4. Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Please don't read this if you are not acquainted with the politics of Tamilnadu.

The party that rules the state of Tamilnadu is the AIADMK (Don't bother about the expansion of this rather long abbreviation. The expanded name has no significance either in terms of meaning or in terms of relevance. The party has been. going through an identity and survival crisis for the past 5 or 6 months and has recently been asked by the Election Commission of India to choose a new name and symbol till the Commission decides which of the two factions of the party is authentic!)

A few months back, posters were put up in the party office at Lloyds Road, Chennai, hailing Mrs. V.K.Sasikala who was set to become the General Secretary of the party, a post that became vacant on 6th December, 2016, the day the holder of that office Miss J.Jayalalitha was (officially) pronounced dead by the Apollo Hospital where she was lying in an uncertain condition for 75 days, from 22nd September, 2016, the day she was admitted and diagnosed with fever and dehydration.

A party worker who was furious with the very idea of Mrs. Sasikala, a close friend and aide of Miss Jayalalitha for the past 30 years and a person widely perceived to be highly corrupt, becoming the General Secretary of the party, a post which is akin to that of a ringmaster in a circus, tore up the posters.

Some party leaders who watched this 'outrage' rushed to the offender. One of them, a senior minister, beat him up. This incident was flashed in many TV channels. Of course, the police took no cognisance of the offence committed by the minister.

Eventually Mrs Sasikala became the General Secretary of the party, having been unanimously elected by all the members of the General Council of the party. The person who, at that time, was holding the post of the Chief Minister of the state, hailed her as the only person who could save the party and lead it. He also fell at her feet, in keeping with the 'culture' of the party. It is another matter that he revolted a couple of days after he was asked to quit his post in favor of the person described by him as the only capable leader of the party. Anyway, this post is not about this rebel!

Soon after getting ensconced in the position of the General Secretary of the party, Mrs. Sasikala decided that she should be the Chief Minister too. It was when the loyalist became the rebel. Mrs. Sasikala was jailed by a Supreme Court judgement that was fortuitously delivered a few days after she got herself elected as the leader of the party's legislators including the loyalist who subsequently became a rebel. By a quirk of fate, the minister who beat up the party worker, became the Chief Minister! I don't have to tell his name. If you don't know his name, please read the first sentence of this post again!

Today (on 26th April 2017), supporters of the Chief Minister removed the banners of Mrs. Sasikala that have been in display at the premises for the past 3 or 4 months!

Yesterday, the man beat up a party worker for removing a poster carrying he image of Mrs. Sasikala.

Today, the same man, through his men,  is engaged in removing the banners  carrying the image of Mrs. Sasikala.

 I wonder what this man will do tomorrow!

Tailpiece:  Netru, Indru, NaaLai (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow) was the title of a film in which the founder of the party, the late MGR,  had acted (as the hero, of course!)

3. Yours arbitrarily

I came across two interesting news items in the first page of the Hindu of 23rd April 2017. The first item under the headline "CJ pitches for zero govt. role in arbitration process'  reported the speech of Mr. J.S.Khehar, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court pleading that the government should keep away from  the arbitration process to help promote the confidence of the business community in international arbitration available in India. You can read the full report here.

Right below this news report is another with a screaming headline 'Govt. plea against military pay upgrade sparks unease.' This news is about the govt. filing an appeal in the Supreme Court against the judgement of Armed Forces Tribunal.

Here we have the CJI advising the govt. to keep away from arbitration. Just below this news is the news about the govt. unwilling to accept the verdict of a tribunal!

I am aware that there can be a technical difference between an arbitration setup and a tribunal. But both are arrangements for settling disputes between two parties through the intervention of a third party. 

So I see the government's defiance against the tribunal verdict as an unwillingness to accept the award of a mediator. Constitutionally, the government has the right to appeal against the tribunal's verdict. But the attitude of the government is intriguing. It is 'Either I win or you lose!.' Given this attitude of the govt, can we expect it to keep away from an arbitration process?

I thus find the juxtaposition of the two reports in the newspaper as a representation of irony.

Tailpiece: in case you are intrigued by the title of this post, some of the meanings of arbitrary are:
1) subject to individual will or judgement without restriction
2) contingent solely upon one's discretion
3) having unlimited power
4) uncontrolled or unrestricted by law
5) despotic, tyrannical
6) unreasonable, capricious, unsupported (by logic or rationale)

2. Will the Bandh be Successful?

As we all know, a Bandh has been called on 25th April 2017 in support of the farmers' struggle for justice.

"Will the Bandh be successful?" I asked.

"Of course it will be" said my friend Know-All "Have you not noticed the support that has been pouring in from various sections of people?"

"Yes, I have. I can see that unlike many other Bandhs, this Bandh, I mean the call for this Bandh, has received a lot of spontaneous support. There is genuine sympathy for the cause for which the farmers have been fighting. There is also an undercurrent of anger against both the central government and the state government for having not done enough."

"Then why do you doubt the success of the Bandh?"

"I agree that the Bandh will have a strong impact. But..okay, let me ask you another question. Have you, I mean the organizers of the Bandh, considered how the Bandh would affect the lives of ordinary people?"

"Yes, there will be inconveniences. But people will have to bear this in public interest. After all, the Bandh was announced about a week in advance and people have had enough time to prepare themselves for the inconveniences. Moreover, essential services like hospitals will function."

"Yes. Hospitals will function. But how will people reach the hospitals when there is no transport? What about people travelling on that day.? People will have no conveyance to reach the railway stations or bus stands and people arriving at a place will have no conveyance to go to their destinations."

Know-All was thinking how to respond to this.

Taking advantage of his silence, I continued "There is one great injustice about the Bandhs. They affect the poor more than they affect the well-to-do."

"How do you say this?" retorted Know-All "Everyone is equally affected."

"No. The rich have their own vehicles and they can use them to go where they want to. The business owners will suffer only the loss of profit for a day. They may be able to even make up at least part of this loss through higher sales during the days preceding and succeeding the Bandh. But the poor daily labourers, street hawkers and the small traders will suffer irreparable losses."

"Okay. Tell me why you said that the Bandh won't be successful" asked Know-All. He knows when and how to change tack!

"I didn't say the Bandh won't be successful. I only asked you whether it would be successful. By success, I meant the objective of the Bandh."

"What do you mean?"

"Okay. let us say the Bandh has a very good impact. What will happen after this? Will the government come forward to redress the grievances of the farmers?"

"Are you suggesting that we shouldn't protest at all?"

"No. I only asked you whether the Bandh would achieve the purpose for which it was organized. As far as I know, not one of the hundreds of the Bandhs that have taken place in the past has achieved the purpose for which the Bandh was called for."

"Why it is so?" For once, Know-All wanted to know something from me!

"Once the Bandh is over, its impact is also over! Why should the government take any action? The government will act only to prevent problems that may arise in future. There is not going to be another Bandh on the same issue in the near future! But in the case of a strike, the government may climb down and talk to the protesters because the strike will keep causing problems and the government can't afford to allow the problems to continue for long!"

"Well,if the Government doesn't act even after the Bandh, then people will intensify their agitation through other means," said Know-All.

"You mean through other kinds of protests like demonstrations, hunger strikes etc?"

"Yes."

"But they could have adopted these kinds of protests, even without having resorted to the Bandh."

Know-All became silent. Perhaps, he was thinking, something which he doesn't do often!

Tailpiece: I fully support the cause of the Bandh. I wish that the objective for which the Bandh has been called is realized soon. I also wish that people fighting for the cause and those supporting them had resorted to actions other than calling for a Bandh.

1. French Elections

One consequence of the development of satellite television and the proliferation of news channels in almost all languages is the spread of the awareness about international affairs to even remote areas of our country (India). About 15 years back, people of Tamilnadu or Karnataka might not have even been conscious of an election in a North Indian state like UP or Bihar, much less paid attention to it. But this year's elections to UP and four other states were keenly watched by people all over India.

The interest has extended even to elections in different parts of the world. Today, even a villager in some remote part of India follows elections in the US and possibly other countries. I am sure that the Presidential election of France has been receiving the attention of a large number of people in India.

One interesting or even unique feature of the French Presidential Election is that the winner has to get more than 50% of the votes. In a many-cornered contest, often, no one gets more than 50% of the votes. In such a scenario, the two candidates getting the largest number of votes are selected for the final round.

In the final round, only two candidates will be in the fray. Therefore, one of them is bound to get more than 50% of the votes. In the just concluded French Presidential election, five candidates were in the fray. Mr. Macron got about 24% of the votes and Ms Le Pen about 21.5% (I am using the word 'about,' because only 97% of the votes have been counted at the time of my writing this line.)

With no candidate getting more than 50% of the votes, there will be another round of election on May 7, in which Mr Macron and Ms Le Pen will be the only two candidates. Whoever gets more than 50% in that election will be elected the President of France.

If this requirement of winning more than 50% of the votes had not been there, Mr. Macron, having received the largest number of votes among all the five candidates, would have become the President. A person for whom less than one fourth of the voters becoming the country's President can hardly be considered a reflection of the people's will!

But this is how members of parliament and legislative assemblies are being elected in India. In many constituencies, candidates getting less than 30% of the votes get elected because the remaining 70% of the votes have been split among the losing candidates!

Will it not be better if we adopt the French system? The results in many constituencies may change if we have this system. It will result in additional expenditure if we have to conduct the elections twice for most of the constituencies. But this system will ensure that every constituency is represented by a person elected by a majority of the people, not just by people whose number is larger than the number of people who voted for any of the other candidates.

Tailpiece: My guess is Ms Le Pen will win the second round and become the next President of France. If this happens, it will prove the sound reasoning behind the French system. (A similar two-round system is followed for election of members to the French Parliament as well.)