Sunday, March 6, 2011

GADDAFI and Company

I am seriously considering applying for a job as a dictator. The pay is pretty good, you chose your own working hours, you get any number of freebees and you do not pay income tax. Of course the downside, and there is always a downside to any good job, is that you have people gunning for you. I could live with that. It could not be any worse than driving in India where the gods dice with your fate every moment you are on the road.
Fortune magazine publishes its list of the world’s richest people annually. Naturally, Gates and Buffet tops it again, legitimately, with mere $40 billions. I figure this must make him richer than many nations. I skipped the names lower down, as they were loose change to Bill Gates. Fortune also publishes a list of the richest dictators. I am not certain how accurate their figures are but they certainly made interesting reading.
I wondered whether Fortune sends out a form to the dictators, like the ones you get from credit card companies soliciting your patronage. There is always a column ‘Tell us about your profession and income’. Are dictators self-employed or are they employed by the State? I guess they will tick the CEO box, as it is tough getting a platinum credit card if you are self-employed. I am sure they must ponder a long time over the income box. How will they tick those boxes? Real Estate? – the whole country. That is not chump change. Other assets? – everything in the country, dams, power stations, roads, railways, tanks, fighter jets. They would have to add an extra sheet to complete the list. Number of people employed in your company? – the whole population, including the ones in prison. How many four wheelers? – lost count. The name of your bank and account number? Now, I wonder how they answer that. They must use, again, a separate sheet of paper to name all the banks and total up how much each bank holds. What about the ‘last income tax filed’ question. At this point, I figure they send in their Gestapo to deal with the stupid questioner and sling him into their private prisons.
According to Fortune, President Fidel Castro is worth $110 millions. My admiration for the man only increases at his moderation. He had been in power in Cuba for nearly 50 years. This works out to an annual salary of $2.2 millions a year! You could not hire any CEO for that kind of small change. The big guys in GE, GM pull in forty to fifty million dollars a year, and that is not including stock options and other perks. And all they have to do is run a corporation and not a complex nation that has been living under the guns and missiles and blockades of the United States.
Now you may say Cuba is not exactly the richest nation in the world. However, compare Castro’s fortune against the ex-President Hosni Mubarak who has stashed away 70 billion dollars during his 30-year-old rule of the country. Did you know that his pin stripped suits cost around $25,000 dollars because the stripes are his name ‘Hosni Mubarak’. Now, that’s an admirable ego.
There are other dictators in the Fortune list. They include the embattled Gaddafi, whose worth is around 300 billion dollars.
However, what I am waiting for is for the Fortune investigation team to descend on India. They would have a field day. Mubarak’s 70 billion and Gaddafi’s 300 billion would look like peanuts compared to what our democratically elected leaders have stashed away in bank vaults across the world. Every Chief Minister of his or her State lives like a dictator. They have the same style of functioning – the armed guards, the fawning acolytes, the motorcades, the gangsters imposing the dictator’s will, a compliant police force, a rubber stamp bureaucracy. Every five years they have to stand for elections and, in many states, it is a mere formality for them to continue their rule. In some States, a new Dictator is formally elected and he or she quickly falls into the same pattern of rule as their predecessor.
The only difference between India and those other nations is that we elect our dictators and allow them to rule for five years and loot our treasury. Unfortunately, our leaders do not have the same sense of moderation as a Fidel Castro.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

ALL LIES

I love the sayings of brain dead politicians and demented dictators. The statements that they give to the press are a camaflouge for what they really mean. So, having an insatiable curiosity to discover the meaning behind those mis-leading words, I had to ask them what they thought. I flew into Cairo, after I heard President Hosni Mubarak, tell his people that he would not stand for elections again and that he was needed for the stability of Egypt.
‘What did you want to say exactly?’ I asked him in a private interview.
‘Over my dead body. I’m not going to give up all this juicy power just because people are fed up of my 30 year rule. I will stay another 30 years and I will outlive all those protesters. They can return to their grinding poverty as it’s no business of mine how they live as long as my family and I can make our billions. In the next election, my party will win 99 per cent of the seats and my thugs will beat up everyone who doesn’t vote for me.’
From Cairo, I took a flight over to Harare where President Mugabe had announced that Zimbabwe will soon be holding fresh elections. The present-shared-power-deal with Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara was not working and for the sake of upholding the democratic ideals of Zimbabwe and for stability of the country a new election will ensure a prosperous Zimbabwe.
‘I have been in power over 30 years,’ he told me in private. ‘I will not share my power with anyone else as they won’t let me do what I want to do. So it’s best to get rid of them. And I’m not about to walk out just because the people are suffering and Zimbabwe is flat broke. I have my palaces and wives to keep up. In the new elections I’ll have the whole opposition in jail and my party will party will win 99 per cent of the seats. I’ll make damn sure of that this time.’
From there I flew directly to Naypydaw (try saying that after a couple of drinks and jet lag), the new capital of Myanmar. The Generals had just held democratic elections in the country but to become a member of parliament, you need not to win any election. The government announced that the new president is a civilian, the first one in 50 years. ‘This proves we’re a democratic country now with civilian rule,’ a statement said.
‘Of course nothing has changed,’ President Thein Sein said, wearing his suit and tie. ‘I was a general and will always be a general and we have no intention of ever giving up power and all our perks just because the rest of the world wants us to be democratic. I wear a suit in the office but at home I relax in my military uniform with all its medals.’
In Delhi, the city which holds the Guinness book of Records for ‘100 scams a minute’, I met the PM who had announced that on all these scams, ‘The Law will take its course.’ You will notice that this is an incomplete sentence; it stops short of explaining what it means.
‘What I mean is that the law will take its course and by then the people will have forgotten which course and which scam,’ the PM told me.
In Tamilnadu the CM also stated. ‘The law will take its course.’
‘What I mean is that the law will take its course and avoid prosecuting anyone involved in the 2G scam and every other scam here,’ the CM said to me.
In Maharashtra the CM told me: ‘What I mean is that the law will take its course in about 100 years.’
See how lucky we are living in a democratic country. I didn’t really need to tell you what they meant, did I?. You already knew.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

FAMILY AFFAIRS

Dear Congress Party,
I don’t know whether you’ve been following the international news recently. Probably not as you’ve enough problems with domestic politics and your multi-scams. Just to bring you up to speed, a couple of weeks ago the Tunisians, who had had enough of their president, Zine al-Abidin Ben Ali, revolted against his 30-odd year rule. Apart from rising prices and repression, they were also fed up with his corruption. Now, something like this had never happened before and old Ben Ali was in a state of shock. His police shot a few people to keep them quiet and when that didn’t work, he took the hint and skipped the country. His wife too skipped away, taking along with her about 30 billion dollars worth of gold bars in her private ‘shopping’ jet.
Every dictator in the Middle East held their collective, corrupt breaths. They were sure that this sort of disruptive behaviour by the people against their leader would not cross the borders into their countries. Unfortunately, anger is contagious. No one ever expected the Egyptians, a most placid people, would also revolt against their president Hosni Mubarak. He too has been in power for 30 years and is as corrupt as Ben Ali. The Egyptians, to everyone’s surprise, took to the streets, demanding the end of the 82-year-old President’s repressive rule. Posters of Mubarak and his son, Gamel, the heir apparent, were burned. Every corner of Egypt, it seems, has risen up to cast off their iron chains.
No doubt, this contagious idea of overthrowing dictatorships will soon spread to the other Middle East nations. We’re going to soon see many leaders skipping their countries in their private jets for safer locations, along with as much gold as they can carry, and their Swiss Bank accounts as a cushion against future hardship.
Now, you may think what have all these revolutions in foreign countries to do with us here in India? There are very close similarities. One family ruled those countries for 30 years; one family has ruled your party for over 60 years. Isn’t it about time that the peasants in the Congress Party rebelled against this one family’s rule? For a party that preaches democracy, you certainly don’t practice it within the party and have allowed one family to dictate who rules it. And through your obedience to this family, they rule a nation. A good revolution within will purge your party of the family and open it up for younger, hopefully not so corrupt, brighter minds than those in power at this time. You will be rejuvenated as a party by getting rid of all those ancient, brain-dead people and their chamchas, and find a new, exciting role for yourself in the country.
You will worry that, with this revolution, what will happen to your ruling family if it has to skip the country, like Ben Ali and his. Believe me, they’ll be just fine. I read recently that a serious Swiss magazine reported back in 1991 that your crown prince, Rahul, had 2.5 billion dollars in his bank account there. With interest over the last 20 years, he’ll be worth about nine or ten billion dollars. I know this doesn’t match the Ben Ali’s fortune but the family will still live very comfortably for a few generations on this amount. And, the best part, they won’t have to find shelter in Saudi or any of these other Gulf States. They could buy a villa on Lake Como, next to the American movie Star, George Clooney, and his pals. Or even a palazzo in Venice, if they prefer a sea facing palace or an apartment on Park Avenue. Maybe, they already own such real estates but I’m not aware of this.
Once you free yourself from this one family rule, this internal revolution will inspire the Indian people to take your party more seriously. We may even vote for you again.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

The Old Rajah

Old Rajah
Once upon a time (this means it isn’t true) there was a Rajah who wanted to live happily ever after. He had been ruler of his state for decades, but not continuously. Every few years a usurper would attack his kingdom, wrestle him off the gadi and send him into exile. Then, he girded his loins, gathered his army and marched back into the capital to reclaim his gadi, sending the usurper into exile. This happened quite frequently and confused his subjects who only wanted to get on with their lives without these constant wars for the gadi. However, they knew that whichever person sat on the gadi, their lives would not change. They would be thrown a few scraps (called sops) to keep them quiet, while the one on the gadi enjoyed life to the fullest, along with their many courtiers.
As it was the custom in those days, the Rajah had a few wives. No one knew how many exactly as this was a palace secret. Of course, the wives had children as wives are bound to do. So he had a few sons and daughters to look after, apart from the wives and his courtiers. But the Rajah was getting older and older, and he began to worry about how he was going to care for his progeny who were demanding that they too rule the state.
The Rajah loved power very much and was reluctant to share it with anyone, even his kids. When they grew more insistent, as they knew that one day the old Rajah could again lose the gadi, he agreed to divide up his kingdom. He appointed one son as the Prince Regent who sat on his right side wherever he went so that the citizens could see whom he favoured to take his place, should he die. He didn’t believe this would happen to him for, as he grew older, he felt stronger and stronger. To another son, he granted a portion of his kingdom far from the capital. The sons were half brothers and their mothers were very possessive and jealous ladies. Each one wanted their child to have the whole kingdom to himself instead of sharing.
The Rajah, being a wise man, knew half a kingdom was better than no kingdom at all. This made sure that the two sons had a goodly income to support them in the lifestyles they had grown accustomed to when their father was on the gadi. The Rajah also had a daughter whom he loved very much and seeing her half brothers getting halves of the kingdom, she wanted her share too. His favourite cousins also wanted a piece of the half. But there were no halves left to give them so the Rajah sent them all as his ambassador to the Maharajah’s court very far away in the hope they would be happy. And keep quiet.
In the Maharajah’s court there would be even more pomp, ceremony and riches for any ambassador. Having disposed of his quarrelsome progeny the Rajah thought he could now live a quiet and peaceful life on his gadi. So, for a while, the family was at peace too. The kids enjoyed their bounty to the fullest and so did their courtiers. The son who was Crown Prince went everywhere with his father in his chariot and the citizens saw how devoted he was to the old Rajah.
However, sons being sons and daughters being daughters the children were not happy with their presents. They were like any family’s typical kids. They were greedy and they wanted what the other one had. They began to quarrel among themselves first and then with the old Rajah, demanding he get rid of the other kids. And so the old Rajah’s peace and quiet was shattered and he couldn’t live happily ever after.

Friday, December 31, 2010

An Honest Man

AN HONEST MAN
Yesterday, the CBI, the IB, Income Tax, RAW, the State Police, Central Vigilance and other enforcement agencies raided my friend, Sri H (to protect his identity). He lives down a lane in a two bedroom house (with a mortgage), has two children, drives a 1990 Maruti 800 and owns an old colour TV. He’s a handsome man of around 46 who works as an assistant secretary in a central government department. Fifty official vehicles blocked the lane, the road and tailed back to the traffic lights. Beyond the lights were television OB vans and 200 reporters baying for the story. At least 120 officials were crowded into his home, every one of them wanting to be the first to interrogate Sri H.
‘I was here first,’ the CBI officials screamed and brandished their orders from the very highest Delhi command in the land.
‘No, we were,’ the IB officials also waved orders from the same highest command.
‘We have first priority,’ Income tax shouted. They had the same orders. As did the State Police and all the others
Sri H, trapped in a corner with his wife and children hiding behind him, asked in his polite voice. ‘What have I done? Someone please explain why I am being raided.’ He had to then shout to be heard above the din.
There was a moment of stunned silence, before all the officials laughed and slapped each other on their backs. ‘What has he done? he wants to know, acting innocent. We’ll tell you what you’ve done.’ They all took out their orders and read the charges in unison. ‘You have committed sedition against the State, you have acted against the constitution of the country and you have ruined India’s reputation all around the world.’
‘Can you please be more specific?’ Sri H asked.
‘Specific!’ They all screamed. ‘Sri H you are charged for being the only honest man in Bharat which is a crime liable for 200 years imprisonment. Here we are trying for India to make it to Number One as the most corrupt country in the world, and you have ruined our chances with your reputation for being an honest official. This is an act of sedition as you have acted against the all the amoral laws of the State. You sign papers without demanding bribes, you don’t possess a Swiss Bank account, you don’t even send your children to expensive schools, you don’t possess secret bank lockers, you only own this cheap house, you constantly report corrupt officials and politicians to Vigilance who are sick and tired of you. You have ruined the scam careers of officials and politicians.’
A CBI official silenced the furious officials. ‘Sri H, we’re a very understanding people. We can dismiss all these charges and I guarantee nothing will happen to you if you take a bribe. You can build a palatial home, drive a BWM, and have an account in Switzerland.’ He turned to his juniors. ‘Who is holding the bribe money?’
Immediately, CBI, IB, Income Tax, State Police all of them rushed forwards waving 1,000 rupee notes. ‘Take my money, take my money…’ They all screamed. They had their cameras ready to photograph Sri H taking the first bribe for doing absolutely nothing. At least 10 crores fell at his feet.
Sri H drew himself up to his full height. ‘I refuse to take a bribe from any private person, corporate honcho, communications companies, industrialists, politicians, goondas and enforcement officials.’
They all immediately arrested Sri H and took him to prison. There they beat him up, applied electrodes to tender parts, burnt him with cigarettes and poured money into his cell. He still refused to accept a bribe. A year later, he was produced in court for committing sedition and treason against the State for being an honest man. The judge was so shocked that he sentenced Sri H to 250 years in prison.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

MAP WARS BETWEEN CHINA & INDIA


MAP WARS
You may have noticed that China has launched its equivalent of Google Earth. This website, Chinaon map, is China’s vision of the earth around the middle kingdom. As I’m a Google Earth traveller, I thought I’d better check out how China views us. Apart from Tibet and the disputed islands in the China Sea, a piece of India is also attached to China. We’ve lost Arunachal Pradesh to China in their map so I thought I’d better get over to the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping in Beijing to tell them that their Chinaonmap has made a serious mistake. AP is an integral part of India, still, or was until I saw their map.
‘We’re very sorry for the mistake,’ the spokesperson for SBSM told me, smiling. ‘We’ll make a correction. Please remember China once reached Siberia under the great Khan.’
‘He’s long dead and gone. The correction has to be done immediately. Google Earth updates their website every few minutes. And in their map of India AP is very much part of India.’
‘Very sorry,’ spokesperson said. ‘We only update once or twice a year. Next year maybe we will look into the problem.’
I thought this was an inadequate response to my courteous protest. On returning to a India, still whole, I hoped, I went to the one of the big IT companies.
‘I want us to upload an Indiaonmap website immediately. We will then get AP back within our borders and also claim a small chunk of Chinese territory. We’ll also make Tibet an independent country on our website. And Taiwan too can be freed from China. And while we’re at it, we’ll move Beijing next to Kolkata so that the communist party will be happy to have it as their new neighbour.’
In no time at all, we launched the Indiaonmap website. AP was back in our fold and Tibet had a new border around it.
I had to show off and returned to the SBSM office in Beijing, a short hop from Kolkata and showed them our Indiaonmap site. The spokesperson was furious and very insulted that his capital was next to the Hooghly.
‘We’ll see about that,’ the spokesperson said and opened up Chinaonmap website in front of me. He moved Beijing back to its original position, reclaimed Tibet and AP. He then shifted the border further west to take a chunk of Assam. ‘This where we were in the 1962 war,’ he said. For good measure, he gave Kashmir to Pakistan and then gave it Afghanistan too.
‘Right, it’s web war,’ I told him and returned to a much truncated India with Pakistan now twice its size. I told my hi-tech guy to re-claim AP and Tibet and push a 1,000 kilometres into China. As we couldn’t allow Pakistan to claim Kashmir and Afghanistan, we moved India’s borders west to Iran. I thought this would make that gas pipe line easier to lay. We re-named the China Sea to the Asian Sea and gave all the disputed islands in that new sea to Japan. This would help our trade relations, I thought.
When I went back to SBSM, they were waiting for me as they saw what we had done on Indiaonmap. This time, Chinaonmap pushed China’s order west up to Mumbai.
‘We’re more than happy for you to have Mumbai, the RSS and the Thackeray thugs,’ I told them. As China did not want any of our thugs, SBSM decided only to move to Nagpur, which divided India in half. The Indian Ocean became the China Ocean.
Back in India, we spread the Indian Ocean across the Pacific and Atlantic too and pushed India’s borders as far west to France. Chinaonmap then spread east and included the US and South America. Neither of us wanted Britain as it was an economic black hole, and the cause of all our problems.

Conversation with Lord Mountbattan

The other day I bumped into Lord Louise Mountbattan. I know he’s dead (the IRA blew him up) but his spirit haunts India as he was the LastViceroy of India and can’t forget the great time he had living in the Raj Bhavan, riding in grand carriages, fawned over by us, dividing up India and spending time with his good pal Nehru. He didn’t mind his wife Edwina frolicking with the future PM of India as he believed India should continue to be ruled by a Raj type of person.
‘So what do you think of modern India, Dicky?’ I asked him. Dicky was his nickname and I thought I could be familiar with our Last Viceroy to make him feel at home in India Inc.
‘Not changed much, old chap,’ he replied. ‘You’ve got a many more motor cars, more buildings and a few billionaires, whatever that means, but it’s still ruled by the Raj.’
‘Raj! Nonsense. We’re an independent nation, part of BRIC, high GDP and a country to be reckoned with.’
‘When the British Raj left India we made sure that the reins were handed over to someone we could trust to continue our rule. In proxy of course. And that is why we chose the Congress party. It’s a fine, upstanding party that upholds everything that is British. India has faithfully followed the British way of life. We have a Queen, and so do you. Our Queen is a foreigner, more German blood than British blood. Your Queen too is a foreigner, more Italian blood than Indian. They are alike too. We have a Prime Minister who has to have the Queen to approve, in theory of course, his political agenda. In that, you have gone back a century to Empress Victoria as your Queen has more power than our Queen. Like Victoria your Queen formulates policy and instructs your Prime Minister. We have a royal family, so do you. Our royal family doesn’t dabble in politics though Charlie would love to. Our royal family just hunt and fish and party, as they’re supposed to do for the sake of our tabloid newspapers. Your royal family dabbles in politics constantly, instead of just being royal and party like our family. We have a feudal society, so do you. Look at all the children of politicians who now have seats in your parliament and state assemblies. You should copy our example and stuff all those children into an upper house. We call it House of Lords; yours is the Raja Sabha. That’s where the feudals should be kept so they don’t cause mischief.’
‘Not every one in India recognizes our royal family,’ I protested. ‘We’re a republic and want a good devious politician, like a Tony Blair, to be our PM. We’d prefer our Queen to stay at home and do her knitting. At least, she doesn’t love dogs like your Queen.’
‘But she can’t stay at home, can she?’ he countered. ‘The good ole Congress boys want a foreigner to lead them. We taught them how to be led by one of us and they cannot forget their lessons. They know full well that if your Queen didn’t campaign for them, they would lose every election. They have as much charisma as fleas. If tomorrow, our Queen campaigned for the Tories or the Labour or the Liberals, they would win the election hands down.’ He shook his head. ‘No, you love your feudals. Your Queen only campaigns as she wants the crown prince to take his rightful place on the throne. Charlie’s wating for his place but our Queen knows he’ll make a mess at being King. Just like yours will, one day.’
‘Our prince-in-waiting will do great. Who else do we have?’
‘True. If you know your history, we British called it his Divine Right to be King.’