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Saturday,
September 22, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Out goes Jayalalithaa Tough, touching
speech Meaning of Pak
protests |
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India, America and terrorism
The homework
menace
Deeper
meaning of Musharraf's move
Bombing Kabul won’t help:
Gill
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Out goes Jayalalithaa JUDICIAL nemesis has caught up with Tamil Nadu leader Jayalalithaa for the second time in two years. First she was convicted to three years rigorous imprisonment in a case where she jointly bought government land at a highly reduced price. Now the Supreme Court has formally disqualified her from holding any elective post. The logic is devastatingly simple. Her conviction for more than two years debars her from contesting an election and this bar should extend to her becoming Chief Minister or even a Minister. What the apex court judgement has done to Ms Jayalalithaa is less important than what it has done to sharpen the provision of Article 164 (1) of the Constitution. That clause seemingly gives unlimited discretionary power to a Governor to appoint any unelected individual as a Minister or, by extension, Chief Minister, for six months. Is this power untrammeled or is the discretion has outside limits? The Supreme Court agonised over this during the six days of arguments by high profile lawyers and asked searching questions, denoting its desire to clarify the scope of the discretionary power. The judgement on Friday actually redefines Article 164 (1) but very strictly within the intentions of the founding fathers. They could not have imagined a situation when a convicted individual and hence disqualified to fight an election would get himself or herself elected as leader of the legislature party and stake claim to form a government. This is a latter-day development as other deviant behaviours like defection and violent disruption of Parliament and Assembly proceedings. The founding fathers were all gentlemen-politicians and expected the progeny to be cast in the same mould. They must be turning in their graves. Ms Jayalalithaa has shed office but she holds on to the lever of power. The plain fact is that the AIADMK, her party, is her pocket organisation and there is no other leader except those she props up occasionally. The so-called second rung of leaders are her servitors and hence easily dispensable. She will anoint a faceless and rootless man or women to keep her seat warm and return triumphantly once the courts clears her. Her appeal against the conviction will be heard by Justice Dinakar next month but because of a Supreme Court instruction it will be a long-drawn affair as there are 18 appeals. Obviously, she did not expect such a searing indictment. Two days earlier she directed the party MLA representing the Andipatti Assembly constituency to quit so she could contest the seat. She also shifted and suspended the former DGP Ravindranath and found a replacement. Ms Jayalalithaa was also nervous about her future. She added an extra “a” to her name and dropped the full stop between her initial “J” and her full name. This was under the advice of astrologers and she is a born-again believer in the role of stars and in daily extended private worship. In law she has lost the leadership of the government but in reality she will be in the driving seat. The AIADMK is Ms Jaya’s party and the AIADMK government has to be hers. This is democracy, the Jaya style. |
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Tough, touching speech A crisis brings out the best — or the worst — in a man. If he happens to be the President of the most powerful nation in the world, this revelation of hidden qualities can make or mar his place in history. The horrendous terrorist attacks have helped President Bush to elevate himself to a level that most believed till recently to be beyond him. He made arguably the most crucial speech of his career before a joint session of Congress on Thursday night and considering the response it evoked, he accomplished his mission aplomb. It had resoluteness and compassion equal measure, and in right proportion. His tone and body language were fierce, to the extent of being menacing on occasion, but the occasion fully justified it. After all, the subject matter was the most serious terrorist challenge mounted against the USA or any other country in modern history. He may be criticised abroad by some for his rabblerousing but President Bush left fellow Americans in no doubt that national and presidential resolve coincided fully and he would be resolute in fulfilling the expectations that the Americans have of him. Tasks before him are multifarious. He devoted most of his 35-minute speech to reassure the people of America that he was willing to lead from the front and announced a new Cabinet-level position for “homeland security”. At the same time, he braced them for a tough, unconventional and costly battle ahead that may last several years. He made it plain that while there might be dramatic strikes, visible on TV, there would be other, covert operations that would remain secret, even in success. The tough, measured language he used was a chilling warning to the terrorists and their backers that they are now face to face with the entire American might, which would be used to smash their networks. The President made a clear distinction between the minuscule band of fanatics and the rest of Muslims, upon whom he lavished deserved praise. This was necessary to remove the impression that he was targeting the Muslims. The issue was made more sensitive by sporadic attacks in the USA on the minorities. He not only sought to reassure the Muslim nations, but also to win them over to his side, by condemning terrorists as “traitors to their own faith who are trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself”. He repeated the “with us, or against us” phrase to win over the fence-sitters, saying in effect that there could not be a bigger crime against humanity and this was the time for everyone to stand up and be counted. Above all, he took care to ensure that the impending struggle was not construed as America’s battle alone but the civilisation’s fight against terrorism. He underlined the fact that citizens of 80 other nations died with the Americans. As far as galvanising his country and the world was concerned, Mr Bush was on target with eloquent words like “we will not tire. We will not falter. And we will not fail.” Thunderous, bipartisan applause erupted some 30 times during the electrifying speech, which reminded many of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “date-which-will-live-in-infamy” address after Pearl Harbour attack from the same podium 60 years ago. In the House was the widow of a victim, the New York City Mayor and also British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He clutched a killed policeman’s badge in his hand to symbolise courage during an unparalleled national crisis. The extreme security measures too underlined the new reality of the 21st century (in a marked departure, Vice-President Cheney was kept away from the venue). To let the world realise that America was speaking in one voice, the opposition did not offer a televised response after the speech. It was a stirring address full of patriotic fervour indeed. The real test of his leadership qualities starts now. |
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Meaning of Pak protests DESPITE "business-as-usual" reports from the Pakistani media or "mixed reaction" accounts given by sources of news and views elsewhere, the protests on Friday against General Pervez Musharraf's self-willed genuflection before the USA have been loud, angry, often violent and indicative of the futility of contrived rhetoric amidst stark facts. The terrorist carnage in New York came without specific warning but not unexpectedly. Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, friends of the General, had called for the decimation of American symbols, interests and organic entities, including lives, time and again. The reaction of the families of the survivors and their government was spontaneous. Pakistan, with its history of existential hatred and reflex-emanated violence, created and nurtured the Taliban Frankenstein in its neighbourhood and on its soil, dislodged governments, misinterpreted concepts of Islam, corrupted the meaning of Jehad and impoverished millions across its border. It used Afghan terrorists as instruments of a low-cost proxy war in Kashmir. Unholy tactics boomerang surely but, maybe, slowly. That hour has come. The dictator has succeeded in elevating himself to the position of President but the ISI- supportive mastermind and the Kargil syndrome in him have silently turned him into an object of unreliability and opportunism before his people whose protectors (the army etc) are sharply divided as pro-Musharraf and anti-Musharraf persons. In fact, General Musharraf is a synonym of a chain of continuing conflicts. Yesterday's rallies were sparked off by General Musharraf's hoodwinking of the populace in the name of Islam and frightening them into submission to his way of servile obedience to impulsive commands. He invoked the name of God and quoted conveniently from the Holy Quran and the Faith's religio-political history. He mixed up the contexts of six crucial years and ended up by making opportunity look like opportunism. He harmed the images of Bin Laden and Omar. External Affairs and Defence Minister Jaswant Singh did not say this in a lighter vein: "I am very glad that Pakistan is now confronting its own child — the Taliban". General Musharraf's flamboyance in asking India to "lay off" has drawn the right reaction. In spite of being frightened, brainwashed and gagged, people in all major cities have shown their opposition to the General's views and acts. The countrywide agitation indicates the myopia, unIslamic opportunism and waning credibility of the dictator. |
India, America and terrorism SEVERAL developments are taking place which , as they unfold, could change the whole scenario in which India must shape its policy and priorities and at the same time discover its limitations as it joins hands with America in fighting terrorism. America has listed the things it wishes Pakistan to do. Pakistan has come up with its own counter-expectations. Unconfirmed reports say Pakistan wants that India (and Israel) should be excluded from the alliance which America is trying to build against terrorism, and America should resume its traditional pro-Pakistan “tilt” against India on Kashmir. America is denying these reports but they persist in Pakistan, and India can determine its longer-term priorities only when this uncertainty lifts. There are other imponderables too. General Musharraf is not leaving immediately for Beijing, as he was earlier scheduled to do. Has he postponed the visit or has China, which is now among the countries worried about the sweep of terrorist outfits to its west, told him not to come till his credentials for peace became more convincing ? Uzbekistan, which has a nearly 200-km border with Afghanistan, has announced willingness to join the war against terrorism, and that can affect Pakistan’s bargaining power. This was first indicated by the Uzbek Foreign Minister to The Washington Post and was confirmed on the 17th by the spokesman of the Foreign Ministry. India has to weigh its priorities in the short-term separately from those in the long. Fortunately, India has chosen its short-term priorities wisely and well. India does not have happy memories of American support during the decade and a half that India was a victim of terrorism, which it continues to be. But India has rightly resisted the temptation to say “we told you so” and has responded promptly in America’s hour of grief. It has not tried to squeeze a bargain out of America on any issue. It has not wasted time counting its pennies while America was counting its dead. Nor has it rashly given a blank cheque to America on all its facilities. There are demarcations. The same approach would serve India well in the near-term future, if and when President Bush went into an offensive drive without waiting to satisfy Europe with more evidence or Pakistan with something that it can show the Islamists at home and abroad, or waiting to see what Uzbekistan can offer (with or without the consent of Moscow). India must stand by the promise of facilities it has given already. In doing so India must draw the line at assisting America in combat but need not make too a rigid a distinction between use of Indian air space or ground facilities for transit, and between refueling in the air and stocking up at cantonments or ports. India should also recognise that it is difficult for America to give, and therefore, India should not ask for, such evidence as would stand up in court regarding the suspected responsibility of the Taliban, and more particularly of Osama bin Laden. In such matters political judgement must suffice, and India has sufficient knowledge of the facts in this case to arrive at its own political judgement. More difficult is the choice of priorities by India in the long run. Here the twin dangers are that in order to appease Pakistan America might so define terrorism as to leave out what Pakistan has been allowing its own terrorist organisations to do against India, or on the other hand America might so define it as to include every suspicion it has laid against Iran, Iraq, Libya, and the OIC countries in general, barring some like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Such steps as America may take in pursuit of its own objectives in West Asia are America’s business, or the business of the world community as a whole and of India as a part of that. But India should not get drawn into them in the name of an American strategy which the American Secretary of State, Collin Powell, has described as a “worldwide effort to build a coalition against all forms of terrorism, wherever it may occur and, however, it raises its ugly head”. Regarding the first problem first. In recent years, and particularly during the second half of Clinton’s second presidency, America showed a better understanding of India’s problem with the terrorism practiced against it from across the border with Pakistan. In the field of foreign policy also America began to say in public that it would not intervene in the matter of Kashmir unless invited to do so by both India and Pakistan, and it urged each country not to use violence against the other to change the present status in Jammu and Kashmir. It also began to admit that armed groups were operating in Kashmir which were coming in from Pakistan and were receiving much more than moral and material aid. Yet it now transpires that in a matter as recent and as important as the conflict in Kargil, America slipped back into its interventionist mode, as disclosed by Prime Minister Vajpayee in a newspaper interview. Uninvited by India to do so, President Clinton tried to arrange tripartite talks between America, India and Pakistan. President Clinton “insisted” that Mr Vajpayee come to Washington for talks with the Pakistan Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Shariff, who was already there. Mr Clinton told Mr Vajpayee: “You come, I not only guarantee you a Pakistani withdrawal but also a new chapter in Indo-Pakistan relations where I will also play a role”. Vajpayee replied that Clinton should have told Pakistan in the first place that it must first withdraw from its intrusion before India could agree to any role for a third party. There was no evidence here that America recognised that the Pakistani intrusion was just “the use of violence.... to change the present status in Jammu and Kashmir” which America had urged both countries to refrain from. At this level India’s first priority must be to persuade America not to revert to the “tilt”. But at the same time India must prepare for the contingency that America might not agree. The second problem is, if anything, a more difficult one. There are differences between Indian and American views of terrorism in the wider context of such countries for example as Palestine, Iran and Iraq, and Chechenya further north, and to some extent Libya and Algeria to the west as well. While India does not approve of some of the actions of these countries, it also disagrees with the policy America has pursued against them for many years, and had pursued in respect of Afghanistan throughout the 1980s and which became the root cause of much else that followed in that part of the world. India also disagrees with America and agrees with Russia regarding the nature and causes of the rebellion in Chechenya. Therefore, India is bound to have reservations about the policies the proposed “worldwide coalition” may follow under the leadership of America. And of President Bush in particular, who has given the aims of the coalition the unfortunate label of “a crusade”. Hence Mr Vajpayee’s wise warning against any religious connotations in the coalition against terrorism, ...“We must bear in mind”, he said, “that no religion preaches terrorism”, and “the fringe elements of society which seek to cloak terrorism in a religious garb do grave injustice to both their faith and followers”. At this level the safest as well as the sanest option for India is to support the rising chorus that opposing “terrorism” should not be equated with getting hold of one individual, that it should be seen as a process which emerges from the acts of omission and commission by a whole country and society, and it is that country and society which must be held responsible for it, not only an individual, and the campaign against that process must be fought under the flag of the United Nations. But these are larger issues, which can come up later. For the present America, and India with it, should focus its attention upon the immediate task, that is to “de-fang” the forces and countries which have perpetrated such havoc upon America. President Bush should leave his other political objectives to other processes, and he should ask all those other countries also to do the same which it hopes to enlist for the proposed global alliance against terrorism. |
The homework menace “VIKRAM, finish up your home-work fast or I’ll not let you go and play,” threatened his mom. “Mama, please, my homework will not finish so fast. It will take a long time yet. My friends are all playing and it is evening already. I’ll come back and finish it at night, mama please,” pleaded the 12-year-old, studying in a reputed school who was desperate to join his friends for a game of football in the nearby park. The conversation between the mother and the son was a daily routine in my neighbourhood and I was a witness to this gory ordeal of the loads of homework that the children get these days after a long gruelling day at school. The incident set me thinking. You just need to talk to the parents of the schoolgoing children or the children themselves in order to know their “woes” regarding the homework. Nobody can dispute the fact that homework is a must and should be given so that the students can revise and absorb whatever they have learnt during their school-time. I am sure, the tradition of giving homework to children must have started with the best of intentions, the initial aim being to initiate them into the habit of self-study as well as to impress upon them the need to learn, what the present management jargon calls it, the time-management. Complete absence of homework may leave them aimless at home and free to indulge in activities of their own choice. Homework teaches them to work according to a schedule on a priority basis and still find time to pursue their hobbies or other interests. It may also help the parents to discover some hidden talents in their children. But the objective did not remain so for a long time. In recent times, giving homework to children has almost become a ritual. I have seen students copying pages and pages out of their history books into their notebooks in the name of homework but have always failed to understand how it helps them to understand the various concepts and ideas, to understand history. Mere copying from the textbooks in the name of homework not only diminishes their interest in the subject concerned but also makes them always hard pressed for time, be it studies or games or any other activity. Too much of homework adds to the already boring schedule and makes the students jittery and stressful. Newspapers are often full of stories of children running away from their homes for scare of reprimand by teachers in the case of unfinished work or that of parents for their failure in exams. Homework is not only a nightmare for children but for parents also. In the absence of effective or target oriented teaching in schools, it becomes an onerous duty for them to first teach the lessons to their children and then help them with the homework too. Often, they end up doing the tricky and difficult work themselves. Their whole life and work schedule has to revolve around the studies of children and the daily quota of homework. Their social commitments, too, have to take a backseat in the face of the gruelling grind of homework and weekly tests. Let alone parents, even teachers can’t do justice to the checking of the notebooks and very often the copies remain unchecked for a long time. So, what purpose does too much of homework serve and to whose benefit? It would be worthwhile to explore the possibilities of introducing innovative techniques with the idea of making their entire work schedule much more interesting and constructive, whether at school or at home. Making young and growing students deliberately slog at home does not necessarily make them intelligent or work conscious. If driven to the point of saturation, the backlash could result in dangerous consequences, psychologically and emotionally. |
Deeper meaning of
Musharraf's move MILITARY
ruler General Pervez Musharraf has once again provided
incontrovertible proof that he can go to any extent to protect his
position as Pakistan President. In his much-laboured televised address
to the nation on Wednesday, he did not spare even the holy Prophet of
Islam. He tried to convince the angry Pakistanis that his decision to
scrap Islamabad's over two-decade-old Afghanistan policy was on the
lines of the one taken by Prophet Mohammad to migrate from Mekkah, his
place of birth, to Medina centuries ago in the interest of Islam.
He perhaps believes that the angry people of his country will buy
his analogy and keep quiet. He has tried to make them understand that
his efforts to be in the good books of Uncle Sam will bring Pakistan
billions of dollars from different world capitals, including
Washington, besides placing it on the side of those out to destroy the
menace of global terrorism. This, the General wants the Pakistanis to
realise, will also prevent his country from facing the wrath of the
world community for its dangerous policy of promoting cross-border
terrorism.
What happens after the drive against Afghanistan is over will be
known only in the days to come, but one thing is certain: His stand
has nothing to do with Islam. The invasion of Afghanistan will benefit
him immensely. It may prolong his continuance in power for a longer
period than expected. This happened in the case of General Zia in 1979
when the extinct Soviet Union installed its puppet regime in Kabul and
the USA launched an undisguised military campaign against it by
providing arms and ammunition to mujahideen, another name for
CIA-trained Afghan fighters.
There is a problem which the General will have to face following
his decision, which he perceives as the ideal one in the interest of
his country. Henceforth he may be the most hated figure in Pakistan
after US President George W. Bush. The demonstrations in Lahore,
Karachi and elsewhere bear this out. But he is confident of handling
the maulanas and their supporters, who are threatening to bring his
government down. His confidence stems from the fact that he is in the
company of the superpower.
History, however, tells a different story. The Shah of Iran too had
the backing of Uncle Sam when people revolted against the then US
policeman of the Persian Gulf under the leadership of Khomeini. The
Iranian king ultimately bowed before the wishes of the people and left
for America literally weeping. Of course, if General Musharraf had
gone by the advice of the religious leaders educated in madarsas, that
would have amounted to allowing his country to indulge in a suicidal
gamble. This course could have also resulted in his losing power, as
the USA knows how to punish unhelpful dictators. Thus those who think
that the choice before the General is between the devil and the deep
sea fail to understand his well-calculated move. And the strategy he
has adopted is also in accordance with the thinking in media circles.
What Najam Sethi said in an editorial in his paper, The Friday
Times (September 14-20), is worth quoting here: "Whether or not
Osama bin Laden is involved in this attack (on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon), the situation will now remain perilous for Pakistan
because Washington is not likely to ignore the continuing threat from
Islamic jihad and will jump the gun sooner or later. Domestic economic
confidence is thin. The political leadership is alienated or thwarted.
Therefore, visionary leadership is necessary to steer Pakistan to
safer waters. This is no time for domestic prevarication or
international bluff. Musharraf should stake the country's future on
right and rationality rather than on pride and passion."
Yet history will henceforth remember Pakistanis as a nation of
opportunists of the first order. They should have realised before
befriending the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that it is always better
to have a wise enemy than a fool as a friend, as an old saying goes.
The Pakistanis will be treated as a people who do not know how to make
friends, specially in the regional context. This is, however, not to
say that General Musharraf should not have joined the international
campaign against terrorism, the common enemy of humanity today. This
is also not to argue that the fundamentalist approach is based on
values and reflects pragmatism. The level of understanding of
fundamentalists is so low that they cannot reach anywhere near
pragmatism. Gradually, they are proving themselves the worst enemies
of their religion and society at large.
Here the point being made is that both Afghanistan and Kashmir
policies of Pakistan are based on patently wrong premises. One has
already been blown to smithereens and the other is to follow this
course soon. Pakistan is, in fact, receiving the wages of its own sins
— suffering for allowing the misuse of the Islamic concept of jihad.
It needs to be reminded of what the poet said (by replacing Hindoostan
with Pakistan) : "Nahin samjho gay to mit jaogay Pakistan-walo/
Tumhari daastan tak bhi na hogi daastano mein." |
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Bombing Kabul won’t help:
Gill AT last I managed to interview Mr K.P.S. Gill on terrorism. Did he think that this new, global war against terrorism whose first battle was likely to be fought in Afghanistan was going to make a difference ? No. “It will not make a difference because terrorism is a small commander’s war. Terrorist groups are discrete, disconnected, so there are small groups in different places. Many of the groups are autonomous and have to be tackled at different levels.” So bombing Afghanistan is not the answer ? No, he said firmly, it was not and would make no difference to the war against terrorism. The Americans have tried this approach before, he added. Libya has been bombed as was Afghanistan and where has it got them?” Besides, in his view what was interesting about the bombing of the World Trade Center and Pentagon was that the whole conspiracy appeared to have been hatched in the USA. “The pilots were trained there and many of them were American citizens. When it happened one of the first things I noticed was the similarity to the hijacking of IC 814. Five people per plane, no guns, only knives. The two advances on that hijacking are one that this time they used trained pilots and two that the conspiracy was hatched not in some other country but in the United States.” The reason why they may have felt the need to use their own pilots was because with IC 814 the pilot was clever enough to land in Amritsar, not Lahore, and then as usual the government blew it by not being able to do anything at all before the plane took off for foreign airports. With suicide missions they must have seen the importance of having their own pilots. Mr Gill explained that in his view the similarities between IC 814 and the four hijackings on September 11 were not coincidental but almost certainly based on shared information. Mr Gill believes that the only way to tackle those who inhabit this world is to pinpoint attacks. There are, he said, terrorist cells operating out of many European countries because of liberal asylum and entry laws. Europe is such a sanctuary for these groups that people joke about how there could one day be a demand for an Islamic Republic of Europe. Should the Americans then be going for Osama bin Laden? “Yes,” he said, “he must be killed but there will immediately be another leader.” Will America’s global war have any effect on our war against terrorism in Kashmir? No, according to him, we will have to fight this war ourselves. So what have we been doing wrong so far. Everything, in his view, because we continue to send mixed signals. You cannot fight terrorism if you keep changing your approach. You cannot defeat them if every now and then you announce that you will now talk to them, have a ceasefire, and even agree to talk to General Musharraf. This implies that you are fighting from a position of weakness. Did they not talk in Punjab ? “We did talk to them but we talked only to fight them psychologically by impressing upon them that they could never win this war. We impressed upon them that what they were doing was a negation of Sikhism. Just as it is wrong now to believe that Islam is the enemy and not terrorism.” In Kashmir, he believes, that one of the key mistakes that has been made is in appearing to seek out a political solution. “There is no political solution to terrorism.” He added that it was important to target only the terrorists because “vicarious punishment” of innocent people was always counter-productive. Had he ever been asked to go to Kashmir, I asked, and he said no. Would he agree to go? Yes. |
Hindu religious Endowment Act
Madras: The Madras Council today resumed discussion of the Bill to reenact the Hindu religious Endowments Act 1923. The clause validating all actions taken and things done under the Act was discussed at length. It was contended by the Opposition that this section relating to the action taken and things done, the validity of which was being questioned by the High Court, interfered with the independence of the High Court. It was also contended that the section was against the provisions of the Government of India Act, since religious endowments had not been placed under the jurisdiction of the local government. Further discussion was adjourned to Monday. |
He (God) is the illuminator of all lights and beyond the darkness (of ignorance). He is the very embodiment as it were, of knowledge (wisdom) as also the object of knowledge and what which is attained by knowledge, and is seated in the hearts of all. *** The Supreme Being is distinct from both (the destructible and the indestructible) and is known as the universal Soul and the imperishable God, who interpenetrating the three worlds sustains all. *** O Arjuna! the Lord dwells as the inherent self in the hearts of all beings who are mounted on the wheel of this body, causing them by his enrapturing power to revolve according to their actions. — The Bhagavad Gita,
In this illusive affection, the world has sunk. *** The whole world is in transition. What friendship can we cultivate here. *** Only the creator is changeless, the multitude comes and goes. *** My wandering mind, why art thou falling into snares? The true God dwells in the heart, Why fallest thou in the snares of death? The fisherman has thrown the net And has caught the fish. Which with weeping eyes parts from water. The World of delusion and passion seems sweet. But in the end its illusions disappear. Drive fear from the mind, fix thy attention on God and be His devotee O wandering jiva remember God And be saved. Nanak speaks the Truth. — Sri Guru Granth Sahib,
Asa M.1 |
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