Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Who Wrote The Indian Constitution?

If in an open forum, had anyone made any of the following innocuous remarks, chances are they are likely to be contested. 
(1)Ambedkar was the Chairman of the ‘Drafting Committee’ of the Indian Constitution; there were other members who helped him write it … (2) Ambedkar was the Chairman of the Drafting Committee’ of the Indian Constitution but he alone did not write it … (3)Ambedkar alone did not write the Indian Constitution … The only politically correct statement about the writing of the ‘Indian Constitution’ is, ‘Dr. B. R. Ambedkar wrote the Indian Constitution.’ The fact of the matter, however, is

“The Constitution of India was not ‘written’ (as in writing a book) entirely by B. R. Ambedkar as popularly believed, nor was entirely ideated by Jawaharlal Nehru as some seem to believe. It was the collective effort of the best and the brightest minds who comprised the Constituent Assembly (of India), who toiled for about three years between 1946 and 1949. Nehru proposed the ‘Objectives Resolution’ and Ambedkar was the Chairman of the ‘Drafting Committee’. There were originally 389 members in the Constituent Assembly but after partition in 1947, some members who represented the states / areas which were carved out as Pakistan left. The residual Constituent Assembly had 299 members. 

Sir B. N. Rau, a constitutional expert and adviser to the Constituent Assembly, prepared a draft Constitution based on the 1935 Government of India Act and his studies of the British, Irish, Canadian, US and other constitutions. The Constituent Assembly used the draft as the basis for developing the Indian Constitution.    

The Index at the end of “The Makers of Indian Constitution - Myth And Reality” (Chavan, Sesharao. 2000. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan), has a curious entry: plagiarism. The issue of plagiarism was discussed in Chapter 4, “Draft Constitution” (pp. 51-88). The chapter details how Sir B. N. Rau prepared the draft constitution comprising 240 clauses and 13 schedules. Sir B. N. travelled to Great Britain, Ireland, United States of America and Canada to study their Constitutions before preparing his draft. He had discussions with President Harry Truman of the USA, Prime Minister D’ Valere of Ireland and many other constitutional experts. It was his draft that was put before the Constituent Assembly to suggest suitable modifications to the “Draft Constitution”. The Constituent Assembly appointed the following members to the ‘Drafting Committee’ at its sitting on August 29, 1947:

Shri Alladi Kuppuswami Ayyar
Shri N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
Dr. K. M. Munshi
Syed Muhammad Sa’adulla
Sir. B. L. Mitter
Shri D. P. Khaitan

The Committee elected Dr. B. R. Ambedkar as its Chairman in its first meeting on August 30. From then on, it met on forty four days till February 13 1948 and the first draft of the Constitution was presented to the President the next day, February 14 1948. The draft was put up for the public to study for eight months. On November 4 1948 it was formally presented to the Constituent Assembly for clause by clause discussion, debate and amendments.

While introducing the Draft Constitution to the Constituent Assembly Ambedkar acknowledged the role of various Committees whose reports formed the basis for drafting articles:

“The Drafting Committee in effect was charged with the duty of preparing a Constitution in accordance with the decision of the Constituent Assembly on the reports made by various committees, appointed by it such as the Union Powers Committee, the Union Constitution Committee, the Provincial Constitution Committee and the Advisory Committee on Fundamental Rights, Minorities, Tribal Areas etc.”

He then explained the rationale for using Government of India Act of 1935 as the basis:

“It is said that there is nothing new in the Draft Constitution that about half of it has been copied from the Government of India Act of 1935; and that the rest of it has been borrowed from the Constitutions of other countries that very little of it can claim originality.”

There you have it from the horse’s mouth. Ambedkar went on to say:

“One likes to ask whether there can be anything new in a Constitution framed at this hour in the history of the world. More than 100 years have rolled over when the first written Constitution was drafted. It has been followed by many countries reducing their Constitution to writing. What the scope of a Constitution should be has long been settled. Similarly what are the fundamentals of a Constitution are recognized all over the world. Given these facts, all Constitutions in their main provisions must look similar. The only new thing, if there can be any, in a Constitution framed so late in the day are the variations made to remove the faults and to accommodate it to the needs of the country.”

Ambedkar explained that while the Constitutions of other countries were used as the basis, appropriate modifications were made to suit the Indian context:

“The charge of producing a blind copy of the Constitutions of other countries is based, I am sure, on an inadequate study of the Constitution. I have shown what is new in the Draft Constitution and I am sure that those who have studied other Constitutions and who are prepared to consider the matter dispassionately will agree that the Drafting Committee in performing its duty has not been guilty of such blind and slavish imitation as it is represented to be.”

He explained why, in writing the Constitution, it was not necessary ‘to reinvent the wheel all over again’:

“As to the accusation that the Draft Constitution has produced a good part of the provisions of the Government of India Act 1935, I make no apologies. There is nothing to be ashamed of in borrowing. It involves no plagiarism. No body holds any patent rights in the fundamental areas of a Constitution.” 

Friday, April 15, 2016

Understand Sabarimala, Your Lordships!

The prime reason for Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism, in English!) to be the most misunderstood creed in the world has as much to do with politics as a lack of understanding of its core philosophy. More people drop ‘Manu Smriti’ than they drop hats without being able to quote one line from it. 

Amidst all the cacophony about temple entry and gender rights, the core philosophy behind a pilgrimage to Sabarimala is lost. 

The rishis of yore did penance to realise (darsana or visualisation through the mind) godhead. In order to focus the mind solely on the paramatma (Supreme Being), body and mind control were thought to be necessary. Control of bodily senses was thought to be necessary for controlling the mind. Modern science recognises there is a physiological basis to personality.

A barefoot, forty mile hike across forest tracks strewn with pebbles and stones in bone-chilling winters and a seven-mile trek across a forty-five-degree mountain is not easy. (It was originally a forty mile hike across a forest, now limited to about seven miles.) It requires rigorous conditioning of the body. The devotee practises sleeping on cold floors and walking barefoot for forty days. If this is physical conditioning, what about mind control? Brahmacharya (celibacy) requires equally rigorous mind control. In order to aid this, the devotee has cold baths twice a day, eschews spices, meat and intoxicants. A pilgrimage to Sabarimala to visit Bhagawan Ayyappa is all about brahmacharya. Wearing saffron or black clothes is a constant reminder of the need for brahmacharya.   

The exclusion of women between the ages of menarche and menopause has another reason. It is not gender discrimination but gender sensitivity, intended to spare them the rigours involved in a pilgrimage to Sabarimala. In the philosophy behind a pilgrimage to Sabarimala as in every other religious practice in Sanatana Dharma, there may be other cryptic reasons not fully understood by the laity.

The ageless scriptures of the Sanatana Dharma are beyond the ken of the Indian Constitution, amended a hundred and thirty times in sixty-six years. The Constitution entrusted Your Lordships with the duty of interpreting it. There are thousands of mundane matters that need and deserve your attention better! 

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Tehelka Sting Comes Unstuck!

The New Indian Express, Hyderabad
April 14, 2016, p. 7
Remember the fanfare with which the SECULAR media went hammer and tongs highlighting the Tehelka sting operation against Defence Ministry officials in 2001? A certain Mathew Samuel was the hatchet.

We were shown a video of a related sting operation, in which someone handed over a stack of papers to Bangaru Laxman and Laxman shoving the stack in a drawer. We were told that the stack indeed contained Rs 1 lakh in cash. The clip and its screen grab were used over and over again by the said SECULAR media as a meme for political corruption of the NDA regime. No ladies and gentlemen, the Congress party is so lily white that it did not accept a farthing from anyone!

It later turned out Tehelka itself was a Congress front. Kapil Sibal grudgingly accepted in 2013, that he gave a donation of Rs 5 lakh to the start up. He denied accepting any shares from the company, but the company's records nevertheless showed him as a shareholder.

Well, the sting operation used by Congress' CBI to nail political opponents did not stand up in court. Narender Singh, Assistant Financial Adviser in the MoD was discharged for insufficient evidence.

Monday, December 29, 2014

BJP: Opportunity cost of pawning political ideology in J & K

It is entirely possible that by the time this appears on the web the BJP would have sealed an alliance either with the PDP or the NC in Jammu and Kashmir. There are indications that this time the party would like to make a serious bid for power in the state. There is nothing exceptionable in that. Political parties contest elections to come to power.

Some of the party’s supporters in the social media and opinion-piece writers in online portals would like it ‘not to let go’ of the opportunity. But every opportunity has a cost. In economic theory this is called the opportunity cost. If the party has achieved a majority or was able to form a government with a ‘near majority’, the opportunity cost would have been payable at the end of the term based on its performance in office during the intervening period, which in the case of Jammu and Kashmir is six years.

The opportunity cost that a political party pays for immediate gains can have far reaching consequences, not all of them economic and not just for the party. The polity of the state and the nation, as stake holders will pay a cost too. The cost could be in terms of stalled development, internal disturbances or external threats. The state of Jammu and Kashmir had paid costs on all these accounts in the last sixty seven years. This was in addition to the cost that was paid in advance, a cost that was not payable and not even demanded. The additional cost paid in advance was the referral to the United Nations and Article 370 which excluded the state from the national mainstream. There is no need to go into Jawaharlal Nehru’s reasons or motivations on why he paid the two additional costs that were not even demanded, but they, it turns out are not one-time costs.

Opportunity cost relates to the cost one has to pay not only for availing an opportunity but also for foregoing an opportunity. Unfortunately the state of Jammu and Kashmir and the nation paid opportunity costs twice more in 1965 and 1971 for foregoing opportunities.

The ‘pro-power’ BJP supporters argue that this time around the BJP has achieved a quite impressive tally of 25 seats in the 87 member assembly and more importantly the largest vote share. The inherent anomaly in the first-past-the-post electoral system made political parties win fewer seats with larger vote percentages in the past too. It has to do with the concentration of winning seats in a region of the state. It has happened this time too with the BJP winning more seats in the Jammu region and may be losing some seats in the Srinagar Valley with slender margins.

The ‘pro-power’ BJP supporters’ argument runs like this: ‘if in an alternative scenario the non-BJP parties, the NC and the PDP were to come together to form the government, it would be un-representative of the Jammu region. Therefore the BJP should seek to be part of the power-centre, no matter what the cost.’

There were many instances in the past when governments at the centre and states were formed by parties which had no representation in several states or regions. For example in 1977 when the Janata Party came to power at the centre the Congress won 41 out of 42 seats in Andhra Pradesh and 26 out of 28 in Karnataka. In a further twist when Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy, the lone Janata Party MP in Andhra Pradesh was elected President even that seat went to the Congress. Closer in time, the present BJP government is in power with its party unrepresented in Kerala, has just one MP in Tamil Nadu and two in Bengal.

The second argument that is advanced is that letting go the opportunity now might result in losing ground to the other party which could utilize the opportunity to consolidate its political position. There were quite a few instances in the past when parties with ‘near majority’ adopted short cut methods to come to power by what the mainstream media would like to call ‘cobbling’ majorities. As a result of this, unstable regimes came to power in the past in states like Goa, Jharkand and Manipur but seldom saw out their full term in office.

BJP’s earlier experiences in Goa, Jharkand and Karnataka were none too comforting. By compromising on its core values for aligning with the Janata Dal (S) it not only wasted years in Karnataka but lost so much ground politically that it might be some time before it can even look at power in the state again. The argument that spurred the BJP then was that it was the first time the party would come to power in the South. It is similar to the one put forth now that it would gain foothold in the Muslim majority state of J & K, another first for BJP. Just as the perception of an unholy alliance between Congress and RJD in Bihar benefited the BJP, JD (U) alliance in 2006, the perception of an unholy alliance between the BJP and JD (S), the wrangling for the Chief Minister’s post by rotation and the even un-holier ‘fabricated majority’ with which Yeddyurappa ruled the state benefited the Congress in 2013.

What ideological compromises will the BJP have to make for a stab at power in J & K? The better option is to align with the National Conference and independents in which case the BJP, being the larger partner, would get the Chief Minister’s post. According to a report in Eenaadu, the quid pro quo being worked out between the BJP and the NC is the post of a Governor for Farooq Abdullah and a berth in the union cabinet for Omar Abdhullah through the Rajya Sabha route. Farooq of course would love the sinecure with all its pomp and ceremony sans responsibility. But the Hindus of J & K have painful memories of his reign when as the Chief Minister he abdicated responsibility and left them to the tender mercies of foreign and home-grown terrorists like Ali Shah Jelani and Yasin Malik. The half-a-million Hindus exiled then are still out in the cold.

The second option is to align with the PDP in which case it will have to settle to play second fiddle, perhaps for the post of a Deputy Chief Minister. As a precondition the PDP is demanding that the BJP should unambiguously declare that it would give up its stand on Article 370 forever and rescind the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).

Agreeing to make Article 370 a permanent feature of the Constitution will foreclose any option a future central government may have of a rethink on it. This is similar to Jawaharlal Nehru’s folly of recognizing Chinese sovereignty over Tibet in 1954. No Indian government can retract it.   

Any move to rescind the AFSPA is fraught with serious practical consequences. The state has been the victim of terrorism exported by an enemy which vowed to bleed India through a thousand cuts. The unfortunate aspect is the terror machine has local support too.

Lastly the political ideology of the PDP is worrisome. It is a soft-line version of the more militant hard-line Hurriyat Conference. By aligning with such a party would not the BJP provide some legitimacy to it?

Would it not be therefore advisable for the BJP to sit out in the opposition; let the contradictions of the NC, PDP alliance play out and make a bid for power in 2020? The alliance is not likely to last the full term except in the highly unlikely event of the two merging. In the meantime it can play the role of a constructive opposition and keep the ruling clique in check.


Sunday, August 31, 2014

Does overkill really kill the plot?

Book Review 

Sanghi, Ashwin & Patterson, James. (2014). Private India. London. Arrow Books. Pages: 470 (Genre: Crime Fiction) 

The first murder took place at Marine Bay Plaza a Mumbai five star hotel. The hotel called in Private India the Indian branch of Private, the world’s biggest detective agency. Marine Bay Plaza is Private India's regular client for investigative work as it did its job discreetly without the glare of publicity that inevitably followed when official investigation agencies were involved and which  is bad for business in the hospitality industry.

We do not know whether criminal investigations are outsourced to private agencies anywhere in the world except perhaps in crime fiction stories. Arthur Conan Doyle’s hero, Sherlock Holmes described himself as England’s first consulting detective. He used to assist the official law enforcement agencies and while sharing the product kept himself aloof from the limelight and honours. Mumbai police agreed to work with Private India on the understanding that the company should keep it always in the loop and share progress with it regularly. The novel has another similarity with Sherlock Holmes stories. Private India’s head Santosh Wagh has his own band of urchins as informants à la ‘Baker Street Irregulars’.

What is even more surprising is Private India helped Indian intelligence agencies solve terror related cases! This brought it on to the radar of international terrorist organisations. The July 11, 2006 Mumbai train bombings which killed 213 people brought Santosh Wagh, an officer of  the Indian government’s external investigation agency, ‘Research and Analysis Wing’ more popularly known by its acronym, RAW into contact with Private’s Chairman, Jack Morgan, himself an ex US marine.

Two years later tragedy struck Santosh in the form of an automobile accident that killed his wife and son. As a grief-struck Santosh was on a loose end, Jack hired him to head his company’s Mumbai operations. In no way did the new assignment lessen Santosh’s grief as it is aggravated by self-guilt, borne out of the belief that it was his carelessness that caused the fatal road accident. He has been seeking to anaesthetize his pain-filled nightmares with drink.  

If Santosh thought it was one murder that he had to contend with he was in for a surprise. It was not only one murder after another but also Rupesh Desai, ACP in the crimes division of Mumbai police, a former friend turned villain in his life.

Private India not only employs the very latest in backroom technology — forensics and pathology lab, cyber technology for ethical hacking etc — but also employs gorgeous female operatives like Nisha Gandhe to conduct its investigations. The employees of Private India, it appears — at least attempt to — speak in epigrams. If Santosh cracks, ‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’; Nisha calls, ‘one woman’s hobby could often be another woman’s hubby’.

The murders pile up. Blackmail, revenge, religious symbolism, underworld-terrorist nexus and a terrorist plot are thrown into the mixer. All in all it is a challenge to the investigative acumen of Private India and its ace-detective chief, Santosh. As readers try to second-guess the mystery by following clues sprinkled throughout the book, they are upon the terror plot.

The book could have done with fewer chapters. It has 116, the last one containing all of four lines, an epilogue and an appendix. And there is so much of James Patterson. Well, does overkill really kill the plot?  

This review is part of the Book Reviews programme at Blogadda.com

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Is there a ‘winning formula’ for writing a novel?

Book Review

Singh, Soumitra. 2014. The Child Of Misfortune. Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd. New Delhi. Pages: 327. Price: `350/-

There is a belief that more people bought Stephen Hawking’s ‘A Brief History Of Time than read it. For although the good professor tried to simplify the mysteries of the universe as much as he could, there is so much science embedded in the subject that it is difficult for the ordinary reader to follow. Did the readers of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code (2003) read it through without skipping pages? Had the book become so popular because of the controversies it created?

Catch-22’ has become a catchphrase so much so, it is possible many people do not remember that it is a book title. How many of those who bought the book, which is hailed as a ‘classic bestseller’, were able to read through Captain Yossarian’s adventures? Those who read it through probably include literary geeks interested in writing itself. In his preface to the 1994 special edition Joseph Heller confesses that initially it ‘won no prizes and was not on any bestseller list’. Reviewing it in The New Yorker, Mitchell Goodman tore into it, saying ‘… what remains is a debris of sour jokes …’ and, [Heller] ‘wallows in his own laughter and finally drowns in it.’ But a year after its publication something strange seems to have happened.

In Tipping Point Malcom Gladwell tells the story of the shoe brand ‘Hush Puppies’. The brand was all but dead by 1994 and its makers were about to phase it out, when it suddenly perked up. A few New York kids who wore the shoes to the clubs and bars in downtown Manhattan set the trend. Why did they wear them? They wore them because no one else wore them. Something similar happened to Catch-22. The book sold 300,000 copies in 1963 and the publishers had to go to the press eleven times in all in that year.     

The moot question is, ‘is there a ‘winning formula’ that makes a novel or other literary work a success? It is difficult to answer the question. But even the most popular of writers were tempted to repeat a winning formula they stumbled upon. For example, thematically, Geoffrey Archer’s novels Kane and Abel (1979) and The Fourth Estate (1996) have many similarities, although their plots and settings were quite different. Novelists like P. G. Wodehouse, Harold Robbins and Irving Wallace replicated winning formulae of their earlier novels many times over. The same practice may be seen in the publication of non-fiction books too. Spurred by the success of Is Paris Burning (1965), Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins published two more books in the same vein, history told in an easy to read, casual style: O Jerusalem (1972) and Freedom at Midnight (1975).

A favourite theme of novelists from the 2000s is terrorism. The Child Of Misfortune deals with terrorism in its early stages, but moves on to internet hacking, drug running and money laundering. The whole plot is set with chess as a substrate with the two protagonists playing their moves and counter moves as in a chess game. However, dabbling in too many subjects makes the novel muddled and complex.

The novel centres on three schoolmates Amar Singh Rathore, Jonah Michel and Maansi Agarwal. Amar the son of a ruling politician and Jonah an orphan French expatriate have a running feud throughout their lives, playing moves and countermoves as in a chess match and with Jonah often besting Amar. Maansi who ends up as a journalist with The Times Of India, is in love with Amar. Jonah lures Amar to Ladakh, where he murders a Buddhist monk resulting in Buddhist–Muslim riots. The Al-Qaeda steps in to destabilise Kashmir assisted by Indian Mujahideen volunteers. There are quite a few terror groups operating in Kashmir, but Indian Mujahideen? The plot meanders from Ladakh to Srinagar to Seoul to London with Jonah playing advanced chess moves and Amar and Maansi who has by now expressed her love for him, following. In Seoul they pick up an ace internet hacker, Kang, who joins the plot. He can, not only hack into any computer and website in the world to steal data, but can photographically trace the movements of the villains on his laptop. It is as if the whole world is wired, something the dystopian world of Nineteen Eighty-Four did for sound!

The novel abounds in ‘computer typos’ like her for hair and principal for principle. What is dividistic? Did the author mean divisive? Surely, those who have the runs cannot go for jogging! Does a ‘grassroots example’ mean every day or commonplace example? Is a ‘debate opposition team’ an opposing team in a debating competition? What is ‘second-kinds’? After a time one gives up noting errors in language, grammar and syntax. The novel could do with editing and thorough rewriting.  

Isn’t it a given that a novelist should not name existing political parties in the interest of strict political neutrality? 

This review is part of the Book Reviews programme at Blogadda.com