Stop Siphoning off money meant for the poor

I am happy that the great Odisha mining loot is finally receiving some media and public attention with the state Government admitting to revenue loss of 70 thousand Crore and counting. Hopefully public pressure will force the Odisha Government to order a multi-agency investigation involving the C.B.I., the Income Tax and the Enforcement Directorate and all the politicians, mine-owners, mining-mafia and Government employees involved in the scam will be prosecuted and their assets frozen. A matter of equally serious concern is the siphoning off development funds meant for the poor by the ruling BJD through a network of Contractors and Control Dealers right under the nose of the Chief Minister. The same acts of omission and commission that facilitated the loot of Odisha’s mineral resources can also be found in the loot of development money; administrative incompetence writ large and poor enforcement.

BJD has built a formidable network of contractors, control dealers and transporters. Through this network, the ruling party is able to siphon off funds from development programs, mainly Central funds, to meet the day-to-day expenses of running the BJD. With a few phone calls BJD leaders can activate this network to transport people to meeting venues, erect impressive arches with cut-outs of Naveen Patnaik, organize food for thousands of people and meet other expenses for organizing party activities. Government employees are aware of the arrangement but they prove their loyalty by looking the other way when the siphoning takes place. Visit any meeting venue of BJD and find out how the event was funded/ managed and you will soon realize how development funds can be scientifically siphoned off. The Captain of BJD ‘B’, with his acumen in administration, built this formidable network as part of his dual strategy of a cadre based party and a committed bureaucracy. It is in the complementarity of Government Employees, Contractors and BJD leaders that a significant part of money meant for the poor ends up funding party programs. Incidentally, most of these contractors and control dealers are now BJD cadres and some have advanced further. Wherever the Government Scheme does not provide for engaging a contractor, the party and the officials work out informal arrangements. Go wherever you want in Odisha, you will find a BJD connection to the siphoning off money meant for the poor and no enforcement mechanism to stop the loot.

No show will be possible without a showman and no showman can exist without an image. The entire time of the Chief Minister is spent in image-building. He plans his statements, speeches, political strategies diligently and monitors the media to provide spins. But, that is all that he is interested in. The siphoning off can continue so long as his leaders can assemble a crowd and the image can be sustained. As and when taking action against a politician or bureaucrat enhances his image, Naveen Patnaik will not wink an eye-lid. He has created a make-belief world of incredible credulity despite thorough administrative incompetence. Development issues are secondary to his entire political thought process and therefore, the bureaucracy operates without any political direction, supervision or leadership. The Ministers are actually sorry figures, who resent in private for playing second fiddle to the bureaucracy, but waste no opportunity in demonstrating their loyalty for the leader. The Sycophancy was taken to the lowest level possible recently when Revenue Minister of the State Government proudly proclaimed in a public rally in the presence of the Chief Minister that he is proud to be called a 'chakara' (domestic servant) of Sri Naveen Patnaik. Mr. Patnaik has done nothing to express his displeasure for this extra-ordinary display of loyalty by a Cabinet Minister. The incident clearly shows that BJD leaders view Naveen Patnaik as a Megalomaniac leader and there is a competition in sycophancy among BJD leaders. I am waiting for temples to come up next.

It is well known among informed sections in Odisha that Naveen Patnaik is not interested in administration or governance. My impression is he loves the drama around politics with he in the centre stage. He loves to fool people. Administration and governance are petty issues better left to a coterie of bureaucrats. He enjoys moving from place to place to receive public adulation. Party leaders know that Mr. Naveen Patnaik is more of a showman and less of an administrator and it helps them to use his showmanship to their benefit even if no public purpose is served. That is why I had quoted Ninan in an earlier post as saying that some of India’s regional leaders are “populist demagogues” and “the behavior of these elected satraps is comical and clownish for the most part.” In the meantime the siphoning off development funds can continue.

After 12 years in power Mr. Naveen Patnaik still takes no interest in the implementation of the developmental programmes. He has no patience to get into details and is happy to watch smart PowerPoint presentations by his English-speaking bureaucrats, who have made him believe that everything is hunky-dory and poverty in Odisha will soon be history. He, at times, picks up some statistics and phrases from these bureaucrats and there ends his interest in administration. For meetings the bureaucrats can always be relied upon to prepare a written speech and the Chief Minister can read the script blithely without taking the trouble of remembering anything non-political. He has not addressed a single press conference either in Delhi or in Odisha in case people get to know that the king is without robes. A few hackneyed phrases can pass as media statements or better still he can read out a written statement.  ‘I am looking into the matter’, ‘the Government is doing everything possible’, ‘law will take its own course’ etc have been his passport to public life. He is the first Chief Minister in Indian history who has not addressed a press meet in 12 years and has refused to learn the language of the state. He has deliberately not learnt Odia because he would then be at par with all other politicians. He wants to be different, hatke. That is how he can remain as a celebrity; if Amitabh Bachan speaks in Odia, people will be delighted. Similar is the case of Naveen Patnaik. He can delight the crowd by speaking a few sentences in Odia. The caricature adds to the drama. His is a case study in modern media manipulation and public perception management; how a thoroughly incompetent person can build the image of a successful administrator? He can give any communication guru a run for his money.

"The fight between BJD 'A' and BJD 'B' shows their lack of focus on development and growth?"

I have used the blog to spell out my position on different topical issues. Like all of you I have been watching the recent developments in the ruling BJD. As a matter of propriety any comment about internal matters of another political party is inappropriate. Both the A and B Teams of BJD share the same anti-Congress ideological positions with the projected neglect of the state by the centre as the main plank and they are committed to their party constitution. Both are anti-Congress votaries and vying for the regional political space. The B Team claims to be a forum within the Party and the A Team is unwilling or unable to expel the B Team; B Team is also unwilling or unable to walk out of the Party. So, basically it is an open fight for power and influence within the ruling party that attempts to distract people of Odisha from real issues, i.e., the failure of the BJD to meet expectations of the people after 12 years; both Teams are equally responsible for neglecting development of the state. Congress is an old party with a distinctly different ideology, support base, national focus and commitment for secular democracy.  

The match between the A and B teams of BJD made me think about the larger issue of emergence of regional parties in post-independent India. There have been three major sources of regional parties. Some leaders of the Congress, once they established their own profile and career as Congress leaders, leveraged their position by breaking away from the national party to advance their personal ambitions better. Biju Patnaik, Sharad Pawar and Mamata Banerjee are examples. The followers of Biju Patnaik do not want to recollect Biju’s Congress origin or 30 years in Congress since that weakens their anti-congress rhetoric. The fact is all the work for which Biju is remembered were achieved by him as a Congress leader only. The second group of parties emerged out of regional movements like the Dravid movement in Tamil Nadu, the anti-foreigner movement in Assam, the Maharashtra movement in Mumbai, the Punjabi Suba movement in Punjab etc. Then there are a group of regional parties that were a result of split in Janata Dal. The Samajwadi Party (SP), the Lok Dal, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Janata Dal United (JDU) come in this third category. Basically the Janata dal had the sole ideology of anti-Congressim. But, once the Party succeeded in getting Congress out of power, the leaders within the party had different ideological positions and ambitions and fought bitterly splitting into many parties. Now these regional parties are held not merely by the glue of anti-congressim, but in UP and Bihar by caste equations and in Odisha by regional assertion. So, BJD has two parts to its ideology: anti-congressism and regionalism (perceived neglect by the centre). Basically, the entire philosophy is negative and is a result of personal ambition of leaders to come to power and rank opportunism. Consequently personalities become more important than policies and ideologies. The BJD has suspended and expelled many of its top leaders not over ideological differences, but over so called ‘anti-party activities’ and ‘indiscipline’, which is a result of autocratic leadership styles, opportunism and obsession with a leadership cult.

In our system of federalism the centre has huge responsibilities. Let us say India has a responsibility for its defence forces, even India is required to help out other countries through financial assistance. The economic managers have to balance the budget. If there is an unfavourable change in currency exchange rate, Petrol, Diesel and cooking gas becomes more expensive and the Government of India have to take responsibility of adjusting prices. Then, the nation needs a strategic perspective and must strive for its rightful place in the world. Regional parties do not have any of these responsibilities, nor are they required to articulate their position on various national and international issues. They can just blame the centre and carry out populist agitations to get votes.

During the independence movement Congress attracted dedicated and talented youth in large numbers. Even now, Congress attracts people with a nationalist, secular and left-of-centre ideological position. On the other hand there are parties which do their politics around caste, religion, region in the pursuit of electoral success fragmenting the polity and these parties offer platforms for various short-cuts.

Poorer states like Odisha need rapid national economic growth much more than the richer states. We want impediments to growth to be removed through reforms. Often, there is a tendency to consider views of regional parties in power in a state as the voice of the people. Not necessarily. People want development and growth and that is what we in Odisha Congress are articulating. Rapid growth will generate jobs. Our farmers will get the marketing linkage and come out of subsistence agriculture. We have seen the benefit of the first generation of reforms that decreased unemployment and removed nearly 200 million people in the country out of the curse of poverty. Rapid growth also improves the resource position of the Government to invest in the social sector and in the development of infrastructure. The regional party in power in Odisha has a myopic and populist focus. They have failed to improve the situation of the farmers and have done nothing in the manufacturing sector, particularly SMEs and MMEs without which employment creation will not be possible. They are opposing or ambiguous about the reforms required to facilitate rapid growth. All that BJD has been looking at is taking credit for centrally funded developmental programmes and blaming the centre for supposed neglect. In fact, economic growth is not in the agenda of BJD A or BJD B.

Did people elect the BJD to be divided into A and B teams and fight publicly. ‘A’ calling ‘B’ as a ‘thief and Beiman’, ‘B’ responding by calling ‘A’ as an autocrat who is running a Stalinist regime. Did people elect the BJD to clash on the streets to settle leadership issues? I leave it to you to decide if this naked and public power game is about differences over ideology and do they serve the interest of the people of Odisha in any manner? Is this why they were given such a huge mandate in the last election? Why are they fighting and over what? We need a nationalist perspective, a focus on economic growth and on policies away from personal ambitions, parochial considerations and myopic political agenda. Let me quote a few lines from an article by Kanti Bajpai in the Times of India on 26 May, 2012.

“The view that the states should be more powerful rests on the assumption that the Centre is undemocratic and that virtue resides in state governments. This is hilarious. As veteran journalist T N Ninan points out, the chief ministers are populist demagogues, presidential in the way they run their parties and states. They tolerate no opposition and humiliate their own party members as well as the state administrators with total abandon. The behaviour of these elected satraps is comical and clownish for the most part.”

I rest my case.