Between Hope and Disappointment

While the last group of 150 persons was flown to safety from Badrinath on July 2, that is, seventeen days after flash floods due to nature’s fury from a sudden cloud-burst ravaged Uttarakhand, several developments of the last few days, including those related to the Himalayan tsunami, have attracted public attention.

It was reported today that even after so many days since the tragedy struck, several villages in the Rudraprayag district, one of the worst affected by the disaster, have not yet received any foodgrain. This indeed is a measure of the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis the region is facing. But the fear is that the conditions may deteriorate further in the coming days as rain fury with heavy downpour has been predicted this month itself.

Meanwhile, yesterday the CBI charged Gujarat’s Narendra Modi Government and Intelligence Bureau (IB) with a fake encounter in June 2004 that killed 19-year-old Mumbai college student Ishrat Jahan and three others at a place close to the Ahmedabad airport. The 1500-page CBI charge-sheet specially targeted seven Gujarat Police officers, asserted that Ishrat Jahan was falsely branded a terrorist seeking to liquidate Modi, and emphasised that she and the other three were killed in “cold blood†.

Howsoever much the BJP might cry Foul and attack both the Congress and CBI for the charge-sheet, the fact is that the party is defenitely on the defensive. Its angry reaction betrays its nervousness. But it is also quite possible that this development would spur Narendra Modi and his associates in the party to go for the kill and launch a renewed Hindutva offensive, aimed at weakening the nation’s secular-democratic fabric while heightening the sense of insecurity among the minorities. However, that would be playing with fire.

Yesterday yet another major development was the Union Cabinet granting clearance to an ordinance to implement the Food Security Bill which is highly significant from the standpoint of the aam aadmi especially in a country like India and would most likely help the Congress reap political dividends at the hustings. This decision of the Cabinet, without waiting for Parliament’s monsoon session barely a month away, has predictably been assailed by the Opposition parties, notably the BJP and Left, for the ordinance route would pre-empt valuable discussion on the subject in Parliament. This criticism is doubtless valid; yet the Congress spokesperson’s argument cannot also be brushed aside: the experience of the disruption of Parliament by the Opposition, essentially the BJP, in the recent past.

Simultaneously the government’s policies on various issues are facing legitimate and strong criticism of late while in more than one major area there is open divergence of views among Ministers (or even between the Minister and the Ministry she/he runs) as has been found out by the media and public at large. External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid’s virtual defence of the US’ vast surveillance programme in the light of reports of the US’ snooping of the Indian embassy in Washington evoked widespread and justified condemnation across the political spectrum—from the BJP to the Left and also activists of civil liberties and human rights. In the wake of such sharp attacks the MEA has been forced to change tack and promise to lodge a protest with the US authorities with the MFA spokesperson expressing “concern at such disconcerting reports†(a far cry from Salman’s uncalled-for “explanatory†statement, as if he was speaking for the White House).

Then there is the Defence Minister, A.K. Antony, firmly opposing the move by a section within the government, basically Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, to effect an increase in FDI in the defence sector. In Antony’s opinion, encouraging foreign companies to set up manufacturing base in India would be a retrograde step.

The government’s decision to double the price of natural gas and hand over windfall profits to India’s richest company—Reliance run by the Ambanis—has been aptly denounced in several quarters with CPI MP Gurudas Dasgupta attacking the concerned Minister for this measure without mincing words. Interestingly, a former Principal Adviser, Power and Energy, Government of India, has, in a signed article in The Hindu, urged non-Congress leaders to join Dasgupta in “stopping this loot†. He has had no hesitation in also agreeing with Dasgupta that what we are witnessing in this regard is a “gigantic scam†. Would this have any positive effect on the UPA II Government? Hardly. Precisely because of the clout the Ambanis enjoy in the corridors of power in both the South and North Blocks today.

As we go to press, the events in Cairo offer fresh testimony to the public disenchantment with the elected Islamist President, Mohamed Morsi. Morsi has been ousted by the Egyptian Army in consonance with the demand for his removal voiced by countless civilians assembled in the Tahrir Square. This is not a good precedent no doubt, but then the armed forces have also unfolded the roadmap for early presidential and parliamentary elections.

These events project hope and disappointment, the prospect of unveiling a better future and the possibility of hurtling down into the abyss of destabilisation and destruction. A period of uncertainty both at home and abroad.

July 4 S.C.