E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

PERSPECTIVE

Scrapping quotas without ensuring equality will be a big blunder
by Karam Singh
DR B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian Constitution, was himself a victim of social injustice and inequality. In parliamentary debates, he successfully convinced the creamy layer representatives to provide reservation for 10 years. However, successive governments extended this facility for political, social and economic reasons.

REFLECTIONS

It’s good to be grounded once
by Kiran Bedi
UNLESS one sheds the 'Very Important Person Approach' (VIPA), one does not see reality as it exists. It is also dependent on how one approaches an experience that is unpleasant or of a kind one is not habituated to. Does one use it for refortification of VIPA? Or is it to learn and understand and do all one can, for the sake of doing larger good?

PROFILE

An important player in Kashmir’s politics
by Harihar Swarup
“IF the United States wants to interfere waving its “danda”, I am totally against its intervention; if US comes here as a policeman trying to tell India and Pakistan what to do, it is a major insult to both the countries”. This unequivocal comment comes from Maulvi Abbas Ansari, newly elected Chairman of the Hurriyat Conference, a conglomerate of 25 parties which boycotted the last State Assembly elections and, in the process, got marginalised. Also the comment is manifestation of the likely shift in the Hurriyat's approach hitherto known for its separatist stance and advocating mediation by Washington. Maulvi Ansari believes that the leaders of both India and Pakistan have competence to sit across the table and find a solution to the Kashmir dispute.

KASHMIR DIARY

If Ansari keeps Hurriyat and Geelani intact, it won’t be a surprise
by David Devadas
IN the roller coaster of attempts to sort out the Kashmir imbroglio, a peak was reached in 1964. The delegation led by Sheikh Abdullah that Nehru sent to Pakistan that year to pave the way for a settlement was probably the closest history has come to endgame in Kashmir — thus far. Of course nothing came of that initiative because Nehru died while the delegation was en route from Rawalpindi to Muzaffarabad, but I was reminded last week of one of the things that had been decided by the few who were part of the plan.

DIVERSITIES — DELHI LETTER

It isn’t healthy to let anger simmer inside
by Humra Quraishi
THE Jain Bharti Institute (Deemed University) has begun a series of lectures on emotions. Thrown open for the public, it’s an emotion a month at the Indian International Centre (IIC). Last weekend, I attended the first in the series — on anger — and it has been a refreshing change to know that at long last we have begun to talk of the negatives constantly getting stirred in us.

• Bumper to bumper

REFLECTIONS

PERSPECTIVE

Globalisation: Higher education will suffer
Varsities will become private commodities
by Sucha Singh Gill

THE process of internationalisation of services has generated a global debate leading to formation of two camps. One camp supports globalisation of services with a view to improving the quality of services through enhanced competition. The other relates to the wide reach of the General Agreement of Trade in Services (GATS) in terms of coverage of domestic regulations and government measures. The next concern pertains to ambiguities in interpreting the scope of coverage of services under GATS.

There is a strong feeling that GATS negotiations would serve the interests of the industrial lobby in developed countries. This would enable enterprises in advanced countries to capture the market of developing countries in positive list of services. The concerns voiced are largely related to implications for social policy-making in developing countries. They are also based on uneven bargaining power among developed and developing countries. The latter have a share of 15 per cent of the world population compared to 85 per cent share in world GDP/ income.

India with a per capita income of $450 is not on a par with the US with a per capita income of over $ 27,000. Over 500 large multinational companies account for 50 per cent of the world industrial output and two-thirds of the service sector and all of them belong to developed countries. They have their headquarters located in advanced countries but are operating on a global scale.

Moreover, their size is very large. For instance, the combined value of the annual turnover of GE and General Motors — the two US MNCs — is larger than India’s GDP/income. Their advertisement expenditure is more than the budget of the Government of India. The negotiations between nations are also not on equitable terms. One is aware of the recent role of the US in Iraq. The way it has dealt with the UN as a body and a small country like Iraq is an eye-opener for everyone.

Under GATS, education services are divided into five sub-sectors: primary education, secondary education, higher education, adult education and other education services. India, being a founder member of WTO and signatory of GATS is under pressure to include education in the positive list of services for market access to foreign competition. The US Government has already written to the Indian Government in this regard. Australia is also preparing to make use of market access opportunities in education in India. In fact, already a large number of Indian students are seeking admissions in higher education in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia.

Foreign educational institutions would provide severe competition to Indian institutions. Most of them are better endowed in terms of infrastructure, financial resources, staff, reputation etc. compared to the large number of Indian institutions. Consequently, many meritorious students and those with paying capacity would join foreign institutions which have an added advantage that persons with foreign degrees could get easy access to foreign labour market, i.e emigration abroad.

At present, Indian universities/ boards have monopoly of jurisdiction over a specified territory. This would have to be changed for Indian as well as foreign institutions. This would also create crisis for affiliations, shifting from one university to another both Indian and foreign.

Educational institutions and their services have been treated as national and social services. In fact, dissemination of knowledge, creation of knowledge and services to community are the three tasks performed by educational institutions for nation building. The presence of foreign institutions would undermine this task. Education would be converted from social service and public good into a private service and private commodity. If students are charged the full cost of education, many meritorious but poor students would be crowded out of this field. The course content of the institutions would not be determined by national requirements but by the needs of the market.

Since the issues concerning globalisation are very serious and complicated, the country needs to examine them from the perspective of merit, efficiency, nation building, equity and national security. No step should be taken in haste. The country can take some time for debate and a thorough discussion based on serious research before taking up the position of globalisation of education, its level, pace and areas which can be opened up.

The writer is Professor, Department of Economics, Punjabi University, Patiala

... and lose their freedom
by K.C. Singhal

THE rise of the Internet and the globalisation of knowledge have the potential for creating serious problems for higher education in developing countries. There is little leeway for individual universities to independently develop in the increasingly competitive and fast moving scene.

Information technology companies such as Microsoft and IBM, biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms like Merck or Bigen, multinational publishers like Elsevier or Bertelsmann, among others, dominate the new international commerce in knowledge-based products, and information technology. Smaller and poorer countries have little autonomy or competitive potential in the globalised world. Globalisation in higher education exacerbates inequalities among the universities.

A logical development is the privatisation of public universities — the selling of knowledge products, patterning with corporations, as well as increases in students' fee. The implications for higher education are immense. The overriding goal of GATS and the WTO is to guarantee market access to educational products and institutions of all kinds. The WTO would help guarantee that academic institutions or other education providers could set up branches in any country, export degree programme, award degrees and certificates with minimal restriction, invest in overseas educational institutions, employ instructors for their foreign ventures, impart training through distance technologies without controls and so on.

The questions raised by this initiative relate to the very idea of higher education and to the future of academia especially in developing nations. How would countries or universities maintain their academic independence in a world in which they had minimal control over the import or export of higher education? How would accreditation or quality control be carried out? Would wealthy profit-driven multinationals force other higher educational institutions out of business? Clearly, once the universities are part of the WTO jurisdiction, autonomy would be severely compromised and advanced education and research would become just another product subject to international treaties and bureaucratic regulations.

Every country should maintain essential control over its academic institutions. At the same time, individual universities need an adequate degree of autonomy and academic freedom if they are to flourish.

For almost a millennium, universities have defined themselves as institutions with a core educational mission and a common understanding of the values of academia. For much of this period, universities were understood not only as institutions that provided education in practical fields of knowledge but as central cultural institutions in society. In the 19th century, science and research were added to the academic mission. Universities were recognised as special institutions by society precisely because their goals went beyond everyday commerce. Now, all of this is under threat. If universities are to survive as intellectual institutions, they must pay close attention to their core responsibilities of teaching, learning, and research. Maintaining loyalty to traditional academic values will not be easy, but the costs of growing commercialisation are much greater.

Governments and other public authorities need to give the universities the support they need to fulfil their mission. Developing countries’ special academic needs must be protected. Any WTO-style treaty would harm the emerging academic system of developing countries. Third World universities are now involved in many international relationships, but these are based on national needs and allow choice among programmes and partners.

If higher education is subject to the strictures of the WTO, academia would be significantly altered. The idea of making universities serve a broad public good would be weakened and they would be subject to all pressures of the marketplace. The university cannot contribute to national development. Universities are special institutions with a long history and a societal mission that deserve support. Subjecting academia to the rigours of a WTO-enforced marketplace would destroy one of the most valuable institutions in any society.

The writer is Professor, Punjab School of Management Studies, Punjabi University, Patiala

Scrapping quotas without ensuring equality
will be a big blunder
by Karam Singh

DR. B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian Constitution, was himself a victim of social injustice and inequality. In parliamentary debates, he successfully convinced the creamy layer representatives to provide reservation for 10 years. However, successive governments extended this facility for political, social and economic reasons.

The founding fathers of the Constitution intended to provide reservation with a view to uplifting the social and economic life of the downtrodden. The Supreme Court, in Valsamma Paul v. Cochin University, AIR 1996 SC 1011, has ruled that Article 14 (4) and 16 (4) of the Constitution intend to make equal opportunities available as envisaged in the Preamble and enshrined in the Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of the Constitution.

Many points and counter-points have been raised by intellectuals and others for and against reservations. The views for and against quotas are diametrically opposed to each other and the truth lies somewhere else. The anti-reservationists say, by extending reservation from time to time, the government is rendering disservice to society.

They say, as the Scheduled Caste employees get pay equal to those of the General category, they don’t need reservation. They say that numerically the required percentage of the reserved category employees can be found among Class IV employees only while the remaining three higher categories are dominated by the creamy layer. They say that several posts in the reserved quota are usurped by upper castes by getting false SC/ST certificates. Inquiries have proved that a number of persons have been found to be possessing false certificates.

In Amritsar district, for instance, a person of general category managed to get SC certificate and tried to contest panchayat election on a reserved seat. As his certificate was found to be false, his nomination papers were rejected. It is said that if the government properly verifies SC/ST/BC certificates being submitted for admission to various degree and diploma courses and attainment of jobs since 1980 (particularly in Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Ferozepore districts), it will unearth a scam greater than that of the armed licences in Ferozepore district.

The policy of double standards adopted by the creamy layer is ridiculed by many on the grounds that when the Centre planned to emulate Rajasthan to provide reservation to the economically backward classes among the upper castes, they kept mum. Those who defend reservation for the children of employees managing good posts discuss the use of reservation on the one hand and the provision of fine facilities to the general categories on the other. They say that reservation is as much dear to the SC/ST/BC/OBC people as the farms, factories, shops and other business undertakings to the people of the General category. Both sections make use of their respective facilities and get jobs of equal scales.

As for the idea of increasing “inefficiency” in the government, the reserved categories do not endorse this view, maintaining that their percentage in Government/Semi-Government/ autonomous bodies and private institutions is far less compared with the General category people and that those who are possessing about 80 per cent jobs are more responsible for this inefficiency and other weaknesses. They allege that though all our Prime Ministers, present Chief Ministers, barring UP and Maharashtra, innumerable ministers and bureaucrats belong to “merited” upper castes, a large number of people live below the poverty line with no assurance of roti, kapra and makaan. India ranks today as per the UNDP Report-2003, “a lowly 127 among 175 countries”, in human development parameters. Hence, it will be a Himalayan blunder to stop reservation without providing social and economic equality.

Rabindranath Tagore, in a short story, says if all the people of the world are made to pile up their sorrows and sufferings on one heap and everybody is asked to take “an average” out of them, everybody would like to have his personal one’s. If we apply this principle on stoppage or continuance of reservations, it can be of great help to reach a logical conclusion.

It is time we had an arrangement for the provision of “optimum minimum” to all. They should calculate/ pile up all the means of production, goods and services and provide its “average” to everyone among the four Varnas without any fear or favour taking the family as a unit. It will lead to economic equality and equal opportunity for all but it depends on the seriousness, fellow feeling and benevolence of those who are born with a silver spoon.

Government schemes like Land Ceiling laws and Yellow Card facilities have not yielded any fruitful results. Even those who profess to be patrons of the poor during elections become messiahs after their victory. This formidable task can be performed only by a man of firm determination and unflinching courage like Abraham Lincoln, Dr B. R. Ambedkar, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi.

If our VVIPs want to stop demonstrations, strikes, picketings and social boycotts on the issue of reservation, they should use their good offices to provide “average” wherewithal to all. Consequently, the advocates of the abolition of reservation will gleefully come forward for continuance in its present form.

The writer, a senior IAS officer, is Director, Information & Public Relations, Government of Punjab

ON RECORD
Weather info to help farmers
by R. Suryamurthy

WEATHER information and forecasts are of vital importance to agriculture, aviation, water management and disaster mitigation. Recent advances in satellite and computer technology have led to significant progress in meteorology. "Our knowledge of the weather is, however, still incomplete" says Dr H. R. Hatwar, Deputy Director-General of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). In an interview to The Tribune, Dr Hatwar said the IMD is working on models to predict the weather pattern for a period of fortnight and climate change over a short period of time in all the states. Excerpts:

Q: How good is the monsoon expected to be this year?

A: IMD’s Long Range Forecast update for the 2003 South-West Monsoon Season (June-September) is that for the country as a whole the seasonal rainfall is likely to be 98 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA) with a model error of +/- 4 per cent. Rainfall during this month (July) for the country as a whole is likely to be 102 per cent of its LPA with a model error +/- 9 per cent. Over the three broad homogeneous regions of the country, rainfall for the South-West Monsoon Season is likely to be 97 per cent of LPA over North-West India, 100 per cent of LPA over North-East India and 99 per cent of LPA over the Peninsula, all with a model error of +/- 8 per cent.

Q: Which factors forced the IMD to revise its April forecast and reduce the possibility of drought in July?

A: The IMD has been upgrading its prediction techniques. In April we predicted that there was 21 per cent possibility of drought. However, two more parameters were added to the eight parameters in the July forecast which indicated that the possibility of drought was only six per cent.

Q: What is the likely impact of El Nino and La Nina on the monsoon this year?

A: El Nino is the term used to describe anomalous warming of the equatorial Pacific Ocean which occurs over a quasi-periodic cycle of 3-6 years, while La Nina refers to anomalous cooling. El Nino and La Nina are known to impact global climatic patterns. Though the El Nino of 2002-2003 is now considered to be over, global forecast models differ widely on whether the remainder of 2003 will see a rapid development of La Nina or neutral conditions will prevail.

Q: To what extent global warming affects monsoon?

A: There is no direct relation between global warming and monsoon. Nor are there any data to suggest that global warming has resulted in any change in the rainfall pattern in the country or the quantum of rainfall has increased. Research on this aspect is still on.

Q: The IMD had recently added new parameters to forecast monsoon. How do you rate the new parameters?

A: Statistical monsoon prediction models are based upon the strong correlations of the monsoon rainfall with certain antecedent atmospheric, oceanic and land parameters. As these correlations can never be 100 per cent, some error is inherent in every statistical model. A critical re-evaluation of the existing 16-Parameter Model, carried out by IMD, revealed that correlations of 10 parameters had rapidly declined in recent years and last year’s predictions were proved wrong by weather gods. The new model would be a test for a few years and changes, if required, would be made to make it more accurate in prediction.

Q: Is it possible to predict districtwise rainfall data as this would be helpful to the farmers? July rainfall is the crucial sowing season for Kharif crops.

A: The IMD is working on models to predict weather forecast for each state. No time frame could be given as to when the model would be ready. However, this year we had come out with forecast for different regions. We are also working on adopting global prediction models to suit our needs and forecast weather for a period of say, a week or a fortnight, which would be helpful to farmers and others.

REFLECTIONS

It’s good to be grounded once
by Kiran Bedi

UNLESS one sheds the 'Very Important Person Approach' (VIPA), one does not see reality as it exists. It is also dependent on how one approaches an experience that is unpleasant or of a kind one is not habituated to. Does one use it for refortification of VIPA? Or is it to learn and understand and do all one can, for the sake of doing larger good?

I am going to share something that I experienced for the first time in my life as a traveller supposedly as a VIP. And I am glad for the same for it has earthed me in many ways, late but still not too late to learn anything, which helps in increasing human sensitivity and valuing what one takes for granted.

I was on a duty trip to a particular country. The inviting host sent the ticket electronically. I was at the airport full three hours before the departure time. It took me more than two hours of standing in the serpentine queue to reach the check- in counter. I produced my computer print out which indicated my bookings. The lady at the counter spent ten minutes flipping through my passport and her computer system and then said they had no instructions for me. I said please give it to me in writing. She instead went to her supervisors. On return she directed me to go to another ticket counter to collect my ticket. I stood now in another queue for another 15 minutes waiting for my turn. Then suddenly I heard someone call my name. I was taken by surprise for this does not happen here. I was given the ticket and the boarding passes all the way through, including the one for my connecting flight I was to take, after the first one of nine hours.

The flight I was booked in was being operated by a different airline unknown to passengers. Therefore the name of my airline and flight number both became totally different from the original booking. I do not know why it cannot be reflected in the first instance, for passengers do have a right to know, whom are they being palmed over to. I was on board. I got a middle seat. It was a dinnertime flight. Despite my having informed the airline I had to contend with no food. For there was either beef or salmon to eat.

Around midnight, on landing, I was to change my flight. And the TV screen at the landing airport said it was from another terminal. I accordingly rushed for my flight which was only 30 minutes away. I came across the immigration and produced my identity. I was told I could not proceed and must stay where I was. I asked why? They said I did not have a visa for the country I had landed in and equally for the country I was proceeding to. I said but I am not visiting the country I have landed in for I am only transiting. And for the country I am going to I already had the boarding pass after my passport was checked in New York i.e. the place I embarked from. I was duly informed that my present official passport is valid for the said country. If this was the situation I should not have been allowed to be on board from there itself, in the first place. They said this was none of their business. All they understood was, that to go through to the other terminal, I needed to go out of the airport and therefore the visa requirement. I learnt later that due to new construction the terminal had been changed.

I tried to explain, but to no avail. I then tried for help but there was none. Every one was busy and showed me another direction, which would bring me back to the same people. I then got fed up and felt captive. My flight had left anyway and it did not seem to bother any one whom ever I approached. I saw some policemen. I barged in and said I needed help. Now I told them who I was. It worked but in only a limited way. A cop came with me to the airline counter and that's it. And now it was the turn of the same airline in which I had traveled by. They just refused to take responsibility for having cleared me in the first place from my place of embarkation. They had no answer to any of my queries.

The only thing they said to me was that all flights were full and even to go back home for me they could only put me on a waiting list. I asked for how long? They said, ‘not sure’. And asked me to clear the way for the next passenger. Now I told them enough was enough. Since the fault, if any, is either of the airline or of your new terminal system, I will sue them and do so doubly, if I do not get the first flight back home. I asked the policeman his name for I thought he was a good witness of all that had transpired. He told me he couldn't disclose his name (this was a so-called developed (sic) country I was in). I wanted to tell him how in our country we are embossing the names of cops on the front chest itself so that the tourists may be able to read them even without glasses.

And I was back on the same airline with the same food (sic). My lessons learnt were that when we receive someone out of their home and they approach for help, never miss out the opportunity of doing so, for either the country of help will be remembered all one's life or it will be cursed forever.

But how does one get to experience all this as a VIP? It is good to be grounded once in a while and suffer like the commoners do. All this is more effective for enhancing sensitivities than any Harvard School course.

PROFILE

An important player in Kashmir’s politics
by Harihar Swarup

“IF the United States wants to interfere waving its “danda”, I am totally against its intervention; if US comes here as a policeman trying to tell India and Pakistan what to do, it is a major insult to both the countries”. This unequivocal comment comes from Maulvi Abbas Ansari, newly elected Chairman of the Hurriyat Conference, a conglomerate of 25 parties which boycotted the last State Assembly elections and, in the process, got marginalised. Also the comment is manifestation of the likely shift in the Hurriyat's approach hitherto known for its separatist stance and advocating mediation by Washington. Maulvi Ansari believes that the leaders of both India and Pakistan have competence to sit across the table and find a solution to the Kashmir dispute.

His immediate problem, however, is infighting in the organisation. The constituents of the Hurriyat have been a squabbling lot, hardly agreeing on an issue. Yet it remains an important player in Kashmir's murky politics though the amalgam lost the chance to become the “voice of the people of Kashmir” by staying away from the poll. It is now headed, for the first time, by a Shia leader, known for his moderate views on issues relating to Kashmir dispute.

A Shia cleric, Maulvi Ansari is known to be a soft-liner and a “good man”, having the acumen to carry everybody with him but, within days of his taking over as Hurriyat's Chief, cracks appeared in the conglomerate with hard-liner and pro-Pakistan, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, threatening to split the organisation. “My chapter with the Hurriyat is closed”, Gheelani declared publicly. He even put a question mark on election of Maulvi Ansari as Hurriyat's Chairman and since then the two senior leaders are having estranged relations and are not even on talking terms. Ansari, on his part, has begun the exercise to bring a rapprochement between the People's conference and Geelani's Jammat-e-Islami but chances of a patch-up appears remote.

Sixty-seven-year-old Maluvi Ansari is now a changed man since his days of a secessionist leader. He wants to act as a bridge between India and Pakistan which, he believes, would lay the foundation for a purposeful dialogue between the two countries on the Kashmir problem. There was a time when he mobilised Kashmiris in favour of the “right of self-determination”, participated in anti-India demonstrations in the wake of theft of the holy relic from Hazratbal shrine in 1963 and detained.

According to intelligence reports, he had maintained regular contacts with Iranian diplomats, visited Iran to seek help for armed movement and met the then President Rafsanjani and Foreign Minister Vilayati. Reports also say that years back he sent groups of Shia youth to Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) for arms training but, later, realised the futility of such ventures. Paradoxically, when militancy first took roots in the Kashmir Valley in 1989, most of Shias had distanced themselves from Pak-trained militants.

Mauvli Ansari came to limelight as the leader of the Muslim United Front (MUF) which had raised a political storm in the 1987 Assembly poll by winning five seats. He joined the All Party Hurriyat Conference in 1993 and became a member of the executive of the amalgam. He represented Hurriyat at OIC summits in Casablanca, Morocco, Kuwait and Jeddah in nineties and propagated the secessionist viewpoint. At the OIC meet in Doha in November 2000, he led a delegation of the Hurriyat and demanded permanent observer status to his organisation but by that time his views had changed; he no longer favoured armed struggle as a solution to the Kashmir problem. His suggestion that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan draft a special representative to report on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir did not find takers. He also met Gen. Pervez Musharraf at Doha. Ansari's activities were considered anti-India by the Government and his passport was impounded when he returned to New Delhi.

Maulvi Ansari called for boycott of the Lok Sabha elections in September 1996 and February 1998, campaigned against the elections and was detained. Sober Hurriyat leaders have now been realising that boycott of the last Assembly election was a mistake for they have forfeited the opportunity — perhaps the last chance — to represent the people of Kashmir. A disillusioned Hurriyat now led by an extremist-turn- moderate leader, Mauvli Ansari, having realised the hard way the futility of supporting militancy, promises to respond favourably if the Prime Minister invited the APHC for talks. He continues to have reservations about talking to the Centre's interlocutor for Kashmir, Mr N.N. Vohra.

KASHMIR DIARY

If Ansari keeps Hurriyat and Geelani intact,
it won’t be a surprise
by David Devadas

IN the roller coaster of attempts to sort out the Kashmir imbroglio, a peak was reached in 1964. The delegation led by Sheikh Abdullah that Nehru sent to Pakistan that year to pave the way for a settlement was probably the closest history has come to endgame in Kashmir — thus far. Of course nothing came of that initiative because Nehru died while the delegation was en route from Rawalpindi to Muzaffarabad, but I was reminded last week of one of the things that had been decided by the few who were part of the plan. Although the semi-autonomous state that Abdullah had planned was to conduct its external relations through India and Pakistan, Kashmir was to have at least one envoy of its own: in Teheran. That envoy, it had been decided, would be a young Shia cleric who had studied at Basra and Najaf in Iraq: Maulana Abbas Ansari.

That Maulana, not so young any longer, became the fourth chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference last weekend. He may hitherto have been among the quieter of top-bracket Hurriyat leaders but he is certainly the most experienced in politics and arguably the most skilled in both diplomacy and political manoeuvring. The most obvious tribute to his political skills is the record of key positions Ansari has held over the years. When Sheikh Abdullah humiliated and sent packing Mirwaiz Farooq, the first head of the Action Committee that had been formed in the wake of the disappearance of the holy relic from Hazratbal, Ansari replaced him as coordinator. The Committee had already acquired a strong geopolitical tilt and Ansari was in line with that.

But even then, the young man had the gumption to speak up to the iconic Abdullah. Ansari told me during a long interview once that, at a public meeting near Jehangir Chowk, he had publicly said: “Sheikh sahib, you have taught people to throw stones but not who to throw them at. So they will throw them at you too. At me too.” He asked Abdullah whether it was not actually his desire to be Sultan of Kashmir.

That Action Committee did not last but, when a variety of political activists came together as the Muslim United Front in 1986, they again settled on Ansari as Convenor. Perhaps other leaders felt that he had the diplomatic flair to deal with the angularities of Kashmir's Jamaat-e-Islami. It was a tough task.

Soon after the organisation decided to plunge into the electoral process, he invited the former state Chief Minister, G.M. Shah, and People's Conference chief Abdul Ghani Lone to a meeting at which they were to be inducted. That was an astute move, for not only did the two leaders have a larger political base than any of the non-Jamaat constituents of the Muslim United Front, they also represented a more liberal stream of politics and so could bring a larger spectrum of voters to the nascent grouping.

As it turned out, Ansari was called away from that crucial meeting to his mother's deathbed and the meeting adjourned to the Jamaat headquarters — where only Lone was admitted. Later, however, Jamaat refused to allow too many seats to his party, so that the Muslim United Front ended up with candidates of both the People's Conference and the Jamaat in several constituencies that it could have won (for not all the constituencies were rigged in that blatantly flawed round of elections).

Ironically, as Hurriyat Chairman, Ansari now has to handle the battle Jamaat leader Syed Ali Geelani (who had in 1987 ensured that G.M. Shah was kept out of the Muslim United Front) has waged against the People's Conference led, since Lone's assassination last year, by his sons. However, that battle may come to naught if the incumbent Amir-e-Jamaat, G.M. Bhat, wins another term in the upcoming elections within Jamaat. If Geelani’s nominee loses, Geelani faces the prospect of being replaced as the Jamaat's nominee in the Hurriyat Executive Committee.

Several Hurriyat leaders say Amir-e-Jamaat G.M. Bhat has told them he will replace Geelani unless he resolves his differences with the rest of the Hurriyat Executive — which is determined to keep the People's Conference within its fold.

The problem for Geelani is that, for once, he does not have the backing of the Pakistani establishment. Several Hurriyat leaders have told me that their advisers in Pakistan insist that the Hurriyat must not be allowed to split. Geelani knows this. When I asked him a few days ago whether it was not true that, along with his own party and the Hurriyat, “Pakistan ke sadr sahib ne bhi aap se haath kheench liya hai (Pakistan's President too has withdrawn support to you),” he did not deny it, replying only that it would make no difference to “our movement.”

Brave words, but Professor Abdul Ghani at least chose to view Geelani's stances as bravado rather than as courageous. Given Ansari's redoubtable political skills, one should not be surprised if he manages to keep the organisation intact, including Geelani.

DIVERSITIES — DELHI LETTER

It isn’t healthy to let anger simmer inside
by Humra Quraishi

THE Jain Bharti Institute (Deemed University) has begun a series of lectures on emotions. Thrown open for the public, it’s an emotion a month at the Indian International Centre (IIC). Last weekend, I attended the first in the series — on anger — and it has been a refreshing change to know that at long last we have begun to talk of the negatives constantly getting stirred in us.

The psychiatrists on the panel were quick to point out that it’s not really advisable and nor healthy to let anger simmer inside; but what's really important is to accept its presence, go in the reasons and then find ways to release it. No, not by shouting or screaming or sitting with it bottled in you but by talking it out, dialoging as they say, or through other means — walking, gardening, writing or else changing your own perception to bitter realities. So happy angering!

Bumper to bumper

Words, phrases, sentences spring up according to the circumstances one is destined to live in. These days the three in-words are — bumper to bumper! No guessing games here. The three words have sprung up because of the monsoon madness on the high roads.

On July 14, several hundred guests attended the French National Day reception hosted by French Ambassador to India Girard Dominique. This time it was overcrowded. The previous National Day receptions were hosted on the sprawling lawns spread around the Ambassador’s residence, but this one was hosted indoors and so the congestion.

Prominent faces I could sight were the outgoing US Ambassador Blackwill, Pakistan Ambassador Aziz Ahmed Khan with spouse Ayesha, Canadian High Commission's Reid Cooper with his Indian-born spouse Shireen Zain, Arab League's man Mahmud Gaddafi and Cyprus High Commissioner Andreas G. Skarparis. In fact, the Cyprus man was candid enough to quip “here nobody seems to know about Cyprus”. The man is naïve; doesn't yet know the games people play in New Delhi for that splash, that extra publicity.

REFLECTIONS

Killing is evil;

Jap, 1