heartattack

A deadly virus has hit our democracy. It is in ICU, struggling for its life. The virus, called the WOMEN’s QUOTA BILL, has already engulfed the upper half of the body, the Rajya Sabha. If it infects the lower half, the Lok Sabha, too, then the death of democracy is imminent.

The bill stipulates that one-third of the seats in the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies be reserved for women.

What that means is that once every three elections, ONLY women would run for elections from your city.

The bill is the government’s way of empowering women. While women form 50% of the population, they form just 10.8% of the Lok Sabha. The proponents of the bill, hypnotized by insanity, believe:

• Women in power will make more women friendly decisions
• Democracy runs better when the composition of the parliament mirrors that of the society
• Without this intervention, women will never come to power
• The same system has worked in the village panchayats and so there is a precedent of its efficacy

Even if I pooped constantly for the next 20 years, I doubt I’ll produce more shit than the arguments above.

Busting the Myths

First, it is untrue that only members of one group can help other members of the group. In the case of women, there are enough examples to prove this. United States, a country where women have made huge strides in the society, has only slightly better women participation in the parliament, at 16.8%, and has never had a women President since Independence.

On the flip side, the leadership of Indira Gandhi, Mayawati, Jayalalitha, and Vasundhara Raje did not benefit women more than the leadership of their male predecessors or successors did. Name one historic reform these ladies introduced for improving the condition of women in India and I’ll show you a pig that can fly.

In fact, it’s worse if this were true. A successful democracy demands that the elected representatives serve all people the same. Not only does this bill not discourage it, it formalizes it with this assumption.

Second, it is actually the death of democracy if the parliament mirrors the society. The composition of the parliament is not a function of the composition of the political parties, but a function of the mandate of the people. The success of democracy lies in people choosing the best candidate without considerations of gender, cast, or religion. If the parliament mirrors the society, it indicates that people are voting only for the members of their group. The democracy runs best as a meritocracy where are candidates are judged by their qualification and their performance.

Third, women are not a small dispersed group that cannot come together to have any real effect on an election. They form 50% of the voting population and can actually decide the winner by their own votes. So why the reservation again? If women really want more women in power, the democratic system allows them to do so organically. The obvious comment there is – “But there aren’t enough women candidates.” Yes, that is something we need to solve and reservation is not the solution for reasons mentioned later. But to say that women are not potent enough by themselves to bring other women to power is, to iterate, a bunch of crap.

Fourth, it is questionable how effective the system has been in the Panchayats. While women who have held positions of power in the Panchayats claim to have better self esteem, there is little proof that the women under their administration benefited more than they otherwise would have. Also, most of the elected women come from the upper economic strata of the rural society, and it is questionable at best if they needed the reservation for climbing the self esteem ladder.

And, of course, running a village of 100 people and running a country of a billion people is the same thing, right?

The Reality of the Bill

This bill is nothing more than a political statement – “Hey, we care for women.” (I know for a fact that ND Tiwari certainly does). But you know what’s funny? If you really do care, why have you not given election tickets to more women over the last few elections? Why do you need a law? Just put more women out there and we’ll all know that you care! Why would you want a law to formalize what you want to do (apparently) anyway?

Well the reason is – the parties don’t want to do it alone. It’s too much of a risk. Power for party comes first; power for women comes second. If it’s a law, everyone will have to take this risk.

Think of this in terms of a cricket team saying – “We really like to promote new talent, so we want the ICC to make a law that 4 players in any team be under 21.” What is stopping the team from playing 4 young players in every game without the law? Not much! Just the fear that the new players will be no match for the experienced players in the other team. If there is a law, the other team will have to play 4 new players too.

So the government can now make a seemingly bold statement, when, in fact, it has covered all the potential risks.

The bill is also the idea of LAZY women activists, who, instead of working hard with political parties and educating women about the importance of joining politics and the power of their ballot, would rather sit back and wait for laws to do it for them.

Why this bill sucks

Reservation does not empower; it demeans, it segregates.

Would the women elected through this process earn the respect of the citizens?  Would this empower women, or cause resentment against them, much like the resentment against the scheduled dalits? (If you think there is none, get out of that rock you are living under.)

It is unhealthy to kill meritocracy.

One way democracy, at least theoretically, ensures good governance is the incentive for re-election. This bill bulldozes that incentive. A male MP whose constituency is going to be reserved in the next election would not have this incentive. Neither would the woman MP who knows that her constituency will not be reserved in the next election.

What makes me feel that the same woman would not stand for elections when the constituency is open to all? Because that’s what happens in the Panchayats.  The re-election percentages of women chiefs is just 15%. Most political parties are short on women candidates and so cannot afford to field them in open constituencies.

When success is not attached to performance, the performance dwindles. Remember the last time you went to a public bank and the officer at counter 6 asked you to go to counter 9 from where you were sent to counter 7 only to find that the person manning it has not been back from lunch a good 30 minutes after lunch hour? That is because none of these men/women are paid according to how they treat you.

There is no end to this reservation.

When will the reservation end? Which government will have the guts to discontinue the reservation? It will never discontinue and we have a precedent. Reservation of dalits has not reduced in 60 years. If anything, it has increased.

It opens a Pandora’s Box.

Brace yourself for demands of parliamentary reservation by other segments of the society whose members constitute the parliament disproportionately. And what’s next? Reservation in the cricket team? Christians are inadequately represented in the team. Let’s reserve a place for them. No women Indian Idol (in spite of the fact that 50% of the contestants are female). Every three years, Indian Idol should have women candidates only. Thank God movie awards distinguish between male and female actors, or else once every three years, the best actor award would have to have female nominees only.

It encourages dynasty politics

India is no stranger to dynasty politics. The Nehru-Gandhi empire has ‘ruled’ this country for 43 out of the 63 years of independence, and looks set to rule for another decade. If you are a politician’s son, you get a straight ticket. But now, not only the sons, but the wives, daughters, sisters, maids – all will have a chance. Once the bill is passed, there’ll be a mad rush to recruit women politicians, almost overnight. Where are these politicians going to come from? A nationwide talent hunt show? Nope, from the houses of other politicians.

It lowers candidate quality

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure this one out. A boy with a rank of 10,000 gets into a top engineering college but not the guy with the rank 6000 because the first boy can play the namesake in the movie “My Name is Yadav.” Who would you want to make your bridge? (I’m not saying ranks reflect intellect accurately, but that’s not the point here.)

It is simply undemocratic

The country cannot be forced to choose 1/3rd women candidates. People have the right to vote for whoever they want. Even if I were a male chauvinist (pig, happy?), I have the right to vote. If I have a phobia of women, I have the right to vote. If I am a Hindu/Muslim extremist, I have the right to vote. While I do not approve of any of the above behaviors, I have the right to vote for the type of candidate I want to. The government cannot tell me – “Hey you are not voting properly. You should really be voting for more women. So let’s force you to do that every few years.”

I do not deny that it will be good for the country to have more diverse candidates, but the system cannot pull strings to ENSURE that a certain percentage of them will always win. The final say rests with the people. What the system can do is to educate me about what it thinks is right. Not shove it down my throat.

In Conclusion

I am not against women empowerment. I love women more than any feminist in this country (even more than ND Tiwai, for that matter, but not the way he does). But this bill is not the way to do it.

I agree that our democracy does not work perfectly. Democracy is only as perfect as the people that make it. Our laws should try to fix the fallacies of our democracy, rather than addressing them as inevitabilities, and even worse, institutionalizing them.

It is not like the roughly 22% MPs these women will be replacing are qualified to run this country. In fact, I bet they are not. But that doesn’t mean it is OK if they are replaced by this reservation.

Also, most people in India vote for a party more than they do for a candidate and so MPs would still have incentive to do well for their party, unlike my claim above which is based on very theoretical study of human behavior. While this allegiance to party is true, it is not good for democracy. These candidates are going to vote on key issues in the parliament and it is important that they stand up as individuals (wake up, Nitesh).

I’d like to quote Vir Sanghvi, who summed the Women’s Quota issue very well 12 years ago

But because some articulate activists want to take the easy way out, that is no reason for us to tear up the principles on which electoral democracy is based.

Let us save our country from this virus.

Hello People

Today, Mayawati, the Chief Minister of UP, celebrates her birthday.

Last year, Mayawati’s men murdered an engineer, Manoj Gupta, because Manoj did not want to contribute 500,000 rupees for Maya’s birthday celebration fund. Before he was killed, Maya’s henchmen pulled his hair out, gave him electric shocks, broke his bones, and burnt him with cigarettes (link to news story). I wonder if it was his money or his blood that they needed for the birthday bash.

The news stayed in the media for a little bit but eventually no one was convicted for this savagery. Shekhar Tiwari, the chief perpetrator of the crime, is in custody but is yet to be convicted. Last thing I know about him is that he was requesting a bail in October. CBI wanted to probe this issue further, but Maya did not let the CBI in, probably fearing the opening of a bigger can of worms.

So, repeat after me as I make this plea to Maya on her birthday this year:

Maya, last year you spent 20 billion rupees on your statues when half the state was languishing in droughts. In one case, you got a 70 million rupee statue redone because you did not like its face (can’t really blame the sculptor, can we?) and because you suddenly decided that the statue needed to hold a handbag. A few hundred thousands should be like pocket change for you!

I sincerely hope that the money ‘pocketed’ by you and your men from this project will obviate the need to torture innocent citizens for this pocket change. And if my suspicion is right and it is actually the blood of these people that you desire, then just look carefully at your statues. You’ll see that they are smeared in blood of the people who could have been saved by the monies allocated to your insatiable vanity.

So slay no more, please?

Let’s say you live in a beautiful house! You have the prettiest woman in the world as your wife, and two adorable kids. Things are not safe in the city and so you and your neighbours decide to appoint a “neighbourhood watch committee” to look after the neighbourhood’s security and keep the local goons out.

But, what happens is that the neighbourhood watch committee joins hands with the local goons. The goons break into your house at night, break your legs, rape your wife, and abduct your kids, probably to sell them off to the guys who run begging rackets.

How would you feel? Betrayed? The very people you trusted to protect you from evil actually joined hands with the devil to make your life hell!

As sad as that may be, every 4 years some of us are betrayed the same way by our political parties.

Take for example, in 1997 Uttar Pradesh state elections,  some of us voted for the Bhartiya Janta Party not because we thought they were any good (In fact they had as many jokers as any other party), but to ward off the evil called Mayawati. But what happened? BJP joined hands with Mayawati’s BSP and the fat bitch became the Chief Minister of the state.

So my question is, is it fair to allow these parties to join hands with whoever they want? Is it fair for, let’s say, Samajwadi Party, to criticise the Congress party throughout their election campaign and then join hands with them just because Congress is the only party that has a real chance at forming the government?

Is it fair for the Right Wing Congress to join hands with the Left Parties and subjecting the country to a tug of war of policies at the top?

It defeats the very purpose of democracy when the political parties are not forced to obey their ‘pre-election’ stand after the elections.

Mulayam Singh Yadav, when questioned by CNN IBN recently on whether he’ll support Congress or not said that “I’ll decide after polls”. Why…. Why? Why? Why? How would the Congress party be any different after polls? So let me rephrase Mr Yadav’s words a little to reflect their right meaning

“Well, I would like to be the Prime Minister. But if my party and my allies are not able to get enough seats to have a real chance at the government, I’ll support whoever has the chance because power is all I care about”

So to follow up with the Right to Reject that I proposed in my previous post, I suggest that to make the democratic process more fair all coalitions be announced before the elections.

Thanks to the Congress-BJP rivalry, the country has pretty much 2 power blocks – the UPA (Congress + allies) and the NDA (BJP + allies). All political parties must decide to join one of the two blocks before the elections. If they choose to stay independent, they can, but then they would not have the choice to join the UPA or NDA after the elections. They have the choice, however, to make whatever slime cocktail they want to make among themselves.

To those who feel it makes no sense, I’ll be happy to hear why! Note that I’m not proposing a bi-party system. It’s just not possible to have that in India. If you look at it, it is more of a tri-coalition system. The system allows every vote to have the impact that the voter intended to have.

Yes, I agree this is still not foolproof. If SP and BSP do not decide to join any of the major two coalitions, then they can still form a coalition and the voter who voted for SP to keep BSP out is betrayed. To that, all I have to say is vote for a UPA or NDA affiliated party if all you want to do is to keep BSP out [better still, hope that the right to reject becomes a reality]. The important thing, however, is that there IS a way. In our existing system there isn’t.

But let’s not forget that such a system would let fewer and fewer parties to sit on the fence like they are happily doing now! They’ll have to take a stand, and stand by it throughout the course of the election and more importantly, AFTER it! So the next time I tie a lemon and chillies on my doorstep to ward off evil, at least I can be assured that they won’t end up in the devil’s lemonade!

Let’s say no to these humpty dumpties. Unlike the story, they don’t fall! The nation does!

There has been enough said and written about the current crop of criminals politicians we have. A lot of us educated ones feel no one is deserving enough to be voted for. So we, of course, abstain from voting and get a (false) satisfaction that we, at least, did not partake in the election of a rodent.

But of course, by not voting, we are in a way helping the most evil of the evils. Because any vote FOR a competing candidate is a vote against the most evil one. That’s how the math works.

But sometimes, I don’t blame these people; thinking about the upcoming elections, I often ask myself who among the bunch of jokers we have as candidates do I want to vote for. Well, I’m always without an answer. One thing I know for certain, however, is who I do not want to lead this country – The blob of shit called Mayawati … a woman who’s convoy contains 36 cars, who spends millions on her statues around the capital, and has a Nazi salute for a greeting. More on the bitch in another post maybe..

So the only thing that motivates me to go to vote is to prevent her (that’s mighty polite of me to use ‘her’ to refer to Mayawati, ‘it’ is a better article) from winning.

But then, who among the competing candidates do I vote for? Logic says her toughest competitor. But that may not be easy for the common man to determine. If let’s say 100,000 of us vote for, say Congress, with the sole purpose of defeating Mayafatty, and eventually fatty wins by 90,000 votes with Samajwadi Party at #2, the 100,000 votes of ours have been wasted.

It is therefore, I suggest that the right to elect must be complimented by the right to reject. As a voter, I should be allowed to vote FOR a candidate, or vote AGAINST one. Voting against a candidate would mean – “I don’t care who wins as long as it’s not him/her.”

So how do we decide the winner in such an election? Simple.

Case 1: If there is at least one candidate that has a net positive number of votes (i.e. FOR Votes – AGAINST votes) – The winner is the candidate with the highest net number of votes.

Case 2: If no candidate has a net positive number of votes – There is no winner. The seat is considered void and not included in the final counting of the seats. This is because we can’t let a net negative candidate represent us. It is better to be not represeneted than to be represented by a pig in whites whose participation in the house will bring more harm than good. 

Of course, what if there are too many of such void constituencies? Of course, there should be a tolerance level set. So if, say more than 1/3rds of our 500 odd seats are void, then elections would have to be reheld countrywide (you cannot have re-elections in just these void constituencies as voters are likely to be influenced by the results of the other constituencies). Furthermore, the rejected candidates in the void constituencies must not be allowed to stand for elections from the same constituency for the re-election to give the voters new choices.

Why I think the right to reject is better for democracy?

• People who abstained from voting for the lack of a deserving candidate can now participate in the democratic process.
• Void seats will keep away more evil people from the parliament than the current system does. Agreed it would raise the chances of a hung election which is a costly prospect, but the cost of a bad government is a lot higher.
• It would not require of the minorities to unite and decide on a common candidate to defeat an opressive incumbent. The minority groups can, independently, fight the incumbent by rejection.
• Questionable practices like bribing the voters, or inflammatory statements against a particular group would get their due in the voting process.

Obviously, cynics are quick to argue that our democratic process does people to choose to go to the voting venue and not vote for anyone. True, but it’s not enough because our electorate system does not consider the % of people who voted. In fact, this ‘going to the voting booth but not voting’ compliments the right to reject very well. If the net number of people who do not vote for anyone is higher than the highest net positive candidate, the seat should be void.

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So what do you think? I know the right to reject will not fix everything, but it does fix a lot. Keeping the bad guys out is as important as letting the good ones in ..! So until that happens, I hope that some political party puts up a plant for elections. At least, when I vote for it, I know it’ll do no harm ..

The music CD of Delhi-6 has a mirror on the cover. The director wants to send a message, obviously. You succeed Mr Mehra because Delhi-6 the movie is a mirror of our society, especially a mirror of our relationship with God. Go watch it friends! You’ll certainly be bored by some parts, but watch it. You’ll certainly take a few things back home with you if you have even an iota of compassion or love for India.

There is a scene in Delhi-6 where an actor playing Lord Shiva on stage is dancing to entertain the chief guest of the act, the local MLA. Watching this, Abhishek Bachchan comments that ‘Even the Gods know the power of the seat’. My reaction was – I wish!

The reality, I feel, is the exact opposite. In India, religion is always above law. Here anything goes in the name of religion. Religion is the opposite of HIV. It gives you immunity against anything and everything. You can go out and rape nuns, just because they participated in the conversion of a few Hindus into Christians. You can demolish a place of worship (also a national monument) just because some dickhead said that there used to be a temple there. You can set people on fire because some members of their community tore down your place of worship a decade ago. You can block railway tracks for hours because someone allegedly said something against your Guru.

Has there been one person put behind bars for these heinous crimes? Ermm.. NO!

Let’s bring it down a notch lower – things that happen in our daily lives. How many times have you had to wait for an hour in the traffic just because some sonovabitch thinks that it is his right to go to his wedding location riding a horse with a battalion of guests high on marijuana, dancing in the middle of the road. The government imposes a fine if I don’t wear seat belts. But what about these people? Why don’t they get a fine? A fine for blocking the streets? A fine for carrying a naked electrical generator to power the atrocious lighting? A fine for dancing in the middle of a crowded road? A fine for noise pollution, thanks to the inevitably horrible singer who sounds like he’s singing from his anus. Why so? Why no fine? Just because their religion says this is how the wedding should be held? Bullshit, right?

And what about the jagrans in the middle of the road? Why the f*** are these douche-bags allowed to encroach upon the whole road just to conduct an all night prayer? What happens if there is a fire somewhere? How would the fire-engine and the ambulance pass? What about the residents of the area who DO NOT WANT to F***ING PRAY ALL NIGHT and just want to sleep?

Why are helmets not compulsory for the Sikhs? The turban is their problem – they need to figure out how to accommodate the two. It’s not the government’s job to relax rules to accommodate religion.

The season of Ramadan is one another frustrating time, especially if you are out in the evening. Why are these people praying on the road? If the mosque is packed, go home and pray you freak. Again, what if an ambulance needs to pass?

Why do we still have the Islamic law? Why should a religion specific law be allowed to exist in this country? Why can a Muslim man marry 4 times when our constitution forbids polygamy?

Why do we allow places of worship that say “Hindus only” or “Muslims only”? Why do we allow religion specific quotas in certain universities?

Ironically, our symbol of Law is Themis - the ancient Greek Goddess of Justice

In the court of law, why am I asked to swear against the Bible, the Quran, the Gita, or the Guru Granth Sahib at the witness box? What does religion have to do with the judicial system, or even truth? Is lying in court only a crime if the oath of was made against a religious text?

Guys and gals, I’m not an iconoclast. I do dislike organized religions, but I have no problem with the people following them as long as they stay in the limits of common sense. E.g, I have no problems with people praying all night in a stadium. That doesn’t harm anyone. But I have a problem with people praying in the middle of the road. It is a safety hazard. If people do that, they should be jailed/fined.

The foundation of a modern democratic society is an insurmountable rule of law that is common and equal for everyone. Unfortunately, our country has not been able to get that right. Religion is still paramount here. Nobody questions, and nobody complains. Why? Why don’t we question this?  Maybe we like it this this way – following religion over following the law. And why shouldn’t we? The consequences of erring are insignificant, it gives us a false sense of righteousness, and gives us a metric to prove that we are better than others – all of which an equal society with a common rule of law does not allow.