आंचलिक पत्रकार में...

My Perspective: Vijay Sanghvi Shots in Darkness

A visit by the former president Pranav Mukherji to the Nagpur establishment of the Sangh Parivar and his address to t volunteers rally became a launching pad for several will political guess by all those who use the social media as vehicle for their fantasies. There is no fear of inviting libel suits or a need to prove the base and cause for such wild thoughts. Among wild speculation was the belief that the Sangh leadership may opt for Pranav Mukherji as its candidate for projection as the Prime Minister at the coming election, in place of Narendra Modi. There cannot be a wilder guess as a shot in darkness. The speculation indicated that the fertile brain did not need even to comprehend the back ground of either. Pranav Mukherji was certainly in political arena for four decades but always as appendage to the power centre and not as independent political star. The Sangh tried to sell as is religious base as political agenda for 13 elections since 1952 but without success. Then any such combination was nothing more than a day dream and neither of them are known to wallow in luxury of day dreams. Mukherji moved closer to Indira Gandhi as junior minister in 1974 as he constituted no danger as being a politician who had no space to stand on his legs in his state or outside or he could earn loyalties of even a single political being. He strived hard to prove his loyalties during the emergency and equally hard to disassociate himself from excesses during 20 months of emergency. He was most conservative and traditional person in his approach to both politics and economy. Hence there was no danger of his emerging with dazzling and bright idea to upset any apple cart. He was hoping to be successor to Indira Gandhi after her assassination but he could not get the post even as interim arrangement till election of a leader of Parliamentary Congress party. The Congress leaders trio had forced the then President Zail Singh to administer oath of office to Rajiv Gandhi without waiting for his election as leader by the party. Pranav Mukherji had to pay a heavy price even for entertaining a hope of the interim post. Rajiv Gandhi shunned him away not only from his cabinet but a year later even from his party. Mukherji went out of his way though unwittingly to expose that he was a lonely person without friends or supporters. His gamble of forming the state party exposed the lack of support and his lonely figure with his pipe in his mouth spending hours in the Central hall of Parliament provided a pathetic picture of his politics. From 1972 to 2009 he never dared to contest the Lok Sabha election from his state or from any constituency outside. He could win one and only time in 2009 as Mamta Bannerji propped him up. Even Sonia Gandhi had preferred Man Mohan Singh to Pranav Mukherji as her nominee in 2004. He proved as a finance minister to be a roadblock economic reforms agenda of the Prime Minister, he sought graceful retirement by adorning the office of the President in 2012. How can such a timid politician venture to be nominee of the Sangh Parivar? However the major question is from where he can get elected from among 501 seats of the Lok Sabha outside Tamilnadu? His getting in from Tamilnadu is next to impossible and the Sangh ensuring his victory from outside in equally difficult. The Sangh cannot ignore Narendra Modi and his ability even after two years campaign to malign his rule as most atrocious event without a positive achievement. The sustained campaign was to establish that NaMo was merely a newspaper tiger and not even a paper tiger. Maligning someone is much easier with greedy media owners always ready to serve any interest for consideration but building someone as a winner is most hazardous task. The wild and baseless guess work floated on social media and its becoming viral without adverse or critical comments provides glimpses of variety of elements. The wild guess presumes that the Sangh wants or is willing to get rid of Narendra Modi as his rule has not enhanced hold of the Sangh. The Sangh is desperate and is u8nable to find an alternate within so it can go on a wild goose chase. In desperation it can choose a person only because he adhered to traditions in his four decades politics. The wild guess also indicates a belief that unfulfilled ambition of Pranav Mukherji can induce him to hold onto any support or offered hand. In other words his political career never had a shine of moral gloss. In short the circulated guesstimates hold Indian politics and Indian politicians is very low grade. The surprise is that they do not hold the Sangh as an organization with pure and moral strength. It is difficult to identify the characters and politics of persons who float such ideas. However close look at ideas, opinions and comments circulated on variety of social media net works give us glimpses of characters of always critical mind, defenders of variety of individuals or ideologies. Most of them failed to make their marks in main field but few of them were also successful but their retirement deprived them opportunities. Few of them are brilliant minds but their brilliance, despite their feet in every camp was the main cause of their failures to get opportunity to put their brilliance to better utilization. They fail to realize that heir brilliance is or rather their habit to out their brilliance on display is the cause of their failures. Few are only observers who enjoy the fun games on social media. But the shot in dark over the visit of the Nagpur establishment by the retired President seeking the retry to get back in political arena was not a fun game. It spoke of very low opinion of various institutions.

प्रेस विज्ञप्ति

मूंग और उड़द को भावांतर योजना में शामिल करने की मांग नई दिल्ली 17 जून। मध्यप्रदेश के मुख्यमंत्री शिवराज सिंह चौहान ने केन्द्रीय कृषि मंत्री राधा मोहन सिंह से उनके कार्यालय में मुलाकात कर चना, मसूर और सरसों को प्राइस सपोर्ट स्कीम में रबी विपणन के लिए दिये गये सहयोग के लिए धन्यवाद दिया। जिसके कारण मध्यप्रदेश में अब तक का सबसे बड़ा दलहन उत्पादन संभव हो सका है। श्री चौहान ने केन्द्रीय मंत्री को प्रदेश में फसलों के जबरदस्त उत्पादन के बारे में जानकारी दी और खरीदी की सीमा को 50 हजार मीट्रिक टन और बढ़ाने का अनुरोध किया। केन्द्रीय मंत्री राधामोहन सिंह ने मुख्यमंत्री के अनुरोध पर खरीदी की सीमा को बढ़ाकर 17 लाख मीट्रिक टन करने का आश्वासन दिया। श्री चौहान ने बताया कि नेफेड से 05 हजार करोड़ की राशि अपेक्षित है। उन्होंने आग्रह किया कि इसे शीघ्र जारी करवाया जाय क्योंकि उपार्जन कार्य होने के उपरांत किसानों को समय पर राशि नहीं मिलने पर किसानों में आक्रोश की स्थिति उत्पन्न हो रही है। श्री चौहान ने कृषि मंत्री से ग्रीष्मकालीन मूंग का 100 लाख मीट्रिक टन और ग्रीष्मकालीन उड़द का 20 हजार मीट्रिक टन उपार्जन के लिए लक्ष्य तत्काल प्रदान किये जाने का अनुरोध किया। उन्होंने कहा कि भावांतर भुगतान योजना के अंतर्गत ग्रीष्मकालीन मूंग और ग्रीष्मकालीन उड़द उपार्जन को भी इस योजना के अंतर्गत शामिल किया जाय और उक्त योजना के अंतर्गत भुगतान के व्यय की राशि को 50 प्रतिशत राज्यांश तथा 50 प्रतिशत केन्द्रांश की मांग की। इसके साथ ही चौहान ने केन्द्रीय मंत्री को 23 जून से 06 जुलाई तक होने वाले विकास पर्व समारोह में आमंत्रित किया।

सुबह-सवेरे अखबार में

My Perspective

Vijay Sanghvi विजय संघवी पिछली सदी के आखिरी तीन दशकों में अपनी प्रतिष्ठित पत्रकारिता के लिए जाने जाते हैं। अभी वे साप्ताहिक स्तंभ लिखते हैं..गुजराती मिड डे के राजनीतिक संपादक रहे संघवी का प्रस्तुत है यह आलेख.. Dr, Shyama Prasad Mookherjee had to struggle hard to convince the Sangh chief Guru Madhav Golwalakar to allow him to set up the political wing of the Sangh to carry on the struggle in legislative wings of the political structure of India. The Jan Sangh was able to participate in the electoral politics since 1952. Even though so called Hindu constituted 80 per cent, the share to the Jan Sangh in vote could barely reach 8 per cent mark. The young and emerging star Atal Behari Vajpayee argued vociferously in 1966 that due to attitude of the party leadership it could not find its place in main stream opposition but was treated as untouchable. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya then the supreme leader desired to maintain its pure status for the fear that getting in power seat anyhow and somehow would dilute the character of party and unleash trend of compromises for power. Vajpayee won the argument and the Jan Sangh became a partner in coalition government in some states. Share in power exposed the horizontal split in the party. The central leadership was driving to enlarge its spread but state leaders were eager to immediately implement the Sangh philosophy in spheres that came under their control. The same malaise afflicted the state government in states that came as share to the Jan Sangh faction after the 1977 state elections. It provided excuse to prematurely wind up the Janata Party experiment. From the ashes of experiment emerged Bharatiya Janata Party in April 1980. It hoped to be Phoenix but could not. It discarded the Sangh umbrella to present itself a secular alternate to the Congress. It sought credibility by shunning not only the Sangh but also every symbol and sign that were associated with its earlier incarnation. As Vajpayee remarked in the first BJP convention at Hyderabad in 1983,”we are a collection of several heads with legs missing.” The Sangh had refused to lend its election machinery for the 1984 election to reduce the new party to mere two members, both from outside its citadel in the Hindi belt. After debacle in the Kashmir assembly, the BJP leadership crawled with tail between two hind legs before the Sangh Parivar. The Sangh accept its role as mentor or rather BJP as its political wing. It took almost seven years in pushing to back burners the controversial and religion related agenda, to emerge as leader o the coalition around the BJP as a lead partner in 1998. Ambition of Jaylalitha to be the Prime Minister brought down the government in 1999 April. The election of 1999 also saw end of the Gandhi family influence as Sonia Gandhi could gain only 113 seats. Vajpayee had a better rapport with the Muslim minds. He was carried on shoulders by Mumbai Muslims through the Bhendi bazaar, predominantly Muslim locality in 1978 after his return from Pakistan. The elation was caused by his proposals for normalization of relations as the foreign minister when he was in Pakistan. He displayed his dream of better relations with Pakistan by his peace yatra in bus to Lahore and then invited the military ruler of Pakistan Gen. Parvez Musharraf to peace summit at Agra. The Sangh did not approve his move and Musharraf went back with unsigned agreement papers. The chances of his return to power in 2004 were marred by the hasty move of the then party chief Venkaiya Naidu in his enthusiasm to put his accolade Lal Krishna Advani at level with Vajpayee. The hasty and premature elevation of Advani raised a scare crow for the Muslim minds to stay away from Vajpayee despite his personal appeal and offerings for better deal to the Muslims. Even many Hindu groups also rejected Advani in 2009 for they were not enamoured by prospects of the decisive leader taking over. The BJP had gained 172 seats in 1999. Number came down to 138 in 2004 and to 116 in 2009 to indicate the progressive decline. The party and the Sangh were in despair in 2013 for prospects did not hold high hopes. The chief minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi virtually offered to lead the party. NO capable head was available in the national galaxy of the party who could improve the previous tally. The rising crescendo for NaMo caused fears that the party night split if he, though a non Brahmin was not accepted. NaMo had realized, perhaps, though he never shared his thoughts with anyone that the traditional agenda had proved to win minds and votes of large sections. The electorate was constituted with major portion of educated, literate and ambitious third generation since Independence. Their religion was the economic prosperity and not a degenerated philosophy of great Indian culture. Seven centuries and 21 generations have given a new Indian culture. It was not possible to force Indian youth to walk backwards to reach and attain that had become archaic. They would not want to go back to the era that refused to recogise them as equal human beings. He enforced change in agenda with new priorities that relegated the old concepts to the bottom in the thought process. The Sangh had no alternative but to allow him to amuse as the Sangh could not believe it could work miracle of gaining a clear mandate for the BJP symbol for the first time. The past failures were too glaring. A non Brahmin had delivered unprecedented result. The Sangh hope was belied that he would return to old path. In the expectation of the Sangh and action of NaMo as the Prime minister for drive to deliver his electoral promise was written the script of conflicts. The grand success of NaMo proved beyond doubt the cultural transformation of India as in case of other cultures in the world where the economic considerations ruled over all other ambitions, needs and demands. Indian culture has always been democratic in structure and liberal in attitude with nature ingrained tolerance for all other faiths. In absence of it, several religions and thousands of different sects, panth and sampradaya could not have survived. All other aggressors were assimilated in Indian culture even though they were aliens like the Islam. India has not seen fights of faiths as in other parts. Then why divide Indian society to isolate the Muslims and crush ego of the OBCs and the Dalits by throwing crumbs at them? Divide society and rule has been the cardinal principle for alien rules. Hen why divide Indians the way it is sought to divide them? Why road block when NaMo calls for all together for all.

बिंदेश्वर पाठक को प्रतिष्ठित निक्की एशिया सम्मान

टोकियो, 13 जून। जाने-माने भारतीय सामाजिक कार्यकर्ता और सुलभ शौचालय जैसी सस्ती तकनीक के जनक डॉ. बिंदेश्वर पाठक को यहां इस साल के प्रतिष्ठित निक्की एशिया पुरस्कार से सम्मानित किया गया है। उन्हें यह पुरस्कार संस्कृति और समुदाय श्रेणी के लिए दिया गया। जापान का प्रतिष्ठित निक्की-एशिया पुरस्कार एशिया की उन हस्तियों और संगठनों को दिया जाता है, जिन्होंने लोगों के सामुदायिक जिंदगी में क्रांतिकारी और सकारात्मक बदलाव लाने में बड़ी भूमिका निभाई है। 1996 में निक्की इंडस्ट्री द्वारा स्थापित यह पुरस्करार एशिया में क्षेत्रीय विकास, विज्ञान, तकनीक और नवाचार के साथ ही संस्कृति और समुदाय की श्रेणी में उल्लेखनीय योगदान के लिए दिया जाता है। भारत से पूर्व प्रधानमंत्री डॉक्टर मनमोहन सिंह और इन्फोसिस के चेयरमैन एन आर नारायणमूर्ति इस पुरस्कार से पहले सम्मानित हो चुके हैं। निक्की इंडस्ट्रीज ने अपने जापानी भाषा के अपने अखबार की 120वीं सालगिरह पर 1996 में इस पुरस्कार की स्थापना की थी। यह कंपनी जापान के प्रमुख आर्थिक अखबार का प्रकाशन करती है। जिसके अंग्रेजी और चीनी भाषा में भी संस्करण हैं। सुलभ इंटरनेशल के संस्थापक को आज सुबह यह सम्मान निक्की इंडस्ट्रीज के प्रेसिडेंट नाओतोशी ओकादा ने दिया। सम्मान की घोषणा करते हुए सम्मान समिति के अध्यक्ष फुजियो मितराई ने कहा कि डॉक्टर पाठक को यह सम्मान उनके देश की दो बड़ी चुनौतियों खराब साफ-सफाई व्यवस्था और भेदभाव की चुनौती का मुकाबला करने के लिए दिया जा रहा है। डॉक्टर पाठक के साथ चीन के पर्यावरण विद् मा जून को जहां इंटरनेट के जरिए सफाई व्यवस्था को सुधारने के लिए सम्मानित किया गया, वहीं वियतनाम के प्रोफेसर न्ग्यें थान लीम को विज्ञान और तकनीकी श्रेणी में बच्चों के लिए सस्ती दवाओं के विकास के लिए दिया गया। गौरतलब है कि डॉ पाठक ने दो गड्ढों वाले फ्लश और पर्यावरण अनुकूल कम्पोस्ट बनाने वाले सुलभ शौचालय का आविष्कार किया है। जिसने विकासशील दुनिया के करोड़ों लोगों की जिंदगी में बड़ा बदलाव लाने में बड़ी भूमिका निभाई है। इसके साथ ही इसने ग्रामीण महिलाओं और हाथ से मैला सफाई करने वाली जिंदगी में भी सकारात्मक बदलाव लाने में भूमिका निभाई है। एशिया-प्रशांत क्षेत्र के विशेषज्ञ इस पुरस्कार के लिए अपनी तरफ से नामांकन दाखिल करते हैं। हालांकि वे स्वयं अपना नामांकन नहीं दाखिल कर सकते। इस पुरस्कार के लिए जापानी नागरिक और संगठन अपना नामांकन नहीं दे सकते। डॉ पाठक ने यह पुरस्कार समाज के उस कमजोर वर्ग को समर्पित किया जिसकी बेहतरी के लिए वे पांच दशकों से अधिक समय से अभियान चला रहे हैं। उन्होंने कहा, "यह पुरस्कार विशेष रूप से एशिया में समाज की सेवा के प्रति मेरी प्रतिबद्धता में एक और मील का पत्थर साबित होगा।"

नवभारत टाइम्स में