful as Pranab, if not more. Second, he is the one who stopped Sonia from becoming the PM in 2004 and if Dr. Subramanian Swamy is to be believed will even stop Rahul Gandhi from the same. In any case, the opposition wanted Kalam but were unable to convince him that he would win. As such Kalam excused himself from the contest and in came PA Sangma (PAS). 

PA Sangma

I have briefly touched upon PAS earlier in this narrative and indicated my feeling that he is actually a Sonia candidate. The reason for this is manifold. PAS is a Christian from the north-east of India, that is a key fan club of the current Gandhi family. Additionally, after quitting the Congress party on Sonia’s foreign origin issue, PAS has apologised to her for it and even is part of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) that is propping the UPA government up. Also, PAS’ very young daughter (in her 20s) was taken into the Union Cabinet of India by Sonia highlighting Sonia’s affections for PAS and his family. All this leads me to believe that PAS was always Sonia’s plan B with respect to candidature.

Recently, in-line with Sonia’s plan, NCP and Sangma made a big show about how NCP does not want it to contest against Pranab. After all, wouldn’t the plan be obvious if UPA fielded two candidates?! Sangma quit the NCP in a huff and the NCP accepted his resignation without any ado. But DESPITE THIS seeming fight between the two, Sangma’s daughter, Agatha, continues to be part of the Union Cabinet as a NCP nominee. While she may be moved out temporarily at some point under some obscure Party disciplinary issue, the game is now obvious for anyone to see: Daughter in Sonia’s cabinet (for no achievements that are known to the masses), while father revolts against Sonia? Is that even possible. This cements my belief that Sangma is one the candidates Sonia would like to see as President instead of Pranab.

This would also explain Sangma’s confidence in his serious fight based on the support of just two regional parties: Jayalalitha’s AIADMK and Naveen Patnaiks Biju Janata Dal (BJD), which collectively have just about 4-8%% of the vote.  

Formation of the third front quashed

NDA judiciously had kept its mouth shut on the entire thing. Especially, some BJP leaders known for shooting their mouths off were reined in. This would limit the Party’s humiliation should events unfold as unexpected by them. While NDA, especially the BJPs inclination towards Kalam was understood and appreciated by everyone, Kalam’s withdrawal threw a spanner in the works. NDA was clearly reluctant to support Sangma.

This was another (perhaps unexpected) benefit of fielding Sangma to the Congress. It squarely divided the polity into three parts, first, that would support Pranab, second, that would support Sangma and third, that WAS supporting Kalam but was now undecided and reluctant to support Sangma. The group supporting Sangma, would in future be recognised as the third front and would opportunity to various regional parties and currently unaffiliated small parties a chance to form a large political block. This would dilute the nationalist, Hindutva agenda and would result in votes being split three way giving the Congress a chance to form UPA III, a chance that at this moment is non-existent. This is the brilliance of Sonia Gandhis plan, multiple objectives with one scheme!

Thanks to the presence of Dr. Subramanian Swamy, NDAs non-existing political acumen was given a massive, massive boost. I am sure Dr.Swamy read the situation as it is and identified the formation of the third front. To prevent the splitting of the vote, Dr. Swamy cleverly convinced the BJP to support Sangma. It is possible that Narendra Modi also had a big part to play in this, but Dr. Swamy was clearly the main man of this operation. What this did is, it cut the idea of a grand ‘third front’ in the bud. Today AIADMK, BJD and BJP is the block that’s supporting Sangma, not some ‘third front’. In fact, this aligns these regional satraps (also good personal friends of Narendra Modi) closer with NDA. It is quite possible that even Mamta Banerjee who has clearly been made a political laughing stock out of by the Congress, will support Sangma and become closer aligned with the NDA.  

Why is Nitish Kumar of JD(U) angry?

It is well known that Nitish wants to become the PM of India. But as a member of a smaller faction in the NDA, he knows that he has no chance of getting the nomination. His outside chance was the clear, qualified and desired candidature of Narendra Modi would be quashed by the NDA elders due to his ‘Hindu’ image in the media house’s minds. He kept threatening BJP with separation from NDA regularly by asking Modiji to not visit Gujarat, returning aid checks sent by Gujaratis (VERY petty), kept harping on the need for a ‘secular’ PM and what not as methods to occupy the mindspace of the people in BJP and the media and the ‘secular’ intelligentsia.

However, Modi’s recent demonstration of his clout within the BJP (also see my blog on why BJP has no alternative than to anoint Narendra Modi as PM candidate), convinced Nitish that he stood no outside chance at all in the NDA. So what does he do? If he quits and goes to UPA, then he wont even have the chance at PM-ship that he has now, given that his surname isn’t Gandhi and wont work as his steward. So his only alternative was the creation of the third front that could use his face as a PM candidate. By scuttling the idea of this front itself, NDA has ensured Nitish is reined in. No wonder he is angry and asking his men to keep firing off against BJP and Modiji on an almost daily basis.

The best outcome for BJP in his scenario is that Nitish actually does split even under the current scenario. If the vote swing in its favour is any indicator during the last elections, BJP will likely do much better than JD(U) at the hustings. Moreover, with Nitish out, I have no doubt UPA will move in to take him up. Even on his reduced strength (ie without BJP/RSS support) Nitish will be a much for formidable partner in Bihar than UPA’s current Laloo Yadav of the RJD. Laloo has just 3-4 seats from Bihar and is a virtual non-entity except for his rabble rousing ability whenever UPA needs it. The prospect of Nitish leaving NDA must be giving Modi, Bihar BJP and even Congress sound sleep at night, even as it keeps Laloo wide awake, clenching his bedsheet or chatai in deep fear.

So what happens from here?

Given that NDA did not have numbers and with some of its members (JD-U and Shiv Sena) pledging support to Pranab, I think it has done a decent job of the situation, thanks to Dr. Swamy and Modiji.

Sonia who would have discounted Pranab at the first stage itself and rid herself of an headache of a PM Manmohan Singh, is not forced to hang on to him as PM and is forced to publically back Pranab as President. Where she has won is that she managed to get Sangma propped up as a rival candidate. She will ensure that he gets enough dissident cross voting from her party and that of her allies (esp SP and NCP) so that he wins. This helps in cutting Pranab to size and at same time having someone like Sangma as President, who is a bit more ‘reasonable’ that Pranab would have been. The shock of Pranab losing may even result in a trust vote and depending on how badly Chidambaram fares in the 2G case coming up sometime in July, this government could well be on its way out unexpectedly soon.

The failure of formation of third front will see NDA getting consolidated and Nitish Kumar going the Laloo way. If he is able to work at it, then he may still remain relevant in Bihar, but that state is he graveyard of many politicians and does not usually give anyone second chances. The nominal party head Sharad Yadav will recognise the situation and has already asked Nitish’s cohorts to stop making noises against the BJP. He realises that Nitish may have a short time to political expiry and he had better latch on to the BJP bandwagon to ensure his own survival. He has no independent constituency of his own and depends on Nitish to get him votes. He also realises that if Nitish joined the third front or the UPA, his own utility will be at a naught leaving him stranded. So when push comes to shove he will strive to keep JD-U within the NDA fold.

In fact, its was on twitter the other day (with a pinch of salt please), that when BJP workers carried Modi’s posters in Bihar just a day before and dared JD-U to pull out of alliance with BJP, Nitish was apparently sweating in his AC cabin seeing Modi’s stature.

So in summary:

Sangma will be next President in a ‘surprise’ upset.

Pranab may eat humble pie and choose to vanish without a trace or come out all guns blazing against Sonia as he is no doubt going to figure out whats happened. In which case he would be a serious, serious, serious threat to the Congress. But his reaction depends on how compromised he personally is.

Nitish will accept his fate as being limited to Bihar, if that. BJP will re-emerge as power if he leaves, while RJD will vanish without trace. If Nitish stays with BJP, he will be significantly humbler than before.

Dr.Swamy and Narendra Modi will emerge as power blocks in BJP that appears to be starved for strategic thinking.

NDA will add three parties to its fold or atleast garner ‘outside’support from one or more of them.

Mid term elections before end of this year.

* The most important question: Why did I expect this exercise to be Congress’ plan at all?

To the casual onlooker, the Congress looked to be meandering aimlessly at first and reacting to the situation. Which is very uncharacteristic of its political acumen. But the biggest give-away for me was Mulayam’s flip-flop.

Consider this, why did Mulayam revolt against Congress in partnership with Mamata in the first place? If we believe that he back tracked from the revolt due to the CBI cases against him, then did he not know about those cases 48 hours earlier when he was doing joint press conferences with Mamata? Of course he did!

If we argue, that yes, he did know of the cases but thought that UPA as a government would fall very quickly and that it would not give CBI enough time to act against him. So then I would argue, if that was the case, then it doesn’t explain him backtracking, ie if he believed government is going to fall then why obey its CBI-laced diktats at all?!

The third reason could be that Mulayam always intended to betray Mamata and only did this drama to alienate her from the UPA, just so that he becomes more valuable to the UPA. But surely Mulayam knows how big a dent in his credibility he has taken leaving Mamata at the altar, figuratively speaking, by behaving the shocking way her has flip flopping every few hours. Who will trust him now?! His alleged lack of ethics have been exposed for all now. And all this for what? To ingratiate himself to a Congress that is most likely to be routed next elections? He doesn’t need them in his bastion (Uttar Pradesh), so why risk his political credibility on what is widely viewed as a sinking ship?! Just doesn’t make sense. For whatever you may say about Mulayam, you cannot doubt his ability to look after his self interests!

In fact, I could not come up with any single credible, rational, logical explanation on why Mulayam revolted in the first place at all! It is from this that the germ of an idea formed in my mind that his revolt against the Congress candidate was engineered in the first place. Why would Mulayam himself engineer the death of his credibility in Delhi? It followed that he was forced to do this. Who can force him to do this? Who else? The people who wield control over the CBI which has the power to investigate (or put on the back burner) cases against him.

Disclaimer:this is clearly a work of fiction and a made-up account of what might have happened behind the scenes. Some true events are included but by no means is this intended to be a true account. No intent to offend or malign anyone, just pure speculation from someone who weaved a story trying (unsuccessfully perhaps) to incorporate all events that have happend in a single cohesive narrative. This is for entertainment purposes, so take it with a pinch of salt.

Why is “matter is subjudice” an invalid defence?

Everytime a politician uses the excuse "matter is sub-judice" to duck a difficult question, the journalist asking the question should ask "So?"

The whole concept of not commenting on matter that are under consideration of a court is redundant ever since the jury system was abolished in India. The jury consisted of ordinary people who were not expe...rts in law and were susceptible to be influenced by different noises coming out of talking heads on TV or public statements given by different parties.

Now that the cases are heard by a learned judge and decided by him/ her only, there is no question of using the "matter is subjudice" to not answer a question. They can use any other excuse to duck questions but not answering because "matter is subjudice" is IMHO about as relevant a reason as "My dog has distemper".

The jury system in India was revoked after the famous case of Kawas Maneckshaw Nanawati vs. State of Maharashtra. KM Maneckshaw was a honourable navy officer who killed his best friend Prem Ahuja as Prem was sleeping with Kawas’ wife and when discovered refused to marry “every woman he slept with”. There was a massive support campaign carried on by almost the entire Parsi community in India, led by the famous RK Karanjia who ran the magazine Blitz. Incidentally, Prem Ahuja’s case was represented by a very young Ram Jethmalani.

Due to the sustained sympathy campaign the jury was influenced to say that Nanavati was not guilty. This made it clear how open the jury was to being influenced by whats happening in the world around them and the jury system was scrapped in India after this case in 1959-1962.

While I am sure this had nothing to do with Kavas’ acquittal I find it interesting to mention that:

“Nanavati had moved in the same circles as the Nehru-Gandhi family for many years. He had previously worked as Defence Attaché to V. K. Krishna Menon, while the latter was high commissioner to the United Kingdom, and had grown close to the Nehrus during that time. During the time of his trial and sentencing, Jawaharlal Nehru was Prime Minister of India and his sister, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, was governor of Maharashtra state.” (wikipedia)

Eventually Kavas lost the case in appeal, and Supreme Court held that he was guilty of pre-mediated murder. Personally, I think Kavas’ behaviour was as gentlemanly as can be in the circumstances through the entire tragic episode.

Pick any journalist and ask him why should he agree to an answer like “matter is sub judice” and he/ she will probably not know the reason behind this weasel statement. I wonder what sort of training journalists get if they are not able to counter such statements from people they interview? Genuine question, no sarcasm.

The above post is the the best of my knowledge, please feel free to point out errors in fact and inference in comments. No intent to malign anyone, not subject to legal action.

An irrational fear

As the rush for the Presidential nomination comes into its last lap on this tenth day of June 2012, I am gripped with an irrational fear. Right now, everyone expects Pranab Mukherjee to be nominated as the President candidate from the UPA camp. The chorus has been so shrill that I think even Pranab believes it, it is not difficult to see him suppressing a smile of pleasure whenever quizzed about this issue, but perhaps I am imagining it.

I have long maintained that keeping in line with the policy of the current leadership of the Congress it is virtually impossible for anybody with some independent thought and some spine to be nominated to any post that puts the Congress leadership in its cross-hairs. So there is no way that Pranab (who is already singed by the Congress in the inter-office memo leak scandal) will be put into that position. There is an exception to this in my view and that is, if UPA expects mid-term elections or is planning to call them itself, then Pranab will be nominated. Even then chances are slim.

Now I come to my irrational fear and it is this. Sonia or whoever is advising her is a master politician and manipulator of human emotions in my view. I do not mean this deridingly; this is a must in politics now-a-days, sad as the situation is. Its so far fetched that I am just going to say it and justify it later:

Sonia may nominate LK Advani as the Presidential candidate.

I know. Hold your horses. This is the logic. There are many cogent reasons that can be given to justify LKA’s ascension as the president: veteran politician etc etc. But this will be a political masterstroke that can rend the BJP overnight. BJP simply lacks the intellectual prowess to counter this move, perhaps? Already LKA is seething at being sidelined in the BJP. The NDA government where he was the second most senior leader was notorious in letting the ‘first family’ off in multiple matters. By making him President, Sonia makes him wedded to protecting the family again out of obligation. Makes him closer to the Congress and perhaps may cast a less than generous look to a Narendra Modi headed government formation bid. BJP will have little option but to support, if it doesn’t, then the party will be broken into two camps immediately leaving it less than able to meet the challenges of an election effectively.

Anyway, will not lengthen this further, I have put my worst case scenario across. All the moves and the motivations above are conjecture, imagination and works of fiction. I am merely putting an extreme remote possibility across and expressing my opinion. I believe this is not liable for any sort of legal action.