If the government becomes the lawbreaker!
Monday, 14 September 2009
Gopal Sengupta
The Indian Foreign Minister and his Junior had to quit five star hotels in New Delhi respectively over a controversy on their costly living. The two Indian ministers had spent 0.1 million (1.0 lakh) Indian rupees each daily for three months for their accommodation in the prestigious Indian hotels where US President Clinton and George W Bush had once stayed.
Earlier Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee publicly urged Krishna and Shashi Tharoor to vacate their luxurious accommodations in the hotels as it was contrary to their election pledge to go austere. They were politely requested to live in Kerala House in Delhi. They were both elected from Kerala and Karnataka states respectively to Indian Parliament. The two Indian ministers had to move to new accommodations at the request of Pranab Mukherjee following a media report that they were living in five star hotels. Both the ministers claimed that they were paying for the hotel accommodations from their own pockets. Reports had it Krishna had moved to Foreign Service Institute Guest House while Tharoor had shifted to the Indian Navy Guest House. The Indian External Ministry has a guest block in the Hyderabad House, once known as the Nizam's palace in New Delhi.
The state-level bilateral talks and international conferences of repute are held in the Hyderabad House. The recently held bilateral talks at the foreign minister level between India and Bangladesh were held in the Hyderabad House, where Krishna and Tharoor deemed to be the key players.
Pranab Mukherjee cracked the whip on his Cabinet colleagues following widespread media criticism on their grand living. A newspaper in Delhi pointed out how can the two ministers spend lakhs of rupees per day to live in five star hotels when they earn just thousands in a month. The Prime Minister should probe about their three-month stay in five star hotels. It was speculated who were they - the government or some private functionaries- that are financing their stay in the hotels. The questions were raised how an Indian minister earning only thousands per month can spend lakhs of rupees per day from their pockets for more than three long months. What prompted Pranab to ask Krishna and Tharoor to quit their five-star living accommodation? Another media report said, how silly a minister can be that he lives in a five star hotel only because he needs a gym and privacy daily. Another news channel claims that such thing is happening in India when farmers in Uttar Pradesh are selling their wives to live another day.
The government has taken its austerity drive so much to heart that it has decided not only to keep a sharp eye on the public wallet but also on private ones. So, the Minister for External Affairs SM Krishna and his deputy Shashi Tharoor, who had both been staying in five-star accommodation at their own expense in the Capital, pending the renovation of their new homes, have been ordered to pack up and move to more modest surroundings. This extraordinary show of parsimoniousness, articulated by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, would suggest that the State is otherwise scrimping on expenses. Indians can understand the outrage and this peremptory order to shift base were Mr Tharoor and Mr Krishna living off the fat of the land. But no, they were coughing up from their own resources. Now if someone wants to splash out a bit to get on with his work, why should the government get so hot behind the collar? If indeed austerity begins at home, their ministers should not be living in tony Lutyens' Delhi at all. At a time when Brand India is being assiduously built, it might look a little off-colour to cramp visiting delegations and dignitaries into down-at-heel premises.
If India is to be seen as a potential great power, surely they have far more pressing things to do than look into what ministers are doing with their private money. This gesture suggests that Indians still have to shake off their tired, old shibboleths that they must be seen to be renunciatory in public life. It may have worked for the Mahatma, but as Sarojini Naidu famously remarked, it cost the nation millions to keep Gandhi living in poverty.
But our Bangladesh government teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto him/herself; it invites anarchy. The most tragic paradox of our time is to be found in the failure of nation-states to recognise the imperatives of internationalism.
The writer can be reached at e- mail: gopalsengupta@aol.com
The Indian Foreign Minister and his Junior had to quit five star hotels in New Delhi respectively over a controversy on their costly living. The two Indian ministers had spent 0.1 million (1.0 lakh) Indian rupees each daily for three months for their accommodation in the prestigious Indian hotels where US President Clinton and George W Bush had once stayed.
Earlier Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee publicly urged Krishna and Shashi Tharoor to vacate their luxurious accommodations in the hotels as it was contrary to their election pledge to go austere. They were politely requested to live in Kerala House in Delhi. They were both elected from Kerala and Karnataka states respectively to Indian Parliament. The two Indian ministers had to move to new accommodations at the request of Pranab Mukherjee following a media report that they were living in five star hotels. Both the ministers claimed that they were paying for the hotel accommodations from their own pockets. Reports had it Krishna had moved to Foreign Service Institute Guest House while Tharoor had shifted to the Indian Navy Guest House. The Indian External Ministry has a guest block in the Hyderabad House, once known as the Nizam's palace in New Delhi.
The state-level bilateral talks and international conferences of repute are held in the Hyderabad House. The recently held bilateral talks at the foreign minister level between India and Bangladesh were held in the Hyderabad House, where Krishna and Tharoor deemed to be the key players.
Pranab Mukherjee cracked the whip on his Cabinet colleagues following widespread media criticism on their grand living. A newspaper in Delhi pointed out how can the two ministers spend lakhs of rupees per day to live in five star hotels when they earn just thousands in a month. The Prime Minister should probe about their three-month stay in five star hotels. It was speculated who were they - the government or some private functionaries- that are financing their stay in the hotels. The questions were raised how an Indian minister earning only thousands per month can spend lakhs of rupees per day from their pockets for more than three long months. What prompted Pranab to ask Krishna and Tharoor to quit their five-star living accommodation? Another media report said, how silly a minister can be that he lives in a five star hotel only because he needs a gym and privacy daily. Another news channel claims that such thing is happening in India when farmers in Uttar Pradesh are selling their wives to live another day.
The government has taken its austerity drive so much to heart that it has decided not only to keep a sharp eye on the public wallet but also on private ones. So, the Minister for External Affairs SM Krishna and his deputy Shashi Tharoor, who had both been staying in five-star accommodation at their own expense in the Capital, pending the renovation of their new homes, have been ordered to pack up and move to more modest surroundings. This extraordinary show of parsimoniousness, articulated by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, would suggest that the State is otherwise scrimping on expenses. Indians can understand the outrage and this peremptory order to shift base were Mr Tharoor and Mr Krishna living off the fat of the land. But no, they were coughing up from their own resources. Now if someone wants to splash out a bit to get on with his work, why should the government get so hot behind the collar? If indeed austerity begins at home, their ministers should not be living in tony Lutyens' Delhi at all. At a time when Brand India is being assiduously built, it might look a little off-colour to cramp visiting delegations and dignitaries into down-at-heel premises.
If India is to be seen as a potential great power, surely they have far more pressing things to do than look into what ministers are doing with their private money. This gesture suggests that Indians still have to shake off their tired, old shibboleths that they must be seen to be renunciatory in public life. It may have worked for the Mahatma, but as Sarojini Naidu famously remarked, it cost the nation millions to keep Gandhi living in poverty.
But our Bangladesh government teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto him/herself; it invites anarchy. The most tragic paradox of our time is to be found in the failure of nation-states to recognise the imperatives of internationalism.
The writer can be reached at e- mail: gopalsengupta@aol.com