Outlook brings to you a new series Bibliofile - where we talk about everything related to books, authors and publishers. In this week’s video, Outlook's political editor Bhavna_Vij speaks to former MP PandaJay about his new book Lutyens' Maverick. Rupa_Books
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00:00 Anything to do with reservations will always have a political impact.
00:13 Hello I am Bhavna Vijarora, political editor of the Outlook magazine.
00:17 Today we are going to talk to Mr. Jay Panda.
00:20 He is the former MP from Kendra Pada in Odisha.
00:23 Former I say not because he has been defeated or anything, because he chose to quit the
00:27 party, the party from which he was elected, the Biju Janata Dal, and he resigned from
00:33 the Lok Sabha.
00:34 And now he is out waiting for his next move.
00:38 There was a lot of speculation that he will join the BJP and or that he may just float
00:43 his own party.
00:45 And he has just come out with his own book, the Latvian's Maverick.
00:48 Yes, he is a maverick and we will find out more in conversation with Mr. Panda.
00:52 Good morning Mr. Panda.
00:54 It's nice to have you for the interview for Outlook.
01:00 Thank you.
01:01 You have just come out with your book, Latvian's Maverick.
01:04 Do you think it should have been called just the maverick because you are not just the
01:09 Latvian's maverick, I have realized that it is also Odisha politics from where you belong.
01:14 The reason many people consider me a maverick and in Latvians is that I have had one foot
01:23 in Latvians Delhi for 18 years as a member of parliament, having a role in shaping ideas
01:30 and policies.
01:32 But at the same time, I have spent enormous amounts of time in my constituency, among
01:38 the highest of all my peers, keeping one foot grounded in what is real India.
01:45 Many people think that Latvians is in a bubble, which is typical of capital cities in Washington
01:51 DC, people talk of the beltway crowd, which is disconnected from the rest of the US.
01:57 The other aspect is of course that I have always spoken my mind and within the last
02:03 year, I have taken steps based on self-respect, based on principles without having the safety
02:14 net of alternate arrangements.
02:19 So I think it is an appropriate title.
02:22 Not many people have the courage to do what you have done, just to quit the party, quit
02:26 the design from Lok Sabha without any alternate arrangement like you said.
02:30 There was a lot of speculation about you joining the BJP earlier and now it is kind of dying
02:37 down.
02:38 So what exactly is happening on that front?
02:39 It was speculation like you said.
02:42 Some people wrongly and some people I think deliberately tried to give the impression
02:49 that I was disenchanted with the BJP for ulterior motives, that I would join another party
02:56 and get some position.
02:57 I have disproved that because I have spent the last seven months since my resignation
03:01 from party and parliament, not joining any other party but extensively touring Odisha,
03:06 meeting the public, meeting political opinion makers, trying to decide my next course of
03:11 action.
03:12 You know the reality is, I had not joined politics for any position or benefits.
03:20 I had joined it with a mission in mind.
03:23 I was involved with the BJP from its founding and I was very proud of it for many years
03:29 and worked tirelessly to help build its image at the national level.
03:35 And I was very proud of what the BJP and Naveen Patnaik were doing in the initial years in
03:38 Odisha, cracking down hard on corruption and crime.
03:41 All that has changed in the last five years.
03:44 I first spoke internally in the party, didn't get traction, then I was compelled to speak
03:48 out publicly because of the shocking developments in Odisha.
03:52 And of course then...
03:53 Which they constitute as anti-party activities, just because you were talking about it.
03:58 You know I didn't do any anti-party activities at all.
04:00 I tried to get the party to course correct and go back to its original principles and
04:07 actions.
04:08 I'll give you an example.
04:10 Naveen became very popular because he cracked down hard on corruption and crime.
04:15 Many cabinet ministers were dropped for corruption.
04:18 Many senior IAS officers arrested.
04:21 Top business people arrested.
04:23 But what has happened is, if you take crime for instance, the whole nation outrages about
04:29 shocking incidents like what happened in Kathua, in Jammu and Kashmir and Unnao.
04:35 Maybe it is the tyranny of distance.
04:38 You know similar horrific crimes, gang rapes and murders of children, women are happening
04:45 at an astonishing rate in Odisha.
04:47 Three to four every week.
04:49 And not many are getting reported in the national media.
04:52 But those of us who are from Odisha, it would be unconscionable not to speak out about it.
04:58 And as I said, I maintained party discipline.
04:59 I first started speaking inside the party that we need to correct, we need to do what
05:04 we were doing in the early years.
05:06 But there was no traction so I had to speak out openly.
05:09 More than you, probably the BJP wanted you in the party because they don't have a face.
05:14 At least they didn't have, now they are trying to project Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan.
05:18 But they didn't have a face for the party.
05:21 Dharmendra Pradhan is a friend of mine.
05:23 He is a long time BJP member.
05:26 He is serving an important position.
05:30 I will only say this, that wherever I have travelled in Odisha, I have been welcomed
05:37 across the platform.
05:38 In fact, both major national party members from Odisha have publicly praised me and welcomed
05:46 me.
05:47 More than that, when I travel around in the districts, their rank and file and their associated
05:53 sister organisations have all treated me extremely well.
05:57 So that is gratifying.
05:59 But my main concern is that I am not in this for any particular position for myself.
06:05 That could be easily obtained.
06:08 I am more interested in getting back to that original mission of reforming Odisha and taking
06:13 it forward, which we had started off very well in the BJD, which in the last five years
06:18 has gone completely awry.
06:20 So whoever is willing to commit to bringing about change in Odisha, I am willing to align
06:27 with them, whether it be a major national party or a new formation at the regional level.
06:33 It will depend on who is willing to help me fight the crime and corruption in Odisha
06:39 and bring it back on track.
06:41 So now there is talk that you may launch your own party.
06:44 Do you think that is on the anvil?
06:47 Is it a possibility?
06:49 It's one of the options.
06:50 You know, starting a party is not a small task.
06:53 It's not easy.
06:54 It has got a lot of challenges.
06:58 But as I said, look, one of the reasons the BJD has succeeded is that over the past two
07:05 decades it has played the Congress and BJP against each other.
07:09 It has convinced both not to be too aggressive in Odisha.
07:12 It has also convinced the Congress to invest in the other benefit.
07:14 Now it will be hard for me to align with anyone, any national party, who does not want to really
07:21 bring about change in Odisha.
07:23 We are looking at, on the one hand they are saying the right things.
07:26 After I started speaking out, many other of my peers have started speaking out in Odisha,
07:31 including members of the national party.
07:33 But lip service is not enough.
07:35 Unless somebody is willing to actually take this to the logical conclusion, to aggressively
07:42 take up political cudgels against the establishment in Odisha, to take necessary union government
07:49 action, I can't align with anybody who doesn't want real change in Odisha.
07:54 And you have written about reservations also in your book.
07:58 And now again this government has announced 10% reservation for the economically backward.
08:03 Do you think it's going to have an impact on the elections?
08:06 It's about 100 days away now.
08:08 Reservations itself came about because of the need at the time of independence to enfranchise
08:16 millions of our population who had historically suffered discrimination.
08:23 Certain parts of the population for millennia, for centuries had faced discrimination.
08:27 So the reservation system was to create a level playing field for them to get equal
08:33 opportunities.
08:35 Now after 70 years, you have to start comparing.
08:41 There is a distinction even between those who had been historically disenfranchised.
08:45 There are first generation learners, first generation workers in the workforce.
08:51 And today after 70 years, there are those who are third or fourth generation in their
08:57 families who are learners or participants in the workforce.
09:00 So they have to be weighed against each other.
09:04 And you certainly have the phenomenon that people who have not been discriminated, the
09:09 upper castes for instance, historically they have not been discriminated.
09:12 But in today's situation, you have millions of such people who are in poverty, in dire
09:18 poverty and don't have that equal access to opportunities.
09:23 So politically it was a move waiting to happen.
09:27 It has been tried before by Narasimha Rao and it got stymied on constitutional technical
09:35 grounds which this government, from what I saw in the discussion in Parliament, is trying
09:41 to attempt to change and we will have to see whether the constitutional amendment goes
09:45 through or not.
09:46 If it does, it could be quite a game changer in the coming elections.
09:50 You think positively because it's going to have some kind of an impact on the backward
09:55 classes also, though it is not going to eat into their quota of reservation.
10:00 It's too early to say what kind of an impact this will have.
10:03 All I can say is that it will have an impact.
10:06 Now it could fuel some resentment among certain categories as you have just pointed out.
10:12 Although rationally it is possible that the government could sell the idea that this really
10:17 isn't hurting you like you have just pointed out.
10:20 Also it might or might not be enough to motivate those who were feeling left out.
10:29 It's too early to say.
10:30 But it's a complex, you know, to do this at this very end of the term of the government,
10:39 it can be interpreted as a brilliant tactic or it can also be interpreted as desperation.
10:44 I think we will have to wait for three to four months to see what the voters think of
10:47 it.
10:48 So it's a big risk that has been taken by the government?
10:51 It's a big step.
10:52 It could turn out to be a risk worth having played or it could turn out to be a risk that
10:56 has backfired.
10:57 Something like demonetization probably?
10:59 Well that's a very complex issue and this is a big step.
11:05 In your book you also talk about that the country should probably have a presidential
11:09 kind of a system but which may not be possible.
11:12 You know we are the only large and diverse country with a Westminster model of parliamentary
11:16 democracy and this has its own problems because it was designed for a small homogenous country.
11:22 The biggest problem it has, it has many, but the biggest problem it has is that we are
11:25 in a continual cycle of elections.
11:28 There is no other country like India's situation where the ratio of governance to campaigning
11:35 is so low.
11:36 There is almost no time for governance because you are continually campaigning and each state
11:40 election becomes a national referendum.
11:42 This needs to change.
11:44 Now the presidential system would solve it and would solve many of the other problems
11:47 that we have.
11:49 But although I like the idea that large countries should have presidential systems, I have realized
11:55 that it's not practical because today the polity is polarized.
12:00 Now to have a new republic, to have a new constitution, we'd have to have another constituent
12:04 assembly and today there is not that acceptance across the board of eminent personalities
12:10 whom everybody will trust to do the right thing.
12:13 You know I've had debates with Shashi Tharoor and others who argue for a presidential system.
12:17 I agree with the principle as I've just explained.
12:19 What I've explained is that instead of trying to go for a complete revamp of the constitution
12:24 which is not practical, we should try to do a series of fixes where we have problems.
12:30 So for example, I just talked about the continual election cycle.
12:34 So I have provided a solution.
12:37 Not one nation, one election but one nation, two elections.
12:40 Similar to the US system, you have a mid-cycle election and it addresses many of the practical
12:45 problems as to what happens if a state government does not get a majority.
12:49 Then it can't go five years without having a government.
12:52 So it can get aligned to a mid-cycle election with some tweaks here and there.
12:58 How do you see the Lok Sabha elections spanning out?
13:03 I think the election is once again wide open.
13:07 This is different from a year ago.
13:09 A year ago or even eight months ago, the conventional wisdom was that the NDA with Prime Minister
13:14 Modi at its head would definitely come back.
13:17 Now the last year has seen a lot of changes.
13:20 We've seen recent state elections giving out a certain signal.
13:24 The Congress has got much more aggressive.
13:27 Here you have to give credit to Rahul Gandhi's persistence because the Congress has had many
13:31 years of setbacks and he had become the butt of jokes and memes but he has stuck it out.
13:38 And because of his aggression, the Congress has been setting the narrative in the last
13:42 six months.
13:43 That's a factor.
13:45 It's also a factor that regional parties are getting much more active.
13:50 There is a possibility of a coalition coming together on that front.
13:54 These have all led to the, today the election is wide open.
13:58 But nobody should rule out Prime Minister Modi because he is a gifted communicator,
14:03 the best in a generation.
14:06 And it's still four months to go for the elections.
14:08 So I think it depends as to what he or what the other major opposition political leaders
14:13 do that will determine what happens in April and May.
14:17 And BJP also has the advantage of being in the government so they can come out with more
14:24 schemes like UPA did in 2009 when they were low in favour.
14:26 But incumbency has its own challenges also.
14:32 If you can come out with policy moves that are seen as real, it can benefit.
14:39 If you come out with policy moves that are seen as cynical just for the election, it
14:43 could backfire.
14:45 And incumbency has traditionally not been an advantage in India for at least 30 years.
14:51 So I think we have to see both sides of the equation.
14:55 What do you think of the political discourse?
14:56 I mean, you said the Congress has become aggressive and they've been setting the agenda in the
15:01 sense they've been forcing the government to respond.
15:04 They've been saying, "OK, Rafale, so the government has been forced to come out and
15:08 explain and defend itself and everything."
15:10 So they've been put on the back foot, so to say.
15:13 But in the process, do you think the political discourse has really gone down too low the
15:17 last few months?
15:18 It has.
15:19 I think it's become much more of a fish market with what we call in Hindi, "Tu tu me me."
15:29 You know, the government, for example, on the Rafale debate, both Finance Minister Jaitley
15:34 and Defence Minister Sitaraman, I thought acquitted themselves very well.
15:37 I thought they addressed the allegations very competently.
15:41 So it's going to be an interesting election this time?
15:44 I think it's going to be an interesting election.
15:47 And I think we are up for a very exciting political season in the next three to four
15:52 months.
15:53 And we are waiting for your next move too?
15:54 Very shortly.
15:55 I'm in the final stages of deciding.
15:58 As you know, although I have been in national politics, I am elected by the people of Odisha.
16:05 I will have to be guided primarily by the conditions in Odisha.
16:10 And the people in Odisha have been asking me to take a decision.
16:15 They have a right to know.
16:17 I will decide very shortly.
16:18 Thank you.
16:19 Thank you.
16:19 Thank you.