E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Sri Lanka reforms 
SRI Lanka today stands at historic crossroads. It can build a multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural polity or wallow in tension, uncertainty and a brutal war in the north and its vicious fallout elsewhere. 

Drugs and sport
THE International Amateur Athletic Federation may have had valid reasons for allowing Javier Sotomayor to take part in the Sydney Olympics, but it is bad publicity for international sport. The Cuban athlete, who holds the world high jump record, was disqualified last year from taking part in international competitions after being found guilty of taking cocaine. 

OPINION

Lessons from Camp David
by Inder Malhotra
NOT just for the countries concerned but for the world at large, and surely for India, there are lessons to be learnt from the collapse of the Camp David talks on the Middle East peace.

MIDDLE

ON THE SPOT

Debunking I.T. — Laloo style
by Tavleen Singh
LALOO Yadav first denounced Information Technology on television. In one of those interminable, melodramatic interviews he loves giving he wiggled his white thatch, bulged his eyes in village idiot mode, waved his bejewelled hands and pronounced that he was against Information Technology. He opposed it, he said, because he did not think it would be of any use in a country where there was so much illiteracy and unemployment.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Constructive visit

THE bitter phase of the Indo-Nepal relationship which had started with the hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight to Kandahar in December last will hopefully come to an end with the recent Delhi visit of the Nepalese Prime Minister, Mr G.P. Koirala. The agreement to work closely for fighting the scourge of terrorism is broad enough to assuage the feelings of mistrust. Nepal has also assured India that its territory would not be allowed to be used by Pakistan’s ISI agency for anti-India activities. Security issues have come to dominate the relations of late. India has genuine concerns regarding the ISI-masterminded smuggler-terrorist nexus in Nepal. The 1700-km-long open border has been misused by the enemies. It has also been misutilised by Left-wing extremists opposed to the Nepalese government, which has been urging New Delhi to curb their activities on its soil. Various misunderstandings which keep cropping up between the two have led to a deterioration in bilateral relations. The institutional mechanism which the two countries have now decided to evolve can help them overcome such periodical difficulties. What exist between the two countries are actually nothing more than irritants, which when left unattended to for long get magnified into disputes. Most of these problems can be attributed to the domestic politics of Nepal. India-bashing has become a political necessity there because of the competitive brand of nationalism that is being practised by some. Mr Koirala today enjoys the support of a sufficiently large section of his party to make a new beginning. As he said here, he is on the last leg of his political career. He can establish a laudatory political legacy by putting the relationship on an even keel by ignoring inspired tirades of some of his political opponents, both within the Nepali Congress and outside it.

India on its part will have to be more understanding about the sensitivities of a typical small neighbour. Indian diplomats are right in pointing out that even their well-meaning gestures are misunderstood in Kathmandu. For instance, during his first term as Prime Minister, Mr Koirala had requested India to lend a few helicopters to help locate the wreckage of two aircraft, which had crashed. New Delhi readily acceded to this request on humanitarian grounds. But when these helicopters reached Nepal, the banner headlines in leading newspapers proclaimed: “Indian Air Force invades Nepalese skies”. Similarly, while New Delhi continues to offer “national treatment” to Nepali citizens in India, there has been reluctance in Kathmandu to make it a bilateral arrangement. India is right in pointing out that concessions cannot be unilateral. And yet, New Delhi will have to continue to go more than half way to cooperate. It displayed that spirit in ample measure when in response to the Nepalese concern over inundation in Banke district of Nepal because of a flood control embankment constructed on the Indian side, it promptly gave an assurance that steps would be taken to redress the grievance. Mr Koirala on his part has expressed a sincere desire to set the tone for mature relations. The two countries have drawn up a new timetable to resolve the differences over the boundary alignment and have even agreed to take a fresh look at the five decades old treaty. The Foreign Secretaries of the two countries will now meet once every six months. In today’s world, the best way to explore new avenues of cooperation is through trade and commerce. Significantly, India and Nepal have agreed to conclude a bilateral investment protection and promotion agreement at the earliest. Another positive development has been that the two countries have given a concrete direction to the construction by India of the Saptakoshi Dam, which had not moved much beyond the discussion stage during the past 50 years. 

Sri Lanka reforms 

SRI Lanka today stands at historic crossroads. It can build a multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural polity or wallow in tension, uncertainty and a brutal war in the north and its vicious fallout elsewhere. President Chandrika Kumaratunga has been as good as her promise of a new tomorrow and has unfolded a new Constitution. It is not an amended version, but a totally rewritten one, with a bunch of federal features. That is the core of reforms and the island republic will cease to have a unitary form of government. If Parliament adopts it and the people endorse it in a referendum, the Colombo government will share power with regional councils, and with a North-East one almost exclusively for the Tamils. True, the draft faces roadblocks. All opposition Sinhala parties are against it and the main United National Party (UNP) joined the ranks on the eve of its tabling. And the powerful Buddhist monks are also no-sayers, fearing an eventual breakaway of minority regions. Again, not all Tamil parties support the liberal provisions. They want more. The ruling People’s Alliance (PPA) does not have a two-thirds majority to vote the new Constitution into law. The government hopes to win over a dozen UNP members after they study the document and a nationwide debate starts. The opposition too banks on defection to defeat it with the help of rebels from the PA. The draft Constitution — voting is next week — is the most important piece of legislation since independence in 1948 and the nation is vertically split on its merits and flaws. Many commentators feel that its passing or rejection will redraw the political alignments in ways not clear now.

While the new statute broadly meets all Tamil demands, it falls short in finer details. It recognises the fundamental rights of all in all respects, including citizenship to about 85,000 stateless Tamils, but accords a special place for Buddhism and pledges to work for a Buddhist sasana (framework of the government). The eastern and northern regions will be merged; most minorities live here. The regional councils (akin to state assemblies in India) will have extensive financial powers, control over land except reserved forests, will also have its own judiciary, police force and public service. A rebellion in any region will invite dismissal of the council by the Centre; this is to satisfy those who fear secession by the Tamils. A key provision is that the Executive President will first take over the job of Prime Minister and at the expiry of the tenure of Mrs Kumaratunga, there will be a Head of State elected by MPs and members of the regional councils, not directly by the people as now. Another provision modelled on the Indian Constitution is the Central and state lists, but there is no concurrent one. As one newspaper has noted, she has risked everything in her determination to end the civil war and she has invited the Tamil Tigers to discuss the package with her. Otherwise, the war will go on, she has declared. The hope is it will not.

Drugs and sport

THE International Amateur Athletic Federation may have had valid reasons for allowing Javier Sotomayor to take part in the Sydney Olympics, but it is bad publicity for international sport. The Cuban athlete, who holds the world high jump record, was disqualified last year from taking part in international competitions after being found guilty of taking cocaine. He has served only half the sentence for violating the sport-related strict anti-drug laws. Reports from Cuba suggest that even he was taken by surprise when informed of the lifting of the ban on his participation in international competitions. The growing number of anti-drug lobbyists too have not been able to understand why the IAAF decided to go soft on Sotomayor a month before the Sydney Olympics. According to IAAF President Lamine Djack the ban was lifted because Sotomayor had cleared 300 other dope tests in his career. If there is a rule in favour of condoning "the first offence", why was he disqualified at all for a period of two years. Mr Djiak had evidently not heard about narco-terrorism and the hold of international cartels over the multi-billion dollar drug trade. The anti-drug lobby believes that drug abuse laws should be made more strict for both the users and the peddlers. Saudi Arabia and most other West Asian countries have harsh anti-drug laws. Death is the minimum penalty for violating the laws against the use and supply of banned drugs. The organisers of international events by and large are strict in enforcing the dope laws. There are instances of athletes being unfairly penalised because of the medicines they were using for medical reasons were found to contain banned substances.

But Sotomayor was disqualified not for using a medicine containing traces of cocaine. He was found guilty of using the drug which is known to turn normal human beings into junkies. And those who get addicted are inevitably sucked into the dark world of crime. In any case, there should have been no exception to the rule which insists that drugs and sport are not meant for each other. Sotomayor is indeed an outstanding athlete and a decent human being. However, if his sentence has been reduced by half for reasons which in no way would help enhance the image of international sport, the IAAF and other organisations may have to condone the drug-related offences of others The seriousness of the problem can be gauged from a report from Sydney. Australian authorities have put out a nationwide alert against activities of drug cartels for whom the Sydney Olympics mean "big money" and nothing else. The apprehension of the authorities about Sydney being targeted by durg cartels were not unfounded. Last week the police received a complaint about the theft of 1,000 syringes filled with the banned drug "epo". The syringes are believed to be worth several million dollars in the international market. The syringes were stolen from a hospital in Australia where they are used for treating cases of renal failure. Sotomayor is not likely to repeat the mistake of taking cocaine during the Sydney Olympics. But the decision nevertheless flies in the face of logic. The same panel which cleared Sotomayor for the Sydney Games decided to refer for arbitration the cases of Dieter Baumann, who won a gold medal in 5,000 mts at Barcelona, and Linford Christie, who the won the Olympics 100 mts title in the same year. Both of them tested positive for nandrolone, a banned substance. They too should have been pardoned. Why is their rehabilitation being delayed? Why the double standards?

Sino-Indian Relations
Lot of rhetoric, little progress
by Inder Jit

FOND hopes raised by President K.R. Narayanan’s much-hyped visit to China in May and expectations that it would help usher in a new chapter in Sino-Indian ties before long have been largely belied — at least so far. As agreed, China’s Foreign Minister, Mr Tang Jiaxuan, has visited India. He came to New Delhi from London, stopped here for little over a day and then flew to his country’s “all-weather friend” Pakistan for three days. But his stop-over in New Delhi has yielded little beyond familiar, goody goody rhetoric. In fact, if the truth be told, India continues to be taken for a ride by China, notwithstanding all the euphoria top Government leaders are able to get the media to generate through various overt and covert devices in regard to not only their own visits abroad but also those of their counterparts to India. Hence every visit is projected as having been friendly, useful and successful.

It was my privilege to accompany Rajiv Gandhi to China in December, 1988. He took a calculated risk in journeying to Beijing to break the ice between the two countries. He was eager, in the words spoken by Nehru in December, 1962, to create “conditions for a peaceful approach” and a “peaceful solution” of the Sino-Indian problem. The sub-zero temperatures in China’s capital were more than set off by the warmth exuded by the Chinese leaders and the large crowds that turned out to greet India’s Prime Minister. I saw Deng Xioping greet Rajiv in the Great Hall of the People not only with a warm handshake, described by American and Japanese newsmen as the “longest ever”, but with the words: “Welcome my young friend. Starting from your visit, we will restore our relations as friends. Our countries will become friends. Our people will become friends. Do you agree?” Rajiv appropriately responded: “Of course yes. We should be friends.” His bold initiative paid off. Everyone thereafter talked effusively of the “new silk route to enduring peace and amity.”

Importantly, agreement was reached to “work hard to create a favourable climate and conditions for a fair and reasonable settlement of the boundary question while seeking a mutually acceptable solution to this question.” Earlier differences over phraseology (“mutual understanding and mutual accommodation” versus “national interests of both countries”) were sorted out. It was agreed to lay emphasis on finding “a fair and reasonable settlement” and on “mutual acceptability.” A Joint Working Group comprising India’s Foreign Secretary and China’s Vice Minister was set up in place of Official Level talks (eight rounds between 1981 and 1987) to focus specifically on the border. It was also asked to lay down “objective criteria” which should be applied for evolving a solution and asked to report in two years. This exercise was expected to clear the way for defining and delineating the Line of Actual Control and answering the long-pending question: where precisely does it lie? We were also told that Deng, then 84, was interested in resolving the border problem in his life time!

Where do matters rest today? After several top-level bilateral visits, including those of Li Peng, Jiang Zemin and Jaswant Singh and ending with that of Tang Jiaxuan, little ground has been conceded by China on the two main issues: the border and Beijing’s covert nuclear and missile transfers to Islamabad. Contrary to the euphoria created by the media regarding Narayanan’s “successful” visit, an insider in the President’s party succinctly summed up the outcome in the following words: “We expressed our concerns. The Chinese expressed theirs. We responded to their concerns. But the Chinese just kept mum.” The latest visit by Tang has once again ended on the border problem with the two sides expressing no more than goody goody intention of expediting border negotiations. This happened initially during Atal Behari Vajpayee’s visit to Beijing in 1979 as Morarji Desai’s Foreign Minister — and thereafter during the visits of Rajiv Gandhi, P.V. Narasimha Rao and President Venkataraman.

An agreement was, indeed, reached during Mr Vajpayee’s visit 21 years ago for maintaining peace and tranquility on the border pending a solution of the boundary dispute. Yet the understanding came to be violated when Beijing made incursions into Arunachal Pradesh, the most serious being the one into Sumdorong Chu Valley. The reason? The Line of Actual Control had not been defined and delineated. Sadly, even today the Line of Actual Control is not defined, let alone delineated and demarcated. What is more, China is still disinclined to exchange maps with India showing respective military positions and thereby helping define the Line of Actual Control. In fact, according to experts, this has made the Sino-Indian border talks, which began in 1981, the longest continuous frontier talks between two nations in post World War II history.

Candidly, China’s attitude is less than fair to India (to put it mildly) against the backdrop of two basic facts. First, India’s willingness to seek “a fair and reasonable” settlement of the boundary dispute on a “mutually acceptable” basis. Remember, the Lok Sabha adopted on December 10, 1962, a resolution, moved by Nehru, which said that the “flame of liberty and sacrifice has been kindled anew” and concluded: “With hope and faith, this House affirms the firm resolve of the Indian people to drive out the aggressor from the sacred soil of India, however long and hard the struggle may be.” Second, Beijing, according to knowledgeable sources, settled in record time its land border with Russia (except two sectors), Vietnam and Tajikstan etc.

Now take nuclear and missile transfers. China continues to transfer extensively to Pakistan and in a sustained manner weapons of mass destruction and their delivery vehicles. No other country, I am told, does this. Yet, China’s Foreign Minister, described these transfers at the end of his New Delhi visit as “part of regular, sovereign, state-to-state relations.” He dismissed Western media reports about the increased transfers as prejudiced, ignoring the fact that these have been confirmed by our own intelligence sources. Not only that, Mr Tang added insult to injury by telling reporters that Chinese support to Pakistan’s missile development was not directed towards India. Remember, the notorious U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. He once argued that US arms aid to Pakistan was not directed against India. This provoked Krishna Menon to quip brilliantly: “No one has so far produced a gun that fires only in one direction!”

True, both sides have agreed to get the new Experts Committee to “consolidate efforts on delineating the LAC in the middle sector” of the Sino-Indian border, about which there is little controversy. True also that something is better than nothing. But this is really no more than an eyewash since there is no indication so far as to when the Experts Committee will meet. Clearly, much remains to be done beyond signing an MoU on information technology, holding exhibitions and setting up an Eminent Persons Forum. Reportedly, the People’s Liberation Army, China’s most powerful institution that sustains the Communist Party in power, still cites India as an adversary and accuses New Delhi of pursuing hegemonistic ambitions. China needs to show by deeds that it is really serious and sincere about resolving mutual problems and restoring the old time-tested friendship. Enough of sweet rhetoric. 

The taste of summer
by Poonam Khaira Sidhu

ONE of the advantages of the civil services is the opportunity to live in beautiful, old houses steeped in history with lineages going back a hundred years. We had the privilege of living in one such house in the border district of Amritsar. It was the Deputy Commissioner’s residence and stood at Number 3 on Maqbool Road, gracing several acres. It was a huge colonial structure with large beautiful columns all washed in Jaipur Pink. The house was set amidst lawns on three sides. A stone-paved passage ran along the west side of the house leading to the Camp office at the rear and the accommodation for the security and staff.

The house itself with its 20-foot ceilings was impractical for airconditioners. So come summer, and the staff would hang up long bamboo-chicks lined with dark blue fabric in the verandahs. The verandahs were large and deep. The chicks when sprayed with water created a natural and effective cooling system for the house, protecting it from the loo blowing in from the plains of Central Asia. A bean shaped pond was set underneath the jamun tree. The goldfish that lived in the subterranean depths of the pond swam lazily on the surface on moonlit evenings in summer. A pair of ducks flourished in the green ambience of the grapevine-covered hutch. The hutch had housed rabbits, but they grew too fast and became too many and had to be sent to the zoo. The ducks also grew into a family of 10, waddling happily around the house.

Fruit trees grew in abundance on the grounds, mango, dehu, jamun, peach, grapes and the ubiquitous neem; Seasonal flowers grew in happy abandon. It was a little bit of paradise albeit with huge security restrictions in those troubled times of the early nineties post “Operation-Black Thunder”. I was grateful for the healthy and happy ambience that the house provided my little boys aged four and one, respectively. They pottered around the house all day digging a worm here and chasing a butterfly there. And then of course there were the bees who took up residence each summer attracted, I was told, by the riot of flowers whose scent hung heavy in the summer air.

Natural pure honey is a luxury that can have the most hardened cynic exultant.We looked forward to the harvest of honey from the large hives hanging from the fruit trees with great expectations. My mother-in-law and parents handed in advice on how the honey must be carefully extracted, filtered through fine gauze, labelled and stored in glass jars.

And so when the gardeners advised that the time was right we called in the honey extractors. They came with tall ladders and the other tools of their trade, smoked the bees out of their hives and extracted the honey. The thick golden nectar was filtered and stored in jars labelled with their vintage — the summer 1994. My son Bilawal aged only four was affronted. No, he said how can you steal from the little bees? But steal we did, not only that summer but also every summer that we lived there.

Posted now in Chandigarh, and living in a small house without any trees and a pocket sized lawn, the honey is a delicious reminder of the sweltering summers and happy memories of that time. Summer evenings are incomplete without fresh-lime topped with honey. In the drink, the flavours of mango, jamun, and dehu blossoms brings alive the taste of summer. The smells and sounds of a different time and place swirl gently in the golden depths of the honeyed drink.

Lessons from Camp David
by Inder Malhotra

NOT just for the countries concerned but for the world at large, and surely for India, there are lessons to be learnt from the collapse of the Camp David talks on the Middle East peace.

The first of these is not the intractability of the problems between Israel and the Palestinians, vital though that is, especially in relation to the future of Jerusalem which is what caused the breakdown of the marathon negotiations.

The most remarkable feature of the entire exercise was the ferocious energy, striking determination and notable skill with which President Bill Clinton went about the task of nudging the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, and the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, into persevering in their efforts to find a meeting ground even on Jerusalem and thus clinching a final settlement of the century-long Arab-Israeli conflict.

It is no secret that the talks between the two sides had failed by the time Mr Clinton had to leave for Japan for the G-8 summit on the island of Okinawa. Before leaving, however, he persuaded the two leaders to stay on at Camp David —where the peace treaty between President Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Begin of Israel was negotiated two decades ago — even during his absence. The US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, and other American officials deputised for him, but that was not the real thing. The last ditch effort to save the talks began only after Mr Clinton returned home and, from a 13-hour flight, went straight to his country retreat to join the equally weary negotiators.

At this stage he made proposals of his own to bridge the gap between Mr Barak and Mr Arafat. Moreover, having talked only to the principals thus far, he now joined second rank negotiators for an all-night session in the hope of formulating proposals that the two leaders might then consider. But that was not to be. The talks had to be abandoned after 14 long and strenuous days.

There is no doubt whatever that Mr Clinton pursued the Middle East peace like a man possessed because he was anxious to make this achievement, if it could be possible, the crowning piece of his legacy. He denies this, of course, and says that to end the historic conflict in the Middle East is a noble objective worth achieving for its own sake.

However, while the latter part of his statement is true, no one believes that his motives for investing so much of his time, energy and prestige in the abortive Camp David parleys were purely altruistic.

What is the moral and message of all this? Clearly that a combination of unipolarity of the international order and a compelling personality like Mr Clinton presiding over the sole superpower can be formidable beyond belief.

It is no good arguing that this combination did not succeed in producing the desired results at Camp David. President Clinton hasn’t given up. He has seen to it that the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are talking once again at Jericho. They are expected to pick up the threads from where they had left them. Moreover, he has taken even sterner measures to ensure that things move in the direction in which he wants them to go. These are important and complex matters to which one will return in a moment.

First, a pertinent question may be raised. Both Arabs and Israelis, for their own separate reasons, are happy to invite the USA to mediate in their negotiations in pursuance of the Oslo accords reached seven years ago. But what if America that regards itself as the indispensable nation and the world’s policeman and its activist President decide, on their own, to want to settle a conflict that they consider dangerous for the world? The question is doubtless hypothetical at present, but is there a guarantee that it will remain so.

As soon as the failure of the Camp David marathon had to be announced, Mr Clinton made no bones about his belief that Mr Yasser Arafat was the stumbling block on the way to an agreement. He praised Mr Barak for showing the “courage” to move ahead of the long-held Israeli position of Jerusalem being the “eternal and indivisible” capital of Israel. And he regretted that Mr Arafat not only failed to reciprocate but inflexibly insisted that he would accept Israeli sovereignty over West Jerusalem only if Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem was also accepted.

American patience was also tried by Mr Arafat’s announcement that he would unilaterally declare a sovereign Palestinian state on September 13 even if there was no final agreement on Jerusalem and other matters by that date. (Incidentally, on other matters, such as borders and refugees, considerable progress was made at Camp David. But to no avail because, according to the ground rules for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, “nothing is settled until everything is settled”.)

Mr Clinton’s response to the situation has been sternly to warn Mr Arafat that any “unilateral” action on or after September 13 — the seventh anniversary of the signing of the Oslo accords and the agreed target date for the “final settlement” between the two sides — would have “consequences”. He has stated bluntly that he would “review” the entire relationship with the Palestinians, including the $ 400-million aid package for the Arafat administration.

Equally alarming from the Palestinian point of view is the US President’s threat to “relocate” the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, something he has refrained from doing so far because he has been keen to preserve his credentials as an “honest broker” between the two sides. Hopefully, this will continue to be a deterrent, though the Palestinians have already accused him of “blackmail”.

It was not fortuitous that Mr Clinton uttered his threats to Mr Arafat, who is being demonised by a section of the usually pro-Jewish media, in an interview to the Israeli TV. He had received a distress call from Mr Barak who faces great turmoil in his country that could destroy his government only a year after it was elected. By contrast Mr Arafat has received a hero’s welcome from his people for refusing to compromise on Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem.

Apparently, the American hope is that if unilateral action by Mr Arafat can be averted there might yet be room for a peace deal. But this will be a vain hope unless Mr Barak can be persuaded to move even further than he has over Jerusalem. All that he has offered the Palestinians is “an administrative presence in East Jerusalem” coupled with autonomous control over Arab neighbourhoods there and “religious control” over the Temple Mount, the site of the ancient Jewish temple and two of Islam’s holiest mosques. This is not enough. The Palestinians must have sovereign presence in East Jerusalem, not just administrative one. As far the sacred space on the Temple Mount, they and the Israelis must share sovereignty. “Religious control” is meaningless.

Debunking I.T. — Laloo style
by Tavleen Singh

LALOO Yadav first denounced Information Technology on television. In one of those interminable, melodramatic interviews he loves giving he wiggled his white thatch, bulged his eyes in village idiot mode, waved his bejewelled hands and pronounced that he was against Information Technology. He opposed it, he said, because he did not think it would be of any use in a country where there was so much illiteracy and unemployment.

It was such a profoundly stupid statement that the Times of India sought him out to give him a chance to expand on the theme in its main edit page interview. And, so last week, under the headline Mrs & Mr Mukhya Mantri we got two for the price of one in that both Laloo and his Chief Minister wife Rabri expounded on the theme that information technology was bad for India. He said, “I do not think computers and the so-called Information Technology will serve any purpose in transforming the economic and social structure of the country where over 90 per cent of the population is deprived of even basic needs like food, shelter and education. IT will benefit only the rich, who constitute 10 per cent of the population, and, in the process, push the whole country towards further backwardness. As it is, we are faced with an acute problem of unemployment and these television-like machines with screens will only add to our problems”.

She said: “Unless the entire country is developed on a par with urban areas, there is no need for computers. First, we will have to launch an intensive literacy campaign for the crores of illiterate and ensure employment for the unemployed, particularly in rural areas. Only then can we dream of aping foreign countries and think of an IT revolution”.

At a superficial reading the thoughts of Mr and Mrs Laloo are too ludicrous to merit analysis. But, read between the lines a little and it becomes quickly evident that Bihar’s Chief Minister and her consort oppose IT mainly because they fear it. So, basically what they are trying to do is rabble-rouse against it before the illiterate masses of their benighted state discover how empowering IT can be. In trying to do this they use a rabble-rousing technique that the Congress Party perfected in the 40 years that they ruled by setting rich against poor and ostensibly working for the poor but in fact helping the rich.

It was as part of this process that Indians were denied roads, telecommunications, electricity and other infrastructure on the spurious grounds that these things benefited only the rich. The truth is that although they are, indeed, useful to the rich they make for the poor the difference between subsistence and a decent standard of living. The rich in India can generate their own power, use mobile telephones and buy cars that would help them overcome the problems of our roads. It is the poor who are deprived of choices. It requires no deep economic analysis to know that roads bring instant prosperity to villages because they make it that much easier for villagers to travel to markets and sell their produce and find jobs. Telephones — still considered by many of our Leftists as rich men’s toys — are so vital to farmers that those who can afford them these days buy mobile telephones where MTNL has failed to deliver its services. As for power, so important is it that it is possible to meet poor people across India, these days, who say they are prepared to pay for it if regular, efficient supplies were made available.

If the poor had leaders who really had their interests at heart they would have realised many years ago that things like roads and electricity were for them tools of empowerment.

But, the poor are easily fooled into voting for false leaders so they went along with the ‘socialism’ that the Congress Party claimed to be giving them. And, now it is Mr and Mrs Laloo’s turn to try and trick them once more into believing that lies are the truth.

So, Mr Laloo announces that IT is only for the rich and that computers will make hundreds of thousands of jobs redundant. He does not tell them that Internet makes it possible to turn a computer screen into a classroom. He does not tell them that IT could thereby make up for all the schools he and Bihar’s other chief ministers never managed to build. He does not tell them that IT has the potential to bring the 21st century to villages that have so for lived in the ignorance and poverty of the Dark Ages. Mrs Laloo, who can always be relied on to make a stupider statement than her husband, goes a step further and talks of needing to start a campaign to end illiteracy in rural areas without noticing that IT is the most efficient way to do this.

But, do the Laloos really want Biharis to become literate and thereby empowered? Unlikely, or they would have as self-appointed champions of the poor, have made more effort to build the schools Bihar so desperately needs. If Bihar was not one of our most illiterate states would the Laloos have found it so easy to keep winning elections? No, which is why IT scares them so much.

In my one and only close encounter with Mrs Laloo I ended up being nearly thrown out of her gracious, chief ministerial residence in Patna because I dared ask her if it would not have been easier to rule Bihar if she had been literate. “Can illiterate people not see and here”, she shouted “what is so important about being literate”. It was a memorable encounter which ended with her refusing to speak to my television camera if I was in the vicinity. So, I made myself scarce in the spacious grounds of this many-roomed mansion while my director and cameraman took the pictures.

This gave me much time to observe and make mental notes of the lifestyle chez-Laloo and I can report that its outstanding characteristic is hypocrisy. While Mummy and Daddy like to play village idiots their children are as Westernized as the children of our urban elite. The younger ones wear t-shirts and jeans and go to English schools. They have about as much to do with rural Bihar as the Chief Minister’s residence, despite its pretensions, does.

The Laloos have turned lawns into fields of wheat and rice and there are poultry farms and cattle sheds where once there must have been rose gardens and neat hedges. But, real rural Bihar lies in other not so distant fields where casteist armies routinely massacre innocents for reasons of caste. The fiefdom of the Laloos is a place of violence, ignorance, wretchedness and horror. Information Technology could help bring the first rays of light and knowledge but then Bihar would no longer be anyone’s fiefdom. Who would lose most? Mr and Mrs Laloo, can you blame them for opposing IT?

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Listen My heart!

Let thy love be that of the lotus for the pool,

Though the ripples shake the lotus and torment it,

It flowereth and loveth even more the waters.

Let thy love be that of the fish for the water

Without which they perish.

O my heart how shalt thou find freedom

Except thou find it through love;

In the heart of His saints God indwellth,

To them he giveth the treasure of true devotion

Listen, my heart: love God ceaselessly

As the fish loveth water:

The deeper the water

The happier and more tranquil the fish

God alone knoweth the suffering

Of fish separated from the waters.

O my heart, listen:

Love God even as the Chatrik bird loveth the rain drops ....

— Guru Nanak Dev, Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Sri Rag, page 59

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I am the poem of Earth, said the voice of the rain,

Eternal I rise impalpable out of the land and the bottomless sea.

— Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass: The Voice of the Rain

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Set me a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.

— The Holy Bible: The Song of Solomon, Chapter 8: 6-7

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Whatever is done from love always occurs beyond good and evil.

— Friedrich Niethzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, IV, 153

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The heart of him who truly loves is a paradise on earth; he has God in himself for God is love.

— Abbe Hugo Felicite de Lamennais (1782-1854), French author

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Divine love is a sacred flower, which in its early bud is happiness and in its full blossom is heaven.

— Eleanor Louisa Hervey, English author