Ranjit Sinha - Namak Haraam

King Henry II of England and Thomas Beckett were good friends. They were even “drinking club” friends. When Beckett was appointed Chancellor he did everything that the King desired, even taxed the Church. The King even had Beckett playing foster-father to his sons. The King was constantly in conflict with the Church and wanted the Royalty be supreme over the Church. To settle the conflict and gain supremacy he appointed his best friend Beckett as the Archbishop of Canterbury. That’s when things went wrong. Once he became Archbishop, Beckett turned pious and refused to oblige and sign any agreements that would establish the supremacy of the King over the Church. Beckett is reported to have started penance for his earlier sins. He refused to break with the Pope in Rome. Beckett was murdered in 1170, presumably under orders of Henry II, and was later bestowed Sainthood by the Pope. Beckett’s story became famous through T.S. Elliot’s “Murder in the cathedral” and partly referenced in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury tales”.

When Ranjit Sinha (RS) was appointed CBI Director last year there were protests from the leaders of the Opposition, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley. They had apprehensions that he was another puppet who would do the bidding of Sonia Gandhi & Co. Their suspicion was justified considering RS had a record of being servantile and his record also had some minor blemishes. But when a person assumes a certain office he brings his own story and burden to bear on it. Not many newspapers or TV channels have narrated this story but OpenMagazine has found a genuine explanation for the twin stories that culminated in the destruction of Pawan Kumar Bansal and Ashwani Kumar. We’ll get to that. In the meantime, let’s hear some familiar nonsense about who’s to blame for the last Parliament session washout.

It has been a tradition now in our media to blame the Opposition, in particular the BJP, for the Parliament blockades and washout of sessions. The media morons believe, like they do on their TV channels, that everything can be sorted out with a debate. My answer is a clear NO. You cannot debate obvious crimes. When the Parliament was blocked for the 2G issue the same media cried themselves hoarse blaming the opposition. The end result was a farcical JPC whose chairman was in a rush to distribute clean chits. The tweets of the Numero Uno and Numero Unee are reflective of this culture on TV where they believe parliament sessions are the only way to sort out crimes. This is an argument the Congress offers to gain time and prevent action on crimes. Democracy exists far beyond the walls of parliament and we have seen time and again that parliament is incompetent in dealing with criminals. They can only make laws, nothing more. In this case too CNN-IBN and it’s govt foot-soldiers blamed the BJP only to turn turtle in the next few days.

What Ashwani Kumar did was a serious crime which is being played down by the Congress and the media. His role was one of obstruction of justice and protecting people who may have the potential of being indicted by a court in the massive Coalgate scam. The Opposition is right in stalling the parliament where the Congress sought to divert all the issues by bringing in some bogus Food Security Bill with elections in mind and then accused other parties of being “anti-poor” because they stalled parliament. This dubious conduct by the Congress is now familiar to all. All, except our specialists in the media. The Congress, as usual, claimed the SC had not pronounced any verdict and there was an inquiry against Bansal. Nonsense! The SC observations on the doctored Coalgate affidavit is enough for the PM to be sacked. And Bansal? He wasn’t sacked because Sonia Gandhi had an attack of conscience as we came to learn. But in just over a week, Pallavi Ghosh meekly tweets that Congress was to blame for Parliament washout which ridicules the propaganda of her own bosses.

SoniaG reportedly rushed to PM’s residence on May 10 to seek the sacking of Bansal and Kumar. She created all the drama for the media to show how strongly she acts against corruption. Her phones were probably so dead that she had to rush to 7RCR. Nonsense again! It turns out that the tapes in which Bansal was pimping for railway appointments and distributing the loot was out with some in the media and so possibly also with the Congress boss. Kanchan Gupta indicates what exactly could have been the contents of the bribery tapes. It’s like when you’re finally clean-bowled in Cricket and even the third umpire can’t save you if it isn’t a no-ball. That’s when it dawned upon Sonia Gandhi that the damage in retaining Bansal could be far more severe than the Congress anticipated. So while at it, the Congress made both ministers go since AshwaniK would have to go anyway at some point of time. Better hurt now than later. That’s a good choice. But if knowing all this the PM and SoniaG were against sacking Bansal earlier it speaks of monumental dishonesty. All the editors in the media who kept giving MMS a certificate of “honesty” must hang their heads in shame.

In all of this can the lady who is now haunting Pakistan be left out of her own 2 cents of special intelligence? Absolutely not! So there you go, there’s Barkha Dutt telling us about the “Punjabi” conspiracy of some sort. What Open Magazine, which is far more reliable than Barkha, tells us is that an aspirant to the post of Law Minister leaked out information of AshwaniK’s meddling with the CBI affidavit. I don’t think we need the CIA to infer that OpenMag is referring to zero loss. The leak being a done job, there was no way Ranjit Sinha could escape admitting the facts in the SC of the affidavit. He had an added incentive. OpenMag reports AshwaniK was harsh on him and even humiliated him with rude comments on Ranjit’s poor knowledge of English. You see, in India, it is better to be an English Laloo like Salman Khurshid or Shashi Tharoor than a desi CBI director. In short, AshwaniK and the PM’s cohorts gangraped the CBI affidavit and left it a poor survivor to be sent to a hospital.

In the case of Bansal, RS had an old score to settle. It seems Mahesh Kumar, the 10Crore briber who was in the Rail business earlier too, had shunted him out to unattractive posts in the past. So without anyone asking him or any govt advising the CBI, RS started a special watch on Mahesh Kumar and poor Pawan Bansal was caught with his monkey-hand grabbing peanuts from the trap, just like that lady in Radiagate. Conversations were taped over months and even the sacrificial Goat that Bansal used in a puja in the end couldn’t save him. Unwittingly, Ranjit Sinha has become the saviour of CBI and may finally be the man to save it from the evil clutches of the most corrupt govt ever in the history of India. Ranjit Sinha became Thomas Beckett. RS also finally managed to put some fear into the hearts of politicians. He also proved there is no need for the Jokepal, a strong, independent CBI and Judiciary is quite adequate to deal with corruption.

The Congress and some of its allies in the UPA have spawned such a culture of corruption and brazen loot that every joker has started believing he has a “Right To Loot”. Whether it’s Bansal, Ashwani, Marans, Kripashankars or the whole gang of UPA. This doesn’t happen if there is zero tolerance for corruption. This happens only when the whole gang gets a clear signal that looting is okay as long as the Mafia is paid its due. This is what the UPA has been reduced to. And this birthright to corruption doesn’t end with politicians it also extends to the news media who keep lying through their nose to protect their corrupt masters. SoniaG has given a clear signal through Shashi Tharoor and Abhishek Singhvi that if you’re tainted just take a chill-pill, spend some time taking a vacation. You will be back quite soon. If banks are money-laundering as Cobrapost suggests it is surely not without approval and a guarantee of protection.

The Congress appointed Ranjit Sinha with the belief he will be another puppet and be loyal to the Queen and her coterie. The story has gone terribly wrong. The Beckett story was made into a movie. The same movie was adapted and remade in Bollywood – it was called “Namak Haraam” (featuring Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan). In both movies the “namak haraam” dies. I have no doubts that Ranjit Sinha is going to be called a ‘namak haraam’ in Congress and media circles. One just hopes he doesn’t meet the same fate.