Eat your cake and have it too!

I will start off digressing (not usually done but please excuse).

The usual phrase is, “Have your cake and eat it too!” But the London based newspaper The Economist has taken exception to the order of the two activities. It says, either in its style manual or in one of its articles on language use, that one CAN indeed have one’s cake and eat it. In fact, one cannot eat a cake without having it first! I like the writing in that newspaper and I thought I would follow its suggestion or direction. Hence the skewed title. The digression has come to an end.

Consider UPA I and II. Whatever the detractors may say, UPA I did show at least a semblance of concern for the real common man (the ones who don’t own even a single car). It showed some concern for what may be exaggeratedly called good governance, thanks to the incessant pressure of real civil society activists like Aruna Roy, activist professionals like Jean Dreze and others and instituted measures like RTI, NREGA and others. UPA I had eaten that cake. Now, when it wants to eat cake again, it finds the plate empty!

UPA II stumbled badly under the current onslaught, and if it tried to regurgitate the cake from UPA I’s stomach just so it can have it, it will stink to high heaven.

Team Anna I (TAI) ate the cake. It garnered a lot of sympathy, even if much of it was misplaced. It awakened the spirit of fight, even if only among the urban elite. Something is better than nothing, people thought.

TAI was not broad based, despite empty claims of people across India coming together and such. Team Anna II (TAII) fell for the debriefing of TAI. It thought that its predecessor had universal appeal and tried to go for the jugular of UPA II. It even got the scruff of UPA II’s neck in a hold. But, the hold is slipping. Some of the slippery stuff was baked in its own kitchen.

One can understand why Shanti Bhushan dropped out of TAII – age, perhaps. But why did Justice Santosh Hegde? Two things have to be read in conjunction with each other (a common phrase in legal writing). Not too long ago, Prashant Bhushan made a lot of noise about Supreme Court justices being corrupt (his father joined in later), and here we have Justice Hegde calling for leaving the Supreme Court judges off the Lokpal radar. You cannot eat the cake and have it too! Out goes Justice Hegde, even as he is basking in the limelight for nabbing the erstwhile Chief Minister of Karnataka and two of his ministerial colleagues amongst other sundry actors, for, as irony would have it, corruption! One had to go and it was the judge and along with him, group justice.

Anna Hazare seems to have said to his supporters that he would be fine fasting for 15 days. This creates another eating-having dichotomy problem. I have read and I validate a statement that a person must incur cost willingly for an act to be considered a sacrifice. If Anna is going to be comfortable fasting, where is the cost? The event is no sacrifice at all. Let him say that he cannot go on a fast without endangering his health. Then, it is a sacrifice. If he claims otherwise, it is not. Let him choose. He cannot have it both ways.

There is another point. Is Anna absolving the government of any responsibility for any consequences during his fast for 15 days? Government could have said, “We are hands off!” It is a different thing it made no such claim, and perhaps could not have. Should any health complications arise at all, it would be the exclusive responsibility of TAII. Is TAII willing to take such an undertaking? Or, does it have something up its sleeve – Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the perennial orange-juice-glass-holder? TAII should take full responsibility for whatever happens in the first 15 days on Anna’s health front. It has to eat its cake. NOW.

To end this narrative on TAI and TAII, the appropriate response to “Something is better than nothing” is “Nothing is better than nonsense!” If you are curious you may find a couple of distinct interpretations of the latter, and you may have difficulty choosing between the two.

Let us go beyond UPA and TA, both I and II. What about BJP? As the principal opposition in the Parliament, it is duty bound (?) to oppose the party in power. So, it asks for the Jan Lokpal bill (JLB) to be discussed. But, it also knows that the JLB can at best be introduced only as an Independent bill. Do we have such an animal in the Parliament, an independent legislator? I think not.

If indeed there is a provision in the Constitution for the Treasury Benches to introduce two competing bills, then, isn’t it time for us to revisit the Constitution? BJP can keep demanding that the JLB has to be discussed in the Parliament, but it does not have a way to ensure that. There can be a lot of sound, but no light. The first cake has been eaten – it is in opposition.

Why has BJP suddenly decided that in the next Lok Sabha elections, it would not project anyone as the prime ministerial candidate? I have a suspicion that the decision has much to do with the uncertainties surrounding the Lokpal Bill, Jan or otherwise. Assuming the Lokpal bill goes through and becomes the law of the land, then that would add to the infighting in the run up to the next elections. “I am less corrupt and less likely to be pulled up by the Lokpal, even as the prime minister” – a spirited debate among Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, and for good measure throw in Narendra Modi too. Should BJP be in a position to form the government, I expect its leaders will not go to the president to stake the party’s claim. Rather, it would be to the Lokpal!

What I have read is also that politicians across the party lines are now wondering about the constitutionality of the whole thing. Now, that is truly HINDSIGHT, in bold capitals! These problems were ever visible to people who could see. The Constitution was not adopted yesterday. It is only now the effects of binging on the JLB cake is showing up!

There is one other group that has binged on the cake – the corporates. The situation is Sherlock Holmesian, “The dog did not bark!” As far as I know it has been complete silence from the various business clans, Ambanis, Ruia, Birla, Jindal et all and even big-time entrepreneurs, many in real estate. The reason is easy to cotton on to. Without corruption they cannot grow. The competition is corrupt, you see. A stagnant company is a dead company. No one wants to be dead even in his own funeral, to be flippant about it. They continue to eat the cake of corruption but it has been baked on a Teflon coated dish. More difficult to expalin is the absence of Baba Ramdev's voice in the cacophony. Is it the case of once-bitten-twice-shy?

To end this post, let me again digress. Everyone involved in the current mess has already eaten the cake and they still want to have it too. That cannot happen, at least not in the pages of The Economist and in this space too.

Raghuram Ekambaram