BJP: Diminishing Party

In last decade, one political party which has always been marred by leadership vacuum, internal squabbles and vociferous clamours by its top leaders, is yet to see the dawn where harmony among them prevails.

Gone were the days when BJP was shining under leadership of Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Staunch supporters of the Bhartiya Janta Party are becoming nostalgic recalling those days when the party emerged as the largest political party during the General elections of 1999. After the exit of Vajpayee, the situation has changed dramatically. Since then certain events followed which shattered the prestige of the party very drastically. Their credibility being at the lowest ebb gave the UPA ample scope to be recognised as the most favourable and likeable party among Indian electorates for consecutive two years notwithstanding being involved into myriad of scams.

Due to ideological differences and involvement into communal politics, most of the BJP’s allies kept on withdrawing from the national democratic alliance. As the issues such as Ram mandir kept on resolving, the political mileage went on dwindling which was fuelling the electoral vehicle of BJP. Its leaders, due to their frivolous and trivial comments, went on losing confidence among the Indian electorates. Consequently, it is now in dearth of a leader who is widely accepted by all and can be touted as its prime ministerial candidate.

Last week, after a lot of heated discussions among the allies, Narendra Modi was finally nominated as the head of campaign committee for general elections 2014. It was followed by high level drama. LK Advani resigned questioning the ideologies of the party; the 14 years old ally, JD(U) threatened to break the alliance.

Though Mr. Modi’s image is adversely affected due to 2002 Gujrat riots, especially among Muslim fraternity, BJP has hardly any option left except to appoint him the prime ministerial candidate. No doubt, he has set an epitome of development in Gujarat. In last month, Modi had been visiting the colleges and other institutions making beautiful speeches. His speeches promise to transform India into a knowledge economy with more emphasis on e-Governance.

His ideas and intentions are very noble as for now. Soured relations with allies are a matter of concern. How Muslim community will react to his nomination is yet to be seen. But for now, ill-affected and leaderless BJP has shown confidence in him. Seed is shown; let us see how well this seed will fructify. 

Regulating Real estate sector: Need of the hour

The real estate regulation bill is in the offing and if everything goes well the bill may be passed in the Monsoon session of the parliament. Keeping in mind the last year’s parliamentary proceedings being disrupted more often than not, the prospects of the bill does not seem very favouring though it is indeed a encouraging step. In our country, where real estate sector is highly unregulated and the customers are at the mercy of developers, mere initiation of the bill might have given a glimmer of hope to the consumers and home seekers.

After the 1991 reforms, economic scenario in the country has improved drastically. As the economy was liberalized, it made available the highly paid jobs to the educated Indians. Therefore, the disposable income in the hands of middle class strata shot up exponentially. Being financial market not so established, people resorted to either Gold or real estate property for investment, hence, increasing the demand for the well-built houses and properties.

Developers and builders, on the other hand, seeking to maximize their profit took measures which kept buyers always at disadvantage. For example, as per the contract, they used to take almost entire money upfront. Though houses were allotted, constructing them and handing over the flats to customers easily took around 3-4 years. Much to the dismay of the customers, even if developers fail to deliver the flats within the stipulated time frame, there was no mechanism to address their grievances. Even as the demand rose to the staggeringly high level, developers failed to fulfill the demand as per the requirement. This led to the demand-supply mismatch and hence sky rocketing prices of the properties. Another major area of concern is the land at which flats are being built. In the past there were instances where the flats were being built over disputed lands. The gap between the contracts being signed between the parties and the flats being actually delivered is enormously large (ranging from 1-4 years). The buyers are not even aware of what happens after they throw their money in the project. Neither the developers were held accountable for any discrepancy.

The proposed bill envisages protecting the interests of the common men. There is the provision for fixing the prices based on the floor area of the flat instead of smart area (which includes lift space, stairs, garden etc.). it will help in curbing the out of control prices fixed by the builders. The bill seeks to penalize those developers who does not deliver the flats on time hence helping to reduce the demand-supply mismatch. As per provisions of the bill, the developers ought to deposit the money accrued from a project to a bank account which will ensure that money for one project cannot be used for other project without the government consent. Besides, developers need to get approval from the concerned authority, get license for the land at which they are planning the project.

Affordable housing has always been a problem not only in Urban but also in rural areas. To provide affordable housing to the BPL households, government is running schemes such as Indira Awas Yojana and Rajiv Awas Yojana for rural and urban areas respectively.

Security of the rights of the citizens be they poor or rich, is the responsibility of the state. Various schemes as discussed above and now the proposed bill are few initiatives aimed at protecting the rights of the common men. Nevertheless, there is more need to be done in this direction. Political parties must work in unison to get the bill passed as soon as possible. As the general elections are due in 2014, the bill might be a political propaganda of the ruling government. Notwithstanding, it must be passed as it is for a great cause and it will serve the interests of the mass population.

Naxalism: A problem to reckon with

Light week attack on Congress leaders and supporters by Naxalites is the manifestation of growing discontent among the Naxals’ community. Every now and then, news of naxals’ attacks hog the headlines. The nature of their rebellion nature is of grave concern and the matter needs to be contemplated thoroughly and solutions which may follow the discourse must be implemented as soon as possible.

The main reason of growing extremism is said to be lack of development in the area. But as I can see it is anti-development rather lack of development which invokes the rebellion nature among them. From tribal's perspective, extremism, terrorism and violence becomes means to attract the attention of state. Any further step taken on path of mal-development or anti-development leads to insurgency, political extremism and terrorism. Historically and culturally forest dwellers and other such communities find themselves isolated from the other part Indian population. They are illiterate and living a life which is certainly not dignified. Growing nexus between government and businessmen deprive them of their basic rights of food and shelter. Their natural habitats are destructed due to the excessive invasion and mining activities in the forests.

Though the constitution of India ensures to protect the interests of socially and economically backward classes or SC and ST community, much to the disappointment a very less efforts have taken place in this direction. There are a few measures taken by the government to address the problems of these communities, however such schemes are far from reaping the fruits in near future. Integrated action plan, backward region development programme, Forest rights act and SC & ST sub plan are among various initiatives taken by the central government in co-ordination with state government to eradicate the poverty, social backwardness and inequality from such communities.

Notwithstanding such initiatives, such communities’ are still in misery. Having lacked the development and keeping their plight in the mind, distrust and anger for the government is inevitable among them. They ventilate their anger in form of extremism and violent attacks on government institutions, employees and now politicians recently.  Had the initiatives taken by the government been implemented as they envisaged, problem of extremism could have been addressed to an extent. However, due to lack of development and growing prejudice against government, Naxalism had been festering for long and at present has evolved as a wound, the most dangerous.

In recent past, the government at both centre and state had been cautious of the problem of naxalism, nevertheless the steps taken to curb the menace had only added fuel to the fire. Take for example the worst hit regions of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh: The simplest and easiest strategy might have been: 1. to take police into action, focus the naxal hit areas and isolate their leaders. 2. Co-ordinate with governments at centre, state and district level, bring backward communities and forest dwellers into mainstream, implement plans so as to benefit them the most.  Despite well-planned strategy in the offing, Chhattisgarh government did opposite. Being least concerned of the developmental activities in the region it also deployed the civilian policemen called salwa judums to empty out the villages for the sake of mining which aggravated the situation instead.      

Central government did realise the individual rights and community rights of the forest dwelling population and passed so called the forest rights Act. This act envisaged the community participation in the development of the region, gave certain rights like collecting minor forest produce to the community. Under the act, any developmental activity needs the consent of Gram Sabha. No doubt, the initiative was a welcome step to raise the livelihood opportunities of the people living in forests. But very soon the requirement of consent from Gram Sabha proved to an obstacle for the private players in the region. Therefore, government is now planning to dilute the above act so as to benefit the private players the most at the cost of deprived sections.

Lack of consensus among the various ministries is another hindrance in taking developmental activities in the naxal affected areas. While ministry of Panchayati Raj is in favour of promoting community participation in developing the infrastructure, Ministry of Home Affairs is all opposed to developing infrastructure even. According the home ministry, as infrastructure is being targeted by the naxals, no need to develop it.  How lame is this argument!

Providing the people basic amenities like drinking water, a home to stay, food, education and health can only be the remedy for the ill affected region. Taking them into the mainstream will surely boost up their confidence in the government and emanate them of prejudice they have been carrying since decades against the government. The initiatives taken by the government must be further strengthened instead of diluting them due to the crony capitalism prevalent in the country. Due process of law and rule of law should be established. Their human rights must be respected and violations must be prevented.  

Naxalism has been a huge problem to reckon with. It not only affects just the regions affected by it but the country as a whole. Naxal affected areas are region which has enormous untapped potential consisting of country’s most abundant mineral rich belts. Keeping the interests of the communities in the region in the mind if such areas are developed and exploited in a well-planned manner, it will indeed boost the Indian economy. The need of the hour is the concerted effort by all central, state, district and panchayat level governments in addressing the problem of Naxalism.