What do the citizens expect from the Ruler? Many things. And, they no that the Ruler may not be able to give all that they expect. But one thing that they always expect as the minimum from the Ruler is that their lives and property are protected by the Ruler against onslaughts by third parties like the enemy across the border, the fellow citizens and the Ruler's employees. If there is an military aggression from across the border, citizens would still support the native ruler for a while even giving lives to protect the country. But if the aggression is from a fellow citizen or by a foreign intruder, the ruled just do not blame the fellow citizen or the foreign intruder: they also blame the country's Ruler for failure in the duty of the Ruler to protect the citizens if such incidents happen every other day routinely.
This is what politicians of West Bengal do not seem to realize. Common citizens are not bothered about who carries out the killings and looting of property - whether the Islamic terrorists from within or outside or the Maoists or the local rogues or hooligans: they simply see this as the failure of the Ruler. No body likes to be ruled by a weak Ruler who repeatedly and continuously fails to protect lives and property. This is what is happening to the Ruling Left-front or CPM Government in West Bengal.
For all the killings and murders and other acts of crime perpetuated by the goons, professional criminals, political opponents of the CPM and the extremist (Maoists/ Naxalites), the common citizens are not going to be sympathetic to CPM Rulers: they would think that the Ruler is weak, incapable and not trustworthy. By criticising the opposition parties and Maoists, CPM will only lose popularity if they cannot stop all these violence that is a regular affair in West Bengal. And,so long the CPM continues to ignore a Governments basic duty of providing peaceful living conditions for the common citizens, the opposition, the Maoists, the criminals, the Islamic terrorists from abroad will continue to take the advantage of a weak and weeping government that talks loud, blames others and achieves nothing but progressively rising trend in violence, killings and chaos in the State.
A government that looks like a coward and weak is not going to gain popularity by talking big about development, support to weaker sections, power to Panchyats, lofty ideologies and struggle against imperialism and capitalism. If one is concerned about his life and property at stake despite the existence of a Ruler, he / she is not going to listen to ideological speeches and call for communist revolution in the name of Marx, Lenin or Stalin or Mao.
With less than 24 months to go to the next election, CPM cannot afford to lose time in achieving success in eradicating armed Maoists from the State and drastically reducing political violence and murders in the State. Heroes become popular and win elections: people does not vote massively in favour of a Ruler defeated by the Maoists repeatedly and unable to reduce incidence of political murders and violence. Citizens know that the opposition can have an agitation program: they do not cheer Ruling parties that run agitation against the oppression of the Government by the opposition parties, the Maoists, terrorists and criminals. A Ruling party must get back the image of a strong hero to get back their popularity.
Weak governments does not get sympathy: they become sources of tragic entertainment as the following incidents show: Vedic Village Killings, the killing of policement in the police station by the Maoists, the kidnappiung of a police officer by the Maoists, the halting of the Rajdhani Express train on the track for two hours by some 500-1000 persons, the agitation of the primary teachers who lost jobs as their training by Government acknowledged
training institutes failed to meet standards, and aso on. CPM must soon find some way out of the vicious circle in which they have trapped themselves in.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Circus Party Entertainment Opportunities Lost
The entertainment quality of Bengali drama seem to be deteriorating despite the guidance of 21st Century cultural guru Chief Minister of West Bengal and the recent revolutionary entry of the Bengal lady Railway Minister of India in to cultural activities of West Bengal from reciting poems, singing songs, drawing/ paintaing, dedicating tube stationas to the names of past film hero, freedom fighter hero and others, and honouring novelists, film persons and others who have fallen from the State Government's favour. Lot of entertainment opportunities for the people in the City of Kolkata, West Bengal’s capital, and the state were just frittered away.
The state Trinamool leader, Partha (Arjun in the side) along with three his colleagues reached the Chief Minister’s Office in the Writers Building (State Government’s headquarters) reportedly demanding that the police arrests the Chief Minister who is also the minister responsible for the Government’s police department. An excellent beginning of for a drama! By the time Partho reached the Chief Minister (CM) Office at about 1-30 PM. He probably missed by seconds or minutes to hold back the Chief Minister from going home for lunch at his residence. So he waited for CM’s scheduled return to office at 4 PM. The writers at the Buliding who seldom write had sensed a great drama and thronged the corridors, but the officers like the Home Secretary probably instructed all entries to the Building closed, preventing the inflow of Press Cameras. CM returned as scheduled, entered his office under police security cordon and ordered that the opposition leaders loitering around his office be thrown out. The police arrested them and shifted them to the Presidency Jail lawns for a few hours and then let them go home. The news of the arrest of the Trinamool leaders led to the announcement of Trinamool squatting for 20 to 40 minutes at different road crossings all over the city in phases during 5PM to 7PM. The vehicular traffic came to a grinding halt soon and the people had to wait in the cars, cabs and busses for hours together. Many people missed their flights including the state Home Secretary scheduled to go to Mumbai, no one could reach hospital in time, and the office employees returning home from office got stranded on the roads. The Trinamool Chief , the Indian Minister for the Railways, who has been so very sympathetic to the needs of the railway passengers and has been taking various measures comfort, convenience and reduction in travel-time of railway passengers, expressed her apology for the unavoidable incident causing suffering to the people traveling by road. She probably meant that the incident was caused by the action of the Chief Minister who had ordered her party leaders to be arrested in front of his office and thrown out. The Chief Minister defended his action by saying that he could not allow his office premises to be used by the opposition party for their circus. Partho retorted that the CM himself was a great political joker and dreamt that one day his party would be able to pay back the CM in the same coin. Most people returned home with a delay of about 3 hours during which the families at home saw the live coverage of the jammed roads on the TV.
The players in the drama could have greater sense of dramatics. Partho, having missed the opportunity to stop the CM for going to residence for lunch, should have immediately gone back and quietly returned at 4.30 PM along with some more press cameras. The CM instead of returning to office at 4 PM could have come back to office at 6-30 PM. The Home Secretary should have ordered most writers in the office complex to leave office sharply at 5 PM. The CM could have ordered for the oppositions leaders to be arrested and removed at around 6-45 PM. Then the Trinamool could have organized their program of squatting at road crossings at around 7-15 PM beginning with the stage of the dramatic circus and then spreading in rings every 15 minutes to reach the outskirts of the city by 8-45 PM. This would have ensured that there was hardly any traffic congestion during the peak hours and most people would have returned home early to enjoy live and repeated replay of the dramatic circus on the TV during the evening of the Friday. They could have seen the acrobatics of the players and clowns in the circus. The long three day week-end with Diwali fireworks could have started with great entertainment.
An opportunity was great entertainment was missed a night earlier also. A reporter and camera man of a TV channel followed the Railway Minister quietly in the cover of the darkness of the night while she was conferring, probably secretly with some of her close associates, at the residence of a well-known artist (popularized by the media as one of the prominent members of the group of intelligentsia not officially recognized as appropriate intelligentsia group by the CPM, the ruling political party in the State). The Railway minister and her associates suspected attempts to kill her, threatened the lady reporter, snatching away her mobile and complained to the Police who whisked away the TV channel staff to the police station, detained them for interrogation and finally let them off after a few hours. The TV channel team in this case seemed to be one without adequate experience. They could have had more than one mobile and kept them connected on-line with the studio so that reinforcement of reporters and camera men could have arrived on the spot of the drama in short time along with other TV channel staff. The people could have seen the drama of gagging press freedom outside the house of a prominent intellectual elite of the State, who apparently had been dropped suddenly a few years back from the patronage of the ruling party and the CM who also is the minister of culture in the State.
It is deplorable that the political actors and TV channels miss such great opportunities of entertainment value creation.
The state Trinamool leader, Partha (Arjun in the side) along with three his colleagues reached the Chief Minister’s Office in the Writers Building (State Government’s headquarters) reportedly demanding that the police arrests the Chief Minister who is also the minister responsible for the Government’s police department. An excellent beginning of for a drama! By the time Partho reached the Chief Minister (CM) Office at about 1-30 PM. He probably missed by seconds or minutes to hold back the Chief Minister from going home for lunch at his residence. So he waited for CM’s scheduled return to office at 4 PM. The writers at the Buliding who seldom write had sensed a great drama and thronged the corridors, but the officers like the Home Secretary probably instructed all entries to the Building closed, preventing the inflow of Press Cameras. CM returned as scheduled, entered his office under police security cordon and ordered that the opposition leaders loitering around his office be thrown out. The police arrested them and shifted them to the Presidency Jail lawns for a few hours and then let them go home. The news of the arrest of the Trinamool leaders led to the announcement of Trinamool squatting for 20 to 40 minutes at different road crossings all over the city in phases during 5PM to 7PM. The vehicular traffic came to a grinding halt soon and the people had to wait in the cars, cabs and busses for hours together. Many people missed their flights including the state Home Secretary scheduled to go to Mumbai, no one could reach hospital in time, and the office employees returning home from office got stranded on the roads. The Trinamool Chief , the Indian Minister for the Railways, who has been so very sympathetic to the needs of the railway passengers and has been taking various measures comfort, convenience and reduction in travel-time of railway passengers, expressed her apology for the unavoidable incident causing suffering to the people traveling by road. She probably meant that the incident was caused by the action of the Chief Minister who had ordered her party leaders to be arrested in front of his office and thrown out. The Chief Minister defended his action by saying that he could not allow his office premises to be used by the opposition party for their circus. Partho retorted that the CM himself was a great political joker and dreamt that one day his party would be able to pay back the CM in the same coin. Most people returned home with a delay of about 3 hours during which the families at home saw the live coverage of the jammed roads on the TV.
The players in the drama could have greater sense of dramatics. Partho, having missed the opportunity to stop the CM for going to residence for lunch, should have immediately gone back and quietly returned at 4.30 PM along with some more press cameras. The CM instead of returning to office at 4 PM could have come back to office at 6-30 PM. The Home Secretary should have ordered most writers in the office complex to leave office sharply at 5 PM. The CM could have ordered for the oppositions leaders to be arrested and removed at around 6-45 PM. Then the Trinamool could have organized their program of squatting at road crossings at around 7-15 PM beginning with the stage of the dramatic circus and then spreading in rings every 15 minutes to reach the outskirts of the city by 8-45 PM. This would have ensured that there was hardly any traffic congestion during the peak hours and most people would have returned home early to enjoy live and repeated replay of the dramatic circus on the TV during the evening of the Friday. They could have seen the acrobatics of the players and clowns in the circus. The long three day week-end with Diwali fireworks could have started with great entertainment.
An opportunity was great entertainment was missed a night earlier also. A reporter and camera man of a TV channel followed the Railway Minister quietly in the cover of the darkness of the night while she was conferring, probably secretly with some of her close associates, at the residence of a well-known artist (popularized by the media as one of the prominent members of the group of intelligentsia not officially recognized as appropriate intelligentsia group by the CPM, the ruling political party in the State). The Railway minister and her associates suspected attempts to kill her, threatened the lady reporter, snatching away her mobile and complained to the Police who whisked away the TV channel staff to the police station, detained them for interrogation and finally let them off after a few hours. The TV channel team in this case seemed to be one without adequate experience. They could have had more than one mobile and kept them connected on-line with the studio so that reinforcement of reporters and camera men could have arrived on the spot of the drama in short time along with other TV channel staff. The people could have seen the drama of gagging press freedom outside the house of a prominent intellectual elite of the State, who apparently had been dropped suddenly a few years back from the patronage of the ruling party and the CM who also is the minister of culture in the State.
It is deplorable that the political actors and TV channels miss such great opportunities of entertainment value creation.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Three Cheers for Three Parties from Siliguri
In Siliguri Municipal Elections the CPM lost hands down despite beinmg the ruling party for over two decades. Trinamool- Congress Alliance won overwhelming majority and were expected to control the municipality for the next five years.
But Trinamool and Congress fought among themselves over the selection of the Mayor of the Siliguri Corporation. They could not come to an understanding till the final day and both filed separate candidates for the Mayor post. Trinamool assumed that since they and the Congress had equal number of elected councilors in the corporation this time, there would be a tie and in the event of a tie on voting on the Mayor election, there would be a toss of coin to decide the winner as per the provisions of the law.
The Congress wanted to be smarter. They issued a written statement seeking support from all the councillors including those of the Trinamool and the CPM.
CPM thought they could be even more clever. On the penultimate night, hey asked and got from the Congress a special letter to their district committee requesting CPM to support Congress candidate for the Mayor and other posts.
Naturally, Congress got the Mayor post along with other posts. But the State and national Congress leaders were in shame that the Congress won with CPM support after they had gone to the polls in alliance with the Trinamool with the common objective of throwing out the CPM party and they succeeded as the people got an opportunity to vote for a change. The
state and national leaders denied any knowledge of the penultimate day late understanding between Siliguri level Congress and the CPM. They played down the mistake at the local level and reaffirmed their commitment to the Trinamool-Congress alliance to throw CPM ou of office in the next State elections due in 2011. A Congress MLA from North Bengal who was a member of the joint alliance committe for poll coordination in Siliguri resigned from the post of Vice President of West Bengal Congress against the Siliguri district Congress Committee's secret deal for support from the CPM when there were alternative solutions. The Congress satisfied their greed for powers in Siliguri believing that this power could help them influence the electorate in 2011 in their favor. They also could send a message that Trinamool cannot be the dictating partner in all cases as the Trinamul leader has been behaving. But they lost face in public for cheating and seeking CPM votes.
The CPM gets applause for their smart move to cash in an opportunity to ceate a divide between the Trinamool and the Congress. But they also lost face in public admitting thereby that they are afraid of Trinamool and treat the Congress as the B team of the CPM as had been repeatedly alleged by Trinamool before they entered in to an alliance with the Congress before the Parliamentary elections. Their argument: they wanted to ensure that some Mayor is elected soon rather than allow the municipality to suffer from the lack of a settlement between the Congress and the Trinamool on the Mayor post. This is not tenable as the toss of a coin would have settled the issue even if they had not participated in the Mayor elections as they had earlier indicated to do.
TRINAMOOL also lost face: they could not succeed in negotiations with the Congress and being too demanding a partner in an alliance. They also lost power in Siliguri municipality.
It is a great lose-lose-lose game that the three parties played. They should get some special award for being so insensitive to the adverse image they create in the minds of the public with their actions.
Now, Congress will try again to appease Trinamool leader Mamata with good words and some concessions. The CPM will have to explain to the public about its curious behavior of supporting the Congress whom they consider as pro-American just because of the fear of Trinamool. Trinamool may get some sympathy because of cheating by the Congress and the childish trick of the CPM but it has to explain to the public as to how credible is the Congress-Trinamool alliance. By voting for the Trinamool-Congress Alliance is the public going to invite a change to chaos of alliance infighting?
Our political parties are only as smart as their brains can permit. They need to be rated against ideal benchmarks and goaded to improve their quality, competence and maturity. They are not only making themselves laughable stock but also putting the great intellectual Bengali race to shame.
What of the future of the Trinamool-Congress Alliance? It will continue despite further frictions in Bi-elections till the State elections are over in 2011. CPM will have ample opportunities to weaken the alliance coordination and establish that a rule of Trinamool and Congress is not the desired change that people should support: people of West Bengal would be better under CPM's rule of arrogance, oppression, corruption, inefficiency and development by words rather than action. The destiny of West Bengal is to suffer either way,
But Trinamool and Congress fought among themselves over the selection of the Mayor of the Siliguri Corporation. They could not come to an understanding till the final day and both filed separate candidates for the Mayor post. Trinamool assumed that since they and the Congress had equal number of elected councilors in the corporation this time, there would be a tie and in the event of a tie on voting on the Mayor election, there would be a toss of coin to decide the winner as per the provisions of the law.
The Congress wanted to be smarter. They issued a written statement seeking support from all the councillors including those of the Trinamool and the CPM.
CPM thought they could be even more clever. On the penultimate night, hey asked and got from the Congress a special letter to their district committee requesting CPM to support Congress candidate for the Mayor and other posts.
Naturally, Congress got the Mayor post along with other posts. But the State and national Congress leaders were in shame that the Congress won with CPM support after they had gone to the polls in alliance with the Trinamool with the common objective of throwing out the CPM party and they succeeded as the people got an opportunity to vote for a change. The
state and national leaders denied any knowledge of the penultimate day late understanding between Siliguri level Congress and the CPM. They played down the mistake at the local level and reaffirmed their commitment to the Trinamool-Congress alliance to throw CPM ou of office in the next State elections due in 2011. A Congress MLA from North Bengal who was a member of the joint alliance committe for poll coordination in Siliguri resigned from the post of Vice President of West Bengal Congress against the Siliguri district Congress Committee's secret deal for support from the CPM when there were alternative solutions. The Congress satisfied their greed for powers in Siliguri believing that this power could help them influence the electorate in 2011 in their favor. They also could send a message that Trinamool cannot be the dictating partner in all cases as the Trinamul leader has been behaving. But they lost face in public for cheating and seeking CPM votes.
The CPM gets applause for their smart move to cash in an opportunity to ceate a divide between the Trinamool and the Congress. But they also lost face in public admitting thereby that they are afraid of Trinamool and treat the Congress as the B team of the CPM as had been repeatedly alleged by Trinamool before they entered in to an alliance with the Congress before the Parliamentary elections. Their argument: they wanted to ensure that some Mayor is elected soon rather than allow the municipality to suffer from the lack of a settlement between the Congress and the Trinamool on the Mayor post. This is not tenable as the toss of a coin would have settled the issue even if they had not participated in the Mayor elections as they had earlier indicated to do.
TRINAMOOL also lost face: they could not succeed in negotiations with the Congress and being too demanding a partner in an alliance. They also lost power in Siliguri municipality.
It is a great lose-lose-lose game that the three parties played. They should get some special award for being so insensitive to the adverse image they create in the minds of the public with their actions.
Now, Congress will try again to appease Trinamool leader Mamata with good words and some concessions. The CPM will have to explain to the public about its curious behavior of supporting the Congress whom they consider as pro-American just because of the fear of Trinamool. Trinamool may get some sympathy because of cheating by the Congress and the childish trick of the CPM but it has to explain to the public as to how credible is the Congress-Trinamool alliance. By voting for the Trinamool-Congress Alliance is the public going to invite a change to chaos of alliance infighting?
Our political parties are only as smart as their brains can permit. They need to be rated against ideal benchmarks and goaded to improve their quality, competence and maturity. They are not only making themselves laughable stock but also putting the great intellectual Bengali race to shame.
What of the future of the Trinamool-Congress Alliance? It will continue despite further frictions in Bi-elections till the State elections are over in 2011. CPM will have ample opportunities to weaken the alliance coordination and establish that a rule of Trinamool and Congress is not the desired change that people should support: people of West Bengal would be better under CPM's rule of arrogance, oppression, corruption, inefficiency and development by words rather than action. The destiny of West Bengal is to suffer either way,
Rating Political Parties for Annual Puja Awards
Politicians are invited to innaugurate Durga Puja Mondols in Kolkata and elsewhere. During the Puja days so many ratings and awards are announced for Durga idols, Puja Committees and Puja beauties and etc. It is now time to publish rankings and awards for politicians and political parties at local and the state levels.
The Corporate houses, TV channels and newspapers can combine to raise funds to organize such ranking and awards by taking the help of credit rating agencies and other experts. My previous posting had indicated how this can be organized on a firm footing. The Duraga Puja Awards can be organized on similar lines. As a guide for rating political parties, they can get some clues from the approach outlined below.
Political parties need to be rated against desirable attribute benchmarks, irrespective of whether they are in the ruling government or in the opposition and irrespective of whether they are national or provincial, regional or local parties or even banned/ underground parties.Intellectuals should develop a broad range of criteria with sub-criteria. Political parties can submit information to the Rating agencies on all aspects of their mission, operations, support, base and performance. Even if they do not submit required by rating agencies the rating agency itself can collect required information as far as possible and rate them. Such rating should be done for base year and thereafter updated every month based on latest developments and information. Each criteria and each sub criteria will have appropriate weights and measured in a scale of 0 ( zero, the lowest) to 10 (the highest).The broad criteria could include:
1. Objectives with sub-criteria as relevance of objectives to civilized society, clarity in expression of objectives, consistency among objectives and the relative priority of the objectives, quantification and measurable property of objectives (vague objectives could be given low points),
2. Organisational Strength: number of members, number of active members, educational background of the top 10 functionaries/ officials), the number of whole-time members and their emoluments and benefits, the quality of inner party democracy, etc.
3. Leadership Capability & skills: educational and professional attainments of the top 10 or top 5% of the officials/ functionaries, the closeness and accessibility to the members and the public at large, quality of the written documents of the party available to the public in terms of content, clarity of content and effectiveness of communication, quality of public speaking of the top 10 leaders, the quality of debating and negotiating skills of the top 10 leaders, the gender composition of top leadership, the team spirit and co-ordination among top 10 leaders, etc.
4. Knowledge: The depth of knowledge of the top 10 leaders at each level in international political and economic relations, in economics and finance, in social and religious issues as also in general sciences and technology as relevant to the common citizens, competence in high school mathematics.
5. Societal Orientation: Exposure to and familiarity with the lives (style, habits, preferences, aspirations and difficulties / concerns) of the people of different economic and social strata among the top 10 leaders at national and local levels.
6. Negative Baggage: criminal record, record of failure in academic examinations, corruption, promotion of relations and loyal, loan servicing record, income tax records, connections with criminals/ Mafia,illness record, abuse of power, law violations record - both for the 10 top leaders and the party functionaries at all levels in general.
7. Income - Expenditure and Assets and liabilities record of the Party - whether certified by competent auditors/ auditors report thereon, income and expenditure in cash and through bank cheques etc, etc.
8. Performance: in terms of protecting/ rescuing people under threat or actual oppression/ extortion, non-violent and non-disruptive campaigns conducted ( call of bandhs/ strikes/ processions with adverse effect on national production activities earning negative points), performance in terms of participation in debates and attendance in parliament/ legislative/ civic bodies, etc.
9. Electoral Performance: percentage of votes polled in national/ regional and local elections, percentage of seats won to percentage of seats contested, etc.10. Use of technology: visitor-friendliness, content, updating, and responsiveness to inquiries in respect of websites, use of mobiles. emails and Internet in part-offices, use of audio-visual computer technology in party meetings, etc.
The above are just illustrative criteria and sub-criteria.Let political parties demonstrate their knowledge, skills, apptitudes, intellect, governance standards, social responsibility, transparency standards, and civilized behaviour through scientific evaluation by independent rating agency. Let them compete to earn good rating instead of formng oligarchic cartels to exploit the people with mere lecture-bajis. Let them face the electorate continuously and not just durng election campaign elections in democracies.
Durga Puja Annual Political Awards can help promote some measure of accountabilty and transparency among politicians and political parties because almost the entire population of West Bengal tracks whatever happens in West Bengal during the Puja celebrations.
The Corporate houses, TV channels and newspapers can combine to raise funds to organize such ranking and awards by taking the help of credit rating agencies and other experts. My previous posting had indicated how this can be organized on a firm footing. The Duraga Puja Awards can be organized on similar lines. As a guide for rating political parties, they can get some clues from the approach outlined below.
Political parties need to be rated against desirable attribute benchmarks, irrespective of whether they are in the ruling government or in the opposition and irrespective of whether they are national or provincial, regional or local parties or even banned/ underground parties.Intellectuals should develop a broad range of criteria with sub-criteria. Political parties can submit information to the Rating agencies on all aspects of their mission, operations, support, base and performance. Even if they do not submit required by rating agencies the rating agency itself can collect required information as far as possible and rate them. Such rating should be done for base year and thereafter updated every month based on latest developments and information. Each criteria and each sub criteria will have appropriate weights and measured in a scale of 0 ( zero, the lowest) to 10 (the highest).The broad criteria could include:
1. Objectives with sub-criteria as relevance of objectives to civilized society, clarity in expression of objectives, consistency among objectives and the relative priority of the objectives, quantification and measurable property of objectives (vague objectives could be given low points),
2. Organisational Strength: number of members, number of active members, educational background of the top 10 functionaries/ officials), the number of whole-time members and their emoluments and benefits, the quality of inner party democracy, etc.
3. Leadership Capability & skills: educational and professional attainments of the top 10 or top 5% of the officials/ functionaries, the closeness and accessibility to the members and the public at large, quality of the written documents of the party available to the public in terms of content, clarity of content and effectiveness of communication, quality of public speaking of the top 10 leaders, the quality of debating and negotiating skills of the top 10 leaders, the gender composition of top leadership, the team spirit and co-ordination among top 10 leaders, etc.
4. Knowledge: The depth of knowledge of the top 10 leaders at each level in international political and economic relations, in economics and finance, in social and religious issues as also in general sciences and technology as relevant to the common citizens, competence in high school mathematics.
5. Societal Orientation: Exposure to and familiarity with the lives (style, habits, preferences, aspirations and difficulties / concerns) of the people of different economic and social strata among the top 10 leaders at national and local levels.
6. Negative Baggage: criminal record, record of failure in academic examinations, corruption, promotion of relations and loyal, loan servicing record, income tax records, connections with criminals/ Mafia,illness record, abuse of power, law violations record - both for the 10 top leaders and the party functionaries at all levels in general.
7. Income - Expenditure and Assets and liabilities record of the Party - whether certified by competent auditors/ auditors report thereon, income and expenditure in cash and through bank cheques etc, etc.
8. Performance: in terms of protecting/ rescuing people under threat or actual oppression/ extortion, non-violent and non-disruptive campaigns conducted ( call of bandhs/ strikes/ processions with adverse effect on national production activities earning negative points), performance in terms of participation in debates and attendance in parliament/ legislative/ civic bodies, etc.
9. Electoral Performance: percentage of votes polled in national/ regional and local elections, percentage of seats won to percentage of seats contested, etc.10. Use of technology: visitor-friendliness, content, updating, and responsiveness to inquiries in respect of websites, use of mobiles. emails and Internet in part-offices, use of audio-visual computer technology in party meetings, etc.
The above are just illustrative criteria and sub-criteria.Let political parties demonstrate their knowledge, skills, apptitudes, intellect, governance standards, social responsibility, transparency standards, and civilized behaviour through scientific evaluation by independent rating agency. Let them compete to earn good rating instead of formng oligarchic cartels to exploit the people with mere lecture-bajis. Let them face the electorate continuously and not just durng election campaign elections in democracies.
Durga Puja Annual Political Awards can help promote some measure of accountabilty and transparency among politicians and political parties because almost the entire population of West Bengal tracks whatever happens in West Bengal during the Puja celebrations.
Puja Awards and Ranking for Political Parties, Governments and MPs and MLAs
The TV channels and corporate houses give lot of awards to people in different fields. They also rate and rank various Durga Puja Awards to Puja idols, Puja sites (Mandaps) and decoration, Puja lighting and Puja Beauties (Sundaris). It is time now to rank and give awards to political parties, MLAs, MPs and governments including local governments like municipal corporations, District Boards and gram pachayats for their performance and competence and integrity. Since Political Regimes Sans Vibrant Political Rating is equal to Medieval Monarchy, Kolkata can take lead in modernizing Indian politics to the requirements of the 21st century.
One of my friends with considerable experience in relevant fields and highly imaginative and analytical mind had prepared some notes on rating/ ranking of elected representatives in terms of performance against their own set goals. That more and more Indians are thinking on similar lines for improving the quality of democracy augurs well for the utility and relevance of Indian democracy to the country’s future citizens.
If democracy has to have any meaning and purpose in this twenty-first century, there has to be an independent non-official market for at least four different types of political ratings:
(a) Rating of each Government: comparison of actual performance with three benchmarks: with promises/ goals, comparison with governments of other countries/ states/ regions/ localities, comparison with ideal standards.
(b) Rating of each political party on similar benchmarks as also over time for the same political party,
(c) Rating of each elected representative, and
(d) Rating of each legislative body like the Parliament or the Senate on a half-yearly rolling basis.
With regard to (d), it is necessary to point out that the institutions of legislative bodies or the Chief of State are definitely constitutionally sacrosanct, but no individual legislative body or individual Chief of the State or any individual government or any particular elected representative with given tenure is any more sacrosanct than the individual citizen. Even the Parliament's own performance and procedures should be subjected to independent rating without any fear of Parliamentary retaliation through resolution or action by the Parliament.All the four ratings are equally important, even if they may be somewhat inter-related. Without these ranking systems in place, democracies, republics and communist regimes are actually inferior form of political system than monarchies of the medieval or ancient times.
My friend suggested that the rating of elected representatives be done under the aegis of the Election Commission. He was worried about how an independent rating agency could compel the people it rates to provide data. If the rating agency does not get data then how does it rate?I would not like to rely merely on the Election Commission or Official Agencies. Such Rating should be done by one or more independent non-political bodies using experts who affirm that they do not either support or are against any political party, government or elected representative anywhere in the world. If there are multiple agencies doing the same job political ratings, this should be rather welcome. Transparent free market for providing rating services is what is required - no Govt., no elected representative, no political party can go to court against any such rating so long as the detailed process of rating is made transparent and worksheets are available to the public within 24 hours of any rating announcement.It is better for the citizens to rely on the market development of credible rating. Initially, no political party or government would like to provide data. But there is lot of data available in the newspapers, electronic media, the election commission, the parliamentary/ legislative bodies' records, the party manifestos, press releases, party newspapers and websites. These can be used in the rating model. For some parameters and variables, estimates can be used. and, for some other parameters, low scores would be used because of the non-cooperation of the parties in providing information despite requests made to them. Then the ratings are published along with complete partywise worksheets with notes on information/ estimates the rating model has used.
Once these are published at regular intervals in newspapers and Internet sites, some parties will contest the rankings on incorrect information and methodological issues. These criticisms have to be responded with revised ratings. Once the political parties get drawn into debates over rating, they would get trapped because they have to accept the information used or release correct information available to them. These become accessible to scrutiny in the public domain.
Politicians change parties and are also in power struggle within their parties. The confidants of such politicians may turn out to be a good source of information. Once these debates start, public will become more aware of political parties activities, secret trades, and other bad things. This will generate a pressure on parties to become transparent and give disclosures.
A well-thought out strategic game has to be there with the rating agencies: the release of information, use of estimates, the use of secret sources, moves to attract information, moves to create public pressure on releasing the True information, use of investigative journalists reports, the response to criticisms, the credibility of the model and its robustness (sensitivity) to small errors or large errors in information used, the credibility of experts of who make judgments on relative weights and analysis of the inconsistency between actions and policies of party as revealed through their speeches and behaviour, etc.The task is not going to be easy in the beginning: but becomes easier and easier with time after the first few rounds of data collection, analysis, and estimation work are over.
Who will fund this? Any group of non –government voluntary agencies and Civil Society Foundations could provide funds. Or, retired, wealthy businessmen could provide funds. In an era of globalization, an international foundation operating from an advanced country can do this if it has resources. If Wall Street Journal can monitor what is happening in rural areas of emerging developing countries, organizing the development and implementation of such political ratings would be rather simple affair for an international association of newspapers and magazines as also universities.
If we were to do this by Law, it will not happen. If we want Government to do this it will be another mockery. In the US, some left-minded people ran a TV channel only on Democracy for a few hours in a day with donations - it probably did not survive beyond a year. On the other hand TV serials based on what goes on in the political parties: these channels get lot of public viewer ship and commercial advertisement s- of course they run the risk of sudden death because of the arm-twisting by the powers that be. But some succeed. But the ultimate test of political ratings would have to be the thousands, millions and billions of the citizens of different countries and localities.Success does not come from mere ex-ante guarantees/ risk mitigation strategies: success comes through using such strategies, dynamically changing them to fight the obstacles.
This posting is a kind of lecture-bazi. But hopefully this posting will generate alternative ideas to the people who would like to keep their controls of legislative bodies, elected representatives, political parties and governments: on this Mahtma Gandhi Birthday, I may be incapable of making hard work, making sacrifice and practicing Satyagraha: but there may be millions who can practice what Gandhi preached to domesticate the wild animals that the philosophers of the World have created in the form of political parties so that people really control political party behaviour rather than become the victims of political party behaviour.
I think the Puja organisers and TV channels can take the lead. They can fund credible independent rating committees and based on their findings announce awards for the MPs, MLAs, Councilers, Mayors, Panchyat Pradhans, District Boards, Panchyats, Municipality Boards, Ministers and the Governments of States where Durga Puja is popular. Let there be annual political awards. Those who do not get award in one year can try to improve and compete for the prize next year.
One of my friends with considerable experience in relevant fields and highly imaginative and analytical mind had prepared some notes on rating/ ranking of elected representatives in terms of performance against their own set goals. That more and more Indians are thinking on similar lines for improving the quality of democracy augurs well for the utility and relevance of Indian democracy to the country’s future citizens.
If democracy has to have any meaning and purpose in this twenty-first century, there has to be an independent non-official market for at least four different types of political ratings:
(a) Rating of each Government: comparison of actual performance with three benchmarks: with promises/ goals, comparison with governments of other countries/ states/ regions/ localities, comparison with ideal standards.
(b) Rating of each political party on similar benchmarks as also over time for the same political party,
(c) Rating of each elected representative, and
(d) Rating of each legislative body like the Parliament or the Senate on a half-yearly rolling basis.
With regard to (d), it is necessary to point out that the institutions of legislative bodies or the Chief of State are definitely constitutionally sacrosanct, but no individual legislative body or individual Chief of the State or any individual government or any particular elected representative with given tenure is any more sacrosanct than the individual citizen. Even the Parliament's own performance and procedures should be subjected to independent rating without any fear of Parliamentary retaliation through resolution or action by the Parliament.All the four ratings are equally important, even if they may be somewhat inter-related. Without these ranking systems in place, democracies, republics and communist regimes are actually inferior form of political system than monarchies of the medieval or ancient times.
My friend suggested that the rating of elected representatives be done under the aegis of the Election Commission. He was worried about how an independent rating agency could compel the people it rates to provide data. If the rating agency does not get data then how does it rate?I would not like to rely merely on the Election Commission or Official Agencies. Such Rating should be done by one or more independent non-political bodies using experts who affirm that they do not either support or are against any political party, government or elected representative anywhere in the world. If there are multiple agencies doing the same job political ratings, this should be rather welcome. Transparent free market for providing rating services is what is required - no Govt., no elected representative, no political party can go to court against any such rating so long as the detailed process of rating is made transparent and worksheets are available to the public within 24 hours of any rating announcement.It is better for the citizens to rely on the market development of credible rating. Initially, no political party or government would like to provide data. But there is lot of data available in the newspapers, electronic media, the election commission, the parliamentary/ legislative bodies' records, the party manifestos, press releases, party newspapers and websites. These can be used in the rating model. For some parameters and variables, estimates can be used. and, for some other parameters, low scores would be used because of the non-cooperation of the parties in providing information despite requests made to them. Then the ratings are published along with complete partywise worksheets with notes on information/ estimates the rating model has used.
Once these are published at regular intervals in newspapers and Internet sites, some parties will contest the rankings on incorrect information and methodological issues. These criticisms have to be responded with revised ratings. Once the political parties get drawn into debates over rating, they would get trapped because they have to accept the information used or release correct information available to them. These become accessible to scrutiny in the public domain.
Politicians change parties and are also in power struggle within their parties. The confidants of such politicians may turn out to be a good source of information. Once these debates start, public will become more aware of political parties activities, secret trades, and other bad things. This will generate a pressure on parties to become transparent and give disclosures.
A well-thought out strategic game has to be there with the rating agencies: the release of information, use of estimates, the use of secret sources, moves to attract information, moves to create public pressure on releasing the True information, use of investigative journalists reports, the response to criticisms, the credibility of the model and its robustness (sensitivity) to small errors or large errors in information used, the credibility of experts of who make judgments on relative weights and analysis of the inconsistency between actions and policies of party as revealed through their speeches and behaviour, etc.The task is not going to be easy in the beginning: but becomes easier and easier with time after the first few rounds of data collection, analysis, and estimation work are over.
Who will fund this? Any group of non –government voluntary agencies and Civil Society Foundations could provide funds. Or, retired, wealthy businessmen could provide funds. In an era of globalization, an international foundation operating from an advanced country can do this if it has resources. If Wall Street Journal can monitor what is happening in rural areas of emerging developing countries, organizing the development and implementation of such political ratings would be rather simple affair for an international association of newspapers and magazines as also universities.
If we were to do this by Law, it will not happen. If we want Government to do this it will be another mockery. In the US, some left-minded people ran a TV channel only on Democracy for a few hours in a day with donations - it probably did not survive beyond a year. On the other hand TV serials based on what goes on in the political parties: these channels get lot of public viewer ship and commercial advertisement s- of course they run the risk of sudden death because of the arm-twisting by the powers that be. But some succeed. But the ultimate test of political ratings would have to be the thousands, millions and billions of the citizens of different countries and localities.Success does not come from mere ex-ante guarantees/ risk mitigation strategies: success comes through using such strategies, dynamically changing them to fight the obstacles.
This posting is a kind of lecture-bazi. But hopefully this posting will generate alternative ideas to the people who would like to keep their controls of legislative bodies, elected representatives, political parties and governments: on this Mahtma Gandhi Birthday, I may be incapable of making hard work, making sacrifice and practicing Satyagraha: but there may be millions who can practice what Gandhi preached to domesticate the wild animals that the philosophers of the World have created in the form of political parties so that people really control political party behaviour rather than become the victims of political party behaviour.
I think the Puja organisers and TV channels can take the lead. They can fund credible independent rating committees and based on their findings announce awards for the MPs, MLAs, Councilers, Mayors, Panchyat Pradhans, District Boards, Panchyats, Municipality Boards, Ministers and the Governments of States where Durga Puja is popular. Let there be annual political awards. Those who do not get award in one year can try to improve and compete for the prize next year.
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