Roman numericals
The assignment at the Srinagar Raj Bhavan – a place where the truth is both challenging and actively challenged on a daily basis – has been the most high-profile and tortuous one for Governor Satya Pal Malik. An old-world politician, his socialist roots were deemed to be a useful foil when he was picked for the tough job when N N Vohra’s rather long stint as Governor ended.
But Malik, who’s never had much administrative experience, except for the junior minister’s post he held in V P Singh’s regime, was thrown into the deep end of the sea here. The Bihar Raj Bhavan could hardly have prepared him for what was in store in the outwardly picturesque location he’s at now. Particularly when NSA Ajit Doval, a hands-on person by all accounts, keeps a close watch. And the BJP’s Ram Madhav – who was described as a ‘political novice’ by analyst Seshadri Chari, from the same ideological fold – has made it his calling to find a political solution to Kashmir.
Under such heavy pressure, it was not just the fax machine that created history by going kaput – making Mehbooba Mufti stake claim to form government on Twitter and Sajjad Lone via WhatsApp! It made the Governor go rather creative with the Roman numerals. While listing out the reason for the hasty dissolution of the state Assembly, he invented a Roman numeral to make his ‘fourth point’ that ‘the security’ situation in the Valley was not conducive for an ‘unstable’ coalition government of opposing parties.
A PDP leader later quipped that the Governor must have asked to highlight the point of law and order to make his decision legally tenable. Hence, the assertion with an extra ‘i’ – that is, ‘iiii’, instead of ‘iv’. Whatever it is, the dissolution of the J&K Assembly seemed to be the ulterior motive on all sides. The reason why the Congress leader, Ghulam Nabi Azad, summarily dismissed the possibility of contesting the Governor’s decision in court.
Rajya Sabha for Paswan?
The numbers are, as always, the big issue in Bihar alliance-making. This is not the ‘gathbandhan’ on the opposition side, but the tie-up of the BJP-JD(U)-LJP...the question of who’s contesting how many seats. While Upendra Kushwaha, still a junior minister in the Centre, plays footsie with both sides because of his uneasy caste equation with Nitish Kumar, the ruling side obviously does not want Ram Vilas Paswan to bolt at the last moment. To keep him anchored to the NDA, the BJP is likely to nominate him to Rajya Sabha from Assam. He will not only get elected to Parliament for the next five years before the parliamentary elections, the barter will free up an extra seat for the BJP-JD(U)-LJP alliance.
Curious Chau
Proselytiser or maverick, John Allen Chau’s death at the hands of the protected North Sentinelese tribe was no serendipitous accident. He was certainly not unaware that he was breaking rules. His rather detailed diary, found in his modest hotel room in Port Blair, reveals he knew what he was getting into – and also offers a remarkably anachronistic primer on racist views. Nonetheless, that he could get access to a highly protected and isolated zone has put the security apparatus in a tizzy. Chau seems to have exploited the loophole created by the MHA’s recent relaxation of rules, in June, that allowed foreign tourists permit-free access to at least 10 Andaman islands, all to ‘promote tourism and development’. It would have naturally deflated the law protecting this high-security zone, comprising several tribal-reserved islands, but New Delhi would have hardly bargained for a Joseph Conrad–type character landing up to bring the whole thing to global attention!