FOCUS POLITICS Harish Gupta
There are signs of centrifugal pulls visible everywhere
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The ‘federalism’ Modi dreams of bears resemblance with is, if anything, the famous story of ‘Ali Baba and the forty thieves’ in the Arabian Nights collection
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On completion of Prime Minister Narandra Modi’s first year in office, an influential foreign magazine described him as a “one-man band.” From outside, India under Modi indeed looks like a one-man show. But the ordinary Indian who spends his life in today’s India will understand the growing disconnect between the Centre under Modi and the states, where authoritarian figures are running their territories as their fiefdoms.
In fact, the democratic principles that bind the country are at their weakest in the states where a slew of despotic leaders have interpreted Modi’s pet phrase, “cooperative federalism”, in their own ways. To many of them, it means the licence to loot and plunder, and behave like tin-pot dictators, all as a trade-off against being nice and helpful to Modi on some of his pet national and international issues.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is a glaring example. After initially going through the motions as a part of the “secular” lobby against Modi, she made an about-turn during the Parliament’s Budget Session, when she supported the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill. Now Modi wants her as an ally on two more fronts: first, on the land acquisition bill which is before a joint select committee, and also in improving India’s ties with Bangladesh.
Friendship with Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority nation, can be a feather in Modi’s cap, as he is still being derided by many for what happened in Gujarat under him in 2002 – the post Godhra riots. Mamata’s support holds the key to refurbishing the Indo-Bangla ties for a bilateral agreement for sharing waters of River Teesta and success of the historic Land Boundary Agreement. Teesta is precisely Mamata’s bargaining chip in her dealings with the Centre on another matter — the CBI investigation into the Saradha ponzi scam, a multi-crore fraud involving those close to the CM.
Modi is going to Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital, June 5. The original idea was that Mamata would go with him and return to Kolkata as the Prime Minister leaves for Delhi, June 7. But she has changed her plans, following which she goes to Dhaka on her own June 5 to attend a ceremony announcing the new land boundary agreement. She will return the next day, avoiding a bilateral meeting between Modi and Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina where the Teesta issue is likely to crop up. Earlier, she torpedoed former prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh’s talks with Hasina by backing out of the tour at the last moment. And now she is again playing the Teesta card.
There are strong feelings that what the CM is possibly demanding in exchange of her cooperation is nothing short of an absolute roll-back of the Saradha investigation by the CBI. After being invited to conduct the probe a year ago, the agency has already turned it into a tepid effort, after it became clear that Mamata’s TMC was ready to bargain with Modi for its support to his legislations in the Rajya Sabha. Most of the TMC MPs who were questioned by CBI, including film star Mithun Chakravorty, have since then miraculously escaped the embarrassment of detention by the agency. However, CBI seems to be in no mood to show leniency to a star-accused, transport minister Madan Mitra, who is in custody for over 150 days.
Mitra, considered very close to Mamata, can reportedly turn into a key witness if the Saradha prosecution ever heads to its logical culmination. Saradha chief promoter Sudipta Sen had, at one time, bought Mamata’s amateurish painting for a price that even MF Hussein would have blushed to ask for. Mitra was canvassing for the brand even when its collection had begun falling below the payouts. It is Saradha and several other similar ponzi schemes that had reportedly robbed the state’s poor to fund TMC’s election campaign in 2011 which brought the party to power. Now, Mamata is worried the Centre may eventually turn Mitra against her. That explains the backtracking on Teesta agreement.
In Punjab, however, looting by state leaders — the Akalis, an ally of the BJP — is even more brazen. Deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and his wife and Union minister Harsimrat Kaur control an eco-tourism project, Sukhvilas, spread over 17acres of forest land ringing an artificial lake. The Punjab Infrastructure Development Board (PIDB), of which the deputy CM is the chief, has bent over backwards to allow ropeways connecting resorts on the lake. On the other hand, the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) has acquired land to build a 100-feet-wide road providing access to the Badal family’s tourism complex. It is one of the landowners whose plot had been acquired, who moved the Punjab and Haryana high court, and that brought the matter to public notice.
Earlier, an incident at Moga, of molestation of a young girl, and throwing her and her mother out of a bus became the trigger for a nationwide condemnation of the Badals as it became clear that they had owned the bus company, Orbit. As it transpired, the family had direct or indirect control over half a dozen other transport companies plying along 230 routes across the state. Modi has little control, not even the right to admonish the Badals for their horrendous public conduct. Their party, the Siromani Akali Dal, SAD, an NDA partner, is a law unto itself in Punjab.
There are signs of centrifugal pulls visible everywhere. The manner in which Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa obtained acquittal from her disproportionate assets case shows the extent to which she stands above the law. Her prosecutor was engaged as late as April last, weeks after she had been acquitted in March by a single-judge bench of the Karnataka high court, with only the order being kept in abeyance. It was a first in India’s judicial history that an accused was held not guilty before a prosecutor is appointed. Haryana’s Manohar Lal Khattar may personally be honest. But he is heading a ministerial team full of corrupt leaders which may eventually sink the BJP ship in the state. The less said the better about Madhya Pradesh where the Vyapam scam has led to the mysterious deaths of 41 persons and no eyebrows have been raised in Delhi.
With such disdain for the rule of law at state level, the ‘federalism’ Modi dreams of bears resemblance with is, if anything, the famous story of Ali Baba and the forty thieves in the Arabian Nights collection. These 40 men merrily acted on their own, till they got their just dessert from Marzina, the story’s young heroine.
The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi.