CAN SHARAD PAWAR NOW FIX HIS SPOT?

Just imagine the kind of mind-boggling multi-tasking he is doing. Here you have the Supreme Court of India that loudly and publicly berates him for allegedly trying to ‘spin’ the orders passed by the Court regarding food for starving Indians. Lest you think, this Supreme Court ‘flipper’ will flip him and make him move his focus away from spin, you are wrong. There are reports that it is actually ‘fast’ and ‘swing’ bowling that holds his attention. I am really guessing out here, but I have a feeling that Justice Kapadia is at the moment less important to him than Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif.

And why not? Sharad Pawar has been a politician, a minister, a Chief Minister and a Prime Minister in waiting for so long that a few barbs here and there, trying to prick his conscience about starving Indians will not really matter to him. After all, how can it matter when the ‘farmer’ politician knows that a 20% food inflation will starve people (who spend almost 80% of their income on food) and then blithely announces that the menace will soon be tamed… I am sure, it was easier Taming the Shrew… But for Sharad Pawar, this is his first stint as the President of the International Cricket Council (ICC) and scandals like the one so embarrassingly visible about Pakistani players is a challenge he is facing for the first time. After all, his name in posterity could go down as the honcho of ICC, who presided over the decline and fall of cricket because fans fi nally got tired of watching fixed matches. Surely you know that is different from poor farmers getting tired of ‘fixed’ distribution of food.

But jokes apart, and trying our best to forget the mess that the Commonwealth Games is making when it comes to the image of India (and please don’t smirk: I won’t be surprised if some of our new IPL stars from India eventually get enmeshed in this spot fixing scam), have we given serious thought to this extreme and ultimate form of crony socialism? I mean, Sharad Pawar might be the ultimate when it comes to multi-tasking; but how does he simultaneously deal with starving Indians and the swinging ways of Pakistani fast bowlers whose girl friends tend to kiss and yell? You can give as much spin as you want to this sorry tale; but surely Sharad Pawar must be spending some quality time everyday on the spot fixing scam? What about food security for Indians?

Call me nostalgic and a fool (and I am sure some guys made money even then). But I remember being proud of being an Indian during Asian Games '82. And I was prouder still when I heard tales as a young journalist about how Madhav Rao Scindia played a key role in ensuring South Asia got the Cricket World Cup in 1996. I know, South Asia is once again preparing for the next edition of the World Cup in 2011. And I know we will rave and rant about ‘white’ and ‘western’ media and people being prejudiced and racist when it comes to simple, God-fearing, innocent folks like you and me.

Like some Queen somewhere might have said when asked about spot fixing: “Out Damned Spot”.

CAN SHARAD PAWAR NOW FIX HIS SPOT?

WHY MPS MUST GET A PAY OF RS 5 LAKH PER MONTH

The credibility of our politicians is so low that the media and the public at large are sniggering at the proposal to raise the salary of MPs to 50,000 per month. Thanks mainly to their own behaviour and the brazen corruption of some of their fellowmen, we often tend to forget or ignore the fact that those are MPs and MLAs who actually perform the most important tasks in the country. For the middle class chatterati which has a ‘radical’ solution for every problem that India faces, the solution would be doing away with MPs, and perhaps even elections. Frankly, the middle class chatterati has no interest in democracy. But India cannot afford such solutions.

Given the enormity of the task they perform, I think the MPs need to be paid far more than what they get now. Look at it this way: each MP is responsible for a shareholder base of about 20 million. The actual budget of each constituency runs into hundreds of crores every year. And while district collectors and district magistrates are merely transferred for incompetence or non-performance, an MP can – and oft en does – actually lose his job! To that extent, an MP actually deserves a monthly salary of 5 Lakh per month. There should be an additional travel and other allowance of 1 lakh per month. That sounds preposterously high? It is not. Paying them these ‘reasonable’ salaries will cost the tax payer less than 1000 crores a year.

But as pointed out and suggested by this magazine and many others umpteen number of times, the problem is not paying generous salaries to our MPs – they deserve that for sure. The problem is with the ‘perks’ that they enjoy. That really is costly and something no elected representative of any functional democracy can demand as a right. Yes, by all means pay 6 lakh every month to our honourable MPs. But then stop giving them free housing in VIP Delhi. Just as it happens in UK, USA, Denmark, Australia and most other democracies, ask our honourable MPs to find their own houses-rented or owned. This will lead to enormous savings for the society – apart from making the MPs more connected with the citizens of India.

Just imagine what can happen to the Indian economy if the logic is extended to all politicians and all bureaucrats in India. They are squatting on the most prime real estate assets available in the country. For example, pay a district collector (an IAS officer) a monthly salary of 1 lakh and ask her to find her own house. Surely the rent for even a wonderful house in a small town cannot exceed 20,000? Why let her stay in a massive bungalow with acres of lawns when that land can be better utilized commercially?

You know what the answer will be when politicians and bureaucrats are actually offered this option – huge tax free salaries but no perks. They will find every possible excuse and refuse. That is because our mindset has really not changed much since the British left. Our rulers (politicians and bureaucrats) are ‘public servants’ only in name. Deep down, they treat the ‘public’ as worse than servants. Long live Indian democracy!

WHY MPS MUST GET A PAY OF RS 5 LAKH PER MONTH