First citizen’s rights

Sir — A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has always tried to show that he is a president with a difference. He has kept his hairstyle, despite pressures to have it changed, kept to his south Indian diet, despite the pressures to live up to the larger-than-life image of the resident of Rashtrapati Bhavan who has a specific lifestyle laid out for him. But more important than all this is the fact that he has, always, tried to set a precedent for the other citizens of the country to follow. The first reports from Rashtrapati Bhavan showed how the president insisted on tying his own shoelaces. The president’s casting of the vote in the general elections should be read in this context. As the editorial, “President’s vote” (May 13), noted, Kalam would have been well advised to save himself his vote, given that as the holder of India’s highest office he has to maintain his impartiality. But one should also remember that the president is the first citizen of India. And as a citizen of the country, he is duty-bound to exercise his right to vote. Kalam, by coming out to vote, was trying to set an example for others to follow. Besides, one high point of this election has been the insistence that people exercise their franchise. Kalam was only adding more constitutional weight to this plea. The president obviously considers the written conventions more important than the unwritten ones.

Yours faithfully,
Ruchira Modak, Calcutta

Turn of the tide

Sir — The defeat handed out to N. Chandrababu Naidu by the people of Andhra Pradesh proves that our country cannot shine when millions of Indians continue to lead a life of abject poverty and destitution (“Andhra reboots”, May 12). Naidu’s kind of urban-centric, pro-elite development policies cannot solve India’s problems of poverty, hunger and unemployment. Policymakers should realize that the trickle down mechanism does not work in India. Real development requires institutional changes like land reforms.

During the last few years of the Telugu Desam Party’s rule, numerous farmers committed suicide due to the non-availability of credit, irrigation, electricity and a proper market for their produce. But Naidu, who was busy attending international meets like the World Economic Forum in Davos, failed to extend a helping hand to these people. Naidu’s poll debacle should teach the pin-up boys of India Inc. that their fate will be decided in the villages of Telengana, Kalahandi and Bastar and not at Davos. Even the Tony Blair of the Indian left, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, should learn a lesson or two from this result.

Yours faithfully,
Ashokankur Datta, Delhi

Sir — The newly elected Congress in Andhra Pradesh should set aside some time for introspection. The Congress, like N.T. Rama Rao’s TDP in the past, rode on an anti-incumbency wave to win the polls after 9 years. The anti-incumbency factor could start working against the new Congress ministry, too, unless the new government starts fulfilling its poll promises.

Unlike the Congress, NTR had had an easy time by training his guns on the corrupt. NTR also remained the least corrupt of chief ministers Andhra Pradesh has ever had. The Congress job will be less easy, although there is no reason to believe that it does not have skeletons in its cupboard. Besides, NTR had been able to use the anti-Centre sentiment in the state, following Indira Gandhi’s heavy-handed treatment of the then Andhra Pradesh chief minister, to his advantage. The Congress will lack this brownie point. The state’s equation with the Centre has been excellent given the Bharatiya Janata Party-TDP alliance in Delhi. If the Congress so wished, it could, in fact, use the improved relationship with the Centre to its benefit.

Yours faithfully,
Kangayam R. Rangaswamy,

Madison, US

Sir — The voters have given a fitting reply to N. Chandrababu Naidu’s attempts to turn the sympathy wave that followed a Naxal attempt on his life, into votes. The sole reason behind Naidu’s decision to dissolve the assembly and call for early elections was to draw political mileage out of this incident. The election results in Andhra Pradesh will compel political parties to think twice before following in Naidu’s footsteps. It also shows that the credit for the TDP’s defeat goes to the people of the state — the real king makers in politics — rather than the Congress.

Yours faithfully,
Deepak Kumar Vidhyarthi, Muzaffarnagar

Sir — The TDP’s debacle is unlikely to surprise development economists like Amartya Sen. Sen had expressly stated that there cannot be any development without improving the condition of the poor. Naidu converted Hyderabad into a model state, visited by the likes of Bill Clinton and Bill Gates. He sent computers to villages without electricity, mobile phones to the rural folks who did not have enough to eat. In his attempts to make the world smaller through technology, Naidu failed to reach out to his own people.

Yours faithfully,
Govind Das Dujari, Calcutta

Sir — The Telengana Rashtra Samiti should drop its demand for a separate state of Telengana and concentrate on ruling the state along with the Congress in the best way possible. Engaging in disputes does not augur well for the future of the Congress-led alliance. The winning alliance should keep the interests of the people before their own petty interests.

Yours faithfully,
Shiv Shanker Almal, Calcutta

Sir — The Congress victory in Andhra Pradesh was anticipated. The alliance with TRS was a masterstroke. But the party should remember that it was the neglect of agriculture that brought Chandrababu Naidu’s downfall. To combat the situation, the government of Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy has to set right everything that Naidu did wrong.

Yours faithfully,
Shadab Ahsan, Gaya

Sir — The media are in no small way responsible for the debacle in Andhra Pradesh. The beaming photographs of N. Chandrababu Naidu with world leaders, published in front pages, provided before Naidu himself a mirror in which he became accustomed to seeing his larger than life image. Yet just below the cyber lamp of Hyderabad lay a vast area of darkness. Despite the economic assistance Naidu received from a friendly Centre, he failed to provide relief to farmers and Andhra’s poor. A fiscal deficit of some Rs 7,338 crores stares the new Congress government in the state. It has to strike a balance between the urban and rural sectors, between industry and agriculture. Will it be able to do all that?

Yours faithfully,
Phani Bhusan Saha, Balurghat

Look before you leap

Sir — For the sake of the development of West Bengal, the Congress should reassess its strategy in the state. It is clear that its dual policy of fighting the left here and going with left at the Centre is not paying off. The result is a weak Congress in West Bengal which is not able to effectively and constructively criticize the left. The Congress needs to reorient itself to give a choice to those educated Bengalis who do not support the Trinamool Congress but are unable to find a better non-left alternative. The TMC hardly has any decent politician other than Krishna Bose. Most of the other Trinamoolis are politicians who only care for power. The TMC was with the National Democratic Alliance because it gave it a better bargaining power. The Congress can do the same thing here in West Bengal as the left will be doing, in all probability, at the Centre, where it will support the Congress without joining the ministry.

Bengal needs constructive politicians to bring it development. It needs to shed its image of militant trade unionism. This is also the time when the left needs to ponder more seriously its own role in Bengal’s development. For only urban development may cause a N. Chandrababu Naidu, and only rural development a Digvijay Singh.

Yours faithfully,
Omar Kibria, Calcutta

Sir — Although the West Bengal chief minister had hoped for “Calcutta surprises” in the elections, there was no surprise for the people of the state (“Buddha promises Calcutta surprise”, May 9). Like most other unprincipled parties in India, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) will not hesitate to embrace its arch rival, the Congress, nor the corrupt former chief minister of neighbouring Bihar, Laloo Prasad Yadav, if that suits it. Such flip-flop is done effortlessly, but for the sake of the party’s interests, not for that of the people. Even though Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has claimed that there is no question of CPI(M) participation in any government by the Congress at the Centre, there is little doubt that given the opportunity, the party will not repeat its “historic blunder”.

The most shocking part was the chief minister’s claim that West Bengal has achieved “unparalleled success” in the past 27 years of Left Front rule. If “success” is measured by increased levels of anarchy, chaos and lawlessness in public life, then the left has indeed been “successful”. There is little dispute among the people in the state about Bengal having deteriorated in almost every aspect of its social and political life in the past decades. Big business continues to go to other states, regular bandhs and michhils go on unabated. The abysmal standard of healthcare here is common knowledge.

Although West Bengal may have performed miserably over the past years, statistics show an overall improvement of the socio-economic status of India in the recent years. Even though the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government may have had crippling problems of its own, there is little doubt that India has become a stronger global power in the recent times. Bengal’s chief minister may not like it for political reasons, but he should not act “surprised” when the country performs well in the international arena.

Yours faithfully,
Kunal Saha, Columbus, US

Sir — In his article, “A plague in both houses” (May 10), Ramachandra Guha warns that his act of condemning the communal BJP and feudal Congress should not be read as an endorsement of the Left Front. While Guha may not endorse the left, in reality, the Left Front and its main partner CPI(M), despite their flaws, are miles ahead of all other political parties in India. While virtual dictators like J. Jayalalithaa, Mamata Banerjee and Laloo Prasad Yadav have the last word in their respective parties, the long shadow of Sonia Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee looms large over their respective parties. The CPI(M) stands out in this context. Even a stalwart like Jyoti Basu had to bow out of the race of prime ministership to honour the wishes of the politburo.

The party discipline of the CPI(M) is worth emulation. CPI(M) baiters had anticipated chaos after Basu quit, but the smooth transition to Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has raised many a brow. Contrast this with Ajit Jogi’s accession to the Chhattisgarh throne. Unlike the Congress, BJP, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Samajwadi Party, National Conference, Biju Janata Dal, the Left Front does not patronize the dynastic rule. Communal riots and pogroms have not made its ugly presence felt under the Left Front regime in West Bengal and Kerala. CPI(M) bashing may be the in-thing in the current scenario, but the country will gain if the national parties look up to the CPI(M) and imbibe a sense of discipline, secularism and democracy.

Yours faithfully,
Kajal Chatterjee, Sodepur

Sir — Shortly before the elections, the chief minister of West Bengal had warned his people of a few “shocks”. But what could be more shocking than having mills and factories shut for years and strikes almost every other month?

Yours faithfully,
Shardul Vikram Singh, Calcutta

Sir — I am totally convinced that free and fair poll is not possible in West Bengal. My friend, who was posted to Domjur, Howrah, as poll observer, informed me that while they were waiting in the office of the district magistrate, some CPI(M) goons entered the place and started threatening them. The party operates through fear psychosis outside the city. Similarly, the driver of the taxi I was travelling in the other day told me that it was not possible for them to stay in the bustee if they didn’t vote for the CPI(M). On being asked how would anyone know who he was voting for, the taxi driver answered that the left goons were everywhere — inside the booth and out.

The only solution against this mass scale rigging is biometrics.What we need is not ordinary voters’ identity cards but biometrically-enabled voters card. In the latter, a person is not known by his name or picture but either by his retinal map or unique fingerprint. The computer accepts only one vote from one person. Such identity cards are becoming popular all over the world. It is a matter of time before this technology becomes cheap and commonly available. The use of biometrics will make it unnecessary to carry debit or credit cards. One’s retina or fingerprints will provide access to all details — name, cash balance, blood group, address and so on.

Yours faithfully,
Sourabh, Calcutta