 |
| Saturday, November 11, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
|
Law of arrests Banking on wrong dollars |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Colour of brutality
CHANGE IN WEST BENGAL
The American political
drama
The
watch
Tavleen Singh
Remembering the war
dead
|
|
Law of arrests THE Law Commission of India has only articulated what has been on the lips of every right-thinking citizen: the police has been grossly misusing various legal provisions to arrest a person. In fact, these powers have been used indiscriminately to harass and hound “inconvenient” people. Even more alarming is the fact that this trend is on the increase, especially in states like Gujarat. There has been a steep rise in the number of preventive arrests all over the country. The Law Commission Chairman, Justice B.P. Jeevan Reddy, has not only underlined the need to restrict the law of arrests to improve liberty and human rights in the country but also enumerated various comprehensive changes that need to be brought about in various preventive and detention provisions. The root cause of the problem lies in the fact that the country is still governed by laws formulated during British rule some 140 years ago. The policy then treated every Indian as an enemy of the state and suppressed him accordingly. The mindset has not changed much. Police brutality has only increased. An unwanted factor that has worsened the situation is the rampant corruption in the khaki ranks. It has made sure that every stringent rule is converted into a money-making device. So, even those accused of only bailable and non-cognisable offences find themselves behind bars. Since being involved with “thana-kachehri” affairs is considered such a stigma, most people want to buy their way out of the hassle. Courts have been seized of the matter for long and have suggested many safeguards. Even the Law Commission has based its recommendations on such safeguards provided in various apex court verdicts, which need to be incorporated immediately. The Law Commission has not confined itself to police powers alone. It has also recommended that courts ought to issue summons to an accused through process servers and not policemen. Justice Reddy has urged the government to term all offences at present categorised as bailable and non-cognisable as simply non-cognisable offences. A person accused of such offences should neither be arrested by the police nor should courts issue arrest warrants against them. Even those offences which are at present treated as non-bailable and cognisable punishable with a jail term up to seven years should be treated as bailable cognisable offences barring a few offences such as those under Section 124 of the IPC. No arrest should be made merely on suspicion of complicity in a crime. What is noteworthy is that the Law Commission has suggested safeguards so that the “leniency” is not misused by habitual offenders. Nor has it proposed any changes in the existing provisions to arrest a person involved in non-bailable and cognisable offences punishable with a jail term for more than seven years. Welcome as these recommendations are there are many question marks on the government’s preparedness to implement them. The four-member government-appointed committee on police reforms headed by former Union Home Secretary K. Padmanabhaiah had submitted nearly 400 recommendations to the Home Ministry so that a new concept and structure could be evolved for the police force of the new millennium. It has been gathering dust, as has been the report of the Dharam Vira panel appointed in the late 1970s. This hesitation to set things right is symptomatic of the tendency of the Indian state to keep the citizen suppressed. Since the police boot comes in handy in this task, nobody is willing to remove its nails. |
|
Banking on wrong dollars PUBLIC sector banks are crying foul over the gross mismanagement of the State Bank of India’s (SBI) India Millennium Deposity (IMD) scheme. They accuse foreign banks of doing them in by offering handsome commissions and easy loans to prospective depositors. This is evident from the final figures now trickling in. A very big chunk of collections has come from foreign banks, with the US-based Citibank topping the list with nearly $2.5 billion. Others have not done badly either. How did they manage to pay outright as high as 3 per cent of the deposits when they themselves received only 1.5 per cent as brokerage for mobilisation over $100 million? This is the core question Indian banks are raising. They are almost sure that there was leveraging, a banking jargon for borrowing cheap and lending high. IMD offers a return of 8.5 per cent in dollar. On the face of it, IMD is what the NRIs find irresistible. High interest rate, repayment in dollar and total security. In fact, this was touted as its USP (unique selling proposition). But it is also possible that the banks sitting on mountains of dollars and earning low interest shifted the money to make a killing. Only this way can one explain the unusual generosity of paying out 3 per cent while getting half of it. Again, it is possible that part of the IMD mop-up might have come from the RBI itself. It keeps a big slice of its foreign exchange reserve in overseas banks at low interest of, say, 3.5 per cent. This is because it has to have liquid assets in case there is an emergency and that kind of deposit fetches very low returns. A clever bank with billions of dollars to spare can easily divert the RBI hoard and walk away with eye-popping profit. Is it what happened? What really hurts the victim banks is the way they were conned. They splurged millions in advertising IMD and building a client base but with their hands tied could not match foreign banks in business tactics and thus lost in two ways. True, there was a surge of “gift” transfers ($ 5000 nontaxable), provoking a newspaper to link it with IMD. This is the latest twist to the controversy. The SBI’s and the government’s claim of a great victory is questionable, as indeed one economic newspaper called it a “questionable achievement”. Another was more unforgiving, criticising it as a “pyrric victory”. Why does the government, acting through SBI, need this costly fund at this time? It is as though there is a grave foreign exchange crisis and that such a desperate step alone can head it off. Apart from the record high interest rate of 8.5 per cent (the last time around the same bank promised 7.75 per cent), SBI has to absorb 1 per cent of the burden of rupee depreciation. The rest the government will bear. Now on an average the rupee loses between 5 per cent and 7 per cent of its value every year. Thus on a conservative estimate, the government will lose about Rs 150 crore every month. This is a direct subsidy to the “starving” NRIs with bulging wallets. If this too is taken into account, the real cost of the fund works out to about 11 per cent. Economists have attacked the scheme on another count. India has a foreign exchange reserve of about $34 billion and with booming exports, particularly of computer software, and depressed imports, can comfortably manage the balance of trade deficit. One global analysis has it that software exports will double every year, boosting its earnings to $ 30 billion by 2005. Ironically, that is the year when the nearly $ 6 billion IMD will have to be retired. Curious are the
government and SBI’s policies. |
|
Colour of brutality IT is not only the South Africans who are in a state of shock and fury after seeing footage of white members of a police dog unit brutally assaulting three suspected black illegal immigrants in East Rand, a township on the outskirts of Johannesburg. The entire civilised world shares their sense of outrage and revulsion. The guilty policemen have evidently shut themselves up in a time warp and the news that they are now citizens of a country where everyone has equal civil rights, irrespective of the colour of the skin, has been wilfully ignored by them. The incident has also opened a small window to the era when apartheid was the official creed of most of the colonised Africa. What most traumatised South Africans saw on the official television network on Tuesday must have made them remember the period when brutalising the black population was the official creed of the regime. Some of those who saw the footage at a special screening for deciding action against the white policemen either threw up or turned their face away from the screen in horror. The South Africa Broadcasting Corporation deserves credit for obtaining footage of the ghastly incident which had actually occurred in 1998, four years after the abolition of the policy of apartheid. The footage showed the victims pleading for their lives and the officers hurling racial abuse while kicking, punching and slapping them simply because they were black illegal immigrants. On of the officers even had the audacity to look into the camera and state with obvious glee that the attack was part of their dog training programme for crime prevention. The revolting episode is likely to revive the debate on the role of the white races in spreading the cult of racial hatred and brutality before and after the advent of recorded history. The Johannesburg incident would provide clinching evidence in support of the thesis that the colour of brutality throughout human history has mostly been white and the colour of suffering has invariably been black. The members of the white races who have taken upon themselves the responsibility of protecting human rights, as defined by them, across the globe should have a close hard look at their own record in the light of the South African incident. It may help them realise that they are responsible for spreading the revolting doctrine of racial superiority and contempt for the non-white races. In India the Mughals, except for Babar, became part of the country they ruled. But neither Robert Clive nor other European invaders cut the umbilical cord with their parent country. Jalianwala Bagh was the mother of the incidents of brutality which the white rulers gifted to the subjugated, yet peace-loving, people of India. And when the white races invaded the continents of America and Australia they mercilessly killed members of the local tribes in the name of spreading the message of civilisation. They colonised most of Africa, and as in the case of Asia, deprived it of its vast natural wealth. But for reasons which historians may be able to explain the white races could not, as they had successfully done in America and Australia, turn Africa into a graveyard of the natives and their cultures. However, the African races had to suffer a fate much worse than being killed by the white masters. They were chained and turned into slaves and taken to distant lands for working on the farms and establishments of white settlers. In the footage screened in South Africa on Tuesday the three white policemen were inadvertently performing the historical role of their forebears with the same sense of pride and jubilation in making the black victims beg for mercy while being attacked by the police dogs. The evidence that the white people are "born brutal and racist" is indeed damning. History would also show that when the white races fought among themselves it resulted in the holocaust and the most devastating war between members of the so-called civilised world. |
|
CHANGE IN WEST BENGAL
BY removing the Chief Minister’s chair before Mr Buddhadev Bhattacharya, a white-haired middle-aged man who writes plays and translates Pablo Neruda’s poetry, was sworn in on Monday, West Bengal’s Marxist-dominated Left Front government underlined the comparison between him and the veteran Mr Jyoti Basu who has been described as the best Prime Minister India never had. Legends once born are hard to demolish. A British commentator said that the royal family there was famous for being famous. Mr Basu’s boast that “the biggest achievement of the Left Front is the very fact that it is in power for the past 23 years” recalls that negative asset. In the short term, power is an end in itself. Ultimately, it can be justified only as the means to ends that bestow benefits on others besides those who actually wield and enjoy it. This is the challenge for the Left Front whose worst enemy is the Left Front. With Congress in habitual disarray and Ms Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress still more sound than substance, Mr Bhattacharya has a chance of rectifying past neglect and meeting the revolution of unfulfilled expectations by encouraging economic growth with a human face. He has already demonstrated wise appreciation of what people expect by identifying flood damage and the breakdown of law and order as his immediate concerns. Law and order must include stamping out political violence, and rehabilitation and reconstruction extended to include the state’s economic regeneration if the CPM hopes to regain power legitimately in next April’s assembly election. It gained a tremendous advantage as the apotheosis of Bengal’s culture and identity during Indira Gandhi’s emergency when the Congress was accused of selling its soul to the Hindi belt. Now, many Bengalis grumble that the CPM’s own purse and policies are hostage to Marwari millionaires who bankroll the party in return for slices of the state. Even that might have been overlooked if West Bengal as a whole had prospered. True, Operation Barga was more successful in distributing land among the landless than exercises elsewhere. West Bengal is also an island of secular calm. It spends a bigger share of the budget than the Centre on education. Literacy is high, and more than 75 per cent of children go to state-aided schools. But it can also be argued that Operation Barga was a palliative that impeded the inevitable transition to industrialisation without promoting large-scale scientific agriculture. Similarly, the deterioration of centres of excellence is forcing young Bengalis to go elsewhere for higher education. Only the secular boast remains unchallenged. On the debit side, 51 per cent of the population languishes below the poverty line against the all-India average of 39 per cent; while Punjab’s per capita income is Rs 6,380, West Bengal’s is a mere Rs 3,157. Figures for unemployment, industrial closures and the development of infrastructure and public services are even more dismal. The quality of life must be India’s worst. Not all the reasons for decline are the Left Front’s fault. To be blamed for them might even be the penalty of success. Land for the landless, secular peace and basic education have aggravated discontent with the deprivation of village life. West Bengal towns — town really, for Calcutta is the only one — do not offer any improvement. There is no opportunity for upward mobility beyond a certain point, causing intense frustration among the first generation of bhadraloks thrown up by the newly emancipated upper peasantry. They need jobs and money to sustain their bhadra status. That means urban renewal which calls for productive activity which, in turn, demands investment. A bankrupt state cannot even build a long talked-of Siliguri-Calcutta expressway. Ironically, Mr Basu was India’s first Chief Minister to seek investment funds abroad. That was in the eighties, and the American consulate-general in Calcutta hosted a specially grand Fourth of July reception, with the Marine band in full swing, as a send-off for the Chief Minister on a historic mission. He had already been to Britain on a similar search, thanks to the initiative of a group of Calcutta corporate chiefs, several Bengalis among them then. If those trips had succeeded in their ostensible purpose, Bengali doctors, engineers, academics and computer specialists would not today have accounted for the biggest single group among Indian professionals who flee to Singapore, Britain and the USA. Later excursions by Mr Somnath Chatterjee, M.P., and Left Front ministers and officials were equally unproductive. Their peregrinations reminded me of the story of Chakravarti Rajagopalachari telling a delegation that wanted to convert Calcutta’s Raj Bhavan into the National Library not to expect him to give up a house that it had taken him so many years to get into. Marxists in office seem to grasp at travel opportunities with much the same gusto. Mr Bhattacharya is apparently free of such vanities. In comparing him to his predecessor, I am tempted to quote Graham Green on journalistic caste distinctions — “I’m a reporter; God exists only for leader-writers.” The new Chief Minister will never be a legend no matter how long he serves, for his ideological baptism was at home, and he speaks the same language as the rest. Mr Basu became a Communist as a law student in London and always seems more comfortable in English than in Bengali. But if Mr Bhattacharya is too desi to be the glamorous Indira Gandhi of West Bengal, he can try to be the quietly efficient Lal Bahadur Shastri. He faces enormous problems in his party and coalition. The biggest problem of all, however, will be the electorate. Not because Mr Basu has gone but because the CPM has substituted charisma for achievement for far too long. It must be the public hope that, win or lose, Mr Bhattacharya will ensure that people can vote without being murdered. The Trinamool Congress has no credentials as yet; Marxist violence must not allow it to clutch a martyr’s halo. There is much that the CPM can attempt. First, it must try to win back investors without whom there can be no growth. Second, it can temper globalisation with human concern by instituting effective health and welfare systems. Instead of courting cheap popularity by condoning squatters, it should cooperate with the Asian Development Bank’s proposal for rehabilitating the evicted. Eviction should be the first step of an integrated scheme that puts personal industry and entrepreneurial skill to profitable use. When Singapore decided to abolish itinerant food vendors, it ruled that cooked food could be sold only where there was running water. Then the government built heavily subsidised clusters of small stalls with water and electricity round common eating patios and sold or leased them on easy terms to out-of-work hawkers. The “democratic atmosphere” in which Mr Basu takes understandable pride is meaningful only when human resources are fully utilised. Marxism is on the retreat globally. It has lost its revolutionary raison d’être and West Bengal is virtually its last refuge. Even Mr Basu’s only son is a capitalist businessman just as the sons of Britain’s Labour peers invariably become Tory aristocrats. The next six months will show whether it is Mr Bhattacharya’s destiny to give the creed a fresh lease of life or write its obituary. |
|
The American political
drama WHOEVER thought that the US presidential election would turn out to be like a one-day cricket match where the last batsman hits a boundary for what was supposed to be a winning hit, trods on the wicket in the process and the third umpire is not clear if the ball crossed the boundary line. What does one do under such circumstances? Order a replay of the last over? That was not possible according to the rules of the game. But when a similar confusing situation developed in the historic contest between George Bush and Al Gore, the rules in the state of Florida provided a recount. The well informed TV anchors and leading media personalities in the USA back in time, quoting details from other narrow election battles, Humphrey vs Nixon in 1976, Kennedy vs Nixon in 1960. Former ‘Newsweek’ political correspondent Hal Bruno, now a consultant for the CNN Network, who had covered all presidential polls since 1960 admitted “he had never seen anything like this.” On Wednesday, Bill Daley, the campaign manager for Al Gore, standing in the rain outside the campaign headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee, announced that till the final result was announced, free from any further complication, the presidential race was on. The Bush campaign manager, Don Evans, read out a brief statement at Austin, Texas, that his candidate was certain to be elected and the margin would increase after the recount and the counting of the absentee votes. Yes, it was the most unusual day in the political history of the USA. The country could not decide on a new President, the wife of the existing President scored a stunning victory in the Senate battle from New York, a dead candidate was declared elected to the Senate. A fine kettle of fish, one could exclaim. Every political pundit, TV anchor and media star had predicted a neck and heck race to the White House but no one was prepared for what actually happened. Newspapers had to redo their front pages, the TV networks which had endorsed Bush a bit too early, had to withdraw their results. What made the Americans vote the way they did? The answer to this crucial question which escaped spokespersons of both the leading parties, came from George Nader, leader of the Green’s Party which polled 3 per cent of the general vote and proved to the stumbling block to the Democrats. Appearing live on television, Nader pointed out that the average American found it difficult to distinguish between Bush and Gore. Both of them fought the election on almost the same issues, both were tainted because they relied on huge money supplies from the corporate sector, and both did not care for the poor Americans, the average labourer and issues connected with environment. Nader who became popular in the 1960s with his famous book, “Unsafe at Any Speed” directed at General Motors, refused to agree that the Greens had blocked Gore’s election. Nader, who reserved some of his harshest comments for the Vice-President, lamented how far the Democratic Party had strayed from the “New Deal” and pro-poor politics of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and become standard bearers of big business houses and lobbyists in Washington. The Republicans were the same, but they were more honest about their policies, he pointed out. As the Gore fortunes nosedived, there was a lot of introspection among the Democrats. Where did they go wrong? The economy was at its strongest, people were earning high salaries, unemployment was at an all- time low. What more could the Americans ask for? The Gore campaign, deliberately shut out the man who had achieved all this, President Bill Clinton. Gore was sensitive on the “morals issue” because of Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky as a result of which Clinton hardly figured in Gore’s poll campaign. Gore avoided any mention of his boss, in the three television debates. In two of these, Gore was way behind and made it up somewhat in the third and final debate. Gore paid heavily for this, losing Clinton’s home state, Arkansas, where he was allowed to campaign for just one day, that too quite late in the campaign. Worse, the Democrats lost even Tennessee, Gore’s home state. These tactics were surprising because Gore was not a novice in national having spent eight years in the Congress, Senate and the White House as the Vice-President. Compared to this, George Bush (Jr) had only six years’ experience as the Governor of Texas. Today, the USA is plagued with some disturbing questions. If the President was elected with a small margin and even lost out on the public vote, how can he rule the country? The Senate and Congress elections were closely fought out and though the Republicans retained control over both, the margins were slim and delicate. The US President needed some elbow room to push through his own politics, to make his own mark in national and international politics. But then the Americans normally rallied behind their President-elect, once the polls were over. As soon as Hillary Clinton was declared elected to the US Senate from New York, her Republican rival who had fought a hard and bruising battle, congratulated her. “We are all now New Yorkers,” he told his cheering supporters. “And shall support our new Senator in her attempt to improve conditions in New York”. Similar sentiments may prevail at the national level. Unlike Indian politics, American politics allowed no room for shifting loyalties, defections and back-stabbings. But there may be problems in the days to come. The recount process will stick to just one issue, recounting. Any allegations on irregularities in the presidential poll in Florida will have to be investigated by proper authorities. Some of Gore supporters were already talking about going to court on these issues. If they did so, it would be the first time that US presidential elections had been taken before the judiciary. A new era in US politics may dawn in the days to come. The US political leadership will now have to take the Green more seriously. From time immemorial, US politics had revolved over power, money, influence peddling and lobbying. The Green claimed they were free from such evils. Ralph Nader continues to be a respected name in the USA and under his leadership, the Green could develop into a much-needed Third Party offering American voters a change from the stereotyped Republicans and Democrats. By depriving the Democrats a certain chance to send their man to the White House, the Green had made a spectacular impression in the 2000 A D election. Four years later, they may capture more than 5 per cent of the country’s votes and become eligible for central funding for the polls. Nader deplored the traditional US foreign policy of siding with foreign dictators who toed the US line and coming down on others who did not. If these policies did change in future, the USA could become a true democracy. |
|
The
watch WATCH. Just a five-letter word from the English language? Representing only a mechanical device? Used for keeping time? No! It is not merely a word. It is much more. Each alphabet is symbolic. Every letter has a message. It tells us — Watch your words. Actions. Thoughts. Character. And health. All essential for a good human existence. A key to life. To make everyone a good human being. This was my father’s first lesson to me. He had started this exercise when I was a small child. I was checked at every step. Almost at every moment of the day and night. A wrong word and there was a rebuff. Though a good deed did not ensure a reward. And then with the passing of time, everything had fallen in place. As if a habit. I felt his presence everywhere. At all times. Was afraid of doing anything wrong. Even uttering a wrong word. Doing anything not expected of a good boy. Of even something as insignificant as drinking water from a tap that was not clean. The end result may not be even satisfactory. But it saved me from being worse. He was not like the modern man. Spending time at “bar” in boozing. Nor an idle man so as to be totally free to “watch”. He always had a lot on his plate. In fact, he was never free. Yet, he found time for everything. And everyone. Especially, his children. He would go to the office daily. Punctually. He was punctilious about it. Performed his duty with dedication and devotion. Came back for a quick bite. Then he would go walking to the boss’s house. Good five miles away. To help him finish the unfinished files. Yet, he was not tired. Despite all this, nothing escaped his notice. And he found time to read and write. For his daily rubber of bridge. And even to scold all of us. Summer or winter. Rain or shine. The year round. The routine was fixed. It was rigorously followed. Every day the lights were out at ten. Everyone was up at five. Thus, the day started with the dawn. Not anymore. Now even my grandchildren show no sign of sleep till well past midnight. In fact, everyone seems to have a lot to do. They watch the “AB” show. The KBC. Then a movie. Or the fashion parade which seems to continue the whole night. Even the small boy who is less than four, lisps and asks — “Pucca? Lock kar diya jaye?” The other one is slightly older. She has her own queries. “Dadu! When will you put on the comic show? Will you buy me a new puzzle? I want to see Mr Bachchan.” It is true that the times have changed. Liberalisation has opened the Indian skies to the world. The media has not merely come. It has entered our bedrooms. It has brought about a cultural invasion of the country. It seems to have changed everything. The late movie shows were unknown in the family. Nobody went for the last show to a cinema house. Now we have it under the tip of the finger. Sitting on the chair, we can choose and watch a movie of our choice. Hindi, English or any other. Day and night. Different channels run in different rooms of the house. Under one roof. It has almost become the rule. It has come to stay. But these shows are taking their toll. After a late night, one cannot get up early. The day starts late. Thus, everything gets delayed. Hurry and rush follow. Leading to the inevitable though avoidable stress. Also temper. And all else that comes with it. The blood pressure. The ulcers. Even diabetes. All diseases of the rich. A price for the pleasures? No! For the style. For the failure to “watch”. To take care of the ordinary but essential things. Small price? Not really. The warning is on the wall. One has to make a choice. Between the old system and the modern style. Though difficult, yet, it is necessary. We must “watch” ourselves. Before we check the children. They trust their eyes more than their ears. The elders have to lead by example. |
|
Doordarshan’s myopic attitude HOW quickly we have learned to take for granted such things as watching last week’s American presidential election live on our television screens. How quickly we have forgotten that less than 10 years ago television in India meant only Doordarshan and Doordarshan meant-in terms of current affairs — those drab, picture-less news bulletins that seemed to have been written by lower division clerks in the Information & Broadcasting Ministry’s inner chambers. In terms of entertainment things were almost equally bad and we were restricted to the weekly song and dance sequences of Chitrachaar and the Sunday Hindi movie. For the rest we got unwatchable, supposedly educational, programmes. Television fare was such a dreary business that most Indians did not even bother to invest in a television set, leave along watch. Compare that with today when an estimated television audience of over 200 million can choose from 40 to 60 channels in many Indian cities. So much part of the global village has television made us that ordinary people (not just hacks like me) were riveted by the live coverage of the results of the American election. Last Wednesday morning, when the results were coming in, I witnessed an interesting example of this in my gym. I was working out on a cross-trainer next to a couple of ladies — ordinary middle class housewives — who raised a huge ruckus because MTV was on instead of BBC or CNN. “Don’t you know”, they berated the club’s manager, “that the results of the American presidential election are coming out. We don’t want MTV”. David Dimbleby’s programme on the BBC was duly tuned into and when we discovered that George W. was in the lead. I was fascinated to hear them discuss if this would be bad for India. They liked Bill Clinton, they explained, and felt that because Indo-US relations had improved during his time this legacy would be better protected by another Democrat in the White House. This would never have happened 10 years ago. In fact, during the many pre-television election campaigns I covered I was always disturbed to find how little women voters seemed to know about the political issues that decided their vote. They voted either for whoever they were told to by the men in the family or because they happened to, for instance, like Rajiv Gandhi’s face. Television has made them aware of bigger issues and even if they watch mainly soap operas, widened the horizons of their world. To see just how much of an engine of change it has been you need to go to more backward parts and examine the difference. You will find villagers, who 10 years ago had no idea what the nearest town looked like, now able to talk about the difference between Delhi and Mumbai and able to talk about issues they would never have dreamed existed. Having said this, though, I think it is important to add that if television programming carries on along the direction it is now taking, we could be in serious trouble. You understand just how much trouble when you remember that most Indians continue to be uneducated — if not completely illiterate — and have no tradition of reading books. This means that the ’ancient civilisation’ of which we are all so proud is almost a complete mystery to them except in its religious aspects. The average Indian is oblivious to the “rich, cultural heritage” we keep hearing about from politicians and knows almost nothing about the music, literature, dance and philosophy that make up this culture. Sadly, he is also oblivious of the diversity and extraordinary beauty of the country he lives in and this came home to me poignantly at the launch of the National Geographic Channel’s new programme on India, called “India Diaries”. In it, two old friends of mine, Mark Shand and Aditya Patankar are filmed wandering about parts of India that even most Indians do not get to see. Mark and Aditya have done this before. They travelled on an elephant called Tara from Orissa to the Sonepur Mela in Bihar in 1987 and such an adventure was this journey that Mark’s book ‘Travels on My Elephant’ became a best-seller. Mark is the writer in the team and Aditya the photographer but in ‘India Diaries’ they are just fellow-travellers who wander from the salt flats in the Rann of Kutch to a remote village in Arunachal, from among religious cults in Bengal to travelling with a ‘Nautanki’ troupe in Bihar. The India that comes alive through the six films they have made is that old magical wondrous country that even Indian often forget still exists. As someone who has had more than a little to do with television what struck me as I watched the films was the tragedy that not a single Indian channel would finance a similar project. You can sell 10 versions of Kuan Banega Crorepati ad 20 versions of Saans or Amaanat or even 30 different kinds of celebrity talk shows but try selling something more serious and you find the eyes of programmers glaze over. In the memorable words of a Sony big shot, “We want programmes that appeal to younger people, not serious stuff.” It is the same story at Star Plus, Zee or Sahara but what is most worrying of all is that Doordarshan — once so moralistic and educational — has now undergone such a dumbing down that it also competes in producing only trivia. Prasar Bharati officials say that they cannot do otherwise because they have to try and make some money just like all the other
channels. But, then surely Doordarshan should be privatised. It is going to remain state-controlled, thereby paid for with taxpayers’ money, then it could at least attempt to recognise some of its social responsibilities. There are a thousand stories of India that need to be told, if only to record for history the social and cultural
diversities that exist today, and they are not being told because nobody will finance their telling. In countries with more educated populations the demand exists so channels like
Discovery and National Geographic manage to survive. In India with mainly illiterate or semi-literate people constituting the television viewership a taste for better programming needs to be created and Doordarshan is in the best position to do this. So why does it not happen?
Perhaps, because Doordarshan continues to have an arrogant and myopic attitude that prevents it from seeing even the obvious. The best example I can give you of this comes from about 15 years ago. I remember suggesting to a particularly arrogant and myopic lady official, called Jaya Chandi Ram, a series of interviews with leaders like Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Abdullah. She dismissed the idea as rubbish and said they were more interested in interviews with rickshawallahs. I do not know if she meant it or not but by the time interviews like that became routine features on all our channels both Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Abdullah were dead. How much of India — that hidden, magical India you see in Mark and Aditya’s ‘India Diaries’ — will disappear before Doordarshan wakes up? |
|
Remembering the war
dead AT the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day, of the eleventh month there is held a two-minute silence. The Sunday nearest to the eleventh of November is Remembrance Sunday. On this day we pay our respects to the gallant soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice in World War I and World War II. We must remember that in both wars thousands of Indian soldiers gave their lives for their country, the then British empire. Millions of poppy emblems are sold in western Europe, the United States and especially in the United Kingdom, to raise money towards benevolent fund for disabled and needy soldiers and their families. The poppies are sold for trivial voluntary sums, usually a few pence, but as the whole nation gives willingly, millions of pounds are raised. How the poppy came to be associated with World War I is poorly understood by most people. The origins of this is due to a Canadian, John McCrae, a poet and a distinguished professor of medicine. In contrast to the horror of a mutilated landscape of dead men, horses and craters from intensive shelling, the poppy flower which is hardy and prefers such turned up soil would grow in abundance. John McCrae would often comment on nature’s way of soothing the carnage of battle with sprinkling of poppies. It is said in a moment of intense sorrow at a loss of a young Lieutenant he sat at the back of an ambulance and in 20 minutes composed In Flanders Fields. His poignant poem captured the public imagination and linked the poppy forever with the aftermath of the war. After the war Miss Moina Michael, an American War Secretary, and herself a writer of verse had been moved by McCrae’s work, and in a moment of reflection had written: “And now the torch and poppy red Wear in the honour of our dead” Moina bought red poppies with money given to her by her colleagues. Wearing one of the poppies she had bought, she sold the remainder to her friends to raise money for servicemen in need. Her French colleague, a Madame Guerin, encouraged by what Moina Michael had achieved with the poppy emblem, proposed the making of artificial poppies, and their sale to help ex-servicemen and their dependents. The British Legion — now the Royal British Legion — was founded by Earl Haig and the first Poppy Day was observed on November 11, 1921. “Greater love than this no man has that laid his life for his friend.”
In Flanders Fields Between the crosses, row on row That mark our place, and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders Fields Take up our quarrel with the foe. To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders Fields. |
|
SPIRITUAL NUGGETS Man has hidden treasures within. Difficulties and setbacks bring it fourth. *** God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. *** There is no blindness except the blindness of the heart. *** A wise man is one who forgets the faults of others, but always remembers his own. *** Say 'sorry' at the right moment. *** The fullest and best ears of corn hang towards the ground. *** Those who fret over small issues only demonstrate their inability to find anything big in their lives. *** Glory is a poison that can only be taken in small doses. *** Do the thing you fear, and fear will disappear. *** All men make mistakes, only the fools repent. *** Learn from failures; do not brook over them. *** Anger, like revenge, is a drink best seared cold. *** If you want to move mountains, you have to first learn how to move particles. *** For every 10 minutes you are angry, you lose 600 seconds of happiness. *** Every thought we think is creating our future. *** Give your son a fish... he eats today, Teach him how to fish... he eats everyday. — Promod Batra,
Management Thoughts,
103, 113, 116-17-121-124-126-130-136-137-139-168-172-176-188 *** Do not give me any offspring, O Lord, Lest I get involved in illusion and forget Thee. Do not, O Lord, bestow wealth and prosperity on me, Lest I be burdened with anxiety and care. Make me a beggar at Thy door, says Tuka, So that Thou dwellest within me forever. — Sant Tuka Ram,
|
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | In Spotlight | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 120 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
