P A G E
Wednesday, December 16, 1998
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Wednesday, December 16, 1998 |
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J&K:
G.M. Shah's scheme
TOP
MILITARY POSTINGS |
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Using
media as “force multiplier”
Call
of conscience
Kenya
and Bombay Council |
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J&K: G.M. Shah's scheme MR G.M. Shah, a former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, is again in the news. He has come out with a scheme which should be quite unnerving for his brother-in-law, Dr Farooq Abdullah. Mr Shah did not announce it in so many words at Saturday's convention of his party, the Awami National Conference, in Srinagar. But what he said in front of his party workers makes one believe that the wily son-in-law of the late Sheikh Abdullah has resurfaced to strike the iron when it is really hot. He knows that there is much resentment among the people against the Farooq Abdullah government for its failure to come up to their expectations. The people of J&K generally believed that with the coming to power of Dr Farooq Abdullah, their economic worries would be less severe, as the wheels of the state's economy would move at the normal speed. There would be more job opportunities which might, in the process, take the sting out of the designs of the militants. This has not happened. It is a different matter that the Centre too is to blame for the growing disenchantment among the people against the National Conference government, as the coalition ministry in Delhi has been delaying funds to finance development projects in Jammu and Kashmir. The state's anti-insurgency plan is also getting a lacklustre backing from the Centre. But the common man in J & K is not interested in such details. If he does not find enough avenues to earn his livelihood, or his life and property continue to be unsafe, he will hold the government of the day responsible for it. Thus, Mr G.M. Shah could
not find a better opportunity to re-activate his party to
wrest power from his brother-in-law, for whom he has had
only contempt to offer ever since the late Sheikh did not
allow his ambitious son-in-law to emerge as the
Sher-e-Kashmir's political successor in the early
eighties. Mr Shah is working on his plan to rope in the
All-Party Hurriyat Conference to challenge the National
Conference of Dr Farooq Abdullah in the Assembly
elections, though at least three years away. Mr Shah's
controversial past is well known. His views on Kashmir
are not much different from those of the Hurriyat
leaders. That is one reason probably why he expected the
Hurriyat leadership to support his idea of forging a
common front against the National Conference.
Interestingly, Mr Shah's scheme has been okayed by
certain national-level leaders of the Congress, the left
parties, the Samajwadi Party and the Samata Party. If the
Hurriyat leadership has rejected Mr Shah's offer today,
there is no guarantee that it will not accept it in the
coming months, or when the elections are round the
corner. If that happens, the development will have taken
a turn to be watched with all curiosity. This will mean
that those who have been directly or indirectly providing
sustenance to militancy in Jammu and Kashmir will be
trying their strength through the battle of the ballot.
And who knows the lust for political power forces them to
say "talaaq" to militancy not once but thrice
— which means forever? |
Prop to Palestine state PRESIDENT Clinton’s seven-hour visit to Gaza on Monday was heavy with symbolism, so heavy that every word and action needed interpretation. He arrived in a helicopter, not the more regal Air Force One. The airport reception did not feature the usual playing of the US national anthem. That would have necessitated the playing of the Palestinian anthem too, thus promoting it as a state visit. Israel had vetoed these two customary ingredients of any presidential tour. But not unduly circumscribed by an Israeli diktat, Palestinians draped the control tower of the airport, named after Mr Yasser Arafat, with a giant US flag and greeted Mr Clinton with a promise to declare statehood. The visiting Head of State addressed the Palestinian National Council and legislature, another pregnant symbol, and heard the members formally drop their old demand to destroy Israel and supplant it with the Palestine state that existed before 1948. Finally, Mr Clinton went to the seashore to take the salute as two dinghys, the symbolic nucleas of the future Palestinian navy, sailed past! This is the first time a
US President has visited any part of the Palestinian
Authority after Israeli allowed the PLO to return home
under the Oslo accord. Israel wanted to make it a
non-event, having failed to persuade the US President to
put it off. (As late as last week Mr Clinton was being
advised that it would be more fruitful to stay put in
Washington during these crucial days in his fight against
impeachment.) Palestinians, on the other hand, wanted to
project it as a state visit, as a milestone on the road
to a formal declaration perhaps by May next year when the
Oslo accord expires. Mr Clinton wanted to satisfy both
countries without angering either. In the event, the two
hosts wrote their own script, read their own meaning into
it and claimed a big success. Even in this game Israelis
scored more points than the Palestinians.Naturally since
they hold all the cards. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu forced the visiting leader to agree to a
postponement of further pullout from the West Bank. It
was supposed to be a protest against street violence. But
it was more to buy time and defuse a crisis his coalition
government faces. Hawks and religious rightwingers have
threatened to vote him out if he went ahead with the Wye
memorandum and handed over more territory to the
Palestinian National Authority. This is despite the fact
that Mr Netanyahu has agreed to build at least 1600 more
houses in the occupied territory both in the face of
stiff American opposition and the Wye accord. His
government is also eyeing East Jerusalem as a site for
further construction, which could be a grave provocation.
The Palestinians want to make East Jerusalem their
capital once a full-fledged state comes up. The
ceremonial revocation of the 50-year-old resolution
against the very existence of Israel on Monday, and in
the presence of President Clinton, is organically linked
to the hope that it will make the establishment of a
state easy next year. Mr Clinton can be said to have
indirectly brought that subject on the agenda. That is
the biggest gain and it is in Palestinian favour. |
Good show at Aero-India AT a time when success stories are in short supply, the upbeat mood of the organisers at the conclusion of the Aero-India'98 show at Bangalore stands out as an exception. Unlike the previous such international presentation in 1996, which had a mela atmosphere and was marked by mismanagement, chaos and near-stampede, this one was professionally run and most of the participants spoke in positive terms about its conduct. It did manage to become a forum for displaying the capability of both Indian and foreign companies in design, development and production for aircraft systems, ground systems as well as for airlines operations and airport management. The five-day biennial show not only showcased the Indian capabilities, engineering talent and strong software industry base, but also attracted 110 internationally renowned aerospace companies and organisations, besides 60 Indian companies. (It is another matter that some of the Indian companies complained that the organisers were showering all attention on foreign exhibitors while the Indian ones were ignored.) The biggest number of companies understandably came from Russia. There was also sizeable representation from Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the USA. That this happened despite the sanctions in the wake of the nuclear blasts made the show all the more creditable. And more than the quantity, the quality of the show was noteworthy, with some 53 Indian and foreign aircraft being put on display. The main reason for this
was that the foreign companies have smelled a very large
market emerging in India. With the Indian Defence
Minister, Mr George Fernandes, declaring that the country
is ready to finalise its decision on the acquisition of
the advanced jet trainers (AJTs), the manufacturers of
the British Hawk, the France-German Alpha-Jet and the
Russian MiG-AT took part in the Bangalore show
enthusiastically. These three are the main contenders for
the huge market. With the Indian Navy showing interest in
the 40,000-tonne Russian aircraft carrier Admiral
Gorshkov and also planning to indigenously build a
smaller 20,000 tonne carrier, the SU-33, the naval
variant of the state-of-the-art plane, made its debut
before the Indian crowd. Similarly, with the gestation
period of the light combat aircraft (LCA) refusing to
come to an early end, there was speculation that India
might buy some more planes. So other companies also
hawked their wares at a feverish pitch. The visitors thus
got to see SU-30 and SU-33, MiG-AT, Mirage 2000, Falcon
2000, Hawk and MiG-21UM. What this feverish pitch
signified was that India could now pick and choose the
planes that it required in a highly competitive market.
The price as well as the quality component could be
negotiated in India's favour. With a general glut the
world over and a meltdown in South-East Asia, India
provides an exceptionally promising destination. As far
as its own showing is concerned, suffice it to say that
despite the tremendous hype, the country has miles to go
before it can become a heavyweight player in the
international market. The trade enquiries generated at
the fair have to be converted into firm deals before
these can be counted as a worthwhile spinoff. |
TOP MILITARY POSTINGS BETWEEN them the judgement of the Delhi High Court, setting aside the appointment of the GOC-in-C of the Eastern Army Command and ordering the government to give the command to another Lieutenant-General, and the Defence Ministry’s decision to override the Chief of the Naval Staff over the choice of the Navy’s deputy chief bespeaks of an unholy mess about top military postings that has gone on for too long and is now assuming alarming proportions. The Naval headquarters’ refusal to accept the ministry’s decision as binding on it has given a new twist to the matter. In fact, what has been exposed to the public view is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. What lies beneath the surface is truly horrendous. Unless checked immediately and firmly, it could play havoc with the usually laudable discipline, morale, cohesion and prestige of the armed forces. At one remove, it could also affect adversely the nation’s security. Can the country afford this, especially at a time when all other institutions that collectively form the republic’s infrastructure, such as the civilian bureaucracy, the police and the para-military organisations, are in poor shape because of relentless politicisation and factionalism, with the result that the three defence services remain the last bastion of national security, internal and external? The government having decided to appeal against the single judge’s verdict quashing the selection of Lieut-Gen H.R.S. Kalkat as the Eastern Army Commander and directing that Lieut-Gen R.S. Kadiyan be appointed instead, it would perhaps be improper to discuss the merits of the case and the rationale of the judgement. But two facts have got to be faced. First, that initially the appeal will go to a larger bench of the Delhi High Court itself. And, given the high pitch to which the struggle between the two generals (and between General Kadiyan and the Army Headquarters as well as the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Cabinet’s Appointments Committee) has been taken, there will almost certainly be an appeal against whatever judgement the larger Bench of the High Court pronounces. In other words, the command of a crucial Army formation would continue to be under a shadow for a long time to come. Indeed, but for the raise by two years in the retirement age of civilian and military personnel, the two contesting Lieut-Generals would have retired long before the case could be finally settled one way or the other. Secondly, it must be asked, with due respect to all concerned, whether commanders of the fighting forces should be appointed not by the military top brass with the government’s approval but by honourable judges of various high courts. Wouldn’t this be as deleterious as the selection of judges by, say, the Chiefs of Staff Committee? However, why blame the judges for pronouncing on disputes over promotions and postings when military officers of the highest rank are rushing to courts of law in droves to seek “justice” which, in their view, has been denied them? Time was when Army, Navy and Air Force officers even when justifiably aggrieved simply “put in their papers” and fumed both privately and publicly, but considered it wrong to take recourse to litigation. This continued to be the case even during the time of Krishna Menon as Defence Minister when he was widely perceived to be playing favourites in the armed forces, and Parliament was up in arms. At one stage the late Gen K.S. Thimayya, still the most respected Army Chief, offered to resign. He was persuaded by Jawaharlal Nehru to withdraw his resignation and later publicly rebuked. Menon’s powers grew by leaps and bounds. But soon enough the brief but brutal border war with China in 1962 intervened. It was a trauma. But it had some salutary effects. One of these was the insulation of the running of the armed forces from political interference and of postings and promotions from extraneous considerations. Unfortunately, this situation was too good to last. All kinds of manipulation and intrigue began to influence selections for the higher echelons in the military hierarchy. So did the recourse to courts of law by officers overlooked by promotion boards or excluded from plum postings. What began as a trickle has now turned into a torrent. It is noteworthy that the government’s order appointing Vice-Admiral Harinder Singh as the Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff (DCNS) in place of Vice-Admiral Madanjeet Singh, chosen for that post earlier by the Chief of the Naval (CNS), Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, came in the midst of acrimonious proceedings in the Calcutta High Court in connection with Vice-Admiral Harinder Singh’s writ petition seeking the post of the DCNS, one of the several Principal Staff Officers at the Naval Headquarters. Ironically, the MoD has taken totally opposite positions in the case of the choice of the Eastern Army Commander (“merit and suitability”, as determined by the Chief of the Army Staff). It is in that of the DCNS where it has gone by “seniority”. To complicate matters further, under the standing regulations for the Navy, the word of the CNS is final in the matter of selection of his PSOs. How the Defence Ministry will disentangle the tangled web is less important than how the country is to overcome a menace which is threatening the very ethos of the armed forces and cannot but have some impact on their effectiveness. There are two main reasons for the current disastrous state of affairs. One sadly is that faith in the fairness of the selection processes has been eroded over the years as much within the military as within the civil services. Hence the overwhelming, indeed exclusive, emphasis on seniority even in fighting formations on the one hand and the vile campaigns of mutual calumny among officers before, during and after the selection for every prized post. To file a petition in the courts has also become routine. An ironic twist to the tragic tale is that gerrymandering of the selection processes has become so ubiquitous that neither Admiral L. Ramdas nor Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat would ever have made to the post of CNS if the then Rear-Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat had not gone to court in the early nineties. Those making a beeline for the courts now to impugn his orders are citing this as their justification. The second and more disturbing factor behind the sorry state of affairs is that relations between the military chiefs and the civilian bureaucracy in the MoD, strained at the best of time, appear to have deteriorated to a dangerous degree. This, according to usually reliable sources, turned the choice of the DCNS into a tug-of-war between the Defence Ministry and the Naval Headquarters. An intriguing element in connection with the tussle over the posting of the Eastern Army Commander is that just before demitting office after the 1998 Lok Sabha elections, the outgoing Defence Minister, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, gave General Kadiyan an extension in his previous post that enabled him to be a candidate for the coveted job. India is the only democracy in the world where the Service Headquarters and the Ministry of Defence are totally insulated from each other. An integration between the two is overdue. In such a set-up the military chiefs will become the government’s top defence advisers and not remain, as they are at present, commanders of the respective forces they preside over. The National Security Council must take up this reorganisation as its priority task. However, even before the necessary reform is brought about, the present bickering and bad blood, manipulation and gerrymandering and massive mutual mud-slinging must be ended with an iron hand. Years ago the Supreme
Court had expressed acute concern over the plethora of
cases about military promotions coming up before it, and
had ruled that the Defence establishment should put in
place a final appellate authority of its own. This needs
to be done without delay. |
World Bank’s change of
direction A YEAR and a half after the Asian currency meltdown heralded the current crisis in global financial management, the World Bank says it is learning the lessons. For the countries which bore the brunt, they are hard indeed. In 1997, 7 per cent of the world’s population lived in countries with shrinking per capita GDP. In 1998, the figure will be more than a quarter: over a billion people, living in 36 countries, including Brazil, Indonesia and Russia. Global output growth this year will halve from the 1997 figure of 3.2 per cent, to just 1.8 per cent. In Indonesia, one of the countries worst hit, real wages fell by more than half, as the number of people classed as living in poverty climbed by nearly 20 per cent. Few disagree that the massive capital inflows in the years leading up to the crisis, and the subsequent rush for the financial exits, were among the major causes of the plummeting Hong Kong dollar, Korean won, Indonesia rupiah and Thai baht, among others. Till now, though, anything approaching real, practical criticism of the way the pieces of equity and capital markets fit together has been firmly off the agenda of the world financial system’s barons. No longer. According to the Bank’s annual “Global Economic Prospects and the Developing Countries” (GEP) report, it’s always too much of a risk to rely on short-term money in the manner of the Southeast Asian and Latin American countries caught in the currency crisis. Systemic crises, the report explains, have become both more common, and much more serious, in the last 10 to 15 years — which, although the Bank makes no explicit connection, is roughly the period during which the “Washington Consensus” of open markets and minimal regulation as the cure for all ills has held sway. “The central conclusion (of the report) is that it’s difficult to deal with these crises when they erupt,” said Mr Uri Dadush, the director of the Bank’s development prospects group. And, he went on, that means trying to fix the problems in retrospect is no substitute for admitting the design flaws that helped bring them about, and redesigning the systems accordingly. In a significant change of mood from two decades of pure laissesfaire nostrums, the report urges caution in liberalising a country’s capital and financial accounts. If you jump feet first into the global economy, it says, you are highly unlikely to float. And it doesn’t matter what preparations you make. “With large inflows, you are going to have a terrible time whatever system you have,” said Mr Dadush. In other words, the tribulations that both East Asia and now the world are facing cannot simply be pinned on “crony capitalism”, the favoured whipping-boy of recent analyses of the crisis, or inadequate domestic systems of regulation and transparency. Instead, the blame has to be laid at the door of “the interplay of weak domestic systems with imperfect international financial markets”. Which means that the much-derided “herd mentality” of players in the global finance arena — the tendency to follow the pack, so when one institution flees the rest follow — and the abysmal record on accurate risk assessment are just as much at fault as anything a single country has done. This has led the Bank to rethink its policies on two main fronts. On the one hand, the Bank’s “caution” about financial liberalisation — not trade liberalisation, which is still seen widely as an unalloyed good — now means that it supports the concept of controls on short-term capital. “We need better mechanisms to dampen volatility,” said Mr Masood Ahmed, the Bank’s Vice-President for economic policy. That means taxes and capital controls. “They may have costs,” he continued, “but they are outweighed by the benefits.” Time is up, in the Bank’s view, for the excuse that liberalisation and the natural workings of the global economy are natural forces before which we must all bow down. The Bank’s change of heart — signalled in recent speeches by its president, Mr James Wolfensohn, in which he stressed that the human cost of economic development could not be simply written off as “part of the cure” — is a welcome one. But the Bank is only part of the story. It works in concert with the other international financial institutions, particularly the International Monetary Fund. And the GEP was released in a week when it became clear that the IMF’s prescription for Brazil’s bailout package — $41.5 billion in new loans — involved swingeing cuts in social programmes and in sustainable development projects within the Amazonian rainforest which, ironically, are backed by World Bank money. Clearly, any shift within the IFIs towards a more realistic, and less quasi-religious, view of global markets is a welcome change from the norm. (The author is the
Editor of Gemini News Service.) |
Call
of conscience SOME boyhood incidents, however small, leave an indelible mark on our mental screen. It was 1945. I was a student of class IX, living in the solitude of the hostel of a prestigious school in the Doaba. We were allowed to go to the city, two miles away, once a week. We made use of our legs. A tonga was a luxury. One evening on my way back to the hostel after buying some stationery, I sighted a four-anna piece lying on the road. I picked it up and made for a shop, incidentally well-lit, to buy some eatable. After receiving the coin, the shopkeeper suspiciously looked at my face and said, “This is base.” I had never thought that my new-found treasure could buy me nothing. I was disappointed. Even then I made another attempt — at the adjacent shop, equally lit up. The response was as feared. Now not far from here, there were some vendors selling eatables. Their stalls were poorly lit. The dim light offered me a chance. But as I was going towards a stall, an impulse arrested my steps. Even if I succeeded in passing off the base coin, I thought, would I not be robbing the poor vendor, maybe partially, of his whole day’s earnings? I changed my mind and retraced my steps. Perhaps I was too young to know that there is such a thing as conscience or the inner voice. Sometimes our conscience is slow to act. When he retired as Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Justice G.D. Khosla was requested to narrate some striking incident of his professional life. He spoke to this effect: “Once an old lady stoutly fought her case. But when I pronounced the judgement, which went against her, she hastened to say, ‘you have done justice’.” Sometimes it may take years for one’s conscience to assert itself. Once a man sent his fare to the railway authorities after two decades of travelling without a ticket! Imagine the relief he must have felt as a result of obeying his conscience to pay the long-standing dues about which no one else knew. There is no pillow as soft as a clear conscience, says a French proverb. Conscience is an impartial judge. No impeachment can be harsher than the one conducted by our inner voice. The punishment comes in the form of nerve-shattering remorse. Remember Mr Clinton’s tears? So far we have touched upon conscience in relation to individuals. The very fate of nations is at stake when the men at the helm of affairs let the voice of sanity go unheard. The decision to pour death and destruction in the form of atom bombs on the innocent men, women and children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a case in point. But today the world has
become much more power-drunk. Much more armed. Much more
belligerent. Much more dangerous. But no need to appeal
to God to save the humankind. The Great Technician has
subtly fitted into each and every human soul a
safety-valve in the form of conscience, which is His
noblest gift to man. Politicians are no exception. The
survival or the annihilation of the human race lies in
their decisive hands. Is it too much to hope that they
will opt for survival? |
Using media as “force
multiplier” WHEN Mr L.K. Advani mentioned that the outdated Indian Official Secrets Act must be scrapped, it would have gladdened the hearts of the limited number of scribes within the media fraternity covering defence. Excessive secrecy in the military hierarchy has impinged on objectivity in defence reporting. Until the mid 1980’s defence was considered a “holy cow” — only to be reported on ceremonial occasions like Independence and Republic Days. Put on the centre-stage with its disastrous involvement in Operations Bluestar, Pawan (“peacekeeping” in Sri Lanka) and subsequent counter-insurgency operations in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, the Army in particular has come under extensive media gaze. Viewed in the narrow context the media and defence are perceived as having adversarial roles. While the military mind is trained to keep things under wraps, the media’s role is to report and make things known. Being as secretive as they are comes to the military officers by virtue of their basic training which makes them think that they are doing a very patriotic and nationalistic job. They function on a “need to know basis”, and each person is told precisely what he needs to know. Reinforcing the security layers within his psyche, it makes the man adopt the same approach towards others. This attitude prevails in all armies the world over. In India, however, excessive secrecy can be carried to ridiculous extents. The Defence Ministry, through two written statements in July and August, 1977, misled Parliament by averring that no helicopter had ever been shot down by Pakistan in Siachen. Confirmation that Pakistan did in fact shoot down a helicopter in the inhospitable glacier was revealed in 1998, almost two years after the incident in the form of citations of the two chopper pilots read out at the defence investiture ceremony in Rashtrapati Bhavan. The two brave pilots had flown two successful sorties to maintain a beleaguered post but were shot down in the third attempt and were awarded posthumously. In other armies such flyers would instantly have been declared as heroes — as in the case of a US pilot shot in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The military’s secretive urges flow from and are conditioned by the larger proclivity at governmental level to avoid debate on national security issues. The Standing Committee on Defence in 1996 was informed that there was no formal written document called India’s national defence policy. The committee felt that in the absence of any document explaining articulated policy with stated national objectives and national interests it was not possible for the policy to be analysed and modified. The Government countered that the absence of such a written document should not be construed to imply the non-existence of the policy — it was the “result of a conscious decision that such a document was not published”. The committee, in its report to the Lok Sabha, was not convinced by the specious argument advanced by the Ministry. While not suggesting that the Ministry of Defence should furnish their longterm perspective plan or other similar documents, the committee reiterated their earlier recommendation of having a formal policy document based on national objectives and threat perceptions. The matter was left at that. Convenience and vagueness, therefore, serve to cover up ineptitude. In 1852, the editor of London Times in a confrontation with the British Prime Minister, Lord Derby, had commented: The Government of the day thrives by secrecy, it acts in secrecy, expediency is its guide. The press lives by disclosure.” Secretive tendencies of the Government are thus genetically transmitted down to the services whose routine press releases are drab and inadequate for reporting purposes. They lack background information and the presentation or content does not stimulate reader interest. Mostly ignored by the services is what constitutes “news value” and the stuff handed out for public consumption stems from a desire to engage in “image building” exercises, as a career advancement tool for the commander. The pyramidal structure in the armed forces is exceedingly steep which results in a fiercely competitive show of one’s “abilities”. In the Army, however, the thrust of multifarious activities without clear directives makes them defensive not only at the operational level but also in their attitude while dealing with the media. Because of the lack of clear directives, non-consistent government policies, and occasional political as well as bureaucratic needling from above, the armed forces are forced into adopting a secretive and cocooned posture. In the constant bleeding and fatigue suffered by the Army in countering insurgencies during the last decade a realisation has dawned within the top brass of the amazing powers of the media which is now seen as a “force multiplier”. Having recognised the larger interests of a symbiotic relationship, the services are slowly but surely warming up to the media. The next step could be to
remove the tight lid on the bottomless can of
“secrets” that the other side already knows. In
this exercise of inducing transparency, a beginning
should be made from the top. |
Awesome statistics of crimes
against women NEW DELHI: At the first convention on women and mental health, held under the aegis of the Vidyasagar Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (Vimhans) here this year, doctors made the staggering claim that 60 per cent of women detained in psychiatric wards all over the country, “are not mad but victims of ruthless husbands and in-laws”, the motive could be remarriage, inability to produce a son, property, insufficient dowry .... And in September, a Delhi-based women’s group released a study which destroyed many cherished myths about the paternalistic family. The non-government organisation, Recovering and Healing from Incest (Rahi) revealed that almost 76 per cent of women in the country suffered some form of sexual abuse, 40 per cent of whom suffered violence at the hands of family members like maternal or paternal uncles, male cousins, even fathers .... The myth of the protective paterfamilias lies exposed. It is a scenario stretching the length and breadth of the country, from traditionally feudal Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh in the south to crime-ridden Uttar Pradesh in the north, from the most backward areas in the northeast to industrialised Maharashtra. The most surprising reports, however, have come out of progressive West Bengal. From sexual abuse at home, the circle of gender violence spreads out into the community, with class, caste and creed playing the part of multiple triggers. The spectrum is awesome: from 21-year old Gita of Dholpur, (Rajasthan) who was kept captive in a naked state, beaten and starved for two-and-a-half years by her brother for returning to her father’s home after a month of marriage, to 29-year-old Anjana Misra, estranged wife of an Indian Forest Service officer who was forced into the Ranchi asylum for getting insufficient dowry. Misra is now also waging a battle against former Advocate-General of Orissa for trying to rape her on the pretext of helping her. Cases of torture against women, ranging from the mental to the physical, at 29.2 per cent of all reported crimes, topped the list of reported crimes against women and showed an increase from 15,949 in 1991 to 31,127 in 1995. Rape cases, too, registered an increase from 9,793 in 1991 to 13,754 in 1995. About 56.3 per cent were in the 16-30 age-group though the incidence of child rape — at an average of two every day — is worrisome. Mumbai and Delhi recorded an increase of 21 and 40 per cent as compared to 1994. The NCRB report indicates that 71 per cent of rape cases were reported from just five states and one union territory — Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. The keywords are punish, control, even fun. A village panchayat near Roorkee sentenced a Dalit, married woman to gangrape by members of her own caste, as punishment for daring to elope with a Muslim youth. Bhanwari Devi was gangraped as punishment for doing her duty - stopping child marriage. Hindutva hoodlums targeted Christians by raping four nuns in Jhabua (Madhya Pradesh). And a new entrant to the Indian Police Service, last year, decided to celebrate by organising a gangrape of a young woman at a university hostel in Jaipur. Custodial rape is at the extreme end of state terror and subjugation. There are other ways of punishing, like public stripping. A 34-year-old private nurse was stripped in Calcutta in March for changing her political preferences. Last year, a 14-year-old Dalit girl was forced to walk naked near Amritsar as punishment for her brother misbehaving with a Rajput’s daughter. In an Orissa village this year a woman sarpanch was paraded naked by road contractors for daring to criticise them. Who can vouch for the violence suffered by 94 per cent of the female workforce in the unorganised sector, vulnerable to any kind of violence? To some extent women’s lack of awareness of their legal rights affects their chances of fighting back. For instance, an all-India survey for the National Commission for Women found out, 84.97 per cent of working women in the organised sector were unaware of the Supreme Court ruling on sexual harassment. Add to this a lack of gender sensitivity among various arms of the state, like the police and judiciary, and the noose of violence in women’s lives is complete. Because of the long and arduous legal process often marred by gender prejudicial cultural attitudes and the tardy rate of convictions, the physical, psychological and emotional impact of violence is magnified many times over. Of the total rape cases numbering 4,70,484 in courts in 1995 (including the backlog) 39,130 are still pending. Of the total dowry cases (13,283), 11,571 are pending; and of the total sexual harassment cases of (10,966) as many as 7829 are still pending. Paradoxically, despite the growth of pro-women’s legislation in the last decade or so, the rate of convictions has been dropping. As per a statement by Home Minister L.K. Advani, in 1975, of the 1,69,721 persons arrested and charged in 2,89,302 cases against women, 33,315 were convicted by trial courts. In 1996, of the 1,95,436 persons arrested and charged in 3,38,387 cases, only 32,362 were convicted. And therein hangs a tale
— of a patriarchal society’s perception of the
other, mediated through the mirror of violence against
women. — WFS |
Kenya and Bombay Council MR LALJI NARAINJI has addressed a letter to the members of the Bombay Legislative Council, suggesting refusal of certain grants in view of the fact that the Government has disallowed his motion, urging Bombay’s withdrawal from the Empire Exhibition. The letter reads as follows: “I appeal to you to assert yourself by fearless use of powers acquired by you as representatives of your various constituencies, and vindicate the outraged self-respect by the Kenya decision, which even the representative of His Majesty the King-Emperor, viz., His Excellency the Viceroy, declares as acceptable only under protest and which Sir Malcolm Halley, the Home Member of the Government of India, believes is such that the feeling of resentment in the country is justified. You all remember my motion of adjournment of the House was not allowed under Rule 22 by His Excellency. I, therefore, sent a notice of the resolution enable the House to express their indignation in one of the ways suggested by Rt. Hon’ble Srinivasa Shastri which is perfectly dignified and constitutional. Such a resolution
(suggesting Bombay’s withdrawal from the Empire
Exhibition) requires the sanction of the Government,
which, if they mean granted, it is withheld. It means the
Government wish to hamper this House from exercising
their constitutional remedies on such events of national
importance. Some members have doubts as to this being a
subject concerning this local presidency. |
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