A curious feature of the species homo sapiens indicus is that it is unable or unwilling to make the connection between wasteful government expenditure and persistent shortages of food, clothing, shelter, education, healthcare, infrastructure — and all the basic necessities which would make life more comfortable and enriching for the patient and long-suffering citizens of this perennially short-changed republic. The significance of the term ‘revenue deficit’ seems to have comprehensively escaped the collective attention of the media and other pundits. In effect it means that despite collecting a massive Rs.345,971 crore from citizens by way of taxes in 2006-07, the Union government’s establishment or ‘current’ expenditure (Rs.506,767 crore) by far exceeded this amount.

A striking example of the utter waste of time and money which is characteristic of government was provided by the fleeting visit of prime minister Manmohan Singh and two of his ministers (Sharad Pawar and P. Chidambaram) to Bangalore on August 3. For mysterious reasons the prime minister’s convoy from the airport and back comprised 22 motor cars. And since his cabinet colleagues were also with him, the motorcade ballooned to 45 vehicles.

To ensure smooth passage to this cavalcade, all motorised traffic between the airport and the governor’s palatial residence — a distance of some 15 km — was blocked by 377 police personnel between 11 a.m and 12:15 a.m and 5.30-7.30 p.m in the evening. Assuming each official motor car consumed 5 litres of petrol on that day, the taxpayers petrol bill for the PM’s 12 hour visit was Rs.11,376 with petrol (which costs Rs.19 to deliver at the pump) priced at Rs.50.56 per litre in Bangalore. And the cost to the economy of four hours work and output of the 2 million work force of the city lost? Don’t ask, it’s too mind boggling.

Meanwhile according to a reply in the Karnataka legislative assembly to an enquiry filed under the Right to Information Act, 2006, the state’s chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, who finds travelling in motorcades too tedious, has run up a helicopter travel bill of Rs.2.83 crore in a matter of six-eight months. Now you know why there are no toilets in 16,506 primary schools in Karnataka, and chronic shortages of drugs and formulations in primary health care centres.

Commissars in glass houses

According to the historian Talleyrand (1754-1838), although they forgot nothing, the Bourbon kings of France learned nothing (from their mistakes). Ditto the commissars of India’s two communist parties — the CPI and CPI-M — which over the issue of the Indo-US nuclear cooperation treaty have precipitated a national crisis which could result in the Congess-led UPA coalition government in Delhi being voted out of office in the near future.

While to the entire nation it’s as plain as a pikestaff that the comrade commissars of the CPI and CPM have a pathological aversion to the US — probably rooted in bitter jealousy because democratic US is flourishing while the communist Soviet Union from whom they derived inspiration and more, is history — what they haven’t learnt is the danger of playing the sovereignty card when they have so many skeletons in their cupboards.

It is pertinent to bear in mind that on the orders from Moscow of Comrade Josef Stalin in 1942, the then undivided CPI opposed the anti-British Quit India movement called by Mahatma Gandhi because Britain was allied with the Soviet Union in the war against Nazi Germany. Again in 1962 during the Indo-China border war, a faction within the CPI took a pro-China stand proclaiming “China’s chairman is our chairman”. This faction split the CPI and broke away to form the CPM. Moreover after the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Iron Curtain, the Mitrokin papers from Soviet archives have revealed that the CPI and CPM had been heavily funded by Moscow for almost half a century.

Consequently it took a mere suggestion of Delhi-based Congress strategist and media adviser Rajiv Desai writing in the Times of India (August 21) that the communist parties are opposing the Indo-US treaty on orders of the ruling regime in communist China, for the CPI-CPM combine to suffer a massive countrywide loss of credibility and prestige.

Now with the seed of communist perfidy having been planted in the collective national mindset, the comrades are running for cover as all opinion polls suggest that the communist parties will be the biggest losers in a mid-term poll. Quite obviously the commissars of the CPI and CPM need some history lessons as also to become aware that they live in very glassy houses.

Crossfire victim

In the tussle for dominance of the showpiece All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi — India’s premier teaching and research hospital — between Union health minister A. Ramadoss and the institute’s director P. Venugopal, the reputation of AIIMS is going from bad to worse. Since August 27, resident doctors of AIIMS are on strike over the issue of the minister (also ex offico president of the institute) not having signed the degree certificates of 700 AIIMS graduates for over 18 months.

At the root of the stand-off between Ramadoss and Venugopal are differences over the issue of an anti-OBC reservation stir staged by AIIMS doctors last year. Ramadoss, a representative of the powerful PMK party which (together with DMK) rules Tamil Nadu, supports the additional 27 percent quota for OBCs in Central government institutions of education, while Venugopal is reportedly with the AIIMS doctors on this issue. On July 5, 2006 Ramadoss had dismissed Venugopal from his position as director. But he was reinstated by the Delhi high court three days later.

The reputation of AIIMS apart, another individual who has been singed by the Ramadoss-Venugopal struggle to control AIIMS is Dr. S.K.Thorat, chairman of the University Grants Commission. The AIIMS Faculty Association has filed a writ petition against Thorat for submitting a “hurried” and “biased” report to endorse Ramadoss’ allegation that there is widespread caste discrimination in AIIMS.

With its top administrators divided into warring camps, students on the warpath and thousands of poor patients who throng the institute daily for free medical treatment bitter and frustrated about frequent strikes by doctors, the reputation of AIIMS — India’s most respected medical school according to most opinion polls — is in a tail spin.

Sic transit gloria.