 |
Friday,
June 20, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
|
New toys for General Goodies for lawmakers Tragedies in waiting |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Demand for Indian troops
Coping with domestic service
Schooling: the burdened child
Kasauli is for
soldiers too
|
New toys for General If media reports are correct, the Bush administration will soon reward Gen Pervez Musharraf with 28 F16 fighter planes for his loyalty to Uncle Sam displayed in the wake of 9/11. An announcement to this effect may be made when the General will meet President George W. Bush at Camp David next week. Pakistan may also be offered P-3 Orion reconnaissance aircraft, long-range artillery and radar systems and $4 billion as loan, grants and debt write-offs. India has nothing to worry about if the General is rewarded with financial aid for dancing to the tunes of his US patrons. But the proposed supply of advanced weapon systems to Pakistan is definitely a cause for concern in India. The reason is simple: whenever Pakistan has been given such military hardware, it has used these against India. Thus, the impact of the American decision on the public opinion in India is bound to be adverse. US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld’s June 8 “gesture” of informing Deputy Prime Minister L. K. Advani about such a deal will not help. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will now be under tremendous pressure from his colleagues in the NDA government and the Opposition to go slow on his offer of talks with Pakistan, if not to abandon the idea per se. This is no way to facilitate the peace process between India and Pakistan, as the US has been claiming for some time. How can amassing of sophisticated arms and peace talks go together? US strategists, perhaps, think that General Musharraf’s position can be further strengthened by keeping the armed forces of Pakistan happy. The belief is that a well-placed General will find it easier to contain the anti-American fundamentalist forces, spreading their areas of influence all over Pakistan. But is it not true that the Pakistan army has a history of loving the company of religious extremists? The Pakistani ruler is a past master at taking u-turns. He demonstrated his dexterity when he left in lurch Afghanistan’s Taliban, Pakistan’s own creation, and embraced the US to fool the world as a great fighter against terrorism. He will not hesitate to ignore American diktats once he is sure that this is how he can silence his enemies at home. Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were also “trustworthy, reliable allies” in the US scheme of things once upon a time. In any case, after concluding his US visit General Musharraf with new toys in his bag may become more aggressive in his approach towards India. This will further vitiate the atmosphere in the subcontinent. |
|
Goodies for lawmakers The appointment of legislators as chairpersons of various boards and corporations of Punjab makes the Amarinder government no different from its predecessor. Politicians coming to power in Punjab have a tradition of rewarding their party colleagues with ministerial and other positions of power. The politics of appeasement has become a part of the democracy as practised in this country, particularly in non-reforming states. When the Congress with Capt Amarinder Singh as its leader assumed power in Punjab last year, it was widely believed that the Captain would prove to be a reform-oriented Chief Minister, given his background. His anti-corruption drive did raise the hopes of ordinary citizens. He had often accused the previous Badal government of mishandling the state’s finances and leaving the treasury almost bankrupt. So it was natural for everyone to expect that the new Chief Minister might break away from the unhealthy tradition of installing loyalists in positions of power and avoid following financially suicidal policies. But that has remained only a wishful thinking. He too has succumbed to the pressure of his ambitious party men keen on having their share of the spoils. His counterpart in Haryana has not only kept his ministry small, but also avoided distributing plum posts among his party legislators. Although Capt Amarinder Singh faces no immediate threat from any dissident camp, he has opted to extend power patronage to various legislators, who could not be found a place in his already large ministry. There was no need for him to resort to such populism. Earlier this year the Chief Minister had provided every MLA with an expensive muliti-utility vehicle, imposing an avoidable burden on the treasury. The government’s profligacy makes its boasts of following economic reforms sound hollow. On the one hand, the government is in the process of closing down or disinvesting in financially unviable public sector undertakings. The staff strength of such enterprises has been curtailed through voluntary retirement schemes. On the other, the
government is making new additions at the top level. Employees at the junior level are being throw out and politicians are being brought in. Whether political appointees make any positive contribution to the running of corporations and boards is debatable. In fact, many of Punjab corporations and boards are on the verge of closure because of political interference.
Legislators, job is to make laws, not to run corporations and boards.
The Punjab Government’s decision, like similar decisions of some other state governments, will certainly have an adverse effect on the political system. |
|
Tragedies in waiting The much-awaited rain in the region brought along with it a tragedy, and another that could have been one. In Chandigarh yesterday, a person died of electrocution when he touched a leaking home cooler. Another person was saved from almost certain death after he stepped into a puddle near a mobile transformer. Obviously, certain basic precautions were not taken in both cases. What is worse, the latter case could well be a precursor of more ill tide. Every year, the monsoon brings in life-giving rain, and also many disasters, including house collapses and electrocutions. Most such incidents are avoidable, if proper systems are followed and precautionary measures taken. In fact, behind any industrial tragedy, be it the recent fire at SAS Nagar or gas leakages at factories in Phagwara and Mandi Gobindgarh last month, is a system failure, or lax enforcement of norms. Unfortunately, there is an alarmingly short public memory for tragedies and a shocking disregard for learning from them. Were there any lessons learnt from the tragedy a few years back wherein a young girl was crushed in an escalator at the Indira Gandhi Airport in Delhi? No one knew how to stop the escalator. During the harvesting season, many a limb is sacrificed to threshers, because the safety devices are often taken out to increase the speed of processing. Safety is often sacrificed for expediency. It has almost become a national trait. No one looks at the tyres of a car being hired as a taxi. Many have bald tyres that endanger both passengers as well as others on the road. A prominent car manufacturer removed seat belts from its Indian offerings, till legislation forced everyone to put them back on. Fire department warnings are routinely ignored, till an Uphaar Cinema tragedy happens, and often forgotten after that. Has anything changed since the 1995 Dabwali tragedy, where inflammable material of tents caused the death of 441 persons? Not really. As a society we have not trained ourselves to think and enforce safety, and it takes a Supreme Court ruling to make us remove polluting industries in Delhi, and clean up vehicular pollution. The 51-member National Safety Council should play a more active role to ensure that the safety-comes-first norm is inculcated in our minds. Safety violators should be punished. Progress without safety is like education without moral values. Hollow. Safety will have to begin at home and the first class that a child studies in school. There should be safety drills in schools and a proper example has to be set, beginning with the children being driven safely in buses, auto-rickshaws, or rickshaws. Does anyone remember how many children we lose because of unsafe transportation? Each case is an avoidable tragedy. |
Demand for Indian troops Among the hot topics of discussion these days is whether India should send its troops to Iraq. The issue arose about a month back, but it has now gathered momentum after the meeting between President George W. Bush and Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani at the White House a few days ago. Now the issue has, in fact, gone beyond the question of whether we should or should not send our troops to Iraq. The debate now lies centered basically on what we in the army call “command and control”. The political divide is on whether Indian troops should operate under the aegis of the United Nations, as they have done in a large number of missions, or under the prevailing dispensation in Iraq — under the joint US-British command. The prevarication is not on substance but on form, for irrespective of the command under which they will operate, the methodology of their employment would essentially be the same. The mandarins in the west wing of South Block would, of course, make the issue look more complicated than it actually is, but I am sure the uniformed pundits on the Vijay Chowk side of South Block, realists as they are, will take a more pragmatic view. I am all for ensuring, before we say yes, that we get our pound of flesh whether it means a slice of the reconstruction pie in Iraq — an extremely modest aim by any standards — or long-term gains of a strategic nature which encompass a wide range of issues, from bringing General Musharraf to heal to finding our legitimate place in the sun as well as in the UN Security Council. Indeed, our goals should be both short-term and long-term gains. The more we prevaricate, the more options we are opening for the nations which are inimical to us, which have no inhibitions in taking the advantage of any adverse situation to meet their own ends. The existing US-UK joint command, which was set up for waging war in Iraq, should be wound up as its task is over. Instead, a new joint command needs to be set up for ensuring peace and a conducive security environment so that the process of forming a successor Iraqi government is hastened, and reconstruction commences. The coalition forces would now need to project a different image. Instead of treating the current situation as a continuation of the war with mopping-up operations, terms in the UN vocabulary like peace-keeping, normalisation operations, stabilisation actions and assistance to the civil authority must become the norm. This will not only give confidence to the Iraqi people about their future, but will also tend to reduce the suspicion with which the Americans are currently held by the Arab world in particular and the entire world in general. Such a change-over will also help countries like India to make up their mind regarding participation as active partners in the peace process. All countries contributing troops for service in Iraq must find representation on the reconstituted joint command. It is only then that the current inhibitions of the nations which have been invited to contribute troops will be sufficiently allayed, if not entirely removed. As far as India is concerned, we must have a three-star level representation on the reconstituted joint command. The selected officer could be on the active or retired list. He should be selected keeping in mind both his professional qualities and experience, as well as his ability to work effectively in a coalition arrangement, where American arrogance would perhaps be all pervasive. He must also have a small but dedicated staff, which should have representation at the appropriate level. It is only then that the interests of our troops in Iraq in future will be sufficiently safeguarded. Other equally important issues relating to our troop participation must also not be forgotten. These include arming our troops with the state-of-the art equipment so that they are in no way inferior to the soldiers from other nations operating there. Re-equipping must obviously be the responsibility of the Americans. This will also contribute to compatibility in joint operations. The joint command will, no doubt, be responsible for meeting the logistic requirements of all troops operating under its control, but there should be a high degree of commonality in the logistics resources provided, as it is done in the case of deployment under the UN flag. Pay and allowances is another important aspect. It will be patently wrong to expect our troops to operate in Iraq on the same scales of pay as they get in India. The norms, once again, should be the UN scales of pay and allowances. The aspects which must be fully finalised, prior to the induction of troops, are a clear enunciation of “the rules of engagement”, the methodology of operating jointly with other elements of the joint forces, and the rules for dealing with the locals — the common citizens as well as ex-members of the Saddam regime, the Iraqi military, the police, government officials and members of the Baath Party. I am sure all these aspects are getting the attention of Army Headquarters, the Ministries of Defence and External Affairs as well as the political leadership. The tendency of focusing only on the political and diplomatic aspects, though important as they are, must not be at the cost of fully preparing our troops for the likely responsibility. They must get unambiguous directions on all aspects of their functioning and conducting operations. There is a definite need to take an early decision, not only on India’s participation but also, more importantly, on the modalities of deployment of our troops as well as the short-term and long-term gains for the nation. President Bush has stated more than once that he will be glad to see Indian troops in Iraq at the earliest. Our leaders, on the other hand, have been beating about the proverbial bush, for good reasons no doubt. The time for laying our cards on the table has arrived. Let us state, unambiguously, what we want, and let it not be just “peanuts”! The deployment of India’s troops in the situation that prevails in Iraq and the events leading to it will be unprecedented. That being the case, India must get adequate benefits, in addition to assurances about the correct deployment of its soldiers. After all, if we are going to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for American friends, they must also reciprocate in equal measure. The Americans should remember their favourite phrase — there are no free lunches! The writer is a former Vice-Chief of Army Staff |
Coping with domestic service The domestic service is a dying profession. It is apprehended that in a few years’ time the last decaying remnants of cooks, maids, and nannies would have crumbled away. The servant problem might become so acute that the safest plan, at least for the bachelors, would appear to be to rely solely on gadgets like, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and floor mops. For food, they will have to depend on their own culinary skills, and discover what relish and charm they can in staple items, such as cornflakes, baked beans, poached eggs, toast and jam. Or, otherwise, patronise the eatery at the corner. The married people, however, are going to have a curious problem on their hands. They are anxious, especially when young, to protect the tender plant of matrimony from the blight of cookery, the boredom of the broom, and the agonies of the sink and the rack. They would be prepared, one imagines, to cut down on outings and parties, but would like to procure, at whatever cost, the security and ease of service. But the trouble is that this service is not available across the counter or off the shelf; it has to be hunted. Your first impulse is to contact the “Domestics Placement Agency”. After many a formality, a hefty non-refundable deposit, and much anxious waiting, you are provided with a candidate. You can take it that in nine cases out of ten, the fellow will be totally raw in the fine elements of domestic work, and unversed in genteel cookery. You take your complaint to the agency’s manager. After some humming and hawing, and a homily to you to handle human material with better care, he agrees to send a replacement. But the substitute, for all one can say, may turn out to be just as bad as, or even worse than, the predecessor. Having failed on one front, you mount the search on other fronts. You successively (or, simultaneously) speak to your friends to send up a maidservant, a charwoman, a housekeeper, or whomever you want; approach the local departmental store, the dhobi, the mali; lodge your requirement with the repairman, the electrician, the plumber; station yourself outside the gate of your neighbours to inveigle their workers, and even accost the passersby who you think possess the looks, the manners, and the bearing of the working class. Any rebuff you meet you take in your stride, without losing patience, or giving up effort. Sooner or later, luck may smile on you in the shape of an aspirant at your doorstep. Ideally, you would like to have a servant who is reliable, hardworking, clean, respectable, and punctual. But you know only too well, by now, that in the prevailing situation it is really a Hobson’s choice — you select from what stuff is available, or remain without the aide. Regard yourself lucky if the initial euphoria of making a good choice lasts. The great probability is that, as the days pass by, disenchantment will set in. On a chance visit to the kitchen, one day, you may see the fellow wipe the sweat off his forehead, and shake it into the frying pan. Forks and spoons, socks and hankies may acquire the queer habit of disappearing every now and then. Your own inclination is to get rid of the chap, but you want to play safe and carry your wife along with you. With her approval in hand, you go ahead with dismissal. With the servant gone, your travails begin. As time goes by you engage another, sack, re-engage, sack again. Some blokes walk out of their own volition. matrimonial life comes under strain and threatens to shrivel up. You find that by slow degrees you are stepping into the shoes of the houseboy. From the mighty, awe-inspiring “sahib bahadur” of yesteryear, you have become a meek, little “bahadur”-the errand boy for all occasions.
|
Schooling: the burdened child
Those who run the Punjab School Education Board do not seem to realise the immeasurable damage they have done to two talented girls of impressionable age by wrongly declaring as the topper the one at number two in the Class XII examination and denying the real topper the media coverage and public applause she deserved on the day the result was declared. While the board officials’ goof-up has brought in the ignominy the board rightly deserves, the two girls had some of their best moments in life spoiled by an act of irresponsibility. Instead of apologising to the two girls, the board authorities rubbed salt in the wounds by describing the blunder as a “minor oversight”. There is more to the school board functioning than miscalculating results. The day the result was declared many anxious students naturally opened the board site on the computer, but the result was not made available online. That was not due to carelessness; this time it was a plain calculation to make money at the cost of students. To sell copies of the result gazette published by the board to bookshops, it did not announce the result on its website. The shopkeepers in turn charged Rs 10 or so from each student for telling the result. It shows what kind of a commercial undertaking we have operating in the name of a school board charged with the responsibility of testing young minds. School education in Punjab is bad enough already; the board malfunctioning makes it worse. The level of education that the results indicate may shock an outsider, but in Punjab, as also in Haryana, people had long ago accepted it as an irretrievable situation. Few, therefore, wonder when a rather judgemental newspaper headline proclaims “Dismal show by Class XII students” (June 11) about the Haryana School Education Board results of Panchkula district’s government and private schools. The pass percentage was 42.68 per cent, up from last year’s 39.6 per cent. Not to be left behind Punjab has this one to offer: “Poor results in border belt” (May 24). It is from Amritsar about the performance of rural schools in the Punjab School Education Board’s plus two (commerce) examination. The worst record reported is of Government Senior Secondary School at Tarsikka, where of the 22 commerce students who appeared in the plus two examination this year, only one got through. The state of schooling has remained unchanged over the years in the rural areas of Punjab and Haryana, while social pressure for results and competition for jobs has increased. Having studied in the seventies in a semi-rural border district school, which also figures in the Amritsar report on poor performers, I feel uneasy when a school’s and a student’s worth is judged on the basis of marks. It is this obsession of the parents, teachers and society at large that subjects the school student community to much stress, driving some to suicide. I enjoyed my school days, partly because of the lesser burden and partly we, as also our parents and those around us, were not mad about marks. Having got through a Class was an achievement in itself. The result was declared in one line: so & so “fail”, the rest all “pass”. It is unfair to compare marks obtained in urban and rural schools, or by students from well-off families and those from a modest background. They operate in two separate worlds. A watchman’s daughter, Tulsa, and others like her are all winners, no matter how many marks they score. The odds are heavily against them. While public schools are fast coming up in Punjab towns and cities to cash in on parents’ craze for education in the English medium, little has changed in the rural areas. Rural and poor students depend on government schools, which have insufficient rooms and furniture. Many are headless. There are teachers who sub-let their jobs. But they are not stressed. No summer camps for them. They take it out in the streets or in the playfield. If those blaming the rural students and teachers for the poor results try to study the circumstances in which education is imparted — the home environment, domestic chores and field work children do and absence of infrastructure in school, for instance — they would rather marvel at the way some of them manage to come up in later life. The rural students and their parents need not despair at bad schooling. It is no better in cities where students are subjected to an inhumanly gruelling academic schedule: huge, largely irrelevant syllabus; over-worked, under-paid unsympathetic teachers; fleecing of parents and emphasis on competition, rather than cooperation. Students may not know what goes on around them, but they are supposed to cram what crops are grown in North America and what is the temperature in South Africa. Rewarding individual achievement is something unhealthy, worse is the mindless clubbing of fast and slow learners. The marks mania drives every teacher and every parent to expect the very best from every student, 90 per cent or above. Every sensitive under-performing child feels diminished in his own eyes and in the eyes of his parents, teachers and friends. Despite hard labour, the less-than-expected result makes him/her feel worthless and lowers his/her morale. Year after year the process is repeated. The ruralites at least are not deprived of simple joys of childhood. The parents in cities judge their children in terms of marks. It is unfair to dub an innocent child “successful” or a “failure” so early in life. Those who sit in judgement seldom realise how damaging their unwarranted pressure and verbal assault can be to a sensitive student’s psyche. It is not uncommon that a “failure” in early life turns into a “success” later. Most actors, actresses and sportspersons have been bad at studies. Good marks may get one a university job, but cannot make him/her a writer. Being awakened and being educated are two different things. That brings one to Ivan Ellich’s famous book “Deschooling Society”, which reaches the conclusion: the student mostly learns on his own and the one-way process of forcibly injecting bookish knowledge by teachers into unwilling minds is silly. I remember Mrs Sharda Dutt, an eminent educationist of Chandigarh, telling one of her scooling teachers: “Don’t stop the child from going out of the class to play. Instead make the classroom so interesting that no child feels the need to go out.” |
|
Kasauli is for
soldiers too Normally I do not comment on articles written by others, but the rather one-sided, far removed from the actual rule position governing land resumption by the Ministry of
Defence, a rather ‘carpet-bombing’ style but poor in content,
and more importantly, comments that are quite unnecessary and somewhat ungracious to the Army and its hierarchy in Baljit Malik’s “Kasauli’s rich and famous face eviction” (June 17) has compelled me to write on this issue. The other reason why this writer, a former “olive green’, definitely feels the need to respond is that the serving soldiers as per policy are not permitted to send rejoinders or offer their point of view unless it is by an official communique issued by the Defence Ministry. Just because his “rich and famous” (whoever give him that impression!) colleagues up in Kasauli may be slightly popular with the Press does not bestow upon him the right to bulldoze his way through. From the time the British established cantonments over a century back, whether at Kasauli up in the hills or at other stations in the plains, the land on which these facilities came up has always belonged to the government. In all Lease cases the government can take back at any time, all the assets that they had leased out, for purposes that they now consider essential, as in this case, the construction of accommodation for defence personnel and their families. During the lease period any alteration or change to the
building is rarely permitted if at all, and only government can authorise
it. Over the countless years that have passed, the original ownership to these properties has changed a number of
times, as has also in many cases, the very shape of the buildings that were originally allotted. The ownership of much of the property in Kasauli came into Indian hands around the time of Partition with the original owners long gone, and dozens of alterations (with or without permission) having been affected. All the owners, whether the first or the last, are however expected to be aware of the rules governing this special ownership. The whole question needs to be examined on moral and legal grounds. Legally the MoD can resume the properties anytime, and if required expeditiosly, even before the lease has
expired. The MoD and not Western Command or any sub-area headquarters is the one affecting these resumptions/acquisitions, and if crores have been earmarked for Army construction countrywide, it is for the worthy cause of providing accommodation for the armed forces, who since our Independence have invariably been short of housing within their own cantonments. An Army Commander is fully justified in knowing each inch of the land which falls within the cantonment areas of his
command. The case, which Malik and others possibly affected are making out, hinges on the need or the ‘necessity factor’ of the services really requiring this land or not, and that the existing assets supposed to be available in Kasauli need to be put to use first by the
authorities. The need certainally exists as explained above, and if and when resumption takes place, it has to be on an overall plan where the selective takeover of a house here and a house there is not going to help. This is not a question only about defence land in Kasauli, but a matter that covers the thousands of acres of such land all over the country under similar occupation. Whether the present exercise at Kasauli is only on a limited scale with a few resumptions to take place or otherwise, this is a larger question affecting the morale and legitimate needs of India’s armed
forces. The occupants of these assets have all these years reaped the comforts and benefits of this possession, and should not now grudge if our toiling soldiers also get to live up in the pleasant climes of our hill stations.
The writer is a retired Major-General
|
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 123 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
