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B.N.Gururaj, Advocate

Mr.Mahesh Bhatt, the well known film director has complained to a person no less than the Prime Minister about the treatment meted out to his son Rahul Bhatt. His grievance is that the latter voluntarily gave information to the investigators and having discharged his duty as a responsible citizen, now he is being tarnished by linking his name with the master terrorists like David Headly and Tahawur Rana.

This situation reminds one of Oscar Wilde's statement about "feasting with leapord". Those who want to keep company of dangerous people cannot complain about the consequences of keeping such company. A grown up person like Rahul Bhatt voluntarily keeps company of such murderous conspirators, who do not sully their hand directly with blood, but are responsible for the death of couple of hundred Indian and foreign lives. The fact that he volunteered to disclose his contact can hardly absolve him of the liability incurred by him. That he volunteered to give information to the investigators seems like an attempt to pull wool over the eyes of the investigators. Having sown wind, the Bhatts must reap whirlwind.

One hopes that Dr.Manmohan 'timid' Singh will not buckle under the name and fame of Mahesh Bhatt and interfere with the investigation. After 26/11 tragedy, one hopes that even as weak a prime minister as Manmohan Singh has better sense than interfere with an investigation of national importance.

The role of Mahesh Bhatt himself requires to be looked into. He is always in the forefront to defend all the anti-indian forces, Hindu baiters, rascals and traitors. It seems like a cozy family set up. Son with Hindu name and Nephew with Muslim (Emran Hashmi) name cozying up with terrorist planners and father, based on his past reputation comes forward to defend them. People like him, who are muslims, but masquarade around with Hindu names are causing great damage to the Hindu society in particular and the nation's security in particular. So called creative people and film land bufoons with their childish impulses seem to make excellent recruits for treacherous work to be done within the borders. One is reminded of the role of Ghazal singer from the film "Sarfarosh".

Instead of caring for Mahesh Bhatt's letter, one hopes that he will direct the NIA to investigate the role of this person himself. People like Mahesh Bhatt and Teesta Setalwad deserve to be banished from civilized society

y

B.N.Gururaj, Advocate

A Partition is now in progress in the State of Karnataka, after the fashion of partitioining of Hindu Joint Families. The coparcenes are Yediyurappa the Chief Minister and the Reddy-gang. Since the elders of the family, viz., the High Command has decided that Yadiyurappa must remain the CM but the Reddy gang must not be displeased, the former has been advised to yield to all the demands of the Reddy gang, be it postings of officers or making the former Speaker of Legislature Mr.Jagadish Shettar a cabinet minister. Though there are five crore stake holders and host of newspapers and magazines, all are apathetically watching the partitioning process as though they have nothing to loose.

BJP high command has given green signal to the Reddy gang to loot the State as best as they can. Otherwise, why else the Reddy gang would want their henchmen officers posted at positions of their choice? Only the fool and the naive would believe that the Reddy gang is driven by the altruistic motive of betterment of the State. Reddys are essentially businessmen, who are in politics to protect and augment their business interests.

The lack of interest shown by the Opposition Leadership and the Governor in the goings on in the Government is indeed shocking. None has shown the guts to call the Chief Minister and ask him what is the sanctity of the so called Core Committee which is supposed to decide all matters.

Indian constitution has adopted the Cabinet form of Government, where the cabinet is ultimately answerable to the Parliament or the Legislature. By forming the core committee loaded with the minions of the Reddys and Yeddy, the constitutional power vested in the cabinet has been usurped. This extra-constitutional body will act as true cabinet, but will not be accountable to the Legislature. The cabinet, which is answerable to the Legislature will be reduced to the role of a rubber stamp - approving whatever the core committee decides.

BJP, Yediyurappa and the Reddys are making mockery of political system adopted in the Constitution. But, the Governor does not even seem interested in knowing what is happening. He is too busy acting as the political agent of congress bosses from Delhi.

By

B.N.Gururaj, Advocate

Mr.Yadiyurappa, the CM of Karnataka is a beleagured man. He is cornered by his own partymen, who have unbelievably huge monetary resources at their disposal. This is the price he has to pay for making pact with the Devil. BJP's electoral campaign was marked with flow of money to buy votes. A party and a leader who has adopted such cynical attitude towards voters and democratic process is paying the price for ignoring the strength that comes to politician with mass-base. Mr.Yadiyurappa chose to substitute his popular strength with money strength of the Reddys and is now their hostage.

It would seem that Mr.Yadiyurappa is like a monkey with the paw in the bottle. If he refuses to yield, his government will be brought down by the sixty plus MLAs who are now in the camp of Reddys.

But, people like the Reddy gang are cowards. They are mainly manipulators. They cannot directly take the responsibility of running a State. When someone is responsible for running the State, these Reddys will be busy doing what they are best at doing - augment their business interests at the cost of development in the State. That is a key difference between Mr.Yadiyurappa and the Reddys. While Mr.Yadiyurappa is a politician with some business interests, the Reddys are mainly businessmen with political interest to support their business. In the final analysis, a politician like Mr.Yadiyurappa will do something for the State and the People. But, the Reddys will do nothing for the people. They will throw crumbs at people, be they draught affected or flood affected. Their main focus will be to augment their already bloated coffers.

It is hardly surprising that these people do not want to oust Mr.Yadiyurappa. It serves their best interests when there is a ready and willing scape goat like him, as they grab more interesting and useful ministries like forest, mining, and the like. Yielding to their demands will be tantamount to licensing them to loot the State's resources. Under the circumstances, it is better that the BJP government resigns and lets others form a new government, or seek fresh mandate, than remain hostage of the Businessmen who have no interest either in the welfare of the State or the people.

Karnataka seems to be passing form the hands of Politicians to that of Businessmen, who can exploit the State's resources on a far larger scale than any clique of crooked politicians and bureaucrats can do. If the Reddy gang does not see exit from politics, Karnataka will be on the way to becoming another Jharkhand or Bihar, a State run by the exploitors.

Corruption seems to have reached all time high under the BJP regime. Almost nothing gets done in the State Government offices without spilling money. But, Mr.Yadiyurappa's government is oblivious of such perilious situation.

This State has not seen a Speaker like Mr.Jagadish Shettar. Instead of remaining non-paritsan, he is in the thick of dissident politics of BJP and wants his minions in the ministry so that these people can be permanent thorn on the side of Mr.Yadiyurappa.

Mr.Yadiyurappa's liabilities are not V.P.Baligar, or Shobha Karadnjlaje, but his ambition to hang on to power at any cost, even at the cost of facing daily humiliation for the next three years.

By

 

B.N.GURURAJ, Advocate.

 

Our Union Home Minister Mr.P.Chidambaram must have a strong sense of bad timing. A few days back, he stated that Maoists are not terrorists. He must be ruing this statement. Within next couple of days, the Maoists hijacked an entire train for release of one of their comrades. Fortunately for him, this dumb statement has not yet come in for public criticism.  If people who cannot be put down even by armed police and army, if these people use sophisticated weapons against the army and police, aren’t they terrorists. If these people are not terrorists, what is the label to be affixed to them?

 

Paradoxically, in the Karnataka High Court, someone filed a PIL seeking action against people who had attacked churches in Karnataka. The petition also labeled such attackers as terrorists. The High Court prudently cautioned the petitioners not to use strong labels like “terrorists” to people who attacked churches.

 

What emerges is this: for the liberal brigade, an attack on a church, or mosque, or a criticism of minorities is an act of terrorism. But, Maoists, though wield as sophisticated a weapon as the army or armed police, they are not terrorists!

 

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In this blog, I have generally given the middle name “timid” to Dr.Manmohan Singh, our esteemed Prime Minister, who also happens to be a sardarji. Sardarjis are generally known for their boldness, bravery and assertiveness. But, here we have a Sardar PM who is ready to genuflect before the adversary.

 

In recent times, China has behaving rather provocatively towards India. First, the issue of passport to Kashmiris on separate sheet of paper instead of stamping on the passport. Second, incursions into Ladakh and red-painting areas claiming China’s right over the land. Third is the Arunachal Pradesh episode where the Chinese objected to Dr.Manmohan “timid” Singh’s visit to that State for electoral propaganda. This would have been unthinkable in any other regime, but for the timid spineless regime of Manmohan Singh. Besides, Chinese release statement that visit of Dalai Lama is unacceptable to them. Today, someone has stated that Dalai Lama’s very presence is a political problem to China.

 

Surprisingly, within a week or thereabouts, Manmohan Singh and some Chinese counterpart meet. As per newspaper reports, there is no whisper about either Ladakh incursions, or Arunachal Pradesh antics. All they talk about is business. The crumbs that come to India by way of business with China is more important than the territorial integrity, strategic interests of India, and most importantly self respect of a nation.  

 

China never does anything by accident. It is always by design. They have generally managed to lead the Indian Government by its nose to wherever they have liked. They are actively participating the so-called development in PoK, they are arming Bangladesh, they are arming Indian Maoists and other insurgents, they have more than friendly relationship with India’s neighbours such as Pakistan and Sri Lanka. China is trying to surround India with hostile elements both from within and from outside. But, all that our PM can talk about is business and earning few more dollars. How shameless a PM can get, and how shameless he can render a nation?

 

Even Pandit Nehru, the closet communist did not stoop this level of lack of self-respect. Manmohan Singh is worse than him. Definitely Indira Gandhi, for whom I do not have much respect would not have behaved so shamelessly. 

Politicians, especially the Indian type seem to be the scum of this earth. Nothing is holy or sacrosanct for these people crazed with electoral politics and electoral brownie points.

When Karnataka has suffered greater calamity due to unprecedented floods, the Central Government releases emergency funds which is barely a third of the money released to the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.

The Congress leaders in the State of Karnataka, instead of working for the cause of the people of the State act like the agents of the Central Government and gang up against the State Government. They accuse the State Government of not utilising some other grant given by the Central Government, though they know that funds allocated for one purpose cannot be diverted for other purpose, even for flood relief.

The Central Government is playing typical disaster politics just as Indira Gandhi used to play. Starve and harass the States ruled by the opposition Government. She perfected this technique during the Seventies and the Eighties. It has become the ingrained work culture of Congress - to place politics above people.

It is because of this petty mindedness that Congress has become all but extinct in Karnataka. But, this party with only leaders does not seem to have learnt its lessons.

In between there are stories that such of those calamity hit districts, which has influential leaders, or which are pro-ruling party are getting better and faster aid and relief than other districts which are in the opposition camp. What can be more despicable than this?

It seems that the electoral system in this country is designed to bring to power only the enemies of the public. These leaders deserve to be lynched by the public.

Almost sixteen months after coming to power, the BJP in Karnataka has realised that its ministers have not learnt the job. Hence, a seminar lasting about four days has been arranged for the Ministers of Mr.Yadiyurappa. Who can be the best teacher, but the person who has traded the path of development of State successfully? It is not surprising that the choice of being the first teacher fell on Mr.Narendra Modi, the much beleaguered, but one of the most successful chief ministers of our country.

When Mr.Narendra Modi does something or says something, his detractors cannot be far behind, nor can they keep quite. Predictably tirade has started against him. One more round of condemnation of Mr.Modi for Gujarat riots, questioning the wisdom of holding classes and seminars for ministers sixteen months after coming to power, "what are the ministers doing sitting in the class room, when the state is reeling under heavy rains and floods?" (you can read drought for rain etc), 'why hold these classes in the precincts of a monastery?". "Why outside Bangalore when it results in vacuum in the State Secretariat?". Next, why should RSS men come and lecture to the ministers? Why did not the CM make the seminar more broad based by inviting management experts?

Of course, detractors can ask any question and any number of them. It is their right. In fact, the right to oppose is more valuable than the right to agree.

Firstly, the ministers are ultimately answerable to the public, at least in the final analysis when they approach the voters for votes in the next election. Thus, a successful politician is in a better position to tell the ministers what the performance should be and how that should be made to reach the knowledge of the voters. No management expert can successfully tell the politicians how to relate with voters. There can be no better person to tell that than a successful politician like Mr.Modi. Why not he? He is one of the most dynamic CMs, notwithstanding the controversies that surround him, even his detractors concede that he has brought about sea change in Gujarat in the last one decade time. Of course, the detractors say that he has managed it because of his autocratic style of functioning! If a minister is autocratic in dealing with the bureaucracy, what is wrong. Autocracy should not be directed at the public as was done during Indira Gandhi's regime.

If the seminar were held in Bangalore, few if any would have attended the seminars, what with the demands of supporters within the State Capital. It was a good idea that it was held away from the madding crowd. Next, how does the choice of venue matter, be it a resort, or a monastery? When the Government spent about five lakh rupees for similar brain storming session few months back, the opposition parties condemned government for wasting public money. Now, if the seminar is held in private precincts without spending those precious few lakhs, the government is again condemned for choosing a monastery as the venue! Best example of "damned if you do, damned if you don't".

The fact that such programme was not held soon after the ministry was sworn in can hardly be a justification for not holding it now. That criticism hardly meets common sense. The Government has another three and a half years to go through its term. It is not necessary that the ministers must continue to flounder without direction for the rest of the term also. That hardly makes sense.

As regards flood, or drought or rains, is it necessary that the entire ministry should stay in capital or in the place of trouble? Isn't there a government functioning? Aren't there plans to meet the exigencies? What could be wrong in making bureaucracy responsible for meeting the emergencies?

If good ideas can come from unusual sources, and responsible governance can be taught by unusual people what is wrong? Once in a way, even RSS might have some useful idea to tell the government. There is a old Sanskrit adage, "listen to the valuable advise coming even from a small boy, or a parrot!" (Yuktiyuktam shrunot tavad baladapi shukadapi).

Criticism should not be for the sake of criticising. It should be constructive. It must contribute to what little good work done by the Government. The opposition parties must realise that their job is to be a watchdog and ensure that the Government performs responsibly for the larger benefit of the public. Scoring Brownie points may get the opposition politicians publicity. That neither benefits the Government, nor the public, certainly not the politicians mounting them.

By

 

B.N.GURURAJ, Advocate

 

Within last decade and a half, it has been fashionable amongst the journalists to write pro-left, pro-minority, anti-Hindu and wherever possible, anti-India. Anything of Indian stock, and tradition, especially of Hindu origin is scoffed at, or if possible condemned. Idea A originating from Hindu traditional source is rejected because Idea b of same Hindu source is bad. If one speaks of loft philosophical ideas of Upanishads and later day Sutras or monographs, immediately the proposition is ignored not on its merits, but by reference to caste system, or untouchability, or oppression of women in the traditional Hindu society. An article or feature or reader’s letter which supports Hindu view never sees the light of the day. In that respect, newspapers are very effective in gagging dissent and opposition to their pet ideologies and theories.

 

Mr.M.V.Kamath, now an octogenarian, who was, in his last professional assignment, the Editor of the now defunct Illustrate Weekly of India, and prior to that Foreign Correspondent of the Times of India has written his reminiscences “A Reporter At Large”. He earned kudos for bringing IW on the track of decency from the “bottoms and bosoms” culture inculcated by Kushwanth Singh.

 

His autobiography gives insight into the life of Gauda Saraswath Brahmin culture in the early part of the last century, their upbringing, socio-religious practices, their history. Though he spent best part of his life abroad and was married to an American wife, he did not lose his roots in Hinduism. The author is not afraid to own up his Brahmin culture and his faith in the Hindu tradition. When it was fashionable to posture as a secularist, he dared express his honest view that the Hindus have been wronged in their own country during the past several centuries of Indian History. On account of his view about Ram Janmabhoomi, which ran counter to popular secularist view and government’s official posture, he lost the prestigious opportunity of becoming the Chairman of Prasar Bharati Corporation.

 

His book gives insight into nitty gritty aspects of journalist’s life, the pressures of deadlines, their tricks of the trade, interference by the management, editors, and outsiders and so on. He professed journalism at a time when History was in making in several parts of the world: Indian Independence, Kashmir problem before the UN, Annexation of Hungary and Czechsolvakia by the USSR, coming up of Berlin Wall, President Nixon’s regime before and after Indo-Pak war of 1971, infamous emergency of 1975-77, to name a few.

 

He has also written a novel, some short stories and a large number of biographies, mostly on being commissioned. Interestingly, he has authored histories of various banks and financial institutions also on being commissioned.  Though belatedly, his contribution to journalism and to the society has been recognised. Thus, even after over quarter century in retirement, Mr.M.V.Kamath has been active in the society.

 

Though not a poet, poetry seems to be his passion. Readers of his boo will be treated to choice passages of poetry he has enjoyed. His book “A Reporter At Large” merits reading. Journalists are generally a cynical lot. Nevertheless, I dare say, may other journalists draw inspirations from Mr.M.V.Kamath’s ethos.

By

B.N.Gururaj, Advocate

Today's newspapers report that after the Supreme Court collegium meeting yesterday, no decision was taken. It simply means that the Supreme Court will not do anything to drop the name of CJ Dhinakaran from the approved list of Five Supreme Court judges. Now, presumably, it is left to the Exeuctive, i.e., the Prime Minister to decide on the issue and recommend to the President to return the name to the Collegium of Judges.

But, will the Executive, i.e., the Prime Minister do this? As it is, the Judiciary is a holy cow, even if it were smeared by dung and all. So far, the Executive has initiated no action against judges, even when the CJI himself has recommended action. Example Justice Soumitra Sen's case of impeachment motion. Hardly anything has happened until this day, except submission of memorandum to the Speaker of Lok Sabha, though the CJI's recommendation is nearly a year old.

Now, if the Prime Minister refrains from acting and recommends to the president not to appoint CJ Dhinakaran, he will become the judge of the Supreme Court. If this were to happen, who can really stop a judge alleged of being corrupt, from discharging his judicial functions. Only the Bar can do so by boycotting the tainted judge's court.

But, it seems that the Bar itself is becoming a divided house in this matter. The day before yesterday, Mr.Shanti Bhushan, in his stridency against Corrupt Judge becoming the judge of Supreme Court uttered that the CJI being a Dalit, was going soft on CJ Dhinakaran's issue as the latter was also a Dalit.

Now, this has caught attention of a section of advocates, especially in Bangalore, with a backward community senior counsel opining that the statement of Mr.Shanti Bhushan amounts to "atrocity" under the Schedule Castes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act! Either the careless words from Mr.Shanti Bhushan, or the opportunism of casteist advocates will ultimately enable CJ Dhinakaran to become a Judge of the Supreme Court.

It would seem that the reputation of the Judiciary in India has touched the nadir. Or is there any more place to go down?