HITLER, NEHRU & A WORTHLESS BOSE

When those who don't have it in them think they have it in them, it's sad. Chandra Kumar Bose was a qualified management expert who did well in the Tatas for many years. Then somebody told him that he was not just another Bose but Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's own grand-nephew. Worse, the BJP zeroed in on him, told him how Bengal was waiting for his guidance and leadership. As their nominee for the chief ministership of West Bengal, they fielded him against Mamata Bannerji in the 2016 elections.

Poor Chandra Kumar Babu. He got 26,299 votes, less than half of Mamata Bannerji's 65,520. Even those 26,299 were Hindutva votes, not Bose votes. But alas, those who don't have it in them don't see what others see. C.K. Bose came out last week with a denunciation of Jawaharlal Nehru that revealed many things about this Bose -- his ignorance of the nuances of history, his lack of a sense of balance, his immaturity as a public interlocutor and, frankly, his political rawness.

Just see what the man said: "Hitler never betrayed his nation. Nehru wanted to sit on the throne without fighting, but sucking up to the British. In short, Nehru betrayed his nation". Somebody must have told him about the stupidity of his words, so he came up with another statement. "I am not supporting Hitler -- of course he was a devil -- but he was not fraudulent like Nehru who in the guise of being a nationalist was actually a British lackey".

Perhaps this undeserving Bose was aware of the BJP's aversion to Nehru and was trying to please his masters. There are schools in Rajasthan where history texts do not mention that Nehru was the first prime minister of India or that Gandhi was shot dead by Godse. Bose figured that such an iron-hard line would make his stock go up with the BJP; may be PM candidate next time, who knows? So Nehru is put in the same bracket as Hitler -- bold even by Hindutva standards.

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose would do nothing of the kind. The differences of opinion between Netaji on the one hand and Gandhi, Nehru, Patel on the other are well known. Yet, Netaji did not denounce Congress leaders. There are strong reasons to believe that he did not die in an aircrash as Japan claimed and that he eventually returned to India, living as Gumnami Baba in Faizabad where he died in 1985. This is still a raging controversy, but no one denies the fact that the Baba's belongings, examined after his death, contained several photographs of Netaji's parents and immediate family, telegrams from trusted veterans of the Azad Hind Fauz and various personal belongings. A small move by such a man to attack Nehru as a betrayer would have changed the course of Indian history. But he was a true patriot who put the country above him. Sometimes grand nephews have difficulty comprehending such things.

As irony would have it, Chandra Kumar Bose's worthless views on Jawaharlal Nehru were exposed for what they were by not a Congressman or Indian historian or intellectual but by a Pakistani. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physics professor in Pakistan, wasn't replying to Bose, too inconsequential to be noticed from that distance. He was merely analysing an aspect of the India-Pakistan situation from an academic point of view. Writing last week in the venerable daily, Dawn, the professor wondered:

"What might have today's India looked like in scientific terms if Narendra Modi, not Jawaharlal Nehru, had been India's prime minister in 1947? Instead of being noted for its exceptional space programme, and brilliant string theorists, India would have become a garbage dump for every kind of crackpot science... As in Pakistan, Darwinian evolution would be considered heretical and destructive of religious faith".

Recalling a speaking tour of India in 2005, Hoodbhoy wrote: "Without Nehru there could never have been the huge and palpable mass enthusiasm for science, manifested in many science museums within a single city... Nehru must also be credited with keeping a lid on his generals. Immediately after partition, Nehru ordered the grand residence of the army chief to be vacated and instead assigned it to the Prime Minister. The move carried huge symbolism... It is nowadays becoming easier by the day for Pakistan to recognise its mirror reflection across the border".

Chandra Kumar Bose is unlikely to see the point. Naturally. Those who don't have it in them don't have it in them.

THE AGE OF DARKNESS IS UPON US

Why should life get so degenerate so often in our country? See the multiplying rape cases, each more brutal than the other. Why should party leaders talk like party leaders and not like human beings when human issues come up? Comments on the Kathua rape horror were an indiscretion, said the BJP's buddhijeevi, Ram Madhav. Why should election advertisements assume that the citizen is an ass? One that asks Karnataka voters to support the BJP "for a corruption-free state" carried the picture of Shri Yeddyurappa, the chief minister who made history by going to jail for corruption.

Party leaders justifying rape is an astonishing phenomenon. Meenakshi Lekhi's concern was not about the girls who were brutalised, but why the media was talking only about rapes in BJP-run states? Maneka Gandhi, whose concern for animals is touching, says that the BJP should not be blamed for the actions of "one or two bad eggs". In Kathua BJP ministers blocked police investigation for four months. One of them asked: "What if this girl has died? Many girls die every day". In Unnao the accused MLA was taken in for questioning only ten months after the girl's complaint. The MLA's thugs had beaten the girl's father to death for raising questions. Even today bodies like the National Women's Commission have kept deafening silence.

The insensitivity shown by the ruling dispensation has shocked civil society so much that 49 retired IAS and IPS officers wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister expressing despair over "the terrifying state of affairs". Saying that they are citizens with no affiliations with any political party, these experienced administrators drew attention to "the frightening climate of hate, fear and viciousness that the ruling establishment has insidiously induced". They drew special attention to "the bestiality and barbarity involved in the rape and murder of an 8-year-old child" in Kashmir.

A responsible government would seek ways to not only contain the criminality that seems to be growing, but also examine the sociological aspects of the issue. It was the BBC that drew attention to an unnoticed aspect of the rape culture in India. The desire for sons and the willingness to get rid of daughters even before they are born have made sex-selection abortions common in many parts of the country. The result is "an awful sex ratio imbalance" that has made India "a country full of men". For every 100 girls, 112 boys are born in India, the healthy ratio being 105 boys for every 100 girls. Haryana has the worst sex ratio -- and the highest number of gang rapes. Facts cry out for attention from our policy makers, but they are interested only in birth-count by religion.

Calculations are constantly being made for narrow partisan gains. Why has cash become suddenly unavailable? The Finance Minister says with his customary casualness that "there is more than adequate currency available with the banks" and everything will be normal in three days. If there is adequate currency around, why can't citizens get them? And why does it take three days for things to be normal? Last time also, cash had disappeared on the eve of an important election. The manipulative capacity of the ruling party has spread distrust and apprehensions all around. But the cynicism of the administration remains untouched.

Why have things gone so irregular, so a-moral? Why has religion become an instrument of evil instead of a road to enlightenment? Why are there so many well-placed people ready to justify evil? Why is hope giving way to despair? Why is light going out and darkness spreading? Clues are there in the wisdom of the ages. But can they give comfort in the midst of vexations that crush us? Nothing could be clearer than the tidings about the Age of Darkness in the Vishnu Purana.

When corruption is beyond every measure of control,

Wealth alone will be the deciding factor of nobility, and brute force the only standard of deciding what is righteous or just;

People will be greedy and will take to wicked behaviour;

Countries will be laid waste and robbers and vagabonds and kings will exploit their subjects;

Petty minds will conduct business and merchants will be dishonest;

People will occupy high seats and pretend to preach religion;

Anxiety and fear will dominate because of devastating famines and heavy taxation;

The land will not grow food crops and people will dread of impending droughts.

So the sages knew it was coming. But we paid no heed to the warnings.

PROMOTING BAD GOVERNANCE IS BAD

So it’s mixture as before - Shri Arun Jaitley is wise, ministers of southern states are dumb. The south objected to the centre taking the 2011 population figures as yardstick for the devolution of tax revenues to the states. Shri Jaitley dismissed the objections in convoluted phraseology. To wit: “Population proxies very well for the needs of the people in quantitative sense. The Income Distance which captures very well relative poverty of people in the states is used to assess qualitative needs.” Got it?

For the benefit of those who are slow on the uptake, Shri Jaitley explained that more resources will go to the populous and poorer states which need additional funds for providing education, health and other services to the people. Very considerate of Shri Jaitley. But Shri Jaitley did not pause to ask why the populous and poorer states have remained populous and poorer seven decades after independence and four glorious years after Shri Jaitley’s party came to power.

The southern states are less populous and less poor because they worked harder to achieve progress. Between the 1971 and the 2011 censuses, when Tamil Nadu’s population rose by 75 percent, Uttar Pradesh’s rose by 130 percent. The south controlled its head count by actively pursuing modern ideas on social indicators such as female literacy. They also advanced in education and on the economic front. Nothing of the kind took place in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and UP, appropriately called BIMARU states (meaning they are unwell).

Instead of pulling up those who mismanaged their affairs, Shri Jaitely wants BIMARU to be financed by TATKKAPU (Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Telangana, Kerala, Karnataka and Puducherry). This injustice was objected to by four southern states that held a conclave last week, the first of its kind in history. Telangana did not attend, but its chief minister is on record saying that “the weightage for population in tax devolution should be reduced.” Tamil Nadu did not attend for political reasons that all could understand. But DMK leader Stalin was the first to object to the centre’s new initiative. The south is sending a message to Delhi: Promoting bad governance is bad; penalising good governance is worse.

There’s more in this than robbing Peter Shetty to pay Paul Sinha. The Centre’s “terms of reference” mentions also “the performance of states on flagship central programmes.” These are the flagships of the BJP Government, such as Start-up India and Swachch Bharat. In other words, what the states get by way of financial devolution depends also on the degree of their loyalty to the BJP’s flagships. This makes a farce of the federal system, and violates the constitutional neutrality of the Finance Commission. And it is being imposed unilaterally with no consultation with the states.

None of this is reason enough to raise demands like Dravidasthan, an idea that found some airing in Tamil Nadu. The political integrity of India is too precious to be turned into a bargaining tool. India is one and must remain so. But in this united India, there should be no discriminatory policies that pit language against language, region against region and religion against religion. New Delhi’s approach to sharing national resources should not give the impression that some are treated as more equal than others. It certainly should not favour one political party at the expense of others.

Shri Jaitely and his Government would have been less vulnerable if they had made an effort to push the Hindi states to perform better. What we see in fact is the Hindi states feeling complacent about their inefficiency. Nothing brought this out more grotesquely than Yogi Adityanath asking Kerala to learn from UP’s health system.

Arrogance - and studied ignorance - of this type make the performing states feel bitter about their money being diverted to the non-performers. The Central Government’s partisanship adds to the discontent in the south. The feeling that Delhi is promoting the interests of the Hindi belt at the cost of others creates a north-south divide. The Centre’s insensitiveness on this matter is really difficult to fathom. Even in electoral terms, the sense of hurt in southern states should worry the BJP. The south uniting against the Finance Commission issue is in reality the south uniting against the BJP. The wise will learn.

WHY DO NEIGHBOURS DISLIKE INDIA?

Major political shifts are taking place in India's immediate neighbourhood -- all of them inauspicious to India. In Maldives, Nepal, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, local sentiments have found expression in ways unseen before.There's a new geopolitical game being played out there, and India is not a player. Is Delhi uninterested or unable to have a say -- uninterested because its priorities are issues like new definitions of patriotism, and unable because prevailing political preferences have reduced the foreign policy establishment to an also-ran with neither vision nor weight.

Of the various reasons for this setback, three are important. First, even in Jawaharlal Nehru's days -- when India had a competent and effective foreign policy -- Delhi and its ambassadors had a condescending attitude towards the small countries on its perifery. This made neighbours dislike India from the start. Secondly, the BJP's rise to power brought about fundamental attitudinal changes in India that filled neighbouring countries with suspicion laced with derision. Third, China plays Big Brother.

Maldives found it easy to publicly discredit India when an internal crisis forced it to declare emergency in February. China added to the embarrassment by saying that it would oppose any direct action by India. Delhi quietly swallowed the pills. To current President Abdullah Yameen, China is one of Maldives' "most dependable partners".

India's handling of Nepal is a story of one disaster after another. At least after monarchy was displaced by democracy in Nepal, Delhi should have realised that this neighbour deserved more attention and more respect than it was accorded in the past. Instead, even desperately needed earthquake relief was provided with a superiority complex that stirred public protests in Kathmandu. The way Indian media covered the news of relief supplies showed that the superiority complex was by no means confined to political and bureaucratic circles.

Then came the induction of a Hindutva element into India's Nepal policy. Under monarchy Nepal was a declared Hindu state, 80 percent of its population being Hindu. But more than two-thirds of the legislature decided in 2015 to declare Nepal a secular state. Instead of respecting this position, the BJP Government objected to it and used the Madhesis, Indian-origin Nepalese, to create a crisis. Against the background of Madhesi demand for changes in the constitution, an economic blockade caused widespread suffering in landlocked Nepal where everything from food to petrol was held up at the borders. It was the most dimwitted action in a series of dimwitted actions. China gained enormously at India's expense.

A pro-China communist alliance has since come to power in Nepal. China, always shrewder, gives small countries the feeling that it respects them. Their aid programmes and economic projects may eventually make the small countries dependent on Beijing, but the absence of condescension makes a difference.

If the Hindutva profile of today's India has put off a Hindu-majority country like Nepal, we can imagine its effect on non-Hindu neighbours. India's plan to deport 40,000 Rohingyas to Myanmar ran into rough weather in that country. Border trade is also a bone of contention. Aung San Suu Kyi visits China and China offers her meaningful proposals centred round the Belt and Road economic corridor. Suu Kyi has emotional bonds with India where she studied. But those bonds have no relevance now.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is personally beholden to India but is unable to prevent Muslim antagonism against local Hindus. The intractable border problems between India and Bangladesh are kept intractable by business lobbies interested in the smuggling of food items, livestock, medicines and drugs. To put it simply, India has more foes in Bangladesh than friends.

Sri Lanka leaning towards China is perhaps the most significant shift that concerns India. China's virtual "purchase" of Hambantota port in Sri Lanka's southern coast gives it a strategic advantage that is unparalleled. There is additionally the "new Colombo" it is building on reclaimed sea in Colombo harbour. Across Sri Lanka today, what one sees is China and more China.

China looks a hundred years ahead. India looks to the next general election. Our policy makers should pay heed to the views Bangladeshi writer Tahmima Anam expressed in 2007. Saying that India was "aggressively self-interested", she analysed "the peculiar paranoia of the strong towards the weak" and said: "We cannot love India. The relationship is too unequal for romance". The wonder is China is stronger than India and more "aggressively self-interested" in its current international activities. Yet no weak country says 'We cannot love China'. Strange? Perhaps not.