The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDITORIALS

Role of Governors

PRO-ACTIVE is a tricky word. When it is used in the context of taking the fight against terrorism to the enemy's camp it sounds good. But when the same expression is used to define the role of governors in a parliamentary democracy it is bound to cause confusion. That is precisely what Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's observation on the subject on the last day of the two-day Governors Conference in Delhi on Sunday has done. There are two ways at looking at the issue. One is to take a purely constitutional position. The other is to see the occupant of Raj Bhavan as a person who should keep the channels of communication open with the elected representatives of the people to ensure that "his" or "her" government does not waste five years in office promoting the ruling party's political interests at the expense of the larger good of the state. Mr Vajpayee, perhaps, had the personal input, as opposed to the purely constitutional requirement, from Raj Bhavan in mind while seeking a proactive role for the governor. The Prime Minister is far too seasoned a leader not to realise the consequences of creating two parallel authorities for performing the same task. The periodic stand off between the Lt Governor and the Chief Minister of Delhi over their respective jurisdictions should help understand this point. There have been conflicts whenever governors have tried to impose their views on chief ministers or convert the Raj Bhavans as parallel centres of power.

The Constitution is clear on this point. Technically it is the constitutional writ of the President of the Republic that is supreme. But since Rashtrapati Bhavan cannot oversee the functioning of each and every state government the Constitution has provided for the appointment of governors to serve as his agents. In the event of a constitutional crisis a governor is expected to brief the President, who in turn seeks the advice of his Council of Ministers for dealing with the crisis. The Supreme Court has frowned upon the attempt to make Raj Bhavan report directly to the PMO or any other wing of the Centre. A pro-active governor can always give good advice to the state government through the Chief Minister. But the Constitution does not allow Raj Bhavans to play politics in the garb of being pro-active. In fact in the light of the evolving fall in political values the issue that should be debated is the practice of sending out of job politicians to Raj Bhavans. Of course, there cannot be a hard and fast rule on the issue. However, ideally a person who has served a term as governor should never return to active politics. The Congress has broken this unwritten code in recent years. Dr Sampurnanand, K. M. Munshi and Mohanlal Sukhadia did not return to active politics after accepting gubernatorial assignments. Nurul Hasan was a competent Education Minister and after retirement from politics an extremely popular governor because of his outstanding academic credentials. The top leadership of the Congress today has at least two former governors, who are now back in active politics. One is Mr Moti Lal Vora and the other Mr Arjun Singh. Whether the Sangh Parivar will follow this trend remains to be seen.

Will the conduct be model?

IT is strange that even though the year and the month of a forthcoming election is well known, the real poll ambience is not created till the date is announced. Perhaps it is a legacy of the school-day habit of doing the studies only at the eleventh hour. Well, the final "examination" is here, with the announcement by the Chief Election Commissioner that there will be one-day poll on February 26 to elect the new state legislative assemblies in Himachal Pradesh and the three north-eastern states of Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura. Besides, the byelections to fill seven seats in the Assemblies of Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh are also to be held on this date. In effect, only a very small portion of India is going to the polls, but the importance of the February 26 contest has increased tremendously because these elections are expected to be reliable pointers to the 2004 Lok Sabha polls. Of particular significance is the Himachal Pradesh fight, because it is crucial for the BJP as well as the Congress. The former is keen to retain the state because it is one of the few where it is still in power while many others have slipped out of its hands. On the other hand, the Congress is determined to prove that the Gujarat result was only a flash in the pan.

The campaigning in every state will have its own angularities. In Himachal Pradesh the focus is going to be on the campaigning by Mr Narendra Modi. The Election Commission will, of course, draw the Lakshman Rekha as to what is acceptable and what is not. But the onus lies on the general public to discard the communal brand of politics. In the north-eastern states, the biggest problem is that of voting by illegal immigrants. It is serious enough to necessitate a visit by the full commission next week. It will also look into the allegations that a large number of CPM cadres have been recruited as Special Police Officers (SPOs) there. It is regrettable that many ruling parties try to circumvent the model code of conduct by finishing their clever manipulations before it comes into force. What they conveniently forget is that two can play this game. Only if the ruling parties and the Opposition abide by the regulations not only in letter but also in spirit, can the elections be truly democratic. Now is as good an occasion as any other to display such maturity.

Now forex controversy

INDIA has achieved a unique distinction. It has acquired the status of the fastest growing country in terms of foreign exchange earnings, showing an increase of over 50 per cent last year. India today has the seventh largest foreign exchange reserves—$70.75 billion, as per the latest figures released by the RBI—with Japan being on top of the list. But that is not the point here. The question is: how has India benefited so dramatically? In 2001 the country’s exports did not present an encouraging performance. But in 2002 it has been an altogether different story. Have our exporters discovered some novel formula? Or some policy change at the government’s level has worked wonders for the country? Looking at the various factors, one comes across a substantial rise in information technology-related exports plus the merchandise sector recording a reasonably good performance. There is another significant factor which has added substantially to the country’s foreign exchange reserves—remittances from the Indians working abroad. But what is more interesting is that there is a “reverse hawala” in operation which is adding significantly to our reserves. The RBI is not worried as the funds flow of this unusual variety is through the legal banking channels. The development along with the questionable practices of underinvoicing of imports and overinvoicing of exports, however, presents an unrealistic picture.

According to reports in a financial daily, these “black” dollars are being brought to India in white form mostly through the United Arab Emirates (Dubai for all practical purposes), which has never been bothered about the colour of the money. One estimate has it that politicians and businessmen together have stacked at least $150 billion in secret bank accounts in countries like Switzerland and Luxemberg. In the wake of the US-led ongoing campaign against terrorism, there is considerable pressure on the international banking organisations to disclose the names of the account-holders. Obviously, this may create problems for the secret account-holders at the home front. Hence a flurry of activity, though not so visible, among the two most affected sections of Indians—politicians and businessmen—throughout last year, resulting in an unusual flow of foreign exchange. As reports have it, while the politicians have preferred the foreign currency gift account channel, the business class has its own convenient routes like the overinvoicing and underinvoicing practices. But the most dangerous development taking place with the involvement of trade and industry people is the Dubai syndrome. This means an Indian with funds in a foreign bank secret account transferring his money to the UAE in the name of a local confidant. Both then strike a fake business deal and the money is transferred back to its original owner, who brings it to India as foreign exchange. Funds in India are considered safe because of the uneasy situation at the international level. At every stage nothing is done without taking to the normal banking route. If this continues unabated, next year India may have a problem of plenty of foreign exchange reserves. How far and in what way this otherwise happy development will impact the economy is yet to be studied.

OPINION

Tackling illegal immigrants
Hard action, not hard talk, is need of the hour
Poonam I. Kaushish

WHAT do boxers practice their skills on? A hard punching bag. And politicians? They use people as dummies. Who can be "knocked out" faster before you can blink. So "punch" drunk are they on power that their blows are more often than not politically-motivated image-building exercises in self-grandeur.

One such knock-out was delivered by Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani last week. Mustering all the authority and iron will at his command, he asserted: “India shall no longer be a soft State. We shall identify, locate and throw out the 15 million illegal Bangladeshis and 11,500 Pakistanis who have overstayed.” He was speaking at a conference of State Chief Secretaries and Directors-General of Police in New Delhi. “They pose a serious threat to national security”, he thundered.

Words worthy of applause. Times indeed are changing, he would have us believe. India is going in for an image from being soft to a pro-active State, which will pull no punches, means business and shall brook no nonsense. So far so good. But the moot point is: will Mr Advani’s words make any damn difference to the existing reality of India being soft, flabby and impotent, a State suffering from a debilitating incompetence — on all fronts. Look around and touch any pokey crevice of governance, the State is insipidly soft and pulpy. There is little law and order. Might is right. And violence is the rhetoric of the period. Throwing out illegal migrants is a far cry.

But that doesn’t stop our Minister from weaving grand dreams of preparing a National Register of Indian Citizens and issuing them Multi-Purpose National Identity Cards. All to provide a credible individual identification system and act as a deterrent against future illegal immigration. It’s another matter that both these schemes have been proposed times out of number over the years. To be promptly disposed of even before concrete action can replace the spoken word.

True, even if one takes an optimistic view that these schemes will be implemented, the proposal itself is half-baked. Instead of providing identity cards for the whole country, the Home Ministry has short-listed only seven states, where the scheme will be implemented. How, one wonders. Specially against the backdrop of its dismal track record. Remember, the Illegal Migrants Detection Tribunal Act, announced in 1983 amidst much fanfare, has largely failed to tackle the problem. The Act followed a prolonged agitation by the All-Assam Students Union (AASU) seeking to throw out all foreigners from the state.

Why did it fail? It was politically incorrect and was an exercise in brazen hypocrisy. All talked about its “uselessness”. But few came forward to change it. Way back in 1997 on a visit to Guwahati, the then Prime Minister, Mr Deva Gowda, courageously announced repeal of the Act. But his declaration turned out to be merely false bravado. His mai baap, the Congress promptly pounced on him and he was forced to eat his words by the time he landed back in New Delhi.

The great tragedy of our country is that illegal immigrants have been allowed to don a communal face to satiate the greedy Indian political animal. Most political parties have recklessly imported them to inflate their vote banks. If detected, they have made a communal issue of their detection and raised the communal banner. The Shiv Sena’s Bal Thackeray had to incur the Opposition’s wrath when he deported 96 Bangladeshis from Mumbai in 1997. So what if it is slowly turning the country into Asia’s waste paper basket.

In fact, Mr Advani’s estimate of illegal immigrants is only the tip of the iceberg. Over the past five decades since Independence, over 25 million illegal immigrants are estimated to have smuggled themselves into India through its porous borders. Today we have over 15 million Bangladeshis, 2.5 million Nepalis, 100,000 Sri Lankan Tamils and about one lakh Tibetan migrants living in India. Against our population of 1,000 million the ratio of illegal migrants is 100 to 2.5.

More. Demographic changes have been brought about in the border belts of West Bengal, several districts of Bihar, the North-East and Rajasthan as a result of large-scale illegal migration. Even the Union Capital (over 5 lakhs) and Maharashtra (over 50,000) have been affected. If Assam boasts of five of its districts adjoining Bangladesh having Bangladeshi Muslim majority, Tripura is a clear example of obliteration of the locals’ identity.

In parts of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, illegal Pakistanis, of whom some are criminals, now have ration cards. Putting colossal pressure on India’s scarce resources and pushing wages even lower in this already crowded land. Taking jobs away from legitimate citizens. Confided a CPM leader from West Bengal: “The migrants are useful to Delhi. They provide cheap domestic help.” Echoed an Assam MP: “Our farmers are happy to have them. They are more hard-working than the locals.”

But more worrisome is the fact that mercenaries among the insurgents from across the border are slipping into the country in the garb of immigrants. With no method of differentiating between a militant and an immigrant, a grave security threat is posed. Little has been done to analyse and identify this threat perception — particularly keeping in mind the activities of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and its sustained proxy war in Kashmir.

Even madarsas, the Islamic seats of learning, have not been spared. The ISI has heavily infiltrated these and made them their addas of propagating of fundamentalism, ostensibly as a precursor to the ISI’s gameplan for the area: subversion, drug peddling and gun-running. A frightening scenario, to say the least.

Unfortunately, all political parties seem to be turning a blind eye to this menace. The reason is not far to seek. It has everything to do with vote bank politics. Come elections, our leaders care two hoots for legitimate electoral rolls. The methodology adopted is to supply ration cards to illegal immigrants, on the basis of which they get enrolled on the electoral rolls and become the politicians’ electoral fodder. As a leading commentator remarked: “Those Bangladeshis who have been given ration cards and have graduated to the voters’ list have acquired de jure citizenship rights.”

Where do we go from here? Pander to rabid rabble-rousers? Pander to the politics of vote banks? Allow the push and pull theory of illegality to continue. The push back to poverty vs the pull of India’s rich pastures. The option is narrow. The solution must be clearly dictated by India’s primary interest — its integrity and stability. Pakistan’s long-term designs against India need to be sternly thwarted. The proxy war from across the border stands testimony to this. Kashmir must not be repeated elsewhere.

For starters, Mr Advani should come out with a White Paper disclosing the harsh facts and spelling out the NDA government’s plans to combat this grave threat to India’s freedom and integrity. At the same time multi-purpose identity cards should be given to only those who can establish their Indian identity well and truly by way of a birth certificate and proof of lineage. Mere ration cards must not do.

New Delhi could also consider issuing work permits to the Bangladeshis as in the case of Nepalese coming to work in India. This system would enable workers' groups to cross the border under tight restrictions for a maximum period of two years. With a rider, no voting rights and no permanent settlement. New Delhi needs to have a close look at its immigration laws and plug the loopholes.

Clearly, the Centre needs to adopt a two-pronged strategy to stop the influx of Bangladeshis from across the border. From the long- term point of view, the need of the hour is border management and strict policing. Local people need to be taken into confidence and involved in policing along the 14,990 km border running across 92 districts in 17 states and a coastline of 5,422 km touching 12 states. The fact is that if one cannot stop people at the border, then there is no way one can push them back once they are in the country.

Is the government capable of defusing this powder keg? Mere assurances of being pro-active will no longer do. The Centre needs to brace itself for a long and hard struggle ahead. It may even be necessary to launch a series of major offensives at this critical juncture to drive home the message to the illegal immigrants. In this age of proxy wars, it is time for politicians of all hues to stem the snow-balling rot. India has had enough of the poison of vote banks. This must end. No sane and self-respecting country allows foreigners and their protectors to play ducks and drakes with national affairs. - INFA

MIDDLE

Genetically modified seeds of tomorrow
Amar Chandel

GENETICALLY modified (GM) seeds are a marvel of agricultural engineering indeed. Certain characteristics of the animal DNA have been transferred to the plant kingdom, increasing the crop yield and making the plants resistant to various weeds, pests and diseases. Take for instance Bt Cotton. Bt is a soil bacteria from which a gene is taken and inserted into the cotton seed. This releases a toxin that repels the American bollworm.

In future there will be no need to take bitter medicines because bananas and apples will provide all the benefits of penicillin or insulin. That is only the beginning. Even more remarkable innovations are on the way, now that Indian scientists have jumped into the fray. Cutting-edge experiments are being conducted to grow astonishingly exotic crops.

You may have already heard about colour-coordinated brinjals, tomatoes and spinach (all of them will come in a single colour, saffron). A famous laboratory has now come up with a miracle seed which will yield fruit if sown at one place and vegetables if sown at a different place. For instance, it will produce apples in farms at Goa and tomatoes in Ahmedabad. It has been named after Vajpayee.

Cattle breeders are showing tremendous interest in the Laloo range of seeds. These have a remarkable quality. Whether you sow wheat or corn, you will only get fodder when the harvesting time comes.

Another seed that is set to cause a social revolution happens to be user-sensitive. The crop fails whenever the seed is used by farmers belonging to upper castes. The only way the crop can be protected from withering is by transferring the fully grown plant from one place to another indefinitely. Miss Mayawati is likely to be requested to inaugurate this seed.

The Advani range of seeds was not only claimed to be weed-resistant but was said to be capable of going after certain pests and destroying them. However, farmers complain that leave alone being pro-active, it does not even fight the weeds that attack it left, right and centre. Why, even a minor weed called Veerappan has supplanted it.

On the contrary, the Modi fruit seeds which were given up by many as no good have defied all predictions to yield bumper crops. When fully grown, every plant bursts forth with luscious fruits which are delicious for some and poisonous for others. After the phenomenal success of the seeds in Gujarati labs, these are going to be introduced all over the country.

Farm scientists are intrigued by a maverick crop. Planted indoors, it shows the characteristics of an outdoor plant. Take it outdoors, it wilts and pleads for being brought indoors. It has been tentatively christened Mamata.

The experts are facing a lot of difficulty in matching the local seeds with the genes named after Sonia. A few entrepreneurs have managed to suppress the immune system of the seeds to do so. But the trouble is that after genetic modification, the seeds refuse to grow in Delhi despite satisfactory progress in other areas.

In fact, a fierce debate is going on whether we should import GM seeds from abroad at all. For instance, the Bush shrubs have done exceedingly well in Pakistan but have refused to take roots in India despite reverential care and nurturing !

REALPOLITIK

Economy: politics no more a dirty word
P. Raman

DURING the Cold War days, it has been customary to highlight the perceived close correlation between democracy and development. The western model democracy with universal franchise, call it syndicate, senate or parliament, was thought to be the essential prerequisite for a flourishing industrial democracy. Free enterprise and competitive capital generation under the stock markets were an integral part of this system.

Hence, democratisation of the state has been a fad with the west while enforcing the economic reform and globalisation — the way the Europeans went round the world to ‘civilise’ the local populations as late as last century. Every conqueror had invariably strived to impose his own moral code, customs and political order on others. In modern times aid and ‘coercive diplomacy’ were the tools to tackle ‘rogue’ states. Even today occasionally we hear of the need for a system change or of the leader as in the case of Iraq. Of course, one-party or military rules and monarchies are bad only when they turn unfriendly.

The other dictum relates to the delinking of politics from the economic reform. Under this concept, globalisation, privatisation and the pre-set stages of reform enforcement were all sacrosanct, and should not be interfered with by local politics and pressures from the interest groups. The full course had to be gone through because it is ordained to be the best and only cure to the world’s ills. Support systems for the weaker sections and spending on social programmes were seen as anti-reform and condemned as such.

In the heydays of reform, all subsidies that sustained the support systems for the poor were sought to be scrapped. Those who had resisted such hasty moves were derided as being obsessed with election politics. Playing to the vote banks and pampering those eat up the country’s revenue through food, fertiliser and agricultural subsidies were anti-reform. The pinkies cried out against what they call populism which will only halt the nation’s progress. Then a sympathetic advice to the latter. The scrapping of the state doles will make them self-reliant and the funds thus released would help get them a better deal in the long run through “percolation”.

Why the sudden toning down — or total absence — of such old-style rhetorics now? Sane advices to scrap subsidies may still be heard occasionally but the vehemence is certainly missing. Unlike during the early days, politicians are no more lampooned for being sensitive to electors. Instead, there is a sympathetic view of the need for the political parties to win over the voters at the time of the elections. Some suggestions have also come to “overcome” the electoral compulsions. One is for holding simultaneous elections to all state assemblies and the Lok Sabha every five years. Now we have elections almost every year and each one of them blocks the reform process for the sake of populism. The other is to rush through all reform measures during the first three years of a government. After the third year, governments begin to show signs of election fever, and even the most committed ones yield to populism. Underlining this is the acceptance of the virtual truth that reform cannot be totally delinked from politics. Thus the politician is becoming an ally and politics is no more such a dirty word. The emphasis is on how to live with the necessary evil and manipulate it to the best advantage.

The usual chorus was missing when the political parties, including the ruling BJP, asked for a better deal for the salaried class under the Kelkar report. More or less similar has been the case with the proposal to tax farm income. The sweeping resort to electoral populism abroad and the sharp division among the Indian corporates about the strategies to deal with the increasingly complex economic issues have left the reform crowd utterly confused. The FICCI has now openly come out against getting rid of the prized PSUs at throwaway prices. Arun Shourie’s zeal for time-bound disposal of such units of “strategic buyers” is seen as highly harmful.

If political democracy is accepted as the corner stone of industrial democracy, free trade and the resultant growth, by the very definition it should also be responsive to the people they represent. The inherent dichotomy is by no means confined to the Indian politician alone. Every elected government faces this dilemma. The main tussle between the EU and US centres on conflict of regional/national interests. Governments have to listen to the feelings of their voters. Protests leading to electoral ire is building up in the UK which had the record number of closures and bankruptcy in 2002, throwing lakhs out of job.

How can Indian politicians alone be singled out for politicisation and offering ‘freebies’? Here society is more divided, rich-poor gap wider and problems more complex. The political opposition to reform programmes is in tune with the global trend. RSS chief Sudarshan who has reiterated his opposition to the sale of oil PSUs or BJP leaders like Mr Rajnath Singh who is fighting tooth and nail for the middle classes on the Kelkar report, should not be dismissed as anti-government.

Mr A.B. Vajpayee did his best but his workers on the ground know that it was the incumbency fired by the middle class ire — and now farmers — that had caused their rout in earlier state elections. Chances of a Godhra in the nine states this year look rather dim. Unfortunately, the ‘international community’ and foreign investors are not voters. If democracy breeds healthy competition and growth, its politics also sets its own rules of game. Everywhere.