A Sad Day for Puducherry

Puducherry’s wonderful Lieutenant Governor, Govind Singh Gurjar, died yesterday of a heart attack. This is a tragic day. To understand just how awful — in its civic dimension, and not just on a personal level — consider how impossibly rare it is for an Indian politician to be plausibly garlanded with the epithet “wonderful”.

In a system where corruption, narcissism, laziness, ignorance, and incompetence are the sine qua non of political life, Govind Singh Gurjar was an astonishment: a politician whose greatest joy seemed to be doing well for the people in whose trust he served. He worked tirelessly to understand the nuance and complexity of the issues before him and, having decided on a course of action, would set the machinery of his administration in motion without temporizing. In the venal cesspool of Pondicherry government, the LG had but one aim: to help the Union Territory fulfill its obvious, abundant promise. Sadly, he leaves us at a time when that objective looks to be effectively, and perhaps irrevocably, snuffed by the greed and thoughtlessness of political-business-as-usual.

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Let Me Run This by My Accountant

I was among those invited last week to the Raj Nivas by the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry, His Excellency Govind Singh Gurjar, to discuss new initiatives for creating environmentally sustainable growth in the Pondicherry region. After the meeting, the LG greeted me warmly and teased, “So, are you an Indian citizen yet?”

“Excellency,” I smiled, “I cannot begin to imagine the bureaucracy involved with attempting to become a citizen. I cannot even manage to get a PAN card issued so that I can pay my income taxes.”

“You don’t need a PAN card!” he lightly chided me. “I will give you my PAN card and you can pay my taxes.”

The People Fight Back

Yesterday was a good day for democracy in Pondicherry. The people took to the streets to protest a government which, time-and-again, deftly protects the private interests of its corrupt officials, disregards the public good, and holds itself to be above the law.

The issue concerns the ongoing battle over the illegal concession given to a private developer by former Chief Secretary Khairwal and Minister Valsaraj to build a huge port complex in the heart of this tiny heritage town, and the vast environmental, economic, and social devastation this development will cause.