Partial damage control
FOOT-DRAGGING in providing relief to the farming community and ultra alacrity in pleasing the business community, this seems to be the core philosophy of the Central government.

Dirty politics
TO get at the bottom of what happened in Calcutta on Sunday involving the Trinamool Congress and the police it is necessary to piece together the political drama as it unfolded.

Kailash yatra via Leh
THE proposal to find an alternative route for the Kailash-Mansarovar yatra makes eminent sense. The tragedy that occurred earlier this year, leading to the death of 200 persons, is too fresh in public memory.

INDIA, PAKISTAN & USA
by Pran Chopra
THE outcome of the recent talks in Islamabad between the Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan have been viewed divergently by the political leaders of the two countries.

. Nobel Prize: bias in treatment By G.S. Bhargava A colleague suspects bias in the treatment of the Amartya Sen story (Nobel Prize) by Western newspapers. Having closely followed the reporting by leading British and US dailies, he says the Financial Times (London) and the New York Times, among others, downplayed it. Countering fallout of riots From V. Krishnaswami CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu Government is considering a statewide ban on caste conferences and rallies to prevent frequent outbreak of caste violence in southern districts of the state.

75 Years Ago

Hindu-Muslim Relations
at Panipat
ALL leading Hindus are engaged in defending the cases against them under Section 107.

Partial damage control

FOOT-DRAGGING in providing relief to the farming community and ultra alacrity in pleasing the business community, this seems to be the core philosophy of the Central government. This is reflected in the one concession it has shown to the rain-devastated farmers of Punjab and Haryana. In one case the FCI has been asked to buy paddy with the damaged content up to 8 per cent, up from 3 per cent, and in the other rice millers have been exempted from levy for a further period of two weeks. The lowering of the paddy standard should normally prod FCI to vigorously mop up unsold grain and at the support price, both juicy gestures. But that may not happen if the present attitude of the central procurement agency is any indication. It has so far shown a pronounced reluctance to buy, saying that there is no storage space and it still holds a million tonnes of paddy from last season. This is in sharp contrast with the state government agencies which shed their initial indifference as soon as the government dashed off an SOS to New Delhi. What this means is that the state government should now lean on the Centre to direct the FCI to get cracking and not be hyper choosy in accepting damaged grains.

Incidentally, what happened to the report of the central team which toured Punjab to assess the extent of rain damage? It has submitted the report last week, and perhaps the Cabinet decision on Monday is influenced by its findings. The Centre seems to be waiting for a similar evaluation in Haryana. Haryana has estimated the loss of kharif crop, including cotton, at between 40 and 80 per cent and has listed district-wise and crop-wise damage. But Punjab is content to say that the post-harvest loss is about 25 per cent with a cash value of Rs 1000 crore. But the Union Agriculture Ministry has placed the shortfall in paddy availability at one million tonnes, which works out to just half of the compensation demand.

Kisan welfare and tackling the problems of agriculture is unfortunately an unexplored territory for the BJP, the leader of the ruling coalition. The way it has handled the highly emotive issue of crippling losses to small and medium farmers in the two northern states is one offshoot. The way it has allowed the prices of all food items and vegetables to go through the ceiling is another. The ban on the export of potatoes and pulses is a panic reaction which will drive the commodities underground and their prices skywards. It was pathetic to see an adviser to the government blaming the previous governments for the unbelievable behaviour of onion. That even the import of thousands of tonnes of onion from Iran has had no impact tells its own story of traders’ control over the market. During the past few months all food items have become costly often by 50 per cent. The BJP accuses the opposition parties of politicising the relentless price rise; actually it would be eccentric if they do not.

Dirty politics

TO get at the bottom of what happened in Calcutta on Sunday involving the Trinamool Congress and the police it is necessary to piece together the political drama as it unfolded. The authorities with the help of the police tried to evict the residents of Bedi Bhavan in South Calcutta. The Trinamool Congress got wind of the operation and at around 11 a.m. Ms Mamata Banerjee arrived on the scene and asked the police to show the eviction orders as it involved the uprooting of nearly 400 people. What happened thereafter is based on claims and counter-claims. But what is not in dispute is the fact that as a result of the confrontation between the supporters of Ms Banerjee and the police members of the Trinamool Congress went on the rampage and disrupted train and bus services in several parts of West Bengal. Governor A. R. Kidwai, who was on his way to Chandannagar to inaugurate Jagadhattri Puja, was held up at Chinsurah Circuit House for more than six hours because of the traffic jam caused by Trinamool activists. On Monday the Trinamool Congress supporters again disrupted rail and road traffic in several districts and the Eastern Railways had to cancel a number of train services. Now for the claims and the counter-claims. According to Ms Banerjee when she asked the police to show her the eviction orders the Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) attempted “to outrage my modesty by ripping my blouse”. The police has denied the charge. What is surprising is that the usually unflappable Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mr Jyoti Basu, issued a rather harsh statement attacking Ms Banerjee. According to him, “she always tries to create anarchy by telling lies and spreading rumours. She was handled only by women police and she had torn her saree herself. She lies about her own education as she does about everything else”.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, for obvious reasons, is inclined to give credence to Ms Banerjee’s version of what happened on Sunday during the attempt to evict the illegal occupants of Bedi Bhavan — a property which the State Government has been trying to acquire for the past 20 years. However, to separate the grain from the chaff it may be worthwhile to look at the political record of Ms Banerjee and Mr Basu. The Trinamool Congress chief was once a rabid critic of the communal policies of the BJP. But after the parting of ways with the Congress the Left Front in West Bengal became a bigger enemy than the BJP. She is known for her clumsy histrionics and for raising the decibel level rather than the level of the debate in the Lok Sabha. Mr Basu, on the other hand, has the distinction of heading a coalition of Left parties in West Bengal for a record fifth term. He did not part company with the parent party (unlike Ms Banerjee who walked out of the Congress over minor differences and helped the BJP to strike roots in West Bengal) when the CPM Politburo denied him permission to head the United Front Government at the Centre. The difference between Mr Basu and Ms Banerjee is the difference between a respected politician and a political upstart. It is not for the first time that the Trinamool Congress chief has introduced gutter-level politics to embarrass Mr Basu. West Bengal is among the few regions where women still command a fair degree of respect. It is almost unbelievable that a police officer of the rank of Deputy Commissioner would try to “outrage” Ms Banerjee’s modesty and “tear” her blouse. As it is, politicians as a class have lost credibility among the people because of their actions and their deeds. The kind of politics Ms Banerjee is trying to promote is not the best way to win back the confidence of the people.

Kailash yatra via Leh

THE proposal to find an alternative route for the Kailash-Mansarovar yatra makes eminent sense. The tragedy that occurred earlier this year, leading to the death of 200 persons, is too fresh in public memory. The present route is so precarious that there is no guarantee that a similar catastrophe would not strike in the future. Even otherwise, the journey through Bareilly is extremely hazardous. The unmetalled road from Dharchula to Kalapani is so bad that it has to be traversed by most of the pilgrims only on horseback. It is now proposed to conduct the annual pilgrimage via Leh. This route offers several plus points. The main attraction is that the longest leg of the journey, Delhi-Leh, can be done through aircraft. From there, the pilgrims can go along the Indus to Damchok by road to reach the border. The road is good and since the mountains there are fairly stable and the region hardly receives any rain, the risk of landslides is far less. As such, the journey can be conducted within a day. In any case, it is always better to have two routes for a yatra which evokes such strong religious sentiments among the Indians. An interesting development is that this proposal has come from the Jammu and Kashmir Government itself . The Centre has already shown its concurrence through the Union Home Minister, Mr L.K. Advani. As such, no bureaucratic hassles are expected. Besides making the journey particularly easier for the pilgrims, this route would also help promote tourism in Jammu and Kashmir. Militancy has cast a dark shadow on tourist trade in the Ladakh region and the traffic has been reduced to barely 40 per cent of what it was in the previous years. Few tourists come to Ladakh via Srinagar now, thanks to the constant shelling by Pakistani forces. As such, Manali is the only dependable lifeline for the picturesque area of Ladakh, weather permitting.

But the proposal can reach fruition only if the Chinese authorities cooperate fully. There is considerable Chinese military buildup along the Ladakh border and it remains to be seen if they would like this to be exposed. Quite suffocating restrictions are put even on the pilgrims going via the Bareilly route. But still, the project is well worth pursuing by appealing to China on humanitarian grounds. At the same time, there is need for ensuring that the opening of this restricted region does not compromise the country’s safety and security in any way. As things stand today, only the local people and those who have obtained permits from Delhi are allowed beyond Loma, about 210 km from Leh. But since permits for the Kailash-Mansarovar yatra are issued after due vetting, this aspect can be taken care of. One hopes that the government would be able to take up the case with China effectively.

INDIA, PAKISTAN & USA
Nuclear gamble in South Asia
by Pran Chopra

THE outcome of the recent talks in Islamabad between the Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan have been viewed divergently by the political leaders of the two countries. The Prime Minister of India, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, was so pleased with it that he hurried to convey his satisfaction to the Prime Minister of Pakistan over the telephone as soon as the talks ended in Islamabad. While Mr Nawaz Sharif’s response to him is not publicly known, his Foreign Minister, Mr Sartaj Aziz, lost no time in expressing his disappointment. He said the outcome was much below his expectations.

This might be the familiar case of the same glass of water appearing to be half full to one observer and half empty to another. On the face of it this is something in favour of the outcome because it suggests that both sides can go forward to the next round of talks with each side hoping to get something more out of it. But it is also possible that the Islamabad round may open the door for a gamble on the nuclear issue. The gains made there may tempt one side or the other to dig its heels in for more at the next round than can be realistically expected, or may tempt third parties to press both sides harder than the situation allows. Should either of those things happen, we will not only be back at square one but much further back than that. When expected gains are denied or frittered away they leave behind a trail of bitterness. The greater the promise of gains the greater the bitterness their loss generates, and the gains made at Islamabad were indeed promising, whether seen from the Pakistani, the Indian, or the regional points of view.

Pakistan made three important gains in Islamabad. First, a full meeting at a very senior level devoted exclusively to the subject of Jammu and Kashmir. Citing arguments which were never very convincing, India had been reluctant for such a meeting. On the other hand Pakistan had been keen to have it because, as Islamabad saw it, such a meeting would imply an admission by India that there was a dispute about the state which needed to be discussed. Of course, the implication was clear enough in the Simla Agreement, but since a discussion on the basis of that agreement had eluded the two countries for many years, Pakistan was keen to get a reiteration of it by other means.

Pakistan got the reiteration in Islamabad. And it got more. It got, second, a joint statement at the end of the talks in which, while saying that “an environment of peace and security was in the supreme interest of both countries”, the two Foreign Secretaries also said “the peaceful settlement of all outstanding issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, was essential for this purpose”. Pakistan also got, third, a discussion which must have been good enough for both sides to be able to avoid the kind of mutual recriminations which have followed earlier encounters across the table; in fact, the Foreign Secretary of Pakistan was able to counsel patience on his country when he said it would be “unrealistic” to expect “concrete progress” so soon on such a tough issue.

And most important from Pakistan’s point of view, it got, fourth, all the circumstantial evidence it needed to convince its own people that it had been able to persuade third parties, notably the USA, to push India to the negotiating table. As if the evidence behind the scenes before or during the talks was not enough, Pakistan also got the gift of an on-the-spot inspection of Kashmir by the US Ambassador in New Delhi and his conspicuous call on the Indian Home Minister, Mr L.K. Advani, as soon as he came back to New Delhi. At the same time Pakistan is also reported to have told foreign ambassadors in Islamabad that the nuclear restraints it had proposed to India during the talks had come from the USA.

India also made gains in Islamabad which were not inconsiderable. As far as India is concerned the talks were bilateral, as it has always insisted they must be, whoever else Pakistan might talk to behind the scenes. Secondly, Pakistan agreed to discuss all the items put on the agenda by India without insisting, as it had done in the past, that there must be progress first on Jammu and Kashmir. Thus in spite of the dissatisfaction expressed by the Foreign Minister of Pakistan over the outcome of the Islamabad round regarding Kashmir, six “other subjects” will be discussed at the next round, to be held in New Delhi in November, and any further talks on Jammu and Kashmir will take place only in February next year.

This sequence contains an unstated but implicit possibility which, while it would be of benefit to both countries, could give India its third gain. India has often expressed the hope that if the two countries reached agreement on the “other subjects” they would stand to gain so much from it that they might soften their disagreement on Kashmir.

As the joint statement by the two Foreign Secretaries says, their talks were held “within the framework of the composite and integrated dialogue process”. This, of course, implies that the results of the “process” are to be treated as a package, and nothing can go through unless the whole thing does. Agreement on all subjects can be nullified by disagreement on one. But it can also have the reverse effect. If agreement on one subject — in this case the six “other subjects” — is seen to have significant benefits for both countries, then both might decide to overcome or at least to put aside their disagreement on another subject — in this case Kashmir — rather than to throw the benefits of all agreements out of the window.

Since the “other subjects” include “economic cooperation”, the benefits of which are badly needed by both countries in their present dire economic straits, the temptation to opt for the more prudent course could be great if economic cooperation is discussed in a broadminded mood of give and take.

Fourthly, the item most favoured by India, that is nuclear restraint and other security-related confidence building measures, got priority in the agenda over everything else, including Kashmir. This is not merely a procedural gain. It has, at least for the time being, rectified a serious imbalance in the earlier rounds of talks. These rounds had aimed at “normal relations” between the two countries without addressing the security-related apprehensions of each about the intentions of the other. This is an unnatural sequence. Only countries which are at ease with each other regarding their security can have normal relations.

There is also a major gain from the viewpoint of the region as a whole. Between the Islamabad round and the next round on security and Kashmir, probably in February next year, a detailed study is to be made regarding the technical aspects of the impressively numerous confidence building measures which were suggested by the two sides in Islamabad, so that the Foreign Secretaries may take them up more concretely in February. If that does happen, it will mean that future rounds will be driven by the urgencies of their mutually shared security needs also, and not only by the long drawn out disagreement on Kashmir, which is essentially a one-sided and zero sum agenda. Neither country can concede anything on Kashmir except at the expense of what it has long held to be an irreducible position. But both countries are still evolving their nuclear positions towards each other, and if in that process they are able to put each other’s security-related anxieties to rest then both would stand to gain a great deal. And if simultaneously they are also able to build economic bridges with each other, then the two countries which, between them, account for most of South Asia, can pull the region out of the morass into which it has fallen.

Where then does the risk of a nuclear gamble lie? It lies in the possibility that the tail might wag the dog. As has been argued above, good agreements on the “other subjects” might help to loosen the knot of Kashmir, if not today then at some future date, and this expectation might make security-related agreements more attainable, and sooner. But the reverse can also happen: the “other subjects” rounds do not yield enough to persuade either country to “give” enough on Kashmir, and both countries decide to stick to their nuclear guns. As it is, Pakistan has declined India’s offer of a “no first use” agreement on nuclear weapons. It has offered a “non-aggression agreement” instead, but, according to the Indian Foreign Secretary, the Pakistan Prime Minister has tied the whole security issue to Kashmir.

According to him, the Pakistan Prime Minister told him on October 16 that the two countries “should agree on a nuclear and conventional stabilisation regime” but then he also said “the Kashmir issue” has “an inextricable linkage to peace and security in South Asia”. In the first place this makes “nuclear and conventional stabilisation in South Asia” conditional on the “Kashmir issue”, and in the second place it puts a question mark on the outcome of the larger dialogue which has been going on between New Delhi and Washington about CTBT.

This dialogue made good progress for some months. But for the past few weeks it has been in the doldrums, and that is where the seeds of the gamble lie. There are two probable reasons why it has slowed down, but while either reason could be dangerous the two together can be fatal, and all the more so because of President Clinton’s domestic political needs. One reason could be that while the talks went well so long as they focussed on the general principles of the Indian and American positions, on which the differences between them are not as deep as a couple of years ago — for example on India’s security needs and the world’s non-proliferation needs — they got bogged down when specifics emerged, particularly after Pokhran II, for example, on how much of a deterrent India should have, in what state of “deployment” it may be kept, and how many missiles of what range India should have for how many nuclear war-heads.

Parallel to that, America stepped up its pressure for bilateral discussions between India and Pakistan, and the US Congress gave President Clinton the power to be “flexible” (read discriminatory as between India and Pakistan) in retaining or relaxing sanctions on the two countries. It is not difficult to see what the strategy behind these moves could be. Offers of badly needed economic relief, and some gestures of support on Kashmir, could persuade Pakistan to embrace CTBT. Then this example could be pressed upon India, with promises of comparable relief from sanctions as the carrot and, as the stick, stronger gestures of support for Pakistan on Kashmir by following up on the US Ambassador’s inspection tour of Kashmir.

But this is precisely the calculation which can turn into a bad gamble, and jeopardise the chance — which exists, however faint it might be — of some progress in the parallel and complimentary talks India is conducting with the USA on the one hand regarding CTBT and on the other hand with Pakistan on the nuclear, Kashmir, and a host of other issues. It has possibly not been grasped in Washington that while it is not easy for India to go much further in the CTBT discussions with America, it is impossible for India to go anywhere near what would satisfy Pakistan regarding Kashmir. Therefore, any move, especially if made by America, which ties the possibility of nuclear stability in South Asia with the possibility of an Indo-Pakistan agreement on Kashmir will drag the former down into the same deep waters in which the latter has been. This is a gamble which neither India can afford on the one hand nor Pakistan and America on the other, and is best avoided by all three of them.

Non-proliferation: who is to blame for failure?
by T.N. Kaul

IT is true that the effort for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons appears to have failed, but India and Pakistan are not to blame for it. It was and is bound to fail as the nuclear weapon powers (P5) want to retain the monopoly of nuclear technology, both for weaponry and peaceful purposes, and deny it to sovereign countries like India, Pakistan, Israel and others. It is time the nuclear weapon powers, especially the USA, the sole surviving super power, realised that they could not prevent nuclear proliferation through discriminatory agreements like the NPT or the CTBT, which discriminate between those who exploded nuclear devices before 1967 and those who did so thereafter.

It is questionable whether the so-called doctrine of "Mutual Assured Destruction" (MAD) was or can be the best guarantee of security. However, if it was so with regard to the USA and the former USSR, why can it not apply to India and Pakistan? South Asian nations are not fundamentally more diverse than the USA and the Soviet Union. India and Pakistan are contiguous entities geographically. This makes them more, not less, conscious of the danger of using nuclear weapons against each other. Their cultural, ethnic, linguistic and historical links make them more aware of each other's sensibilities than the distant and ideologically opposed USA and USSR were.

However "primitive" India and Pakistan may appear to Western nuclear experts, there is no doubt that the recent nuclear blasts by them have given them greater self-confidence and a sense of responsibility, as compared to the P5, who are not averse to using their nuclear capability as a threat, or even to proliferate it by giving it to their friends and allies, deliberately or through feigned negligence.

The three brief wars that India and Pakistan had in 1948, 1965 and 1971, were in no small measure due to the encouragement and arms given by the two or three so-called great powers. Now that India and Pakistan have proven their nuclear capability, in however small a measure, they could set an example to the P5 by signing a no-nuclear-first-strike agreement, as well as an accord for no conventional strikes on each other's nuclear establishments.

While it is true that Washington and Moscow never fought one another directly during the 50 years of the Cold War, they did fight many wars by proxy in Korea, Vietnam, South Asia and elsewhere. What is more, they were on the brink of using nuclear weapons in 1961 in Cuba and, but for public opinion, might have used them in Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf.

India and Pakistan have not had a war since 1971. Now that both have proved their nuclear capability, they have a great realisation of the consequences of a nuclear war. If only the so-called super and great powers would stop meddling in South Asia and not tilt towards or against Pakistan and India as they have done in the past, we could not only resolve our problems quicker and more easily, but also work towards greater cooperation in and outside SAARC.

Now that the Cold War is over, the need for nuclear deterrence is much less. We could, therefore, agree to have a total nuclear disarmament agreement for the elimination of nuclear arsenals within a reasonable time-frame under international supervision, control and safeguards applicable without discrimination to all powers, including the P5. What we need most today is to make the whole world a Nuclear-Weapons-Free-Zone. As Jawaharlal Nehru said in the mid-1950s: "The only alternative to total nuclear disarmament in the nuclear and space age of today, is total mutual destruction." Surely, no country or people would want that. Will the P5 and the USA in particular, the sole surviving super power, give an early lead in this direction instead of preaching to and threatening dire consequences to India and Pakistan?

The writer is a former Ambassador to the USA and the erstwhile USSR.

Nobel Prize: bias in treatment
By G.S. Bhargava

A colleague suspects bias in the treatment of the Amartya Sen story (Nobel Prize) by Western newspapers. Having closely followed the reporting by leading British and US dailies, he says the Financial Times (London) and the New York Times, among others, downplayed it. The International Herald Tribune, IHT, (Hong Kong), for instance, frontpaged all the other Nobel Prize reports, while in the case of the Economic Prize it carried a picture of Amartya Sen on the front page with a single line report and supplemented it with a well-written “profile” issued by the Associated Press.

For some unfathomable reason, the AP feature mentioned the 1974 Bangladesh famine which also Professor Sen studied but omitted to mention the 1943 Bengal famine which had a lasting impact on his thinking and studies. It had claimed three million lives and was the basis of his seminal work, “Poverty and Famine” published in 1961, 13 years before the Bangladesh calamity. Incidentally, a comprehensive profile by Stuart Silverstein and Masjorie Miller of the Washington Post used in the “Economy & Business” supplement of the Deccan Herald did not refer to the Bangladesh famine at all.

The IHT report on the Peace Prize for Northern Ireland leaders was from its London bureau and was illustrated with their pictures. Similarly, the pictures of all three Americans who shared the prize in physiology or medicine appeared with an extremely meaty report from the Washington Post. Presumably because Viagra is one the byproducts of the laureates’ work, many of our newspapers also featured the medicine prize account. But the Washington Post story gets the cake.

A few samples: In a curious historic twist, nitric oxide gas with which they worked turns out to be the molecule through which the heart drug, nitroglycerin, works, a drug that Alfred Nobel, founder of the prize, refused to take despite his doctor’s order because of his acute awareness of its role in the working dynamite which he invented. Long-winded, no doubt, but full of dope. Similarly about Viagra. Nitric oxide also is a gas of modern medical and pharmaceutical import. It is central to the mechanism by which erections are made and maintained and is the ultimate target of the impotence drug, Viagra.

From Viagra to Sahib Singh Verma is a far cry. But the story of the offer of a Central Cabinet post to him and his plea for taking a rain cheque (as the American say) on it until after the Delhi Assembly election next month has been treated with wide variety. Of all the newspapers, The Hindu was most blatant in dismissing it as stage-managed on account of, among other things, the solicitude of the Prime Minister’s Office in volunteering information. The Economic Times, too, did not hide its scepticism which was implicit in the Times of India version. The Asian Age took it seriously with the headline, ‘Sahib Singh spurns Cabinet, snubs BJP.’

Meanwhile, The Indian Express scored with its reports on the completion ahead of schedule of the Uri power project in Kashmir by a European consortium in the teeth of terrorist threats and the meeting in Srinagar between the visiting US Ambassador and leaders of the Hurriyat Conference.

While on Kashmir, The Tribune had an interesting story about the ‘strain’ on the relations between the BJP at the Centre and the ruling National Conference. It quotes the State Finance Minister, Mohammad Shafi, as declaring that the cash crunch in the State is ‘entirely Delhi made.’ The Centre has remained immune to the State’s persistent plea for waiver of central debt of over Rs 1,275 crore on which the State Government incurs annual servicing charges of Rs 440 crore. (Which, incidentally, is too high a figure to be plausible). Similarly, the reimbursement of the expenses incurred on security operations has been hanging fire. Here again, the Centre is reported to be nit-picking by asking for itemised breakdown of the outlay.

Which together with the rumpus at the state Education Ministers’ conference in New Delhi goes to confirm Nitish Chakravarty’s (Sunday Spotlight Deccan Herald) assessment of Harkishen Singh Surjeet’s flair for using ‘all the arrows in his quiver to drive a wedge between the BJP’ and its allies’. A quote from the think piece: ‘The Congress, even though a bourgeois party, corrupt to the marrow of its bones, is in their (CPM’ leaders’) perception is a lesser evil than the Hindutva party’.

Finally, if it is unusual for PTI to run a story on Bejan Daruwallah’s predictions for 1999, it is equally so for the Assam Tribune to front-page it. According to the report, Daruwallah had predicted Clinton’s current troubles. He now forecasts the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and Sonia Gandhi falling seriously ill next year.

Countering fallout of riots
From V. Krishnaswami

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu Government is considering a statewide ban on caste conferences and rallies to prevent frequent outbreak of caste violence in southern districts of the state.

Indications to this effect were available after an all-party meeting convened by the Chief Minister here a few days ago which discussed ways and means to prevent recurrence of clashes between the Dalits and Thevars. The meeting has decided, as a first step, to remove statues of all leaders in clash-prone areas.

As a further follow-up measure, the government is also convening a meeting in the first week of November, which will be attended apart from the Chief Minister, by leaders of Dalits and the Thevar community.

The latest round of violence resulted in Ramanathapuram remaining virtually cut off from the rest of the state for three days. Educational institutions remained closed and life came to a standstill in the wake of caste violence that erupted between the Dalits on one side and the backward caste Thevars, on the other. A total of 183 shops were burnt in the district. Tourists who had come to Rameswaram were stranded for three days.

While caste clashes are not a new phenomenon in the southern districts of the state, they have acquired a sharper edge with the emergence of Puthiya Tamilagam (New Tamil Nadu), an organisation that champions the cause of the Dalits. The formation of Puthiya Tamilagam has emboldened the Dalits to articulate their grievances in a more assertive manner and fight for their rights more aggressively. This has not been to the liking of the Thevars, who found themselves at the receiving end for the first time in the recent clashes.

In fact the ruthless manner in which the Thevars have sought to repress the Dalits is the root-cause of the frequent caste clashes that convulse the southern districts. What has added to Dalit aggressiveness is the decision of the Puthiya Tamilagam to work in close coordination with the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam, an organisation that espouses the cause of the Muslims in the state. This Dalit-Muslim axis has given the Thevars the jitters, and the eruption of caste riots is the manifestation of the growing tension between the Thevars and the Dalits. Such is the rapport between the Puthiya Tamilagam and the Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam that the Muslims in Ramanathapuram are said to have financed the first Dalit conference held in the town recently. The conference was attended, among others, by the Puthiya Tamilagam chief, Dr K. Krishnaswamy. Now, there is a move to bring Christian organisations also into the fold of Dalit-Muslim axis.

The southern districts have remained a cattiest tinder box, waiting to be ignited over the flimsiest of reasons. Caste leadership has become a springboard for political ascendancy. The prevailing atmosphere is such none can rise to leadership unless he or she leads a number of agitations for promoting narrow caste interests. The reservation policy has come in handy for caste leaders to take the law into their own hands for seeking enlargement of a share in the quota.

TMC leader G.K. Moopanar feels these clashes follow a set pattern. In the name of a conference or procession, violence is instigated by spreading rumours. A design is noticed in the attempt to immobilise the police force, resulting in enormous hardship to innocent people. In certain places statues of leaders are damaged as a result of which clashes erupt.

The Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly said that the DMK as well as the AIADMK must be blamed for the clashes. While the AIADMK reportedly gave monetary support to leaders of a party, the DMK aggravated matters by allowing Puthiya Tamilagam to hold a conference. This is the first time the entire district of Ramanathapuram has been affected.

The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Mr Karunanidhi, has in the meantime questioned the demand of the AIADMK general secretary, Ms Jayalalitha, to dismiss the DMK ministry on grounds of law and order. He said some casteist leaders were trying to play off one community against the other for selfish ends. He said caste clashes were not something new to the state. This had happened during the regime of former Chief Minister’s too. The DMK demanded neither the resignation of the then government nor urged the Centre to dismiss the ministry, he recalled. — IPA

75 YEARS AGO
Hindu-Muslim Relations at Panipat

ALL leading Hindus are engaged in defending the cases against them under Section 107. A conciliatory board of the following 5 Mohammadans and 5 Hindu leading citizens has been appointed, consisting of: Messrs. Sayad Hussain, Malir-ul-Islam, Md. Ayub, Abdul Islam, Hamid Ullah, Mul Chand, Banwari Lall, Khem Chand, Baijnath and Chandur Bal.

But the attitude of certain Muslims is uncompromising, and so the board could not come to any understanding. The Mohammadans object to Aarati in all temples. All Hindu shops are still closed. The police has been posted in the city from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Cases under Section 107 are being expedited.