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| April 3, 2000 | ||
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| Double
or Quits? Don't increase an MP's special spending limit, rethink the scheme
Stark figures and a damning CAG report apart, the very idea of an MPLADS is questionable. It is an open secret that some MPs siphon off a part of their MPLADS kitty by financing "friendly" programmes in classic sweetheart deals. In a society that sees taking the short cut as an example of deft strategy, the MPLADS has also been sold as an alternative solution to rural backwardness, bypassing traditional governance. This argument is so disingenuous that even the MPs are hard put to defend it. If constructing a handful of toilets or fortifying the walls of a village school were all that were required, rural India would have become a paradise years ago. Right now the only one who regards the MPLADS as a heavenly boon is the MP's favourite contractor. Tongue Twister In a
week when images of the American President's informality and expectations
about the new economy dazzled India, some shibboleths stayed right where
they were. The mother of all silly controversies began with Mulayam Singh
Yadav, Samajwadi Party chief and upholder of the cultural sensibilities of
the Hindi The issue here is not language, it is the Indian politician's self-deluding capacity that yesterday's passions can be evoked endlessly and almost automatically to win cheap publicity. Language helps shape a people's identity. Yet, well before that, it is a facilitator of communication. Which language Vajpayee -- or any other person -- is more comfortable in while making a point is purely a personal matter. To suggest the virtues of a homegrown language over all else has little to do with nationalism -- and much to do with an ostrich mindset. |
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 © Living Media India Ltd |
In
the Lok Sabha earlier this month, Priyaranjan Das Munshi of the Congress
demanded that each MP's discretionary spending limit be doubled to Rs 4
crore per year. Forgetting all the acrimony of the budget session, even
NDA constituents such as the Telugu Desam supported Das Munshi, saying the
current allocation was too meagre to
effectively serve the people. Noble aspirations would be even more exalted
if they were believable. The progress of the MP Local Area Development
Scheme (MPLADS), introduced in 1993, evokes no optimism for optimal use --
and all the pessimism that the MPs are only looking for enhanced patronage
capacity. The scheme allows a Lok Sabha member to spend Rs 2 crore -- it
used to be Rs 1 crore -- in projects of his choice in his constituency.
Rajya Sabha members can use this money anywhere in their home state and
nominated MPs, anywhere in the country. Till August 1999, over Rs 4,000
crore had been released by the government for the MPLADS -- but just under
Rs 2,600 crore had been spent. With Rs 1,400 crore, over a third of the
total, unused to demand an increase in the MPLADS fund is plain
intellectual dishonesty.
heartland,
threatening to walk out of Parliament if Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee spoke in English at the joint session called in honour of
President Bill Clinton. When Vajpayee eventually spoke in Hindi, M.
Karunanidhi, DMK leader and doyen of the anti-Hindi agitation, lost his
shirt. Two lessons emerge from this political version of trivial pursuit.
First, by quibbling in this fashion at a time when India was focused on
the big picture, Mulayam and Karunanidhi misread the popular mood. Two,
every politician's idea of regionalism and cultural space seems to begin
and end with his state. Karunanidhi doesn't address the Tamil Nadu
Assembly in English. If he prefers his native Tamil, why can't he grant
Vajpayee the same freedom with Hindi? In any case, with simultaneous
translation available, nobody in Parliament's Central Hall that day was
left unaware of what Vajpayee, or for that matter Clinton, said.