Just as bad currency pushes out good currency from the market, bad people take charge of government and the good are rendered helpless, unable to do anything.

But what is the way to keep “bad” people out? Conscious, selfless people will have to step forward; they will have to ask questions and start to exert control over the selfish bunch that forms the government.

This is not a new postulation; in fact, it is embodied in the Sanskrit term Upabhog shoonya Swami (meaning you are the owner but you are not supposed to enjoy power) and also in Mahatma Gandhi’s con­cept of trusteeship.

“Let us become trustees of soci­ety; if we do that, the people (at large) will trust us more than they will trust those who go to them every five years, begging for votes… Let the good currency work; for when it works, it will definitely show re­sults.”

The above thoughts were ex­pressed at the last meeting (held on October 20, two days before the counting of votes in the election to the Maharashtra Assembly) by Mr. Bharatkumar Raut, former Editor of The Maharashtra Times who is at present Editorial Consultant to the Times Group and a Shiv Sena Mem­ber of Parliament (Rajya Sabha).

Mr. Raut was introduced by Programme Chairman Nanik Rupani as a well-known senior journalist who had, among other things, helped set up the Zee News television channel.

Apart from this, he was the re­cipient of several awards and decora­tions and was a popular face on the current affairs programmes on many TV channels.

But Mr. Raut stated at the be­ginning of his talk on “Issues be­fore Maharashtra” that he be­longed to the old school of jour­nalism which believed that a jour­nalist should be read rather than be seen or heard. Sadly, many jour­nalists today were seen and not read.

Hoping that a decisive mandate would emerge when the votes were counted on October 22 so that the State would have a good, stable gov­ernment, he said that the alternative was “a hung Assembly (in which) democracy is murdered every day”.

As he belonged to one side of the political divide, he indulged in wish­ful thinking about the party that he backed coming to power and said that “if that happens, I’m sure next time you’ll not be coming here with wry faces; you’ll be happy”.

Warming up to his subject, Mr. Raut said his heart sank when he thought about the condition of the State. Point­ing out that rashtra meant nation and Maharashtra meant bigger nation, he said there was a time when people were proud to belong to Maharashtra. It was emotionally bigger than the rashtra and gave support to it.

A cursory glance through history from the 13th to the 20th century showed that in every century there were two to three examples of people and/or movements from this part of India that had helped the country re­main intact and given it strength and solidity.

Equally clear was the fact that the State was not progressing; rather, it was regressing; and if it was allowed to slide, then from being an asset Maharashtra could become a liabil­ity to the country.
 
Maharashtra had always been in the forefront in almost all fields of activity, whether in literature, culture, industry, sports, social activities, bureaucracy, theatre, dance or the other performing arts.

When the first National Film Awards were announced, the best film award went to Shyamchi Aai, a Marathi film; the first Indian Gover­nor of the Reserve Bank of India was from Maharashtra; the first Indian Chief of the Indian Army was from Maharashtra; the top bureaucracy of India was from this State.

Mr. Raut pointed out that at one time as many as seven members of the Indian cricket team were from Maharashtra. Today, if Sachin Tendulkar was unwell and did not play, then the Indian team took the field without anyone from Maharashtra.
“I am not saying all this only because I am a Marathi-speaking person, but to be the son of this soil makes me proud. Charity be­gins at home. If I have to be a proud Indian, I first have to be a proud Maharashtrian. If I am not proud about my own family, about my own State, I cannot be proud about the nation.”

Reverting to his theme about Maharashtra and Bombay being in the forefront, Mr. Raut said that the city had been on the global map all its life, especially from the 15th century.

In an oblique reference to the bick­ering over its name, he said whether it was called Bombay, Mumbai or Bambai, the city had always been the urbs prima in the real sense of the term. It was among the few cities of the world that fit the concept of a metropolis (like New York and Lon­don).

“With due respect to all other cit­ies in India, I would say that they are overgrown and enlarged villages. But Bombay, right from its inception, has had all the characteristics of a me­tropolis, one that encompasses all castes and creeds, gives an opportu­nity to all and a city that generates money, that generates wealth.

“In many other cities, money only exchanges hands. Here, money is gen­erated, wealth is generated. That’s why it is a real metropolis. And it is our duty and responsibility to en­sure that the significance and impor­tance of this metropolis is preserved and enlarged.

“Unfortunately, thanks to the gov­ernment on the one hand and the to­tal apathy of its residents on the other hand, the pride of this city is shrink­ing.”

Mr. Raut said that the floods of July 26, 2005, not only wreaked havoc on the city and its citizens; they devas­tated the pride of Bombay. Leave aside turning it into a global financial hub, into another Shanghai or Paris, Bombay had turned from a dream city into a drainage city or a slum city.

Unless people with the responsi­bility of thinking about the city, the State and the nation woke up and started to think outside their family, their business and their industry, things would not improve.
What were the main issues before Maharashtra which was going through a dark phase (“and unfortu­nately, I don’t see light at the end of the tunnel”)?

First, there was the issue of sui­cides by farmers. In Vidarbha, every­day for seven years since 2003, on an average 3.2 farmers were committing suicide. They were not doing so be­cause of family trouble or because they were mentally ill but because they were overburdened by agricul­tural loans.

The Prime Minister had given a relief package of Rs. 6,000 crores for the farmers yet the suicides contin­ued. “My head hangs in shame that in the 21st century my brother in Vidarbha has to end his life out of distress and I’m not able to do any­thing about it.”

The farmers had taken loans from local moneylenders (sahukars), or the co-operative financial institutions, co­operative banks and nationalised banks (private banks gave no loans to farmers).

However, their crop was left to the mercy of the rain gods. Some­times there was a drought and some­times there was flooding, thus leav­ing the farmer at the mercy of the Almighty.

But whether the crop was washed away or had dried up, the farmer still had to repay the loan he had taken for the purchase of seeds, fertilisers and so on. But he had money for nei­ther. So when he went to the bank for a loan the following year, he was told to first clear his arrears.

This left him with no other re­course than to approach the bigger farmers who also lent money (the sahukars). He pledged his land to the latter and proceeded to till his land.

But if the rains played truant in that year, too, then in the third year the sahukar seized his land – and the farmer, who had been tilling his own land, suddenly turned into a landless labourer.

Mr. Raut once again pointed out that an amount of Rs. 6,000 crores was earmarked for the relief of such farmers – and perhaps it was distributed, too – but where had the money gone?

“You and I, the elite, the edu­cated people, people from Bombay, Pune, Nasik and other urban ar­eas, should ask this question to the government and to the govern­ment machinery –where has all that money percolated? Who has become richer? Who has taken a share in the poor farmer’s dues?

We don’t ask this question and that is the problem.”

The second problem was electric­ity. In 1999-2000, Maharashtra had a surplus in power and generation. It was selling electricity to Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Goa and the electricity board was making money.

But today there was a deficit of over 7,000 megawatts (MW) because in ten years the State had not gener­ated even one extra MW of power even as the demand had doubled. In the last ten years, instead of doubling the generation of power, Maharashtra had not generated even one extra MW.

In towns adjacent to Bombay such as Thane, Dombivli, Kalyan and Vasai, there was power staggering for two to four hours. But in the remote areas of Maharashtra there was load shedding for over 14 hours.

Despite power shedding for 14 hours, Maharashtra was called an “industrial State”!

It was a terrible situation, where there was manpower, there were ma­chines and there was work to be done
– but there was no electricity to run the machines for 14 out of 24 hours.

Industry could not survive in these conditions and that was the reason why industrialists were not coming to the State.
Referring to the Enron power project of the late 1990s, Mr. Raut said that because of the bitter power feud between the Shiv Sena-BJP on the one hand and the Congress on the other, Enron remained in cold storage for seven years, during which time the project cost had tripled.

When it finally got going, Enron went bankrupt in the USA whence it had come to India. Enron was sunk and all that remained was its wreck­age. Nothing was done thereafter to generate power.

Leave aside creating new capacity, the State had failed to carry out the required repairs and replacements for the generating sets at its thermal power stations in Chandrapur, Ko­radi and Bhandara. Most of these power-generating sets were estab­lished in the late 1970s. But they had worn out in the early part of this de­cade and no replacements had been received.
 
Yet, the Maharashtra government had filed an affidavit before the Cen­tral Electricity Authority to say that the State had enough power and did not need any new power station!

As a result, even though Bombay High generated gas just off the coast of Bombay, the gas was piped to Rajasthan via Gujarat because Maharashtra had stated that it did not want power plants based on gas.

Mr. Raut said the third biggest is­sue was the lack of employment, not only in rural but even in urban areas. Young graduates from different streams were finding no openings when they completed their studies.

The former President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, had talked about “Wings of fire” (or agnipankh), but these wings were of no help as the youth attempted to fulfil their dreams.

“We have not had even one large industry in the State in the last ten years. Where does this manpower go? Do we want to make them clerks, thieves or gangsters? What do we want to make them? Maharashtra doesn’t have planning. Therefore, such problems arise.”

Mr. Raut said it was necessary to implement long-term plans otherwise the State would be ruined. But the government would not implement any plan unless “pressure groups like Rotary, Lions and Chambers” became active and forced it to act.

He said the political class was most unlikely to deliver. The people’s rep­resentatives, the MLAs and MPs, were busy recouping the money they had spent on their election and col­lecting money for the next elections.

The bureaucracy had become so corrupt that it had lost its strength, will and desire to deliver.

As for the middle class, it was “now living from hand to mouth”. But most of the people in this class aspired to go up in life. A person with a two-wheeler wanted a car; a car-owner wanted a Skoda car; and one with a Skoda wanted two cars. Those living in apartments wanted more space and then to own a farm house just out­side Bombay.

From a holiday in Khandala-Lonavala to one in Switzerland (via Simla-Manali, Kathmandu and Co­lombo) – this was the mantra of the middle class.

“This is a natural process. I’m not blaming anyone. It is a natural desire to add one more zero to your income, not monetary income but in every­thing else in life.”

Similarly, Mr. Raut said, nothing could be expected from the poor. They were the most affected by the cur­rent state of affairs and deserved all help and support.

Therefore, in a situation where nothing could be expected from any­one, whether the poor, the middle class, the politicians, the government, the bureaucracy or the MLAs and MPs, it was up to the educated, elite class to become the “conscience” of society and to act as a selfless pres­sure group to control the working of the government.

“If this city dies, then the nation will die because we are the heart of the nation. If the country has to sur­vive, then this city has to survive. And survival of the city does not mean big malls or huge skyscrapers. Survival of the city means a good fab­ric of socio-cultural life. That is dy­ing and that’s my worry as a member of society – that social culture is dy­ing.

“At one time I was not worried about who is my neighbour; I was not worried when my son went to school. Today, I am not only wor­ried about who my neighbour is, I am worried about who is sitting next to me in the bus, in the train. I am scared of my own shadow.

“When my wife goes to office and does not return by 7 o’clock when she is supposed to be back, I am scared. When the husband goes to office and comes late (perhaps he has been to a club), his wife prays to God ten times for his safety. All this is happening because the social fabric of the city is being tarnished.”

But the politicians would never work to repair it because the more the people were scared, the happier they would be. The more the people were divided, the more they would be benefited. The more the people fought among themselves, the more they (the politicians) would turn out to be the winners.

Therefore, conscious citizens had to make a conscious effort to control things.

A major point they had to contend with was that even though the city gave the maximum tax to the govern­ment of India, the Centre did not re­turn even 2% to Bombay for its de­velopment.

On the other hand, Delhi (which paid less tax) saw 26% of the tax paid being returned to it last year. If Delhi could have 26% returned, why was Bombay deprived of its share?

The result of this was the pathetic state of affairs in the city, whether medical facilities, the condition of the roads, electricity issues, sewage prob­lems and so on – the city had been neglected because those who could fight for it thought more about their own homes, their own land, their own garden and their own market.

“We need to think about the city as a whole and if we think of the city as a whole, then we will be able to think of the State and of the nation as a whole. On every count, in every area, there is a problem, there is a lacuna, whether it is farmers’ issues, water supply, electricity, safety or security of the people.

“Therefore, I request you to rise and, whichever government may come to power, to remember that government is made of people, of selfish people. And it is our prime responsibility and duty entrusted upon us by the Almighty to at least keep the steering wheel in our hands. Then you will find a change.”

Mr. Raut concluded by quoting the Sanskrit term Upabhog shoonya Swami (meaning you are the owner but you are not supposed to enjoy power) and Mahatma Gandhi’s con­cept of trusteeship (as elucidated at the beginning of this report).
The vote of thanks was proposed by Pranay Vakil.