DoPT comes to Hooda’s rescue

Haryana waves a timely and dubious DoPT note in the Centre’s face to scuttle a CBI probe and muzzle a whistleblower

Tehelka, 17 March, 2012

THE CENTRE has no jurisdiction to intervene in violations of Central Acts in states or to protect whistleblowers even if they belong to the All India Services. This is what MoS V Narayanasamy and his Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) told the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

The DoPT note issued on 16 February was cited by Haryana Forest Minister Captain Ajay Singh Yadav in the Assembly on 6 March as the sole defence against a CBI probe ordered by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) into multicrore forestry scams and violations of forest and wildlife laws in the state.

The whistleblower in question — IFS officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi — has been harassed by the Haryana government since 2007 for exposing the corruption and violations of laws that involve Chief Minister BS Hooda’s office, his ministers Kiran Chaudhary and Yadav, and a host of top IFS and IAS officials. In the face of stiff resistance from the Haryana government, it took the Centre five years, two Presidential interventions and a MoEF inquiry to revoke the illegal suspension order and chargesheet slapped on Chaturvedi by the state. The whistleblower’s claims were subsequently examined by the CVC and the CBI, which recommended a probe.












The Hooda government was desperate for an escape route. Back in March 2011, when the whistleblower wrote to the PMO seeking a CBI probe, his file was referred to the DoPT. Since then, all Central agencies involved agreed that cases flagged off by Chaturvedi deserved a CBI probe. But the DoPT came to the Hooda government’s rescue. Consider:
• The DoPT sent its note, marked confidential, to the PMO on 16 February
• On 24 February, MM Joshi, a serving IFS officer in Haryana and a prime accused in the scams and violations, filed an RTI application to obtain the note. His surprisingly specific application even mentioned the date on which the note was sent to the PMO
• In just three working days, the DoPT handed Joshi the confidential note, a thirdparty information, without inviting objections from Chaturvedi, which is mandatory under Section 11(1) of the RTI Act. Ironically, the DoPT is the nodal ministry for the RTI Act and for drafting of the Whistleblower Protection Bill
• On 6 March, the state government submits the note, obtained by Joshi in his private capacity, in the House to dismiss the MoEF inquiry as “ultra-vires” (beyond its power).

There seems to be more than mere questionable legal wisdom behind the DoPT note that was leaked, found its way to the Assembly, and ended up saving the day for the Hooda government. On 7 March, when the state wrote to the MoEF arguing against the CBI probe, the DoPT note was its only defence.

The MoEF, it is learnt, is livid with the DoPT note that renders the green ministry powerless

Forest and wildlife are on the concurrent list of the Constitution and Article 256 empowers the Centre to give directions to states for compliance of Central Acts. Also, the Central government, being the appointing authority, has overriding powers over the state governments in matters of All India Services, which is on the Union List.

While Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan is yet to go on record, the MoEF brass, it is learnt, is livid with the DoPT note that renders the green ministry powerless. Environmental lawyers and IFS officers, such as Supreme Court advocate Sanjay Upadhyay, Project Tiger’s ex-director PK Sen and head of the IFS association AN Prasad, contacted by TEHELKA were unequivocal that mere technicalities shouldn’t come in the way of justice and, prima facie, the note was unlikely to stand legal scrutiny.

So was it an oversight? Will someone be held accountable for leaking third-party information? Will the DoPT clarify that the note may not come in the way of the CBI probe that the CVC recommended? Contacted repeatedly, Narayanasamy promised to respond. He has not, yet. Once again, Haryana’s can of worms stays secure.

Watch out for Kingmakers

Both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party are delusional. But the idea of a new third front is equally wishful

Tehelka, 13 March, 2012

Rahul Gandhi had already left the United States with a graduate degree from Florida’s Rollins College (no, not Harvard) when David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University came up with a curious finding in 1999. Their paper, Unskilled and Unaware of It, explored how “people tend to hold overly optimistic and miscalibrated views about themselves”.

Such overestimation—known since as the Dunning-Kruger effect—occurs because, “Those with limited knowledge in a domain suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach mistaken conclusions and make regrettable errors, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realise it”. Indeed, more than a century before this paper was published, Charles Darwin identified the phenomenon: “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”

It may not be surprising that Rahul Gandhi, still politically young and a novice on many a count, overestimated his electoral appeal. However, when a century-old party, and many of its veteran leaders, vociferously second that judgement, it cannot be blamed on ignorance but a delusion. A Gandhi is always the party’s best face at the hustings—the Congress has turned this tradition into an occult faith—even if that Gandhi is called Rahul and had come a cropper in Bihar in 2010.

If it is any comfort to the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appears equally wishful about its electoral prospects. Barring Goa, where the party was handed a lollipop by the Congress, all other states have underlined how the BJP’s expectations were out of sync with its performance. Before the party can think of occupying the political space ceded by the Congress, it needs to work on a bulwark to arrest its own slide. Yet, the BJP’s national leaders, as if to vindicate the Cornell duo, are basking in the glory of their ally and the prospect of a walkover at the Centre.

This has encouraged many to bet wishfully on a new “third front”, a rainbow alliance of state chieftains. Anyone who remembers the marathon negotiations among Deve Gowda, Lalu Yadav, Chandrababu Naidu, GK Moopanar and SR Bommai at the Tamil Nadu Bhawan, Sharad Yadav’s 9 Akbar Road residence and Karnataka Bhawan on 31 May 1996, to put together a 13-party cabinet, will agree that regional ambitions and equations do not necessarily factor in national interests.

Denied a cabinet berth, ND Tiwari and his Indira Congress refused to support the Gowda government. Srikant Jena had to be left out to appease Biju Patnaik. Lalu extracted so many ministerial berths for Bihar that Virendra Kumar, chief of Janata Dal’s Kerala unit, could not be accommodated despite the Left Front and VP Singh himself rooting for him. The list of intrigues ran too long.

The first third front experiment did not succeed, partly due to its dependence on the Congress for survival. The inexperience of the ministers, few of whom had ever held any public office of consequence, also compromised the government’s efficiency.

One-and-a-half decades on, the politics has changed. Janata Dal has splintered with factions like Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) reduced to insignificance in Parliament. Tamil Maanila Congress has ceased to be. The Left have lost their strongholds.

To add up the numbers, a new third front will require Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mamata Bannerjee, Naveen Patnaik, N Chandrababu Naidu, and J Jayalalithaa (perhaps even Nitish Kumar and Sharad Pawar) to join hands. On a range of key issues—from women’s reservation to agriculture and industrialisation— these leaders stand on the opposite ends of the policy spectrum. More significantly, most of these leaders head what were originally splinter outfits that have not raised or nurtured too many political talents since.

Even the ragtag cabinet of 1996 flaunted a bunch of big names in the high-profile ministries—Indrajit Gupta (Home), P Chidambaram (Finance), Mulayam Singh Yadav (Defence), IK Gujral (External Affairs), Chaturanan Mishra (Agriculture), Murasoli Maran (Industry), M Arunachalam (Labour), Ram Vilas Paswan (Railways) or even CM Ibrahim (Aviation). Some of these leaders are dead, others not in a position to be part of a second Third Front (except Mulayam Singh Yadav, though he may not leave Lucknow for Delhi). The big mentors of the first Third Front, VP Singh, HKS Surjeet and GK Moopanar, are no more.

Who are the substitutes? Regional satraps who are such control freaks and untrusting of their own loyalists that they run virtual autocracies in their states. Such a political culture does not allow a strong second rung leadership. So Mamata, Patnaik, Jayalalithaa, even Naidu, pretty much run their solo shows. Tomorrow, even if they master unexpected flexibility to put together a coalition at the Centre, what common policies and agenda will they peddle? More importantly, where will they find minister material overnight?

Yes, the Samajwadi Party can send one of the Yadavs to the Centre. Nitish may oblige Sharad Yadav who was left out in 1996 due to his hawala stain. Pawar may feel tempted to finally fulfill his prime ministerial ambition and carry Praful Patel along. But it takes more than a couple of Yadavs, a Pawar and a Patel to run the country.

Therefore, if the state chieftains do not suddenly show the Dunning-Kruger effect, the next Lok Sabha polls are likely to be a race of kingmakers. Both the Congress and the BJP should dread a situation when they will be tempted, rather obliged, to carry ever more powerful allies on their back who will call the shots. Only, there may be just enough time for the two national parties to get real and put up a fight.


Cost-benefit of co-existence 


The urban greens demand that the rural poor live in conflict even where it does not help conservation

Tehelka, 10 March, 2012

THE ONLY potentially dangerous wildlife that still survives in our cities is the occasional snake, largely because it is difficult to spot. Whenever one is found, it is either killed or rescued (read dumped outside the city limits). Anything bigger stands no chance at all. Intruding leopards trigger lynch mobs. Straying elephants face gunshots or are violently chased away.

Panic is the only reaction and everyone finds it natural. The conservationists’ only complaint, in such situations, revolves around the lack of alacrity shown by the forest and police staff to ‘safely remove’ the wild animal in question. The same conservationists, however, frown every time villagers refuse to live in the terror of potentially dangerous wild animals. After all, wildlife does not understand the boundaries humans draw with protected forests, goes their argument, and often lives among people, making co-existence necessary. There is obvious merit in this theory. But it gets a little complicated in practice.

Elephants move in herds and range over hundreds of kilometres. Villages falling within their ranges accept conflict as inevitable and do not normally combat the jumbos. Effective mitigation measures do minimise but cannot eliminate losses of life, crop and property. But people know some will die of drowning or accidents when they choose to live close to a river or a highway because the obvious benefits outweigh the loss. Similarly, in elephant forests, better compensation and incentives can make co-existence durable.

But what happens when elephants leave their normal range? When Dalma elephants go all the way to the outskirts of Kolkata or herds move from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Odisha to Andhra Pradesh, from Karnataka to Maharashtra, from undivided UP to Himachal or from undivided Bihar to MP? More frequently, herds venture outside the normal ranges within state boundaries.

The elephant duo that entered Mysore last year was part of the herd that used to routinely move outside the Mandya forest division and venture as far out as 15-20 km, deep into agricultural fields. The sustained damage this herd caused the villagers in the area was considered a legitimate cost of conservation till two young members of the herd walked to the city, triggering panic and outrage. Was that hypocrisy?

Should conservationists will villagers to live in conflict with elephants that have moved out of their normal range and have no future in such landscapes? Or should they focus on finding out and fighting the factors that are causing such movement?

When elephants from Bannerghatta and the adjoining forest divisions of Hosur and Dharmapuri started showing haphazard movements, not much effort went into arresting the degeneration and fragmentation of the habitat inside their traditional range. As a result, large herds caused havoc in the agricultural fields. Some moved into AP and eventually settled in Kaundinya Wildlife Sanctuary and Lord Venkateswara Wildlife Sanctuary. These movements along non-elephant areas caused more than 50 deaths and extensive crop damage.

While poor villagers are still paying the price of conservation, these elephants are doomed, certainly unless some serious genetic management takes place. Koundinya is too small and degraded a forest for elephants. Lord Venkateswara sanctuary is a better habitat but, in both places, the elephant population is small and comprises related individuals. From the original 150-strong population that migrated, the number is down to about 40. Does it justify the loss of so many human lives and the huge amount of money spent in the name of conservation?

The effort, and sacrifice if necessary, should have gone to areas with real potential for elephant conservation. Instead, the greens want the wild to flourish under every village tree while getting rid of the last snake from their city gardens. No wonder conservation is often a dirty word for the rural poor.

Hooda faces a CBI probe

Open, 8 March, 2012

After the Open story ‘Why is Hooda Afraid of the CBI?’, 25 February 2012, the environment ministry—MoEF—has written to the Hooda government to register FIRs for a CBI probe of multiple forestry scams in Haryana. Referring to Sanjiv Chaturvedi, the whistleblower who has been persecuted for the past five years, the MoEF wrote: ‘It has been decided, with the approval of the competent authority, to assign the investigation into the allegations made by Sanjiv Chaturvedi… to the CBI.’ Two state forest ministers, officials in Haryana and at the Centre and CMO, no less, have so far brazened it out, defying inquiries. The state government will now have to file an FIR in three cases—construction of an illegal canal inside Saraswati wildlife sanctuary, development of a herbal park on private land in Fatehabad using government funds, and an afforestation scam in Jhajjar—and notify the Centre entrusting them to the CBI.

A grand joint misadventure

An NTPC power plant at the edge of the Sunderbans is the worst advertisement for Indo-Bangladesh ties

Tehelka, 2 March, 2012

THIS MAY sound familiar. A government acquiring land for a mega project even before the court has decided on its merit, or its impact on the environment and local communities has been assessed. Till we come to the dumbfounding bit: the location of this 1,320 MW coal-based power plant. The $1.5 billion project is coming up just 9 km from the Sunderbans, one of the earth’s rarest ecosystems and a UNESCO world heritage site. The project site is on the Bangladesh side of the vibrant mangrove delta but it is going to be run on Indian coal by National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), one of India’s Navratna companies.

It all began in 2010 with an MoU between NTPC and the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDP) for setting up a power plant in Bangladesh’s Bagerhat district. The site, perilously close to the Sunderbans and about 60 km from the Indo-Bangla border, was apparently chosen because of its proximity to the Mongla port, convenient for importing coal required for the plant.

In 2011, Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB) moved the high court, which issued a stay order on the project only to withdraw it temporarily following a petition by the Attorney General. Then the Department of Environment (DoE) issued a primary location clearance, subject to an environmental impact assessment (EIA) study. Bangladesh had paid NTPC $2,50,000 in 2010 for conducting a feasibility study. The report submitted in April 2011 did not include any EIA.

Instead, Bangladesh allocated the equivalent of Rs 25 crore to acquire 1,834 acres in three villages of Lubachora in Rampal. Since January 2012, according to local media reports, Rs 1 crore (Tk Rs 2.5 crore) worth has already been distributed among 67 landowners. Then, on 29 January, NTPC Chairman Arup Roy Chowdhury and BPDB Chairman ASM Alamgir Kabir signed a 50:50 joint venture (JV) agreement. Already, the authorities are preparing to dredge 10 km of the Poshur river for easier access to ships carrying coal for the plant.

All this while a final court verdict is awaited, an EIA study yet to be commissioned and the funding of the project uncertain. Under the JV agreement, BPDP and NTPC will finance 15 percent each of the $1.5 billion project and the rest will be funded by loans. But international funding agencies such as World Bank do not finance projects without EIA clearances.

On its website, NTPC highlights its “commitment to environment”. But its Sunderbans plant will burn lakhs of tonnes of coal and spew massive amounts of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide (Indian coal is very high on sulphur content) and fly ash. The plant will discharge used hot water in the Poshur river, polluting the entire water system, the lifeline of the Sunderbans, downstream. A coal plant’s sludge waste contains hazardous metals such as arsenic, mercury and lead.

The cumulative impact on the flora and fauna of the Sunderbans will be devastating. The livelihood and health of 20,000 local fishermen, and possibly many more across the delta, will also be jeopardised.

“Indian laws will not allow such a project so close to the Sunderbans or, for that matter, any tiger reserve or biological hotspot. This plant may have serious consequences for the entire Sunderbans ecology, which is a shared heritage and cannot be managed in isolation. It is surprising that the project is moving ahead without a thorough EIA,” says PK Sen, former director of Project Tiger.

The NTPC website claims the plant will use “super critical technology” to “minimise pollution and environmental damage”. But that does not begin to reflect the impact of that minimised damage on the Sunderbans.

Contacted by TEHELKA, NTPC twice sought “more time” and is yet to answer queries on the project’s EIA, funding and threat potential. It is busy celebrating the “landmark in bilateral economic cooperation” which, if implemented, will result in an ecological disaster, a landmark Indo-Bangla ties would do well to avoid.

Creating Happiness? Certainly Not in Puri

Its mega university project stuck in the court, Vedanta withdraws free education to 500 children of project-affected families

Tehelka, 27 Feb, 2012

ON 30 JANUARY, Vedanta released its maiden national corporate publicity campaign — Creating Happiness, a 90-second film created by Ogilvy & Mather — across television channels. Binno, a little girl from rural Rajasthan and the face of the campaign, has already endeared herself to millions. The campaign also features 38 short films made by students of Film and Television Institute of India, Indian Institute of Mass Communication and other institutes, shortlisted by a jury including Shyam Benegal and Gul Panag. (At the time of going to press, Benegal told an activist that he was not on the jury anymore).

Understandably, thousands of victims of Vedanta’s environmental and human rights abuse see little endearing in Binno’s smile. Now among them are 500 children from Odisha’s Puri district who belong to families affected by the Vedanta University Project (VUP). On 10 February, they suddenly became dispensable liabilities in the MNC’s mega scheme of things.

The campaign with a media budget of more than Rs 100 crore, to quote O&M executive chairman Piyush Pandey, is “all about enabling India” and “looks forward to the people of India not just appreciating Vedanta efforts, but getting inspired to do something on their own to make India a happier place.” With that lofty goal, Vedanta’s communications and brand director Senjam Raj Sekhar told the media that the MNC “opened up all its projects and locations to budding independent filmmakers”.

But Vedanta kept at least one location under wraps. Only two of the 38 films in the competition feature Odisha. And neither tells the Vedanta story in Puri where the MNC began sponsoring the education of 500 children in the prestigious DAV Public School four years ago.

GADADHAR TRIPATHI from Chandanpur, Puri district, was among thousands of villagers approached by Vedanta for their land. In June 2006, Vedanta Resources Ltd had sought 15,000 acres from the Odisha government for setting up a university near Puri. A month on, the government signed an MOU with Vedanta Foundation (formerly Sterlite Foundation) for the project.

“The company took 6,000 acres of agricultural land from us. We were told that our children would get good education for free. We were also promised quality healthcare and jobs. It even promised to build good schools in our villages. We were happy,” says Tripathi.

In 2008, VUP signed a 30-year MOU with DAV to provide education for 500 children from the project-affected families up to Class X.

The project website — vedanta.edu.in — reads: In an honest attempt at forging a partnership for providing quality education to the largely deprived children of the rural areas, the VUP of Anil Agarwal Foundation has been supporting the children belonging to the project impacted village for admission into DAV Public School, Puri.

The students are being imparted free education and are being provided with free transportation facilities, reading & writing material, uniforms & bags and nutritious mid-day meals. A Vedanta press release of 19 August 2009 claimed that 414 students had been enrolled under the scheme.

“We admitted around 500 students by 2010-11,” says DAV Schools regional director Himansu Mohanty. “The company was paying for their fees, textbooks, uniforms, meals, etc. They also bought four buses and paid the running cost. Since many of these students were first-generation learners, they were not ready for English medium. So we created an Odia section within our premises where 350 of them were studying. Vedanta promised us three acres and a 10,000 sq ft building for this Odia medium school by 2012.” Instead, Vedanta dropped a bombshell on Mohanty in July 2011.

THE LAW Department of the Odisha government had raised objections soon after the MOU was signed in 2006. So the Vedanta Foundation changed its private company status and became Anil Agarwal Foundation, claiming to be a public company, and signed a fresh MOU with the state government in 2007. But the Registrar of Companies, Maharashtra, in 2008, called its bluff.

Gopabandhu Daridranarayan Seva Sangha, a Puri organisation, and others moved the Orissa HC in 2008 challenging the land acquisition for VUP. Among other objections, the petitioners pointed out that the government would have no control over the functioning of the proposed university and its fees structure, and that the quantum of land sought far exceeded the purpose of setting up a university.

In November 2010, the HC rapped Vedanta for “misrepresenting facts and playing fraud on the government”. It also noted that two rivers flowed through the acquired land, which was also in the vicinity of a wildlife sanctuary. The ruling was simple: “Lands shall be restored to the respective land owners irrespective of …whether they had challenged the acquisition of their lands or not”.

Vedanta moved the Supreme Court against the judgment and the appeal is still being heard. But the MNC, it seems, has given up hope and its university project. It has virtually shut down its once buzzing Puri office. Even the project website has not been updated since April 2010. Its own project in jeopardy, a deeply unhappy Vedanta Resources Ltd saw no reason to keep Puri’s 500 children happy.


BUT FOR his thoughtfulness, says Mohanty, the Vedanta-sponsored students’ dreams would have ended seven months ago: “It was in July 2011 that Vedanta intimated us that they would not be supporting these students beyond 31 March 2012. I did not break the news to the children because it would demoralise them. As the new educational year is drawing close, I had to issue the circular last week.”

According to the circular, students will now have to pay for everything — except for school fees which, thanks to Mohanty, the DAV Trust has waived for now. From textbooks to uniforms to school bus, the new arrangement will cost each student more than 1,000 a month. “We are all farmers. Our monthly income is Rs 3,000-Rs 4,000. How can we spend Rs 1,000-Rs 2,000 for a child’s schooling?” asks Tripathi, whose son Prabhakar is in Class III.

Purno Ranjan Swain, from Podi village in Puri district, gave four acres to Vedanta and now runs a small shop. His son Aryan is in Class III, studying English medium. With a monthly income of less than Rs 3,500, he sees no future for his son at the DAV Public School. “Almost all these kids will have to leave the big school now,” he says.

To apparently smoothen that exit, Vedanta, the DAV circular says, will provide each student “a one-time assistance of Rs 2,000 to facilitate the transition”. For those who manage to stay on, the DAV Oriya medium school will now be limited to Class VIII. “I know the promise was of education till Class X. But Vedanta has not given us the land meant for the Oriya school without which the school will not be acknowledged and our students will not be allowed to take the board examination anyway,” explains Mohanty.

Puri District Collector Arvind Agarwal says he is yet to look into the matter: “The company has never informed me about the decision to discontinue their education programme. Perhaps they consider the scheme as part of their university project that has not taken off yet.”

The district administration had coordinated with Vedanta for its university project-related corporate social responsibility activities in 2007-08.

Jayant Das, president of the Orissa Bar Association and counsel for the petitioner in the HC case, says the MNC has no justification for linking the fate of a particular project to its commitment to social welfare.

“It is not the fault of those children that Vedanta’s lies were nailed by the HC. How could they put some children in a school that is beyond their means and then just abandon them?” questions Das. “With this decision, Vedanta has revealed that social welfare for the company is only a tool to lure and mislead people.”

Contacted by TEHELKA, Vedanta’s Raj Sekhar denied that the MNC had “anything to do with DAV in Puri” before promising to “get back after checking the facts”. But of course, he did not, not in the middle of an ad blitz.

Meanwhile, little Binno continues to spread happiness on television.

Why Is Hooda Afraid of the CBI?

And why his state Congress government is trying every crooked trick in the book to stall a CBI inquiry into charges of largescale corruption brought to light by a whistleblower forest officer

Open, 25 Feb, 2012

Sanjiv Chaturvedi did’t see it coming. In the beginning, the whistleblower IFS officer thought he was fighting petty private interests skimming off taxpayers’ money and flouting wildlife norms. Five years on, he is up against pretty much the entire Haryana state machinery.

Last December, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) wrote to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) that the CBI was ready to probe plantation scams worth several crores, a number of violations of forest and wildlife laws, and the motive of the Haryana government in slapping fabricated charges on the whistleblower who had flagged off these irregularities. The CVC advised the MoEF ‘to take up the matter of registration of FIR with the state government and subsequent transfer of the case to the CBI’.

For two months, Minister for Environment and Forests Jayanthi Natarajan sat on the CVC memorandum. After all, the corruption cases in question involved Haryana CM BS Hooda’s office, his cabinet colleague Kiran Choudhry, and nearly a dozen IFS and IAS officers. Then, after Natarajan received a few calls from the media, her ministry wrote to the state government last week, not asking it to register FIRs, but seeking its opinion on the issue.

Over the past five years, the Haryana government has made several attempts at defending itself against Chaturvedi’s charges. Each time, the central authorities have found its defence inadequate, even “misleading”. In fact, when the case was referred to the CVC in June last year, MoEF secretary T Chatterjee noted why “it may not be prudent to request the state government to further investigate as their stand is quite clear,” which was “rhetorical…without any documentary support”.

A Congress minister deferring to the clout of a party strongman is not surprising. What is shocking is the extent to which the Hooda government has gone to scuttle a probe into what seemed, in the beginning, to be departmental cases of embezzlement and violation of rules in private interest. But surely, Hooda knows better because his government has been recklessly bending rules to hound the whistleblower.


I met Sanjiv Chaturvedi in August 2007, just a week into his suspension. As a Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), he had annoyed the then forest minister Kiran Choudhry by broaching two instances of irregularity and corruption—construction of an irrigation canal through Saraswati wildlife sanctuary without statutory clearance, and investment of public money in a herbal park on land belonging to, among others, an MLA who is now Chief Parliamentary Secretary (Forest).

So blatant were the violations that PC Rawat, then Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) of Haryana, could not issue an outright denial. “Not a big violation” was all he said on camera. Chief Wildlife Warden RD Jakati and his fuming minister refused to even go on record.

Soon, NGO Wildlife Trust of India went to the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) of the Supreme Court in the sanctuary case. In July 2008, CEC member-secretary MK Jiwrajka agreed, in his report, that ‘the construction works were started a) without obtaining approval under the Forest Conservation Act; b) in violation of the provision of the Wildlife Protection Act and c) without obtaining… permission from the honourable Supreme Court.’

Yet, Jiwrajka absolved the accused and closed the case because “on a suggestion made by the CEC, the irrigation department has voluntarily deposited Rs 1 crore…for undertaking conservation and protection work”. This, after the Haryana government had spent Rs 2.2 crore to pay lawyers in the case to defend the violations.

The CEC’s mandate, however, does not allow it to give a clean chit, or offer compromise solutions, to anyone found guilty. The apex court’s notification on its terms of reference clearly states that the CEC will ‘place its recommendations before the [Supreme] Court for orders’.

In April 2008, NGO Ekta Parishad moved court in the herbal park case. In August, the Prime Minister’s Office sought a response from the state. The Hooda government did not oblige. Instead, it transferred the management of the private land to the forest department in February 2009. The CEC in its October 2009 report exonerated the state. But transfer of management under Section 38 of the Indian Forest Act, 1972, does not affect ownership of the land. The case is still with the Supreme Court.

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Chaturvedi’s suspension order, approved by the CM in August 2007 without seeking his explanation, did not cite any grounds. When the state failed to substantiate the order in a mandatory detailed report to the Centre, the MoEF concluded that the suspension was “not sustainable, as the grounds…were not found to be justified”. The President of India revoked the suspension in January 2008.

But Chaturvedi had also been served a chargesheet by the state government soon after he was suspended. Even after his suspension had been revoked, Haryana did not withdraw the chargesheet. In August 2008, then principal secretary (forest) recommended that the charges be dropped because Chaturvedi was only doing his duty. But forest minister Choudhry returned the file to PCCF Rawat’s office for further comments. It would stay there for 15 months—that is, till Choudhry was forest minister.

Suspension lifted, Chaturvedi waited for six months before the state put him in a non-cadre post, but the move was stayed by the Central Administrative Tribunal. He was finally posted as DFO, Jhajjar, in January 2009.

Within one month in Jhajjar, he unearthed a fake plantation scam worth several crores. A chargesheet was served on 40 forest staffers, and 10 were suspended. Suspecting involvement of senior officers, Chaturvedi insisted on a vigilance probe. Instead, the Chief Minister’s Office had him transferred to Hisar in August 2009.

Two weeks in Hisar, Chaturvedi unearthed yet another plantation scam, and confronted his seniors by repeatedly seeking permission to initiate criminal proceedings for the embezzlement of public funds. Things came to a head in January 2010 when Chaturvedi sealed a large plywood unit that had, in collusion with senior forest officers, deposited Rs 26,000 instead of Rs 22 lakh, as licence fee.

The Chief Minister’s Office responded by declaring his post vacant when he was away on official training for 18 days in March 2010. After a month without a posting, Chaturvedi was made DFO (production) in the same division.

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Captain Ajay Singh Yadav succeeded Choudhry as the state forest minister after the November 2009 Assembly polls. PCCF Rawat had retired. In the next five months, two successive PCCFs and then Financial Commissioner (forest department) recommended that the charges be dropped against Chaturvedi. The new Forest minister was unmoved.

In April 2010, Keshni Anand Arora, a trusted officer of Kiran Choudhry’s in the tourism department, became the new Financial Commissioner (forest department). On Arora’s recommendation, an inquiry officer was appointed in May 2010, nearly three years after the chargesheet was slapped on Chaturvedi.

The inquiry meant that Chaturvedi would not be promoted, sent on deputation or even be allowed to quit the service. His next promotion was due in months. After nine years in the IFS, he was keen to leave Haryana on a central deputation. He was already saddled with a range of false cases, from the ridiculous (stealing a Kachnar tree) to the alarming (abetment to suicide). Even his personal life was not spared and he was described as a ‘person of a (sic) dubious character’ in the chargesheet.

His back against the wall, Chaturvedi appealed to the MoEF in May 2010 but got no response. By August, Chaturvedi was desperate and wrote to the President. In September, the Cabinet Secretariat asked the MoEF to take ‘appropriate action’ and the ministry set up a two-member inquiry committee.

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The inquiry ran into several hurdles. The IFS division in the MoEF tried to undermine the probe by issuing a ‘note’ instead of an ‘order’ while instituting the committee. Then, asked to comment, para-wise, on Chaturvedi’s charges within ten days, the Haryana government took 51 days to reply. Since an inquiry was already going on, the voluminous reply argued, the Centre would have to ‘kindly wait’.

It did not. Additional Inspector General Shally Ranjan submitted her report on 8 December, recommending that the Central Government quash the ‘fabricated chargesheet’ against Chaturvedi and send a strong directive to the state asking it to order a CBI inquiry ‘to prosecute the real culprits’. However, Inspector General (forest department) AK Srivastava, Ranjan’s senior colleague in the panel, and MoEF Secretary Vijai Sharma subsequently dropped the word ‘CBI’ from their file notes.

Then Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh decided to give the Haryana government one more chance. On 18 January 2011, the state reiterated its stand, without furnishing any new details. The next day, the MoEF issued an order. The President quashed the chargesheet against Chaturvedi.

+++
Snubbed twice by Presidential orders, the Hooda government was still unfazed. In March 2011, a belligerent state forest minister Ajay Yadav wrote to Ramesh, requesting him to ‘institute an enquiry in the matter of quashing the chargesheet and especially the tone, tenor and contents of the enquiry report’.

Around the same time, Chaturvedi also wrote to the MoEF, seeking a CBI probe into the irregularities he had been pointing out all along. In April 2011, the ministry sent a confidential note to the CEC seeking its opinion.

The MoEF inquiry report had recommended that the 2007 CEC order in the Saraswati wildlife sanctuary case be immediately challenged in the Supreme Court as it ‘rendered the punitive clauses’ of forest and wildlife laws ‘infructuous’ and could set a bad precedent.

Citing these ‘adverse criticisms’, CEC member-secretary Jiwrajka refrained from offering any ‘advice in the matter’ and added that ‘the decision taken by the CEC’ in the Saraswati wildlife sanctuary case ‘does not preclude either the MoEF or the state from initiating penal action’ or approaching the SC.

In June 2011, MoEF secretary Chatterjee noted that ‘the documentary evidence submitted by Shri Chaturvedi is robust and in clinching support of his allegations’and that there was ‘need for an independent investigation’. Accordingly, Ramesh replied to his Haryana counterpart’s letter, dismissing his protestations on the quashed chargesheet and informing him that the MoEF was seeking the advice of the CVC on an investigation into the charges made by Chaturvedi.

+++
The Haryana government was not ready to give up yet.

A few days after receiving Chaturvedi’s dossier of allegations, Prabhat Kumar, director, CVC, wrote a note on 13 July to the MoEF, observing that Chaturvedi’s complaints were ‘serious in nature’ and that the ministry should take up the issue of his protection with the state. The same day, in another note for his boss Additional Secretary Hari Kumar, he concluded that a ‘CBI inquiry may not be required at all as the matter has already been considered by CEC and the elements of corruption angle (sic) is not prominently there’. The Additional Secretary agreed.

Vigilance commissioner R Sri Kumar was not convinced and decided to seek the opinion of the CBI. On 1 November, the CBI said it was willing to probe all charges, but the letter was acknowledged by Prabhat Kumar’s office after a month. On 16 December, the CVC finally wrote to the MoEF.

Chaturvedi is still waiting. After 10 transfers since 2007, he is still very much a pariah in the Hooda administration and does not feel safe in Haryana. He is waiting for a central deputation, for a CBI probe, for Union Minister Jayanthi Natarajan to do what is right.

It has been five years.

The Forest Cover-Up

Preening over plantations and weeds, green statistics conceal the alarming loss of natural, old-growth forests 

TEHELKA, 25 Feb, 2012 

 ONE OF the many miracles of India is that it has maintained one-fifth of its area under forest cover since Independence. The population has jumped three-and-a-half times since 1947 and with it the demand for agricultural land. During 1951-80, India diverted 42,380 sq km forest land, 62 percent of it for farming. The demand of development has only increased since. Yet, our forests simply refuse to shrink. 

The government started coming up with biennial State of the Forest reports since 1987. The latest volume shows that our forest cover has actually gone up by 49,986 sq km (7.78 percent) in those 25 years. In the same period, however, the forests of undivided Madhya Pradesh have shrunk by 63,183 sq km. The miracle just keeps getting bigger. 

Or does it? The reports claim that Delhi has increased its forest cover 12-fold since 1987. Potholes are perhaps the only water bodies left in the city but, we are told, 56 sq km of the capital is, in fact, dense (high or medium) forest. We are also told that Rajasthan’s forest cover has jumped by 29 percent and the dense bit of it by 49 percent. Forest area has trebled in Haryana with the dense cover up by 11 times. Punjab has also gained around 1,000 sq km of forests in these 25 years. 

If you think you have missed something, it is not the forest but the forest cover- up.

In 1987, satellite imagery mapped forests at a 1:1 million scale, missing details of land units smaller than 4 sq km. Now, the 1:50,000 scale can scan patches even smaller than 0.1 sq km. Naturally, smaller green patches of 1 hectare or above, ones that earlier went unnoticed, are now being accounted for. But does green mean forest? 

The so-called forests of Delhi are primarily thickets of Prosopis juliflora, an exotic invasive species that also accounts for much of the greenery, and hence ‘dense forests’, of Rajasthan. The sudden greening of Punjab and Haryana, where Forest Departments protect highway trees as reserve forests, is due to plantations. Even the remarkable gain in forest cover in the Western Ghats hides the contribution of numerous coffee plantations in the southern states. 

The so-called non-forest states can do with any green cover, even eucalyptus or kikar that has little ecological or biodiversity value. But the celebration over these not-so- consequential gains hides something ominous. For the 1,000-odd sq km Punjab gained, Andaman and Nicobar islands lost 670 sq km of ancient forest that no plantation can recover. In the same period, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh lost 18,000 sq km of dense forest, perhaps more. 

Plantation of fast-growing, mostly commercial species such as teak, rubber, coffee, eucalyptus or poplar is important for the economy. It can also meet the demand for fuel wood. But it cannot substitute for natural forests. Unfortunately, target-oriented government policies are making forest staff clear degraded natural forests, where root stocks would rebound given protection, to plant saplings. In any case, even the Rs 11,000 crore CAMPA funds cannot green (at Rs 40 a sapling and 2.5 lakh saplings per sq km) more than 11,000 sq km or 0.33 percent of the country. 

Non-government researchers such as Jean- Philippe Puyravaud and Priya Davidar of Pondicherry University, and William Laurance from James Cook University, have found that plantations are expanding by 6,000-18,000 sq km per year in India. The native forests, on the other hand, are declining rapidly, at a rate higher than that of either Brazil or Malaysia. The government does not agree. To avoid debates, the Forest Survey of India can simply make the GPS locations of each designated forest unit, of say 2 sq km, public so that forest field staff, researchers, NGOs, for that matter anyone interested, can walk down and check what really goes in the name of forests.

A Time To Cull

Foraging wild animals in cropland are threatening livelihoods, turning the farmer against conservation efforts

TEHELKA,18 Feb, 2012

The damage to the national economy due to crop depredation by wild animals has never been computed. But for lakhs of farmers around India’s many protected forests, it is the biggest challenge to livelihood. In Maharashtra alone, 17,725 cases of crop damage, a 300 percent jump since the previous year, were registered between April 2010 and February 2011.

From 1990 to 2008, wild boars caused 309 cases of human death and injury in the five states of Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. In north Bengal, gaurs (Indian bison) are routinely causing fatal road accidents, and may soon march on Jalpaiguri town.

Yet, we hate to consider the option of culling wild animals even where pocket populations are over-abundant. The wild boar, in particular, being a resilient and fast-breeding animal, is rapidly expanding its population in new areas. The nilgai is doubly protected because of its religious association. The elegance of the blackbuck or the spotted deer wins over public sentiment though the animals are often a nuisance.

The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, empowers a chief wildlife warden (CWLW) to allow killing of wild animals in exceptional circumstances. Kerala cleared a proposal for culling of wild boars in five districts last year. Madhya Pradesh courageously allowed shooting of nilgais.

Explains former CWLW of Himachal Pradesh Vinay Tandon: “Instead of a blanket policy, we need site-specific approaches. Activists need to understand that saving a few animals risks the lives of many more. It is easy to be righteous but angry farmers do not help conservation.” Tandon’s permission for culling wild boars and monkeys was withdrawn once animal welfare and rights activists moved court.

The popular sentiment is that culling is unnecessary when we can prevent crop-raiding by fencing or by changing the crop pattern. But such measures often do not work, and certainly not overnight. Besides, the end result of such apparently harmless measures and culling is just the same.


Why do wild animals raid crop? Either because there is not enough food inside forests or non-forest food seems more attractive. In the first scenario, if we cut off their access to crop, the animals will starve, eventually bringing down the population. So it is really a choice between death by starvation and culling.

Also, if used locally, contraptions such as electric fencing divert animals to the next village and merely shift conflict. Used extensively, it creates a fenced-in natural zoo. Thankfully, most often, it is not any forest famine but a better buffet outside that draws animals to cropland. Foraging inside forests cannot offer tastier and more nutrient alternatives like sugarcane or maize.

We can create buffer zones so that crops do not stand at the edge of the forest and also promote non-edible crops. Such measures will minimise but still not stop conflict. Effective compensation schemes work where the damage is reasonable. Elsewhere, the only option is to reduce the number of the crop-raiders.

Says National Board for Wildlife member Biswajit Mohanty: “The absence of a legal option has not stopped farmers from secretly hunting the crop-raiders. They do it on a mass scale in Odisha and all over the country.” Such unregulated culling is dangerously random and encourages a practice that often extends to poaching of non-pest species, including big cats.

For best results, each overabundant population must be monitored before culling it to a certain sex ratio so that the numbers stabilise at a low level. Says wildlife biologist Ajay Desai: “We need to bridge the gap between what is on paper and what happens on the ground. If forest officers can neither compensate for the crop damage nor cull the damaging animals, how can they conserve anything among hostile villagers?”

Project Spotty

Cleared in a hurry amid much fanfare, Project Cheetah now waits for funds to fly in the first consignment from Africa. But the once-lost cat stands even less of a chance in a crowded 21st century India, and its reintroduction will pose fresh challenges for other species on the brink of extinction. There may still be just enough time to scrap this dangerous experiment

OPEN, 4-11 Feb, 2012

The cheetah was officially declared extinct in India in 1952. Six decades on, the country has come a long way. The GDP has increased by 66,400 per cent. The human population has grown from 350 million to 1.2 billion. The forest cover remains the same on paper, but more than 40 per cent of it is degraded beyond recognition. Poachers have replaced hunters. Man-animal conflict has become news staple. Even tiger numbers have slipped below the 1972 level when Project Tiger was launched.

And yet, certain experts feel the cheetah could get second time lucky.

Six decades after Independence, 0.40 per cent of India’s budget is spent on environment and forests (including wildlife). So there is just Rs 800 crore to conserve 15 key species and around 650 Protected Areas. The endangered rhinos of West Bengal, their only significant population outside Assam, are not considered worthy of more than Rs 44 lakh. And the remaining 275-odd great Indian bustards await, well, a Project Bustard.

Instead, we get Project Cheetah, with a bill of more than Rs 300 crore, almost overnight.

Floated by a group of former bureaucrats and practising biologists, it was a fascinating idea. To have the charismatic cat back, watch its slender frame coiling at the precipice of motion, its spots blurring into a chase to run down an antelope in a matter of seconds, and panting ever so delicately before biting into the kill.

People loved the thought and Jairam Ramesh loved the thought of people loving it. So in 2009, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) cleared a proposal from Dr MK Ranjitsinh, India’s first director of wildlife during the 1970s and chairman of Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), and Dr YV Jhala, wildlife biologist with Wildlife Institute of India (WII), to bring cheetahs back.

To allay fears that the project would eat into the limited government funds available for conservation, Dr Ranjitsinh gave an assurance right at the outset, in July 2009, that the proposed reintroduction of cheetahs “does not entail diverting any funds allocated by the Government for conservation of existing endangered species and habitats. No fund support is sought from the Government”.

The MoEF, however, sanctioned Rs 25 lakh for a feasibility study conducted by the proponents themselves. Three sites—Nauradehi and Kuno-Palpur in Madhya Pradesh and Jaisalmer’s Shahgarh landscape in Rajasthan—were selected as the proposed new home for the cheetahs. The Project Cheetah document was ready in September 2010.

In August 2011, the Union Cabinet approved Rs 50 crore for the cheetah programme under Project Tiger. In November, Dr HS Pabla, principal chief conservator of forests, Madhya Pradesh, sought Rs 42 crore to relocate two villages from Kuno and fly in a few cheetahs. But since Project Tiger is facing a current shortfall of Rs 281 crore for existing schemes, no funds have been released yet for the cheetah programme.

For once, few conservationists are complaining. “The viability of this project is suspect. More importantly, it is plain unnecessary. We should focus on saving what we still have and not what we have already lost,” says conservationist Valmik Thapar. Wildlife biologists Dr Faiyaz Khudsar and Dr Ullas Karanth are equally unenthused.

Cheetahs prefer grasslands and need small prey. But what the project calls grasslands in Kuno are in fact areas cleared during the past decade through the resettlement of 24 villages to create a second home for Gujarat’s Asiatic lions.

Explains Dr Khudsar: “Over time, these open patches are naturally being converted into woodland. Kuno’s chinkara (the cheetah’s primary prey) population once thrived in the pasture and agricultural land around forest villages, but is diminishing every year with the growth of woodlands. This natural ecological succession jeopardises a long- term future for cheetahs in terms of habitat and prey.”

Also, does introducing cheetahs in Kuno mean curtains for the Government’s longstanding plan to create a second home for the lions of Gir? Dr Ranjitsinh says lions can still be introduced once the cheetahs have settled down, “but not the other way round because a bigger cat will not allow a smaller one in its territory”. By the same logic, cheetahs may not be welcome at all in Kuno, which, being a part of the vibrant Ranthambhore tiger landscape, already has two resident tigers.

PCCF Dr Pabla, however, does not see any reason why all four big cats—cheetah, tiger, lion and leopard—cannot share space since “conflict is natural in the wild”. On concerns over suitable cheetah habitats, he argues that “cheetahs do live in areas other than grasslands” in Africa.

Experts also point out the absence of adequate wild prey base and presence of small livestock in all three areas marked for cheetah reintroduction. “We are looking at a high probability of conflict due to livestock depredation. Cheetahs will stand little chance against angry villagers,” warns Dr Karanth. Even packs of aggressive village dogs will be a major threat to this docile cat.

The most vocal argument in favour of Project Cheetah is that the reintroduction will help save India’s neglected arid ecology, grasslands in particular. It is inexplicable, though, why the Government needs to plant a new species when it is already mandated (and has done precious little) to protect the most fascinating occupant of the same grassland: the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard.

While examining potential sites for cheetahs, the WII-WTI team had rejected Desert National Park (DNP) because it holds “the last surviving great Indian bustard population of Jaisalmer” and “putting the cheetah in with the bustard cannot be contemplated at all, because of the threat to this most gravely endangered bird”.

By the same logic, bustards will have no chance of recovery in any of the potential cheetah reintroduction sites—all are potential bustard habitats, which were once part of the bird’s range.

But Dr Ranjitsinh is not worried: “We are not putting cheetahs in DNP where bustards now survive. If the bustard population recovers and birds disperse to other areas, well, they will have to deal with cheetahs.”

A member of India’s National Board for Wildlife warns against this “couldn’t- care-less” approach: “We have an ex- bureaucrat of former Gujarat royalty, who is seen on YouTube talking about his childhood dreams to bring back cheetahs. Another former Gujarat royal, a top biologist, is desperate for the project, perhaps because he was left out of the Sariska [tiger] reintroduction due to WII politics. But personal ambitions can’t justify random introduction of a species.”

Counters a senior Madhya Pradesh forest official: “The resistance is mainly from India’s many tiger experts, who hog all the limelight in our tiger-centric conservation milieu. Once cheetahs are in, the media focus will shift, even if partially and temporarily. The project is already making big news.”

Media hype apart, Project Cheetah is losing support outside Madhya Pradesh, with an increasing number of experts and organisations recognising the dangers of the programme. The Rajasthan forest establishment was sceptical from the beginning and is yet to submit any plan for the Jaisalmer leg of the project. Even Dr Ranjitsinh’s WTI has developed cold feet. Confirms the NGO’s senior director Dr Rahul Kaul: “Dr Ranjitsinh is in the project in his personal capacity; the WTI has nothing to do with it anymore.”

The message is clear. With funds yet to be released, the MoEF still has an opportunity to rethink and scrap the cheetah project. It is one thing to reintroduce a lost species and lose it all over again, quite another to risk other barely surviving species in that experiment.

BOX:CAT RECALL

The word cheetah is apparently derived from Sanskrit chitrakaya(speckled). Emperor Akbar, it is said, maintained a pack of 1,000 hunting cheetahs at all times and trained 9,000 during his tenure. The last three Indian cheetahs in the wild were gunned down by Maharaja of Surguja (Bastar) in 1948. Officially, the species was declared extinct in 1952.
The last of India’s captive cheetahs died soon after. Since then, seven Indian zoos have sourced 45 animals of the African sub-species from Canada, Germany and other countries. Only 11, including three cubs born in Mysore zoo last year, survive. A project to clone the Indian cheetah at Hyderabad’s Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species (LaCONES) has been hanging fire for more than a decade due to unavailability of the Asiatic breed to source necessary genetic material.
The idea of reintroducing the charismatic animal in the wild gained ground in the new millennium and got the official nod in July 2009. But Iran refused to part with any of its remaining 80-odd wild cheetahs, the only surviving population of the Asiatic sub-species, and the focus shifted to importing African cheetahs.
At a meeting attended by international experts in September 2009, wildlife geneticist Stephen O’Brien said the Asian and African cheetahs were genetically very similar since the two subspecies were separated by just 5,000 years (unlike the lion subspecies that split 100,000 years ago); and Dr Laurie Marker, head of Namibia-based Cheetah Conservation Fund, offered to help reintroduce the cheetah “in stages over the next decade, possibly starting in early 2012”.
Don’t hold your breath.

Don't ban wildlife tourism, customise it

The case against wildlife tourism in core forests is up for hearing soon. But the interests of industry and conservation are not irreconcilable

Tehelka, 11 Feb, 2012

MORE THAN 50 lakh tourists visit India’s forests every year. They and lakhs of others who make a living out of those visits started worrying when a 2006 amendment of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972 necessitated that India’s core critical tiger habitats be left ‘inviolate’.

The government strengthened its scheme for voluntary relocation of villages and issued directives to phase out tourism from core forests. While the relocation drive is achieving mixed results, nothing really has changed on the tourism front. Therefore, conservation activists moved court.

The debate outside the courtroom is raging. Protribal groups blasted the hypocrisy of shunting poor villagers out and entertaining rich tourists in the same place. The tourism lobby hit back at the absurdity of comparing the impact of safari tourists, who do not even set foot in the forest, to that of villagers who survive on forest water, land, firewood and even bush meat, and are potential allies of poachers.

Moreover, a whole set of restrictions in and around reserves allows few livelihood options and tourism is the mainstay of such pocket economies. But while mushrooming resorts block wildlife corridors, pump out groundwater and dump garbage indiscriminately, few locals benefit from such enterprises owned by outsiders.

Like any industry, tourism survives on growth. Every tourism enterprise shows off its client base and many destinations are touted for the number of tourists they attract. The equation that determines the carrying capacity of a reserve is a joke among many who know basic ecology and a little maths. But surely, no patch of wilderness can host an unlimited number of tourists without damaging itself.

Anyway, if an operator promotes a pristine forest for what it is and offers the concessions that mass tourism demands, the destination will quickly lose its USP. So the growth imperative of mass tourism demands that thousands of safari tourists be packed, with the popular promise of a tiger, in hundreds of walled resorts choking our forests.


One solution offered is to make wildlife tourism exorbitant. But it is undemocratic and anyway not acceptable to many low-end operators who survive on volumes. The other demand, now before the court, is for pushing tourism away from core forests. But mass tourism is overwhelmingly tiger-centric and confinement to lesser forest areas will further add to the uncertainty of ‘sighting’. It does not make any business sense to the tourism lobby.

What we need to accept is that there are two sets of wildlife tourists. They are not distinguished by spending power but by their expectations. The majority wants to see tigers outside zoos while having a good time. A small minority considers tiger sighting a bonus — often a big bonus — but demand, above all, a true jungle experience. They will sacrifice most creature comforts for that experience. These tourists deserve access to even the best of forests where they will be just fine with a hard bed, a basic toilet, plain meals and lights out after early dinner.

The rest should only be allowed on limited safaris to try their tiger luck. They can, of course, enjoy their swimming pools and DJs at regular resorts a certain distance, say 5 km, away from core forests. As for existing resorts, the properties should be made to create space for animal movement, follow strict garbage disposal norms and limit usage of resources. It should be mandatory for all tourism businesses to hire a certain percentage of locals at equitable salaries.

But mere court directives or new laws will not help. Corrupt forest (and local) officials and greedy players in the industry are equally to blame for the present mess. If the government is serious about conservation and if wildlife tourism really seeks a long-term future, both must come clean.

Little girl behind big sister

Mamata Banerjee’s memoir is a slice of herself: feisty, self-indulgent, with a hint of the absurd

The Economic Times, 4 Feb, 2012

For one busy single-handedly bringing down Bengal’s Left citadel all her political life, Mamata Banerjee has managed to write quite a bit. “Writing,” she writes, “is my way of recording my conscience,” and at times, an attempt “to come face to face with another me, to rediscover my other self”.

By now, her political opponents must have found one Didi quite a handful to really appreciate another. For the rest of us, however, the idea that there may be more to the shrill, headstrong and unpredictable political phenomenon that is Mamata Bannerjee is somewhat comforting. But a few pages into her memoir – My Unforgettable Memories – the first account of ‘duality’ dashes such hope.

Mamata reveals that she has two birthdays. She was underage (not even 15) when she wrote her school final exams and her father “gave a fictitious age and birthday” so that she was not disqualified. As a result, she writes, five years were added to her age. For average readers, this raises two questions.

Why did Mamata’s father add five years to her age when a year, at the most two, would have made her eligible for the exam? Perhaps Banerjee senior was gifted with unusual foresight. But for the five years added to her ‘real age’ of 24, Mamata would not have been even eligible to contest Lok Sabha polls when she was elected from Jadavpur in 1984. In retrospect, could that still be a cognizable offence?

It is, of course, possible that Mamata, who was mature enough to take charge as the state general secretary of Mahila Congress at 16 (or 21), had no inkling that her age was being doctored at school when she was 15 (or 20). So she hopes she will not attract criticism for “disclosing the truth”, though, she writes in another context, “there are some who dismiss anything I do as drama”. Momentarily disarmed, perhaps guilty, most readers will move on. Anyway, India does not need another birthday bashing, not just yet.

The search for the “other Mamata” soon leads to her deep belief in the occult and the supernatural – the rain that preceded her birth and has since kept company “almost like a dear friend” on all significant occasions; the repeated apparition of her father’s spirit before her mother and herself; goddess Kali communicating through her younger brother who suffered a violent seizure, or by appearing in her dreams, even making photo frames fly across her room.

In between pop out curious nuggets about the child who got lost wandering outside her house and was brought back by the local police, a very promising beginning of a complex relationship that would slide steadily downhill during the Left rule before getting turned on its head by the historic regime change; about the debutant MP who felt “both lost and defeated” by “the conspiracy” that made her “seem like an illiterate person who could not even sign her name”; about the reluctant leader “not used to speaking English”, for who travelling abroad is “an ordeal”.

In a country where women politicians must come as amma, behenji or in unquestionable saffron, Didi boldly pens the word ‘boyfriend’ in her memoir. Once she was with her classmates who decided to meet ‘their friends’ on way back from school. They reached a park and met a couple of boys. When Mamata’s friends owned them up as their boyfriends, she was so scared that she ran back home. ”I did not even know what the word ‘boyfriend’ meant and could not ask anyone. What of people misunderstood? What would they think of me?” No, she did not specify how old she was then or if her response to the idea of ‘boyfriend’ did evolve with time.


That is not the only omission in Mamata’s memoir. She joined politics in 1970 when the Naxal movement took root in Bengal. The political turmoil that cost hundreds of lives does not merit any mention in her account. Mamata writes endearingly about her feat of planting a black flag on then Prime Minister Morarji Desai’s car but deftly skirts the issue of the Emergency and its excesses. She was, of course, upset that Indira Gandhi had lost but “back then I was still a novice and I did not understand the larger political world well enough to grasp the reasons for the poll debacle”. The memoir is also conveniently silent about her years in the NDA government (though in another context she slips in that AB Vajpayee “has always been very fond of me”).

But the bold, even brash, Mamata returns in her many scathing references to Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, the “big brother” who “lost the 1991 Lok Sabha elections from Howrah”. Sonia Gandhi (the reluctant “Queen Mother”) and Manmohan Singh (who did “only the CPM’s bidding”) are not spared. Even Indira Gandhi comes in for criticism when, referring to a change of attitude in 1983, she slams the prevalent Congress culture that made the top leadership “immediately censor” any regional faction that got “too active”.

The memoir reserves the most emotional bits for Rajiv Gandhi. The assassination of her biggest mentor shattered Mamata. “I was orphaned all over again, for the second time in my life since my father’s death. I did not speak to anybody for a week. I simply could not eat a morsel. I used to shut myself up in my room and cry. It has been so many years, but even today, I feel his presence in every step I take; he touched a chord that still plays the symphony of my life.”

Left to fend for herself politically, Mamata, who carried a “feeling of not fitting in” since her school days, gradually hardened into a loner. The memoir details each attack on her by Left goons and the police, and the prolonged tale of serial betrayals within the Congress. In the mid-90s, Mamata would frequently lose sleep at night, spend hours looking at her father’s photo and ask him: “Why? Why did I have to get into this dirty game of politics?” Of course, she would return, each time, to “fight injustice”, all by herself.

Today, if a control-freak Mamata barely trusts anyone with responsibility or power, the early signs were obvious. While registering her party secretly in 1998, her idea was that “the right hand should not know what the Left hand does”. During her 26-day fast against Singur land acquisition in Kolkata, she was “terrified that instead of medical help”, the doctors “handpicked by the administration…would actually do something to disable me temporarily or permanently”.

While much of the memoir is penned by Mamata, the rebel, a brief epilogue is written by Mamata, the chief minister. The Left is vanquished but the perennial victim in her still feels easily wronged. So she snubs those ‘friends’ who are critical of her new government and reminds them that they were last-minute entrants in the anti-Left movement that she single-handedly built, “from Canning to Kanchenjunga”, over three decades. Credit appropriated, perhaps duly, she goes on to warn the slanderous “CPM touts, the enemies of the people”: “It is not possible to swim against the flow when a river is in spate.”

At one point of this rant of an epilogue, she suddenly goes on a baffling tangent: “Even small disjointed movements have yielded the Nobel Prize for some people simply because they know how to lobby hard. Yet, Bengal and her grassroots movement for Ma, Mati, Manush remain totally neglected.” The prize committee at Stockholm may not take note, but this salvo is likely to confuse Didi’s supporters who were given to believe so far that the Centre’s reluctance to offer an economic bailout was the biggest snub for Bengal.

But will this memoir help or damage Didi’s political image? Neither, since Mamata is a natural mass leader like no other in Bengal and very few elsewhere. On that August noon in 1997, when she dwarfed the Congress plenary session held at an indoor stadium by filling up Kolkata’s biggest ground with lakhs of supporters, I was among those who managed a foothold on the back of her stage to get a measure of the crowd.

A rookie reporter from Delhi, I remember the awe and bewilderment in the eyes of the national press that was matched only by the reaction of the Congress leadership nervously confabulating just a mile away. That was Mamata’s first step towards Trinamool Congress. Irrespective of her quirks and qualities, she found her way with the masses long before she became the chief minister.

Yes, most Mamata baiters will find this memoir a delicious read. But so will the devout. “For those who believe, no proof is needed,” writes Mamata of the supernatural, “for those who do not, no proof is enough.”

Laxman's future, Dhoni's past

The old guard has the record but not the time to stage a comeback; the skipper’s case is different

Open, 20 Jan, 2012

The clamour for an overhaul of the Indian middle order is rising. But like life, cricket offers many chances. No other sport boasts of so many ‘comeback’ legends. Perhaps it is natural for a game even the shortest version of which plays out longer than any other team sport does. So the greatness of a cricketer is determined as much by talent as by one’s ability to reinvent oneself, time and again, as a top performer.

Honestly, there is nothing unusual about the present predicament of the Indian batsmen except that they have slumped together and it looks embarrassing. But each of them has suffered similar ebbs in his career and come back a better player.

Against England and South Africa (2005-06), Virender Sehwag averaged 19 and 14.8, respectively. He bounced back in Australia (2007-08) with an average of 71.50. In three consecutive series against South Africa, Sri Lanka and Australia (2009-10), Gautam Gambhir averaged 12.66, 1 and 12.50, respectively. He regained form at home against New Zealand (average 41.75) and silenced his critics in South Africa with a 60-plus average last year.

In his third tour to Australia (1999-2000), Rahul Dravid averaged 15.50. Next time he was Down Under (2003-04), he averaged an impossible-to-argue-with 123.80. VVS Laxman averaged above 80 against Australia at home (2000-01) and away (2003-04). In the next home series (2004-05) against the same opponent, his average dwindled to 17.57. When the Aussies landed again in 2008-09, VVS was at the top of his game with an average of 95.25.

Let’s not dig into a certain Sachin Tendulkar’s records. Not his game, but his mind looks crammed. Also, nobody else knows how it feels approaching a hundredth hundred.

But Sachin’s illustrious colleagues have shown in the past that they have it in them to pick themselves up and return stronger. Unfortunately, the process takes not only a rare degree of ability but also time. Gambhir and Sehwag have enough years of cricket ahead and can be trusted to make strong comebacks. But Laxman and Dravid do not have the luxury. When they have returned winners from similar situations in the past, it took them a season or two. Given opportunities, they may regain form by 2013, but their bodies will not hold.


If Dravid and Laxman have all the records but not the time to convince the selectors, Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s case is quite the opposite. Playing abroad, particularly outside Asia, Dhoni’s Test batting record has always been ordinary.

Playing away against Bangladesh, New Zealand and Pakistan, Dhoni averages 96.50, 77.50 and 59.66, respectively. Against opponents such as Sri Lanka, South Africa and England, his away averages are 32, 31.44 and 39, respectively. In 26 away innings against these three teams, Dhoni scored six half-centuries, three ducks and did not cross 20 on nine occasions.

Against West Indies and Australia, Dhoni’s away averages are 22.08 and 18.69. In 26 away innings against these two opponents, he scored three half-centuries, two ducks and did not cross 20 on 17 occasions. Overall, playing away in West Indies, Australia, England, South Africa and Sri Lanka, Dhoni failed to cross 20 in 31 (60 per cent) out of 52 innings.

More recently, Dhoni averaged 31 in England, thanks to two valiant 50s in Birmingham. Together, the other six innings yielded just 69. In the previous away series against West Indies, just one 50-plus score propelled his average to 19. In the remaining four innings, he managed a total of 23. In the current tour, he has so far averaged 20 in six innings. But for the lone half-century at Sydney, he has scored 45 runs in five innings.

Dhoni’s wicket keeping, usually flawless and unnoticed, has also started slipping under pressure. Comparisons with Adam Gilchrist, Alec Stewart or the still-in-action Mark Boucher may not be fair but even Kamran Akmal or Brad Haddin has a better dismissals-per-inning record in Tests than the Indian captain (not to mention former butter fingers Matt Prior who shares Dhoni’s strike rate behind the stumps).

Surely, if Dhoni was not such a phenomenally successful ODI captain and India were not averse to the multiple-captain theory, his place in the Test squad would long have been suspect. Forget the younger lot in domestic cricket, even Parthiv Patel has returned a better keeper and has batting averages playing away of 32 and 65.50, respectively, against Australia and Pakistan. Only last year, playing ODIs away against West Indies and England, Patel averaged 29.40 and 34.40, respectively.

Most followers of the game do not enjoy commentator Sourav Ganguly’s psychic gifts and it is hard to guess if Dhoni really does not enjoy playing Test cricket. It is equally impossible to determine if the Indian captain was thinking aloud about retiring from Test cricket only to deflect the media’s unrelenting glare on his team’s dismal performance or if there was some genuine soul-searching.

But if Laxman and Dravid have run out of time to rediscover their lost touch that made them such formidable performers abroad, Dhoni has never demonstrated the skill that makes a Test batsman dependable on hostile foreign pitches. India does not need to look hard to figure out what is amiss. Playing on familiar tracks against weaker teams, Dhoni himself has shown what an effective number seven can lend to a team’s batting stability.

Perhaps it’s time to try someone for the Test squad who is less of a gamble at the crease, whose consistency is less challenged by quality bowling in tough conditions. That should be by far the most obvious task before the selectors, and much easier than finding necessary replacements for Laxman and Dravid.

Are We Upset Because They Are Naked?

The only vulgar element in the controversy is us pretending to be righteous about restoring an isolated order after upsetting it

TEHELKA, 13 January, 2011

The so-called human safari in the Jarawa reserve, as exposed by a British publication, seems to have outraged many of us. Watching fellow Indians dance on road for a handful of throwaways is certainly embarrassing. But before righteous indignation feeds on sheer hypocrisy, there is possibly room for a few questions.

Are we embarrassed because the Jarawas were entertaining tourists for a pittance? All over the country, hundreds of forest resorts organise customary tribal song and dance, mostly in hotel lawns or by the poolside. In most cases, what performers get is a free meal and a few rupees as tips (unless a foreign tourist or two suddenly feel generous). This is even part of the government’s tourism policy to benefit “local stakeholders” in tribal areas.

I recall numerous evenings when hotel guests enjoyed their drinks and discussions in the backdrop of such performances that inspired no more than casual curiosity. On occasion, a few guests would have turned their chairs to actually face and enjoy a performance, or exchange patronisingly lewd comments about the dancers going through their routines. I have never heard the media objecting to “insulting so many poor tribals and their traditional art” and that too for a meal and very little money.

So are we embarrassed because the Jarawas were, as TV channels keep harping, dancing nude? Hang on. Were they made to strip for entertainment? Any anthropologist familiar to Negritos can tell that the Jarawas do not normally wear clothes or attach any erotic value to their breasts (just like the act of kissing is alien to their idea of foreplay). It is only natural that they would dance in their traditional attire which is limited to string skirts and headbands.

Or does a sense of exotic voyeurism in tourists make the dance itself vulgar? Many a time, I have seen people leering at traditionally over-clad tribal dancers in Himachal (Malana), Rajasthan (Kalbelia), Gujarat (Banjara), Arunachal (Bodo) or Karnataka (Toda). Besides, many Indian tribes—several sub-groups of Gond tribals for example—other than the Jarawas dress minimally and do tourist routines without embarrassing too many of us. And leering and voyeurism, needless to say, is limited neither to attire, nor culture nor geography.

But if this outrage is about ‘exploitation’ or ‘commodification’ of tribals in general, what about the lot of those non-tribal or less marginalised thousands even in cities who are not fortunate enough to perform for crowds that actually queue up to buy tickets for their shows and are often treated by restaurant clients as nothing more than human décor or, worse, readily available? Or do we believe that while others, less isolated tribals included, are making a conscious choice for livelihood, the Jarawas are being taken for a ride? That they are innocent wild creatures who do not understand what is going on? If that is the cause for our outrage, we could not be more wrong or patronising.


The Jarawas are simply exercising a new choice brought to them by their proximity to outsiders forced on them by the Indian state. They eagerly line up on both sides of the highway that cut through their forests during the three-month tourist season. But they also know the limits of the deal. Like all Negritos, they are spontaneous dancers. So it is not a big deal for the Jarawas to break into a little jig for something in return. It would be interesting to note the Jarawas’ reaction had the tourists asked them to do something other than what is their second nature.

Then again, is it, as researchers point out, the isolated tribe’s lack of immunity to contemporary diseases that make us worry? The Jarawas have been subject to frequent friendship missions since the days of the raj. It is true that their hostility towards outsiders saved them from the rapid extermination suffered by the Great Andamanese due to syphilis contracted on an epidemic scale from early batches of notorious convicts and their equally wayward custodians.

Today, rape is not so common and anyway, better medicines for venereal infections have been long developed. However, the frequency of ‘contact missions’ to befriend the Jarawas only increased after Independence. So did the frequency of Jarawa raids of the orchards owned by settlers who encroached upon their forests. Between 1998 and 2004, when the Jarawa youth suddenly decided to reach out to the world outside, interaction with non-tribal settlers became routine. They learnt to barter or sell honey, etc for alcohol and tobacco. During this time, all government hospitals bordering the tribal reserve opened special Jarawa wards.

Evidently, the Jarawas have been in regular touch with the local settlers at least for one-and-a-half decades. Moreover, contraction of diseases does not require handing out edible stuff by tourists (anyway, most sarkari ‘contact missions’ did that). Once the Andaman Trunk Road was in place and traffic became regular through the Jarawa reserve, nothing stopped the tribals to scavenge on leftovers discarded from passing vehicles.

Of course, interaction with outsiders has not been beneficial to the Jarawas. More than growing a taste for biscuits, they have taken to chewing tobacco and drinking. After romanticising for years over ‘mainstreaming’ them, the administration was at a loss when the Jarawa youth decided to mingle with local settlers. Thankfully, the ancient tribe has retreated inside their forest once again since 2004. But the new addicts still depend on the outside world for their fix. But as long as the highway keeps bringing the increasingly-less-alien world deep inside their shrinking sanctuary, they are free to choose how to engage with outsiders however outrageous it might seem to us.

It speaks a lot for our civilised benevolence that the Jarawas are slowly but steadily going the ways of their ancient almost-extinct neighbours—the Great Andamanese and the Onge. The Sentinelis are the only exception thanks to the impregnable coral reefs that make landing in their little island (where they are confined) treacherous for most months and the tribe’s unwavering hostile refusal to sustained overtures of ‘contact’. They survived the 2005 tsunami on their own even though their little island was tilted by the onslaught.

Unfortunately, the mainstream has lost the opportunity to learn from the traditional wisdom of the ancient, their knowledge of the archipelago’s medicinal treasures, or nature’s apparently mysterious ways that helped the tribes survive in one of the world’s most hostile places for over 30,000 years. Instead, the sole inhabitants of the archipelago about 200 years back have been reduced to less than 0.1 per cent of the present population by rapid extermination and influx of outsiders. Even a decade after a Supreme Court order to shut down the Anadaman Trunk Road to safeguard whatever remains of the Jarawas, the highway is still operational as a lifeline to the mainstream ferrying disease, addiction, and hypocrisy.

Frankly, the only outrageous, even vulgar, element in the present controversy is our callous enthusiasm in upsetting a perfect isolated order by criminal intrusion and then pretending to be righteous about restoring it.

A Close Look At Didi's Numbers

The TMC seems to have a workable strategy for success without the Congress

OPEN, 12 January, 2011

KOLKATA ~ We know the Congress is in no hurry to lose the Trinamool Congress (TMC). On paper, the Samajwadi Party’s 22 MPs can compensate for the TMC’s 19 in the Lok Sabha. But even a great show in the five state polls will not take the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) anywhere near the halfway mark in the Rajya Sabha, where the TMC is all set to increase its strength to eight this year. The TMC also needs to stay in the UPA so that Mamata can squeeze the Centre for funds to fuel the beleaguered Bengal economy.

Yet, the war of words is getting ugly. Clearly, the Bengal Congress is in no mood to cut another lopsided deal for the forthcoming Panchayat polls where the party controls 99 zila parishads, compared to the TMC’s 120. Also, the TMC’s growth plan calculates that, after the 2010 landslide, eating into the anti-Left space occupied by the Congress is easier than making further inroads into the residual Left vote bank of die-hards.

The TMC has already broken away two Congress Panchayat units in north Bengal. Understandably, the state Congress leadership feels that the party is better off contesting the Panchayat polls on its own. So far, the pressure of the High Command has kept such sentiments in check.

So Mamata’s routine provocations are crafted to incite the Bengal Congress in such a way that she does not have to do the dirty job ofsnapping ties. Curiously, TMC strategists prefer to disassociate with the Congress in phases, starting at the Panchayat level, followed by the Assembly, and then the Centre.

To believe TMC insiders, all of these are part of the party’s well thought-out ‘Congress policy’. First, the TMC wants to dump and marginalise the Congress in the state, aware that the latter is too hamstrung, for now, to return the compliment at the Centre. Subsequently, the TMC will evaluate the fortunes of the UPA in the run-up to the 2014 general elections and decide whether to contest on its own and dominate the winning alliance with a good number of MPs, or, if the UPA is truly in the dock, strike a pre-poll alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).


Mamata holds absolute control in south Bengal, where she can reap a handsome majority even if all other parties unite against her. It is in the north that she needs support. Here, the numbers tell an interesting story. Consider the last Assembly polls. In Malda’s Habibpur, the CPM defeated the TMC by a 1.43 per cent swing, while the BJP bagged 20.07 per cent. To estimate the allied contribution of the Congress in the TMC’s vote share, remember that the Congress on its own had managed just 6.58 per cent here in 2006.

In Jalpaiguri’s Dhupguri, the TMC (39.82 per cent) lost narrowly to the CPM (42.25 per cent) and the BJP bagged 10.65 per cent. In 2006, the Congress on its own had managed 2.89 per cent. In Birbhum’s Mayureshwar, 6,520 was the margin of the CPM victory over the TMC. The BJP drew 31,031 (19.46 per cent) votes. In 2006, the Congress vote share here was 8.33 per cent.

The story is repeated in Cooch Behar North where the Forward Bloc defeated the TMC by 2,197 votes and the BJP got 12,608. In Nadia’s Palashipara, the CPM defeated the TMC by 1,652 votes with the BJP cutting away 8,145. In Jalpaiguri’s Madarihat, the BJP came second, with 26 per cent votes, to the RSP (31.93 per cent), drawing much more than the Congress (19.54 per cent).

Not that the trend is entirely north Bengal-specific. For example, In North 24 Parganas’ Sandeshkhali, the CPM beat the TMC by 4,232 votes and the BJP bagged 17,425. But the BJP evidently has a bigger presence in the northern districts, where, barring north Dinajpur, its vote share is higher than its humble state average of 4.04 per cent.

Out of 95 seats in the eight districts of Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, South Dinajpur, Malda, Murshidabad, Birbhum and Nadia, BJP-backed candidates won four, the party came second in one, and in 44 seats it bagged more votes than the victory margin of the winning candidate. In the remaining 199 seats in the south, its vote crossed the victory margin only in 35 seats.

The same trend was apparent in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. The BJP won the Darjeeling seat. In Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri, the party bagged 21.40 and 9.15 per cent votes, respectively. It made a mark in seats such as Balurghat (6.82 per cent), Malda North (6.68 per cent), Balurghat (6.82 per cent) or Bolpur (6.50 per cent). Down south, the party’s vote share dwindled. For example, in coastal Kanthi, the BJP managed 2.84 per cent of votes and in Kolkata’s Jadavpur, just 2.34 per cent.

The BJP still cannot influence outcomes in too many seats even in north Bengal. In many constituencies, the TMC-Congress combine won in 2010 despite the BJP slicing away big chunks of non-Left votes. Nevertheless, the BJP’s less-than-pushover status in the north, where the TMC can do with a little help, seems to comfort Mamata’s strategists. Moreover, the TMC will have to offer far fewer seats to the BJP than even a compromised Congress would bargain for.

But, like in 2006, a saffron ally will also distance some of Bengal’s 25 per cent Muslim voters from the TMC. However, Mushirdabad and Malda districts, where the Muslim vote is the most decisive, are traditional Congress strongholds where the TMC (with one seat each in 2010) cannot anyway hope to get a foothold on its own.

In the four southern districts—North 24 Parganas, East Medinipur, Hooghly and Kolkata—with a strong Muslim presence, the TMC holds absolute sway (51–61 per cent votes in 2010), and enjoys staunch Muslim support thanks to its role in the Nandigram (East Medinipur) and Singur (Hooghly) agitations. In Birbhum and South 24 Parganas, though, the TMC may suffer if it loses a chunk of Muslim votes.

So what is Mamata’s game? In any case, looking to maximise the party’s numbers in Parliament and play kingmaker, the West Bengal Chief Minister may not be keen at all on a pre-poll alliance. But irrespective of her future with the BJP, she is all set to snap ties with the Congress. It is only a question of time, really.