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Friday,
February 14, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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A perverse judgement Mufti’s
100 days in office |
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HARI JAISINGH
An
evening at the Royal Palace
Defence
expenditure versus military effectiveness
Chandigarh
lab to study dying vultures
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A perverse judgement THERE are good judgements. There are bad judgements. But the one that found a key player in the Kanishka bombing case guilty of manslaughter must be the most perverse judgement given by any legally constituted court of law in the annals of criminal jurisprudence. The quantum of punishment given by a Canadian court to Inderjit Singh Reyat is equally perverse. The court found him guilty of 329 counts of manslaughter — the number of passengers on board the ill-fated Air-India plane that exploded in mid-air off the coast of Ireland! It took investigators nearly 15 years to nab Ripudaman Singh and Ajaib Singh, both Canadian citizens, for the murder of 329 passengers as also for causing the death of two persons in Tokyo by planting a bomb in another flight. Reyat was picked up later for the same crime. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is happy with the verdict for reasons that are difficult to understand. According to the universally accepted definition, manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice or premeditation, either express or implied; distinguished from murder that requires malicious intent. But the Canadian courts evidently have their own definition under which Reyat, who confessed to having had an indirect role in the bombing of Kanishka way back in 1985, was found guilty of the insignificant act of manslaughter and given a sentence of five years. Is this justice? His act defied just about every definition of manslaughter. There was a self-confessed element of malice — it was done to avenge the storming of the Golden Temple by the Indian security forces in 1984. And it was a premeditated act for which Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri will be tried later. It is amazing on what grounds the Canadian court accepted Reyat's plea that he had no knowledge that Ripudaman and Ajaib would use the explosives procured by him for bombing a civilian jetliner. He pleaded that it was an act of provocation. The plea of provocation reduces the killing of human beings from murder to manslaughter. It is an answer to the presumption of malice which the law raises in every case of homicide. Should not an act of "provocation" that is nursed for nearly an year be put in a different category - closer to establishing the malicious and wile intents of the accused — than the one that saw Reyat's lawyers make a mockery of the system of criminal jurisprudence? Ask the families of those who perished in the Kanishka bombing how it feels to see some one accused of the ghastly crime of aiding and abetting the slaying of innocent persons — some of whom had, perhaps, suffered the consequences of militancy and Operation Bluestar as well, while the Kanishka bombers were living in relative safety in Canada - get away with a ridiculously light sentence of five years in jail? Had the court found Reyat not guilty the verdict may not have caused as much hurt as the sentence he has been awarded has to families in Punjab. The Canadian verdict has set a dangerous precedent, which if accepted by the global community may result in miscarriage of justice and even hamper the post-9\11 campaign against global terrorism. The Kanishka bombing till date remains the most daring instance of "terrorism in the air" after the Lockerbie episode in which a midair explosion killed 259 passengers and 11 persons on the ground. Libyan intelligence agents had planned the bombing of the American airliner. The only positive outcome of the verdict is that families of the victims can now start filing claims for compensation in Canada. But ask the families what would they choose between compensation and justice. The answer may surprise those who have applauded the verdict as the beginning of a long-delayed process of bringing the guilty to justice. |
Mufti’s 100 days in office THE people of Jammu and Kashmir, particularly those in the valley, had pinned great hopes on the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed government, formed on November 2 last year as a coalition of the People’s Democratic Party and the Congress. They were fed up with the Farooq Abdullah regime and wanted to try a new dispensation. In over 100 days of its existence the new regime has definitely shown that it is more serious than the previous one in changing the socio-economic climate in the militancy-torn state. But the people’s confidence cannot be
built unless their security concerns are also addressed with utmost seriousness. Perhaps, the Chief Minister wanted to tackle this problem by his “healing touch” policy. The idea, as one could understand, was to deprive the militants of their support base among the masses so that the scourge died its natural death. He began to release people jailed on militancy-related charges to send across at least two kinds of messages ---- that the PDP-Congress government was not repressive and that it intended to create an atmosphere for dialogue with a view to establishing lasting peace. The promising policy, however, had a major flaw. The state government soon acquired the image of being soft on terrorists. The Mufti regime did not heed the suggestion that its “healing touch” mantra needed some corrections. As was obvious, the weakness was exploited by the BJP in a far away state, Gujarat, to frustrate the efforts of the Congress to wrest power from the saffron party. There was also opposition to the Mufti mantra from the NDA government at the Centre. The Chief Minister was accused of enlarging his party’s support base on the pretext of launching a drive to remove the feeling of alienation, particularly in the valley’s population. So, an otherwise innovative initiative was sacrificed at the altar of party politics from both sides, the opposition and the ruling. A more careful Chief Minister could have saved his brainchild, but only if his intentions were unquestionable. Contrary to the expectations, he has also not been able to facilitate a process of dialogue between the disgruntled political elements like the Hurriyat Conference and the Centre. This was one of the main promises he had made after the installation of his ministry. Mufti Sayeed may say that this could not be possible because of the imperatives of the coming Assembly elections in various states. The truth, however, is that he is yet to take up the issue earnestly. The Chief Minister can, however, be credited with getting the approval of the state Assembly for the Accountability Bill and honouring his commitment to the Ladakhis through the empowerment of the Leh Autonomous Hill Development Council. He is right on stressing the point that the cause of peace demands huge investments and the private sector should come forward in a big way for creating adequate job opportunities for Jammu and Kashmir’s unemployed youth. He is being helped by the armed forces too in this gigantic task. No doubt, there is a direct link between development and peace. Boosting development-related activities can deter young men and women from taking to the destructive path. But such efforts need to be protected from enemy designs through honest political initiatives which are sadly missing. |
Himachal’s murky poll campaign ONE disturbing trend in the Indian polity, especially during election time, has been the absence of ethics, decent functional norms and quality in campaigning to help people understand which party stands for what along with varied promises and track record. The general tendency among all parties has been to hold out tall promises without assessing the ground realities and the availability of resources. There have also been deliberate attempts to shift the people’s focus away from real issues and exploit the electorate’s sentiments for garnering votes. Everything may be justified in love and war, but not in elections in a democratic polity like ours. There have to be straight issue-based communications between the people and the parties and their candidates. Remember Indira Gandhi’s famous call of ‘gharibi hatao’ in the early seventies! Since then neither poverty has been banished, nor the right atmosphere created for growth with social justice. If anything, inequalities and gaps between the rich and the poor have acquired sinister overtones. No wonder, what we see is the glitter amidst slums and poverty-stricken people. I am all for competitive politics, but it has to be confined to areas of development. Corruption is surely a core issue. But in today’s complex political setting it has become difficult to say who is less corrupt or who is more corrupt. In fact, the corruption scene is like fish in a pond; it is nearly impossible to suggest whether fish is playing with water or drinking water! Indian politics has really become a fishy affair in the real sense of the term. Can we come out of it? It is a ticklish task. Perhaps, a beginning in this direction can be made by conducting a clean issue-based poll campaign. Perhaps, the Gujarat and Punjab successes have prompted the BJP and Congress leaders to draw different lessons for Himachal elections. Right now, one sees glimpses of crude and below-the-belt publicity campaign, especially by the Congress. Political parties are surely well within their rights to air their views and expose misdeeds of one another. But the whole exercise needs to be done in a dignified manner and with a sense of responsibility without sounding vicious and malicious. For, at stake is the quality of political culture we wish to create. Mudslinging and wild vilification campaign can be a highly dangerous game. It can be played either way to the detriment of evolving the right mix of political culture. I am amazed that the Congress should have chosen to stoop low in its advertisement war aimed at character assassination and mudslinging against Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal. I have not gone into the question of financial benefits and personal assets that might have acquired by individual leaders while in office. Such matters are at best be left to a credible investigative agency or the institution of Lokayukta. During election time the people generally would like to assess the performance of the government and its overall reputation and credibility in fulfilling its promises. They would like to be guided on facts rather than fed on wild allegations. I doubt if the persons behind the Punjab-sponsored poll campaign have done their home work properly since some of the points highlighted are factually inaccurate. Himachal is not Punjab. A peaceful hill state, it has different functional norms and problems in sharp contrast to the other states. In any case, the poll campaign has to be clean and fair. It must not arouse communal passions by exploiting religious issues as the BJP is set to do. The objective of all political groups ought to be to help establish a clean democratic atmosphere. The question here is not who is right or who is wrong. The challenge before us is to maintain a certain degree of decorum and dignity. I know that beating the anti-corruption drum or playing of the religion card is a tempting proposition. But what is forgotten in such games is a simple principle: those who live in glass houses must not throw stones at others! Apparently, the Congress strategy is to put the BJP on the defensive vis-a-vis its Modi brand of Hindutva so as not to allow the saffron party “a headstart” in the campaigning. There is obviously the Punjab Congress hand in this strategy and it seems to be conducted by those who have money power, though they themselves may not stand the test of scrutiny in clean politics. Herein lies Indian tragedy in corrupt governance with smile. It is, of course, regrettable that the country’s political culture has got terribly vitiated with the ever-rising graph of corruption. It seems that no one’s conscience pricks at the prevailing range of corrupt practices that have seeped deep into the system. This must be a major area of concern for all of us. The real task before leaders is: can they give the people a corruption-free transparent system of governance? Himachal Pradesh is a land of gods and goddesses. Life style, politics and politicking in the state are different from other parts of the country. It also needs to be appreciated that Himachal Pradesh is not Gujarat. It has a different setting. It has a different set of development issues and problems. And in this far-from-rosy setting, there is a perennial problem of resources. The state is deep in the debt trap of Rs 15,000 crore. So, the challenge before the electorate in Himachal is how to push development activities and restore the ecological balance. Himachal Pradesh actually holds the key to the future weather pattern in north-west India and beyond. But nothing much has been done to improve the environment and harness the state’s natural resources without upsetting the ecological balance. There are big sharks operating in the Pradesh who play havoc with its forest wealth. They are responsible for the Pradesh’s imbalanced growth. Ironically, no one seems to care adequately and passionately to preserve the precious wealth of Nature. Distortions in these areas are not of recent origin. These have been very much part of the work culture of various regimes, the Congress ones included. The sole mantra of the New Class of operators in Himachal has been to make fast buck while everything else could go to hell. I believe that there should be total political consensus on basic development and ecological issues. And competitive politics must be directed at meeting the challenges of who performs better than the other. Of course, the hill state has a major problem of creating jobs for the growing ranks of the youth. It needs to be ensured that sons of the soil get proper benefits from economic growth flowing from tourism, environment-friendly small-scale industries, hydel projects and pilgrimage centres. There has been lopsided thinking and planning at the political and bureaucratic levels in this regard. Those at the helm think more in terms of short-term personal gains rather than working for the good of the people. What a pity! As already stated, Himachal Pradesh is a holy land of Nature and politicians and their collaborators must not be allowed to become partners in plundering it in today’s multi-dimensional political display of money power, muscle power and manipulation power. Thomas Jefferson’s famous remark that “the whole of government consists in the art of being honest” has ceased to have relevance to the powers that be, at least in India. It is hardly realised that political morality is the cornerstone of democracy. It is high time Indian leaders of all shades and opinions reminded themselves of the hometruth that what is morally wrong can never be politically right in the final analysis. We hope that better sense will prevail among Congress, BJP and HVC leaders and the “rebel” candidates who will disturb the serene atmosphere of the hills and the foothills by their lung power during the next 10 days or so. We will have to wait and watch the outcome of the high-profile campaign and allow the ballot boxes to speak for the people. |
An evening at the Royal Palace THE atmosphere in the room was mellow. Soft music breezed from outside. The band was playing old romantic and sentimental songs. It added to the nostalgia and reminder of what was old and splendid, and also made the present moments worthy of remembrance. King Birendra of Nepal was hosting a banquet for President Narayanan who was on a state visit to Nepal. The decor of the banquet hall represented the mood and metaphor of all that was old and gracious, and a living image of tasteful conspicuous consumption. The eastern mystique mingled with a credible western garb. The royalty enjoys a mythical status in Nepal. I was sitting diagonally opposite Queen Aishwarya. She looked like a dream draped in the colours of spring. She appeared regal without arrogance, glamorous without extravagance, and gracious without familiarity. Her eyes shown like two lanterns in a dark forest. Her profile could seduce a camera. Next to her was sitting President Narayanan. His persona depicted conviction and erudition. As the evening progressed King Birendra proposed a toast to the historic ties and friendship of two countries. President Narayanan made an impressive speech. He displayed educated articulation of a very high order using the words with minimum effort and maximum effectiveness. He talked about the agility, flexibility, ebb and flow of relationships. He wove a rich tapestry of Indo-Nepalese relationship. It was the speech of a wordsmith. Before the dinner we had assembled in the main hall. Here we were presented/introduced to the King and the Queen. They were standing on a slightly raised platform where one by one we were introduced. His Majesty combined dignity with gentleness, and learning with aristocracy. There was something benign and re-assuring about the King. There were other dignitaries from the Nepalese government, including the Prime Minister. The atmosphere was alive with life and laughter. There was a general sense of deja-vu. The Crown Prince was also present among the dignitaries. The chief of protocol introduced us. Here was the future King of Nepal. He was young, handsome and jovial. Youth is a picture of careless and fluid engineering. I found him a mix of toughness and vulnerability, city boy pluck and old school reserve. The darting eyes suggested a genetic predisposition to chase and seduce. We talked of sports, travels, and racing. Suddenly, he asked me about the relative operational efficiency of Indian and Pakistani intelligence agencies. I preferred to be on sanitised grounds and asked him about his favourite sport. “Shooting”, he replied and told me that he could use any weapon effectively — small, medium or large. He gave me a rundown of many weapons and their effectiveness. He said he never missed a target. The dinner was a gourmet’s delight immaculately served and in style. It was a royal banquet that everybody enjoyed. As we moved out in the hall, he again repeated his question. I pleaded ignorance. I did not know what was on his mind. But it appeared that he was keen to discuss the subject. Then I read about the carnage that had taken place in the same room where we had dinner. His love of shooting and his fondness for weapons immediately came to my mind. I thought he carried his love for shooting too far. The media came out with gory details as to how the queen ran out to save herself but was gunned down by the prince along with other family members. A script of hatred had been written in the calligraphy of madness and cold blood. I thought about this child of privilege. These people live in a cocoon of splendour, loneliness and boredom. They need all night marathons of stimulation and excitement. Like junkies they crave their daily dose of stimulation, but every shot deadens their sensitivity a little more, so the next shot has to be bigger, more raw and more powerful. Then the withdrawal symptoms start. More privileges, more problems. According to the law of pro-creational dynamics, for each generation there is an equal and opposite generation, meaning that for each mature, productive parent there will be a neurotic problematic child. The prince had everything going for him. He reduced it to nothing. There is life beyond reality, a sphere that is beyond our schemes and influence. |
Defence expenditure versus military effectiveness INDIA'S defence budgets have ranged between 14 to 15 per cent of the Central Government Expenditure (CGE) and 2.2 to 3 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the last decade. In rupee terms, the budget estimates have risen from Rs. 35,620 crore in 1997-98 to Rs. 65,000 crore in 2002-03, an increase of 82.5 per cent in five years. In dollar terms, the increase has been over 60 per cent. Accounting for inflation, the increase in real terms has been over 7 per cent annually. Indian defence budgets do not include funding for pensions and para-military forces and expenditure on nuclear and space research. With these, the total spending would be 21 per cent of the CGE for 2002-03. India is indeed spending a large chunk of the national pie on defence, and yet military analysts year after year complain of inadequacy of allotted funds to meet defence requirements. The dissatisfaction with defence allotments needs to be addressed. Are we getting the security we require? A co-relation between defence spending and the country’s defence requirements needs to be established to answer that question. In 1996, Mr Jaswant Singh, India’s Finance Minister, in his book, “National Security: An Outline of Our Concerns”, wrote, “India’s defence expenditure has a fixity; it has an unvarying spending pattern.” After studying the defence expenditure trends for the period 1985-95, he made projections for 1995 to 2000 and concluded: “These monies are likely to be channelised into mission capabilities which are traditionally favoured, like armour and mechanisation by the Army, the blue water surface flotillas by the Navy and the strike aircraft fleet by the Air Force.” That remains the dominant motif even today. India’s and Pakistan’s nuclear tests of 1998 altered the subcontinent’s strategic paradigm and the tactical basis of war for good. In 1999, the two fought a limited bloody conflict over Kargil in J&K. Sensing the transformed nature of war, in 2000, Mr Jasjit Singh in his book, “India’s Defence Spending — Assessing Future Needs”, wrote, “The significant point to note is that in the past, wars of the subcontinent were limited (in time, space, goals, etc) by choice. But nuclearisation has made wars limited as an imperative.” Still, we continue to arm for conventional warfare. Bharat Karnad, while making out a case for a 400-plus thermonuclear warheads force for India, in his essay, “India’s Force Planning Imperative: The Thermonuclear Option (2002)”, acerbically comments that the cost for these at Rs. 89,920 crore over three decades should be viewed juxtaposed against Rs. 900,000 crore the country is likely to spend as per its traditional military expenditure pattern in just 20 years (2000-20), “on its armoured and mechanised forces to fight outmoded wars that are unlikely to be replayed.” Have the military registered the change? Operation Parakram — the mobilisation and forward deployment of the Indian defence forces after 13/12 and return back a year later without engaging in combat — has brought home a lesson. If it were not a case of political or military nerves, it certainly wasn’t American pressure alone that prevented a conventional war. It has been commented that the services gained valuable experience in mobilisation, but surely that was not the aim of the exercise. In the transformed paradigm what India will have to contend with is not a high-intensity conventional war but a covert or a limited low-to-medium-intensity war. There are several high-tech and astronomically costly weapon systems on order. Recently a deal has been inked with Russia to receive Admiral Gorshkov, a mothballed old aircraft carrier for free, the caveat being that India will have to pay an estimated $ 800 million (Rs. 3840 crore) for the refit of this old war horse and another $ 1 billion (Rs. 4800 crores) for MiG-29 K aircraft that it will carry. China does not have even one aircraft carrier in its naval fleet. 310 T-90 tanks are in the pipeline at a cost of some $ 450 million (Rs. 2160 crore). There is another shibboleth that needs to be dealt with. In the military mind, modernisation is synonymous with mechanisation. Some years back the Army had imposed a unilateral cut of 50,000 in its manpower to generate funds for modernisation (sic). This cut was given a quiet burial after the 1999 Kargil war. The defence forces being deeply traditional are unlikely to yield ground on their demands for conventional war in the short term. Perhaps, the feeling is that a nuclear deterrent unless backed by a conventional deterrent will not yield results. Modernisation is needed urgently but of a different kind taking the altered conditions into account. The defence forces will have to be convinced of the change in the nature of conflict resolution on the subcontinent, but that may take time. In the meanwhile, the Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) should be of assistance in carrying out a holistic across-the-services cost to benefit analysis and help in selective redeployment of funds for limited war. The Strategic Forces Command will have to be made operational at the earliest. Some creative budgeting is called for to achieve it. There are two important aspects to defence expenditure - first, to plan and apportion expenditure judiciously and, second, to manage that expenditure adroitly. During the past few years there has been a lot of the criticism of the surrender of funds. The defence establishment was not able to absorb Rs. 4126 crore in 2000-01 and Rs. 5000 crore in 2001-02 because of antiquated and complicated procedures in the Ministry of Defence. It is important to utilise all the allotments but even more important is to prioritise the expenditure correctly keeping the changed strategic and tactical environment in view. To use an old management adage, emphasis must shift from “doing things right” to “doing the right things”. Otherwise we may not get adequate security for all the expenditure we make. The writer is a retired Brigadier |
Chandigarh lab to study dying vultures VULTURES are dying in South Asia in epidemic proportions and a new laboratory has been set up in India to identify a suspected virus that is killing them. The Vulture Care Centre, financed by a grant from the UK's Darwin Initiative to scientists from the ZSL, the RSPB and the Bombay Natural History Society, was opened in Chandigarh on February 7, according to New Scientist. Investigation into the deaths so far have been impeded by two factors (a) collecting sick or dead birds is extremely difficult and (b) Indian law prevents the export of tissue samples for study in foreign labs. But the new centre may facilitate things now by finding the precise cause of deaths and formulating preventive steps to help affected birds recover. But the challenge looks enormous, so much so that scientists fear they will have to try breeding at least one species in captivity to save it from extinction, even before they diagnose the killer infection. The big, griffon vultures that used to be ubiquitous in India started dying in the 1990s. In 2000, New Scientist reported that 95 per cent of Indian vultures of the genus Gyps had disappeared. Since then, the remaining population has halved, and the die-off has spread to Nepal and Pakistan. It is feared that the disease could spread to griffon vultures across Eurasia and Africa. "The ecological impacts could be horrendous," says Deborah Pain at the UK's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Griffon vultures were the main way in which dead animals were disposed off. But now, says Andrew Cunningham of the Zoological Society of London, "the superabundance of uneaten animal carcasses poses a direct health threat and has led to an explosion in the stray dog population," which spread the rabies. The UK division of Synermed, a diagnostics company, has donated to the Chandigarh centre an automated blood analyser to help track the disease process, determine which organs it damages, and gauge the effect of treatments. If the disease is identified and birds can be tested to ensure they are healthy, the centre will be converted into a captive breeding facility.
ANI |
Religious merit which a man would earn by adoration of his parents cannot be earned even by performing hundreds of sacrifices or by going on pilgrimages to sacred places on the earth. *** A mother is full of (i.e) has the merit of all sacred places; a father is full of Gods. He who goes round his mother and father keeping them to his right, has (indeed) gone round the earth with the seven islands. —
Padmapurana, chapter 50 |
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