The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

No coalition dharma this

FAILURE to consult the coalition partners and the various Sangh Parivar outfits has created grave problems for the BJP-led government in pushing through what it has hyped as the second generation economic reforms. The Telugu Desam Party is fighting civic elections in early March and hence opposes a steep increase in the prices of diesel, cooking gas and kerosene. So does the INLD of Mr Om Prakash Chautala, who is getting ready to face rural voters later in the month. The Trinamool Congress is against imposing any additional burden on consumers. So the announcement which was expected on Thursday has been held back with the government hoping that the allies will change their mind in a few weeks. They may not, particularly the INLD which is in principle against making diesel costly. There is another reform proposal which has also attracted flak from allies. That relates to downsizing the government. The BJP has not succeeded in selling to the partners the idea despite calling it rightsizing, which plainly is freezing recruitment and offering voluntary retirement benefits to central government employees. All regional parties, including the Shiv Sena and the Samata, have said a firm no since educated unemployment is high in all states. The sister Sangh organisations like the trade union affiliate BMS, the kisan outfit BKS and the Swadeshi Jagran Manch are openly critical of some of the economic policies, believing that they will harm the interest of their members. The SJM is holding a conference in Vrindavan from March 1 to finalise its agitational plan. RSS chief Rajendra Singh is attending it as is Mr K. N. Govindacharya. The old rhetoric about welcoming foreign capital and technology to make computer chips and not potato chips is being recycled to debunk the relaxation of investment norms in all sectors. An inkling of the thinking of the hardliners is there in a strongly worded letter Mr K.R.Malkani has written to the Prime Minister. He says the government’s disinvestment (privatisation) programme will ultimately lead to outside control of Indian industry.

The opposition from the alliance partners poses a problem very different from what the same government faced last year. Some of the allies cannot be brought around since local compulsions militate against policy changes. Ms Mamata Banerjee will always veto any proposal to sell off loss-making public sector undertakings, since many of them are located in West Bengal and Bihar. The resultant job loss will damage her political base. There are many central government offices in Chennai and Mumbai and the DMK and the Shiv Sena may not be able to get employment for their supporters. But support to downsizing will be suicidal for them. As the leader of the coalition and as the party which presides over key ministries, the BJP should have anticipated the reaction and sought extensive discussion before framing policies. That is the demand of coalition dharma. Instead it unleashed a very senior leader, Mr Ram Naik, to talk incessantly about the rising world price of crude and the imperative need to slash the subsidy on cooking gas and kerosene. He does not seem to have succeeded in building a favourable public opinion but has certainly firmed up the opposition of the allies. Ironically, the ruling alliance put such proposals in the President’s Address and within hours of his reading them out, it has decided to shelve two of them. This is particularly unfortunate. The alliance is obviously suffering from a time wrap. The Centre can no more take decisions and expect the states to unquestioningly accept and implement them. In the changed equation, it is the other way round. The states have a dominant say and as junior partners with vital numbers, they are over-sensitive to their focused interests. Allowing them a chance to freely air their views will soften their stand, and prudent selling of the changes will do the rest.

What about judicial reforms?

LAWYERS and doctors should never go on strike in spite of the gravest of grave provocation. They should voluntarily surrender this right because of the noble nature of their professions. They provide relief to those in medical or legal {or both} distress. Lawyers have another reason for not going on strike. Unlike doctors who are trained to heal patients and not articulate their own grievances, lawyers, by training, are supposed to be proficient in the art of argument. Whenever there is talk of judicial reform they are actually expected to assist and not prevent the legislature and the executive from translating the “talk” into a set of rules and laws for achieving the stated objective. There is an old saying about lawyers that when they argue a case they are expected to hammer the law if they are strong on law, hammer the facts if they are strong on facts and hammer the table if they are strong on none. What are they trying to hammer through the current round of protest? Ever since the notification of the amendments to the Advocates Act and the Code of Civil Procedure and the proposal to allow foreign law firms to practice in India were given the colours of a major controversy, Union Law Minister Ram Jethmalani and Chairman of the Law Commission B.P. Jeevan Reddy have tried to put the issues in perspective. Sadly, the protesting lawyers have either failed to present their case or the media has not shown adequate interest in whatever they have to say against the entry of foreign law firms in India or the notification of the amendments to the Advocates Act of 1961 and the grossly outdated Code of Civil Procedure. They need to be told that the Supreme Court ruling on their right to strike is as relevant today as when it was delivered in 1995. The apex court said a firm “no” to taking recourse to strike by lawyers except in the rarest of the rare cases and that too as a last resort. The operative part of the ruling is that lawyers wanting to discharge their obligation to their clients and the judiciary are not to be prevented from doing so. Have the lawyers exhausted all the other means for having their case heard by the right quarters?

The amendments to the Code of Civil Procedure, brought about by the Amendment Act of 1999, are based on the recommendations of the Law Commission and the Justice Malimath Committee. The two reports were made public two years ago with the explicit purpose for obtaining the views of the members of the legal fraternity. The Bar associations would have to produce evidence to show their active interest in the issue when it was thrown open for public debate. They may also find it difficult to refute the popular impression that the changes in the Code of Civil Procedure are actually part of the promised judicial reforms. The basic objective of the changes is to make litigation inexpensive and less time-consuming for the aggrieved parties. The changes may also help clear the massive backlog of pending cases. The Law Commission’s explanation on the issue of allowing foreign firms to set up shop in India too has so far not been challenged by the lawyers. The issue, along with that of the review of the Advocates Act, was mentioned in a working paper prepared by the commission for obtaining the views of the members of the legal fraternity. The Bar Council was informed that the commission would act on the working paper in May, 2000, after obtaining the views of its members. The paper was circulated in August last year. In the words of the Chairman of the Law Commission no response was received from anyone including those “who are now agitating against the proposals”. The paper specifically mentioned the fact that India had signed on January 1, 1995, the General Agreement on Trade and Services and was, therefore, under a legal obligation to allow foreign firms’ entry even in the services sector after a period of five years of the signing of the agreement. The executive of the Indian Bar Association had even expressed its broad agreement with the guidelines prepared by the International Bar Association. On this issue too the lawyers’ point of view has not been adequately highlighted. The lawyers should have argued their case instead of finding the “rarest of the rare” justifications for taking a course of action which would inevitably add to the harassment of the already harassed litigants. It is never too late to make amends. They would earn the gratitude of the nation if they were to help the political leadership in introducing the necessary changes in the Evidence Act, the Indian Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code for completing the process of judicial reforms initiated through the amendments to the Code of Civil Procedure and the Advocates Act.

SECURITY COVER FOR VVIPs
Rationalisation yes, politics no
by Hari Jaisingh

THE question of rationalising the security cover for VVIPs has unnecessarily evoked sharp criticism mainly from those who have got used to this special facility at a considerable cost to the Indian tax-payer. To say this is not to question the utmost desirability of ensuring full protection to those who are on the hit-list of trigger-happy terrorists and gangsters of various shades.

It is also a fact that the country’s social and political set-up is getting more and more caught in a vicious circle of violence and lawlessness. No civil authority, howsoever well-organised and well-intentioned, can provide ready answers to mad acts of violence that we have seen of late in different parts of the country. The Naxalites are active in several pockets of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra and Bihar. Terrorists are going about their job merrily, not only in Jammu and Kashmir and certain North-Eastern states but in almost all parts of the country.

The security environment, for all practical purposes, is vitiated. Why is it so? My simple answer to this question is poor house-keeping.

Union Home Minister L.K. Advani and other central leaders often talk about pursuing a proactive policy in tracking down militants, especially in Kashmir. Mr Advani should know as Home Minister that words without deeds are meaningless. In any case, looking at the complexity of the deteriorating security environment in the country, there is an urgent need to have a fresh look at the entire situation, including the quality of security and intelligence input.

Beant Singh in Chandigarh could not be protected despite the best possible security cover. Why? Who failed whom? There are serious gaps in the protective shield to different individuals.

The Indian security system is visible and hence vulnerable. Ironically, this is probably the only area where the government’s transparency operates to the dismay and harassment of ordinary citizens!

My concern here is the way the elite force is used as a status symbol for the satisfaction or glorification of the growing ranks of VVIPs in the country’s political jungle.

I fully understand the needs of persons like Dr Farooq Abdullah, Mr Parkash Singh Badal and a few others at the Centre and in the states. They definitely need special protection because of the sensitive positions they hold or have held in the past. But I fail to understand the justification for special protective shield for former Prime Ministers and a host of politicians and bureaucrats who could do with less security cover than is being provided at present.

Former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar is sore at the proposal to curtail the security cover for several Opposition leaders. I am against such decisions being taken on political considerations. They should be professionally handled and decided accordingly. All the same, the former Prime Minister has no business to politicise the matter. I wish our leaders could spare a thought for India’s millions of poor people while forcing the state exchequer to spend lakhs of rupees on former and present VVIPs to feel secure. Ordinary citizens too have a right to get the bare necessities of life! Are they to be treated as a mere voting machine?

Let us have a look at the Westminster model in Britain. Once a Prime Minister loses power, he quietly makes room for the new occupant without any fanfare. He does not even get a sarkari accommodation. He comes as the people’s representative, and once he loses power, he goes back to the people and the profession he previously pursues.

In our country, Prime Ministers come and Prime Ministers go, but their trappings of power, facilities and security continue. How can we justify such huge expenses by the state exchequer?

A visit by a former Prime Minister outside Delhi costs lakhs of rupees. When it is an overseas tour, then God forbid, expenses run into much more . Even security personnel are provided for with travel facilities, including hotel accommodation. Why does the conscience of these publicmen not prick since some of them have been known socialists?

One can understand the humble Gandhian Gulzari Lal Nanda being taken care of by the state since he had hardly anything of his own. Still, he did not seek any official favours. But I fail to understand why the otherwise rich politicians should not fend for themselves once out of power?

In the world’s most modern democracy, the USA, no such privileges are extended even to former Presidents.

Perhaps, I am conveying my sentiments rather bluntly. But I am probably reflecting the feelings of millions of countrymen in this matter, though they habitually prefer to remain mute spectators of the drift perpetuated in their name.

All right-thinking persons are for reconsideration of the security cover for VVIPs. Every case must be decided on merit without any political or other consideration. Those who do need protection should be given security cover, including the elite NSG backup, but it should not be as a status symbol. Decisions on such matters ought to be left to intelligence agencies. I am sure they have their own code of checking and verifying facts.

Unfortunately, the privileged people try to grab everything—from the flaunting of redlights on their vehicles and display of security personnel to the right of passage on a busy thoroughfare. It is pathetic to see some VVIP cavalcades on national highways. They disturb the entire traffic system and play havoc with it. Who cares if ordinary citizens are harassed?

The nation has the right to information. The people would like to know the amount of public money being spent on VVIP security. We all talk about transparency and accountability. But there is hardly any sign of it in this critical area.

Let us not forget the fact that it is the tax-payer who is funding every little thing. He has to bear the burden of ever-increasing taxes without getting the benefit which could improve the quality of his life.

What can be more shameful than the fact that over 60 per cent of the people do not have even safe drinking water supply? Half of the expenses on the existing health services could be cut if we just ensure the supply of potable water to the urban and rural areas.

Similarly, we go on adding to the number of cars without caring to improve the horrible condition of the roads. As it is, education is in a mess, especially at the primary level.

It needs to be stated that leaders of all political parties behave in the same manner and pursue the same lavish style once they are in power. We have forgotten the early message of the Father of the Nation—simple living, high thinking.

I have raised these questions in the larger context of national priorities with a view to discouraging the tendency of the ruling elite to deceive the people by tall promises and rhetoric. In what way is the BJP-led coalition government different from the earlier Congress ones? Trappings of power are the same. Expenses, instead of coming down, have rather gone up. The administration cost has increased. Indeed, the people are being asked to pay more and more taxes for the inefficiency and non-performance of the governments at the Centre and in the states. This was surely not the intention of freedom fighters. What is the worth of leaders if they are afraid of the people? What has made them feel alienated? It is simply because of their non-performance and the unending craze to amass personal and family wealth to the disadvantage of ordinary citizens.

I am writing this more in anguish than in anger in the hope that the people see the whole situation in perspective and begin to ask questions on the successes and failures of those whom they have voted to power. Unless we do this assessment honestly, the rulers will continue to think that they can get away with their sins of omission and commission.

Everything must be accounted for, including the security cover provided to the past and present VVIPs. Many of them may not deserve it on the basis of threat perception.

Apparently, there is need for a thorough overhaul and rationalisation of the existing system, and we expect the Union Home Minister not to buckle under pressure and carry on this vital domestic reform without fear or favour.

US doublethink: terrorism & human rights
by Darshan Singh Maini

THE entire American worldview at this bend of time and history calls for a frank and open debate in view of the transparencies, ambiguities and equivocations that have, ironically, at once brought the American Dream to a consummation in terms of affluence, and made it suspect in most parts of the world in the process. I do not wish to go deeply into the large aspects involving their history since the May Flower promise of the Founding Fathers, but want this little discourse to remain confined to the two questions in view of terrorism and the human rights issue out of the several that have lately compromised the American position in Indian eyes, in particular.

For one who has spent quite a few years in their universities, cities and homes (and that’s my complex story), and partaken of American felicities, magnanimities, freedoms, etc, it’s doubly difficult to come to terms with the shabby side of the dream. But the very spirit that once brought the American mind and imagination into play, and still survives in the awakened, but grieving consciousness in that country, now compels its admirers to take a cold look at the state of the nation, President Clinton’s recent artfully articulated address, notwithstanding.

Though it’s some of the State Department and presidential pronouncements in relation to the questions of Kashmir, terrorism and highjacking which have provoked the Indian thinking mind to question American credentials, a closer scrutiny would reveal the long-term global dream (a travesty, in reality, of the Great Dream) of the American establishment — from the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department to the monolithic corporate conglomerates with their agenda of economic imperialism —, and the huge “to-do” about the business and philosophy of globalisation. A couple of things come at once into our consideration, and they may be summed up in some such terms: (a) the American human (white, in particular) is a species apart, and cannot be judged or questioned by others whatever the issue or problem; (b) his uniqueness is his tender, and his view of the world has to be the global view, whatever its costs, and whatever its consequences for the humankind in general. This overlordship is, thus, a historic necessity and the world had better accept and understand it!

To be sure, the American media would not lay it on so thick, but their masters and mentors mean exactly this. It appears, then, that today’s ruling American has at last become the ultimate “equivocal man”, to quote an American thinker. He cannot but equivocate and prevaricate, doublethink and doubleact since all his instincts have been so conditioned over a period of time — particularly since the end of World War-II. This is, of course, in a way, nothing very new. Melville’s little classic, the Confidence Man, had its roots in the darker side of the American psyche. In one of his well-known quips a Mark Twain character notes in his diary: “It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it!”

I have had to bring my argument to this pitch in order to close with the two specific issues that make up the sub-title of this piece. For, day in and out, we receive high-sounding signals from the American elders and rulers on the need to root out international terrorism in all its manifestations, and on the need to preserve human rights in all conditions and circumstances. But, please, read all this as spelt out in the American primer of ethics! If even a single American is made a victim of terrorism, the US government and agencies have the right to track down “the devil” wherever he hides his head — in Kandahar, or in some other obscure part of our terra firma.

More, they have the right to cross all frontiers, East or West, North or South, without your permission, indeed, without your knowledge. They call it “the right of hot pursuit” — a legalese applicable only to American actions. Thus, terrorists in other parts of the world — in Kashmir, in Kosovo, in Chechnya, and in scores of countries across the globe — would be earning that name only when and if the White House gives the nod. Otherwise, they are “freedom-fighters”, “human rights crusaders” if you like. Similarly, America would pressurise into submission any country that refuses to sign the CTBT, while sheltering its own non-compliance under an umbrella of complicity between the Senate and the White House. In so many words, God’s own country is beyond the pale of conventions and covenants. Having triggered the nuclear terror, the progenitors of the nuclear weapons have turned into its crusaders where the weaker nations are concerned. In sum, there’s finally a point where the grand American diplomacy turns into the grand American hypocrisy.

And the dictate doesn’t stop there. If the American Congress chooses to declare or designate a country terrorist — Algeria or Afghanistan, Iran or Iraq, or any country seen as threatening or harming American interests — well, then, UN or no UN, it’s the name, or shall we say, the name of the game? Let its children be starved to death and its economy destroyed, its nationals humiliated; and the world in awe and thunder would be expected to watch and wait for uncle Sam’s “commandment”. The “rogue” or “pariah” country is to be taught a hard lesson. That’s the new avatara of the American god and its “manifest destiny”.

Let me turn now briefly to the American record in regard to the human rights issue. To begin with, its earlier and post-colonial history of black slavery and “Indian” decimation on a scale that overwhelms the imagination of justice is enough to create a permanent sense of shame in white American conscience. One doesn’t have to cite stories and novels written by the 20th century black writers like Richard Wright or James Baldwin or Alex Hailey or the Nobel Laureate, Toni Morrison, to bring out in graphic and tragic detail the dehumanisation of a whole race. There are even white voices of protest and indignation to be found in each American century — the most authoritative being, of course, the Voice of Abraham Lincoln at whose monument in Washington, incense and flowers and prayers are offered each day! Yes, in recent times, that kind of stranglehold is not to be seen, and the Klu Klun Klan and such dark outfits are, at best, Southern anachronisms allowed to damn themselves, but even today under the American skies not only the blacks, but also several immigrant minorities, feel the sting of discrimination, and a covert sense of insult, here and there. “The Sermon” from “Mount Capitol” will not stand any frank scrutiny.

If that were all, I should have called halt to my reluctant, unhappy hand, for I still remain convinced of the essential American goodness engendered in the process of becoming, and achieving greatness. The milk of wonder or of kindness, is not fully spent. In fact, I had a good taste of the sweeter airs during my stay in and visits to “the Land of Promise”. But, unfortunately, the American image abroad, particularly in the developing countries, is sufficiently sullied to be a cause for concern.

Take the case of the human rights in relation to America’s client countries and economies — in some of the Arab monarchies and Sheikhdoms, in the Latin American countries under cruel dictatorships, to mention only these examples — and you see a very different set of attitudes and stances. The human rights violations in those lands are so openly perpetrated as to leave little even to an indulgent imagination. And the heirs of Jefferson and Lincoln in the White House and outside would have to look within themselves for the answer. Clearly, where America’s military bases, oil interests, economic hegemony, etc, are affected, a very very benign “Nelson’s eye” is to be seen in the scenario. “After such knowledge”, what songs and sermons!

The Statue of Liberty opposite Manhatten in New York has long remained a place of adoration and a port of call. The visitors in millions still pay their homage to that great American symbol or icon. It’s now for the American people to start a moral renaissance, a revival of its pristine vision and values. The Administration is not going to help. It will continue to rationalise its lapses in the name of the enshrined ideals. For, in reality, “the idols of the marketplace” now engage the hearts and imaginations of such American worthies. It’s time for the thinking Americans to sit up and speak, and for the affluent middle and lower classes to wake up and act.

Diversity has made India tolerant
By M.S. N. Menon

WE are told that India has no foreign or defence policy — not even an economic policy. Is India, then, as Prof Galbraith pointed out, a “functioning anarchy?”

Not yet, Prof Galbraith is not an Indologist. He does not know the quintessential character of the Indian civilisation.

History and destiny have made India what it is. It is a country of immense diversity. Diversity has made it tolerant — perhaps more ambivalent. We are conditioned to this way of life.

India’s foreign policy reflects both this ambivalence and tolerance. When we were forced to choose between imperialism and Communism, we chose to remain nonaligned. Similarly, when we had to choose between free market and planned economy, we went for a mixed economy. India refuses to be an erring partisan.

India is comfortable with the Golden Mean — with peace. Nor with war and its psychosis. The point I want to make is this: the long history of India and the conditioning that we have had made us think in a particular way and made us unfit for the path of partisan conflicts. How else is one to explain the absence of a military doctrine in all these fifty years? We continue to go for shopping only when the war is on us!

Be that as it may, it has at least this merit: one can understand it.

But what is one to make of the foreign policy of the BJP? It claims that it is a nationalist party. But how does it reconcile its nationalism with its pro-American proclivities, when America has been hostile to India ever since India’s independence. (Remember, there was a serious attempt to merge the Jana Sangh and Swatantra Party!)

There is only one explanation for this contradiction: the nature of the composition of the BJP membership. In its anxiety to gather support, the BJP has collected around its impossible bedfellows: traders and industrialists (who are pro-USA), upper echelons of the bureaucracy (who are westernised, pro-West, with relations in America), the surging lower middle classes (who subscribe to traditions and rituals), the military top brass and a section of the middle class (who are inspired by nationalism) and, of course, the sadhus and sanyasins, who revel in obscurantism. How can there ever be a consensus in such a disparate assemblage of humanity? How can the sadhu and the westernised bureaucrat co-exist? Obviously, they cannot. There are naturally tension within the BJP. This explains why the BJP (I should say RSS) has gone for specialised front organisations. They are very clear about their objectives and can be ruthless.

I believe that India has a message to the world and one day it will articulate it in a forceful manner. But the time is not yet. In any case, there is no political party, truly nationalistic, to articulate it. Only a party which is more independent and nationalistic can undertake this task.

That is why there are fears about how the BJP is going to handle the Clinton visit. Does the BJP know President Clinton well enough? Does it remember that he was positively hostile to India in his first term?

America has never been a “friend” of India. Isn’t this something for deep thought? What is this animus about? This has not been properly analysed. Memory is short. Yet India has not forgotten that Dr Kissinger persuaded China to militarily intervene in India during the 1971 conflict and President Nixon ordered the 6th Fleet to move into the Bay of Bengal!

The BJP has subordinated the nationalism of the majority of its members to the interests of the business community and the bureaucracy, who are in a minority.

And yet the BJP took courage to make the bomb and explode it, it continues to depend on Russia for sophisticated arms and it encourages swadeshi. This shows that the house of the BJP is divided. This is reflected in its foreign policy. It is riding in two boats — one driven by a pro-US lobby and the other by a nationalist group. As anyone can see; this is self-defeating situation.

The USA is an assertive power in search of hegemony. Globalisation is the means to achieve it. It wants to create a global framework favourable to its supremacy over the world. And it tries to market globalisation as a universal panacea. Unfortunately there are enough credulous people in this country to believe it.

If the problem with the BJP is its composition, the problem with America is that it speaks with different tongues (a deliberate policy), and more often puts a camouflage over its real motives. Although the US Government does not believe in an ethical foreign policy, it fought the cold war on an ethical issue — freedom. Today it is again fighting for supremacy. But the goal is said to be ethical — human rights for all. Thus it is difficult to say what exactly the USA is pursuing.

Yet some are categorical about US objectives. Even such an eminent academic like Prof Charles Kauthammor writes: “The unipolar world has arrived and a confident USA must learn to accept its new role aggressively, imposing its own vision.”

There are threats to this triumphant position of the USA, first of all from China.

The USA knows that India can one day become a centre of power and influence. In 1992, a Pentagon study talked about the need to contain the “hegemonistic ambition” of some “regional” powers — particularly India. The point is: the USA wants a weak India, not a strong India. America’s is a civilisation of power. Ours is a civilisation of contemplation and aesthetics. America considers itself a legatee of the Roman empire. It denies power to others. Dr Kissinger warns America of India’s growing influence. He says that India may influence, if not dominate, a wide arc from Aden to Singapore. He wanted America to back China to keep India in check. (This is exactly what Clinton did during his trip to China).

Washington was equally categoric about its economic objectives. Warren Christopher, former Secretary of State, has said that there is a “new centrality of economic policy in our foreign policy.” He went on: As I travel the world, I see that virtually every nation wants to define its foreign policy in terms relative to the USA, whether seeking security assurances or expanding trade and investment links with us. They look to us as the fulcrum for global security and in many cases for regional security... This gives us unparalleled opportunity to influence their conduct.”

Rather frank, but true. Clinton himself has spoken in the same vein. Addressing newspaper editors in 1993 on “Human Rights”, he said: “During the cold war, our foreign policy largely focused on relations among nations. Our strategies sought a balance of power to keep peace. Today, our policies must also focus on relations within nations, on a nation’s form of government, on its economic structure (and) on its ethnic tolerance.”

Clinton used this alibi to interfere in Punjab and Kashmir.

Our leaders must have a clear understanding of US foreign policy objectives and the methods it adopts. They must not be seduced by propaganda. And we must be true to our character.

It is clear from what I have said that the BJP must go through a lot more soul searching before it can leave its impress on the history of India. A party which is dominated by the business community and westernised bureaucrats cannot inspire confidence about its nationalistic claims. Nor can it be a paragon of idealism. Time for some meditation.